Israel’s decades-long peace with Jordan is unraveling, a development that threatens to upset a fragile regional stability that is being challenged by countries like Iran, Russia, and China, a think tank report warns.
“Since 2020, if not before then, the Jordanian peace has turned decidedly cold,” according to Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the Treasury Department who now works at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. While the relationship has been breaking down behind the scenes for some time, Jordan also began to publicly war with Israel in recent years, by refusing to sign the Abraham Accords peace agreements, attacking incoming prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and threatening to fully abrogate the peace deal it signed with Israel in 1994.
Schanzer’s findings, published in a report last week, indicate the United States could be faced with a looming crisis in the Middle East that threatens to upset nearly 30 years of stability between the two former enemies. The fracture between Israel and Jordan could also empower American enemies like Russia, China, and Iran, which are all working in tandem to erode U.S. influence in the region.
“All of this should come as unwelcome news to the United States and to America’s Middle East allies. In anticipation of intensifying great power competition with China, and perhaps to a lesser extent Russia, it is crucial for Washington to project unity among allies in the Middle East,” the report…
