A day after Jordan's King Abdullah addressed the United Nations General Assembly, in a speech that was highly critical of Israel, he received word that Avigdor Lieberman had proposed restoring Jordanian control to the West Bank's areas A and B and even deploy his army or develop forces there under his command.
"We need to reach an understanding with the Jordanians for them to administer Judea and Samaria. They should take security and administrative responsibility. We can't leave a vacuum," Lieberman wrote.
Abdullah, it's unnecessary to say, has no intention of replacing Israel or the Palestinian Authority, in the West Bank and certainly not in the Gaza Strip. The king, who signed on the 2002 Arab initiative and supports the two-state solution, can at least take satisfaction in knowing that Lieberman didn't again propose Jordan as an alternative Palestinian state.
Abdullah made clear in unequivocal terms what he thinks of the Israeli government and its policies. "If we are to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the world must abandon some illusions," he said in his speech. "The first is that Gaza and the West Bank are separate stories. They are not. They are two fronts of the same Israeli strategy. In both, Palestinians are being killed. In both, the reality on the ground is being remade. Gaza through destruction. The West Bank through de facto annexation …. Another illusion is that this Israeli leadership's rejection of Palestinian statehood is a position that might yet change. It is not. It is being cemented on the ground."
As Abdullah said he sees it, the expulsion of Palestinian communities from their homes, the open talk about reviving plans for Gaza transfer, expanding Israeli control in the border area between Syria and Jordan and the possibility that, to Jordan's alarm, Israel will eventually seize the Yarmouk Basin constitute a grave security threat.
It marks the first time that the king has mapped out the regional threats encompassing the three areas linked by Israel's control.
Abdullah's remarks reflect the concerns of all the countries of the region, which separately and together have been warning against Israel policies. "No one in this Assembly should assume its ambitions stop at Palestine. This Israeli government's expansionist appetite is now a regional threat. And today, Syria is the warning the international community is choosing not to see," he said.
It was also the first time that the king spoke about punitive and containment measures the international community must adopt to forestall the threat. "The question now is, will we act? Because the world's political inaction is not for lack of options. So, let's call it what it is – a choice. We have tools: Sanctions, asset freezes, embargoes, diplomatic isolation. And we have a record of using them elsewhere. Yet with Israel, resolutions end where they begin – on paper. The result is a state without restraint."
The king of Jordan spoke as someone who has despaired of any diplomatic initiative on the part of from the Israeli government at a time when the diplomatic rift between Israel and Jordan is evident in almost every sphere, with the exception of military and intelligence cooperation, and the water and gas supply agreement between the two countries.
"I cannot remember such a difficult and tense time existing between our two countries since the signing of the peace agreement in 1994," a former senior Jordanian government official, who among other things, was responsible for bilateral cooperation, told Haaretz. "We've gone from a situation in which the agreement was supposed to develop and foster normalization between ourselves to a situation of damage control and preventing further deterioration.
"The 'strategic partnership' concept, on which the relationship had rested, has been replaced by hostility and guarded suspicion. You [Israel] speak of expanding the Abraham Accords, yet you are abandoning those who have already signed a peace agreement with you," the former official said.
But, there is a wide chasm between the threats noted by Abdullah and his country's ability to contend with them. Jordan is located amid a Syria being reshaped, an Israel deepening its hold on the south, an Iran (which has repeatedly attacked U.S. bases in Jordan) that continues to pose a threat from the east and the Red Sea and the Iraqi border. They have merged into a single theater of war.
Jordan needs the United States to defend it, Syria to stabilize Jordan's northern border and (even if Abdullah prefers not) Israel for water and cooperation in other areas. Jordan is not among the mediators, not in the conflict with Iran, the Houthis or in Gaza. It was not a partner in U.S. President Donald Trump's "deal of the century" nor in regional military coalitions. In consultations between the region's countries, it carries significantly less weight than that of the Gulf states or Egypt.
However, the recent wars actually awarded Jordan a special status that strengthened its ties with the U.S. and regional powers. Jordan was an active partner in intercepting Iranian missiles and drones launched at Israel in June 2025, and its airspace was utilized by American strike aircraft en route to Iran. U.S. forces stationed in Jordanian territory as part of the two countries' joint defense agreement signed in 2021. That accord gives the Americans access to 12 military compounds and bases, including the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, which serves as a giant logistical center for the U.S. Air Force.
Jordan, which enjoys the status of a senior non-NATO ally, is not just a collection of bases, but has become a critical strategic asset for the U.S. and, by extension, for Israel. As such, it also is playing an active role in implementing U.S. policy, such as participating in the "roadmap" outlined by the U.S. to unite Kurdish forces with the Syrian army. In coordination with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, is working to neutralize drug trafficking and arms smuggling from Syria into Jordan. At least twice, Jordan attacked drug-making facilities in Sweida and Daraa inside Syrian territory.
Jordan is aspiring to become part of the alternative pipeline network aimed at circumventing the Strait of Hormuz and has begun negotiations with the government of Iraq on reviving a pipeline project to run between the Iraqi city of Basra to the Jordanian port of Aqaba. The latter is a giant undertaking that would carry some 2.25 million barrels of oil per day.
Over the past year, Aqaba itself has become a conduit for Iraq's non-oil trade, with trade between the two countries growing more than 150 percent, according to the Jordanian Trade Ministry.
Gas imports from Israel, which were interrupted for 33 days due to the Iran war, resumed in April. However, in the interim, Jordan increased its consumption of liquefied natural gas, constructing an additional regasification facility with a potential capacity of approximately 20 million cubic meters daily, far exceeding the average volume purchased from Israel prior to the war. Jordan is not forswearing Israeli gas (despite public opposition to it) but is creating for itself the capacity to be independent of it. More importantly, it has worked to ensure that LNG is no longer just an emergency backup energy source but a strategic option, under which it will be able to sell approximately 4 million cubic meters to Syria and (once the infrastructure is completed) another 2 million to Lebanon.
However, the promise of all these initiatives does not answer the immediate needs of a JJordanian economy chronically on the brink of economic crisis. Unemployment is a high 21 percent, and the government's budget deficit exceeds 5 percent of gross domestic product. About a fifth of the approximately $18 billion state budget goes to interest payments on debt, which is equal to about 89 percent of GDP. Jordan relies heavily on loans and foreign aid, which make up about a quarter of state revenue.
Compounding this are the severe losses the country's tourism sector (which accounts for approximately 15 percent of GDP) suffered during the Iran war by the tourism sector as well as the hit to exports.
These stark figures create a harsh daily reality, particularly for the most vulnerable populations and in rural areas. This month, for example, the story of families living in the Northern Jordan Valley, among the poorest in the country, were reported to be living on monthly incomes of no more than 200 dinars (about $280). As the school year begins, they are struggling to afford pens and pencils and books for their children.
These problems may not be confined just to Jordan if they spill over into the political and public spheres, signaling the price Israel could pay if it continues to drift away from Jordan. Jordan is not just another Arab state with which Israel can afford to lose ties. Its border is the longest and quietest of Israel, it serves as a gateway to Syria and Iraq and acts as an anchor for the American presence in the region.
Thus, a gap is growing between Israel's need for Jordan to remain politically stable and bilateral ties that are more precarious now than at any time since the 1994 peace treaty, or even before it. If Israel fails to improve relations, it may discover too late that the peace with Jordan has collapsed because neither side views it as an asset.
