Jordan’s King Abdullah II was not the only one who paraded proudly among the heads of state who gathered on March 29 for the Arab League Summit on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also mingled with the guests as though he owned the place and was a quasi-official host. For him and for the senior Palestinian leadership, there could be no better place to gather the heads of the Arab world than Jordan, very close to the borders of the future Palestinian state — the issue that unites them all.

With their expectations turned toward Palestine, and the fact that both major powers — the United States and Russia — sent their envoys as observers, it was clear that none of the speakers at the conference would ignore the Palestinian-Israeli issue. For all of them it was a fitting opportunity and occasion: for the Palestinians, frustrated that their needs are being shoved to the margins, and for the Arab leaders who, as usual at such gatherings, prefer to underplay the significant issues dividing the Arab world and to coalesce around the Palestinian issue.

In 2016, Moroccan King Mohammed VI announced that he was canceling the summit, scheduled to take place in his country, so as not to portray false unity. This year, Abdullah wished to host the meeting for two reasons: to manifest the strong Arab backing in the face of threats by the Islamic State to undermine his kingdom and to bring up the issue of Jordan’s economic crisis (also linked to the Syrian war) to the Arab agenda. The crisis in Syria has almost brought about Jordan’s economic collapse — some 1.4 million Syrian refugees who fled the deadly fighting and found shelter in the neighboring kingdom.

Jordan is mired in one of the worst economic downturns it has ever known. Its public domestic and foreign debt has climbed to 93% of the gross domestic product, and its budget deficit last year reached $3 billion. This, even after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided it with a generous $723 million loan to avert its economic collapse. Unemployment in the kingdom has also reached alarming levels: some 29% (in 2014-15) in a country with limited assets and resources.