Hot take: Israel-Jordan recalibration also key to Biden regional strategy
The White House meeting this week between US President Joe Biden and Jordan’s King Abdullah II reaffirmed “the enduring strength” of a partnership that has been, and remains, a pillar of US Middle East diplomacy and strategy. The personal commitment of Biden to the US-Jordan partnership is also critical to a turnaround in Israel-Jordan relations, which had hit “rock-bottom” under former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
US-Jordan reset key to US strategy. King Abdullah is the first Arab leader to meet with Biden. The signal to the region, and to Israel, is that Jordan is back as a full partner in US regional strategy, including on the Palestinian issue. US-Jordan ties took a hit under US President Donald Trump. The perception was that the Trump administration’s close ties with Bibi and the Gulf came at the expense of Jordan. Amman, for example, was not a partner to the Trump administration’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Now the hard part: the Israel reset. Israel-Jordan ties deteriorated under Netanyahu, as Osama Al Sharif explains. Netanyahu’s opposition to a two-state solution, his refusal to halt illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and his willful disregard of the Arab Peace Plan of 2002, which offers normalization following an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, sunk Israel-Jordan ties to their lowest point in decades.
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