After 25 Years, Jordan Reclaims Borderlands From Israel

Jordan reclaimed the two parcels of land it had allowed Israel to use on November 10, 25 years after they signed their landmark peace treaty, the New York Times reports. 

Under the terms of the 1994 Jordan-Israel deal, the enclaves of al-Baqoura and al-Ghumar remained under Jordanian sovereignty but with special provisions allowing Israeli farmers to work the land without visas. However, because of increasing public pressure against renewing the arrangement, Jordan’s King Abdullah II presented a one-year notice of termination to Israel in 2018, according to Al Jazeera. At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still hoped for a negotiated extension to the agreement, according to BBC.

Jordan is one of only two Arab states to have signed a peace accord with Israel; however, among most Jordanians—many of whom are of Palestinian origin—there is limited support for the treaty. Many civilians saw the arrangement as a humiliation that actively perpetuated what they regarded as the Israeli occupation of Jordanian territory. The Jordanian government has strongly advocated for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and its relations with Israel have been tense since the deal was signed. 

In October, Jordan temporarily recalled its ambassador from Israel due to the detention of two Jordanians, Hiba al-Labadi and Abdul Rahman Miri, without charge or trial, according to the New York Times. In 2017, an Israeli embassy security guard killed two Jordanians in Amman. 

Jordan and Israel maintain a long and turbulent relationship, having fought two wars in historic Palestine. The first, erupting in 1948, led to the establishment of the state of Israel in the western part of Palestine, while Jordan took control of the eastern side—also known as the West Bank—and formally annexed it. In the 1967 Six-Day War, Jordan aligned itself with Egypt, resulting in its withdrawal from East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which were subsequently occupied by Israel, though Amman maintained its claim to sovereignty there. 

Israel seized the northern Jordanian territory of al-Baqoura in 1948 and al-Ghumar in the south after the Six-Day War. These enclaves have been used largely for agricultural and tourism purposes. 

While the two countries did not sign a peace treaty until 1994, the late King Hussein ceded the nation’s claims to sovereignty over the West Bank in 1988 in an effort to extract Jordan from the conflict. The move, however, led Palestinian residents of the West Bank to lose their status as Jordanian nationals. 

This move was intended to give the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which had been in conflict with Jordan and expelled from the country, the mandate it had long desired to be the singular representative of the Palestinian population. It also allowed Israel the opportunity to reframe the status of the West Bank to that of a “disputed territory” and to gradually build illegal settlements with the possibility of future annexation to the Israeli state. 

In 1994, Jordanian political leaders assumed that the 1993 Israel-Palestine Oslo Accords would eventually foster peace between the two sides. However, minimal progress has been made in reaching a deal since then, ultimately leaving Palestinians stateless. 

Adnan Abu Odeh, a former key advisor to King Abdullah II and his predecessor, King Hussein, told Al Jazeera that in allowing Israel to keep the territories in 1994, Jordan was too “lenient,” indicating that Jordanians and Palestinians have prioritized peace over their rights in negotiations with Israel. He further said that in 1994, he, along with most Jordanians and Palestinians, believed that “the Palestinian state was around the corner.”

Despite now having ended the 25-year deal, Jordan has said that it still remains committed to its peace treaty with Israel. Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that the country acted in accordance with the treaty in not renewing the deal over the two territories, according to Reuters.