David Hearst: Jordan could pay a steep price for Netanyahu's endless war on Gaza

it must now be obvious even to the Casual Observer that the real tension in these anguished attempts to get a ceasefire in Gaza is between Benjamin Netanyahu and America not between Hamas and the us if it were left to the Israeli negotiating team under David Bara the director of Mossad or yuav Gallant the defense minister a deal and a hostage return would have been reached long ago the deal breaker is Netanyahu it's he who insists that troops should remain at two key points in Gaza the border with Egypt and a corridor which bisects the strip an area which previous points of negotiations Israel had offered to withdraw from a ceas file deal on the lines of US President Joe Biden's statement and close to the one Hamas has already approved would do two things bring down netanyahu's government and deprive him of the power to wage a permanent intermittent War it is now emerging that the only way for Netanyahu to continue in power and in freedom is to keep Israel on the war path a state of war is his andone is get out of jail card from the Reckoning Is Yet To Face for the 7th of October an 11mon operation in Gaza that has painly failed to bring Hamas to its knees war is his protection from losing the crown to the young Pretender national security minister itamar Ben cavier and from a possible prison sentence on multiple charges of corruption but allowing this man to continue a conflict on five fronts comes at a high price the the quickest way of counting the costs can be seen in Jordan a Buffa Zone that has soaked up refugees from Decades of war the cynical way of thinking about Jordan is to say the kingdom makes a good living out of Crisis its hands permanently outstretched for foreign aid but that assumes that hashimite Kingdom will continue to operate no matter what Mayhem its neighbors cook up and that is an increasingly big assumption to make today the West should instead ask itself what the region would look like if Jordan became a Battleground once again as it was during its civil war with the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1970 the biggest threat to Jordan exists in Israeli heads it's the idea that Jordan is pistan there have been various versions of this including the Allon plan named after the Israeli politician yal Alon who called for sways of the West Bank to be annexed by Israel and for the rest to become part of Jordan more recently former US president Donald Trump's team raised the idea of a Jordanian Palestinian Confederation the crudest version of this plan entails direct threats to Palestinian Villages and towns in occupied West Bank to leave or be burned out by settlers but the Jordan option as it's called Never disappears from Israeli discourse a knesset resolution passed just before netanyahu's latest visit to the US to Outlaw a future Palestinian state was geographically specific in its phrasing it read the Israeli knesset opposes the establishment of a Palestinian State on any piece of land west of the Jordan River to any Jordanian these words are brutally clear it means the only place Israel will tolerate a Palestinian state will be in Jordan not for nothing did Jordan's King Abdullah pronounce that the region will not accept having the Region's future held hostage to the policies of the extremist Israeli government but his problems in keeping the Loyalty of his people and the sovereignty of his kingdom intact have only just started Gaza has presented King Abdullah with a huge dilemma his first response is to see what is happening in the occupied West Bank under leadership of benav as an existential threat to the kingdom the arming of settlers frequent attacks on Palestinian Villages and towns raids on alaka mosque complex and the most recently benav statement that Jewish prayer is allowed at the mosque have only one purpose to push as many Palestinians as will leave their homes eastwards benav is deliberately humiliating the ham hashimite Kingdom's custodianship of the Holy Saints in Jerusalem this was the one internationally recognized Duty that abdullah's father King Hussein insisted on keeping when he severed all legal and administrative ties to the West Bank in July 1988 this has created a strong current of opinion expressed by by the foreign minister Aman safadi safadi has said that an Israeli push for the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza will Propel the region towards the abys of a regional conflict he called Israel a rogue state after killing Hamas political leader ISM hania in tan but there is a second current at work in Jordan This is to see everything that is happening as the work of Iran this is the view of Jordan's all powerful secret police the Jordanian muhabat is In Perpetual fear of a takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood viewing the wild popularity of the military wing of Hamas on the streets of Jordan since October the 7th as a national threat it does everything to suppress popular protest Jordanian authorities recently extended the range and definition of a cyber crime to include spreading fake news or provoking Strife threatening societal peace and contempt for religions a weapon used exclusively against Pro Palestinian demonstrations scores have been arrested under this provision according to Human Rights Watch incredibly Israel undermines this current too by needlessly embarrassing its backers with media leaks that portray the real level of cooperation going on Israel continues to insist its Air Force has access to Jordanian airspace in the event of an attack of missiles and drones from Iran no sooner did Israel's channel 12 quot an official claiming that Jordan would allow Israeli war planes to use its airspace and the Jordanian authorities were forced to issue hot and empty denials the Jordanian State homeed al- mamlaka tv said the kingdom would not allow using its airspace under any circumstances to any party and wouldn't allow a military response for any belligerent party currently which of the two statements to Jordan's believe the Israeli one of course because everyone knows that Jordan doesn't have the power to stop Israel or the US from using its airspace this weakens the king and makes life extremely difficult for those in Jordan whose job is to cooperate with Israel under the table but Israel rubs salt into this wound at every possible opportunity even when it is not in its interest to do so all this has practical consequences Israel's longest and traditionally most peaceful border its border with Jordan is becoming more porous each week according to the report in ma ariv more than 4,000 people infiltrated the border with Israel in recent weeks and the authorities catch only a fraction of them yag vaselov Israeli Minister for the nef and Galilee recently called a plenary session of government to discuss what he called Mass infiltration from Jordan these could be Smugglers migrants or gun runs or perhaps all through so Israel's response will be to build another wall and militarize another border Israel army radio recently reported that the Army would create a new military division to be deployed along the Jordanian border safadi the foreign minister flew to Taran the first Minister bya Jordanian foreign minister in two decades to try and calm things down but his visit only demonstrated how difficult it is to maintain the current balance not even the mukhabarat top news anchors are being listened to anymore when they try and play the Iran card Israel has no power to stem the popularity of Hamas and the resistance in Jordan its only power is to destabilize to bring war and conflict to an area much larger than Gaza and the West Bank allow Netanyahu to continue on his current Mission and The Balancing Act going on in Jordan will be impossible to maintain when and if this happens the crash will be felt far and wide [Music]