Ammon News - It has been three decades since the historic handshake between King Hussein bin Talal and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, with former US President Bill Clinton there, captured in a photo at the border of Jordan and Israel in Wadi Araba.

A historic event, not just a photo, united senior politicians and influenced the region for over thirty years. Jordan and Israel signed a US-sponsored peace agreement with 14 articles addressing key issues like borders, security, water, neighbors, refugees, and Jerusalem.

Discussions between Jordan and Israel commenced in 1994, with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres alerting King Hussein bin Talal that Jordan could be left out of the peace negotiations following the Oslo Accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Pressured by US President Bill Clinton, Jordan made significant efforts to commit to a peace agreement with Israel. These actions represented a significant achievement in the region's history, as the US aimed to assist the peace process and improve stability in the Middle East.

In the US capital on July 25, 1994, the Washington Declaration was signed by Rabin, Hussein, and Clinton, marking a momentous occasion with their signatures on a significant document. This agreement marked a pivotal moment in the relationship between the two nations, making Jordan the second Arab country to establish a peace treaty with Israel following Egypt.

In July 1994, Jordan's Prime Minister Abdul Salam Majali announced the end of the era of conflicts, with Shimon Peres also expressing hope for peace. Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein were formally brought together at the White House by US President Bill Clinton's invitation, setting the stage for the peace treaty signing.

The treaty was signed on October 26, 1994, in Wadi Araba, with Rabin and Majali signing in front of King Hussein and Israeli President Ezer Weizman. Clinton and Secretary of State Warren Christopher were present at the event, which ended with the release of numerous balloons into the air.

Jordanian Senator Mohammad Daoudia, a deputy involved in the peace treaty with Israel, states that King Hussein was heavily pressured to be among the initial signatories, a proposal the Jordanian king firmly opposed, as per Daoudia.

In an interview with the BBC, he highlights that Jordan faced a decision between peace and war after Egypt and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed a peace deal with Israel, and they ultimately chose peace.

Daoudia justifies this decision by stating: "Jordan is unable to start a war for the freedom of Palestine, and our country's infrastructure is focused on defense rather than offense, leading us to pursue peace as we are well-prepared to protect our territory."

Golan Barhom, who teaches at the Center for Public Diplomacy in Israel, characterizes the agreement as a "milestone" regionally for Israel, as it revealed the countries' relations.

According to Barhoum, internal disagreements over the Oslo Accords occurred in Israel as Yasser Arafat was not seen as a genuine peace partner, while in contrast, a peace deal with Jordan was widely supported in Israel for its mutual benefits.

Barhoum also states that the Israelis admired King Hussein during that period because he showed them respect despite the animosity.

Stressed stations

The "Wadi Araba Agreement," a peace treaty, faced political and security challenges jeopardizing its stability, impacting relations between the two countries. These stations can be seen in the increase of regional tensions and shifting political landscape.

The diplomatic relations between the two nations started to deteriorate in 1997 when Hussein bin Talal wrote a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, expressing discontent over Israel's actions in the region following the Qana massacre in southern Lebanon, building settlements in East Jerusalem, and digging tunnels under the Al-Aqsa Mosque, all of which Jordan viewed as a breach of the Hashemite guardianship clause over holy sites in Jerusalem.

The Baqoura Event

On March 12, 1997, a Jordanian soldier named Ahmad Daqamseh, while on patrol along the border of the two nations, fatally shot seven Israeli female students and injured six more, with unclear motives that are still debated.

King Hussein went to Israel to express sympathy to the families of the victims, vowing to ensure that the person responsible would face consequences. He served a twenty-year prison sentence imposed by a military court and was freed on March 12, 2017 upon finishing his term.

The Crisis involving Khaled Meshaal.

On September 25, 1997, Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas' political bureau, faced an assassination attempt in Amman, Jordan, by Israeli Mossad agents using fake passports. His friends were successful in capturing them, causing a diplomatic conflict with Jordan because the government demanded the antidote to rescue Meshaal or else they would cut ties with Israel.

Israel agreed to disclose the antidote's name, but the relationship between Jordan and Israel soured after Mossad agents were freed in return for the release of 23 Jordanians and 50 Palestinian detainees, including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Al-Ghamr and Al-Baqoura Lands

On November 10, 2019, His Majesty King Abdullah II announced the expiration of the annexes to the Al-Baqoura and Al-Ghamr areas in the peace treaty, affirming the imposition of Jordanian sovereignty over them. This decision came after 25 years of Israeli benefiting from these areas that Israel leased under the peace treaty.

“On the Shelf” Agreement after the Gaza War
Relations between Jordan and Israel have become tense in light of the raging war in Gaza, as Jordan expressed its condemnation of the Israeli attack on Gaza after the events of October 7, 2023 by recalling its ambassador from Israel, and informing the Israeli Foreign Ministry that it would not return its ambassador who had previously left the kingdom, according to a statement by the Jordanian Foreign Ministry.

In light of the war, Jordan stated through Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi that “the Wadi Araba Agreement, in the midst of the crimes committed by Israel, has become nothing more than a document on a dusty shelf.”

Dawoudia emphasizes Jordan’s position on the peace treaty, saying that peace between the two countries has reached “the most extreme coldness.” He explained that Jordan was on the verge of "tearing up the peace treaty" due to the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, as he put it.

Coinciding with the Gaza war, Jordanians carried out two operations against Israelis; the first was when a Jordanian truck driver opened fire last September on security personnel at the Karameh border crossing between Jordan and Israel, who was an Israeli citizen, which resulted in the death of three people, before the perpetrator was killed.

The second came about ten days after the anniversary of the events of October 7, when two Jordanian youths, aged 27, clashed with a force from the Israeli reserve forces after crossing the Jordanian-Palestinian border near the village of "Neot HaKikar" attached to the Dead Sea, which ended with the wounding of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of the two youths.

How do the two sides view the agreement after thirty years?

Jordanian Minister of Information Dr. Mohammad Momani told the BBC that Jordan treats the peace treaty as one of the possible tools to support and assist the Palestinian people.

Al-Momani affirms Jordan's commitment to the treaty, stressing that it represents a legal and political peace that helps the state protect its interests and strengthens its position in supporting the Palestinian people and "lifting historical injustice against them."

For his part, Daoudia believes that Israel did not abide by the terms of the treaty as a "state of war," noting that its "settlement expansion" project clashes with the Iranian project in the region, which is to achieve influence in the Arab region, far from "supporting the Palestinian cause," which he sees as mere "false headlines," according to him.

He says that the agreement, which is "on the shelf" today, serves Jordan's interests in specific areas related to Palestinian support, through the continuation of guardianship over Al-Aqsa Mosque, enabling Jordan to send 1,500 aid trucks to the Gaza Strip weekly, and breaking the siege on it by carrying out airdrops of aid to the Strip, as Jordan was "the first Arab country" to take this step, despite the Israeli threat, in addition to field hospitals.

He added: The agreement supports Jordan's efforts to provide services to the Palestinian people by facilitating Hajj and Umrah, providing medical services in Jordanian medical institutions, and other "unlimited" benefits on the Jordanian-Palestinian level, which is the aspect to which the benefits of the peace agreement with Israel are limited, he said.

Israeli political analyst Yoav Stern told the BBC that it is difficult to talk about a "warm peace" between the two countries at the present time, given the mutual tensions over the war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, stressing that the two countries maintain a minimum level of mutual respect and cooperation.

He explains that there are no differences between the two countries except regarding Israeli practices towards the Palestinians and Jerusalem, noting that Israel sees the peace treaty as "the cornerstone of official Israeli regional policy."

Barhoum compares the two periods, noting that the 1994 peace agreement witnessed the exchange of ambassadors and deepened trade and economic relations, while today relations between the two countries are limited to "security and borders," given that Israel has the longest border with Jordan, he said.

Barhoum considers Jordan to be a "buffer point against Iranian ambitions to expand in the region and threaten Israel's security." He adds that the "Hashemite monarchy" in the last two terms "worked to protect the security of the borders with Israel, which his country appreciates," and he sees this as the "greatest" benefit that Israel will achieve from the peace agreement after thirty years.

"Common interests"
The peace treaty between Jordan and Israel resulted in agreements signed by both parties to serve their interests, including the areas of security, diplomacy, water, combating crime and drugs, civil aviation, mail and communications, tourism, the environment, energy, development of the Wadi Araba region, health, agriculture, and development of the Aqaba and Eilat regions.

Two agreements stand out as controversial between the two countries: the first is the “electricity for water” agreement, which stipulates that Amman, which has an abundance of open spaces and sunshine, will export about 600 megawatts of solar-generated electricity annually to Israel, in exchange for the latter exporting water to Jordan, as Israel has an advanced desalination program, and hence it will have to supply its eastern neighbor with 200 million cubic meters of desalinated water from now on.

This agreement has recently witnessed controversy after the Israeli government rejected Amman’s request to extend the water agreement for five years, and only extended it for six months until November, under American pressure.

What options does Jordan have to improve its water situation?
The second agreement is the 2014 Jordanian-Israeli gas agreement, which is still in effect despite popular Jordanian opposition