David Schenker is the Taube Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of the Linda and Tony Rubin Program on Arab Politics. He is the former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.
Articles & Testimony
Despite the wartime rancor, the peace treaty continues to deliver invaluable economic and security dividends to both states.
Earlier this month, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi urged the European Union and the United Nations to sanction and embargo arms transfers to Israel. Last week, Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood—which controls the largest bloc in parliament—claimed that two jihadis who crossed the border to kill Israelis in solidarity with Hamas were members of the organization. All told, this has been an inauspicious run-up to the thirtieth anniversary of the 1994 Jordan-Israel peace agreement. Yet while Wadi Araba is not popular in Jordan, the treaty has benefitted the kingdom enormously. Today, Israel provides parched Jordan with 100 million cubic meters of water per year. Jordan also buys natural gas from Israel. The fifteen-year, $10 billion gas deal supplied about 40 percent of the kingdom’s annual requirement when it was signed in 2016...
