WarSclerotic

Jordan’s King Abdullah on Sunday said he has decided ‎not to renew parts of his country’s landmark 1994 peace ‎treaty with Israel.‎

The king released a statement saying that he intends ‎to pull out of clauses in the ‎agreement that allow Israel to lease two small areas comprising 1,000 acres of agricultural ‎land‎ – ‎Baqura, known as Naharayim in Hebrew, in the northern Jordan Valley, and Ghamr in ‎the south – from the Jordanians for 25 years. ‎

The leases expire next year and the deadline for ‎renewing them is Thursday.‎

In Baqura, Israeli ‎‎”rights” date back to the ‎‎1920s, when Russian ‎Jewish engineer Pinhas ‎Rutenberg obtained a ‎concession in British Mandate ‎Palestine to build a ‎power plant there.‎

Both areas became part of Jordan after the kingdom ‎‎gained independence in 1946. Israel seized control ‎of Baqura in 1950 and ‎Ghamr in the 1967 Six-Day ‎War. Jordan regained sovereignty over the areas as ‎part of the 1994 peace deal and agreed to grant ‎Israeli farmers and military officers free access to ‎both.‎

In the wake of the agreement, the power plant in ‎Naharayim ‎ was named “Isle of Peace.” In 1997, it ‎became the scene of a gruesome terrorist attack, when a Jordanian soldier opened fire at a group of Israeli schoolgirls on a field trip, killing seven and injuring six others.‎

Gil Eliyahu / JINI

‎‎”These are Jordanian lands and they will remain [Jordanian lands]. We ‎are practicing our full sovereignty on our ‎‎land. Our priority in an era of regional turmoil is ‎to protect our interests and do ‎‎whatever is required ‎for Jordan and the Jordanians,” Abdullah said ‎in a statement Sunday. ‎

The king did not give a reason for his decision, ‎but ‎he has faced escalating domestic pressure to end ‎the ‎lease and return the territories to full ‎Jordanian ‎control. ‎

A statement by the Jordanian ‎Foreign Ministry said ‎that “under the terms of the peace treaty, the lease ‎would be ‎automatically renewed unless either of the ‎parties ‎notified the other a year before expiry that ‎it ‎wished to terminate the agreement.” ‎

Jordan and Egypt are the only two Arab states to have ‎peace treaties with Israel.

Jordan and Israel have ‎a long history of close security ‎ties and have also been expanding ‎economic ties in the ‎last year, including a major ‎deal to export billions ‎of dollars of Israeli ‎natural gas to the kingdomthrough a ‎pipeline that ‎crosses their northern borders.‎

However, the peace treaty with Israel is unpopular and ‎‎pro-Palestinian sentiment widespread in Jordan. ‎‎Activists and politicians have been vocal against a ‎‎renewal of the lease, which they say is ‎‎”humiliating” and perpetuates “‎Israeli occupation” ‎of Jordanian territory.‎

Tensions between Israel and Jordan have mounted in ‎‎recent months over such issues as the contested ‎‎status of Jerusalem and its holy sites, the stalled ‎‎Middle East peace talks, and last year’s shooting of two ‎‎Jordanian citizens by an Israeli Embassy guard in ‎‎Amman, which ignited a diplomatic crisis.‎ Relations thawed after Israel replaced its ‎‎ambassador. ‎

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that ‎Jordan wanted to exercise its option to end the ‎arrangement, but stressed the Israel “will enter ‎negotiations with it on the possibility of extending ‎the current arrangement.”‎

Netanyahu said the “accord as a whole is an ‎important thing” and called the peace deals with ‎Jordan and Egypt “anchors of regional stability.” ‎

Kobi Gideon / GPO

Former Israeli Ambassador to Jordan Oded Eran said ‎he was not surprised by Jordan’s decision, and said ‎there was still time for the two countries to ‎renegotiate the agreement. ‎

He dismissed the possibility that Jordan might pull ‎out of other parts of the broader peace treaty.‎

‎”For its own interests, the continuation of the ‎adherence to the peace treaty is in Jordan’s ‎interest as indeed it is in the interest of Israel,” ‎Eran said.‎

Dr. Abdullah Swalha, founder and director of the ‎Center for Israel Studies in Amman, told Israel ‎Hayom that ‎”there have been calls in Jordan to ‎cancel these clauses for two years. Recently, 86 MPs ‎signed a ‎petition demanding this. There is no economic gain for ‎Jordan here, so the king did it to ‎appease public ‎opinion.”‎

He said he believed a deal could be reached ‎regarding the leasing of lands in Ghamr, but stressed that ‎‎”there is no scenario where Jordan relinquishes ‎sovereignty over Baqura. Jews have some rights there ‎and monetary compensation will probably be ‎discussed, or Jordanian farmers would lease the land ‎from the Jews, but we will not give up the land.”‎

A senior Jordanian official denied reports that the ‎move stemmed from Palestinian or Arab pressure. ‎

‎”These lands belong to the Kingdom of Jordan, and in ‎light of the regional reality in recent years, it is ‎not appropriate for them to be leased [to a foreign entity],” he said.‎

He said Jordan’s position was not a violation ‎of the peace treaty, saying, “The king acted in ‎accordance with the terms outlined in the clauses ‎signed 24 years ago.” ‎

Israeli farmers were stunned to learn of the move. ‎

‎”It’s like a bomb hit us. This means that years of ‎work will go down the drain,” said Dr. Eyal Blum, ‎head of the Central Arava Regional Council. ‎

‎”The agricultural lands here are very significant in ‎terms of the area’s security, national security and ‎the agricultural sector in the Arava [Desert]. This means 30 ‎agricultural farms in an area covering 345 acres ‎will collapse. It is inconceivable that after all ‎these years the order will change.” ‎

Erez Gibori, a farmer from Moshav Tzofar, said the ‎area’s farmers “are now fighting for our lives. If ‎they close the gates to our lands, there’s nothing ‎for us here. We will leave. The state cannot abandon ‎us.”‎

The news “was a big ‎surprise,” said Jordan Valley Regional Council head Idan Greenbaum.

“We were very disappointed and saddened to ‎learn of the king’s decision. This came as a shock to us because we ‎have a very good relationship with our Jordanian ‎neighbors. ‎

‎”This isn’t the end of it, though. We expect the ‎government to sit down with the Jordanians and reach ‎an agreement that will allow us to continue farming ‎these lands, as we have been doing for the past 70 ‎years,” he said. ‎