Ask Haviv Anything - 105: Why don’t we talk about Jordan?

Episode Date: April 11, 2026

Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.Our current question: why don’t we talk about Jordan? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [e-mail]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

The next question is, what is Jordan's role in the ongoing conflict? This is such a fascinating place to really shed some light, to really turn the spotlight. Jordan is both absolutely central to the Israeli-Palestinian question, to the Israeli-Palestinian story, and also almost entirely invisible from that story. And what am I talking about? In 1948, Jordan, or Trans-Jordan, as it was called then, had probably the most competent Arab army in the war, the Arab Legion. It was led by British officers. It was fairly well trained. It defeated in multiple battles, the Israeli forces, and it ended up at the end of the war holding the territory known today

as the West Bank. It didn't used to be called the West Bank. It is biblically known as Judea and Samaria. In Hebrew, that is still the name, Judea and Samaria. Samaria is the northern part. Judea is the southern part. But it became the West Bank, because if you're Jordanian, and you're sitting in the city of Amman, the capital of Jordan, and you basically hold down the entire east bank of the river. And when you define yourself by that river and you look west, the west bank of the river is Judea and Samaria. And so the name West Bank is a Jordanian name for the territory.

And why did Jordan name it? Because in 48, 49, in that war, it held that territory. It defeated Israeli attempts to take various parts of it. There was actually a serious Israeli consideration during the war in February of 1949 after the Egyptian army had left the 48 war, had signed a deal, a ceasefire in Rhodes, and withdrawn back to Egypt. There was a serious Israeli conversation in the Israeli War Cabinet, contemplating the possibility of maybe attacking the Jordanian positions and trying to take the West Bank. In the end, the decision was decided not to do it.

And mainly the reason given was that Israel didn't one end up in control. of vast numbers of Palestinians and the Palestinian cities and towns of the West Bank. Some of the considerations were also geopolitical. They didn't want to upset the British. Jordan was basically under British protection and angering the British in that war by expanding into what is Jordanian territory

at that moment in the war. Ben-Gurion feared might bring the British into the war, which would be a disaster for Israel. But the key argument raised in the actual cabinet meeting was an argument about we don't want to end up in control of people we don't want to give citizenship to. So we don't take territory because that would be undemocratic to end up in control of them. No questions are new under the sun. Everything debated today was debated in 48, 49. And so Jordan ends up in control of this territory. And over the course of

the next 19 years between the 48 war and the 67 war, it's Jordan. Jordan officially annexes it. Jordan grants citizenship to most of the Palestinians living in it. Jordan actually convenes the famous Jericho conference in which Palestinian leaders, Palestinian elites, basically swear allegiance to the Jordanian monarchy. They feel that the 48 war demonstrated that the Arabs had failed them miserably, failed the Palestinians miserably. That's not a crazy conclusion to draw from the 48 war. The term Nakpa, which today refers to the catastrophe of the mass flight of Palestinian refugees

at the time, in 48-49, the term was not used to referred to that. And over the course of the 50s, it was a term used to refer to the Arab failure to dislodge the Jews, to defeat the Jews. Nakpa was a disaster, a catastrophe, but the catastrophe wasn't the suffering of ordinary people. It was the political shame of the Arabs in the failure to defeat the Jews. That's what the term meant when it was used at that time. And so Palestinians were deeply convinced at that time that the Arabs had failed them miserably. Palestinians did not have the strength to stand against the Jews on their own. And so for many in the West Bank, Jordanian rule, Jordanian citizenship was a great answer to

the great problems. It was Muslim Arab monarchy, which was vastly preferable to the land falling under the power of the Jews, under the control and sovereignty of the Jews, and it was a reasonable solution for that time. Jordan maintained its claim. not only up until 67. Israel preferred the King of Jordan to maintain control of the West Bank. In the run up to 67, Israel actually begged the King of Jordan not to join in the war that Egypt and Syria were signaling was going to begin. Their state radio was announcing it. They placed Israel under naval blockade. It was not subtle signaling. And Israel asked Jordan not to join the war. And the King of Jordan basically concluded that if he didn't join the Arabs in

this great war of liberation of Palestine from the Jews, then he would be assassinated. And so he didn't have a choice. It was a matter of Arab honor, it was a matter of preserving his own regime. And so he joins the war and loses the West Bank. But it would be 21 more years until 1988 before Jordan actually officially gave up its claim to the West Bank, which it had annexed and considered right up until 88 to be Jordan. There are a lot of reasons nobody talks about this history. And they're obvious reasons. They want the whole story to be Palestinian victimhood and Israeli conquest. And the fact that Gaza ended up under a rather brutal Egyptian military rule until 67. Egypt, by the way, did not offer them citizenship, did not see

Gaza as part of Egypt going forward. Jordan did. Egypt betrayed the Palestinians. It's rather in the narrative, it's easy to deal with Egypt. Jordan, it's much harder to deal with because Jordan welcomed this part of what is supposed to be Palestine into Jordan, and even welcomed Palestinians into Jordanian citizenry, into Jordanian polity, and Palestinians willingly and eagerly sought to become Jordanian subjects. And so the whole narrative breaks down and the Israelis dealing with the Jordanians and what to do with the West Bank and asking Jordan not to join 67, they don't want to take the West Bank from Detroit. All of that just completely disrupts the basic narrative that Palestinians want to tell about the Israelis, about the Arabs,

about their own story. And so Jordan is hidden away off on the side of every serious conversation about the future of this land, even though it was one of the real central figures that shaped how everything turned down. Jordan is also basically from the same period in the early 70s, a kind of unspoken ally of Israel. And for a simple reason, Jordan is Israel's longest border. Israel doesn't have many needs from that border. It doesn't need to run pipelines from Iraq. It doesn't need to, you know, do anything dramatic or serious in terms of economic trade.

What it needs is quiet. What it needs is that border to be a safe border because it's the longest border. And Jordan grants Israel that. Jordan and Israel have a peace treaty. That's since 1993, but they've basically had a de facto peace treaty, de facto quiet, where the Jordanian state makes sure that the border is safe since basically 1970. When the Jordanian monarchy kicked out the Palestinian political factions that had threatened the Jordanian monarchy, but it also launched countless waves of attacks against the Jews, against the Israelis, across the border in Israel. and since then Jordan has been essentially a military protectorate of Israel. So this relationship of being close to Israel is something that Jordan itself doesn't want publicized, doesn't want talked about. It's not that anybody is unaware of this in the Middle East.

It's that it's not comfortable to have it be the topic of conversation. So Jordan tries to stay quiet and keep its head down. For all these reasons, nobody talks about Jordan. Here's the thing. Jordan might have a profound and critical role in the future possible peace. It's weird talking about peace right now. Pretend I'm not talking about peace because what serious person would. But let's just do it as a little fantasy excursion into La La Land.

What would a peace actually need? Palestinians in some part of the West Bank, Gaza, whatever that means in 20 years, however much it's been rebuilt, whether Hamas really can be dislodged, or if there's just endless permanent forever war, I don't know. But let's imagine that there is some kind of a process, that there is some kind of a potential for peace, that we want to get there. Or put it this way, if we're there 25 years from now,

what would have had to have happened beforehand to bring us from the place we are today to that place? That's an interesting thought exercise. Well, that thought exercise involves a lot of Jordan. Jordan is the official steward of the holy sites of Jerusalem, the Muslim holy sites, especially and primarily the Alaksamas, the Haramash, the Haramashir, compound, the temple, mount. And Jordan is also the strategic depth of any kind of Palestinian polity in the West Bank.

There is no version of a West Bank, including the Green Line, that could become a Palestinian state, including the maximalist best-case scenario from the Palestinian negotiating perspective, that would be anything but a rump state totally dependent on the Israelis and which the Israelis would watch with a very keen eye and with tremendous security control and deep intelligence penetration because it's the highlands overlooking their cities and shrinks them down to nine miles wide.

There's never a situation in which the West Bank is not an overwhelming Israeli security concern, even in the best case scenario, of everybody being loving and dovish and everything being solved. And so a Palestinian in the West Bank in a future potential state, whether it's in 60% of the West Bank or 100% of the West Bank or 35% of the West Bank. I have no idea. I'm just saying there isn't a scenario in which that's not a rump state dependent for its security on Israel

and for its economic prosperity on economic integration into the Israeli economy. And there's almost nowhere in the West Bank to put an international airport. There was some hope there would be a small airport in Gaza and there used to be a small airport in Gaza during the peace process years. But in the West Bank, hilly. There's just no flat place where that would fit. Well, what if the West Bank could be some kind of confederation with Jordan? Not annexation and conquest. Two states, but deeply allied and deeply intertwined with the Jordanians. And therefore, instead of being the great threat to Israel, being part of the security architecture that protects Israel and Jordan together, which has existed since 1970.

It also means they might have an open border to Jordan, which means they have a huge sense of space rather than a sense of being cloistered in surrounded by an Israeli military, a very watchful and worried Israeli military. It also means they have an international airport in Amman. That's a real international airport.

And so they might have access to the Israeli airport. We're talking about peace, right? But if they don't have access to it, they have access to the Jordanian one. or if they don't have easy access to it, or if they don't just have open borders with the Israelis, they would still have it with the Jordanians. This is a potential vision that sidesteps so many of the fundamental problems.

Israel would trust the Jordanian monarchy on the Temple Mount and with the holy sites and with the security of the border. And Israel, it can trust. There's just decades and generations of proof that you can trust the Jordanians to do this. Now, would Jordan itself want to be part of this kind of solution? The simple answer is absolutely not. The Jordanian monarchy knows that the fact that most of its population, a majority of its population is Palestinian descendant, is a destabilizing element in Jordan. the Jordanian monarchy is very moderate,

but the population of Jordan in polls expresses deeply, not just anti-Israel views, but anti-Semitic views, radical anti-Semitic views about Jews controlling the world, not just what, you know, I don't know what a right-wing Zionist would say is anti-Semitic, just literally everybody would agree is anti-Semitic. These are majority views among Jordanians, and most Jordanians are Palestinians. And so there's a radicalization element that Jordan is always fighting,

and it's not getting easy. Just in the past year, Jordan did two major steps. It actually outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood. That's the radical Salafist Islamist kind of branch of Sunni Islam from which Hamas is born, from which al-Qaeda was born. And they're a very powerful force in Jordanian politics. And now they're outlawed by the monarchy. And also Jordan launched the beginning or the restoration

after I think 30 years of a mass draft. universal draft, which may not be perfectly universal, but it's going to be much bigger than it is today. Jordan is hard at work outlawing and marginalizing the radicals, downplaying the Palestinian narrative, playing up Jordan's own history of the land and the territory and the identity of Jordan as a distinct polity. They have museums that they've built and invested in archaeology in Jordan that focuses on the ancient kingdoms and Moabites and various other assorted kings. of the territory, to create a Jordanian identity that's distinct from the rest of the Levant, and Jordan very much doesn't want to get caught shouldering the burden of the Palestinian

solution to the Palestinian national question. And so Jordan is not on board with any of this, but the fact that nobody will talk about it, because it's uncomfortable to talk about how Jordan's Jordan's role historically doesn't quite fit the Palestinian narrative. Jordan's role today is incredibly useful to the Israelis, and Jordan's potential role in the future is something the monarchy doesn't want to be, even though it could solve a great many problems, a great many problems for Palestinians and a great many problems for Israel. Would that solve the problem for Jordan?

I don't know. It depends what kind of future Jordan wants and what kind of it has of its future. Jordan is both central to everything happening and almost completely invisible. And many, many different parties and aspects of this conflict make itself. So Jordan is a fascinating question. Thank you for that question.