Jordan and Israel

From the 1930s forward, members of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the autonomous political entity that led the Zionist movement, carried on discussions with Emir Abdullah, the British-supported ruler of Transjordan. Their mutual interest aimed at curbing the strength and radicalism of Palestinian leader Hajj Amin al-Husseini. Those contacts continued throughout 1947 and early 1948, aimed at colluding to stave off an Arab state in Palestine, as suggested by the United Nations in its 1947 partition plan. Total Arab rejection of sharing any part of Palestine with the Zionists was the most powerful motivation for not establishing an Arab state under that plan.

After the 1947-1949 Arab-Israeli war, Jordan annexed the West Bank and controlled the eastern part of Jerusalem, which it held until losing those lands to Israel in the June 1967 war. A large number of Palestinians left Palestine in the 1947-49 period and settled east of the river in Jordan.

From the 1960s through the 1990s, Jordan and Israel held dozens of secret talks, many of them aimed at curbing Palestinian Arab nationalism’s thirst to control all the land west and east of the Jordan River. When King Hussein, Abdullah’s grandson and successor, signed a peace treaty with Israel in October 1994 with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, they shared a mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity.

Jordan and Israel cooperated for decades in sharing the waters of the Jordan River separating them and in limiting, where possible, efforts by Arab parties (the PLO and Syria) and Iran to undermine Jordan’s monarchy. When Iran launched airstrikes at Israel in April and October 2024 and June 2025, Jordan cooperated with the Israelis, the Americans and others to shoot down those missiles and drones before they could reach Israel.

Both Israel and Jordan are pleased at any efforts to undermine the toxic foreign policy promoted by the Iranian Islamic Republic. That view of Iran, proximity, the Jordan River waters and a priority on regional stability sustain the Jordanian-Israeli partnership, At the same time, Jordanians disagree vigorously with Israel settlement policies in the West Bank. Jordan worries that the absence of an independent political place for Palestinians west of the Jordan will result in mass Palestinian migration to the east bank of the river, potentially undermining Jordan’s political stability.