by Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen
The peace treaties gave Jordan and Egypt a means of influence and pressure that constrains Israel’s ability to implement its interests in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Jordan Valley.
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,590, May 31, 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: For years, Egypt and Jordan have exploited their peace treaties with Israel as a tool of extortion to prevent Israel from pursuing its security and political interests.
In speeches by the new defense minister Benny
Gantz and foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi at their swearing-in
ceremonies, both declared fealty to the path of peace. “I am obligated
to do all that is possible to promote political settlements and to
strive for peace,” Gantz declared, while Ashkenazi stated: “President
Trump’s peace plan is a historic opportunity.… It will be promoted
responsibly and in coordination with the United States, while
maintaining the peace treaties.”
If not for the unique political context—the debate
over applying Israel’s sovereignty to the Jordan Valley—the talk about
the peace treaties would be both routine and proper. But in light of the
threats about Israeli measures voiced by Jordan’s King Abdullah and
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, along with the Israeli
controversy on the matter, the words bear a special significance. They
connote a kind of pledge to make Israeli decisions on sovereignty
conditional on regional consent.
There is no disagreement that striving for peace
is a worthy goal. The picture is made more complex, however, by the ways
the peace treaties between Israel and its neighbors have been
implemented. In the dynamic that has developed, those neighbors’ conduct
toward Israel has frequently entailed the logic of granting “peace” in
exchange for protection.
The Hashemite Kingdom’s role in keeping the long
border with Israel quiet is praiseworthy, and its value should be
acknowledged. But when experts on Israeli-Jordanian relations recommend
that for the sake of continued quiet on that long border Israel should
refrain from steps it needs to take to realize its security interests in
the Jordan Valley lest it forfeit the “gains of peace,” they are
essentially acceding to that dynamic of extortion. It constitutes
consent by the one receiving protection to the one providing it.
Countries that live in peace should certainly take
each other into account when they make decisions. But the duty of
mutual consideration, as reflected in Israel’s peace treaties with
Jordan and Egypt, is far from symmetrical. From the start of the peace
negotiations with Egypt, the demand that Israel solve the Palestinian
issue was an essential condition. And indeed, senior officials in the
Israeli Foreign Ministry and various commentators have long explained
the coldness of the peace with Egypt by pointing to Israel’s supposed
failure to meet that obligation. This is despite the fact that it was
Yasser Arafat who rebuffed President Jimmy Carter’s request to join
Israel, Egypt, and the US in the autonomy talks. A similar situation
exists regarding the peace with Jordan.
The peace treaties gave Jordan and Egypt a means
of influence and pressure that constrains Israel’s ability to implement
its interests in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Jordan Valley. As far
back as 1978, when the Egyptian-Israeli Camp David Accords were being
drafted, the prominent Labor politician Yigal Allon warned of the danger
of conditioning the Israeli-Egyptian peace on progress in the
Palestinian sphere. He demanded an end to any interdependency: “What
will happen if the Arab side, when setting up the autonomy, poses
conditions that Israel cannot accept? Clearly Egypt is seeking to
maintain an explicit option to disengage from the normalization.”
For many years before the peace treaty with Jordan
in 1994, Israel provided invaluable assistance that ensured the
survival of the Hashemite regime, from vital intelligence information
and diplomatic aid to deterring Syria from an all-out invasion of Jordan
during the “Black September” events of 1970. Many aspects of this
covert assistance have continued all the more in the era of official
peace, along with considerable overt benefits for Jordan such as
Israel’s annual provision of one hundred million cubic meters of water.
In other words, if Israeli-Jordanian peace has assumed the character of
“coexistence in exchange for protection,” it is not because of its
asymmetrical benefits to each country. Rather, it is because Amman—by
far the weaker of the two parties—uses it as a means of extortion to
stop Israel from pursuing its security and political interests, while
Israeli governments have inexplicably acquiesced to this coercion.
At the critical geopolitical junction where Israel
now stands, its free pursuit of its national interests would be nothing
short of a declaration of independence.
A previous version of this article was published in Israel Hayom on May 20.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen is a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He served in the IDF for 42 years. He commanded troops in battles with Egypt and Syria. He was formerly a corps commander and commander of the IDF Military Colleges.
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/peace-treaty-extortion/
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