Commentary Magazine..
03 September '14..
Doomsayers about the State of Israel never run out of material. Since the day it was born and even before that, skeptics about the Jewish state’s viability and long-term survival have been numerous and loud. They have plenty of material. The many grave threats to its security as well as many profound domestic problems shouldn’t be minimized. But amid the continuous chorus of those predicting its demise and saying it is running out of time, there is abundant evidence bolstering the opposite conclusion. Today’s news of the conclusion of a $15 billion natural gas deal between Israel and Jordan is just one such story that undermines the dire narrative that many on the left take as a given.
It can be argued that there is nothing terribly new about close cooperation between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom. Even long before the peace treaty between the two nations in 1994, Israel and Jordan closely cooperated on security issues. In fact, Israel leaped to Jordan’s defense in 1970 when its actions thwarted a Syrian invasion seeking to help a Palestinian uprising against King Hussein. Since then, the Jordanian government has remained tight with the Israelis as it sought to defend itself against radicals. Good relations with Amman are impacted by the widespread hatred for the Jewish state in a country where the majority are Palestinian Arabs rather than King Abdullah’s Bedouin kinsmen. But even though the monarchy must publicly keep its distance from Israel, in practice it remains closely allied to it. So it’s little surprise that with the conclusion of this gas deal, the Jewish state has become Jordan’s chief supplier.
This illustrates some important short-term trends as well as another larger truth about Israel’s future.
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