Hawwash: Israel-Jordan peace treaty solid despite embassy shooting

The shooting of two Jordanian citizens by an Israeli embassy security guard in Amman would never affect the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, a Palestinian political analyst told Quds Press yesterday.

The political analyst Mohamed Hawwash said that the two countries had previously overcome several security incidents without mutual relations being affected.

Of the failed attempt to assassinate the former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal and the incident when a Jordanian soldier killed seven Israeli women in 1997, Hawwash said: “Both sides were able to sort out the two issues”.

According to Quds Press, the analyst said that the peace treaty between the two countries “is well established,” stressing that nothing would affect it even in the future.

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He did say that Jordanian-Israeli relations are affected by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that there is mild tension which emerges whenever there is a flare-up in Palestine.

On Monday evening the Israeli government announced that all staff of the Israeli embassy in Amman had arrived in Tel Aviv, including the soldier who killed the two Jordanian citizens.

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Jordan had asked Israel if they could question the Israeli soldier but Israel refused, despite American mediation to attempt to solve the issue.

Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 that ended all forms of hostility between them. Each of them recognises the rights and sovereignty of the other based on the provisions of the UN, international law and conventions. Since then they have had official diplomatic relations.