Last September, President Donald Trump assured Jordan’s King Abdullah II and a group of Arab and Muslim leaders that Israel would not annex the West Bank during his presidency.
But he offered no guarantees to halt the continued expansion of Israeli settlements. Washington’s Arab allies say that this development has been steadily eroding the viability of a two-state solution, a cornerstone of U.S., European and Arab policy for 25 years. Even as war has consumed the region, settlement expansion has continued unabated.
Perhaps more than any other state in the Middle East, the moderate Kingdom of Jordan – a longstanding ally and keystone of American policy in the region – has reason to dread the consequences of accelerating Israeli settlement. Jordan’s proximity to the West Bank and a population closely tied to the Palestinians mean that settlement policy impacts it more immediately than any other country in the region. The current dynamic poses a critical threat to Jordan’s stability. Yet there are few signs that anyone in Washington is paying serious attention.
Settler violence continues to peak. According to the Israeli rights group Yesh Din, at least 257 incidents of settler violence or harassment were recorded across the West Bank in just the first 25 days of the Iran war.
At the same time, the Israeli cabinet has approved measures allowing Israelis to purchase land in the occupied territories with minimal restrictions. It has also moved to strip powers from the Palestinian Authority in parts of the West Bank – steps widely seen as paving the way for de facto annexation.
The reaction in Washington was muted. As usual, President Trump has restated his opposition to annexation. But beyond that, little has changed.
For Jordan, that is the problem. Creeping annexation kills the prospects for a Palestinian state and places the issue directly on Amman’s doorstep.
Regional dynamics have been reshaped since the Hamas assault on Israel in October 2023. Most Israelis no longer see Palestinians as viable peace partners. The traditional land-for-peace formula once grounded in a fair process and United Nations resolutions is now a thing of the past.
Today Israel is striving to enforce stability through security hegemony rather than reconciliation, as demonstrated by the wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, as well as the de facto annexation of a portion of Syrian territory. This is the environment Jordan currently confronts.
U.S. diplomacy has become transactional, unpredictable, and dominated by business interests. The trust of regional governments in Washington’s ability to act as a mediator is at its lowest point. Now Israeli interests come first, and oil-rich Gulf states are Trump’s favored partners.
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A Red Line in Jordan’s Backyard
To American policymakers, the West Bank, which Jordan lost to Israel in the 1967 War, likely appears as one issue among many in a crowded regional agenda.
For Jordan, it is something else entirely: a front line. Jordanian officials warn that annexation, which looks increasingly likely, could trigger a chain reaction with direct consequences for the Kingdom. Jordan, like the rest of the Arabs, continues to support the Palestinian right to statehood, but remains paralyzed by lack of consensus on peace strategy within the divided, corruption-riddled Palestinian Authority.
“Jordan cannot do much on its own,” one senior Jordanian official said. “We need Arab backing while pressing Washington to grasp the scale of the threat to Israel, itself and its allies.”
At the heart of those concerns is a fear that annexation will not stop at borders. It will reshape them.
Jordanian officials and politicians describe a deliberate Israeli strategy. The Israelis want to expand control over Areas “B” and “C” of the West Bank while isolating the six main Palestinian population towns in area “A” and reducing them to disconnected enclaves. Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian foreign minister and ambassador to Israel and the U.S., says this plan is already taking shape.
In this model, Palestinians would retain limited self-rule in these towns in a demilitarized entity but with Israel maintaining overarching control over borders and airspace. “This would not be a permanent arrangement,” says Muasher. “It’s a temporary solution until Israel is able to expel Palestinians, one way or another,” he warned.
The Displacement Scenario
For Jordan, that is the most dangerous outcome. It feeds into the ultra-right expansionist narrative in Israel that has long advocated the idea that “Jordan is Palestine.” Many of Jordan’s over seven million people are of Palestinian origin, who fled to the kingdom during the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars. Many refugees demand the right of return to their homes and/ or compensation.
One senior official described the “worst-case scenario” as a situation in which 350,000 of the Jordanians with full citizenship rights living in the West Bank are pushed across the Jordan River.
Such displacement would place enormous strain on Jordan’s already fragile economy, infrastructure, and political balance. “It is in the interest of Israel that Jordan remains a stable state,” said a senior Arab official. “Though the Israelis are not to be trusted, they know that they cannot hand over Jordan to the Palestinians unless they want to create chaos that will spill” across its longest border with an Arab state.
A Plan No One Will Accept
Adding to the uncertainty is talk about a U.S.-backed proposal circulating in official Arab circles that looks at replicating the so-called “Gaza model” in the West Bank. That implies an administration under U.S. oversight, with regional powers guaranteeing security, and Israel controlling all borders and crossings.
A technocratic committee independent of Hamas and Fatah will be named to oversee public governance and public services across most of area “A” now under Mahmoud Abbas’s dysfunctional Palestinian Authority, backed by local police and monitored by the U.S.-led International Stabilization Force.
Both committees would eventually be merged into a ministerial body with an elected president chosen in a free vote by the people. Jerusalem will remain united under Israeli sovereignty, with an inter-faith committee in place to run the holy sites.
The whole process should end in two years – just in time for Trump’s exit. Negotiators are working hard to try to establish as many principles as they can. But like so many other plans in the Middle East, Israel and the Palestinian leadership might not accept it and it could fail overnight.
Limited Options, Rising Stakes
Jordan’s ability to respond to Israeli threats is constrained by its 1994 peace treaty with Israel – now under strain because past experience has made King Abdullah deeply distrustful of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Amman faces a difficult balancing act: Confronting Israel risks jeopardizing its relationship with Washington and the West.
Jordan is exploring a range of options, none of which are without risk. Jordan is rallying Arab support by framing the West Bank as a matter of collective Arab national security, not just a challenge for the kingdom.
At home, measures under discussion include tightening border controls to prevent population spillover and formalizing Jordan’s 1988 disengagement from the West Bank to remove any ambiguity over responsibility toward Palestinian West Bankers, many of whom hold Jordanian travel documents but not citizenship.
Jordan’s Hashemite dynasty has continued paying for the upkeep of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The treaty recognized Jordan’s custody over the site until final talks on the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be settled. After that, Jordan would retain a special role.
There is also talk of using the peace treaty itself as leverage – potentially challenging Israel in international courts for any breach related to forced displacement. But that approach has obvious risks.
The Illusion of Stability
Jordanian officials argue that current U.S.-Israeli policies are not resolving the conflict and opening the door for broader peace and economic normalization, merely postponing it.
“They are just taking aspirin,” one official said, describing efforts to manage rather than solve the crisis. “Jordan is trying to explain to the administration the dangers that annexation presents to the kingdom.”
From Amman’s perspective, Washington’s policies have emboldened more Israeli aggressive policies on the ground and across the region, where the majority no longer believe in peace with Israel.
Once the current regional conflicts subside, officials believe, attention will shift decisively back to the West Bank. By then, they warn, it may be too late to reverse the facts being created.
Jordan is increasingly aiming its message not just at the White House, but at Congress and American public opinion more broadly. Jordan is not asking the United States to abandon Israel. It is asking it to recognize that not all Israeli policies serve long-term regional stability – or American interests.
Jordan has long been one of the United States’ most reliable strategic allies in the Middle East, a key partner in intelligence, counterterrorism, and regional diplomacy. Its stability has been a strategic asset. “Jordan is a buffer state…it is a partner for America, Europe and Israel – none of them can do without Jordan,” said a senior Arab security official. “It is not in their interest to set up a Palestinian state in Jordan, or to expel Palestinians across the river.”
But that stability might not be guaranteed if Jordan is asked to absorb the consequences of policies it cannot control. For Jordan, annexation is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of a new phase – one that could lead to displacement, instability, and a crisis that will not remain confined to the region.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
Rana Sabbagh
Rana Sabbagh is an award-winning Jordanian investigative reporter and editor who has worked across the region for over 40 years. As editor of The Jordan Times, she was the first woman in the Levant to run a national daily.
