On Sunday, King Abdullah of Jordan declared his intention to allow Israel’s lease of two small agricultural areas of Jordanian territory to expire. The lease had been agreed upon in an annex to the 1994 peace treaty between Jerusalem and Amman. To Eyal Zisser, the king’s decision is a sign of his own domestic weakness:

The Jordanian announcement is neither a big surprise ‎nor a move that has far-reaching strategic ‎significance. After all, these are Jordanian ‎lands. . . . The problem, therefore, is not in the move per se, ‎but in the manner and timing in which the Jordanians ‎chose to declare they were essentially disavowing ‎the spirit of the 1994 peace agreement and turning ‎their backs on the partnership forged between then-Prime Minister Yitzḥak Rabin ‎and then-King Hussein.‎

This was not a complete surprise. After all, the ‎Jordanian public is very hostile toward Israel compared ‎to populations in other Arab countries ‎and, regrettably, the Jordanian regime does not even ‎try to deal with this hostility. Facing a myriad of domestic ‎challenges, the regime prefers to allow public opinion to lash ‎out at Israel and hopes this will soften the ‎criticism leveled at it on other issues.‎

At the same time, no Arab country is as dependent on Israel as Jordan, certainly in ‎terms of energy and water resources and on issues ‎of national security. ‎. . . Overall, [ending the lease] is not a move that truly harms ‎Israel’s interest, which is why Jerusalem shows ‎patience toward the hostile winds that are blowing ‎in its direction from Jordan. ‎Nevertheless, the Jordanian move is as much a show ‎of Abdullah’s weakness as signing the peace ‎deal was a show of his father’s strength.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.