The ongoing coalition negotiations among Israeli political parties have returned to the fore the possibility of annexing or otherwise changing the legal status of the Jordan River Valley, which has been under Jerusalem’s control since 1967. While agreeing that the IDF’s presence in the area is essential to the Jewish state’s security, opponents of the move argue that it would cause an unnecessary rift with Israel’s eastern neighbor. To Nadav Shragai, this risk has been highly inflated:

[T]here is a wide discrepancy between how Jordan openly conducts itself with regard to Israel—using critical . . . rhetoric aimed at pacifying its Palestinian majority—and how the kingdom acts behind the scenes.

Jordan has swallowed a lot of toads over the years to maintain the informal relationship with Israel that is vital to its own continued existence. Jordan enjoys economic, military, and intelligence cooperation with us that is often critical to its interests. Jordan also holds special status on the Temple Mount, and has in effect become Israel’s silent partner in managing affairs there. The way Jordan sees it, that status is of almost existential importance, given the place al-Aqsa holds in the [national] narrative and consciousness of the Hashemite dynasty and many of the kingdom’s residents. Jordan will think twice before putting that at risk.

The Jordanians prefer that the IDF remain a buffer between them and the Palestinians in the West Bank, and it’s convenient for them that this buffer exist without Israeli sovereignty. But even if Israel applies sovereignty, it doesn’t seem as if Jordan will burn its bridges. We might see the recall of the ambassador and even the peace treaty being suspended, but in essence, we can assume that Israel-Jordanian relations, and both countries’ mutual interests, will not change. The Jordanians might [keep their alliance with Israel out of the public eye] for a while, but nothing more.

For the past 36 hours, I’ve been reading and listening to analyses of the terms and implications of the recent hostage deal. More will appear in the coming days, and I’ll try to put the best of them in this newsletter. But today I want to share a comment made on Tuesday by the Palestinian analyst Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib. While he and I would probably disagree on numerous points about the current conflict, this analysis is spot on, and goes entirely against most arguments made by those who consider themselves pro-Palestinian, and certainly those chanting for a cease-fire at all costs:

When a cease-fire in Gaza is announced, Hamas’s fascists will do everything they can to frame this as the ultimate victory; they will wear their military uniforms, emerge from their tunnels, stop hiding in schools and displacement centers, and very quickly reassert their control over the coastal enclave. They’ll even get a few Gazans to celebrate and dance for them.

This, I should note, is exactly what has happened. Alkhatib continues:

The reality is that the Islamist terrorism of Hamas, masquerading as “resistance,” has achieved nothing for the Palestinian people except for billions of dollars in wasted resources and tens of thousands of needless deaths, with Gaza in ruins after twenty years following the withdrawal of settlements in 2005. . . . Hamas’s propaganda machine, run by Qatari state media, Al Jazeera Arabic, will work overtime to help the terror group turn a catastrophic disaster into a victory akin to the battles of Stalingrad and Leningrad.

Hamas will also start punishing anyone who criticized or worked against it, and preparing for its next attack. Perhaps Palestinians would have been better off if, instead of granting them a temporary reprieve, the IDF kept fighting until Hamas was utterly defeated.