In 1973, the Jordanian monarchy made an important step toward peace when it decided to sit out yet another Egyptian-Syrian attack on the Jewish state, and instead tried to warn it of the coming war. While Amman and Jerusalem formally made peace in 1996, and the two countries have common interests and cooperate closely when it comes to security, the Jordanian press and public remain hostile to Jews and Israel and commerce is limited. Ben Fishman argues that the move toward better relations between Israel and the Arab world can be an opportunity to improve this situation, along with Jordan’s flailing economy:

While many in the West seem to think the current fighting in Israel is about housing policy, or human rights, or the selective blockade of the Gaza Strip, the rhetoric of Palestinian leaders and on Palestinian social media makes clear that it is in fact about al-Aqsa mosque. This should come as no surprise: fabricated claims that “al-Aqsa is in danger” have been used to provoke anti-Jewish violence for a hundred years. In this particular case, explains Haviv Rettig Gur, both Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party exploited the claim in their rivalry for Palestinian hearts and minds: