Middle East Monitor / April 5, 2021
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was aware of the security unrest in Jordan and the arrests campaign against senior officials including former Crown Prince Hamzah bin Hussein the minute they happened, Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported on Sunday.
An Arab affairs analyst at the paper, Smadar Perry said Netanyahu and others have been very familiar with the events taking place in Jordan over the past few weeks, which explains why King Abdullah II of Jordan has been very keen to prevent Netanyahu from using the Jordanian airspace to travel to the Gulf region.
According to Perry, it is clear that Amman has suspicions regarding Netanyahu who made it clear that he would be very happy to get rid of Abdullah, and see another Jordanian ruler take his place; either another member of the royal family or from the army.
She added that the Jordanian royal court suspects that Netanyahu did not even bother to conceal his preference and shared it with his new friends in the Gulf.
The report noted that despite the political estrangement between Amman and Tel Aviv and the personal anger that King Abdullah II has shown towards Netanyahu, two years ago, the Jordanian king has ensured that his army officers conveyed messages of assurances to their Israeli counterparts that “things are under control”.
“In simple words, even if they in the Mossad and the Israeli Military Intelligence Division’s mission have rushed to inform Netanyahu of what is happening behind the scenes in the kingdom while it is happening, Abdullah no longer trusts anyone; not the Israeli prime minister, nor his Arab neighbours and, as it turns out, not even his siblings in the royal family,” she added.
Perry believed the Jordanian royal family has deliberately issued inaccurate news reports about the arrests and the identity of the suspects in order “to keep its followers in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf in semi-darkness,” adding that despite that there is no doubt that in each of those countries including in Israel, there is a special envoy who is close to the events in Amman and who reports back to his country.
