LONDON, Feb. 11 (JTA) — One of the first acts of Jordan’s King Abdullah will be to authorize the resumption of strategic cooperation with Israel, including the restoration of full-scale intelligence cooperation, according to well-placed sources in Amman quoted by the Foreign Report newsletter. This is expected to lead to the reopening of an Israeli intelligence station in Amman — described as a “gold mine” for officials with Mossad, the Jewish state’s foreign intelligence agency. Abdullah is also reported to be ready to renew strategic understandings, such as the late King Hussein’s secret agreement during the 1991 Gulf War granting the Israeli air force the right to fly over Jordan, if necessary, en route to Iraq. In exchange, Israel will provide a written commitment not to conduct any operations in Jordan, such as the botched Mossad attempt in September 1997 to assassinate Hamas official Khaled Mashaal in Amman — a move that prompted Hussein to shut down the Mossad station. The London-based newsletter reported this week that Mossad head Efraim Halevy met his Jordanian counterpart, Samikh Batikhi, after Hussein’s funeral on Monday and that they agreed to hold further talks. It also reported that the resumption of deep strategic cooperation is the result of past secret contacts between King Abdullah, then a major general commanding Jordan’s Special Forces, and former Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, now a candidate for prime minister in Israel’s May elections. According to the newsletter, Mordechai delivered a favorable report after secretly visiting Amman at the request of Hussein to observe the training of Jordan’s special forces units and to assess Abdullah’s military abilities. Abdullah made a reciprocal secret visit to Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv as Mordechai’s guest last year, before his father’s health deteriorated, and later urged his father to reinstate the special strategic relationship with Israel. “Now that Abdullah is king,” said the newsletter, “he will do this himself.” It is also expected that Turkey will tie itself more closely to the Israeli-Jordanian strategic understanding through three-way, counter-terrorism exercises and the assignment of Turkish liaison officers to join their Israeli and Jordanian counterparts.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
