Several Jordanian businessmen are now visiting the West Bank and East Jerusalem, presumably in connection with expanding the brisk two-way trade between the occupied areas and Jordan, which both Israel and Jordan continue officially to ignore.
The trade continues to grow and both countries avoid hampering it because it is to the benefit of both but again this week a Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesman claimed the flourishing commercial exchanges were “unofficial” and stemming from the ability of Jordanian drivers to “bribe” Israeli guards at the Jordan River crossings where the two-way traffic flows.
Apparently in line with maintenance of the fiction, Israeli military government sources acknowledged today the visits of the Jordanian businessmen but said the visits were “private.”
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