Persistent Violence in Israel-Palestine Could Escalate Further
Crisis GroupMar 21, 2023
The Facts
The Jordanian parliament has voted to recommend expelling Israel’s ambassador to Amman, following controversial comments from Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich earlier this week.
Smotrich declared there is “no such thing” as Palestinians and that they are "an invention" of the past century in a speech made in France on Sunday. He made the address while standing by an expanded map of Israel that included Jordan, as well as Gaza and the occupied West Bank among its territory.
The Spin
Pro-Palestine narrative
A significant number of Jordanians are part of the Palestinian diaspora and Smotrich's inflammatory comments impact not just Palestine, but also other Arab countries. Israel's far-right government is deliberately antagonizing its neighbors which will only serve to escalate tensions and fuel conflict. The Israeli government has created a tinderbox and is now looking for ways to spark it.
Pro-Israel narrative
This is a childish game of tit-for-tat politics. Smotrich wasn't even the organizer of the event in France, nor was he the one who hung the map over the lectern. Furthermore, that map merely showed the original boundaries of the Jewish homeland as agreed upon in the San Remo Conference of April 1920. If Jordan truly had such a problem with Israel it would stop accepting support from the nation — all of this kickback is just performative rhetoric on the global stage.