“Bitter friends and good enemies” is how a seasoned former Jordanian official once described the relationship between Jordan and Israel to Al-Monitor. After a tumultuous 2017, the Israeli government finally offered Jordan a formal “apology” Jan. 18 for the July 23 killing of two Jordanians by an Israeli Embassy security guard in Amman and the gunning down of a Jordanian judge who was crossing into the West Bank on March 10, 2014. The apology ostensibly closed the chapter on the worst crisis to hit the two countries' relations since they signed a peace treaty in 1994.
Mohammad al-Momani, a Jordanian government spokesman and the minister of state for media affairs, said in a Jan. 18 statement that the Foreign Ministry had received an official memo from its Israeli counterpart. He said, “The Israeli government expressed its apology and deep regrets regarding the Israeli Embassy incident in July last year, resulting in the martyrdom of two Jordanian citizens, and also regarding the incident of killing Judge Raed Zuaiter.” Momani said the Israeli government had accepted, as indicated in its letter, all the conditions set by Jordan to permit the return of Israel's ambassador to Amman.
