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New Israeli government on mission to rehabilitate ties with Jordan

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid are working to rehabilitate the bilateral ties with Jordan after the setbacks to the relationship under former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu left no shortage of hot potatoes on his desk. Some are political time bombs that are still ticking, such as the deeply rooted enmity between Israel and Jordan.

The importance of the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace agreement for Israel’s national security cannot be overstated. The same goes for Jordan, which depends on Israel in many significant aspects, such as the 50 million cubic meters of Sea of Galilee water that Israel provides Jordan annually, as well as intelligence, military and economic cooperation. Analysts have long contended that Israeli power is practically the only deterrence to efforts by dangerous waves of radicals, such as the Islamic State group, Iranian militias or other subversive elements to unseat and expel the Hashemite family and establish a de facto Palestinian state in Jordan.

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