Jordan’s King Meets Zionist PM Netanyahu in Amman
AMMAN (Dispatches) – Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday hosted Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Amman in a rare meeting after years of strained relations between the two.
The royal palace said they discussed the situation in Al-Quds’ Al-Aqsa mosque compound and “the importance of respecting the historical and legal status quo”.
Netanyahu, who previously served as prime minister from 2009 to 2021, returned to power last month at the head of a coalition that includes extreme-right and ultra-Orthodox parties.
Netanyahu’s office said the Zionist premier discussed “regional issues” and bilateral ties with the Jordanian king.
The two last met in Jordan in 2018.
Tuesday’s visit to Amman was Netanyahu’s first official trip abroad since taking office.
The prime minister was joined by strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer and Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet domestic spy agency, as well as adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and Netanyahu’s military secretary Avi Gil, an Israeli official said.
Zionist Minister Visits UAE
Meanwhile, Israeli media reports say Ron Dermer has made a secret trip to the United Arab Emirates ahead of a possible visit to the Persian Gulf state by Netanyahu.
Dermer travelled on Sunday to Abu Dhabi, where he met senior officials, the Israeli news website Walla reported on Monday.
Alongside Dermer was Hanegbi.
The trip would be the first by a Zionist minister to the UAE since the new cabinet of the occupying regime came into power at the end of December.
Netanyahu had been expected to make a visit to the UAE shortly after he returned to the premiership, but the entrance of his provocative right-wing minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in January led to the cancellation of the UAE trip, according to Israeli media outlets.
The UAE issued a public condemnation of Ben-Gvir’s actions at the time.
On his trip to the UAE, Dermer tried to allay some of the concerns regarding Ben-Gvir and other far-right members of the Zionist regime cabinet, according to the reports.
The occupying regime and the UAE normalized ties in 2020 under the United States-brokered Abraham Accords and have since strengthened their relations, including by signing a free trade agreement in May.
Dermer served as the regime’s ambassador to the U.S. when the accords were signed.
Naftali Bennett, a right-wing politician who succeeded Netanyahu as prime minister in 2021, became the first Zionist leader to make a state visit to the UAE in December of the same year before visiting again for talks in June last year.
The UAE lies at the center of the regime’s strategy of normalizing ties with Arab governments despite its continued occupation of Palestinian territory and near-daily raids in the occupied West Bank, which have already killed 17 Palestinians this month.