Jordan's Abdullah Protests Security Clauses In 'Peace Plan' - Invokes 1994 Peace Treaty With Israel

Jordan's King Abdullah is definitely someone worth watching these days. Not only is Jordan now a member of the UN Security Council but King Abdullah has become more and more involved in this so-called "peace process". Now this:

Jordan Invokes 1994 Peace Treaty With Israel For A Say In Kerry's Jordan Valley Security And Jerusalem Plans

While batting back Israel’s complaints over references to anti-Israel boycotts in relation to peacemaking with the Palestinians, US Secretary of State John Kerry has again bumped his head against another piece of Middle East history: The 1994 Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty.

...King Abdullah II filed a strong protest with Kerry against the failure of the security-political clauses in his framework accord to address issues involving the Hashemite Kingdom’s political future and security. Above all, he castigated the plan for failing to factor in past treaties concluded between Jordan and Israel with US encouragement.

Kerry has responded by ordering a reassessment of the security blueprint drawn by US Gen. Jon Allen, former NATO commander in Afghanistan, with the assistance of a team of 90 US intelligence and security experts working out of Washington and Israel.

Israel emphatically objects to withdrawing its troops from this strategic valley on its eastern border or evacuating its settlements there, on the grounds that without its own military manpower on the ground, even the most sophisticated instruments of surveillance would not be proof against terrorist incursions to the West Bank and Israel itself.

This danger has become more acute since the jihadst Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) seized territory in western Iraq, especially in consideration of the offshoots these jihadists maintain in the Hashemite Kingdom.

Therefore, Israel was not alone in vehemently ruling out the Allen plan. It is now joined by Jordan. The latter’s objections focus on four points:

1. The proposed electronic surveillance system along its Western border would expose the entire Kingdom of Jordan to US surveillance. The same argument would apply to the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’s latest proposal for the deployment of NATO forces.

2.  On no account does Amman want to see Palestinian forces of any kind strung along the Jordan River border. This objection was underscored in a series of messages to Washington.

3.  Another issue is the US approach to the Jerusalem question, which ignores Jordan’s status with regard to the Holy Places, especially Temple Mount.

The monarch drew Kerry’s attention to the peace treaty signed in 1994 between his father, the late King Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister, the late Yitzhak Rabin, which formally recognized Jordan’s special status on Temple Mount.

In 2013, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas signed an understanding with Amman acknowledging that special status. Since then, the kingdom has covered the payroll of the Palestinian bodies and Waqf authority responsible for the administration and maintenance of Muslim mosques on a site which is sacred to Jews and Christians as well as being the second most important Muslim shrine after Mecca.
King Abdullah is demanding the enshrinement and incorporation of these two documents in all the proposals the US Secretary puts before Israel and the Palestinians.

4.  He further emphasizes that any solution of the Palestinian refugee problem – however minimal – must not overlook the large Palestinian refugee community living in Jordan – which has grown to an estimated 2 million, out of the kingdom’s total population of 7 million.