The Washington Post - 12.11.2019

A14 EZ SU the washington post.tuesday, november 12 , 2019

BY STEVE HENDRIX,

TAYLOR LUCK

AND RUTH EGLASH

ISRAEL-JORDAN BORDER —

Shay Haddar has always had easy

access to Naharayim, a hilly strip

of land between the Jordan and

Yarmouk rivers that belongs to

Jordan but, by both custom and

treaty, has been used by Israelis

for decades.

Haddar swam here as a child

and in recent years even had his

own key to the border gate that

allows farmers and tourists to

enter what came to be known in

both countries as the “Island of

Peace.”

But on Monday there was a

new lock on the gate, put there

the day before by the Jordanian

army. After granting Israel access

to the land as part of the 1994

peace treaty, Jordan declined to

renew the agreement. The move,

allowed under terms of the trea-

ty, is the latest sign of the ongoing

friction between the two coun-

tries and the end of a long

tradition of local cross-border

openness.

“We’ve been good neighbors to

each other,” s aid Haddar, shaking

the massive lock and looking

through the fence at the slopes

and waterfalls that days earlier

had accounted for 80 percent of

the tourism business of the kib-

butz where he works. “We’re just

the little people who always pay

the price.”

Jordan announced a year ago

its intention to end Israel’s use of

Naharayim, located just below

the Sea of Galilee, as well as

Tz ofar, another strip of border-

land south of the Dead Sea.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu dismissed concerns

about the move, saying relations

between the two countries re-

mained strong.

B ut little progress has oc-

curred since, as Israel has strug-

gled through two inconclusive

elections and a year of political

gridlock. A regional official at

Tz ofar told local media the loss of

the cropland would be a “death

sentence” for 35 area farmers.

Residents at Naharayim com-

plained they have almost no

communication with the Israeli

government about the fate of the

lands. Haddar said he only

learned the agreement would

formally end from a Jordanian

border guard.

Netanyahu’s office declined to

respond to a request for com-

ment.

Analysts in Amman described

Jordan’s action as a populist

move at a time of mounting

tension with Israel on issues

ranging from the economic to the

ideological.

Cooperation has stopped on

key water projects, including a

canal that was to resupply a

dwindling Dead Sea. Israel has

restricted the import of Jordani-

an goods into the West Bank, a

substantial market next door.

Jordan recently recalled its am-

bassador over the detention of

two young Jordanians on suspi-

cion of working with militant

groups on a visit to the West

Bank.

Although of little strategic val-

ue, the farming areas of Baqoura

and Al Ghamr, as they are known

in Arabic, have become a symbol

of unfulfilled hope and rising

frustrations with Israel, particu-

larly the 25-year-old treaty that

many Jordanians and Israelis say

has brought little more than a

“cold peace.”

“Not allowing Israel to contin-

ue to utilize the two pieces of

land or doing Netanyahu any

favors was not only logical, but

became an urgent public de-

mand,” s aid Jawad Anani, former

director of the royal court and a

lead negotiator for the 1994 Jor-

dan-Israel peace treaty.

On Sunday, with the front

pages of Jordan’s f our d aily news-

papers trumpeting “Jordanian

sovereignty restored,” King Ab-

dullah II announced the final

decision in his televised speech

opening parliament.

“Today, I announce the expira-

tion of the peace treaty annexes

of Al Ghamr and Baqoura and the

imposition of our f ull sovereignty

over every inch of those lands,”

the king said, sparking a stand-

ing ovation.

More than politics, some insist

the move is also personal. Abdul-

lah reportedly does not get on

well with Netanyahu, who he

views with suspicion and report-

edly blames for torpedoing the

entire peace process, the legacy

of his father, the late King Hus-

sein.

“There is no chemistry,” one

former official said, while anoth-

er close to the palace likened

Abdullah and Netanyahu, whose

personal relationship goes back

to the 1990s, as “frenemies with-

out the friendship.”

I srael has been largely silent

on Jordan’s d ecision. The Foreign

Ministry on Sunday released a

short statement expressing re-

gret about the move but saying

Amman had agreed to let farm-

ers harvest their remaining

wheat and other crops. Jordan

said it would “respect private

property rights” but Israelis

would need to obtain visas to

enter the area.

Scholars say carving out access

to the two lands happened at all

because of the personal relation-

ship between then-King Hussein

and then-Prime Minister Yitzhak

Rabin, who negotiated the 1994

treaty. There is no such comity

between the country’s leaders

now, analysts say. Netanyahu and

Abdullah have reportedly not

met face-to-face since June 2018.

“This is certainly one of the

lowest points that I can remem-

ber in Israel-Jordanian rela-

tions,” said Oded Eran, a former

Israeli ambassador to Jordan and

senior researcher at the Institute

for National Security Studies.

“The major problem is that there

is no dialogue between the num-

ber one on the Jordanian side

and the number one on the

Israeli side.”

The plots have had a mixed

record as a place of peace since

they were established by the

treaty. For Israelis, both pieces of

land were initially seen as a

symbol of the newly established

friendship between the former

enemy states. The area in the

south saw gatherings of Israeli

scouts waiting to meet with their

Jordanian counterparts.

But in 1997, Naharayim be-

came the site of a deadly terrorist

attack when a Jordanian soldier

opened fire on a group of Israeli

schoolgirls. Seven students were

killed, prompting Hussein to

make an unprecedented trip to

Israel to visit the home of each

victim. The soldier s pent 20 years

in prison but was released after

Jordanian lawmakers petitioned

on his behalf.

In the years since, the area has

become popular for tourists, with

walking tours, visits to waterfalls

and riverbank picnics. Haddar,

who managed the program until

its abrupt end, was in near daily

contact with the Jordanian

guards who controlled access. He

would tell them how many buses,

trucks and tractors needed to

enter, seldom with any complica-

tions, he said.

When it became clear his ac-

cess to the land was going to end,

he had an emotional goodbye

with the Jordanian guards he

had grown close to, hugging and

kissing them goodbye.

“In Arabic, they say ‘Inshallah,’

God willing,” Haddar said. “We

said ‘Inshallah, it will all work

out for us.”

[email protected]

[email protected]

Luck reported from Amman, Jordan,

and Eglash from Jerusalem.

Jordan declines to renew Israel’s

access to ‘Island of Peace’ in ’94 treaty

BY CHICO HARLAN

AND PAMELA ROLFE

At the start of this year, Spain

was thought to be Europe’s politi-

cal o utlier — a country immune to

the a dvances of the far right.

But after the Vox party cracked

open the door to parliament in

April and came i n third in national

elections on Sunday, Spain can be

singled out for something else:

Among major European coun-

tries, it is where the far right is

gaining ground m ost quickly.

“You have been the stars of the

greatest, most dazzling political

act in Spanish democracy,” jubi-

lant Vox leader Santiago Abascal

told voters after his party won 15

percent of the s eats, t he b est show-

ing for the far right since Spain’s

transition from d ictatorship i n the

1970 s.

The Socialist party claimed the

most votes in Sunday’s elections —

but there was no obvious path for

any party on the left or right to

easily form a government in

Spain’s f ragmented s ystem.

The Socialists, led by acting

prime minister Pedro Sánchez,

won 120 of 350 seats in the Con-

gress of Deputies. T he center-right

Popular Party, which has been

plagued by corruption scandals,

came in second with 88 seats. And

Vox finished with 52, compared

with 24 s eats in elections in April.

Even as the results promised to

continue Spain’s months-long po-

litical deadlock, they jettisoned

long-held conventional wisdom

about Spanish politics — that

memory of Francisco Franco’s d ic-

tatorship would limit the appeal

of the extreme right.

Experts say Vox has succeeded

in positioning itself as the defend-

er of the country’s unity — coun-

tering the separatist push in Cata-

lonia, a volatile crisis that main-

stream parties have been unable

to resolve.

Vox has also drawn some sup-

port because o f a modest b acklash

over immigration and cultural is-

sues. The party is stridently anti-

Muslim and takes a harsh stance

against f eminism and g ay r ights.

It has mirrored an aspect of

President Trump’s playbook, call-

ing for better fortifications of

Spanish autonomous zones in

North Africa. And some of its im-

migration rhetoric resembles that

of other nationalist parties across

Europe.

Two of Europe’s highest-profile

far-right leaders, Italy’s Matteo

Salvini and France’s Marine Le

Pen, congratulated Vox on Twitter

for i ts e lection p erformance.

But, above all, Vox’s emergence

has been based on a distinctly

Spanish issue.

“Vox i s mainly linked to specific

factors dealing with the Catalan

conflict, and that makes Vox a bit

of a different party compared to

others on the radical right,” said

Juan Rodríguez Te ruel, an associ-

ate professor o f political science at

the University of Valencia.

Te ruel said that Spain is still

largely a culturally liberal and p ro-

immigrant society and that for

Vox to make inroads on issues

beyond Catalonia, it will have to

use i ts higher profile t o more wide-

ly spread “illiberal views among

Spanish people.”

While Spanish prime ministers

on the right and left have tried to

push back against the pro-inde-

pendence movement, Vox politi-

cians have argued the country

hasn’t used its full powers to deal

with the separatist threat. In the

weeks before the elections, pro-

testers in Catalonia were back on

the streets, with sometimes-vio-

lent protests — images that were

widely shared a mong S panish far-

right voters on s ocial media.

“There is a sense of impotence”

about Catalonia, said Charles

Powell, director of the Madrid-

based Elcano Royal Institute, an

international relations think tank.

“The TV f ootage e veryone s aw, the

violence on the streets of Barcelo-

na, with young [people] beating

up the police — that really had a

big i mpact.”

In the run-up to the vote, Vox

leader Abascal said he wanted Cat-

alan’s regional president, Quim

To rra, arrested for affiliation with

“terrorist” groups causing violent

unrest. He said Catalonia should

be stripped o f its existing d egree of

autonomy. During a debate, Abas-

cal mentioned the “wasteful

spending” o n autonomous region-

al governments, quoting figures

for the cost that Madrid’s El Pais

newspaper called “questionable”

and suggesting that spending

jeopardized pensions. No other

party l eaders c hallenged A bascal’s

claims.

A former councilman for

Spain’s c enter-right Popular Party,

Abascal broke away to found Vox

in 2014.

Hailing from northern Spain’s

formerly restive Basque region,

Abascal was raised in a political

family threatened by the armed

separatist group ETA, which

killed more than 800 people —

including judges, journalists and

politicians — in its campaign for

independence. A bascal reportedly

watched his father, a councilman

from the center-right Popular Par-

ty, deal w ith d eath threats. A bascal

went into politics at 18 and was

forced to have constant body-

guards.

On Sunday night, supporters

chanted and sang songs from the

early ’70s outside Vox headquar-

ters in Madrid until Abascal ap-

peared on a platform to address

the c rowd.

“We haven’t just altered the po-

litical m ap of Spain,” Abascal said.

“We have told the left that the

story isn’t o ver, and that they don’t

have moral superiority. We have

the same right as they do to be

represented without being stig-

matized like they are doing in the

media. We have contributed to

perfecting Spanish d emocracy.”

[email protected]

Harlan reported from Rome and Rolfe

from Madrid.

Vox party’s third-place finish shows

the far right’s momentum in Spain

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