Israel's new coalition shows kindness to enemies and cruelty to its own
The Knesset rejected a measure to compensate families who lost loved ones in Meron on Lag B’omer. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made a cameo appearance on the Knesset floor to vote no. Hoots of derision rained down on him from opposition MKs as he hastily headed for the nearest exit like a panicky driver fleeing the scene of a hit-and-run accident.
Bennett can be generous when he deems the cause to be worthy. A week earlier, he promised Jordan’s King Abdullah to boost the quantities of water Israel supplies to its arid eastern neighbor under the terms of the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty.
The Knesset’s no vote on Meron aid isn’t the last word. It will pass, eventually, in some form. And technically, Jordan isn’t Israel’s enemy, because of the treaty. However, Jordan still behaves in a two-faced fashion in its dealings with Israel. Publicly, it treats Israel as a pariah state. Privately, it acts rationally, as the Hashemite kingdom that rules Jordan wouldn’t last longer than the Six Day War without Israeli political and military backing.
Israel is not the root cause of Jordan’s chronic water shortages, nor can Israel singlehandedly provide the cure. Jordan has been flooded with almost five million refugees — more than 80 percent of them fleeing from conflicts such as the 1991 Gulf War, America’s invasion of Iraq, and the last decade of civil war in Syria. This influx has doubled Jordan’s population, further straining infrastructure already plagued with leaky pipes, water theft, and faulty water management. The government allocates some 60 percent of Jordan’s water to agriculture, which contributes a mere 3 percent to Jordan’s GDP.
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