Inside the new Arab-Israeli alliance

As Jordanian fighter jets shot down Iranian drones heading for Israel on Saturday night, there were joyful cries of Allahu Akbar on the ground as some people lent out of their windows to cheer the drones they thought were getting through. King Abdullah II was depicted on social media wearing an Israeli military uniform complete with the Star of David and he must dearly wish that Israelis would shut up about their ‘new strategic alliance’ with old enemies like Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Jordan’s foreign minister was forced into an unconvincing declaration that they would shoot down anyone’s drones, not just Iran’s. Yet, the important fact remains: this is the first time, as far as anyone can remember, that Jordan’s armed forces have fought to defend Israel. It’s a new Middle East. 

The new Middle East – the tentative alliance between Israel and the most important Arab states – has endured despite six months of Arab audiences being saturated with pictures of Palestinian children in Gaza torn apart by bombs or, lately, emaciated from hunger. The Arab street is unhappy but it has not exploded. A friend in the Jordanian capital, Amman, sat up all night on Saturday listening to the whoosh of missiles and the roar of jets overhead. He emerged from his apartment to find that most of his neighbours supported what the Royal Jordanian Air Force had done on the king’s orders: ‘If you invade our airspace, we will shoot you down.’ He lives in a smart neighbourhood of Amman but he thought the rest of the country agreed, albeit by a thin majority as two-thirds of Jordanians are of Palestinian descent. Still, he expects the king’s support to hold up even if Israel bombs Iran.