Why has Jordan cancelled Biden's visit after the Israel bombing of Gaza hospital?

US President Joe Biden's visit to Jordan on Wednesday was meant to highlight his Middle East visit, allowing him to meet a range of Arab leaders as Israel continued to bomb the Gaza strip.

However after Israel's air strike destroyed the Al-Ahli Arab hospital, killing at least 500 people and sparking global outrage, the summit was cancelled, reports Al Jazeera.

Jordan and Israel have a complex relationship that began during Israel's founding, having spent decades at war while keeping communication channels open. 

Despite the signing of a peace treaty in 1994, their relationship has always been uneasy due to the shadow of Palestine's struggles.

Turning back the decades

In 1948, 700,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their lands by Jewish militias and Israeli forces, an event remembered as the Nakba, or "catastrophe" in Arabic.

That same year the United Nations planned to partition Palestinian land after the British mandate ended. In response a coalition of Arab states which included Jordan began to wage war against Israel to regain Palestines lost territory.

Jordan controlled East Jerusalem and the West Bank when the armistice between Israel and the Arab coalition was recognised.

Jordan was also a key participant in the Six-Day War in 1967.

The war ended in a major Israeli victory, and Jordan lost control of both East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Despite this Jordan became the second Arab country after Egypt to sign a peace treaty with Israel 1994.

How did the treaty change things?

The Oslo Accords of 1993 and the resulting establishment of the Palestinian Authority provided the impetus for the peace treaty.

The treaty increased cooperation between Jordan and Israel, giving rise to several economic projects like so-called Qualifying Industrial Zones in Jordan. This eventually evolved into a free trade agreement between Jordan and the United States.

It also resulted in an agreement between Jordan and Israel to help with Jordans considerable water problems, committing Israel to share water. In 2014 another deal was signed for Israel to provide gas to Jordan for a 15 year period.

Ebb and flow of relations

Through all of this however the issue of the Palestinians was not resolved, with multiple incidents cooling relations.

In 1997 7 Israeli schoolgirls were killed when a Jordanian soldier opened fire on their group, and Mossad agents sent to assassinate the then political leader of Hamas, Khaled Mashal, being captured in the process.

In 2017 a 17-year-old Palestinian stabbed an off-duty security guard at the Israeli Embassy in Jordan, in response the guard shot and killed the aggressor and another man. 

When the guard returned to Israel he was hailed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Jordan's King Abdullah II said in 2019 that relations with Israel were "at an all-time low".

Relations appeared to improve since, with several top-level meetings.

This is likely to reverse with Israel's war on Gaza.

Jordan as custodian of Al-Aqsa

The Hashemite royal family of Jordan, which has ruled the country since 1921, has also served as the custodian of Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque for nearly a century.

In 1924, the Supreme Muslim Council, which was the highest authority of Muslim community affairs in Palestine at the time, chose a member of the Hashemite dynasty as the custodian of the mosque.

Al-Aqsa is among Islam's holiest sites and one of the oldest surviving examples of Islamic architecture.

It has been renovated several times by the Jordanian royal family in the past century.

Jordan's concerns today

Yet today, Jordan also has more practical challenges too, as Israel's war on Gaza intensifies.

Jordan is reliant on its water agreements with Israel. Its relations with Israel and the US serve as a boost to its economy, which suffered a blow because of its dependence on tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Jordan cannot afford to see the war escalate.

It has condemned Israel's bombing of Gaza and the serious humanitarian concerns that have arisen as a result of it, consistent with its advocacy for the resolution of the Palestinian issue.

Already host to millions of migrants from Palestine, Syria and Iraq, Jordan is also highly wary of a new influx of Palestinian refugees, who have historically been driven out of their homelands by Israel to never be able to return.

Jordan has insisted that Palestinians need to remain in their homeland if they are to form a state of their own in the future.