The Jordanian Armed Forces held a wide-scale military drill in which an attack was simulated against ‘territory to the west.’
Even though the “Swords of Karama” exercise did not explicitly specify who its so-called “enemy from the west” was, it should be noted that the Hashemite Kingdom’s western frontier is adjacent to the State of Israel.
King Abdullah II was joined by Prime Minister Omar Razza and other senior officials in observing the drill, during which the Elite Royal Guard’s 1st Mechanized Battalion of the Jordanian Central Command conducted maneuvers including a defensive battle. Numerous fighter aircraft participated in the simulated destruction of the enemy’s vanguard and bridges along the Jordan River which could be used as crossing-points from Israel’s West Bank into the Hashemite Kingdom’s East Bank.
It is important to mention the Jordanian exercise came just two weeks after Jerusalem returned two border enclaves to Amman, 20 years after the signing of the historic peace treaty between the two neighboring countries. After the somewhat unexpected move, King Abdullah reportedly disclosed that his Kingdom’s bilateral relations with Israel have sunk to their “worst state” in years, apparently resulting from the perception that Jerusalem has essentially been paralyzed by ongoing domestic political turmoil.
During an address to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in New York, the Jordanian monarch nevertheless underscored that he is not ready to abandon the peace agreement achieved by his father, the late King Hussein and Israeli late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, he characterized as “a symbol of hope and opportunity for Palestinians, Jordanians and Israelis.”