
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon on Friday met with King Abdullah of Jordan, during the security conference in Munich.
A statement released by Ya’alon’s office said that during the meeting the two discussed the bilateral relations between the two countries, recent developments in the region and the prospects of promoting the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.
Jordan’s state news agency Petra reported on the meeting as well, noting the King’s talks with Ya’alon “focused on ways to breathe life into the peace process between the Palestinians and the Israelis.”
The Walla! Hebrew-language news website noted that the meeting between King Abdullah and Ya’alon mark the first time that a senior Israeli official has met the Jordanian monarch since the fall of 2014, when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited Amman.
The King also addressed the Munich conference on Friday, where he linked between the “two-state solution” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group.
“The community of nations cannot talk about universal rights and global justice, but continue to deny statehood to Palestinians!” the King said, according to a transcript of his speech provided by the Petra news agency.
“This failure has created a festering injustice, and continues to be exploited by Daesh and its kind,” he continued, using the Arabic name for ISIS.
“Our whole world has paid the price. Left unresolved, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will become a religious conflict of a global dimension. And it is only a matter of time before we may be faced by yet another war in Gaza or in South Lebanon. This is why reaching a two-state solution should remain a priority for us all,” said the King.
Israel and Jordan enjoy a peace treaty signed in 1994 between King Hussein, the father of Abdullah, and then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. But there has been tension between the countries in recent months, mainly over the Temple Mount, which the Jordanian Waqf oversees as part of an agreement reached between the sides following the 1967 Six Day War.
Israel and Jordan reached agreements a few months ago regarding the state of the Temple Mount, whereby the “status quo” in which Jewish prayer is banned but Muslim prayer is allowed will remain in force.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)