“Our message to Iran is that your problem is with Israel and any attempt to insult Jordan is unacceptable and categorically rejected,” Safadi told the state-owned Mamlaka (Kingdom) TV on Sunday.

But he had equally tough words for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who he accused of attacking Iran’s consulate in Syria on April 1 to provoke confrontation with Tehran, distract the world and alleviate the pressure he’s come under from Washington to end the war in Gaza.

“The root cause of tension in the region is Israel’s aggression in Gaza and the measures it has taken to kill the chances for peace,” he said.

Speaking to U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday, King Abdullah warned that any Israeli retaliation to Iran’s missile and drone attacks will expand the conflict in the region. “Jordan will not allow for a regional war to unfold on its land,” the king said in a statement.

Gaza War

Amman’s balancing act has grown increasingly precarious as the war in Gaza has entered its seventh month. Authorities have allowed almost daily protests outside the Israeli Embassy and have not permitted the Israeli ambassador to return since November, but have resisted popular demands that it sever ties with Israel completely.

Jordan is dependent on billions of dollars of aid from the U.S. and the European Union and enjoys longstanding and deep military and security cooperation with the West, limiting its ability to distance itself from the Jewish state.

“Jordan’s economy runs on life support from external donors,” said Ziad Daoud, Chief Emerging Markets Economist at Bloomberg Economics. In addition to almost continuous aid from the International Monetary Fund since 1989 and $1.45 billion a year in U.S. assistance, the country is the third-largest recipient of support from oil-rich Gulf states.

Jordan faces a similar dilemma when it comes to Iran. While the kingdom was one of the first Arab countries to warn about what it called Iran’s expansionist agenda in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, it has tried to maintain diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic.

But the growing power of Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria and their involvement in the smuggling drugs and weapons to and through Jordan prompted the king to declare in July that his country was “confronting systematic attacks at its borders” by these groups.

And now several current and former Jordanian officials fear Iran and its allies, including Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union, are using the war in Gaza to destabilize Jordan and further their agendas.

“The ongoing war in Gaza has been an opportunity for different attempts to infiltrate the Jordanian space,” said Samih al-Mayateh, Jordan’s former information minister.

—With assistance from Alisa Odenheimer.

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