President Barack Obama will fly to Saudi Arabia next month in an effort to repair a deteriorating relationship following his failure to significantly improve ties in his 2011 trip to Riyadh and in the wake of differences over relations with Egypt, Iran and Syria.

Obama will visit the Vatican on the same junket, as well as the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy.

The White House did not specifically include the Palestinian Authority as being on the agenda of issues the president will discuss with King Abdullah.

White House press secretary Jay Carney tried to make the scheduled visit seem like a routine trip, a “part of regular consultations.” He added, “The president looks forward to discussing with King Abdullah the enduring and strategic ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia as well as ongoing cooperation to advance a range of common interests related to Gulf and regional security, peace in the Middle East, countering violent extremism, and other issues of prosperity and security.”

“Peace in the Middle East” probably refers to much more violent situations than the Palestinian Authority-Israel argument, The Wall Street Journal reported. For starters, there is the Muslim civil war in Syria, with the Sunni sect, backed by Saudi Arabia, against the Iranian-backed Shi’ites.

There is not lack of work for the Obama administration if it wants to get along better with Saudi Arabia, which was extremely unhappy with President Barack Obama’s backing the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, who was replaced by a violent military regime that was succeeded by a violent Muslim Brotherhood regime, which was in turn succeeded by another violent military regime.

Saudi Arabia was upset at Obama’s appeasement of Iran and his about-face on the idea of using military force to help Syrian rebels.

The Obama administration also has lost some influence in Egypt, where Saudi Arabia has stepped in to help the current military regime deal with the crippled economy.

Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia in 2011 did little to calm the monarchy anger over the American support to get rid of Mubarak, implicitly backing Arab Spring unrest.

Obama called for changes in attitudes in the Middle East, and that is the last thing Saudi officials want to see in its own country.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu flew to Jordan Thursday morning for secret talks with Jordanian King Abdullah “on developments related to Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations under the auspices of the United State,” the kingdom’s official Petra News Agency reported.

The key part of the two-paragraph statement was its last seven words in the following sentence:

“The King’s meeting with the Israeli leader comes after his latest separate meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry…to achieve tangible progress that meets the aspirations of the Palestinian people protecting at the same time Jordan’s interests.“

“Protecting Jordan’s interests” is something that is overlooked in the giant media microscope that is focused on Jerusalem and Ramallah.

There are an estimate 2.5-3 million Palestinians in Jordan, out of a total population of barely 7 million. Making up nearly 50 percent of the country, the Palestinians are a big time bomb but also are a critical part of the country’s work force.

Even more than Israel, Jordan is better off with a powerless and useless Palestinian Authority.

Jordan has a healthy trade with Israel. Giving the Jordan Valley to Mahmoud Abbas, God forbid, could be catastrophic for Amman, politically, economically and militarily.

The king prefers Israeli forces on the border than a Palestinian Authority army standing on the banks of the Jordan River.

If King Abdullah were totally belligerent to Israel’s needs, Prime Minister Netanyahu would not have wasted time bringing up Israel’s Biblical ties with Beit El in Samaria.

Army Radio reported that the Prime Minister reminded the king that the Biblical Yaakov built an altar there after dreaming that angels were descending and descending from a ladder from heaven.

Beit El happens just happens to be located a stone’s throw, pardon the expression, from Ramallah, and the last thing  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry needs is the idea that Israel maintain a Jewish presence next door to Abbas’ offices.

Since Netanyahu reportedly brought out the Bible, he should have opened the New Testament so that King Abdullah could see for himself that despite Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon comments about Kerry, it is not written anywhere, not even in hidden clues, that Kerry is the Messiah.

There is no doubt that King Abdullah agrees.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry left the Middle East Monday after trying to shore up support from oil-rich Saudi Arabia, the real power broker in the Saudi Arabia and whose monarch, “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah,” is the one man who can order the Palestinian Authority when to jump, where to jump and how to jump.

He also made sure to hold a last-minute conversation with Israeli Opposition leader Yitzchak Herzog, chairman of the Labor party that is ready to jump into the coalition and save Prime Minister Netanyahu from new elections if and when the Jewish Home party finally has had enough of his song and dance while erasing all the red lines in talks with the Palestinian Authority.

Kerry left with his ballyhooed “framework” still stuck in his suitcase. It actually simply was another version of “guidelines,” “roadmaps” and other Foggy Bottom innovations, all of which are the same thing except for their names.

It was Saudi Arabia that came up with the 2002 “Peace Initiative” by which Israel would agree to everything that Mahmoud Abbas now is demanding in return for “normalization” of diplomatic ties with the Arab League countries.

“Normalize” does not mean diplomatic recognition. It means whatever any country wants it to mean, but the bottom line is money, meaning trade relations. It does not mean that the Israeli flag will fly in Riyadh.

Before Kerry left Saudi Arabia, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters, “His Majesty again reiterated the principles of the Arab Peace Plan and agreement (inaudible) come to respond to Palestinian national wishes to receive (inaudible) ultimately.”

In other words, he told Kerry to jump in the lake.

Kerry said, “I’m always grateful to the incredible hospitality of my friend Saud al-Faisal, whose friendship and counsel I value enormously.

“I want to thank His Majesty for not just the length of the meeting, but for the quality of the meeting, for the fullness of the exchange of ideas, and particularly for his enthusiastic support for the efforts that are being made with respect to the peace process and the effort to try to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

In other words, Kerry jumped in the lake head first.

Before doing so, he may have laid the groundwork for a brilliant diplomatic coup to grind Israel’s nose into the dirt or, more likely, to prepare the United States for an even worse debacle in the Middle East, a feat once thought as impossible.

The Saudi-based Arab World reported Monday, “Looking to ease the concerns of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, Kerry said that America’s allies could count on US support. Kerry is in Saudi Arabia on the second leg of a tour through the Middle East.”

Kerry has promised he will never sacrifice Israel’s security.

He has promised the Palestinian Authority it will have a country based on the borders that would leave Israel without security.

He has promised that Saudi Arabia, which is unhappy over President Barack Obama’s appeasement of Syria and Iran, it has its full support.

Kerry is now on his way back to Washington to look for snake oil.

Originally published at Gatestone Institute.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says that the Palestinians will not accept any Israeli presence along the border between a future Palestinian state and Jordan.

But the question is whether Jordan really wants to have Palestinians on its borders.

In private off-the-record meetings, top Jordanian officials make it crystal clear that they prefer to see Israel sitting along their shared border.

Speaking at a university graduation ceremony in Jericho, Abbas stated that the borders of the Palestinian state would stretch from the Dead Sea in the south and through the Jordan Valley all the way up to the town of Bet She’an in the north.

“This is a Palestinian-Jordanian border and that is how it will remain,” Abbas said. “The responsibility for security along the border will be in the hands of the Palestinians.”

Abbas’s remarks came in wake of leaks by Palestinian officials to the effect that at the current US-sponsored secret peace negotiations, Israel is demanding full control over the border with Jordan in any peace settlement with the Palestinians.

Israel, of course, has its own reasons for refusing to cede control over the strategic Jordan Valley.

Israel’s main concern is that the border with Jordan will be used by Palestinian terror groups and Islamist fundamentalist organizations to smuggle weapons and terrorists into the West Bank and Israel.

However, there’s another reason why Israel remains strongly opposed to surrendering control over its border with Jordan to the Palestinian Authority or a third party.

It is no secret that the Jordanians have long been worried about the repercussions of the presence of Palestinians on their border.

In a recent closed briefing with a high-ranking Jordanian security official, he was asked about the kingdom’s position regarding the possibility that Palestinians might one day replace Israel along the border with Jordan.

“May God forbid!” the official retorted. “We have repeatedly made it clear to the Israeli side that we will not agree to the presence of a third party at our border.”

The official explained that Jordan’s stance was not new. “This has been our position since 1967,” he said. “The late King Hussein made this clear to all Israeli governments and now His majesty, King Abdullah, remains committed to this position.”

Jordan’s opposition to placing the border crossings with the West Bank under Palestinian control is not only based on security concerns.

Of course, Jordan’s security concerns are not unjustified, especially in light of what has been happening over the past few years along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

The Egyptians are now paying a heavy price for neglecting their shared border with the Gaza Strip over the past few decades. This lapse has seen Sinai emerge as a hotbed for Al-Qaeda-linked terror groups that are now posing a serious threat to Egypt’s national security.

Besides the security concerns, the Jordanians are also worried about the demographic implications of Palestinian security and civilian presence over the border.

Their worst nightmare, as a veteran Jordanian diplomat once told Israeli colleagues during a private encounter, is that once the Palestinians are given control over the border, thousands of them from the future Palestinian state would pour into Jordan.

The Jordanians already have a “problem” with the fact that their kingdom’s population consists of a Palestinian majority, which some say has reached over 80%. The last thing the Jordanians want is to see hundreds of thousands of Palestinians move from the West Bank or Gaza Strip into the kingdom.

Although the Jordanians are not part of the ongoing peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, they are hoping that Israel will not rush to abandon security control over its long border with the kingdom. Understandably, the Jordanian monarchy cannot go public with its stance for fear of being accused by Arabs and Muslims of treason and collaboration with the “Zionist enemy.”

The Egyptians today know what the Jordanians have been aware of for a long time — that a shared border with Fatah or Hamas or any other Palestinian group is a recipe for instability and anarchy. The Egyptians surely miss the days when the Israel Defense Forces were sitting along the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

Jordan has condemned the plan for a new area at the Western Wall to accommodate the Women of the Wall organization’s demand for an area for them to pray in an “egalitarian” minyan in which they can wear tefillin and read from a Torah scroll. Orthodox Judaism considers women as “equal but not the same” as men, who have an obligation to wear tefillin and pray in a minyan.

Their campaign offended Haredim and many Orthodox Jews, but with broad support from the Diaspora and media outlets that love issues of quality and women’s rights without knowing what they are talking about, The Women of the Wall succeeded.

Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky, appointed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to come up with a solution for the women without causing a religious war at the Western Wall, came up with a compromise for the women to pray as they wish at the southern section of the Wall, known as the Kotel.

The WoW were not happy with the compromise, but that is another story.

More urgent, Jordan also is not happy.

The women forgot that although the Western Wall is the city of Jerusalem, totally under Israeli sovereignty, Jordan thinks differently, despite the peace treaty with Israel.

It states that Israel “respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem…. The Parties will act together to promote interfaith relations among the three monotheistic religions, with the aim of working towards religious understanding, moral commitment, freedom of religious worship, and tolerance and peace.”

Israel has recognized Jordan as the “custodian” of the Al Aqsa mosque built over the ruins of the Holy Temples.

However, Israel did not take into consideration that Yasser Arafat would start a terrorist war to declare the Jewish Quarter of the Old City the capital of a new Arab state. Nor did it take into account that his successor Mahmoud Abbas is as much too clever politician.

Earlier this year, while Israel assumed that the PA was slowing crumbling into non-existence economically and politically, Abbas’ adviser Adnan Husseini declared that the Western Wall “is part of Islamic heritage that cannot be given up, and it must be under Muslim control.”

This past March 31, Abbas and King Abdullah reached an agreement that “His Majesty King ‘Abdullah II, as the custodian of the Jerusalem holy sites, will exert all possible efforts to preserve [these] sites, especially Al-Haram Al-Sharif [The Al-Aqsa Mosque]… and to represent their interests.” The agreement states further that King ‘Abdullah is responsible for ensuring respect for the holy places, guaranteeing the Muslims’ freedom of movement to and from the sites, ensuring their maintenance and representing their interests in the international arena.”

The catch is what is a “Muslim site?”

The Arab world has spent the past few years to translate history into fiction and declare that the Western Wall is a Muslim  site. So who are these uppity Jewish women, Orthodox, Reform or otherwise, to have the chutzpa to make a change at a supposed Muslim site without consulting with the “Custodian”?

Jordanian Minister for Media Affairs, Mohammad Momani condemned Israel’s “construction of a stage in the southern part of the Buraq Square which is adjacent to Al Aqsa-Mosque’s wall,” the Petra News Agency reported Monday.

Note that the Western Wall is now “Al Aqsa Mosque’s Wall,” the one where holy Arabs claim the  holy Mohammed tied his holy horse.

“Momani, who is also government spokesman, said the move is a blatant attack on the Muslim monuments and Waqf land which is an integral part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, demanding Israeli occupation authorities to remove the stage and the damage it caused as soon as possible,” the news agency reported.

Furthermore, “The minister stressed Jordan’s stance in exerting political, diplomatic and legal efforts to protect and care for Muslim and Christian sanctities [sic] in Jerusalem.

“Momani warned of Jewish settlers and extremists’ continued call to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque under the pretext of Jewish holidays, expressing regret over Israel’s disregard of international conventions and resolutions.”

Are the Women of the Wall listening?

Jordan’s policy is “to protect and care for Muslim and Christian ‘sanctities’ in Jerusalem.”

There is one word missing: Jewish.

The Women of the Wall never even dreamed about praying at the Kotel during the Jordanian Occupation, when Jews and Christians were prohibited from visiting holy places. Jordan has made lots of progress since then.

Now it is willing to open up holy places for Christians, and the Jews can wait for the next peace treaty.

As for the Jews “storming” the Temple Mount, that is the de rigeur term now used by the Arab press when police and Muslim escort Jews to make sure they do not commit the crime of taking a prayer book with them while ascending the Temple Mount.

The Women of the Wall have not spoken out about the discrimination against Jews trying to pray on the Temple Mount.

They have said they are focused on their own self-acclaimed rights.

The Women of the Wall, most of them Americans, do not understand with whom they are dealing. Haredim are not their enemies. Judaism is not their enemy.

Their enemies are those who demand that Jews stop being Jews.

Once they understand that, perhaps King Abdullah and Abbas will understand that while can get what they want if they deal with the Israeli government, they should never test the wrath of women.

Maybe Israel should consider sending the Women of the Wall to negotiate with Abbas.

Originally published at Gatestone Institute.

The downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt has raised fears in Jordan that the Islamists may try to export their crisis to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, one of the first Arab countries to voice support for the bloodless coup that toppled the regime of Mohamed Morsi.

Although King Abdullah appears to have been relieved by the collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt, he nevertheless has good reasons to be concerned about increased attempts to undermine his monarchy.

Signs of the impending trouble awaiting King Abdullah emerged in the past few days as supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood recruited Syrian refugees in Jordan to take part in pro-Morsi rallies in Amman and other cities.

Like Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is undoubtedly hoping that Morsi’s ouster will undermine his rivals in Hamas, Jordan’s King Abdullah sees the newest revolution in Egypt as a blow to his political foes in the Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas and Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood indeed appear to have suffered a major setback as the result of the loss of their patrons in Egypt.

King Abdullah and his loyalists now apparently fear that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is currently working on a plan to stir unrest in Jordan in order to undermine, or possibly overthrow, the monarchy there in retaliation for the ouster of Morsi.

The ultimate and declared goal of the Islamists, of course, is to replace the monarchy with a radical Islamist state that would be a source of instability in the region and pose a threat to Israel, the US and moderate Arabs and Muslims.

Without massive and immediate financial and military aid from the West and oil-rich Gulf countries, Jordan will not be able to withstand the threat from the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies.

As a precautionary measure, the Jordanian authorities have strengthened security cooperation with Egypt’s General Intelligence Service and army to thwart any attempt to destabilize the kingdom’s security.

In the context of these efforts, King Abdullah this week dispatched his foreign minister, Naser Judeh, to Egypt’s capital, Cairo, for urgent talks with Egypt’s new rulers.

According to the Jordanians, Judeh travelled to Cairo to express Jordan’s support for Egypt’s “prosperity and progress.”

Judeh also delivered a letter from King Abdullah to Egyptian Interim President Adli Mansour “affirming Jordan’s support for Egypt in overcoming the circumstances it is going through and preserving its security and stability.”

In addition to increasing security and political coordination with the new rulers of Egypt, King Abdullah has also unleashed a media campaign to discredit Jordan’s Islamists.

Several Jordanian political analysts and columnists affiliated with the Hashemite monarchy have been recruited to the campaign.

One of them, Mahmoud Kraishan, wrote that Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood needs to “learn the lesson and reassess their policies.”

He also called on the Jordanian security authorities to be on alert for “opportunists and blood lovers who seek to undermine the kingdom’s stability.”

Another columnist, Samer al-Khatib, accused Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood leaders of exploiting and inciting young men against the monarchy.

“Some of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan have displayed a radical and hostile stance against the kingdom through statements based on curses, vituperation, insults and calls for jihad and killing of people,” al-Khatib wrote. “We all remember the fatwa [Islamic religious decree] issued by Sheikh Mohamed Abu Fares, who ruled that anyone killed during demonstrations held by the Muslim Brotherhood [in Jordan] is a shaheed [martyr], while those killed while confronting the protesters will go to hell.”

Many in Jordan fear that the Islamists in their country are, at the behest of their patrons in Egypt, planning violent protests that could plunge the kingdom into a state of chaos and anarchy similar to the one prevailing nowadays in the Sinai Peninsula.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has turned his schedule upside down to keep his three-ring circus from collapsing under his “peace tent” that he has weighted down with his fake smile and iron fist to save himself from looking like a diplomatic clown.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas are not so stupid as to let themselves be blamed for any failure to resume a charade of the resumption of the peace process after a hiatus of more than two years. That leaves Kerry doing cartwheels to get the monkey off his back.

Israel has insisted that there be no pre-conditions, which in today’s diplomatic acrobats would mean acceding whatever Abbas demands, such as a building freeze or accepting a future PA state on the “basis” of the old borders of Israel.

Abbas has insisted that the only thing to talk about is when Israel is ready to accept what he considers a de facto state based on all of his political and territorial demands that the United Nations General Assembly, which is in his pocket, has confirmed through a resolution that is non-binding but which gave the PA a free pass to sit on key U.N. committees such as UNESCO. Next in line is the International Court.

Kerry has brought in Jordan’s King Abdullah into the picture. He is on his knees before Washington because of the spillover of the Syrian civil war into Jordan and the kingdom’s own precarious state in the face of louder tremors from the Bedouin and non-Jordan Arabs (read: Arabs who fled from Israel.) Add to that the up and coming Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan and you come up with n explosive mixture that makes the king all the more dependent on the United States for help.

King Abdullah will do anything Kerry tells him to do, and it is in his own best interests to show himself as peacemaker by bringing the three-ring circus into his own court.

Netanyahu has two Israelis who are weighing him down. President Shimon Peres and “Minister of Peace Process” Tzipi Livni, like Kerry, have made as career out of “good will” concessions to the Palestinian Authority.

It is anyone’s guess what will come out of all this, but after wading through all of the trial balloons and media manipulation by the actors, Kerry clearly will be a lot less effective in other parts of the world if he is seen as a failure in the Middle East and cannot pin the blame on Abbas or Netanyahu for failing to resume direct talks.

The worst-case scenario for Kerry, if he cannot pull off a four-way stage show now, probably will be an agreement to continue talk about continuing to agree to talk about an agreement.

The circus must go on.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry may or may come up with results in his peace process trip to the region, but at least he will have a full stomach.

He ate and talked with Jordan’s King Abdullah in Amman Thursday afternoon before flying to Jerusalem, where he and the Prime Minister will dine at 8:30 p.m. Israeli time (1:30 p.m. EDT).

The Secretary of State will meet with chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Friday in Jordan, presumably over lunch or dinner, and is scheduled to meet again with the Prime Minister Saturday night, where he hopefully will get his just desserts.