After U.S. President Donald Trump used his speech to talk about the United States and the achievements of his administration, His Majesty King Abdullah chose to dedicate the largest part of his speech to Palestine, using the most important international platform to defend the rights of its people, in a language that reflected clear anger at the situation and confirmed the centrality of the Palestinian issue in Jordanian foreign policy.
His Majesty wisely chose 'attention' as the introduction to his speech, indicating that international issues do not always recede because they have been solved, but because they lose the interest of influential powers. This is what has happened to the Palestinian issue over decades of managing the conflict instead of resolving it, until the world began to treat settlement, displacement, and checkpoints as recurring facts, not violations that require an active international stance.
From a legal perspective, the royal speech carried a message that goes beyond demanding respect for international law to holding enforcement mechanisms accountable. The crisis is not in the absence of rules prohibiting occupation, displacement, and land seizure, but in the gap between their existence and application. Hence, His Majesty's reference to pressure tools, such as freezing assets, sanctions, and diplomatic isolation, raised the issue of equality in the enforcement of international law; the law loses some of its authority when its effectiveness is determined by the identity of the offending state rather than the nature of the offense itself.
One of the strongest messages of the speech is that the problem is not in the availability of accountability mechanisms, but in the selectivity in activating them. When sanctions are imposed in international crises and then disappear when it comes to Israel, the issue goes beyond political inaction to the credibility of the international system and the principle of equality in the application of its rules.
Deeper in this argument, His Majesty shifted the responsibility of the international community from the circle of incapacity to choice, considering global political inaction not a result of a lack of options, but an 'option' in itself. Countries that possess means of pressure and refrain from using them cannot take refuge in the inability to influence, making the satisfaction with condemning violations without action a political stance with its consequences.
Perhaps one of the most powerful aspects of the speech is that His Majesty put Israel's claim to be a democratic state governed by law against its practices on the ground. The checkpoints that strangle the lives of Palestinians, the demolition of homes and seizure of land, the prevention of ambulances from reaching the wounded, and the targeting of field hospitals are all practices that reveal the contradiction between the image Israel presents of itself and the reality it imposes on Palestinians.
Politically, His Majesty refused to separate Gaza from the West Bank, providing a reading of what is happening in both as two different paths towards a single goal. In Gaza, the foundations of life and stability are being undermined, and in the West Bank, settlement policies, land confiscation, and the imposition of new facts are accelerating, leading practices in both cases to weaken the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. Here, the danger of what His Majesty referred to as 'the transformation of what is supposed to be temporary into a permanent reality' becomes apparent; the continuation of these policies in the absence of international accountability cements the facts imposed by force and undermines the two-state solution from its foundation.
The King also rejected portraying the conflict as a war of religions where Islam is against Judaism and Christianity, considering the essence of the issue to be the rights of Palestinians, Muslims and Christians, not a religious confrontation. Moving the conflict from occupation, rights, and self-determination to a doctrinal conflict distorts its legal reality and makes it more resistant to political settlement.
The analysis did not stop at Palestine but extended to southern Syria, where His Majesty linked Israeli movements there to Jordanian national security, affirming that any threat to the northern borders or water security is a direct threat to Jordan. This message goes beyond a warning; it identifies national interests that Jordan will not accept being compromised, and confirms that the policy of imposing fait accompli, if it extends to borders or water, moves from a regional matter to a national security issue in which Jordan defends its sovereignty and interests.
Overall, His Majesty's speech went beyond defending Palestine to defending the credibility of the international system itself, in a language that reflected a striking intensity towards the continuation of violations and the absence of international accountability. Law that is not enforced loses its authority, decisions that are not followed by actions remain on paper, and selectivity undermines confidence in the international system. The Jordanian message from New York is that the world knows what is happening in Palestine, possesses the law and tools necessary to act, and what it lacks is the political will to use them.
* Professor of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law, Jordan University
