While Israel wants Ambassador to Jordan Einat Schlein and her staff to return as soon as possible to the Israeli embassy in Jordan, that probably won’t be happening.
It is very likely that the Israeli embassy in Jordan will remain as empty as Israel’s embassy in Cairo, Egypt, following the latest Jordanian demands.
Israel’s embassy in Egypt was first evacuated in 2011 when it was overrun by an Egyptian mob. In early 2017, the newly returned embassy staff in Cairo were once again evacuated following security threats, and the embassy remains empty.
This past Sunday, a Jordanian national entered the Israeli embassy’s residence to do some work, and then stabbed one of the Israeli security officers with a screwdriver, twice in the back and once in the chest. The officer shot and killed the terrorist, as well as the Jordanian landlord, who was accidentally hit in the cross-fire.
According to Roy Sharon of Channel 10, based on a source involved in the investigation, the attack was completely nationalistic (terror), unlike what the Jordanians claim, and the landlord was killed when he tried to pull the terrorist away from the wounded security officer.
גורם שהיה מעורב בתחקיר המבצעי של התקרית הירדן: הרקע כולו לאומני, לא קטטה ולא וויכוח ולא סכסוך. על בעל הבית: הוא ניסה להפריד ונורה בטעות
— רועי שרון (@RoySharon10) July 27, 2017
The Jordanian government then held the Israeli embassy staff hostage, and wouldn’t let them leave the building or Jordan until Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to the king of Jordan’s demands, which Netanyahu apparently met, as the staff were finally freed on Monday night and rushed back to Israel.
The crisis with Jordan is far from over.
Jordan will not be permitting Schlein or her staff back into the country until they receive assurances that the security officer will be be tried for killing the two Jordanians, according to the Jordanian paper al-Rad.
Forty Jordanian parliamentarians have also demanded the Israeli embassy be permanently shut down and Jordan’s ambassador to Israel be recalled.
Israel has already agreed to pay damages to the family of the landlord who was killed during the terror attack.
With the demand that the heroic security officer first stand trial for killing the terrorist before readmitting the embassy staff, one might assume the embassy will be closed for a while, but with the speed that PM Netanyahu has been capitulating to Muslim threats this week, the embassy in Jordan might reopen sooner than the embassy security officer would prefer to see.