Jordan's King Abdullah II used his address to the 81st UN General Assembly on Tuesday to accuse Israel of forced displacement in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. He called Israel's policy there a war crime and warned that Israeli actions in Syria make it a threat to the wider region.
Abdullah told world leaders not to treat the two Palestinian territories as separate issues, calling them "two fronts of the same Israeli strategy." He argued that Israeli activity in the West Bank is not a collection of isolated incidents but a coordinated policy aimed at pushing Palestinians off their land. "There is a name for that: forced displacement. And it is a war crime," he said.
He also said the Israeli government is attempting "to erase Palestinian life and impose a new territorial reality." Jordan has had diplomatic relations with Israel since the 1994 peace treaty. He described Gaza as destroyed and the West Bank as effectively annexed, and he said this combination makes a viable Palestinian state impossible.
The king then turned to Syria, where Israel has maintained forces beyond the Golan Heights since the fall of the Assad regime. "No one in this assembly should assume this Israeli government's appetite stops at Palestine," he said. He pointed to Israeli strikes on Syria and its presence in parts of Syrian territory. He also characterized Israel's expansionist ambitions as a regional threat and described Syria as a warning the world is ignoring.
Abdullah accused the Israeli government of acting without restraint, saying: "This government's sense of impunity has reached terrifying levels." He rejected the argument that the Arab world has refused peace with Israel and cited the 2002 Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative. That initiative offered normalization with Arab and Muslim states in exchange for a Palestinian state. He said the obstacle had been an Israeli government unwilling to accept that offer, not the lack of a partner.
He also accused Israel of stoking a religious war by casting the conflict as one between Islam on one side and Judaism and Christianity on the other.
The king's remarks were part of a broader wave of criticism of Israel on the General Assembly's opening day. Secretary-General António Guterres warned of the specter of ethnic cleansing in Judea and Samaria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described Gaza as a concentration camp. French President Emmanuel Macron drew an angry Israeli response after claiming Hamas had never been active in the West Bank.
Later on Tuesday, Abdullah joined leaders from Qatar, Turkey, Syria and other regional states at a meeting hosted by President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the assembly. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Thursday.
