For decades, travel for millions of Palestinians has been an excruciating task that involved 3 to 4 different stops before their actual trips start, a suffering Israel is providing an alternative, by "offering air shuttles using its Ramon Airport" to Palestinians living in the West Bank, a move that has triggered concerns in Jordan.
#Palestinian Authority urges Palestinians not to take advantage of concessions promised by #Israel that would allow them to travel through Ramon airport https://t.co/Gnv2ykEODd pic.twitter.com/ZU6xzuqZL2
— Arab News (@arabnews) August 24, 2022
Last July and as US President Joe Biden was visiting Israel and the West Bank, Israelis presented a plan to allow Palestinians to fly outside the country using Israel's Ramon International Airport, instead of having to cross to neighboring Jordan and fly using its Queen Alia International Airport.
The plan has just been put into action this week with the first flight carrying Palestinians leaving the Ramon Airport to Cyprus.
While the Israeli plan was "conditioned" by the Palestinian withdrawal of their lawsuit against Israel at the International Criminal Court over war crimes and crimes against humanity, the move has since ignited controversies among Palestinians as well as Jordanians.
Translation: Differnce between traveling via Queen Alia Intl airport (629 shekels) and Ramon Intl airport (162 shekels)."
On the Palestinian side, most of the opposition is related to the Israeli effort being purely an economic attempt to revive the airport that was opened in 2019 with little to no activity, in addition to its political considerations, mostly Israel's endeavor to show a "less-restricting" form of control over Palestinians, one that can be used to brush off accusations of limiting Palestinians' freedom of movement.
Some Palestinians have also compared the financial cost of traveling through Jordan to the trip they can take to the Ramon airport instead, suggesting that the cost of traveling from Jordan is significantly higher. According to the
For Jordanians, however, regular flights for Palestinians from the Ramon airport mean depriving Jordan of nearly 250,000 Palestinian travelers who enter Jordan every year using the King Hussein Bridge (also known as the Allenby crossing) so they can travel to the outside world.
Source: Twitter
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian travelers from the West Bank generate major financial revenue for Jordan's travel and tourism sector and often end up spending a few days in it every year before or after they travel to the outside world.
Jordanians fear that the new move of flying Palestinians out of the Ramon airport directly will have a direct impact on its economy. According to estimates reported by the Jordan Times, Jordan expects a drop between 55% and 65% in Palestinian travelers if trips from Ramon international continued.
For the first time, #Palestinians from West Bank fly to #Cyprus using Ramon Airport in #Eilat in southern #Israel, part of a pilot program by Israeli government that will allow West Bank residents to easily access international flights in future. https://t.co/4fuPeMdksL pic.twitter.com/bIiN6Arf5e
— Ahmed Quraishi (@_AhmedQuraishi) August 22, 2022
Ever since Israeli plans of building the Ramon airport were announced several years ago, Jordan has been expressing worries about how it could affect its economy, including fears that the airport would divert international tourists away from the country, including the ones who wish to visit the Red Sea or ones who plan to see Jordan's most famous world wonder; Petra.
Israel's Ramon international airport is located nearly 10 km away from Jordan's King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba, which meant that Israel could fly in Petra-enthusiastic tourists before arranging trips to the Rose City, during which tourists from around the world could reside in Israel's southern towns, instead of supporting Jordan's local tourism.
