This is a country with which Israel ostensibly has a binding treaty making normalization an affirmative obligation. Ah well. Once an intransigent genocidal regime always an intransigent genocidal regime I suppose:

Jordan on Monday joined Saudi Arabia in publicly rejecting US appeals to improve relations with Israel to help restart Middle East peace talks, throwing a damper on President Barack Obama's administration's push for Arab support behind new negotiations. After talks with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said incremental confidence-building measures that the US wants Arab states to take will not produce a resolution to the conflict.

This is a nice followup to that stunt they pulled in January, when the Jordanian parliament started openly flirting with formally severing relations with the Jewish State. At least their border police aren't taking pot shots at Israelis. This month.

And here I was led to believe that Obama's super-keen public diplomacy was boosting US influence in the Middle East. I'm not really sure what the problem is. King Abdullah called on Obama to pressure Israel, Obama pressured Israel, done and done right? Apparently not so much.

Maybe a few more months of trying to deny Jews access to Jerusalem will bring the Jordanians around.

References and previously after the jump...