Our cab driver sounded very certain. “A treasure worth tens of billions of dollars in gold has been found,” he told us on Sunday, just three days ago. At first I had no idea what in the name of God he was talking about. But Ahmed the driver was insistent.

My overactive imagination, doubtless like that of Jordanian citizens who heard the news, soared. Unfortunately, as of this writing, however, neither of the treasures has been located.

But on Tuesday, according to the Jordanian army chief of staff, slightly more realistic discoveries were confirmed: Israeli spy installations, that were set up in the 1960s on Jordanian soil for fear of attack on the eastern front — the movement of Iraq and/or Syrian forces into Jordan to strike at Israel from Hashemite territory.

It may be that these installations were of the same type as those that failed to provide Israel with adequate intelligence ahead of the Yom Kippur War. Equipment of this kind was also installed in Egyptian territory by elite Israeli forces, but because it wasn’t activated in time, it didn’t provide Israel with sufficient warning about the impending conflict.

Since the Yom Kippur War, a great many things have changed. The threat of an Iraqi Army infiltration through Jordan into Israel no longer exists. Syrian Army action against Israel, through Jordan or the Golan Heights, is highly unlikely, in part because of the domestic preoccupation and considerable disintegration of Assad Jr.’s forces. Most importantly, Egypt and Jordan have since become allies of Israel, on the defense level at least, and to a certain degree on the political level.

And while many words have been written and spoken about the security coordination between Cairo and Jerusalem, especially during the summer’s Israel-Hamas conflict, deep cooperation exists between Amman and Jerusalem, as well.

The discovery, and subsequent removal, of those spy installations is an example of such cooperation. According to the Jordanians, this only took place after an explosion took place at one of the sites, but the fact remains that coordination between the IDF and the Jordanian military was able to bring about a jointly agreed solution to the problem. That would have been unthinkable before the 1994 treaty.

Similarly, it may well be that the two countries’ intelligence agencies share information concerning Islamist terrorist threats. Even relations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah II have improved drastically — away from the media’s gaze.

Read the article in full at Times of Israel.