Palestine and Jordan

It’s a commonplace to say that the “two state solution” is the only possible solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  For more than a decade, I’ve publicly disagreed with that and written to say so. In my view, the two state “solution” is dangerous and impractical, for reasons I spelled out in an article entitled The Two-State Delusion.

The most common rejoinder is not a defense of the two-state idea, but a sometimes plaintive and sometimes aggressive “so what’s your great idea?” And it is a reasonable question to pose.

My answer has been this: I still believe in partition, i.e. separation of Israelis and Palestinians, which was the original idea of the Peel Commission in 1937 and of the UN in 1948. But a sovereign and independent Palestinian state is simply too dangerous for Israel and Jordan both (especially while the Islamic Republic of Iran continues using every available nation as a launching pad for attacks on Israel), is likely to be another Arab tyranny (rather than providing freedom to Palestinians), and is likely to be a poor and resource-poor economy.

I’ve suggested instead that the Palestinian entity be part of a confederation. Its neighbors are Jordan and Israel—and of those, the Muslim, Arab, Arabic-speaking, and half-Palestinian Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is the logical candidate. One can envision the Palestinian entity as a kind of Kurdistan with considerable self-rule or local autonomy, or envision the Hashemite Kingdom as a kind of Austria-Hungary with one king, one army, one mukhabarat, two prime ministers, and two parliaments.

One problem with the obsessive insistence on the “two state solution” is that other options are never considered. Another is the argument that the Jordanians will never, never agree to a confederation.

Maybe; maybe not. In this context I was impressed with an article entitled “On the Future of Jordanian-Palestinian Relations” in the London-based newspaper Al-Araby al-Jadeed by Jawad al-Anani. An English translation can be found here. Al-Araby al-Jadeed is Qatari-owned, and run by Azmi Bishara, a Palestinian Christian based on Doha.

 Who is Mr. al-Anani, the author of the article? Not exactly a marginal figure: he is a former Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Labor, Minister of Industry and Trade, Minister of Tourism, Minister of Foreign Affairs, president of the Royal Court, and president of the Economic and Social Council.

Here is what he wrote:

[A] lot of time has gone by since Jordan adopted a decision in August 1988 to ensure political and diplomatic disengagement between the East and West Bank, which created a new reality and provoked a constitutional and political predicament in Jordan… But can Jordan disengage from any future final negotiations surrounding Palestine? Will Israel be able to monopolize the implementation of the special law recently ratified by the Knesset to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state?...

What should the Arab position be? If the war ends in Gaza sooner or later, the Arabs must realize that the decisive answer is that in the West Bank, whose population is treated by Israel as residents, not citizens, the International Court responded by saying that the Israelis, whether Semite Jews or non-Semites, are the intruders and residents, and should be the ones to leave. And so that the situation does not become more complicated, this requires the Arab Summit conference, which at one point opposed the unity of the two Banks, to adopt a decision reversing the previous one (1974) and confirming that the West Bank is part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which is a sovereign state who territories should not remain under occupation…

Afterwards, Jordan and Palestine would agree that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a confederation composed of Jordan and Palestine, each with its own local and international administration while going back to the 1950 agreement in distributing the federal positions and keeping Jordan a Kingdom. As for Gaza, it should be part of Palestine. And if it wants to, it could enter the confederation as a third component after agreeing on that with Egypt, which just like Jordan, will have special relations with the confederation state. Once this is complete, a schedule would be drawn up to implement the recommendations of the International Court of Justice and the other relevant international resolutions based on documented international guarantees.

I do not quote all of this to suggest that I agree with every word, nor to suggest that it is the position of the Jordanian government. Rather, I quote it to suggest that the confederation idea should be taken seriously—as it is by Mr. al-Anani. There is no chance of establishing a sovereign and independent Palestinian state in the near—or, I would say, the foreseeable—future, whatever fatuous remarks about this are made in Washington or European capitals, or by Arab states. Confederation is certainly no less realistic and perhaps far more so. It should be debated and analyzed. The obsessive focus on the dangerous and unreachable objective of the “two state solution” most often prevents serious debate on that “solution” and on the alternatives. With Israel’s “unsustainable occupation” now in its 57^th year, preventing that debate does Palestinians, Israelis, and Jordanians no favors.