The “Jordan is Palestine” solution has been mooted for decades. It is now gaining traction due in part to the Arab Spring which began a year ago. Jordan now is feeling the tremors. The majority of Palestinian leaders in Jordan, favour Jordan becoming a democratic/secular state. They have watched in dismay as similar forces in Egypt were overwhelmed by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists. They are determined not to share their fate. They are lead by Mudar Zahran the author of Jordan’s King and the Muslim Brotherhood: An Unholy Marriage.
Zahran in his ground-breaking article, “Jordan is Palestine” published by Middle East Forum in December 2011, argues:
“Empowering Palestinian control of Jordan and giving Palestinians all over the world a place they can call home could not only defuse the population and demographic problem for Palestinians in Judea and Samaria but would also solve the much more complicated issue of the “right of return” for Palestinians in other Arab countries. Approximately a million Palestinian refugees and their descendants live in Syria and Lebanon, with another 300,000 in Jordan whom the Hashemite government still refuses to accept as citizens. How much better could their future look if there were a welcoming Palestinian Jordan?
“The Jordanian option seems the best possible and most viable solution to date. Decades of peace talks and billions of dollars invested by the international community have only brought more pain and suffering for both Palestinians and Israelis—alongside prosperity and wealth for the Hashemites and their cronies.”
The rationality and achievability of this solution, needs no elucidation. It only needs the US to get behind it. While such an initiative by the US would be a departure from the position it has held since the founding of the State of Israel, it would not be a departure from her original position. As noted in the proposed Florida Senate resolution mentioned above, such a position was “affirmed by both houses of the United States Congress,” in 1922. These resolutions unanimously endorsed the “Mandate for Palestine,” confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine – anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea”
And Zahran’s brave stance in which he wants the new Jordan, governed by Palestinians, to embrace Israel in true friendship, is also not new or novel. It is a return to Emir Feisal’s warm embrace of the Jews in 1919.
Think about these:
was Palestine more that Israel + Judea & Samaria ('West Bank')?
if so, were should a territorial compromise establish borders?
were there previous territorial compromises? did they work? do they Arabs accept the idea at all?
is "Palestinianism" a nationalism that has nothing to do with the 'East Bank'?
if it does, who are the Hashemites? are they foreign occupiers?
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