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This has obviously been in the works for sometime and I would suspect that Egypt and Jordan have privately agreed to the approach. Neither of them have any love for Arafat or the Pali entity as it now exists. This is about as major a kick in the groin to Arafat as one could imagine...they have completely boxed him in. Unfortunately, we can expect some ramp up of Pali terror in the short term.

I was thinking the other night, maybe there's a bigger plan afoot. Egypt and Israel seem to have essential agreeement on how the Gaza pullback will work, and Egypt seems to have a security role working with Israel. This isolates the West Bank. Should it veer to anarchy (not a long trip as things are now) is it inconceivable that Jordan will play a role in subduing Arafat's thugs? I don't think it's beyond consideration as Israel and Jordan have for some time had very quiet cooperation on security matters. This may be just the first shot in the Palestinian end game...one that removes Arafat and the terror organizations once and for all. Just a thought.

This has obviously been in the works for sometime and I would suspect that Egypt and Jordan have privately agreed to the approach.

I'm sure it was. Egypt and Jordan need Arafat and Hamas like the Saudi's need Al Qaida.

The PLO's phased plan of 1974, a formal policy document still in effect and referred to as recently as the road map by Arafat, calls for "reunification", peaceful or otherwise, with Jordan once a "state" is achieved, prior to the final destruction of Israel. Jordan's fought that battle once already, though not as timidly as Israel.

Actually Jordan's major worry is that Palestinians will move from Judea and Samaria across the Jordan river. In a recent meeting between Sharon and king Abdullah Sharon had to promise the King that Israel would retain the control of the borders with Jordan!

So much for brotherly love between the Arabs.

Your comments made me think; is it possible that the Gaza strip will be ceded to Egypt and the West Bank will be ceded to Jordan? This way, the Palestinian problem, created because of the previous failures in Egyptian and Jordanian wars with Israel, is defused permanently. At least as far as the Israelis are concerned.

The only difficulty with this scenario is that the Egyptians and Jordanians haven't indicated thus far that they want anything to do with their fellow Arabs, the Palestinians. For all of their bellyaching about the treatment of Palestinians through the years, you'd have thought so. But, given the past pathological behavior of the Palestinians, it seems their fellow Arabs know only too well that the Palestinians are like the crazy, ne'er-do-well, brother-in-law who is shunned by the family.