Posted on 09/05/2018 5:35:00 PM PDT by SJackson
“Abbas is apparently prepared to give up his job as president of Palestine to become the mayor of a local municipal council in a Jordanian province,” commented a Ramallah-based senior official.
Many Palestinians and Jordanians have expressed surprise over the renewed talk about a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation, saying they believe the idea is being floated as part of US President Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-unveiled plan for peace in the Middle East.
They also warned that the proposed confederation was part of an Israeli-American “conspiracy” aimed at preventing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and turning Jordan into the homeland of the Palestinians.
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On Sunday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was quoted as saying that the Trump administration had offered him a peace plan based on confederation with Jordan.
Abbas reportedly told an Israeli Peace Now delegation that US envoys Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt had asked him whether he believes in a confederation with Jordan. He did not say when this happened.
According to Peace Now, Abbas replied: “Yes, [but] I want a triangular confederation with Jordan and Israel.”
PA officials in Ramallah immediately downplayed the significance of Abbas’s remark and said the PA president remains committed to the two-state solution.
Abbas’s spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, said that the Palestinian-Jordanian confederation idea has been on the agenda of the Palestinian leadership since 1984. “Since then, the Palestinian leadership’s stance has been that the two-state solution is the only gateway for our special relationship with Jordan,” Abu Rudaineh said. “Any decision on a confederation should be decided by the Palestinians and Jordanians.”
Abu Rudaineh’s statement is being interpreted by some Palestinians and Jordanians as a sign that Abbas and the PA leadership do not rule out confederation. They also see the PA position as proof of Abbas’s “collusion” with Trump’s unseen plan, which is also referred to as the deal of the century.
“Abbas is apparently prepared to give up his job as president of Palestine to become the mayor of a local municipal council in a Jordanian province,” commented a Ramallah-based senior official with the PLO’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) group. “The confederation idea is aimed at destroying any chance of establishing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
The official claimed that the renewed talk about a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation was part of a “suspicious Israeli-American conspiracy to eliminate Palestinian rights and prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.” The proposed confederation, he added, was also aimed at reviving the idea of creating a Palestinian state in Jordan.
A Palestinian political analyst told The Jerusalem Post that Abbas’s talk about the confederation idea would strain the relationship between the PA leadership and Jordan. “The Palestinians need the backing of all the Arab countries, including Jordan. The Jordanians have always been wary of the confederation idea because they believe it is part of the Jordan is Palestine conspiracy.”
He said that many Palestinians believe that Abbas’s talk about a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation reflects the state of “confusion and uncertainty” plaguing the PA’s top brass.
“Many Palestinians are no longer sure what Abbas wants,” the analyst said. “On the one hand, he says he’s strongly opposed to Trump’s peace plan and considers it a conspiracy to liquidate the Palestinian cause and rights. On the other hand, Abbas seems to be willing to cooperate with the confederation scheme, which is also designed to eliminate the Palestinian cause.”
Hamas and several Palestinian political factions lashed out at Abbas for talking about the confederation idea and warned the PA leadership not to accept it.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said that the PA president’s remarks help “legitimize” Israel and “encourage the US administration to pursue its efforts to liquidate the Palestinian cause and abolish the right of return” for Palestinian refugees and their descendants back to their former homes inside Israel.
The Jordanians have also come out strongly against the idea, saying it threatens both the Palestinians and the Hashemite kingdom.
Many Jordanian officials, politicians and commentators warned that the confederation “conspiracy” was in the context of the US administration’s effort to pass Trump’s purported peace plan.
Any Palestinian-Jordanian confederation should take place between two independent states, and not while the Palestinians are still without a state, they emphasized. Shortly after Abbas’s remarks appeared in the Israeli media, Jordanian government spokeswoman Jumana Ghunaimat dismissed the confederation idea and said it was not up for negotiations.
Hamdadeh Faraneh, a prominent Jordanian columnist, said that his country rejected not only the idea of a confederation, “but also a federation and a fusion and any unity relation between Jordan and Palestine.” The confederation plan, he argued, was aimed at “emptying Palestine of its people in line with the expansionist colonialist schemes. It is dangerous not only for Palestine, but also for Jordan because it will return the kingdom into a container for absorbing the Palestinians.”
Atef Tarawneh, speaker of Jordan’s House of Representatives, said that the talk about a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation would be possible only after the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state. He warned that in the absence of a Palestinian state, the confederation plan would be regarded as an attempt to “rob” the Palestinians of their rights.
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Needless to say this would require many, many dollars to get the King to agree. The Mufti's Arabs killed his grandfather and tried to overthrow his father.
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Official: Israel not behind Jordanian-Palestinian confederation idea
There’s plenty of space in the Sahara for a Palestinian state.
there will never be a Fakestinian “state”
Period.
the only matter to be arranged is the repatriation, return of the frakiestinian occupiers, squatters off Israel’s territories and back to their home counties.
this can be accomplished in a humanitarian fashion, or it will inevitably be achieved by other means. It will take place .. either way... so that the world can eventually have a little peace again. End the Occupation! Send the Muslim squatters home!
palestinians (small p) are really Jordanians.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly... told Abbas he has two months to either accept the Saudi proposal or leave office to make way for a new Palestinian leader... It reportedly proposes the establishment of limited Palestinian sovereignty over small portions of Judea and Samaria. The Gaza Strip, over which the Palestinians have had full sovereignty since Israel pulled its military forces and civilians out in 2005, would be expanded into the northern Sinai, thus providing economic and territorial viability to the envisioned Palestinian state... able to establish their capital in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis.
It might have happened long ago if Jordan had never been handed to the present King’s grandfather, by the British, as a reward for supporting the British against the Ottomans and later the Germans. That man’s family & clan were not from the Transjordan, they were from Arabia proper. They also, from the Ottoman period had some rule over the Hejaz (border of Arabia on the east side of the Red Sea). The Saud’s took Hejaz away from the Hashemites, leaving them the British protectorate kingdoms in Jordan and Iraq (the one in Iraq was deposed).
Minus that meddling by the British, there still would have been fighting between an independent israel and many armies, including those from the Transjordan. But I think Israel would still have prevailed and the later peace it accomplished with the current King of Jordan would have come about as well with the Arabs that spanned what is now Jordan and the West Bank.
The “loss” of the “Palestinians” actually began with the British division of Transjordan from the whole of the British Mandate of Palestine. It provided a whole kingdom to an Arab friend and just in that act alone the other Arabs of the Mandate were still left “stateless”.
As much as I could not have been an Arafat supporter, what happened between his forces and Jordan truly was a civil war in which prior to the Kingdom of Jordan the Arabs of the area had not seem themselves as divided.
Following that division arranged by the British, Jordan, Egypt and Syria all used the rump population of Arabs left in what of “Palestine” was not given to Jordan for their own national self-interest - Jordan, Egypt and Syria - thinking, each one, they’d carve something for themselves out of victories ostensibly against Israel (and obviosuly not for the “Palestinians”).
You do not hear much of that from the “Palestians” though it still sticks in their craw (and not ever foregotten) as part of the failures from which their present state of affairs was obtained. They do not mention it much because still, only with the aid of such nations, is there any slim hope of anything being taken back from Israel by force.
So, how realistically can there be any reunion of the West Bank and Jordan (not Gaza)? When and if the Kingdom of Jordan is displaced with a government of Jordan that wants a Jordan unified with the Arabs of the West Bank.
How would Israel accept that outcome? They would accept it only if the new reunified state of Jordan constitutionally pledged to abide by the current Israel-Jordan peace treaty. I think that is a reality with slim hope of such a change in our lifetime.
Would have happened had Jordan stayed on the sidelines in the 67 war.
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