Jordan and Israel - Singing the same song?

[Published 4 May 2007]

Jordan and Israel have reportedly embarked on secret negotiations to end the impasse in the West Bank and Gaza according to Matthew Guttman of ABC News (3 May 2007).

If true, such negotiations might successfully conclude 17 years of failed diplomacy that has included;

(i) the Oslo fiasco conceived by Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin and reluctantly adopted by Yitzchak Rabin,
(ii) Ehud Barak’s unprecedented concessions, supported by US President Bill Clinton but rejected by Yasser Arafat ,
(iii) Ariel Sharon’s evacuation of 8000 Jews from Gaza and parts of the West Bank,
(iv) Ehud Olmert’s stillborn plan to remove another 70000 Jews out of the West Bank at a cost of US$10 billion,
(v) the Saudi Peace Plan designed to remove all 400000 Jews from the West Bank and allow millions of Arabs to live in Israel,
(vi) The Geneva Peace Initiative and
(vii) US President George Bush’s Road Map promoting the creation of a second Arab State within the boundaries of former Palestine - backed by the United Nations, the European Union and Russia dubbed the Quartet

All of these initiatives have not brought peace and now have no value other than learning tools to instruct future negotiators on how not to commence or handle negotiations in the Middle East.

Jordan was the common denominator excluded from all of these failed processes. It was left out at its own insistence but the Quartet and Israeli negotiators must share the blame for allowing this to occur - virtually by default - and for the pathetic results that inevitably followed.

Any negotiations without Jordan were doomed to failure from the outset.

Jordan, after all, is the Arab State created, built on and occupying 77% of Palestine whose exclusively Arab population is no different in ethnicity, religion, language or cultural beliefs to the Arabs living in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.

Hundreds of thousands are related by familial and clan ties stretching across the Jordan River which runs between Jordan and the West Bank. All live within an easy one to two hours drive of each other.

Jordan is the country that occupied the West Bank from 1948-1967. It only ceded its claims to sovereignty in the West Bank in 1988 after being pressured by the Arab League and the Palestine Liberation Organisation to do so.

Jordan annexed the West Bank in 1950 which was recognised by Britain and Pakistan at that time.

Jordan’s rulers, not the PLO, have successfully preserved almost four fifths of Palestine as an exclusively Arab State. Not one Jew lives there today and the death penalty awaits any one found selling land to Jews. This is no mean feat given that Jordan was originally designated by the League of Nations in 1922 to be part of the territory in which the national home for the Jews was to be reconstituted under the Mandate for Palestine granted to Great Britain.

Contrast this to the remaining 23% of Palestine where 17% - today called Israel - has a population that is 80% Jewish and 20% Arab whilst the remaining 6% - today called the West Bank - has a population that is 80% Arab and 20% Jewish .

Yet the fiction has been created that the Arabs of Palestine lack a State and have been stripped of any rights to self determination in Palestine.

The fact is that Jordan and Israel are the successor sovereign States in former Palestine together exercising sovereignty in 94% of Palestine whilst sovereignty in the remaining 6% still remains unresolved and unallocated after 59 years.

Commonsense rejects the idea of creating a second Arab or, for that matter, a second Jewish State in this remaining 6% of Palestine - an area about the size of Delaware or just two thirds of Cyprus.

The obvious solution is to redraw the boundary between Jordan and Israel so that the heavily populated Jewish areas of the West Bank become part of Israel and the heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank (together possibly with Gaza) become part of Jordan.

This is certainly attainable as Jordan and Israel are parties to a peace treaty signed in 1994, which they both have observed in good faith, with mutual dignity and respect despite some strains in their relationship over the years.

Jordan and Israel could be confidently expected to realign the border to ensure that very few Jews or Arabs would be faced with deciding whether to move from their existing residences or stay put as part of a minority population. Compensation would be paid if they decided to move and become part of the majority population on the other side of the new border.

Guidelines to deal with controversial issues such as water, refugees and Jerusalem are already set out in the Jordan - Israel Peace Treaty.

Unceasing and unsuccessful efforts to sign a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have led nowhere in the last 17 years and threaten to continue to do so ad infinitum whilst the fiction writers continue to believe that a new State between Jordan and Israel is the answer to the conflict between Jews and Arabs.

How many more Jews and Arabs need to be killed and maimed in the pursuit of a solution that has not got even the slightest chance of success?

Perhaps the following words from American composer Cole Porter’s song - “I’ve got you under my skin” - should resonate in the ears of Jordanian and Israeli negotiators as their secret talks proceed :

“Don’t you know you fool, you never can win
Use your mentality, wake up to reality”

That reality is that two peoples, the Jews and the Arabs, need two States, not three States, in Palestine.

At last Jordan and Israel may finally be singing the same song. Everyone interested in ending the 130 years conflict between the Jews and Arabs - including the Quartet -should join in.

Determining Sovereignty in the West Bank

[Published August 2004]

Benny Elon's plan provides the catalyst, though not necessarily the solution, for determining who gets sovereignty in the West Bank (and Gaza).

Re-drawing the boundary between Jordan and Israel to divide sovereignty of the West Bank (and Gaza) between those two States remains the only key left to finding any solution that has any chance of success.

The heavily populated Arab areas will become part of Jordan. The heavily populated Jewish areas will become part of Israel.

Very few residents will have to move unless they voluntarily want to do so because they don't want to live on the wrong side of the new border, where they are part of a minority of the population rather part of a majority. In those few cases compensation would be paid to those who voluntarily chose to move to the other side of the border.

Gaza could be joined to Jordan by means of an underground or overhead expressway.

The granting of sovereignty of the Arab areas returned to Jordan under this plan would restore such territories to Arab control, a situation that existed between 1948-1967.

It is time the Quartet addressed this type of solution to replace their ill-conceived and fatally flawed road map that sought to wedge a second Arab State in Palestine ( in addition to Jordan) between Jordan and Israel, the two successor States in former Palestine to the League of Nations Mandate.

Jordan and Israel have had a signed peace treaty since 1994. Redrawing the boundary between their respective States would be done as an extension of that Treaty, which already provides for the negotiation and peaceful resolution of such issues as refugees, water and Jerusalem.

Jordan needs international support to help it achieve these objectives, eradicate the terrorist groups running rampant in the territories and rebuild the destroyed infrastructure resulting from 10 years of hopeless diplomacy.

The sooner this help is forthcoming, the sooner some hope of sanity and normality might emerge to end the senseless killing and maiming of both Jews and Arabs that has turned what should be a paradise into a living hell.

Jordan comprises 77% of former Palestine and Israel 17% of former Palestine. Is it really that difficult to carve up the remaining 6% of Palestine between these two States without creating a 23rd Arab State stuck in between them?

As Sharon appears before the Likud Convention today he would do well to remember his own words and those of Shimon Peres with whom he seeks to unite:

Sharon: Jordan is Palestine! The capital of Palestine is Amman. If Palestinian Arabs want to find their political expression, they will have to do it in Amman.
[TIME - April 17, 1989 ]

Peres: It is not obstinacy to regard the populations of Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza as having greater similarities than differences. The Jordan River is not deep enough to turn into a knife blade serving to cut one piece of territory into three slices.... Jordan is therefore an existing State. It has an army. There is therefore no need to set up another State, another army.
[Jewish Telegraph - April 19. 1991 ]

If these two veteran politicians were to be true to their own words, then perhaps, just perhaps, some division of the West Bank and Gaza between Jordan and Israel could eventuate.

Arafat has always stuck to his policy - return of 100% of the West Bank and Gaza, an independent State there with Jerusalem as its capitol.

It's time that Israel's politicians adopted their own common response to Arafat's disastrous pursuit of these objectives by stating clearly and in a united voice - no State between Jordan and Israel but division of sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza between Jordan and Israel in face to face negotiations and within the framework of the Israel - Jordan peace treaty, the Israel - Egypt Peace Treaty, Security Council resolutions 242 and 337, and Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Resubdividing Palestine

[Published November 2004]

Yasser Arafat has finally joined Yitzchak Rabin in the next world.

Freed now from all pressures, internal and external, perhaps they might be able to frankly reflect on the mistakes they both made in trying to reach the "Peace of the Brave" for which they and last surviving member of the trio, Shimon Peres received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Perhaps their conversation would go something like this:

Yitzchak: Welcome to our eternal home Yasser. I always thought that the way to peace between the Jews and the Arabs was the resubdivision of Palestine into two States with Jewish Israel being sovereign in about 20% of Palestine and Arab Jordan sovereign in about 80% of Palestine. Shimon persuaded me to pursue a different path by accepting Oslo. In hindsight this was a terrible error of judgement by me and cost me my life, the lives of thousands of Jews and Arabs and the maiming, wounding and emotional scarring of our respective populations.

Yasser: Look Yitzchak, I know you weren't happy with Oslo. I felt it in that famous handshake at the White House. I was aware of your comment in The Australian newspaper on May 27, 1985 that "One tiny State between Israel and Jordan will solve nothing. It will be a time bomb." Oslo would have created just such a State.

Yitzchak: And after the collapse of Oslo, 9/11, your refusal of Barak's offer, the second Intifada and what's happening now in Iraq, I think my prediction is still relevant today. The Quartet are making a big mistake pursuing this failed policy after your death. They supposedly respect my memory but not my opinions. They know I also said at that time that "the Palestinians should have a sovereign State which includes most of the Palestinians. It should be Jordan with a considerable part of the West Bank and Gaza. East of the Jordan River there is enough room to settle the Palestinian refugees."

Yasser: On June 25, 1987 I myself told the New York Review of Books that before the Second World War "Jordan was an emirate, completely part of Palestine." I know my history as well as you, my dear partner in peace. We both agreed that Jordan was part of Palestine, part of the problem and part of the solution.

Yitzchak: We really should have built on this common agreement when we finally decided to talk about peace.

Yasser: You obviously were aware that I had also told Der Spiegel in 1986 that "Jordanians and Palestinians are indeed one people. No one can divide us. We have the same fate."

Yitzchak: Sure. Even Jordan recognised the historic and demographic reality of what you were saying. As early as Spring 1982 Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan was quoted in the Foreign Affairs Review as endorsing the words of a leading Jordanian social scientist that "the Jordanians and Palestinians are now one people, and no political loyalty, however strong, will separate them permanently.

Yasser: And Farouk Kadoumi, the Head of the Political Department of the PLO, told Newsweek on 14 March 1977 that "Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people." Farouk stood by my wife Suha during my dying days in hospital in France.

Yitzchak: So why did you insist on separate Palestinian and Jordanian delegations at the Madrid Conference in 1991 instead of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation?

Yasser: Come on Yitzchak. You know there had been a power struggle between King Hussein and myself for control of Jordan. Could I ever forget or forgive how my followers and I were driven out of Jordan in September 1970 and the slaughter that was inflicted on us at that time? Do you think it was fun being shunted to Lebanon and thence to Tunisia?

Yitzchak: But surely you could have resolved your dispute with King Hussein. Jordan would have had King Hussein as its monarch and you as its Prime Minister. By burying your differences you could have ended up as Prime Minister of 80% of Palestine instead of President of nothing. Your funeral would have been a vastly different ceremony to what I saw today.

Yasser: That's all water under the bridge. Now that I have been removed from the scene is there perhaps something we can do to influence those left behind down there to resubdivide Palestine along the lines you suggested 19 years ago?

Yitzchak: Well I know Shimon is just as aware as you and I are of Jordan's role in bringing peace to the region. Shimon told the Jewish Telegraph on April 19, 1991 that "It is not obstinacy to regard the populations of Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza as having greater similarities than differences. The Jordan River is not deep enough to turn into a knife blade serving to cut one piece of territory into three slices. Most of Jordan's population are Palestinians: the residents of the West Bank are Jordanian citizens and Jordan has distributed tens of thousands of passports to residents in the Gaza Strip. Jordan is therefore an existing State. It has an army. There is therefore no need to set up another State, another army."

Yasser: True, but Shimon is not at this moment in the Israeli Government. It will need the concurrence of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to make these views Israeli policy.

Yitzchak: That shouldn't be difficult. Ariel told Time on April 17, 1989, that "Jordan is Palestine! The capital of Palestine is Amman. If Palestinian Arabs want to find their political expression, they will have to do it in Amman." Couple those thoughts with his Disengagement Plan for Gaza and the building of a security fence in the West Bank, which has effectively divided the region into Jewish and Arab sections, and you have the basis for calling an international conference whose object is to resubdivide Palestine along the lines I first suggested in 1985.

Yasser: That's all fine, but what about my beloved Jerusalem? Can I ever hope that my mortal remains will be reburied there?

Yitzchak: Yes. It is possible. East Jerusalem was part of Jordan between 1948-1967 and would have been so today had King Hussein kept out of the six day War. The Holy Places are specifically to be dealt with in the Peace Treaty I signed with King Hussein in 1994. We can't solve all the problems from here. Those on earth are charged with negotiating the final outcomes. Now is a propitious time for them to attempt to do so.

Yasser: How can we get the Quartet to abandon their plans to continue pursuing the impossible? Visions have a habit of turning into the worst nightmares.

Yitzchak: The Quartet should heed the above things we said whilst on earth, but which we unfortunately failed to try to put into practice. This will be the finest tribute they can pay to our memories and will merit the Nobel Prize that we were in truth prematurely awarded. This will be the real peace of the brave. Pressure must be put on Jordan to resubdivide Palestine, the same kind of pressure that is being put on Israel to accept the badly flawed and thoroughly discredited Road Map. Then perhaps the peace we all desire will be attainable.

Yasser: Shalom Yitzchak

Yitzchak: Salaam Yasser.