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King Abdullah cannot exclude Jordan from any two-state solution

By David Singer - posted Thursday, 5 August 2021


 

King Abdullah's continuing attempt to exclude Jordan from being part of any two-state solution remains the major obstacle to ending the 100 years old unresolved Arab-Jewish conflict.

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The King's intransigent position came in this exchange with CNN's Fareed Zakaria this week:

Zakaria: Dore Gold, an influential adviser to Prime Minister Netanyahu, recently said, Jordan needs to start thinking of itself as the Palestinian state. In other words, there is a two-state solution, the Palestinian state is Jordan, I think the implication would be, of course, you have 60-70 percent Palestinians, you could absorb the Palestinians in the West Bank. This has been touted before, but here you have a fairly influential Israeli saying it. What is your reaction?

King: Well, again, that type of rhetoric is nothing new, and basically, those people have agendas that they want to do at the expense of others. Jordan is Jordan. We have a mixed society from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. I would maybe contest the percentage in the figures that you have mentioned, but it is our country. The Palestinians do not want to be in Jordan; they want their lands, they want their football team, they want their flag to fly above their houses."

King Abdullah ignored Jordan's chequered origins in asserting:

  • "Jordan is Jordan",
  • "it is our country" and
  • "the Palestinians do not want to be in Jordan"

The following historic, geographic and demographic realities contradict King Abdullah's remarks:

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Jordan – then called Transjordan - comprised 78% of the territory of former Palestine designated in the 1920-1948 Mandate for Palestine (British Mandate).

Transjordan only became an independent state in 1946

Abdullah's great-grandfather and Transjordan's first ruler - King Abdullah I - told a meeting of the Arab League in Cairo on 12 April 1948:

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Author's note: The cartoon - commissioned exclusively for this article - is by Yaakov Kirschen aka "Dry Bones"- one of Israel's foremost political and social commentators - whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.



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About the Author

David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International - an organisation calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Previous articles written by him can be found at www.jordanispalestine.blogspot.com.

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All articles by David Singer

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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