Abdullah bristles as Palestine fizzles

Israel’s chief negotiator in 2008 - Udi Dekel - spelt out the reasons for that failure when he told Ha’Aretz on 25 January in a revealing interview:

The Palestinian approach was in principle the demand of 100 per cent of their rights from 1967. The practical aspect interested them less. They are not willing to discuss any further compromise … We tried to build scenarios, some of them were imaginary, about specific compromises, but we found the Palestinians taking an approach of “all or nothing”.

Israel’s former National Security Advisor, Giora Eiland, has recently called for Jordan to replace the Palestinian Authority as Israel’s negotiating partner.

This has clearly upset King Abdullah who said in his interview:

There are pushes by certain elements of the Israeli government to say Jordan takes a role in the West Bank. That is never going to work and we have to be very clear that Jordan absolutely does not want to have anything to do with the West Bank.

All we will be doing is replacing Israeli military with Jordanian military. The Palestinians do not want that. They want to have their own statehood.

And again, what type of West Bank are we talking about? We are talking about a viable entity. What I think these people are offering to try and pull Jordan in is really nothing that would create enough statehood or make the Palestinians feel that they have something that’s called their home. So Jordan - I’m on the record; we’ve said this so many times -we will not have any role in the West Bank.

King Abdullah is in a state of denial and needs to reverse his negative stance for the following reasons:

1. Jordan was the last Arab occupier of the West Bank between 1948-1967 when it could have - but failed - to give the Palestinians their own statehood in 100 per cent of that territory after the Jews living there had been driven out following Jordan’s conquest of the West Bank in the 1948 War of Independence. Jordan’s return to the West Bank would substantially restore the status quo existing in 1967.
    
2. Jordan extended its sovereignty, and consequently all applicable domestic law, to the West Bank and East Jerusalem in April 1950. Reinstatement - where necessary - could be easily achieved.
    
3. West Bank Arabs were Jordanian nationals between 1950-1988 - until their nationality was withdrawn by Jordan. Jordanian nationality could now be as easily reinstated by Jordanian legislative decree.
    
4. Jordan ceded its claims to sovereignty in the West Bank in 1988 in favour of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) - which itself had previously ceded any claims to “exercise regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” under Article 24 of the 1964 Charter of the PLO. These semantic name games can again be easily reversed.
    
5. Jordan, together with Israel, comprise the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine possessing sovereignty between them in 94 per cent of former Palestine. Only 6 per cent of Palestine - the West Bank and Gaza - remains unallocated between them.
    
6. Jordan’s return to the West Bank can immediately free its Arab residents from Israeli occupation and control, give them Jordanian nationality, a home and a State -Jordan.
    
7. Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel provides mechanisms for peacefully settling outstanding issues such as water, refugees and Jerusalem.

King Abdullah needs to heed the following advice given by him in his interview with Fareed Zakaria: “Don’t take no for an answer. There are members of my society that, when I say ‘Let’s do something’, there’s a - I wish I could translate it into English - but it’s ‘Tsk’. The Arabs will know what I mean when I say ‘Let’s move this sector of society’ -‘Tsk, that’s never going to happen. We can’t find the money’. And I think that has been the major challenge that I’ve had over the past 10 years. It is not to be intimidated by the ‘Tsk’ that I get from society."

King Abdullah must show real leadership at this time of crisis and ready himself for negotiations with Israel - for nothing else has a chance of succeeding. This will avert the doom and instability predicted by the King following the collapse of the two-state solution.

Now is certainly not the time for King Abdullah to say “Tsk”. Please think again Your Majesty.