It took only a few days after Oct. 7 for the Biden administration to resume pushing for the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. As far as Washington is concerned, the only appropriate response to the slaughter of 1,200 Israelis, and the kidnapping of 240 more, is to reward it — thereby justifying it — with international legitimacy.
At first, the administration camouflaged its plan by appearing only to inquire about “the strategy for the day after” the end of military operations in Gaza. Three months later, the administration is now openly describing the situation as an “opportunity” to give the Palestinians a state. There is “no way,” according to the administration, for the Israelis “to solve their long-term challenges to provide lasting security … without the establishment of a Palestinian state.” (READ MORE: Israel Should Reject the Palestinian State Snake Oil)
The administration is now ratcheting up the pressure to move in this direction and wants to begin this process as soon as possible. On multiple occasions, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly rebuffed President Biden on the prospect of a Palestinian sovereign state. “In any arrangement in the foreseeable future — with an arrangement or without one — Israel must have security control over all the territory west of the Jordan,” Netanyahu said during a recent news conference.
People of Palestinian descent constitute a majority of Jordan’s population (some estimates say more than 70 percent).
While the Biden team will paint Netanyahu as an obstacle to peace, which supposedly could only come in the form of a Palestinian state, the fact is that, more than ever, the Israeli public views the idea as a suicidal proposition.
No one is under the illusion that providing a political solution to a century-long conflict is simple, but now, if there ever was a time — as Israeli soldiers are fighting one of the most intense urban battles in history, with the northern border heating up, and feeling the growing international pressure — putting forth a viable end-game to what has been an endless war with Palestinians has become a matter of critical national urgency for Israel.
As it stands, the choice for Israel according to the mainstream internationalist paradigm is a return to the two-state formula once military operations are completed. There are essentially three popular policies currently on offer;
None of these strategies offer Israel the long-term security formula it desperately requires. Instead, they promise only to exacerbate its security threats. Moreover, none of these policies and their variations will change the fundamental nature of the Palestinian conflict as it stands today. They present a Hobsons choice — fake choices, designed to create intellectual cul-de-sacs, a cognitive grind, and plays right into the attrition warfare precepts cardinal to the “Palestinian resistance” playbook.
Looking at the core of the conflict, being steely-eyed regarding the vital forces at play, the essence of it can be reduced to four main elements, with two core requirements on each side of the conflict.
The main requirements for the viability of a given political solution from the Palestinian point of view must address;
On the Israeli side of the equation, there are two core necessities for a viable political solution:
In constructing a cogent political solution, there is only one strategic avenue that genuinely addresses all four of these foundational elements. Thinking it through dispassionately, the Kingdom of Jordan — due to history, demography, geography, and necessity — is the best alternative for a Palestinian state.
There is an informative book about events in the Middle East in a seemingly unimportant year in world history – Winston’s Hiccup, by Frank Jacobs, provides critically important insight on how, in 1921, the Kingdom of Jordan was formed. As he describes it, Winston Churchill, the then-Colonial Secretary, said that “with a stroke of a pen one Sunday afternoon in Cairo” he created the British mandate of Trans-Jordan. (READ MORE: The ‘Two-State Solution’ Echoes Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’)
Jacobs goes on to describe the disaster in the making: “Apparently, having been drinking that day, the colonial secretary’s penmanship was wobbly,” allegedly producing “a particularly erratic borderline.” The resulting zigzag that delineates the border between Jordan and Saudi Arabia is sometimes referred to as “Winston’s Hiccup” or “Churchill’s Sneeze.”
Instead of a fair and equitable partition of Palestine in 1947, with the Jordan River as the natural boundary between Jews and Arabs, Britain — for its political expedience — sliced off what was three-quarters of the geographical area of “Palestine” and handed it over to the Saudi Hashemite clan as a consolation prize, anointing them minority rulers in an alien land.
Thus understood, a Palestinian State of Jordan would satisfy the vital needs of both Israelis and Palestinians.
People of Palestinian descent constitute a majority of Jordan’s population (some estimates say more than 70 percent). If one believes in the liberal value of governing by consent, Jordan would be considered a de facto Palestinian State. Furthermore, Jordan occupied the West Bank from 1948-1967 and only renounced its claim to the West Bank in the late 80’s. Arafat and his liberation movement’s first attempt at political power — in 1964 — was the failed Black September coup in Jordan’s capital Amman. It is hard to deny that the ties that bind Jordan to the Palestinians are vast and deep.
On the Palestinian side of the board, a Palestinian State of Jordan would address the central demand for self-determination and an end to statelessness. Providing recognition to a de facto state of Jordan as a Palestinian State, would at minimum, require that the Jordanian legislative body be free and representative of a majority of its Palestinian population, which would fulfill the Palestinian aspirations of statehood. If it is the will of the people, the Hashemite king of Palestine could theoretically retain power as a constitutional monarch and continue its alliance with Israel. The main upshot is that the Palestinians would make such decisions in a state of their own.
The second core requirement is that Palestinian settlements west of the Jordan River need to be recognized. The concept of Palestinian statehood in Jordan also allows for creative thinking regarding the Palestinians residing west of the Jordan River. As a case in point, Israel could annex the disputed territories, at no expense to a Palestinian State.
Such a scenario allows for a power-sharing arrangement for Palestinians in these disputed territories; they could retain full individual, civil, and municipal rights protected under Israeli sovereignty and law, while a future Palestinian State in Jordan would accord the Palestinians west of the Jordan River full national rights and citizenship. An unorthodox arrangement to be sure, nonetheless, providing confederated citizenship for these Palestinian communities will go a long way in solving the current impasse.
[T]he argument from both sides against a policy for Jordan is Palestine is that the hostility it would engender from either the Hashemite elite and/or its Palestinian subjects would inevitably result in war.
The second necessity for Israel is its security posture. Leaving vast territories — which straddle Israeli population centers along Israel’s eastern border — in the hands of a century-long irredentist population that expresses the worst forms of antisemitism and is a veritable recruitment hub of jihadi terrorism is, to put it gently, impracticable. By providing a state for Palestinians in Jordan, Israel will have the political solution it needs. Israeli security forces would be able to expel any Palestinian criminals and terrorists that manifest a security threat inside their communities in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria, extraditing them as Jordan nationals to the State of Jordan permanently. (READ MORE: Israel Isn’t Prepared for a Three Block War)
So how would Israel in practice effectuate a “Jordan is Palestine” policy? Below are three initiatives that would serve as its bedrock:
Thus understood, a Palestinian State of Jordan would satisfy the vital needs of both Israelis and Palestinians; which brings us to the question of why such a policy, which seemingly checks all the boxes for Israel, is ignored by mainstream leaders and institutions.
For decades, the main objection to the “Jordan is Palestine” paradigm by the Israeli political elite is that it would destroy the alliance with the Hashemite monarchy. As they point out, the king, like his father before him, has been consistent in his opposition to any involvement in a formula that designates him the guardian of the Palestinian people. This refusal until now was seemingly worth the trade for a stable neighbor in an unstable region.
Yet the truth is that the Hashemite Kingdom sits on a throne of cards. It has always, since its inception, relied on its Western patrons to prop it up. As the U.S. has retreated from the region, Iran is on the march, with its terror proxies congealing as much on Jordan’s borders as they are on Israel’s borders. With an uptick of Iranian arms flowing across the Jordanian border and U.S. soldiers attacked in its Jordanian bases by Iranian proxies, Jordan is increasingly seen in Israel as an unreliable partner at best and ripe for an Iranian takeover at worst.
For those that do see the sense in a Jordan is Palestine solution, doubt remains that even if there was a theoretically free Jordanian legislature with the Palestinian majority represented, such a body politic — with or without the Hashemite monarchy — would still reject peace with Israel, as it would not fulfill the maximalist aims of the Palestinian “resistance” west of the Jordan River.
To put it simply, the argument from both sides against a policy for “Jordan is Palestine” is that the hostility it would engender from either the Hashemite elite and/or its Palestinian subjects would inevitably result in war.
The counter-argument is that Israel will be fighting a conventional war with another state actor. Putting it bluntly, a war with Jordan, one Israel should be able to win, would finally solve the Palestinian conflict once and for all. With a natural boundary — the Jordan River — between them, and a sovereign Palestinian state to transfer any hostile Palestinian terrorists, it is a far better situation than Israel finds itself in today.
If the Palestinians still want to continue this war from Jordan, they will no longer do so as homeless people. Israel, forced for decades to fight an increasingly grueling war of attrition on asymmetric battlefields with no end in sight, has a real alternative in advocating for a Jordan is Palestine formula: to midwife a Palestinian state in Jordan, and in so doing, flip an unwinnable paradigm on its head.
Necessity governs, the sands of the Middle East have shifted, and Israel is in desperate need of solid ground. After the Abraham Accords, the paradigm of Arab-Jewish relationships in the region has changed significantly. Jordan, unlike in the previous three decades, is now one of many Arab countries that have peace with Israel. After Oct. 7, a majority of Israelis have eschewed the political fashions of yesteryear and would today jeopardize Israel’s Jordanian alliance if it meant rescue from the Palestinian policy quagmire it can’t escape. (READ MORE: Israel Must Obtain an Unconditional Surrender)
Israel’s leadership needs to ask themselves the hard question: Is solving a century-long internationalized conflict worth risking an already-diminished Jordanian partnership? In the wake of Oct. 7, as Israel fights on all its fronts without a political solution currently in play, is maintaining a tenuous alliance with the Hashemites at the expense of a real alternative Palestinian two-state solution a good deal for Israelis and Palestinians? Common sense and the demands of self-preservation compel that the Jordan is Palestine formula no longer be ignored by Israel’s mainstream.
I will conclude where I started. Where does Israel turn to for a real and credible solution to this interminable conflict? Looking at it from the Israeli vantage point, an honest observer admits the futility in the current blueprint, whether it is Oslo, Oslo-lite, disengagement, or some variation of all three. “Jordan Is Palestine” is the only political solution that solves the core demands of both sides. What better solution for Israel and the Palestinians is there?
Ariel Harkham is an executive in Israel’s hi-tech industry, co-founder of the Whiskey Debate Society, and has contributed to The Hill, Forbes, American Thinker, Haaretz, Ynet, Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, and other such outlets.
