A controversial US plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace couldspell the demise of Jordan and turn it into a “Palestinian state”,Jordanians and analysts warn.
The initiative launched by US President Donald Trump’sson-in-law Jared Kushner at a June conference in Bahrain dangles the prospectof USD 50 billion of investment into a stagnant Palestinian economy.
But it fails to address key issues such as an independentPalestinian state, Israeli occupation and the Palestinians’ right to return tohomes from which they fled or were expelled after Israel’s creation in 1948.
The Palestinian Authority boycotted the Bahrain forum,accusing the unabashedly pro-Israel Trump of using the prospect of cash to tryto impose political solutions, and of ignoring the fundamental issue ofoccupation.
Trump has taken the landmark step of recognising disputedJerusalem as Israel’s capital and Kushner has suggested the peace plan wouldnot mention a Palestinian state.
Kushner is returning to the Middle East later this month topush his economic plan which has been rejected by the Palestinians andcriticised by Jordan.
“No economic proposal could replace a politicalsolution that ends the occupation” of Palestinian territories by Israel,Jordan’s foreign ministry spokesman Sufyan al-Qudah said.
Jordan, one of only two Arab countries to have a peacetreaty with Israel, sent only a low-level official to the June 25-26 conferencein Manama.
In Amman, protests have been staged against what has beendubbed the “deal of the century”.
“It would mean the end of the Palestinian cause and itwould wipe out Jordanian identity, both in one go,” said Khaledal-Khrisha, a 65-year-old Jordanian, at a rally last month outside the USembassy.
“Jordan will be the biggest loser after thePalestinians.” Another demonstrator, 81-year-old Widad al-Aruri whosefamily originates from the West Bank, said the deal “means selling off thePalestinians and is dangerous for Jordan”.
The kingdom hosts millions of Palestinians who poured into thecountry in two waves, after Israel’s creation and following the 1967 Six-DayWar, when Israel occupied the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza.
The largely desert country — which has little resources andrelies heavily on international donors, including $1 billion a year fromWashington — is home to 9.5 million people, more than half of them ofPalestinian origin.
Two thirds of them are Jordanian citizens, while the othersare considered refugees who many Jordanians fear will be settled permanentlyand given citizenship as well if the Kushner plan goes through.
More than two million Palestinians in Jordan areUN-registered refugees. “Jordan is worried because the deal ignores theidea of an independent Palestinian state,” said Oraib Rintawi who runs theAl-Quds Centre for Political Studies.
As a result, he said, “this will mean that thesustainability of a Palestinian nation would be conditioned to it being linkedsomehow with Jordan and that will open the gates of hell for Jordan”.
And under pressure, Jordan would be forced to take in morePalestinians and eventually give them Jordanian citizenship.
“This is a nightmare,” he added.
With an unemployment rate of about 18.5 percent, Jordan,whose stability is seen as vital for the volatile Middle East, was last yearshaken by widespread economic protests.
In addition to hosting millions of Palestinians, the countryhas taken in a mass influx of refugees from its conflict-riddled neighboursSyria and Iraq, stretching its cash-strapped economy.
Ahmad Awad, head of the Phoenix Centre for Economics andInformatics Studies, said: “Forfeiting the right of return andcompensation (for refugees) will be dangerous for Jordan and thePalestinians”.
He noted that a majority of Jordanians are of Palestinianorigin, and a large number of West Bank residents are Jordanian citizens.Jordan administered the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, until the 1967war.
It remains custodian of Muslim and Christian holy sites inJerusalem, whose status is one of the thorniest of the decades-longPalestinian-Israeli conflict.
“Jordan has no choice but to reject the (US) plan…And has already rejected it quite firmly (because)… It would turn Jordan intoa Palestinian state,” said analyst Kirk Sowell of Utica Risk Services.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II has repeatedly ruled out aconfederation with the Palestinians or giving up custodianship of Jerusalemholy sites, calling them “red lines”.