Jordan's king to visit Saudi Wednesday for peace-moving talks

david singerApr 29th, 2009 - 22:59:18

Jordan's King Abdullah is once again seeking to deny that Israel and Jordan - not the United States - hold the key to achieving peace for the following salient and compelling reasons:

1. Jordan comprises 77% of former Palestine
2. Jordan’s population overwhelmingly comprises Arabs born in Eastern or Western Palestine
3. Jordan and Israel are the two successor states in former Palestine exercising sovereignty over 94% of that territory. It is only in the West Bank and Gaza (6% of former Palestine) that sovereignty remains unallocated between Jews or Arabs.

King Abdullah’s view that the two state solution - the creation of a new sovereign Arab state between Israel and Jordan - is the only path to peace must be seriously questioned.

This proposed solution has been attempted and has failed - despite the most intensive efforts ever seen in international diplomacy over the last sixteen years. Led initially by the United States between 1993-2003 and thereafter by the Quartet - the United States ,the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations - this proposal has failed to achieve any breakthrough of even minimal proportions during the last sixteen years.

It also failed when rejected by the Arabs in 1937 and 1947. It could have happened at any time between 1948-1967 but was never even contemplated or pursued by the Arab League.

This dead horse has well and truly become an artefact of history along with the “peace process“ - and no amount of wishful thinking can bring it back to life. Events on the ground have made such a proposal impossible to achieve without massive human displacement and humanitarian suffering.

The West Bank at the present time is no mans land - the Wild West of the Middle East - where no one exercises internationally recognized sovereignty.

However a plan of negotiations that can resolve sovereignty and achieve concrete results within the framework of a two state solution - one Jewish, one Arab ,- in former Palestine - without necessitating one person leaving his current home - should be encouraged and promoted as a welcome step in the right direction.

Jordan and Israel’s Peace Treaty signed in 1994 and their status as the Jewish and Arab successor States in Palestine provide the vehicle - and legal justification - for establishing such a plan of negotiations that can achieve results to end the “untenable status quo” in the West Bank by the simple expedient of redrawing the existing international boundary between Jordan and Israel.

In accordance with King Abdullah’s ideas, such a plan of negotiations can achieve concrete results quickly - involving as they would face to face negotiations between these two key players and immediately adjoining neighbours in the region for the last 60 years.

Viewed as a border dispute between two peaceful neighbours, the resolution of the current conflict takes on an entirely different perspective.

Perhaps creative American leadership - involving offers of diplomatic, military and financial assistance - can encourage such negotiations being undertaken between Jordan and Israel.

But America would do well to leave the conduct of any such negotiations to the chairmanship of someone else like the Secretary General of the United Nations.

America needs some time out from the tortuous peace processes that have engaged successive American Presidents with very little to show - except egg on their faces.

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