The Israeli-Jordan Peace Agreement: A Missed Opportunity

      Great cries of exhilaration were heard in Israel, from the Left and the Right, blurring the boundaries between government and opposition, when late Prime Minister Rabin announced to an overjoyed Israeli public the conclusion of a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. Finally, it was said and felt, the long-standing "friendly" and "intimate" relationship with the "moderate" and "pro-Western" monarch was formalized and institutionalized, thus eliminating, once and for all, the abiding threat of the Eastern Front.
The wall-to-wall rare consensus among the Israeli public towards this dramatic event overshadowed the deep divisions between the "peace camp" and the "hard-liners", and threw to the sidelines their radically different, even diametrically opposed, motives for supporting this peace arrangement. Rabin and his group thought that the isolated Palestinians would more easily come to terms once King Hussein openly allied with Israel; the Likud and its allies hoped that by resolving the Palestinian problem within Jordan, which is home to half the Palestinian people (3.5 out of 7 million), they could avoid addressing the thorny question of Palestinian nationhood in the Territories. Both ends of the Israeli political continuum behaved as if Jordan were the main source of Israeli concerns, and they rushed to settle with it as if such a settlement would put an end to those concerns. Both were wrong on both premises.

The Essentials of the Israel-Jordan Peace Agreement (1994)
The Madrid Process which opened in the wake of the Second Gulf War (1991), resulted in a series of bilateral meetings in Washington between Israel and its neighbors during 1992, which were geared to produce bilateral peace treaties. At first, at Israel's insistence and with American connivance, the Israeli delegation negotiated with a joint Jordanian-Palestinian counterpart in the search for a solution to the Palestinian issue that was to meet the terms of the Camp David Accords (1978) which had recognized the "legitimate rights" of the Palestinian people, in contrast with the 242 Security Council Resolution which had only mentioned the need to resolve the refugee problem.
The talks soon stalled, due to the Palestinian need to lend the PLO stamp of legitimacy to the Palestinian contingent in the negotiations, something that Israel rejected out of hand. But when the change of government took place in Israel in June, 1992, the new administration decided to short-circuit the ongoing Washington talks, established a parallel channel to the PLO in Oslo, and concluded an agreement with the Palestinians behind the backs of the American facilitators of the official channel of negotiations. Newly-elected President Clinton seized the occasion, aligned with the Rabin government's volte-face and sponsored the signing ceremony of the accords on the lawn of the White House (September, 1993).
Once the Israeli government acknowledged the separate existence of a Palestinian entity, it was only a matter of time before King Hussein jumped on the bandwagon. His motives were obvious: if he could get a separate legitimacy from Israel for his rule in Jordan over half the Palestinian people, which constituted two thirds of the population of his Kingdom, the entire Palestinian problem would be handed over to Israel to resolve. He had washed his hands clean of the Palestinian 'headache" back in 1988, at the height of the Intifadah, when he renounced his claim to the West Bank which had been his fief between 1948 and 1967 and the retrieval of which he had been pursuing thereafter. He was delighted to pass on to Israel the Palestinian hot potato and to entrench himself as the legitimate ruler of Jordan who has recognized interests in the Islamic holy shrines in Jerusalem.
The accords which he negotiated and rapidly concluded with Israel covered six different areas, all of which worked in Jordan's favor:

1. Border Adjustments - Three areas on the border between Jordan and Israel necessitated Israeli withdrawals as follows:

   1. Out of 381 km2 claimed by Jordan south of the Dead Sea since 1949, Israel agreed to hand over 300;

   2. In the Naharayim area on the border between Israel and Jordan, at the convergence of the Jordan and Yarmuk Rivers, Jordan got part of the 5 km2 under dispute and turned them into the "island of Peace", where meetings between the populations of the parties were to be facilitated.

   3. In the southern Arava Desert 30 km2 which had been reclaimed and fertilized by Israeli kibbutzim over the years, were formally returned to Jordanian sovereignty although they remained practically under lease in the hands of their Israeli users.

2. Water Distribution - Under the Accords, Jordan was to receive more water from the Yarmuk River than its original share, and Israel undertook to raise the necessary funds to finance the dams that were to ameliorate the storing capacity of the river. Beyond those agreements, thirsty Jordan never desisted from demanding more water from Israel's own shrinking supplies, to an extent which has necessitated dipping into the Kinneret national reservoir, itself under a severe process of depletion after many years of drought and changing climatic patterns.

3. Palestinians living in Jordan were put on the agenda as candidates for repatriation to West Palestine. This 60% majority component of the Jordanian population, which is potentially inimical to King Hussein, was further increased by 10% following the escape during the Gulf War of some 350,000 Palestinian refugees from Kuwait to Jordan. The rise of their ratio from 60 to 70%, with the attending socio-economic problems of unemployment, crime, political unrest and Islamic inroads into the social fabric, meant that the regime had to do anything it could to negotiate them away to anyone ready to take them. Some 800,000 of them, dubbed by Jordan and the PLO the "1967 refugees" were forced onto the agenda of negotiations and were considered as candidates for immediate repatriation to the West Bank and Gaza, while hundreds of thousands more were to be discussed in the context of the permanent settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. Worse, Israel agreed to discuss the question of these refugees in a quadripartite forum (with Egypt, Jordan and the PLO) where she would be outnumbered, isolated and accused by the Arabs of obstructing the solution.

4. The Islamic Holy Places in Jerusalem were recognized, according to the Washington Statement of 25 July, 1994, as pertaining to Jordan's "unique historic role" in the city. That meant that subsequent to Jordan's illegal occupation of East Jerusalem for 29 years, and its removal by force from there in 1967, and after Hussein had waived his claim to the West Bank (including Jerusalem) in 1988, the Hashemites were now introduced once again through the backdoor and given a role in the city, to the detriment of Israel who claims it as her "eternal capital" and of the Palestinians who succeeded in forcing it onto the Oslo agenda. By playing Jordanians against Palestinians in the city, Israel runs the risk of losing to both and of seeing its own authority eroded.

5. Security and Normalization are the key concepts which have induced the Israelis into the Accords with Jordan. Israeli national psyche has a hard time to expect, as a matter of course, that Jewish independence and recognition of Israeli security needs are to go hand in hand with any peace arrangement between Israel and its neighbors. Indeed, Israel's almost pathological need to seek acceptance and recognition from any quarter the world over, and at almost any price, and to rejoice beyond measure when this seems to be achieved, lay behind the great and unjustified concessions she had to make to Jordan to get these accords. Thus, in getting legitimacy from an autocratic king, himself in search of legitimacy, and in obtaining permission for the besieged Israelis to walk the alleys of Petra, Irbid and Karak, Israel found its aspirations fulfilled. But Israel is also unmindful that, judging from the Egyptian precedent, the peace with Jordan is not fool-proof and King Hussein or his successors are likely to join anti-Israeli coalitions in the future as they did in 1967 and once again during the Gulf War in 1991.

6. Economic Cooperation - a euphemism for a one-sided Israeli line of credit, technical assistance, fund-raising and lobbying in the West for grants to the Kingdom, as well as aid in land conservation, agro-technology, water supply, industrial parks etc. The only rewards Israel got in return were warnings of the impending economic imperialism of Israel. Tangible gains in selling Israeli products are difficult to envisage due to the inability of the Arab markets in general to purchase Israeli high-tech and other expensive products.

When the Peace Accords Become a Trap
Israel's concessions to Jordan in land and water, and allowances in terms of fund-raising and lip service to the Hashemite House, in return for practically nothing, in themselves will not determine the make or break of the Jewish state. The problem is with the premises underlying Israel's policy which led to that agreement regardless of whether or not it was initiated by the government or backed by the opposition. And at the end of the process, due to the expectations we helped raise across the world, Israel will be punished, pay all the prices and get nothing in return like in the famous Jewish story whose lessons we have refused to heed.
As indicated above, the calculus of the Israeli government has been to shift the center of gravity from unreliable and unpredictable Arafat to "moderate" and pro-Western Hussein, in order to dwarf the Palestinian issue, while the right-wing opposition has sustained Hussein in order to eliminate Arafat. Both were wrong and the King has outsmarted both. He understood his problem of legitimacy in the eyes of his Palestinian majority which remembers him as the descendant of the Hashemite House whose roots are in Hijaz, Saudi Arabia. Hussein, like his grandfather Abdullah, has been taking great pains to cultivate the new Jordanian identity in Eastern Palestine, whose population consists of either veteran Palestinian Bedouins or new comers from the West Bank and elsewhere either before 1948, or during the wars that ensued, or as a result thereof.
But when the Israeli government lent to Hussein the legitimacy he needed for his rule, it fell into the trap of recognizing it as "Jordan", as if Hussein and his House were a people or a country and not merely a disposable regime, an autocratic one at that, probably against the will of his people which are basically Palestinian and identify themselves as such. Had Israel insisted on the Palestinian nature of Jordan, a proposition repeatedly hailed by Hussein himself ("Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan"), a proposition supported by history, geography and demography, and demanded that the right of self determination be accorded to the entire Palestinian people, including those in Jordan and in Israel, then Jordan, being part of Palestine and home to half the Palestinian people, should have become part of the solution of the Palestinian problem.
Under these circumstances, a "Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine" could have been declared, with the royal house at its helm as a constitutional monarchy as long as the people there wanted it, but with the actual power in the hands of the Palestinian majority. But since this did not happen, the entire Palestinian burden now rests squarely on Israel's shoulders out of her own choice; and since Israel cannot alone resolve this problem it becomes insoluble for the following reasons:

1. If the PLO continues to claim that it represents the entire Palestinian people, including the 3.5 million in Jordan and the million in Israel, the dream of self determination cannot be fulfilled as long as the Palestinians are divided between Jordan, Judea, Samaria and Gaza, Israel (what is erroneously called the "Israeli Arabs"), and the Diaspora (refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon and Palestinian communities in the West).

2. The Right of Return which is hailed by the Palestinians as one of their basic demands for a settlement, cannot be achieved in the territory west of the Jordan River which is already overpopulated and whose permanent status is still disputed with Israel.

3. Even if Israel and the Palestinians were to come to a full agreement on the extent of the Palestinian autonomy/state in the present parameters of the negotiation, this would encompass only one third of the Palestinian people, while the other two thirds would continue to vie for independence and to knock on Israel's door, violently or otherwise, in search of a solution.

4. A Palestinian entity west of the Jordan would insist on all paraphernalia of statehood such as a full-fledged army, which Israel cannot allow. This itself would give rise to unrest and friction due to the difficulty to police the imperceptible transition from police to military.

5. A state of irridenta would subsist in the Palestinian entity both towards Israel and the Jordanian state, due to the continuum of Palestinian population in all three.

6. This no-win situation would further deteriorate due to the mounting activity of the Muslim Brothers in Jordan and west of the River (Hamas), who are committed to rejecting partial agreements between the Palestinians and Israel, and demand the application of Shari'a Law over the entire territory of historical Palestine as a first step toward the re-creation of the universal Caliphate. The problematic legitimacy of the Jordanian as well as of the PLO rule in East and West Palestine respectively, while the Brothers are waiting in the aisles in both places and accumulating popularity, leaves open the question of whether Israel can conclude any permanent settlement with the governments in place on both sides of the Jordan River. The lesson of Western support to the military government in Algeria and to other autocrats in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco etc., while legitimacy was shown to belong to the Islamists there, and the ensuing killings and chaos, ought to deter any wise administration from borrowing the same road.

The Palestinians would not care to raise these concerns in public because they are mindful of the fact that if their problem were to be settled in such a way as to include Jordan too, and their official rule were recognized there, the pressure would be taken off Israel to accord them self-determination and statehood. Jordan is theirs, as a matter of course, and it is only a matter of time before their overwhelming majority will displace the Hashemites at worse, or co-opt them in Hashemite Palestine at best. Therefore, they focus all their effort, military and diplomatic, on obtaining their independence from Israel so as to ensure its retreat from the West Bank, as a first step to demanding more and cashing in the rest which will fall into their lap like a ripe fig.
Had the Palestinians made clear at this point their claim over all the territories where they constitute a majority or a sizable minority, which would have meant, in fact, laying claim to Jordan and Israel as well, they would have defeated their purpose and forfeited the support they now enjoy as a stateless people. For they would then be demanding two states and a half: one in the West Bank and Gaza, one in Jordan that they already have in all but the title, and half of Israel which they refuse to recognize as a Jewish state and insist on its bi-national (Jewish-Palestinian) character. Only the implementation of this dream is likely to alleviate the despair of the refugees who have been rotting in the camps for three generations, and would settle for nothing less than returning to an aggrandized Palestine. Such talks, coupled with accusations against Arafat that he has left them on the sidelines in Oslo, are already heard among many Palestinian quarters.

Squaring the Triangle
The Palestinian triangle (in Jordan, Israel and the Territories) cannot be squared unless all three parts are taken together in the context of one large territorial unit called Palestine/the Land of Israel in which Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews have equal part and equal right. In this perspective, Jordan, which is part of Palestine, is not only part of the Palestinian problem but also a vital part of its solution. Concluding a separate peace with Jordan constituted, therefore, from the Israeli point of view, a foreclosure of options for the solution of the core issue of Palestine. But going back to square one, even today, is not impossible.
In Oslo a tragic mistake was made of recognizing that 80% of Palestine and 50% of the Palestinians to King Hussein as Jordanians, but this did not resolve the question of Palestinian nationhood. Quite the contrary, by excluding from the settlement the very components that could facilitate it, it was made impossible. There is no escape from the conclusion, therefore, that two paradoxical premises have to be adopted by both parties:

1. Only if the two parties, Israelis and Palestinians, who inhabit, have relations with and own Palestine/the Land of Israel, openly advance maximalistic claims to the land in its entirety, i.e. on both sides of the Jordan, can they also make concessions to the other party: Israel in the East Bank and the Palestinians in the West Bank; only then do they have something to give up without precipitating an irreversible damage to their very existence.

2. Only if each party recognizes the rights of the other can it also expect its demands to be heeded. Each party wants the other to be "realistic" and accept to withdraw and make concessions, but unless each party also recognizes the symmetry and reciprocity built into the mutual system or recognition of rights, no one will move to make the necessary sacrifices. Thus, rather than list a series of "no"'s to the partners in negotiations, namely spelling out the non-starters which become preconditions before any discussion was started, it is better to state the equal and parallel rights of both parties and discuss what each party is prepared to concede in order to reach a settlement. In other words, only if the Israelis and Palestinians accept the premise that each one of them owns all of historical Palestine, that is Israel, the Territories and Jordan, but so does the other too, can the negotiations begin.

Once these principles are accepted, the issue becomes one of boundaries. This vast land can be divided north/south or east/west so as to accommodate both peoples and at the same time respond to their basic needs. If the Palestinians want to keep the Hashemite House and be loyal to it, it is their affair; if the King wants to test his long-standing claim that he is beloved of his subjects and is popular with them, they would certainly consent to turn the state into the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine, and their King into a constitutional monarch, while the Palestinian overwhelming majority retains the actual reins of power.
This would be the government, whatever its composition, that Israel would have to deal with to implement the permanent peace plan. The negotiations will be protracted, difficult and tortuous before the final boundaries are agreed upon, but when they are, everyone would understand that the lot has been drawn, the land has been divided and an acceptable peace settlement by the two peoples has been established. Because under those circumstances, the debate between the parties would be a quantitative one, about territories and assets that can be agreed upon in the process of give-and-take as a means and a compromise as an end, it would no longer be a qualitative conflict where Israel denies the rise of a Palestinian state and Palestinians refute the idea of a Jewish state in part of Palestine, something that they did not fully accept yet in spite of Oslo.
Such a Palestinian state would not be by nature, any stronger or more ill-willed than the present Jordanian state. Because if "moderate" Jordan could attack Israel in 1967, and associate with Israel's enemies in 1973 and during the Gulf War of 1991, there is no reason for Israel to fear that a Palestinian state in the same territory and with the same demographic composition would do any worse. The fate of the territories west of the Jordan, now ruled by Israel would then be discussed with a self-confident Palestinian government, based east of the river, for whom the West Bank and Gaza, or parts thereof, would be no more than part of Palestine and therefore more agreeable to territorial compromise to satisfy Israeli security needs. In this regard the Egyptian model could be enlightening: the Egyptians agreed in the Camp David process to demilitarize Sinai only because they could still maintain their armies along the Suez Canal and in the Egyptian hinterland.
After the partition of all Palestine between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, both populations who wish to continue to reside in the state that is not their own will be able to do so and will acquire the right of permanent residence. They will have to obey the local laws and submit to the local administrative system, but will owe their political loyalty, including citizenship, absentee vote and military service, to their own state. Thus, regardless of the exact borders between the two states, the demographic realities would matter little. In Israel, the Palestinians/Jordanians, including Israeli Arabs, who wish to reside there but maintain their national Arab identity, will continue to hold their alien passports while residing in Israeli. Conversely, Israelis now residing in settlements that may revert to the new Palestinian/Jordanian entity, would act likewise. But once the borders are drawn between the two parties, each one of them would devise and control its own immigration and citizenship policy to suit its particular needs within its own sovereign territory.
There are, however, two other concurrent (not substitute) possibilities to settle the nationality versus territory contradiction. First, people on both sides could of their own will decide to leave their place of residence, sell their property and move to the state with which they can identify and in which they can feel part of the ruling majority. This voluntary population transfer might take generations before the demographic balance settles at a permanent level. If the two states agree upon such a procedure during their negotiations, they can jointly declare their encouragement of voluntary population exchange as part of the general settlement between them. Alternatively, the alien residents could apply for citizenship in their country of residence and thereby cast their lot with their country of choice, partake of its economic, political and cultural life, serve in its armed forces, be educated in its language, and identify with its aspirations.

The Question of Jerusalem
The question of Jerusalem may also be addressed within this framework, in the context of the new Jordanian-Palestinian state. Jerusalem had been the seat of the Palestinian Grand Mufti in the 1930s and 1940s, but was later relegated by the Hashemites to the status of a backwater provincial city. It reentered the world stage as a result of its reunification in 1967 under Israeli rule and the international attention it has attracted ever since. In the Israeli-Jordanian peace accords of 1994, Jordan was again given a say in Jerusalem, due to Hussein's insistence that he regain part of the aura of the curator of the Holy Places in Jerusalem which he had lost in 1967 and which was part of his problematic political legitimacy in the first place.
The growing centrality of Jerusalem in the Muslim world, not least of all because it is currently not ruled by a Muslim power, makes it a major stumbling block on the road to peace between Israel and the Arabs/Muslims. It serves no purpose to invoke the sanctity of the city for the Jews or the Muslims and its centrality in their respective histories, cultures, politics and religions, for such contentions, irrefutable as they may be, could immediately be countered by parallel claims from all parties concerned. No one has invented an instrument to gauge the intensity of religious feeling or the extent of political commitment. In history, and even more so in political behavior, it is perceptions that count, it is beliefs that are operationally important, it is convictions that are valid - not what we would like to see as the "objective truth" or "hard fact". Therefore, the harder one attempts to prove his point in this debate, the more the other feels constrained to emphasize his own heritage and to conjure up the entire length and breadth of history to plead his case.
Putting Jerusalem on the negotiation table, whatever be the mode of the permanent settlement, not only would meet the criterion that everything is negotiable, but it could also dramatically alter the ambiance of the talks and prod the Palestinians-Jordanians to adopt the principle of sharing when the two parties are irretrievably locked in a system of mutual exclusion. The model to follow is that of Hebron, where during all the centuries of Islamic rule that preceded 1967, the Jews never had access beyond the seventh step to the Tombs of the Patriarchs which the Muslims called the Ibrahimi Mosque. When Israel took over in 1967, and against the widespread expectation that it would act likewise and exclude the Muslims henceforth, it announced that since the shrine was holy to both Judaism and Islam, the days of worship would be equally divided between the parties. The Muslims never accepted that arrangement, continued to claim their exclusive right to the place, but had no choice but to be reconciled to reality.
Similarly, the Muslims who had built their Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock on the ruins of the ancient Jewish temples, claim exclusivity for the place, stressing, among other things, that Islam had displaced both Christianity and Judaism and was the one revealed religion, and therefore no one else other than them had the right to the place. Israel, rather than inflaming the moods of Muslims across the world, decided to give in and not insist on sharing. This, in turn, has not only reinforced the Muslim claim of exclusivity, but has also induced them to expand their hold on the site by building a lower level dubbed the Marwani Mosque. If this could be reversed and the Muslims made to realize that they cannot monopolize a holy shrine which is claimed by others too, regardless of who rules the city, a long way would have been traveled towards acceptance of the other and coexistence in Jerusalem which could facilitate other practical arrangements. As elsewhere, no one can get everything but everyone will get something.
In the search for such a miraculous solution, many ideas have been proposed: from the internationalization of the city to the sovereignty of the monotheistic religions over their religious sites; from a condominium of the city by Israel and some Arab/Muslim entity such as Palestine, Jordan or Saudi Arabia, to autonomous boroughs under one united municipal umbrella. Because nothing could be agreed, due to the lack of a universally accepted definition of sovereignty, autonomy, what is whose, etc. the problem was relegated to the end of the peace process. But the peace process does not seem to be served by this evasion, for the tensions are mounting and the parties are positioning themselves with fait accompli to prepare for the ultimate show -down. Here too, the shifting of the Palestinian center of gravity eastwards, would by necessity lessen the pressure on Jerusalem and promote other creative solutions for a Palestinian-Jordanian capital, while the Islamic sites could get recognition and autonomy on a basis of sharing as outlined above.

Balance of Gains and Drawbacks
Life in general, and diplomatic demarches in particular, is a process of choice. It would be too easy if the choice were between good and bad, cheap and expensive, beneficial and harmful. Very often the preferred choice bears a price tag which makes its worth questionable. Therefore, one has to analyze the proposed solution in terms of the vital interests of the parties, and only if the projected benefits are not exceeded by the perceived drawbacks, does the plan stand any chance of implementation.
Israel would have to pay with territory for any benefits she might draw from such a settlement. What territory, and to what extent, will remain a subject of negotiation between Israelis and Jordano-Palestinians. But it is clear that, having no other major tangible asset to yield, the Israelis must pay mainly in terms of land. Paying with territory, however, does not necessarily mean the complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, for the Israelis could very well advance the argument that since they claim the right over all historical Palestine-Jordan, as do the Palestino-Jordanians , their readiness to yield the East Bank and retain parts of the rest is a territorial concession of major proportions. This argument, which would certainly be rejected by the Jordano-Palestinians, who could claim a right to the same, would also allow them to advance their counter-claims and posit their own territorial demands .
Protracted negotiations might ensue, which might lead to the brink of crisis, but ultimately an accommodation will be found, for territory is a quantitative issue amenable to concession, compromise and negotiation. In return for Israel's admittedly high payment in territory, she would stand to gain much. She could claim and retain much of the territory of the West Bank necessary for her security, and after that agreement is attained, she will remain not as an occupying power but as of right; the Palestinian Arabs remaining under Israeli rule, once they are assured of nationhood, statehood, and freedom of choice as to their future, would calm down and desist from violence; the problem of Israeli Arabs, who are now torn between their country and their people, would be resolved and each individual would become the master of his own fate; Israel could then regain the image of a peace-loving and generous country, once its crucial contribution to the freedom of the Jordano-Palestinians is recognized. Under this plan, Israel would be able to remain Jewish and democratic, free from the demographic menace, within boundaries finally recognized by her neighbors and the international community. Israel's improved image and secure borders would render it an attractive place for Western Jews to settle in, and most of the present Israeli settlements in the territories would not only be maintained but they could even be reinforced and expanded when Israel's sovereignty over them is assured. The Zionist nature of Israel would become clearer and more unshakable, and her nearly homogeneous citizenry would be able, under conditions of peace and prosperity, to revive its pioneering spirit.
The Palestino-Jordanians too must pay a heavy price: renouncing the removal of Israel from their midst; settling for the East side of Palestine as their main base, with incremental gains form the West Bank and Gaza; giving up the "Right of Return" into Israel and the PLO Charter; the Hashemites will have to yield their autocratic rule in favor of a democratically elected government where the Palestinians would have the determining voice. Certainly, no ruler has ever relinquished power out of his own will, but this would be a much smaller sacrifice than the territorial and ideological concessions that both the Palestinians and the Israelis would be called upon to make.
In return, the Palestino-Jordanians would get more than three quarters of historical Palestine, where plenty of territory is available to resettle refugees who have been languishing in tepid camps for the past 50 years. Already in the context of the Oslo Accords, the refugees have been raising their voice against the Palestinian Authority which has left them outside the settlement, due to its inability to absorb them in its confined territory, and they will inevitably continue to knock on Israel's door for a solution. Unless, that is, their problem is seen to be resolved in the vast land of Palestine across the Jordan River. The Palestinians would finally have a state of their own where they can implement their aspirations and gain recognition and support from Israel as a peaceful neighbor whose vital national interests would have been fulfilled too. They would then control the fate of most Palestinians, not merely the one third of them presently dwelling in the West Bank and Gaza, either through direct rule or via absentee citizenship for those remaining in Israel and elsewhere.
A Jordanian vital interest as such does not exist except as expressed by the King ruling that state. Since popular will, to the extent that it exists, reflects that of the Palestinian majority in that state much more than that of the King, it stands to reason that the Hashemites should yield to their people's desire. It will not be easy but it is not unreasonable, compared with the sacrifices that Israel and the Palestinians would have to incur. For the King too, the benefits are great and promising: in addition to regaining some parts of his lost territory while retaining his throne and the rule of the Hashemites over Palestine, and to gaining legitimacy for his throne and his reign from the majority of his subjects; he would also establish, finally, borders of internal peace not only with the Israelis but also with the Palestinians. He would dramatically increase his population from 4 to 6 million or more, some of whom would continue to reside in Israel but be his subjects and citizens, in addition to the refugees who would flow in in their eagerness for permanent settlement; Jordan would get access to the Mediterranean in Gaza via Israeli territory, unless the agreed upon division of the land would be along north-south lines, in which case Palestino-Jordan would be directly and permanently related to the Gaza shore.
Under these conditions, the Palestinians would at last be able to channel their talent, energies, manpower and creativity to developing their country, resettling their refugees, and cultivating their heritage and culture. They would also have a large and strong army posted east of the Jordan while their West Bank possessions will remain demilitarized so as not to pose a threat to Israel. If the Palestinian majority decides to retain the King at its head, as a constitutional monarch in the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine, he would regain parts of his lost territories and double the numbers of his subjects with the inflow of Palestinians to settle down, or of their absentee citizenship in Israel, Syria, Lebanon and the Diaspora. The King would then enjoy legitimacy as the head of Hashemite Palestine where popular will will have granted him the monarchy. He would then enjoy security and stability for his crown and would be able to devote his energies, not to foil attempts against his rule, but to benevolent government, to economic and cultural pursuits as a reigning but not ruling head of state. He could even retain some authority as supreme commander of his armed forces; he could dissolve the parliament, nominate the government, and the like. If he is so sure about his popularity among his subjects, he could even abdicate his throne and run for election as the head of the state or the executive authority thereof. In fact, the Monarch could act like the President in the French system, while preserving the traditional regalia he is reluctant to abandon and without his authority being greatly eroded or diminished.
In this fashion, the vital interests of the parties would be fulfilled and safeguarded, and the new framework of peace would create the necessary ambiance for advancing far beyond the proposed plan once its feasibility and workability is tested and proven. Then imagination and goodwill may produce more advanced regional federations and confederations, common markets and security pacts, to respond to emerging needs. This can happen only after the Palestinians experience freedom and independence in conjunction with their Jordanian alliance and then gain enough self-confidence to relinquish some of their sovereignty to the benefit of larger units. Then reality and its needs can perhaps carry the peoples of the Middle East further than anyone has imagined. Reality is not limited by imagination.

Stages of Implementation
It is evident that parts of this plan will be attacked by the parties and other interested powers, in accordance with their purposes and perceived interests. Israel would be reluctant to discuss the abandonment of more territory and the rise of a large and strong Palestinian state independent of her; Jordan will be loath to transfer much of the Monarch's power to the Palestinians at the expense of the painstakingly cultivated Jordanian identity; the PLO will reject the plan because it undercuts its claimed leadership over all Palestinians which under the present circumstances still maintains its hope for two and a half Palestinian states (the existing one in Jordan, the one it is claiming from Israel in the territories and the autonomy of Palestinians living in Israel). The U.S. and other Western powers might view the weakening of Hussein and Jordan as a blow to their interests in the Middle East especially as there is no telling what kind of anti-western government might come to power should the Palestinians have their way there.
However, if all parties are made to comprehend the alternatives to this proposed solution - the continued threat to Middle Eastern stability and the menace of war inherent in it - they may conclude that the proposed solution is bad but the alternatives are worse. Statesmanship consists of seizing the bad before it becomes worse, when one takes into account that seldom does the easy choice between bad and good present itself to decision-makers. Since 1967 other alternatives, including the Oslo process and the ensuing peace between Israel and Jordan, have become a realistic and universally agreed upon basis for a settlement. For most of those "solutions" have skirted the issue of the indivisibility of the Palestinian people in all three countries where it dwells, the problematique of Jordan as part of Palestine, and the equal rights of Palestinians and Israelis over all of historical Palestine.
The key nations for the implementation of this plan are the U.S. and Saudi Arabia which, if convinced of its feasibility, could prevail upon King Hussein to accept it. The King and his country depend very heavily for economic and military survival. If told that the choice is either his consent to share power or turmoil that might bring about his downfall, Hussein might be amenable to accommodation, knowing that otherwise he stands to lose support on which he depends. Then, the Israelis would have to be persuaded of the benefits to them of such a plan whereby they would retain enough territory to ensure their security and keep their state Jewish and democratic.
There are, of course, double-edged considerations as to who should initiate the talks on this plan: if Israel did, it would immediately be rejected by all Arabs; if the U.S. did, some Arabs might reject it while others might consent to it as a renewed basis for negotiations after the waning of Oslo. If Arabs, say Egypt or Saudi Arabia, should announce the plan, it might stand a better chance. On the other hand, this plan, which is conceived as one package, has inherent in it steps that Israel might like to take unilaterally in order to promote its implementation without, or prior to, other parties' consent. If Israel publicly announced the principles underlying the plan, it would have accomplished a public relations tour de force, by pronouncing itself in favor of the elements the world has been expecting and breathing a new life into the dwindling peace process: yes to Palestinian statehood, yes to a permanent solution of the problem experienced by the bulk of the Palestinian people, including the settlement of the sore refugee problem, and yes to peace on Israel's eastern border. The Arabs would then have either to accept the terms, or at least accept to negotiate on all or some of them, or to reject them. If they accept, the renewed negotiations will create a positive ambiance favoring a permanent peace settlement; if they refuse, Israel would have uttered her position in conciliatory terms and could then feel free to proceed on several fronts:

1. 1. Launch a worldwide diplomatic and information campaign explaining the benefits of this plan to all parties, bearing in mind that if Israel spelled out the principle of Palestinian statehood in the context of Jordan, and the details of its own version thereof, the discussion on the world stage would shift from blaming Israel for its negativism to debate on the merits of the plan. Then, everyone would be put to the test: Israel for its interest, will try to pacify its eastern border and negotiate for a large Palestinian state; the Jordanians for their readiness to accommodate their own people; the Palestinians for their desire to reach a permanent solution with Israel; the Israeli Arabs for their eagerness to resolve their national problem and make their own free choice as individuals. Statements by all these parties and their reverberations across the world would indicate the degree to which each is ready to compromise, and would allow Israel to separate between signals and noises in pursuit of the plan.

2. Israel can, at the same time, address itself to the more than one million Palestinians under her rule and elicit their opinions as to their future relations with Israel and/or with the future Palestinian state. Those who feel that they can identify with the Jewish-Zionist state and opt to integrate themselves fully into the Israeli system will be naturalized without delay, begin to exercise their rights and fulfill their duties, and weave their lives into the national fabric. The others, probably the majority, who would rather join the Palestino-Jordanian state after it is established, or be its nationals while continuing to reside in Israel, would have to wait until this issue is resolved by negotiation. Once established, that Palestino-Jordanian government will negotiate with Israel the question of Palestinian nationality for the Palestinians remaining in Israel, the issue of the final disposition of the territories, and all the issues relating to water, the Israeli settlements outside Israeli sovereignty, common borders and the contents, safeguards and modalities of the implementation of the bilateral peace between Israel and Palestino-Jordan. Arrangements will also be made regarding shared economic interests, labor markets, technical cooperation, open borders and the like.

3. Until Jordano-Palestinian sovereignty is established in territories that might be evacuated by Israel, and unless other arrangements are agreed upon by the parties, Israel would maintain, even increase, the pace of settlement there. The rationale is two-pronged: to press the Jordano-Palestinians to come to terms with Israel at the earliest in order to bring to a halt the Israeli settlements within what they claim as their territory; but at the same time signal to them that by settling more Israelis in those territories, Israel is exercising its claim on that land until an agreement to the contrary is reached. By so doing, Israel would be approaching parity with the Palestinian settlement in pre 1967 Israel, now amounting to over one million (in contrast with the 250,000 Israelis in the territories, including the satellite towns around Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinians as their own). When a peace agreement is reached between Israel and Jordano-Palestine, Israelis whose settlements would fall within Arab territory would face the same choices as Palestinians in Israel: remain as resident aliens in the Jordano-Palestinian state; sell their property and return home; or apply for full-fledged Arab citizenship.

In this respect, the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza can play a decisive role, just as the Israeli settlements in Sinai were a major incentive (not an obstacle) to peace between Israel and Egypt. It has become evident that one of the major factors behind Sadat's peace initiative in 1977 was his realization that the city of Yamit and the score of agricultural settlements in the Peninsula were taking root and expanding, and there would be no way to dismantle them unless he hurried and arrested that process. In fact, his first demand before his trip to Jerusalem was that the settlements be removed. Only when he was assured of that, did he begin to negotiate. Similarly, if the Palestino-Jordanians are assured of a plan that would test their readiness to consider this plan in exchange for Israeli concessions, they would begin to negotiate seriously. A fear of more losses if they waited might bring them around quicker, even though they realize that many demographic and territorial changes have become irreversible.
Oslo and its aftermath has taught all parties that there is no gain to be made from "constructive ambiguities", because the desire to satisfy everyone by wording which is interpreted differently by the parties collapses on the day of reckoning when implementation forces the signatories to the "agreement" into a head-on collision. But clear commitments and obligations, with a clear time table and a series of tests along the way to ensure compliance, would not suffice. It is necessary to agree on the permanent settlement, no matter how protracted and frustrating the negotiations, and from it derive the steps of the gradual implementation. To sign interim steps which lead nowhere, becomes a recipe for mutual accusations and a rapid erosion of the agreement as we have seen since Oslo. In Oslo the parties have embarked on the wrong train, which does not lead to any desirable destination and by now runs out of control and requires an immediate stop. If the parties want to get anywhere, they must go back to square one, put all the pieces of the puzzle on the table and begin to reconstruct the jigsaw from scratch. When they attain a compromise about the ultimate solution, all the rest would be details.