Jordan Can Solve the Palestinian Problem

Jordanian MP, Ismail Al-Mashabeh, placed an Israeli flag on the ground in the Jordanian parliament and walked on it as a sign of disrespect.

This follows in the tradition of Jordanian trade unions regularly treating Israeli flags as floor mats at entrances to their offices.

Jordanian municipalities have been using Israeli flags as floor mats for over a decade.

Yet, the Jordanian king, representing a country that expelled Jews from their homes in Jerusalem, destroyed all the synagogues in the Old City of Jerusalem, and used the Kotel as a urinal, is upset because Bezalel Smotrich gave a speech to an organization that featured a motif that excluded Jordan on the podium of the stage.

It should be noted that the Hashemites barely represent 10% of the Jordanian population, that the majority are Palestinian, either citizens or those kept in refugee status for more than half a century.

King Abdullah finds nothing amiss when he visits the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and sees the emblems of a future Palestine that obliterates Israel.

As a peace partner with Israel, he has made no protest about this.

In other words, by his silent acquiescence, he has given a silent support for a greater Palestine replacing Israel.

But Jordan could solve the Palestinian problem, if it wanted.

I have a proposal for Abdullah if the king really cares to give dignity to the people living under his rule. That is, if he really cared to make a meaningful gesture for regional peace and stability and improve the status of his country on the world stage.

King Abdullah should display true leadership and true democracy by renaming his realm the Kingdom of Palestine.

There have been suggestions that “Jordan is Palestine” in the past, but this proposal may solve an impenetrable Palestinian problem and give him and his kingdom greater gravitas and purpose globally.

This solution will democratically add thousands of stateless Palestinians to his kingdom’s citizenship.

Add to this that Abdullah’s wife, the Queen of Jordan, is also a Palestinian.

The world is tired of funding a corrupt, failed, Palestinian leadership.  They would eagerly regenerate funding to raise an insignificant desert fiefdom into a major world player.

And Israel would certainly be a lead player in this effort.

I am certain that Israel would agree to allow towns such as Ramallah, Jericho, Tulkarm, Nablus, fully inhabited by Arabs who prefer to call themselves “Palestinians,” to be confederated with the Kingdom of Palestine.

There is more hope of a permanent peace built around this concept than the failed two-state non-solution that has been dead and buried for half a century.

Barry Shaw,

International Public Diplomacy Director,

Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.