The Phantom Solution: Why the ‘Jordanian Option’ Remains an Illusion

During the current election campaign, Israel’s opposition parties have largely failed to articulate a political vision that offers a genuine alternative to Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy toward the Palestinians. Avigdor Liberman, leader of Yisrael Beytenu, is a notable exception. He proposes dismantling the Palestinian Authority, abrogating the Oslo Accords, and annexing Area C. Under his plan, Jordan would assume civilian administration and public order in the Palestinian cities and villages of Areas A and B, while Israel retains absolute military control throughout the entire West Bank.

Liberman has put a concrete proposal on the table, but does it offer a realistic path forward or merely a modern mechanism for maintaining Israeli domination? Its historical precedents, Amman’s rejection, and implications for Palestinian political rights reveal its fundamental flaws. Its resurgence also tests whether the opposition can move beyond managing the conflict toward defining an alternative political horizon.

The “Jordanian Option” predates Liberman by decades. After the 1967 war, Labor Party’s Yigal Allon proposed returning much of the West Bank to Jordan while Israel retained the Jordan Valley and strategically vital high ground. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan envisioned continued Israeli military control alongside Jordanian administrative responsibility for the local population. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres later pursued a negotiated Jordanian framework, culminating in his 1987 London Agreement with King Hussein, which Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir promptly torpedoed.

The Israeli right was similarly divided over Jordan’s role. Menachem Begin advocated limited Palestinian administrative autonomy under permanent Israeli sovereignty, while Likud hardliners promoted “Jordan is Palestine,” treating the Hashemite Kingdom as a substitute home for Palestinians. Despite their different mechanisms, these approaches shared an underlying objective: determining the West Bank’s administrative future without accepting full Palestinian national sovereignty.

In March 1972, King Hussein proposed his United Arab Kingdom federation plan, comprising the East Bank and a Palestinian region in the West Bank. The proposal provided for local parliamentary representation, Jerusalem as the Palestinian regional capital, and Amman as the central capital under Hashemite rule. Having lost the West Bank in 1967, Jordan sought to re-establish formal political ties to territory it had governed for nearly two decades. Crucially, Hussein envisaged a federation under Hashemite sovereignty, not fragmented policing of enclaves surrounded by Israeli-controlled territory.

Hussein’s plan failed to secure backing. Israel rejected it, while the Palestine Liberation Organization opposed Jordanian claims to speak for Palestinians. At the 1974 Rabat Summit, the Arab League recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, undercutting prospects for restored Hashemite rule. Hussein’s failed initiative proved that Jordan’s historical ties to the West Bank could not bypass Palestinian self-determination.

Jordan’s strategic doctrine changed decisively in 1988, when King Hussein severed the kingdom’s administrative and legal ties with the West Bank, relinquishing Hashemite claims in favor of the Palestinian national movement. Forcing renewed Jordanian administration today would reverse nearly four decades of Jordanian policy and risk reviving the far-right narrative that the kingdom is an alternative Palestinian state. Palestinian national identity and governance institutions have evolved dramatically; Jordan cannot re-impose its pre-1967 rule to manage post-October 7 realities.

Liberman’s proposal faces an insurmountable structural contradiction. Whereas King Hussein envisioned Hashemite sovereignty over a continuous Palestinian region linked directly to Amman, Liberman expects Jordan to administer fragmented urban islands surrounded by newly annexed Israeli territory. Amman would be asked to police dense population centers without the territorial continuity, international legitimacy, or sovereign authority needed to make such an arrangement viable.

This division of labor would leave Jordan accountable for municipal services, economic welfare, and public order without control over the conditions under which it operates. Israel would retain absolute authority over borders, airspace, movement, and military operations, while Jordan would bear full responsibility for the fallout of policies it could neither influence nor change. For the Hashemite monarchy, deploying security forces into Nablus, Jenin, and Hebron to maintain order under an Israeli government actively annexing surrounding land would invite immediate accusations of enforcing occupation by proxy. Such a deployment would severely destabilize the monarchy’s domestic standing while offering Palestinians no pathway to actual statehood.

The proposal’s ultimate failure, therefore, is not simply that Jordan will reject it out of hand. It attempts to resolve the conflict through an administrative trick, shuffling governance responsibilities while denying political rights.

Yet the resurgence of Liberman’s plan exposes a far broader crisis across the Israeli political spectrum. Criticizing Netanyahu, opposing his governing coalition, or promising to manage the security apparatus more efficiently does not constitute a national strategy. By offering no viable vision for the West Bank or Gaza, opposition leaders demonstrate that their quarrel with Netanyahu is fundamentally over governance style rather than strategic direction.

The resurrection of the “Jordanian Option” is not a viable blueprint for peace or security; it is a symptom of a political establishment unwilling to choose between annexation and separation. By clinging to ghost solutions from a bygone era, opposition leaders avoid an uncomfortable truth: Israel cannot permanently outsource the moral, legal, and political consequences of ruling millions of Palestinians. Until the opposition confronts that reality, it remains a managerial echo of Netanyahu, not a genuine alternative.