Of all the regional and international players involved in the Middle East, Jordan is particularly keen to push the peace process forward after a standstill of at least seven years. Jordanian diplomacy has played and continues to play an active role in focusing international and regional attention on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. King Abdullah II continues to warn of the consequences of losing this opportunity, warning that it may provoke a new spiral of violence in a matter of a few months.
Jordanian officials believe the growing influence of extremist groups and the worsening conflicts in the region are the result of the continued suffering of the Palestinian people and the failure of the international community to resolve the Palestinian problem. Jordanian diplomacy claims it has succeeded in convincing the Bush administration to move the conflict to the top of its agenda. Additionally, it has succeeded in unifying the attitudes of Arab moderates within the framework of the so-called Arab Quartet, motivating them to reactivate the peace process.
There are many concerns explaining Jordanian attention to the peace process. Primary among these are threats to Jordan’s national security, beginning with the rise of Islamic movements in the region, as evidenced by the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian election, the increasing influence of Hezbollah in Lebanon, that of armed Islamic groups – in particular Al-Qaeda – in Iraq, and the growing regional role of Iran. In addition, there is the threat of Israel’s applying a unilateral policy to deal with the Palestinian issue, which from the Jordanian point of view would reduce the chances of establishing a viable Palestinian state within the framework of US President George W. Bush’s vision of two states for two peoples, the “road map and the Arab peace initiative.
Jordanian decision-makers see these two threats – the growing role of fundamentalist forces in the region backed by Iran and the increasing Israeli inclination toward unilateralism – as connected: each develops and depends on the other. This connection further weakens the already declining hope for a just solution to the Palestinian issue, which, in turn, encourages extremist Islamist movements in the region to increase their influence, further raising levels of concern in Israel and prompting its decision-makers to impose one-sided solutions.
Jordan is watching with increasing concern the chaos in the Palestinian territories, and is concerned about the presence of Al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State of Iraq on its eastern borders. It does not wish to see an Islamic State of Palestine, led by a mix of fundamentalist forces – Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al-Qaeda – to its west. From this perspective, Jordan strongly supports efforts to strengthen Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah movement in order to forestall the Islamist movements from governing Palestinian society.
Jordan has expressed its concern regarding the effective collusion between extremist forces in Israel, who want to impose unilateral solutions, and fundamentalist groups in Palestine, which reject negotiated solutions. Both prefer unilateral policies under the slogan of a long-term truce and transitional solutions that keep the struggle alive. In other words, Jordan fears that Israeli unilateralism will produce Palestinian unilateralism, thus creating a situation where one feeds and spurs the other – especially with the continuing decline of the peace camp’s influence in Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the brink of collapse.
It is probably this factor that has prompted some in Jordan to come up with ideas for an enhanced Jordanian role, in coordination with regional, Palestinian and international players, in overcoming obstacles in the peace process. Accordingly, proposals of federalism and confederalism have reappeared in the deliberations of some Jordanian political circles.
The proponents of these proposals believe that if Jordan is given a direct role in helping resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, this could help bridge the confidence gap between Israelis and Palestinians. Jordan, which has historically respected agreements with Israel, could provide guarantees for Israel’s agreements with the Palestinians, especially those relating to Israeli security. Jordan would have the opportunity to expand its regional role and overcome the problem of Palestinian refugees in the kingdom, providing them with economic and financial support.
Supporters of a Jordanian role also believe that the Palestinian public may be more willing to accept such a role in the West Bank, while the Arab mood is no longer an obstacle. Jordan’s relations with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf in general are at their best. Egypt’s regional role is declining due to its preoccupation with the issue of President Hosni Mubarak’s succession. Iraq has been ousted from the Arab-Israel conflict and Syria, which is isolated, no longer has the ability to restrain Jordan.
Opponents of a Jordan scenario have different concerns, the most crucial of which is their fear that the Jordanian role will be used by the Israelis as a solution to their Palestinian demographic predicament rather than as a means to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They do not hide their fear that Israel might not give Jordan much more than what it offered to Yasser Arafat or could be offered to Abbas – limiting any Jordanian role to providing security for the separation wall and the settlements.
The opponents also have concerns regarding the consequences of extending Jordanian identity to the majority of the Palestinian population, not least because the question of integration and identity remains unresolved in Jordan. The issue could become more dangerous if it was decided to expand the kingdom’s boundaries to include the West Bank. And the opponents wonder about the fate of the Gaza Strip and whether Jordan would also end up having to resolve the problems of many more Palestinian refugees.
Jordanian diplomacy thus faces an increasingly heated debate over this issue. There is uncertainty surrounding efforts to revive the peace process. There is also no clear sense of what will happen when it comes to the internal Palestinian conflict, or political instability in Israel, or in Iraq, where the US is stuck. Jordan prefers to avoid discussing, at least publicly, future scenarios and their prospects, falling back on well-establish solutions to the Palestinian problem.
Yet Jordanian officials are no longer able to deny the existence of new policy thinking that is not limited to assuming the creation of a single independent Palestinian state. A single Palestinian state has so far been the only prospect discussed under King Abdullah, based on the premise that this state would be the first line of defense for the kingdom. This is no longer true, especially since Jordanian policy-makers can see that such a state might never be established, or that if it were established it might be led by Hamas and other Islamist movements. Thus it would become an Islamist safe haven and a threat to regional peace and to Jordanian national security, rather than an element of regional stability. Oraib al-Rantawiis a media columnist and director of the Al-Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.
