How the Jordan Option will impact Israel

by Ted Belman

David Horowitz, in the article, Goodbye withdrawal, hello sovereignty: The triumph of the settlers, understands that the tide has turned in favour of sovereignty, but what he doesn’t understand is the impact the Jordan Option will have on, … well, everything.

The Jordan Option, as articulated by me and Mudar Zahran, the Secretary General of the Jordan Opposition Coalition, anticipates that King Abdullah will abdicate, willingly or otherwise, and that Mudar Zahran will take over Jordan as its leader. He is very open as to what his intentions are once in power.

• He wants to work with Israel rather than be in confrontation with Israel
• Jordan will grant citizenship to all Palestinians wherever they may live.
• Jordan will have an open-door policy for all Palestinians.
• Jordan will replace UNRWA as the provider of services to all Palestinian refugees of which 2 million live west of the Jordan River
• Jordan will invite the said two million refugees to emigrate to Jordan to receive the said services which include social security, healthcare and education.
• The Peace Treaty between Jordan and Israel will be reaffirmed as will the Jordan River be reaffirmed as the international boundary.
• The Palestinian textbooks will be rewritten by a joint task force to reflect in the main the Jewish narrative with appropriate nods to the Arab perspective. These new text books will be studied by all Palestinians in Jordan or Israel.

This new reality will affect Israel in the following way;

• The Palestinians living west of the River will no longer be stateless. They will be Jordanian citizens living in Israel as foreign residents.
• Thus, Israel will be able to extend its sovereignty over the entire area without the need to grant citizenship to the Palestinians living west of the River. The reason this is so is because when you annex land or claim sovereignty over it, there is no law which obligates you to grant citizenship to citizens of foreign countries who may live there.
• These Jordanian/Palestinians will be entitled to live in Area A and B as foreign residents with full autonomy just as they do now.
• Over the next few years Jordan will replace the PA as the adminitrator of these areas and the PA will whither away.
• These foreign residents will be incentivized to emigrate to Jordan with funds provided by the Gulf States and the US as announced in the Bahrain Workshop
• The Oslo Accords will be subsumed in the Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty.
• Hebron, which is an Area A, will be absorbed into Israel and will no longer be an autonomous area.
• Gaza will be designated as another Area A. Hamas will be outlawed and Jordan will administer it.

The Jordan Option, when implamented, will prove to be the biggest game-changer since the Six Day War.