Ramallah fumes at Jordanian meddling in question of Abbas's successor

Palestinian sources say Amman officials have met with several possible candidates to lead the Palestinians

By Avi Issacharoff 4 June 2016, 3:31 am

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Avi Issacharoff, The Times of Israel's Middle East analyst, fills the same role for Walla, the leading portal in Israel. He is also a guest commentator on many different radio shows and current affairs programs on television. Until 2012, he was a reporter and commentator on Arab affairs for the Haaretz newspaper. He also lectures on modern Palestinian history at Tel Aviv University, and is currently writing a script for an action-drama series for the Israeli satellite Television "YES." Born in Jerusalem, he graduated cum laude from Ben Gurion University with a B.A. in Middle Eastern studies and then earned his M.A. from Tel Aviv University on the same subject, also cum laude. A fluent Arabic speaker, Avi was the Middle East Affairs correspondent for Israeli Public Radio covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Iraq and the Arab countries between the years 2003-2006. Avi directed and edited short documentary films on Israeli television programs dealing with the Middle East. In 2002 he won the "best reporter" award for the "Israel Radio” for his coverage of the second intifada. In 2004, together with Amos Harel, he wrote "The Seventh War - How we won and why we lost the war with the Palestinians." A year later the book won an award from the Institute for Strategic Studies for containing the best research on security affairs in Israel. In 2008, Issacharoff and Harel published their second book, entitled "34 Days - The Story of the Second Lebanon War," which won the same prize.

Surprising an interviewer from a well-known Palestinian website two months ago, famed Palestinian man of letters Sari Nusseibeh said the concept of a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation should be reconsidered.

The idea of a confederation has been almost completely discredited in recent years — a process that began with a 1988 announcement by the late King Hussein of Jordan that he was giving up his claim to Palestinian-controlled territories.

The comments by Nusseibeh, the president of Al-Quds University, were thus widely perceived among Palestinians as an irrelevant example of his unusual musings and doings, such as his ill-fated 2003 peace initiative with former Shin Bet chief and ex-Labor MK Ami Ayalon.

The remarks did spark some dialogue, in particular among some of the older generation and the more affluent tiers of Palestinian society – the business people and merchants. Ultimately, however, it is clear that the Hashemite royal family has no interest in reviving the initiative.

President of Al-Quds University Prof. Sari Nusseibeh in his office at the university in Beit Hanina, in East Jerusalem. (Photo credit: Nati Shochat/Flash90) — President of Al-Quds University Prof. Sari Nusseibeh in his office at the university in Beit Hanina, in East Jerusalem. (Nati Shochat/Flash90)

But then came another surprising statement, this time from a member of the Jordanian establishment.

Last week, Jordan’s former prime minister, Abdelsalam al-Majali, visited the West Bank city of Nablus as the guest of Ghassan Shakaa, the city’s former mayor and a member of the PLO Executive Committee,

Speaking to 100 key Palestinians in the Nablus area, Majali expressed support for a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation, after the establishment of a Palestinian state. “Jordan cannot live without Palestine and Palestine cannot live without Jordan,” Majali said. “The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, wants such a confederation established. He asked as much several times but was refused completely.”

The confederation, Majali said, should be headed by a joint government and parliament that would guarantee security, oversee the economy and handle foreign affairs. As things stood, he said, the Arab Ummah [nation] was not fighting for the Palestinians since they have no viable economic capacity on their own.

(Incidentally, Majali also criticized education systems in the Arab world, saying they are not preparing students well enough to tackle scientific issues, “and this allows them to learn only history.”)

Majali’s speech created a real stir among Palestinians. While he no longer holds an official position with the court of Jordan’s King Abdullah, he is still considered a person of influence among the Jordanian elite and among local politicians, having twice served as prime minister.

In the past, Majali was regarded as a close associate of King Hussein. Was his speech coordinated with the Jordanian monarchy, as part of an effort to revive Palestinian – and especially Israeli – faith that peace is possible? Or were these merely the words of an aging ex-politician, who wields no influence with King Abdullah?

A Jordan expert at Tel Aviv University dismissed Majali’s speech.

“It sounds like another attempt by one of the ‘formers’ to make headlines,” said Dr. Yoav Alon. “Majali spoke of this two or three years ago, and the idea in fact dates back to 1982, as an initiative of King Hussein. Then there was an agreement between Hussein and [former PLO leader Yasser] Arafat, that the leadership of PLO rejected. So, in 1988, the king announced he was disengaging from the West Bank. Still,” Alon went on, “one must emphasize: The official Jordanian position does not reject the possibility of establishing a confederation, albeit only after the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“This idea rises now and again when the Palestinians are in distress and diplomacy offers no hope,” Alon went on. “Maybe it also helps Israel swallow the idea that a Palestinian state may rise. For now, the idea of a confederation is non-obligating, so nobody can say precisely what it means. Furthermore, I don’t see any support from official Jordan or the royal family in this idea,” Alon said.

Senior Palestinian officials speaking to the Times of Israel also dismissed the idea of a confederation. They vaguely said, too, that it may be reconsidered after the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Other Palestinian sources said the Hashemite monarchy is preoccupied, where the Palestinians are concerned, with resolving the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic deadlock, grappling with the fear of a deterioration into violence in the West Bank which would impact Jordan, and dealing with tensions in its ties with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Amman is not pleased by Abbas’s recent shows of independence, including his making diplomatic moves without first consulting King Abdullah, and this has created tension between the two men, the sources said.

File: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) and Mohammad Dahlan (left), leave a news conference in Egypt, in February 2007. (AP/Amr Nabil)

Ramallah has also been angered by reports that representatives of the Hashemite Kingdom have met with several Palestinian officials, gauging their suitability to take over the PA presidency one day. Especially infuriating for Abbas, the sources said, is that the Jordanians met with his No. 1 enemy, Mohammad Dahlan.

The Jordanians also met with Nasser al-Kidwa, Arafat’s nephew and a former PA foreign minister, whose name keeps coming up, and with ex-PA security chief Jibril Rajoub among others.

Deputy UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, Nasser al-Kidwa (photo credit: AP) — Nasser al-Kidwa in 2012 (AP)

Such Jordanian meddling in Palestinian politics, preparing for the day after Abbas, is seen extremely negatively in Ramallah, the sources said.

The tension between Ramallah and Amman underlines how improbable the idea of a confederation currently seems, much to the chagrin of some of the “West Bank elders” who miss the days when King Hussein was sovereign in the West Bank and the Palestinians had ministers in the Jordanian government and representatives in its parliament.