Tensions mount in Jordan

Jordan's interior minister, Nayef el-Qadi, said that the move is meant to grant Palestinians in Jordan the option of becoming citizens of the future Palestinian state, instead.

Once such an entity is established in the West Bank, Palestinians in Jordan will not be forced to move to the new state, but they will not be allowed to take part in Jordan's political process. The new measures are in line with a recent statement by King Abdullah that he will never agree to change the identity of his country by granting Palestinian refugees full status and political rights.

The new citizenship measures have increased the domestic tension between the "authentic" Jordanians and the Palestinians. During a recent football match between two rival teams, "authentic" Jordanian supporters chanted anti-Palestinian slogans at the rival Palestinian team. Only a strong police presence in the stadium prevented a bloody clash between the two camps.

This tension is not a new phenomenon. After the Arab defeat in the 1948 Israeli war of independence, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flocked into Jordan. In a 1950 "Jericho Congress," the remaining Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, which was occupied by Jordan, voted for becoming fully "united" with Jordan. Israel accepted this union which made Palestinians in the West Bank Jordanian citizens.

Over the last 60 years, Israel and Jordan maintained a close, even intimate political and security relationship. On several occasions, Israel assured Jordan that its continued independent existence is a "strategic asset" for the Jewish state.

On one specific instance that I was personally aware of, Israel tipped the late King Hussein that his chief of general staff, Gen. Ali Abu Nawar, was conspiring to overthrow him in collusion with Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser.

Israel has always regarded Jordan as a "buffer" between the Jewish state and Syria and Iraq.

This perception continued even after the 1967 Six Day War, when Jordan lost control of the West Bank and, again, thousands of Palestinian refugees crossed into Jordan's East Bank. However, unlike 1948, these refugees were not granted automatic citizenship. Their status remained that of "refugees."

In this "New Jordan," the Bedouins and the native East Bankers remained the majority and, as such, remained the traditional bedrock of support for the ruling Hashemite family.

After the Likud victory in the 1977 parliamentary elections, however, the notion of Jordan being a "strategic asset" for Israel was somewhat shaken. Various Likud leaders, including Menachem Begin, began to see Jordan as the future Palestinian state and refused to accept a "two-state" solution in the West Bank.

In his June, 2009 Bar-Ilan University speech, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became the first Likud leader to accept the two-state solution in the West Bank.

Thus, the current tension in Jordan between Jordanians and Palestinians is purely "domestic." In a way, it's a struggle over the identity of the kingdom.

In addition to the 1948 Palestinians who became Jordanian citizens, there are now more than one million refugees who are being denied Jordanian citizenship. Altogether, half of Jordan's population is of Palestinian origin. Queen Rania herself is of Palestinian origin. Her family fled from Nablus to Jordan in 1948.

This reality is causing a lot of domestic tension. In order to minimize the Palestinian presence in the country's institutions, the original Bedouin establishment had long prevented political reforms. The army and the security services continue to be controlled by the East Bankers. Thus, any move to fully enfranchise half of Jordan's population will put King Abdullah in direct conflict with his traditional power base.

So what is the solution? Israeli strategists and scholars are examining various options.

Most of them have reached the conclusion that an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank is the best solution for both Israel and Jordan. They also discarded the option of a Jordanian-Palestinian federation. Such an entity would eventually lead to a Palestine takeover of Jordan. The Palestinians would force a "regime change" by which the King would become a constitutional monarch, as is the case in the United Kingdom.

Hence, and from a purely Israeli perspective, the best solution is to have a weak, demilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank "sandwiched" between a strong Israel and a stable Jordan.

Samuel Segev is the Free Press Middle East correspondent, based in Tel Aviv.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 6, 2009 A10