Jordan’s Foreign Minister Nasser Jouda summoned Israel’s ambassador in Amman Tuesday to protest a Knesset vote in favor of a statement that Jordan is the Palestinian state.
According to Voice of Israel government radio, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry released a statement saying that Jouda “utterly rejects” the idea of establishing a state for Palestinian Authority Arabs east of the Jordan River and that he demands a formal clarification from the Israeli government.
The Jordanian minister said that an independent and viable Palestinian state needs to be established “on Palestinian land.”
2 States for 2 Nations on 2 Banks
In a Knesset debate last week, MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) said that the Arabs in Judea and Samaria should receive Jordanian citizenship because Jordan is the Palestinian state. His parliamentary motion against the establishment of a Palestinian state was ratified by 53 MKs against nine and the matter was referred to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
MK Eldad called his plan “Two States for Two Nations on Two Banks of the Jordan.”
“The Jordanian Plan is the only alternative that can guarantee the existence of the State of Israel while satisfying the will of the international community to give the Palestinians a state,” MKEldad explained. “The decision to discuss this alternative was approved by the Knesset just as the Prime Minister discussed the matter with Obama,” he noted.
The proposal was discussed again Tuesday at a Knesset conference organized by Likud MK Tzipi Hotobeli on alternatives to the two-state solution.
Yaalon: no immediate solution
Minister for Strategic Affairs Moshe Yaalon, who took part in the conference, said that previous peace plans urging Israel to give up land have failed. "The Western way of thinking has proven irrelevant and dangerous to this region," Yaalon said. “From the analysis of previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, we see that they are not seeking the 1967 borders but a Palestinian state on the ruins of the State of Israel.”
"We have to disavow the commonly held perception that we should find an immediate solution," he added.
"The Disengagement from Gaza in 2005 was the Palestinians' golden opportunity to show the world that the end of the occupation would lead to political and economic stability,” he recalled, but "Hamas's violent takeover of Gaza and the ongoing missile fire at Israel proves that the problem was not the occupation.
“For them, the entire land is occupied, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.” the former IDF Chief of Staff said. “Arafat came very close to achieving independence, but he chose to launch a war against Israel in September 2000 instead."