Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger is author of “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative" and blogs at bit.ly/4yx6DOo
The late King Hussein recognized Jordan’s susceptibility to a repeat of the deadly “Black September," due to its intrinsic demographic vulnerabilities, such as the restive Palestinian majority time bomb, which traditionally collaborates with the subversive/terroristic Muslim Brotherhood, while the Bedouin tribal society is inherently fragmented. Therefore, the King warned Western and Israeli policy makers that a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-Western Hashemite regime east of the river.
Moreover, a Palestinian Arab state would deny Jordan the defensive benefits of the Israel’s full control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, that played a key role in aborting the “Black September" Palestinian Arab assault. In fact, a more volcanic “Black September" could reoccur due to the presence of 1-2 million Syrian refugees in northern Jordan (some of them terrorists and drug traffickers), Iran-inspired terrorist activities in Jordan and the neighboring Iraq, and the potent presence in Jordan of Hamas terrorists, who are inspired by the October 2023 horrific terror offensive against Israel, and Western appeasement of Hamas, in particular, and Palestinian Arab terrorism, in general.
Western policy makers’ infatuation with the proposed Palestinian Arab state has been driven by Western preoccupation with the moderate Palestinian Arab talk, which is aimed at Western target audiences. On the other hand, Arabs have been preoccupied with the rogue Palestinian intra-Arab walk, which has led the Arabs to display indifference-to-rejection toward the proposed Palestinian Arab state.
Since 1948, Arab countries havenever flexed military, financial or political muscles on behalf of the proposed Palestinian Arab state. No Arab war against Israel was launched due to the Palestinian Arab issue, and never did Arabs intervene militarily during Israel-Palestinian Arab wars. In fact, in November 2023, an Iranian-Algerian-Palestinian Arab proposition to end all diplomatic-economic-defense-tourist ties with Israel was rejected by a joint summit of The Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
While the Arab talk has been overwhelmingly supportive of the proposed Palestinian Arab state, the Arab walk has systematically refrained from - and occasionally opposed - the establishment of such a state.
Arabs do not sacrifice their interests on the altar of a proposed Palestinian Arab state, which they consider as an existential threat. They are fully aware of the 55-year-rogue Palestinian intra-Arab track record, terrorizing their host Arab governments in Egypt (1950s), Syria (1960s), Jordan (1970), Lebanon (1970-1982) and Kuwait (1990). This track record has positioned Palestinian Arabs as the role-model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism, treachery and ingratitude.
The Arabs are, also, aware of the Palestinian Arabs’ collaboration with - and training of - terrorist organizations in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America, as well as their relationship with radically ruthless anti-Western regimes, such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Bloc (including ideological and operational links with the Soviet KGB and the East German Stasi), Ayatollah Khomeini, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, China and Russia.
Western policy makers have contended that Palestinian Arab terror has been driven by despair, and therefore should be dealt with diplomatically and financially - not militarily - and bolstered by appeasement and concessions. However, Middle East reality documents that Palestinian Arab terror has been driven by a fanatical ideology (e.g., Fatah’s and PLO’s 1959 and 1964 Charters - before the 1967 War), which mandates the total uprooting - not size reduction - of the “illegal Zionist entity."
Western policy makers have been obsessed with speculations about a reformedPalestinian Arab state. In contrast, Arab policy makers have been preoccupied with the well-documented Palestinian Arab rogue track record. They are convinced that assessments of the nature of the proposed state - and its geo strategic impact - should be based on the well-documented track record rather than well-intentioned speculations.
Therefore, Jordan and Egypt did their utmost to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state, when they fully controlled Judea and Samaria (aka the 'West Bank') and Gaza in 1949-1967. Moreover, in 1948, the Arab League established the “All Palestine Government," downgrading it to a “Palestinian Desk" in 1950-52, and eliminating it in 1955.
In 1970, Jordan’s Prime Minister Wasfi al-Tal and Commander of the Armed Forces Habis al-Majali stated that Palestinian Arab ideology was fundamentally incompatible with Jordan’s national sovereignty. In 1974, King Hussein warned Western policy makers that a Palestinian state in the 'West Bank' would leverage Jordan’s demographic reality (e.g., a Palestinian Arab majority) and constitute a real and clear existential threat to the Hashemite regime.
In 1993, the King told the Head of Israel’s Mossad that the Oslo Accord could lead to a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan River, an irredentist springboard, destabilizing Jordan - a death sentence to Jordan’s pro-Western Hashemite regime east of the Jordan River. That warning was echoed by Jordan’s military Chief-of-Staff and Head of Military Intelligence during the October 1994 signing of the Israel-Jordan peace treaty.
The toppling of Jordan’s Hashemite regime would transform Jordan into another platform of anti-Western Islamic terrorism, involving the Muslim Brotherhood, Palestinian terror organizations, proxies of the Ayatollah regime, ISIS, etc. This terrorism would not be confined to the area of Jordan, but would spread southward, triggering existential threats to the pro-Western Arab regimes in Egypt (via the terror-ridden Sinai Peninsula), Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait, further destabilizing the Middle East - the epicenter of 9/11-like anti-Western Islamic terrorism, the location of 48% of global oil reserves and a critical intersection of trade sea lanes between the Far East and Western Europe.
The toppling of the Hashemite regime would advance a key strategic aspiration of the Ayatollah regime to establish contiguous land access to Israel and to the Mediterranean (via Gaza), while encircling Saudi Arabia.
A Palestinian Arab state would welcome cooperation with China and Russia, which would include intelligence stations and the funding of - and access to - an upgraded port in the Gaza Strip, bolstering their stature in the western Mediterranean, as Middle East powerbrokers at the expense of the US.
Western policy makers, who accord much significance to moderate Palestinian Arab talk, and therefore speculate on a reformed Palestinian Arab state - which would abandon core ideology, depart from its rogue track record, and embrace peaceful coexistence - would benefit from the following country colloquialism:
“You may put your boots in the oven, but that don’t make them biscuits!"