Jordan Option

Marc Lynch, author of such classics of Middle East commentary as "No Jordan Option", says things may have changed. Since King Abdullah "put an end to the political crisis of 2004-2005, he has overseen a steady de-liberalization of the Kingdom, cracking down on public freedoms and going after the Islamist movement aggressively, with nary a peep from the Bush administration," which transforms the larger political context and makes Jordan re-involving itself in the West Bank imaginable again.

The question, however, is why Jordan would want to do any such thing. If the West Bank in question included East Jerusalem you could see it, but the relevant "West Bank" for these purposes would include much more headaches than upside for Jordan. Presumably, this option would only come into play if Abdullah saw a big political payoff in terms of his relationship with Washington.

Comments

Would letting the 'king' keep his bogus free trade agreement -- the one where he sells us clothes made by Indonesians or whomever in Jordanian sweatshops -- count as an incentive? Why President Bush has been kissing this guy's ass for years, I have no idea. Abdullah is just a better-spoken version of Mubarak running a less significant country. Also, any U.S. President referring to the unelected leader of a ~70 year old country as "his highness" sounds creepy.

Posted by Fred | June 19, 2007 8:48 AM

It's something that is being talked about a lot in Jordan these days.

It is certainly something the Israelis might like to see, and it wil be probably excellent for them in the short run. The West Bank becomes part of Jordan and the Palestinian national movement dies a slow painful death. Gaza continues to be an Islamic bantustan that Israel will slowly bleed to death and starvation and the Zionist project finally reaches the happy end it's been angling for since the 30's.

BUT, it would be an absolutely moronic decision for Jordan to make, and a disaster for Israel in the long run. Abdullah will face the fate of his great grandfather, assassinated in Jerusalem after he struck a deal with the Israelis to let them take whatever they want in 1948 if he gets to keep some of Jerusalem.

With 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank joining Jordan, they are really likely to cause all sorts of problems in Jordan, and ally themselves with a majority that is alreaedy discontented with the king there. This will prove too tricky even for the Jordanian secret policy with a green light from the Americans. If the Jordanian regime falls, then Israel will have all around it a country of 8million people anxious to fight Israel to get their lands back. Then we might get a whole different sort of one-state-solution.

Posted by saifedean | June 19, 2007 10:36 AM

There are two main incentives for Jordan. First, as serious as the headaches caused by a return to a two-bank state are, the headaches from a anarchic West Bank are worse. Second, Jordan puts itself in position to receive a ton of U.S. and international aid.


The prestige from Jerusalem comes from the Old City and the Temple Mount, not the Arab villages that were annexed to the city in 1980 or even Salah-al-din street. In the short term, a Hashemite presence could be restored to the Temple Mount.


In the longer term, the problems of Jerusalem, while tricky are not irresolvable. Ultimately, much of the Arab parts of the city could be restored to some form of Arab rule. However, none of this possible without a responsible party in the West Bank that can guarantee an Israeli withdrawal will not result in rockets fired on Tel Aviv.


The Jordan option remains the least bad of the very bad options in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Posted by mhpine | June 19, 2007 11:50 AM

Personally, I'd rather have an anarchic West Bank that wasn't a part of my own country.

Posted by JP | June 19, 2007 12:32 PM

I think you've already established that Jordan would have beaten the Lakers and Celtics teams of the 80s.

Posted by UN Plaza | June 19, 2007 12:35 PM

saifedean:

. . . he struck a deal with the Israelis to let them take whatever they want in 1948 if he gets to keep some of Jerusalem.

Exactly what the Israelis and Jordanians agreed to is controversial, partly because people present at the negotiations have given conflicting accounts. But this version is one I've never seen before, and it certainly doesn't match what actually transpired.

One of the things the Israelis wanted very badly was the heights of Latrun, overlooking the highway from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. The Jordanians didn't let them take it. They defended it fiercely, beating off three attacks, and still held it at the end of the war.

I doubt the Israelis let the Jordanians keep any part of Jerusalem either. What the Jordanians kept, including the Old City and the Temple Mount, they had to fight for.

Posted by David Tomlin | June 19, 2007 4:29 PM

"What the Jordanians kept, including the Old City and the Temple Mount, they had to fight for."

They also barred Jewish access to holy sites and desecrated ancient Jewish cemeteries, using the tombstones to pave roads. Another reason Israel would never cede the Old City to Jordan.

Posted by Fred | June 19, 2007 7:00 PM

David,

You are absolutely right, that was a brain fart on my part. They certainly didn't agree to it. However, there was a complicated dialogue going on for years, with some explicit and implicit understandings. We know a lot about it, particularly from the work of Avi Shlaim, but it seems to suggest conclusively that Jordan had no intention whatsoever of driving Israel to the sea, denying it its independence, or capturing ANY land past the lines of the partition plan. Jordan tried to convince the Israelis to just give them the Palestinian state of partition, but the Israelis wanted more and so the fighting broke out over where to draw the lines of partition. It was clear that the land would be divided between a Jewish state and Jordan (with Gaza to the Egyptians).

The real conflict however, as you correctly note, was over Jerusalem, where the two couldn't reach an agreement, and eventually it was split. Both parties ended up largely satisfied, because they both fucked the Palestinians over who lost everything.

If history repeats itself again, I doubt the Palestinians will go quietly and forget about it.

Posted by saifedean | June 20, 2007 11:03 AM