THE CASE FOR AN ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN-JORDANIAN CONFEDERATION: Why Now and How?

Abstract

This extended article argues a case for an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian Confederation, proposes the central elements necessary to realize this in practice, and offers policy advice to the key players as well as to policy makers in the United States, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. After 73 years of conflict, following the Arab Spring, and the intermittent violence between Israel and the Palestinians, the Palestinians will not give up on their aspiration for statehood. Ultimately, a two-state solution remains the only viable option to end their conflict. The difference, however, between the framework for peace discussed in the 1990s and 2000s—where the focus was on establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza—versus the present time is that many new, irreversible facts have been created: the interspersing of the Israeli and Palestinian populations in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Israel; the status of Jerusalem, where both sides have a unique religious affinity; Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the majority of which will have to remain in place; the intertwined national security concerns involved; and the resettlement of/compensation for Palestinian refugees. I argue that independent Israeli and Palestinian states, therefore, can peacefully coexist and be sustained only through the establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation that would subsequently be joined by Jordan, which has an intrinsic national interest in the resolution of all conflicting issues between Israel and the Palestinians. To that end, all sides will have to fully and permanently collaborate on many levels necessitated by the changing conditions on the ground, most of which can no longer be restored to the status quo ante.