October 18, 2017

In a lecture entitled “The Israeli Right and Jordan: Assessing a Position”

Al-Barari discusses the proposals of the radical Israeli right

Professor of Political Science at the University of Jordan, and researcher specializing in Israeli affairs, Dr. Hassan Al-Barari underestimated the importance of the Jordanian figures who attended the conference held the day before yesterday in Israel and discussed the so-called Jordanian option. Al-Barari described them as having no internal Jordanian social and political context.

Al-Barari added in his lecture entitled “The Israeli Right and Jordan: Assessing a Situation” (at the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, last Tuesday, in which an elite group of politicians and specialists in political affairs participated) that the gravity of the conference is not self-contained, as much as it is related to the objective context The development of events in the region, in terms of the sharp and significant decline in the opportunity for a two-state solution, with the strategic exposure of the Arab environment to Israel, the clear bias of Israeli society towards the right, the fading of the peace camp and the absence of a real and realistic possibility of reviving it in Israel.

The lecturer indicated that King Abdullah II sensed this danger and began more than a decade ago warning that the failure to establish an independent, viable, geographically contiguous Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital would constitute a direct threat to Jordan’s national security.

Al-Barari presented three main hypotheses that serve to understand the raging debate about the best way to resolve the conflict in Jordanian-Israeli relations. The first is the decline in the chances of implementing the two-state solution. The dynamics of power within Israeli society is no longer able to produce a coalition that accepts the two-state solution. The rise of the hard-line religious nationalist movement has reached a point where land has become the supreme value in Zionist thought, transcending the peace and security dichotomy.

He added that the second hypothesis is based on the fact that the two-state solution is no longer the only solution, despite the active forces’ verbal adherence to it. As for the third hypothesis, any solution other than the two-state solution will cause great harm to Jordan’s vital interests and could lead to internal crises that cannot be contained.

Al-Barari noted that it is not possible to understand Jordanian politics and its alliance options apart from Jordan’s relentless pursuit of creating a regional system that would allow it to survive. Despite the difficulties, Jordan remained stable, a matter that puzzled many observers, who used to see Jordan as an entity on the verge of extinction. The truth is that Israel was part of Jordan’s strategic calculations and its survival equation.

However, until today, Jordan has not talked about an alternative plan in case the peace process fails to preserve its vital interests. The situation worsened with Jordan’s loss of Arab depth following what is happening in Syria and Iraq, Saudi Arabia’s preoccupation with the Iranian threat, and Egypt’s withdrawal.

Al-Bari pointed out that there are Jordanian failures, according to researchers and observers, and that these failures are related to the mismanagement of resources and the weak mechanisms of people’s participation in decision-making. It is not possible to create a united front and an inclusive national identity without real political and economic reforms.

Al-Barari pointed out that Jordan is discussing the option of placing the West Bank and Jerusalem under international trusteeship. This would prompt the international community to assume its responsibilities and push the United Nations to fully supervise the occupied territories of 1967, and perhaps involving the United Nations in tutelage will prevent Israeli options from being formulated that will affect Jordan as a result.

 The Director of the Center for Strategic Studies, Dr. Musa Shteiwi, presented the lecture, and pointed out that the proposals of the Israeli extremist right ignore a set of facts on the ground that govern the policy of Israeli governments and institutions towards the issue of the Palestinian people in accordance with international agreements binding on Israel, including: the peace agreement between the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Israel The Oslo Agreement, which enjoys international recognition and American sponsorship, the international initiatives and the international position for the final solution to the issue, which focused on the two-state solution.

Shteiwi added that the proposals of the Israeli right ignore and try to override the will of the Palestinian people and their leadership, the will of the Jordanian people and the Jordanian state, and the firm stance shown by His Majesty King Abdullah II on the Palestinian issue, as His Majesty stressed on more than one occasion that Jordan is Jordan and Palestine 1967 is Palestine the state The independence of the Palestinian people, with Jerusalem as its capital, will achieve on its soil the ambition and identity of the Palestinian people. After that, the Palestinians will have the choice in any future relations with Jordan.

On the other hand, former Chief of the Royal Court, Adnan Abu Odeh, said that there are signs of hope in facing the current state of pessimism due to the obstruction of the peace settlement and the Palestinian issue. Among the most prominent indicators is that the boycott movement against Israel in the world is increasing and taking up a good space, and that there is the emergence of Jewish liberalism in Europe, most of whom are young people who want the State of Israel and reject apartheid.

Abu Odeh added that the Israeli right aims with its political maneuvers and the conference it held and plundered the Jordanian option to normalize and legitimize concepts, then promote and spread their use. On the other hand, he stressed the importance of being aware of Jordanian and Palestinian power factors in confronting Israel, including legal and political legitimacy in confronting the occupation, and describing the Israeli entity as a racist entity.

For his part, the former Minister of Social Development, Wajih Azaiza, said that the Israeli shift to the right is not temporary, and the change in Israeli society is physical and demographic-driven, and therefore settlement has become the core of the Israeli creed. .

Retired Major General Omar Al-Amad pointed out that, with the exception of the Jordanian discourse, we are witnessing the disappearance of the Palestinian issue from the Arab discourse, and we are witnessing the centrality of the issue in the speech of His Majesty the King, where the failure to resolve the Palestinian issue is linked to terrorism, which is a difficult effort that imposes keeping the Palestinian issue a priority on the international agenda, and to confront the projects of the extreme right. Anatomy of the project implementation mechanism, whether economic, social or political, so that we can identify the mechanisms of confrontation with great awareness.

Dr. Al-Barari concluded that the Israeli demographic dilemma is the basis of the current extremism, and that the settlement of the Labor Party was a security settlement and that the settlement of the extreme right and the Likud is the settlement of the doctrine (Judea and Samaria), and added that the recent Palestinian reconciliation is tactical and not strategic, so they must work on strengthening the strategy building and addressing points of contention. radically in order to avoid a recurrence of conflict in the future