“The Alternative Country” and “The Ailing Country”
With Israel’s continued talk of the ‘alternative country’ plan, or
the ‘so-called ‘Jordanian option’, both Jordanian and Palestinian
officials voice strong opposition to the Israeli designs which
would lead to the expulsion of Palestinians to the east of the
River Jordan, thus demolishing hopes for a two-state solution
to the Palestinian question. Israel is reinforcing such an
argument with facts on the ground including construction of
the Apartheid Wall, building or expanding colonial settlements,
and last but not least leading the peace process on a dead-end
path which if unblocked would lead to no plausible political
settlement.
Jordanian high ranking officials have reiterated strong
opposition to the Israeli plan, but ironically, Israeli highly
sourced statements stick to a notion that Jordan is part of
the ‘historical land of Israel’ and that picking the country as
an ‘alternative homeland’ for the Palestinians is an Israeli
important ‘compromise’ that Tel Aviv is ready to make!!! Israeli
Knesset Member Arieh Eldad has been the most outspoken
figure on such an illogical outrageous assumption. It is to be
remembered that an ‘alternative country/ homeland’ for the
Palestinians is an old Zionist scheme that first surfaced in the
mid- nineteenth century. The fulfillment in time of such a
colonial project is being seen in the confiscation of Palestinian
land, the steady “transfer” (i.e. expulsion) of Palestinians from
their homes which took place in several waves since 1948 and
the expansion of colonial Israeli settlements to complete the
final phase of the Judaisation of all historical Arab Palestine
where there will be no presence of Palestinians, especially in
Jerusalem. The current main Israeli political parties are now
focusing on the Eastern Bank of the River Jordan, as an ‘Israeli
land’, in their view, which they are ready ‘to give up’ for the
Palestinians to establish a homeland!!! This project
of “transferring” Palestinians to Jordan is bound to turn the old
Zionist slogan into a fact; “A land without people (Palestine) for
people without land (Jews)”. While conscientious Jews were
working day and night to bring down the white apartheid system
of South Africa, Israel was the closest ally of that apartheid
system, sharing with it the Israeli atomic knowledge which was
assisting the apartheid system to possess nuclear weapons.
As the Jordanians strongly oppose the idea of an ‘alternative
homeland’, the Palestinians oppose it more arduously since it
will destroy for ever their hopes for an independent state, and by
making Jordan the alternative country for them means keeping
the cancerous Zionist entity well and prosperous, yet it will
eventually kill itself and all who were infected near it. Should
the cancerous Zionist apartheid policy keep spreading, the
whole Middle East is destined to meet utter destruction. Indeed,
the Judaisation of Jerusalem has reached a point of no return
and the issue of a purely Jewish Jerusalem is making more than
a billion and a half Muslims inch closer toward a conflict over
the Holy City. Such actuality is bound to cause catastrophes in
the West because of its blind support for Israel in addition to a
paralysis by not willing or being unable to stop Israeli colonial
policies which contravene international law.
The Israeli agenda for the ‘Jordanian Option’ which may give
Palestinians an ‘alternative country’ needs some local help to be
fulfilled! Instead of facing such an evil agenda with a strong
Palestinian stand, an ‘ailing authority” which could easily be
obliterated by the Zionist entity has been created, thus pushing
the maliciously planned transfer of Palestinians from being a
future possibility towards becoming a reality. In the West Bank,
the Palestinian Authority (PA) has no real authority,
whatsoever, on a single inch of land which is being filled with
Israeli colonies i.e. ‘settlements’. Sixty per cent of the West
Bank is now under direct Israeli occupation whose ‘settlers’ now
decide the related Israeli policies. Twenty eight billion dollars
have been invested in these “settlements” with a yearly
maintenance cost worth 660 million dollars. Moreover, on the
other side of our ‘ailing country’, stands ‘the State of Gaza’
which is now facing ‘the State of Ramallah’! Gaza has turned
into a land of daily killing and destruction, an isolated prison
where Palestinians are being shot at by the Israeli “Defense”
Army as “a hunter shooting fish in a barrel of water” where he
could not miss even if he tried. But the recent development
which culminated in an agreement between Fateh Movement
and Hamas (endorsed also by the rest of Palestinian
organizations) marks a beginning of a long march to establish a
hopefully real Palestinian unity whose main purpose is the
protection of the national Palestinian interest and security,
rather than the narrow interests of each Palestinian organization.
A national Palestinian State can only be established on one
national interest and security that encompass all the people
without favoring one sector over another. Palestinians and
Jordanians share the same interest in security and stability. This
is why facts on the ground make constant cooperation between
the Palestinians and Jordanians an absolute necessity. The only
real problem facing, and will continue to face the Zionist entity,
is the fact that people (Palestinians) still live on their land in
Palestine and a government with established institutions exist in
Jordan. Undermining both would help Israel fulfill its Zionist
agenda of making Jordan the ‘alternative homeland’. A strong
and a stable Jordan is good for Palestinians and Jordanians and
this unity of purpose should be the means to resist such an
agenda.