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Jordan on Verge of Survival Showdown?

(Jerusalem Post) Alexander Bligh - The Dubai-based daily Al-Bayan recently published a leaked report that Jordan's prime minister had revealed that his country would vote against Palestinian statehood at the UN General Assembly in September - thus breaking with the Arab consensus. In recent months, Israel seems to have divorced itself from its traditional policy of resisting a Palestinian state at all costs. In the Jordanian mind, this translates into a position that might endanger the very existence of the Hashemite Kingdom, as well as the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian Peace Treaty. The creation of such a state would put Jordan's very existence in jeopardy: The PLO is formally and spiritually committed to taking over all of mandatory Palestine - i.e., Jordan, the territories and Israel. Considering that Israel would hold its ground within the 1967 lines, the next target of a small, economically weak, irredentist Palestinian state would be Jordan - a country that has already served as a battleground for the PLO in 1970-71. Furthermore, declaring a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital constitutes a flagrant violation of the internationally recognized Israeli-Jordanian Peace Treaty. That instrument states (Article 9): "When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines [Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem]." The writer is director of the Middle East Research Center, Ariel University center, and former adviser on Arab Affairs to the prime minister of Israel (1990-1992).
2011-07-13 00:00:00
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