Jordan’s King Abdullah warned on Wednesday that if Israel does not accept Palestinian Authority demands, a “stalemate in peace efforts would cause an explosion in Palestinian-Israeli ties in a sort of Arab Spring-like protests, taking the form of either a new intifada or a cycle of violence and counter-violence.”
His statement to the mass circulation London-based AsharqAlawasat daily came one day before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry brings his peace plane to Israel, with a stop in Jordan before coming to Israel.
Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has cleverly lined up his diplomatic guns and mined the diplomatic field so that wherever Israel steps, it faces an explosion. UNESCO is meeting this week and has passed a resolution condemning Israel for allegedly damaging the Old City through excavations that supposedly threaten the collapse of the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount.
The Saudi Gazette chipped in with another headline that Israel’s archaeological excavations intend to bring down the mosque actually are preparations for the building of a new Holy Temple.
And U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry did his bit by telling his staffers at the embassy in Jeddah on Tuesday. “The relationship with Saudi Arabia is one of our really super-important ones for a lot of obvious reasons… Saudi Arabia has been particularly helpful…thanks to King Abdullah on a major peace initiative, the Arab Peace Initiative…securing the support of all of the Arab League as well as most Muslim countries in the world, to support the notion that if we can resolve the differences with respect to creating a Palestinian state, that you could wind up with peace with every single one of those countries.”
That is in a nutshell the heart of American thinking. Wrap up the Saud Peace Initiative, get the Jews of the Old City, Ramot, French Hill, Gilo and anywhere else they were forbidden from living under the Jordanian occupation between 1948 and 1967, and there will be peace.
Kerry forgot to note that the Saudi Initiative provides for “normalization” and not the “establishment” of diplomatic ties, but so what?
The Secretary of State also dished out Hallelujahs for the Arab League, who met in Washington a few months ago and actually were willing to talk about changing the original Saudi plan to enable land swaps.
That “was something new and different, and frankly, it brought some feedback, some kickback, from people who didn’t like the fact that they were willing to show that kind of leadership,” said Kerry in Jeddah.
That fits in well with the Saudi foreign minister’s statement that a Palestinian Authority state must have “continuous borders,” meaning Israel would keep areas such as Maaleh Adumim in return for giving the Palestinian Authority land to connect Gaza and Ramallah.
That would mean lopping off a few thousand acres of prime agricultural land and Jewish towns from Sderot to the area of Kiryat Gat until it ties in with the PA west of Hevron.
Of course, no sane Arab with Israeli citizenship living in those areas would give up benefits from the Israeli government for the privilege of living under a Palestinian Authority welfare state, but neither Kerry nor Jordan’s King Abdullah looks that far into the future.
Kerry has one future – a peace agreement, no matter what,
King Abdullah has another future planned. His inciting warning of violence is classic “adaptive expectation,” whereby one’s expectations put into action events that bring about the desired results.
Three is nothing like the promise of war to bring about war.
In the king’s own words, the expected violence in the absence of Israeli surrender will result “from the loss of hope for the two-state formula and the emergence of a one-state reality where Palestinians are persecuted.”
“This would trigger a popular revolution venting the injustice the Palestinians have been historically subjected to,” he added.
He had the audacity to say that despite his prediction of violence, “As for us in Jordan, we are effectively contributing to creating a positive atmosphere that can help the Palestinians and Israelis return to direct negotiations.”
For clinchers, he said mentioned the new legal status of the Palestinian state, referring to the United Nations General Assembly resolution last November that gave Abbas an upgraded status, which allowed its becoming a member of UNESCO.