Peloni: Jordan is Palestine. This is a tale from history often ignored over the past 100yrs, and which was recalled to mind by Ted Belman in his Jordan Option Symposium of 2017, and again in 2022. The future requires the hostile Hashemite regime being replaced with a friendly ruler, one which will keep faith with its commitments, ending Jordanian incitement, and replacing support for Jihadi forces in Jordan with an intolerance for the same. It is time to implement the Weizmann-Feisal agreement, and turn a cold peace with Jordan into a warm one. It is time for the Jordan Option to be made operational.
Jordan is Palestine, and a local deradicalized leadership for a future Gaza state.
Barry Shaw | Israel Institute for Strategic Studies | Sept 2, 2025
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The Palestinians were offered a state with all the territorial bells and whistles, and they refused it.
Just ask Bill Clinton.
A bitterly disappointed former President told an audience in Michigan during the last US election campaign;
“The last twenty-five years have seen the greatest tragedy of the 21st Century. Young folk tell you they are sympathetic to the Palestinians, and I tell them what Arafat walked away from at Camp David, and they can’t believe it.
He walked away from a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem, 96% of the West Bank, 4% of Israel to make up for the 4% that the Jews already owned and possessed, borders of the 1967 war.
I go through the deal with them and it’s not even on their radar screen. And I tell them that the first victim of tis Palestinian state was Israeli Prime Minister, Yizchak Rabin who I loved like no other man. Then Shimon Peres became Prime Minister he was defeated in an election and you see these once in a lifetime peace opportunities disappear and you can’t complain when 25 years later al the doors are closed and you can’t do that again. I’m an old guy and that is my greatest regret.
Arafat turned down the greatest deal ever offered to the Palestinians.
It’s a waste of time regulating a Palestine instead of Israel in Judea & Samaria. Hamas doesn’t want it. Fatah and the PLO don’t want it. They want it all from the river to the sea.”
So let’s see if we can give them what they want and yes, we can.
It’s called Jordan where there is plenty of space and the people there are the kith and kin. They are of the same culture and r religious practices. They speak the same language and there is zero difference between the Palestinian culture in Jordan and the Jordanian culture. Many are already related.
In Jordan the Palestinians are 70%, the Hashemites between 8-10%.
All they have to do is to disenfranchise themselves from their obsession to remove Jews from their land. Someone has to tell them enough already. You’ve tried it in a dozen wars and decades of terrorism all initiated by you and you lost every time. Get over it!
Bill Clinton bravely told an audience in Michigan, and you can guess who constituted his audience there, that they, the Palestinians, have to get over it and start again.
“I understand why young Palestinians and Americans in Michigan think too many people have died. I get that, But if you lived in one of those kibbutzim in Israel right next to Gaza where the people there were the most pro-peace, most pro-friendship with Palestine, most two state solution folk of any other Israeli communities where they live right next to Gaza, and Hamas butchers them, and you say yeh but how many did they butcher in Gaza It’s not an issue of how many they kill in Gaza because Hamas makes sure they are surrounded by civilians. They are forced to kill civilians when they are forced to defend themselves.
Look! I worked on this hard and the only time that Yasser Arafat didn’t tell me the truth was when he promised he was going for the peace deal that we had worked out which would have given the Palestinians a state on 96% of the West Bank and 4% of Israel and with a capital in east Jerusalem and they would have equal access all day and every day to the secure towns that Israel maintains all the way up to the Golan Heights. All this was offered to them and confirmed by the PM Ehud Barak, and they said no. And I think that part of it was that Hamas did not care about a homeland for the Palestinians. They want to kill as many Israelis as they could and make Israel uninhabitable. Well I’ve got news for you that they were there first. Before their faith existed, they were there. In the time of King Davidi the southernmost tribes lived there in Judea and Samaria.
We have to find our way to safety. We have Iran a Shia state, we have Hezbollah Shia, we have the Houthis a Shia sect, Now Hamas a Sunni operation that wants every Jew out of Israel, and we can’t support that, I think that is wrong. It violates everything we stood for, and, in the end, it won’t be good for the Palestinian people.”
Truth be told that Palestinians could have had a state a dozen times. They don’t want a state next to Israel. They want a state in which Israel does not exist. They want to cleanse the land of Jews. And Jews have had enough of being cleansed.
So what’s the solution? It’s not rewarding the bad behavior of all sides of the Palestinian political divide. It is either regenerating the original solution that of going back to the sensible idea that the real location of an Arab Palestine is on the east bank of the Jordan River not on the west bank.
And this took shape a century ago at the Paris Peace Conference.
Within the framework of the Paris Peace Conference, a political accord was signed on January 3, 1919, by Dr. Chaim Weizmann in the name of the Zionist Organization and by the Emir Feisal, son of Abdullah the Sherif of Mecca, and leader of the Hashemite tribe that occupied the land from Mecca, Aqaba on the Red Sea, and all the way up to Syria on the east bank of the River Jordan.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Arabs would recognize the Balfour Declaration and would encourage Jewish immigration and settlement in Palestine west of the river. Freedom of religion and worship in Palestine was set forth as a fundamental principle, with the Jewish sites under Jewish control and the Muslim holy sites were to be under Muslim control. The Zionist Organization promised to look into the economic possibilities of a neighboring Arab state and to help it develop its resources.
In the same year, the Arabs and their representatives repudiated the agreement. The Weizmann-Feisal agreement was never implemented.
This is the text of the agreement between Emir Feisal Ibn al-Hussein al-Hashemi, and the President of the World Zionist Organization, Dr. Chaim Weizmann
(January 3, 1919)
His Royal Highness the Emir Feisal, representing and acting on behalf of the Arab Kingdom of Hedjaz, and Dr. Chaim Weizmann, representing and acting on behalf of the Zionist Organization, mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people, and realizing that the surest means of working out the consummation of their natural aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab State and Palestine, and being desirous further of confirming the good understanding which exists between them, have agreed upon the following:
Article I
The Arab State and Palestine in all their relations and undertakings shall be controlled by the most cordial goodwill and understanding, and to this end Arab and Jewish duly accredited agents shall be established and maintained in the respective territories.
Article II
Immediately following the completion of the deliberations of the Peace Conference, the definite boundaries between the Arab State and Palestine shall be determined by a Commission to be agreed upon by the parties hereto.
Article III
In the establishment of the Constitution and Administration of Palestine, all such measures shall be adopted as will afford the fullest guarantees for carrying into effect the British Government’s Declaration of the 2nd of November, 1917.
Article IV
All necessary measures shall be taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil. In taking such measures the Arab peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development.
Article V
No regulation or law shall be made prohibiting or interfering in any way with the free exercise of religion; and further, the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall ever be required for the exercise of civil or political rights.
Article VI
The Mohammedan Holy Places shall be under Mohammedan control.
Article VII
The Zionist Organization proposes to send to Palestine a Commission of experts to make a survey of the economic possibilities of the country, and to report upon the best means for its development. The Zionist Organization will place the aforementioned Commission at the disposal of the Arab State for the purpose of a survey of the economic possibilities of the Arab State and to report upon the best means for its development. The Zionist Organization will use its best efforts to assist the Arab State in providing the means for developing the natural resources and economic possibilities thereof.
Article VIII
The parties hereto agree to act in complete accord and harmony on all matters embraced herein before the Peace Congress.
Article IX
Any matters of dispute which may arise between the contracting parties hall be referred to the British Government for arbitration.
Given under our hand at London, England, the third day of January, one thousand nine hundred and nineteen
Chaim Weizmann Feisal Ibn-Hussein
Emir Feisal added a reservation;
If the Arabs are established as I have asked in my manifesto of 4 January, addressed to the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I will carry out what is written in this agreement. If changes are made, I cannot be answerable for failing to carry out this agreement.
In the end Abdullah received Transjordan and Feisal became the King of Iraq.
The Hashemites and the Arabs did well out the international redrawing on the Middle East maps, but they resented the presence of Jews anywhere.
Tell me if there are Jews living in Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, or even Egypt let alone in the chain of Arab and Muslim states across north Africa.
No matter. We don’t want to live there. We have no desire to occupy these places. All we want is to live in peace and security in our own little land.
Jordan is the perfect location for a new Palestine under a benign king and queen and let Gaza be ruled by a deradicalized local leadership as laid out in my, and Trump’s, vision for a new Middle East.
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