Two States for Two Peoples
July 3rd, 2010 by
draveed
Working its way through the Israeli Knesset is a bill declaring Jordan as the Palestinian nation. It has nearly half of the parliament’s support. If passed, the bill would have West Bank Palestinians choose between Israeli or Jordanian citizenship. What’s unclear to me is the status of West Bank land under this plan. That’s irrelevant though, if you follow the Christian Science Monitor’s opinion that the idea is crazy. Now the CSM doesn’t say that directly, but read this article and try not to notice how they paint the proposal as madness.
Is it madness? Geert Wilders doesn’t think so. Although I can see how he can be dismissed. He’s not the right sort, so there’s no need to pay attention to his opinion. Don’t remember who he is? I’ll help. Geert Wilders is the head of the Freedom Party, the third largest political party in the Netherlands, and just came off a strong electoral showing. That’s a little hard to translate into American terms, since we don’t have a parliamentary system. I guess Wilders would be similar in stature to a powerful senator. Yet despite being chosen by a significant portion of the Dutch electorate, Wilders should just be ignored because he doesn’t have the right kind of opinions. He’s a right-winger. Oh he’s a neo-fascist. Nevermind that a large chunk of the Dutch electorate voted for him. He’s clearly a crazy person on the fringe.
We can ignore Wilders, but Camie Davis has dug up some choice quotes on the topic.
- “We are the government of Palestine, the army of Palestine and the refugees of Palestine.”
- Prime Minister of Jordan, Hazza’ al-Majali, 23 August 1959 - “Palestine and Transjordan are one.”
- King Abdullah, Arab League meeting in Cairo, 12 April 1948 - “Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine; there is one people and one land, with one history and one and the same fate.”
- Prince Hassan, brother of King Hussein, addressing the Jordanian National Assembly, 2 February 1970 - “Jordan is not just another Arab state with regard to Palestine, but rather, Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan in terms of territory, national identity, sufferings, hopes and aspirations.”
- Jordanian Minister of Agriculture, 24 September 1980 - “The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan.”
- King Hussein 1981
Should King Hussein and King Abdullah be ignored? Who wants to dismiss them as people who know nothing about Middle Eastern history and politics?
This is why history is important. Israel should be throwing these quotes in the face of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Arab League and the EU. Force all of them to publicly abrogate these ideas and explain why, before any movement on negotiations happen.
Posted in News, Politics |
No Comments »


This news is just too delicious to check. So far it’s an unsubstantiated, anonymous report on LiveLeak, but I hope it turns out to be so much more. According to 



