Saudi Expert Proposes 'Palestinian State' in Jordan

News » Arab-Israeli conflict

Ali al-Shihabi, an author and columnist on Middle East politics and economics with a focus on Saudi Arabia, was a bombshell in regional Arab politics last week. He published an article on the pro-Saudi website “Al Arabiya” under the heading "Palestinian Hashemite Kingdom".

The publication of Al-Shihabi, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School, caused a stir and outrage on social networks and news sites in Jordan. Former Jordanian Minister of Information Muhammad al-Momani responded in an article entitled “Palestinian Hashemite Kingdom — unrealistic, illogical, and unpatriotic.” It was suggested in Jordan that al-Shihabi's article was part of a Saudi-Israeli plot to “end the Palestinian issue at the expense of the Palestinian people and Jordan.”

About 80% of the population Jordanians consider themselves “Palestinians”, many of them arrived there in 1948 as part of what they still call a disaster (Nakba).

In his article, al-Shihabi proposes a radical rethinking of the approach to solution to the Palestinian problem.

"Israel — it is a reality firmly rooted in the land that the region around him must accept, however reluctantly. to resettle millions of Palestinians and colonize their lands, with the help of British imperialism and US support, he succeeded in doing just that. Justice, however, does not make history. Hard power is at work, and the Palestinians must come to terms with this painful reality and move forward without being held back by false hopes and illusions,” – the reviewer writes.

Al-Shihabi also denounces the “Arab regimes”, accusing them of pursuing their own vested interests, thinly disguised as an excuse that they avoid integrating Palestinians as citizens under the pretext that this would technically undermine their right to return. In fact, these regimes fear that these Palestinian refugees, by becoming citizens, will change their demographic composition and threaten their ruling order. At the same time, Palestinian leaders actively participated in perpetuating this tragedy.

“The most logical” al-Shihabi sees the solution to the problem as the creation of a “Palestinian Hashemite Kingdom” within the borders of present-day Jordan, Gaza, Judea and Samaria, areas inhabited by Palestinians and adjacent to each other.

The most important part of al-Shihabi's proposal is not the political future of Judea, Samaria and Gaza — the whole point is that the Saudis openly support the takeover of the Hashemite kingdom by his “Palestinian” majority.

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