In a previous newsletter I argued that Jordan has always struck political agreements rather than strategic ones. Cases in point - the water agreement with Syria, and the Attarat project (the Jordanian government just lost the international arbitration and is required to 400 million over the next 23 years!) Both of these agreements were signed for political reasons. The water agreement was signed as a sign of good faith with the Syrian regime and due to hostile hydropolitics on the Israeli side. The Attarat project was signed in an emergency state due to the disruption in the gas pipeline from Egypt resulting from ISIS attacks.
Jordan is excellent at identifying threats but instead of working on a long term solution it focuses on stopping the bleed. In another metaphor, instead of planting a tree Jordan is trying to keep the tomato plant from dying. This allows me to repeat my argument about playing the long game.
Jordan has a heart for its neighbors, and as a result often volunteers to find solutions, mediate conflicts, and work for immediate paths forward. Looking at the region over the next two decades is difficult. How can we protect our national interests over that time? Who will be our ally in protecting those interests? While working for immediate peace in the region has become part of our foreign policy identity, we should ask some deeper questions about where the region goes in the next decades and how our interests can be protected.
Three Things You Should Know:
Two State Solution? There are around 500,000 illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank now. Numerous reports and articles have already covered the reality of illegal settlements and how they undermine the two state solution. Simply put, what is a two state solution if there isn't enough land left for the “second-state”. This has been going on for decades, under international silence and this stance is unlikely to change any time soon. The US and other Western nations have failed to respond to the dramatic (the indiscriminate killing, targeting and starving of innocent civilians in Gaza) which makes it near impossible to see them react to the mundane and bureaucratic. That is, if the West can’t mobilize a ceasefire, how will they mobilize a two state solution requiring thousands of points of negotiation and demarcation? Only recently have these illegal settlements made it to western headlines, and that's because of the rise of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank - not for the illegal land grab despite UN resolution 242. The international community has even audaciously sanctioned “violent” settlers - what message does that send? . You can break international law, steal land and displace Palestinians just don't use too much force while doing it? (This is like sanctioning ‘criminal thieves’’). All of this is to say that the two state solution is done - so where do we go from here?
What would that mean for Jordan? Since the start of the horrific Israeli war on Gaza, Jordan has called for a return to peace and has stated its red line: “No population displacement.” This should placate the nationalists who are always so worried about Jordan becoming the alternative homeland, and the Jordanians of Palestinian heritage who still hope for the establishment of a Palestinian state. However, I believe this thinking is flawed because we are assuming the Nakba scenario will be repeated with population transfer. But what if this scenario is outdated and a new reality replaces it? A reality that has been repeatedly communicated by Israeli politicians and settlers—a reality that we seem too eager to ignore because it is happening, and it won't happen with a bang. There will be annexation without population transfer. It is an externalized citizenship annexation. Palestinians, as many settler leaders and right-wing Israelis have stated, can live in the Jewish homeland; however, they will not be granted any citizenship rights. These will be provided by another state—most likely Egypt and Jordan. So, what is our red line for that? And how do we work with this reality?
Thinking Strategically. We must start by identifying long-term national interests, which could include fighting the misguided notion that "Jordan is Palestine," maintaining domestic cohesion and a stable state, and ensuring sovereignty over territory and border control. There is also an important national interest in economic independence and control, and a crucial issue is our water supply, as we share it with two very unreliable neighbors. Looking ahead over 20 years, these are the factors that must remain stable for the survival of our state as we know it. Now, let's look at some immediate threats—how do they endanger these vital national interests? This is realpolitik 101. Letting foreign actors define the identity of our population is an incursion on both our sovereignty and our domestic cohesion. Allowing incursions into our airspace establishes a precedent of Jordan as a chessboard rather than a chess player. There are a lot of urgent issues happening at the moment, but we have to assess how they affect our national interests—we need to lay out the grand strategy before we plan the minor logistics.
My Take:
Our leadership has always strongly protected our national interest, but when you look at proposals, op-eds, and Facebook posts, our thinkers and politicos seem to have a laundry list of crises without tying them to the longer game.
"Let’s sue those who signed Attarat! What if there is a population transfer from the West Bank? What if proxies violate Jordanian airspace? What if Bibi can’t be stopped?" The list goes on—they make it sound like policy is nothing but running around and covering up cracks and leaks. I don’t always blame them; it seems government communication lately has focused on cracks and leaks.
But strategic policy is not about reacting to a series of events and hoping that a strategy emerges from that. That is not statecraft; that is an episode of Veep (love that show!). We identify our national interests and then work backward. That is how we calculate our responses.
Let’s go back to the main issue at hand: the unlikelihood of the two-state solution and the most likely outcome - externalized citizenship annexation. This is not a radical idea brought about by the settler movement. This has happened multiple times throughout history on different levels. During Soviet times, when they annexed the Baltic states, much of the population refused Soviet citizenship and only recognized the former leadership that was in exile—a leadership recognized by Western states. Morocco’s annexation of the Western Sahara is another example. Of course, as I mentioned, it happens on different levels, in different eras, but there is a precedent.
The rising of an ambitious and radical right-wing movement in Israel, which has stated multiple times that the West Bank must be part of the Jewish Homeland, is pushing this scenario. It is the most likely and the most dangerous. A population transfer would cross too many "red lines" internationally and regionally, but citizenship transfer will be less of a mess for Israel to handle. As I mentioned before, there has always been a misguided notion that Jordan is Palestine. While it lay dormant for a while (because the Palestinian cause hasn’t been in Western headlines for a while), now it is front and center, peddled by right-wing Israelis, conservative Americans, and others.
I am offering two subjects here 1) a likely scenario of Palestine and Jordan 2) strategic policy making rather than reacting, and how we would use that in this situation. Just because we witness the horrors of Israel’s war on Gaza does not mean we cater to a pro-Iran audience. We cannot run from one threat into another. We have to think long-term and Iran is not a long-term partner. Jordan knew many years ago that Netanyahu was not a long term partner. Now we have many of our national interests threatened by the far-right in power next door. Whether they push for a population transfer or the (more likely, in my view) citizenship transfer, Jordan should not react, but strategically respond. Jordan is not meant to be a chessboard. Jordan can be an excellent chess player.