Current US peace proposals are just as alarming to Jordan as would be any regional war, writes Nicola Nasser* A Russian newspaper recently revealed that NATO's secretary-general asked Jordan to help train an army that is being rebuilt in a major area of NATO operations -- quite a recommendation of Jordan's military prowess. But Jordan remains more devoted to peace than war, as the Jordanian king told The Chicago Tribune a few days ago. Asked about the impact of Iran's nuclear ambitions, King Abdullah II said that countries as small as his cannot think of having a military nuclear programme. He then went on to urge peace in the region. War has traditionally been an anathema for Jordan. In every war in the vicinity, Jordan has to take the brunt of caring for a large number of refugees. Today, Jordan is ranked fourth in the world in terms of the ratio of refugees to the local population, says Ahmed Al-Shabab of the Centre of Refugees Studies in Yarmuk University. In addition, Jordan has more Palestinian refugees than any other country in the region: three million in total and 1.7 million from Gaza and the West Bank alone, according to a report by UNRWA (the UN Relief and Works Agency). According to news reports, US diplomats have been touring Arab countries, asking them to find ways of settling the Palestinians in various areas outside Palestine. The reports -- none of which has been contested by Washington -- indicate the continuation of an old US- Israeli effort to extract the issue of Palestinian refugees from future negotiations. The Americans and the Israelis seem to think that the Arabs and Palestinians, having capitulated on many things in the past, would bite the bullet on this in the end. This puts Jordan in a particularly vulnerable position. Peace made according to current US proposals can be as detrimental to Jordan as any coming war. Six months ago, the Jordanians signed an agreement with the Israelis to prevent border infiltration. The agreement, given the number 1650, was signed on Israel's side by Major General Gadi Shamni, head of the Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank. It went into effect 13 April 2010. This and similar arrangements are signs that Jordan has a lot to fear from tension on its borders. Despite their strategic friendship with the US, the Jordanians are wary of current US proposals. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, King Abdullah said, "In America specifically, you hear [people say] well, why doesn't Jordan take the Palestinians into our country?" He explained Jordan's objections to this idea, saying that Jordan should be involved in any discussion about the refugees. In fact, the Jordanian concern about the current situation has many aspects. First, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said once, the current situation "cannot last". The current situation is so volatile that Jordan fears that further conflagration would spill over into its territories. Unless the situation is defused by a revival of the peace process, a new Palestinian wave of immigration to Jordan cannot be ruled out. Second, the existing status quo doesn't allow the Palestinians the minimum of their needs, a matter that is perilous to Jordanian national security for obvious geopolitical reasons. Third, current US peace proposals imply that Jordan and other countries would have to settle the Palestinians on their land. Fourth, Jordan is being pushed into accepting a role in the West Bank -- that or a US or NATO military presence in the Jordan Valley. Both options are painful to the Jordanians who fear that a US presence on their borders may be a magnet for further hostilities. Fifth, current peace proposals imply that the Palestinians and the Israelis should sit together and sort out their differences. Given the immense disparity in power between the two sides, one-on-one negotiations cannot produce a fair deal, many agree. The Jordanians wish, therefore, to be included in any talks bearing on their national security and on the future of the refugees. According to The Washington Post and The New York Times, the forthcoming US peace plan -- the one President Obama is currently discussing with top aides -- intends to breach the right of return for Palestinian refugees. According to the Jerusalem-based weekly newspaper Al-Manar, Obama is preparing a letter of guarantees to Israel in which he makes this particular pledge and vows to uphold earlier promises given by George Bush Jr to Ariel Sharon on 14 April 2004. The Obama plan, it is said, relies basically on proposals made by former US President Clinton during meetings with Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak in late 2000. Arafat rejected those proposals and was punished by a siege, some say murder, as a result. According to former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, the deal proposed by Clinton to both parties gave the Palestinian refugees the right to return to the "historic Palestine" that included Jordan under the British mandate. According to the Clinton deal, the Palestinians had no "clear right" to return to Israel. Obama's plan is also said to borrow from Palestinian- Israeli talks held in Taba in early 2001. According to an unofficial paper cited by Miguel Moratinos, EU envoy and Spanish foreign minister at the time, the two sides agreed that UNRWA would be phased out in five years and replaced with an international committee fund to compensate the refugees. In a 7,000-word document dated December 2009 and circulated by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Department of Negotiations Affairs (a department that is said to be run by the British Adam Smith Institute and to be funded in full by Western governments), the PLO warns of US pressures on the Palestinian side to resume negotiations from square one and leave the refugees out of the talks. The document doesn't mention the "right to return" but speaks of a "just solution" in accordance with UN Resolution 194. I am not sure which is worse, to stop talking about the refugees at all or to agree in official negotiations to drop the right of return and terminate UNRWA. The whole thing is a cause of worry to the Jordanians. One has to keep in mind that the chief negotiator in Taba was Yasser Abed Rabbo, the godfather of the Geneva Accord. The said accord urges settlement of the Palestinians in Palestinian areas or other countries, with a limited number being accepted back in Israel on a "humanitarian" basis. This idea was incorporated in a plan by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to rebuild the institutions of a Palestinian state within the span of two years. Jordan was understandably sceptical about the Fayyad plan. Four new developments are worth noting here. One is a French proposal of a fund to compensate Palestinian refugees and Jewish settlers in the West Bank on equal terms. A second development is a US-backed Israeli demand that the Arabs and Palestinians should recognise Israel as an all-Jewish country before proceeding with further peace talks. A third development is a law passed by the Israeli Knesset last February that calls on the government to demand compensation for Jews who fled to Israel from Arab countries before discussing the issue of Palestinian refugees. A fourth development is that the Geneva Accord has been upgraded into a "proposed" detailed Palestinian- Israeli treaty, of which copies were given to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres. The details of the said treaty have not been made public. Secret Palestinian diplomacy -- the scourge that began with the Oslo Accords -- is obviously far from over. I wish to remind you here that all the treaties and agreements signed by Jordan, Egypt, and the PLO with Israel have no mention of the right of return for the Palestinians. This fact entails a great threat for Jordan, and the latter would be advised to reconsider its treaty with Israel in order to close this gaping loophole. In his recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, King Abdullah II admitted the growing tensions between his country and Israel. "For the first time since my father made peace with Israel, our relationship with Israel is at an all bottom low. It hasn't been as bad as it is today and as tense as it is today." * The writer is a veteran Arab journalist based in Birzeit on the West Bank of the Israeli occupied Palestinian territories.
