Trump envoy: Rumors of a Palestinian confederation with Jordan are incorrect

Suggesting to the Hashemite royal family that Jordan is a home for the Palestinians is considered a sensitive and destabilizing issue.

By World Israel News Staff 

President Donald Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt is denying what he calls “rumors” that the president’s peace plan for Israelis and Palestinians includes a confederation with Jordan.

“Rumors that our peace vision includes a confederation between Jordan, Israel & the [Palestinian Authority] PA, or that the vision contemplates making Jordan the homeland for Palestinians, are incorrect,” Greenblatt wrote on Twitter, adding: “Please don’t spread rumors.”

Many reports have emerged over what the plan, dubbed by Trump as the “deal of the century,” will include. Senior adviser Jared Kushner has given the latest assessment of when the plan will be made public, saying Tuesday that it will happen in early June, after Muslims complete their holy month of Ramadan.

The report of a potential confederation came amid indications that the U.S. was shelving the idea of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip.

The concept of forming such a joint arrangement has been raised in the past, but not in recent years. It is based on the premise that Jordan, which already has a large Palestinian Arab population, is the true home of Arabs who refer to themselves as Palestinians. The argument stems from the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan which divided the land to be vacated by the British Mandate into Jewish and Arab national entities.

However, Arab countries rejected the formation of a Jewish state, launched a war against the State of Israel, which was established in May 1948, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, located on the East Bank of the Jordan River, occupied Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank, and eastern Jerusalem, from 1948 until 1967, until Israel captured these areas, among other territories, in the Six Day War.

Suggesting to the Hashemite royal family that Jordan is a home for the Palestinians is considered a sensitive and destabilizing issue. The last time any official connection was made was at the 1991 Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid, when Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, refusing to accept Palestinian Arabs as a separate entity, insisted that they be represented within the Jordanian delegation.

Though Greenblatt has denied other reports of details of the U.S. peace plan, this rejection is seen as especially sensitive as Washington looks out for its ally, Jordan, which has also been threatened by the conflict in neighboring Syria.