Realist Fareed Zakaria did a great interview with King Abdullah of Jordan on Sunday where the King said over and over again what no one likes to hear in the U.S.: the Palestinian grievance is feeding all the problems in the region and stoking the Iran threat, and Obama is losing credibility. The King said the two-state-solution is the only thing out there but it may be finished– we may have crossed that line in the sand on "the viability of a two- state solution" (I think it’s probably crossed, Kingster), and if it’s a one-state solution, this will lead to instability in the region because the Israelis are so terrified of it. (Agreed; and this is part of the job of this website, whatever happens, to help my stockaded people climb down from old wooden ideas.)
Zakaria parrots two Israel-lobby threads to the King. He says, Why shouldn’t the Palestinians fold into Jordan? And isn’t it, per Bernard Lewis, Arab repression that’s feeding terrorism? Abdullah swats both aside. Says that Palestinians are Palestinians (as we reported here last month; gee it would be nice if someone interviewed some goddamn Palestinians about what they think, I am really really curious). As to progress, Abdullah says Yes but even these efforts are stymied by the sense that a Zionist (neocon) plot is behind it. I agree: ending the Israel/Palestine grievance would be a giant liberation throughout the Arab world.
Here are some of Abdullah’s smart comments:
We are waiting for the United States to hopefully give us their undivided attention on this issue.
So, if we don’t get a clear mandate over the next month or so, then I’m not convinced that we’re going to move the process forward.
What we have to keep in mind is…
ZAKARIA: Let’s stay on that, though. You’re saying, if in the next month you don’t get a clear sense from the United States that it is pushing hard on this, you feel like things are going to stall.
KING ABDULLAH: People are disheartened. People are not convinced. I think the credibility of the U.S. is under question now….
I personally believe that the president is extremely committed to it. [Yes Fareed and why can't he lift his hand?]
Many occasions I’ve sat down with Israelis to say, where do you see your country in 10 years time, and work me back, so we can figure out the synergies and the connections between Israel and the rest of the Arab world. No Israeli has ever been able to answer that
question. [very true; it's a permanent war scenario for those folks]…Because of the security threat, they think in the here-and-now. They can only think of today. When is the next attack? When is the next bomb?
And so, this is the challenge that Jordan has, and the international community has, reaching out to the Israeli public and saying, do you want to continue to be Fortress Israel? What a dismal place that would be. And how it continues to affect the whole region. The challenge is to reach the Israeli people and say, we basically want the two-state solution to happen, so that you can be integrated into the neighborhood. And that’s actually a lot harder than people might imagine….
Today, Iran is putting itself as the defenders of the Palestinian cause. Several days ago, Osama bin Laden in his taped message to the United States again underlined the suffering of the Palestinians. It is the injustice felt towards the Palestinian people that allow other states actors and non-state actors to take the role of being the defenders of the Palestinians.
If we solve this problem, then I believe we start to unwind all the other pressure points inside of the Middle East.
ZAKARIA: But could you in Jordan live with an Iran with a nuclear weapon?
KING ABDULLAH: If we solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, why would Iranians want to spend so much money on a military program? It makes no sense…
[Re jihad]
I mean, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is such an emotional issue inside of Islam, that everybody tries to hijack it for very destructive ends.
This is why it is so imperative for all of us to solve this problem. Otherwise, we will always live under the shadow of terror. And terror is not something, as you well know, that Israelis are having to deal with; Arabs, Muslims, the West are dealing with — all because of the core issue of the Middle East, which is the Israeli- Palestinian one.
There is resistance to change. There’s a resistance to ideas.
When we try to push the envelope, there are certain sectors of society that say this is a Zionist plot to sort of destabilize our country, or this is an American agenda. So, it’s very difficult to convince people to move forward.
The Israeli right is still dragging out the “Jordan is Palestine” card, which threatens Abdullah. There were reports last week that Jordan was pulling citizenship from Palestinians.
Some 50 odd Knesset members backed a bill last summer that would send the Palestinians to their “homeland.” that is, to Jordan. Jordan was not consulted:
link to globalpost.com
I met Abdullah when he was a teenager, and crazy for airplanes. His bedroom had hanging models of everything from Tiger Moths to B2s.
He’s grown up now
He’s reporting, from his regal throne thatcertain sectors of society that say this is a Zionist plot to sort of destabilize our country, or this is an American agenda And he’s dead right, even he is putting the onus of his pronouncements, on certain sectors of society.
Reminds me of the time I met Elvis.
Abdullah has been stripping the citizenship from thousands of Jordanians of Palestinian origin and Phil who loves the Palestinians, doesn’t even mention it. If Israel had stripped a single Arab of Israeli citizenship he would be screaming.
link to jpost.com
Maybe it’s all a Zionist plot to destabilize his country.
Israel has indeed stripped many Arabs of Israeli citizenship, of residence right – and not just Arabs but anyone the cultists running the interior ministry don’t think Jewish enough.
“Jordan’s Interior Minister Nayef al-Kadi said
“Our goal is to prevent Israel from emptying the Palestinian territories of their original inhabitants,” the minister explained, confirming that the kingdom had begun revoking the citizenship of Palestinians. “We should be thanked for taking this measure,” he said. “We are fulfilling our national duty because Israel wants to expel the Palestinians from their homeland.”
It is estimated that over 40 000 Palestinians have been affected in the preceding months.” (Wicki)
Current US strategy is to prepare for a future containment of China. I personally believe that the so-called war on terrorism is merely an excuse to set up bases across the Middle East, in strategic areas, so as to cut off China from sources of oil.
Looking at the Israeli/Palestinian issue from within that framework it would seem that the US would not be interested in resolving the “conflict” as it needs all the “radicals” it can get to justify its presence in central Asia.
But, even if that were not the case, and the US was indeed interested in resolving the conflict, then it is stuck between a rock a hard place; on the one hand US pressure on Israel to withdraw to the Green Line and make concessions will be matched with a demand by Israel that the US act on the Iran issue.
However, should the US attempt to impose more sanctions on Iran or attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, then China will not hesitate to voice its displeasure, in various ways.
And that would be extremely BAD for the US, particularly on the economic front.
“Current US strategy is to prepare for a future containment of China. I personally believe that the so-called war on terrorism is merely an excuse to set up bases across the Middle East, in strategic areas, so as to cut off China from sources of oil. ”
Brilliant. The US wants to get into a land war with a country that has an endless supply of soldiers. Obama should call you up for advice.
I can tell you don’t own a map of the world, never played risk, or ran a competitive business .
Israel is not a bit afraid of a one-state solution. It has imposed one, as we all know. Need we repeat the epithets? “Non-democratic, apartheid-style” ? Israel really likes this, has worked hard to create it.
I don’t know the meaning of the apartheid-wall to the government of Israel, though. Anyone know why it was built in just the place where it was built?
It could just-barely-conceivably be an attempt to contain the settlers (to prevent an otherwise unlimited settler take-over of all of the West Bank). A mere Knesset-made statute limiting the bounds of settlement would not be enough in the lawless Isreaeli socirty.
More likely, though, it was built at a time when some sort of two-state (or 1-1/2 state) arrangement seemed possible or likely to the Israelis, who counted on the PA/PLO/Fateh to be more corrupt/moderate even than they are.
As to removing citizenship from Palestinian citizens, that is understandable even if horrible. It is horrible because no-one wants to be a stateless refugee when he can instead be a citizen PROVIDING that he wanted to be a citizens, that this was not enforced upon him.
It is understandable as a protection to Jordan (to tend to prevent the next Zionist expulsion) and to the Palestinians themselves (same reason). In addition it makes the point that no state other than Israel has the duty to “take in” refugees (whether from 1948 or later) from the territory which Israel arrogates to call its own. There are, one would like to be able to say, limits even to “sovereignty”, and the repeated UNGA resolutions on the “right of return” which echo the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in assuring the right of every person to go “home” is such a limit. At all events, if Israel has any right at all (I think it has none whatever) to refuse citizenship to those who were citizens of the Mandate in 1947-8 (and their progeny), then Jordan which did not make the refugees and was never their home has a greater right.
Still horrible. For the people who suffer, who’re caught in between.
Tell me again how solving the Palestinian problem (if this will ever happen) convinces Iran that somehow it is now safe not to build Nuclear weapons. It was Iraq who invaded Iran on US urging, it was the US who tried toppling this regime several times and who put the Shah in there, it was the US who shot down the Iranian Civilian airliner. I think Iran is looking further west than the west bank.
The King needs to find another reader for his arabic coffee, this one is running out of sories. The King has only himself to blame if he all of a sudden he finds himself hosting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians made refugees by his friend Israel as part of their final solution.
The hashemite family has been trying to play a cat and mouse game with the Irsraelis and some day soon the cat will use its claws and game will be over. King Hussein slept with the Israelis for decades and plotted with them the fate of the Palestinians and backstabbed the rest of the Arab countries which is why Egypt’s president Nasser wanted him removed. Someday histroy will show how King Hussein literally gave away the West bank in 1967 thinking Israel would leave him alone. The chikens are coming home to roost and no matter what he tries, Israel will dump the west bank Palestinians on its (ally???). Then as far as they are concerned, the problem is solved and guess what, the US will agree and Iran will have another reason to build Nuclear weapons.
I agree, BA. You have it right.
The zionists have always tried to dump the Palestinians on someone else.
First there was denial of the problem: “A people without a land living in a land without people” canard.
Then comes now this half-denial: the ‘Jordan solution to the Palestinian problem’.
And you think any decision like that can be made without the consent of the Palestinians? Has the world not learn from ’48 when they excluded the Palestinians from decision making – look around, we’re still living the diabolical consequences of that!
Yes, the map of the middle east should be re-drawn. By the Arab Semites, whatever religion they may be.
Euro converts go back to where you came from – fuck that up instead.
It’s a little difficult to respond to someone as cynical and omniscient as Julian, who has imbibed so much Zionist crap since his infanthood (which can’t have been that long ago) that he can no longer tell his ass from his earhole.
So I won’t even bother.
To Avi though, I would say that China, like Iran, has expanded its territory, bit by bit, over the centuries. Or at least, the Han Chinese have, as their population has grown. They have even taken over the immense empty territory of Tibet, and are matching Tibetans with Han Chinese in every town of any size that they can find.
The American strategy of containment, by building military bases in every town of any size that they can find, throughout Mid East Asia, would work if it wasn’t for one thing. China can afford to buy its oil. America just can’t, any more..
Richard,
You make a compelling argument.
My contention is that the US has been showing signs of militarily attempting to contain China. Consider, for example, the recent announcement by the DoD that for the next several years, they will be renovating, revamping and updating the military base in Guam. The article goes on to state that thousands of US military families will be moving to Guam and that training facilities there will be improved to accommodate the influx.
Then there was an article, I believe it was on Alternet, in which a reporter who has been reporting from Afghanistan/Pakistan for several years now, described the bases, manned by 15 – 20 CIA personnel, being set up throughout Afghanistan amount to “an Archipelago”.
These two facts put together, paint a different picture.
Watch the show:
link to cnn.com
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