T. Belman. This argument was obviously made on behalf of King Abdullah. Yes, Abdullah would never countenance naturalizing the Palestinian refugees living in Jordan but Mudar Zahran would. Furthermore Abdullah would never invite all Palestinians to move to Jordan, but Zahran would.
I like to think that for this reason alone, Kushner would back Zahran.
If the Trump administration seeks to strip Palestinian refugees of their status, it will destabilize one of America’s closest allies in the region.
By Khalil E. Jahshan, FOREIGN POLICY – OCTOBER 5, 2018
Jordanian protesters wave their national flags and Palestinian flags during a demonstration against the U.S. president’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, on December 15, 2017, in the Jordanian capital Amman. (KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
The Trump administration’s attempt to pressure Jordan to strip its Palestinian refugees of their status struck a nerve in the kingdom at a time of unprecedented economic and political turbulence. In presenting their ill-conceived plan to Jordanian officials, U.S. peace negotiators Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt have demonstrated a bias and ineptitude that will derail Washington’s self-proclaimed peace plan and further undermine U.S. credibility in the Middle East.
Jordan is home to almost 2.2 million registered Palestinian refugees—more than any country in the region. When Palestinians were expelled from their homes in the British Mandate of Palestine during the war that led to Israel’s independence, the kingdom welcomed the refugees and granted them citizenship to ease their humanitarian burden, but in a limited capacity so as not to affect Palestinians’ national aspirations or their political future. They are still considered “stateless” awaiting repatriation, as provided by Jordan’s legal, regional, and international commitments. The popular phrase “Jordan is not Palestine” was and remains a vital national security concern in the kingdom.
For almost seven decades, the poorest refugees in Jordan have been cared for by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). UNRWA operates 171 schools in Jordan, serving more than 121,000 students. Its 25 primary health centers handle more than 1.5 million visits a year, and 10 recognized refugee camps shelter around 370,000 refugees.
The White House’s goal, detailed in internal emails from Jared Kushner to his colleague Jason Greenblatt that were obtained by Foreign Policy, is “to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA” and strip refugee status from all but the few living Palestinians who fled British Mandatory Palestine in 1948—a plan that reveals a profound ignorance of Jordan’s current political and economic woes.
Kushner seems convinced that UNRWA “perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace.” President Donald Trump’s son-in-law turned senior advisor, who lacks any credible diplomatic experience in Middle East affairs, expressed his view that, “Sometimes you have to strategically risk breaking things in order to get there.” What he fails to understand is that his half-baked plan risks undermining the legitimacy and sovereignty of Jordan, Washington’s closest ally and partner in the Middle East. In this sense, taking the refugee issue off the negotiating table is, as Trump is fond of saying, tantamount to cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Despite the generous foreign aid Amman receives, with a new infusion on the way from the Gulf States this week, it has been struggling with an economic crisis fueled by domestic and international factors, including the spillover from conflicts next door in Iraq and Syria. Widespread tax evasion has further contributed to ballooning Jordan’s debt to 95 percent of GDP. The lack of funds has triggered runaway inflation at a time when the state struggles to provide food and water for 670,000 poverty-stricken Syrian refugees. Proposed tax reforms and price hikes this spring spurred a general strike by labor unions that brought down Prime Minister Hani al-Mulki. New Prime Minister Omar Razzaz’s tenuous popularity hinges on whether he will confront Jordan’s core political corrosion.
Amid this tense political climate, with a single-minded goal to dissolve UNRWA at all costs, Kushner reportedly offered to hand Jordan the millions the United States gives annually to UNRWA in exchange for absorbing full responsibility for Palestinian refugees. King Abdullah rejected the offer out of hand, and Jordan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi said such a move would have had “extremely dangerous humanitarian, political and security implications for refugees and for the whole region.”
Some officials in the Trump administration might naively consider Jordan too weak to resist U.S. pressure to accept White House commands. Jordan is certainly a close U.S. ally that is significantly dependent on U.S. aid. However, having survived many existential challenges since 1946, Jordan’s monarchy is not willing to commit national suicide just to please Washington.
The White House would also do well to consider the risks of destabilizing its ally. Palestinian civic leaders in Jordan embrace UNRWA as a protector of Palestinian funds and a guarantor of their livelihood in the face of entrenched corruption in the Jordanian government. A wholesale transfer of UNRWA funds to that government would almost certainly be a money grab by a ravenous bureaucracy, sparking violent protests that could potentially collapse the new government in a storm of anti-authoritarian fervor. A formerly reliable insurer of stability would crumble, paving the way for unimaginable devastation and suffering.
Trump has accused UNRWA of perpetuating the refugee crisis by providing essential services as refugees wait to be repatriated, rather than working to permanently resettle them elsewhere. But nothing in UNRWA’s mandate gives it the authority to resettle anyone, even if it wanted to, and a unilateral attempt to strong-arm Jordan into upending multilateral agreements shows an ignorance of the political realities on the ground.
At last week’s U.N. General Assembly meeting, Trump announced he would unveil his plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace within four months. The White House has closed the PLO office in Washington and relocated its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, moves that confirm a pro-Israel bias that all but guarantees Palestinian noncooperation. Alienating its longstanding ally Jordan would further cement the growing U.S. rift with Arab countries and undermine prospects for peace.
@ adamdalgliesh:
Your first two “starred” comments are true… -not “whoppers”. There are documented accounts of the Mayor(?) of Haifa (named think Levy), going up and down with a car an loudspeaker, imploring the Arabs not to leave.
Also I’ve seen written accounts by prominent Arabs like … “they (Egyptians) told us to get out so that they could get in… we got out, but we did not get back in.”.
This latest breaking news reveals why the Palestinians are not a “party equally deserving of sovereignty.”
This breaking news from Times of Israel reveals why the Palestinians are not “a party equally deserving of sovereignty” with Israel.
A few more whoppers: What does the author mean when he writes that the Jordanian government has given the Palestinians in Jordan citizenship, but “in a limited capacity?” IN other words, second-class citizens. Why should the U.S. government support a government that treats the majority of its citizens as second class?
*
If the “indigenous” Jordanians, and the Jordanian government, really regard the Palestinians in Jordan as a “national security” threat, why do they want the United Nations to spend billions of dollars to keep them in Jordan? Why not just let them leave?
*Jordan has no binding “international commitments” that prevent it from granting full citizenship rights to its Palestinian majority, or that require it to permit UNWRA to operate on its territory. THese are unilateral decisions of the Jordanian government, which it could change if it wanted to.
*
If the Palestinians are Jordanian citizens, how can they be “stateless?” Why should they be “awaiting repatriation” to what is now Israel, a country where very few of them ever lived, and which could not absorb thaem without committing “national suicide?” If the author thinks that the U,S, should not pressure Jordan to “commit national suicide,” why does he demand that Israel do so, and that the U.S. do so as well? And why does he claim that the Trump administrations refusal to demand that Israel committ suicide is “pandering to Israel?”
*Why do the Palestinians after waging an agressive terror war against Israel for a hundred years, and murdering thousands of Jewish civilians, ‘
with Israel?
This article is so filled with falsehoods and specious arguments that it is difficult to know where to start.
I can not provide a comprehensive list of them or refute them in detail here.
But here are a few of the worst whoppers:
* The overwhelming majority of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 left their homes voluntarily, often in reponse to advice or pressure from Arab leaders. Even Mahmoud Abbas, in an unguarded moment, admitted an interview on PA television that his family voluntarily evacuated Safed in 1948, taking the youthful Mahmoud with them, even though no Israeli told them that they had to leave, because of their unfounded fear that the Israelis would seek revence for the massacre of Jews by Safadi Arabs in 1929.
The UNRWA administration is every bit as corrupt as the Jordanian government, so continuing to pour money into its coffers will do nothing to reduce corruption in Jordan. Money earmarked for genuinely poor Jordan-Palestinians is no more likely to reach those who really need it than if it passes through Jordanian government hands.
In any case, why are we pouring money into the hands of a corrupt government, when the money never reaches the Jordanians who are most in need of it?
*The so-called “refugee camps” are permanent towns and urban neighborhoods, not camps.
*Why should those falsely classified as “refugees” receive extensive benefits not available to other Jordanian citizens, or f or that matter, to the genuine Syrian refugees in Jordan?
*If Jordan’s financial problems are really caused by tax evasion, why should American taxpayers have to foot the bill for these tax evaders?
Full article at https://worldisraelnews.com/opinion-trumps-greatest-contribution-stripping-away-palestinians-phony-refugee-status/?fbclid=IwAR0-Yrzi3FU9CZxJBsqkGfJgmRX_Ty9Xom7DRj5isFHyfH0kkaZ7nUUxKEk#.XF1dssRQzxI.facebook
About the article headline…Who is the argument between.??? (very ungrammatical but effective) t assumed that a proposal had already been made and an argument about it had ensued. …So…Between whom…??
The sub headline begins with “If”.which must introduce pure speculation….
I differ with the writer…The Trump administration is intending to GIVE the refugees status -not strip them. What status has a refugee.??…in the REAL world I mean…?? It’s “interesting” to see this sycophant referring to Jordan as the US’s “closest ally and partner in the Middle East”….I thought that this title belonged to someone else…. ..I’ve just forgotten who for a moment…. I see a mention of “Jordan’s core political corrosion” but not a word about “corruption” so-far… Oh yes, a little mention of it at last. But here…Jordan considers UNWRA a “protector of Palestinian funds” …Folks.. I just can’t stop laughing… This is a comedy routine…
I just can’t read any further; I have a pain in my stomach from laughing. Hollywood should grab up this guy… (take him for a spin in a helicopter ..3000 ft. open the door and shove him out……Finis….!!t….