By Ted Belman (Feb 13/19)
While most people are patiently waiting for Pres Trump to table his Peace Plan, otherwise known as the Deal of the Century, I have been preparing a Memo to Kushner in which I challenge two points covered in Did Liberman reveal Trump’s peace plan? Yes.
1. Don’t recommend that Gaza become sovereign Palestinian territory. Instead, propose that Gaza be treated as another Area A leaving it to Israel to work together with Egypt and Jordan to find a solution.
2. Do not propose that Palestinians receive “broad economic incentives” in Israel. Instead propose that Israel create economic opportunity for the Palestinians in Jordan.
In my Memo to Kushner, I write,
Gaza
Residents of Gaza should be induced to voluntarily emigrate to Egypt or Jordan or other places, as they choose. Population transfer, as you know, has been resorted to historically, to make peace possible. e.g. in Europe after WW2 and to facilitate the India/Pakistani separation. In this case, we do not propose forced population transfer, but voluntary, supervised and economically encouraged transfer.
Once nearly empty of residents, Israel should be allowed to annex it thereby ending the Gaza problem for ever. Like the West Bank, Gaza was originally part of the Palestine Mandate.
Then I go into detail:
In essence, 300,000 homes/apartments would need to be built in either Jordan or Egypt to house the 1.6 million immigrants from Gaza. Using the latest technologies, this will require an expenditure of $15B in Jordan and much less in Egypt. If this was a 10 year project, the yearly expenditure would be $1.5 B.
These houses could be offered free of charge to emigrants and in addition, the investment would include 21st century infrastructure and employment opportunities, as an inducement to emigrate. Egypt and Jordan can certainly benefit from a $15 B infusion of capital. As further inducement to Egypt, Israel could offer it to share gas from the offshore wells that Israel would then be able to exploit off the Gazan coastline. There are many other ways that Egypt or Jordan could benefit by taking in the Gazans.
Egypt has already started building New Cairo to the south east of Cairo. It is intended to house 6.5 million people. There is a second phase to this development which will house another 8.5 million people. Surely the first phase can accommodate a major portion of the 1.5 million Gazans. In addition, the infusion of $15 billion into the Cairo economy will be of enormous help.
After annexing Gaza, Israel could again develop these lands (as it did in the past, prior to the Disengagement) and reward Jordan and Egypt with a percentage of the profits earned, as per percentage of Gazans taken in. This redevelopment would create thousands of jobs which would be available to the Palestinians.
Judea and Samaria
PM Netanyahu and Min Bennett have been advocating for some time that Israel create more job opportunities for the Palestinians in Area C.
Now it appears that the deal proposes the same thing. We think this is shortsighted.
Rather than create jobs in Israel for the Palestinians, the plan should be to create jobs in Jordan for them.
Israel would be very motivated to build the Jordan economy if it would result in an exodus of Palestinians from the West Bank. A win-win for both sides.
If 1.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank were to emigrate to Jordan, this would require another 300,000 homes. We have done considerable work on where to build these homes and how to fill them.
Palestinians in Israel should be encouraged to emigrate rather than to stay. These homes could be given to them as a partial incentive.
Obviously, were 3 million Palestinians emigrate to Jordan from Gaza and Judea and Samaria, Jordan’s chronic water shortage would be taxed even more.
Water
Jordan is desperately short of water now. An influx of 1.5 to 3.0 million people will require a huge increase of available fresh water. There is some talk about the Red -Dead proposal for generating power and producing fresh water but it is extremely costly.
We have been investigating another proposal to provide Jordanians with sufficient water for their needs.
The current effective consumption of water for household purposes is 210 million CuM per year in Jordan which is just 22 CuM per capita compared to 75-80 CuM per capita in Israel.
In most countries, an average of 60% of expensive treated water is lost through leakage before reaching customers. Jordan’s leakage rate is much higher. “Israel’s leakage rate is lowest in the world, on average 7-8%.” So there is room for considerable improvement.
We propose to build a large desalination plant near Haifa at a cost of about $1.2 B. It would produce about 175 million CuM per year which would be piped to the Kineret and be available to be pumped to Jordan. This coupled with overhauling Jordan’s water system would dramatically increase available water per capita even with an influx of 3 million people.
Currently Jordanians pay 1.04 USD per CuM compared to 0.75 USD paid by Israelis.
The goal would be to provide at least 50 CuM of water per capita for the enlarged Jordanian population and to lower the cost per CuM to approximate what Israelis are currently paying.
But more could be done.
We could overhaul the infrastructure to reduce the leakage. This excess water would be used to irrigate Jordanian agricultural land currently lying fallow and to create grazing land. This land would then be available to Palestinian farmers and Bedouins herders who would love the opportunities presented.
When the Memo is finalized it will be forwarded to Jared Kushner.
Totally aside from this project, I intend to establish a Think Tank that would focus on two things.
1. Incentivizing Arab Emigration and
2. Jewish Aliya.
Wish me luck. If anyone wants to participate or know more, send me an email at tbelman3@gmail.com
Just reading this now. I applaud the serious efforts you put into finding peaceful solutions to get the arabs to voluntarily leave Israel. Kol Hakavod!
The probable reason why the West has not got behind Mudar is that most Western pundits who are or claim to be Middle East experts think that the Muslim Brotherhood, not the Jordanian Opposition Coalition, is the group best positioned to take over Jordan if Abdullah falls. Abdullah tolerates the Brotherhood, which is represented in parliament and controls many labor unions and professional associations. However, most of the experts think that if it looks like Abdullah is about to fall, the Brotherhood will move to gain total control. If it succeeded, it would probably allow Hamas, a Brotherhood creation, to conduct raids from Jordan into Israel.
Another fear of Western governments is that Jordan might collapse into chaos if Abdullah is overthrown. As the professor from Ariel College that Ted recently published writes, there is little that unifies Jordan as a state except the monarchy that Britain created between 1921-1946. Western pundits fear that Jordan might divide into tribal and ethnic enclaves at war with each other, creating a situation similar to Syria before Assad, with Russian Iranian and indirectly Obama’s help help, reconsolidated his power. And of course they don’t want Russia and Iran to move in to fill the void, and help some Jordanian or other to reunify the country as their puppet ruler. Hence they continue to back Abdullah on the “devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know,” or in Shakespeare’s words, “we would rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.”
@ Ted Belman: E-mail address? Web site? Phone number? Anyone in this group who can be contacted to confirm that they endorse the Belman Plan?
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
They once wrote of themselves,
I follow Mudar Zahran’s blog on Facebook regularly. He hasn’t posted very much on it recently. The most recent anti-regime demonstration that he posted is dated October 4, 2019, more than two months ago. He had briefly posted one of a demonstration in November, but quickly removed it, probably because the demonstrators suggested that they might kidnap foreign tourists.
Abdullah’s sly tactic of making a fairly small number of arrests in a crackdown on demonstrators, and denying them access to the media, while waiting out the demonstrations, has worked for him every year since he inherited the throne in 2003. There have have demonstrations calling for his removal every year since then. But after a while, the demonstrations lose steam, and have to go back to work to support their families. The demonstrations more or less end until the next demonstration season develops in the following year. Why should 2020 be any different? Abdullah knows that the demonstrators are overwhelmingly non-violent. As a result, as long as he retains the loyalty of the army and police, Abdullah is safe.
The army might overthrow Abdullah if they received a clear message from Jordan’s two main patrons, the United States and Britain, that they want him out. But so far they have received no such message. I don’t think either the United States and Britain are really enthusiastic about Abdullah, but they haven’t publicly criticized him, and they give him invitations to visit Washington and London from time to time. An influential Washington think tank recently invited him to Washington to receive an award and address them. Mudar reported and protested this development on his blog.
As long as Abdullah retains the support of the Western powers and continues to receive massive subsidies from them, he will retain the loyalty of his army, police and civil service, although it will be grudging. And as long as he reacts with some restraint to the demonstrations, the regime opponents will not recive enough Western sympathy and support to overthrow the regime. If he really massacred large numbers of people like Iran is doing, it might be different. But so far he has shown restraint, preferring to let the demonstrations to gradually peter out.
@ Ted Belman: Ted, this recommendation would be more impressive if you identified the association of military professionals who wrote it, and if you provided an email address or a URL, other than your own, to verify it.
An association of military and intelligence professionals from Washington distributed this article with this preface in RED:
Well, Ted, I wish you luck. Although I know little about Kushner my guess would be that the measure of your success with him might be the opposite of the measure of the size of his ego. Just in case it’s relevant, out of curiosity, who coined the phrase “There is no diplomatic solution”?
@ Ted Belman: Ted, a lenthy comment that I just posted under Steve Apfel’s article on “THe Jewish Death Wish” was deleted due to a mechanical malfunction. Could you retrieve it for me from the spam or trash folders and reinstate it in the comments section under Steve’s article for me. Many thanks.
“While most people are patiently waiting for Pres Trump to table his Peace Plan…”
Nobody I know has ever talked about any “Trump Peace Plan”. I certainly don’t spend any time being concerned about it — if it indeed exists..
Friends in Jordan
By Abed AlMaala December 11, 2016
Abed Almaala is the deputy Secretary General of the Jordanian Opposition Coalition.
Looking back his predictions have not materialized
“NEXT INTIFADA? When did the 3rd Intifada stop?” Pam Gelfstein
yamit82 Said:
Alarms of Danger Hitting Jordan
Sami Maitah-Published by most Jordanian news sites
18-08-2017
“The most dangerous thing [against Jordan] now is the movement to hold a conference at the Began Center of Intelligence about Jordan being the solution. The points of discussions include the form of the Jordanian states and concepts that bring a coup against Jordan’s constitution and national identity of Jordan. From the points of discussion and the concepts, this is a provocative message by all means and desires that the Jordanian state stops at those. There are Jordanians participating, and the state must take all deterring measures, and the Jordanian state’s mind must be firm in reacting to these pro-coup stances and to punish those taking part and also recall the Jordanian ambassador and take all legal and diplomatic measures to stand in the face of these major changes to come, which target the national security and have put together a full program on purpose aimed at creating a perfect picture for the reader and for the mind of the Jordanian state as well as the consciousness of the Jordanian citizen, who, by the way, shall never tolerate anyone touching our national security, and is willing to give away his blood and soul for that. Perhaps we should raise above internal issues of conflict and instead, fortify and strengthen our home front, and renew the tools of public work through those who we see as potential helpers of his majesty the king, the military and security establishment, so we could become a unified hand against the conspiracies I present before your hands the program of the planned conference”
@ yamit82:
“Abed Almaala, JOC’s Deputy Secretary General, is another speaker. He represents Jordan’s largest tribe – the Bani Hassan – which has an estimated 60 thousand members. His speech is entitled “Why Would Jordan’s East Bankers and Bedouins Welcome the Jordan Option?”. JOC Secretary General descried this as “Necessary, as East Bank Jordanians must be on the table while Jordan’s future is being discussed”.
yamit82 Said:
Nothing. He has been living in the US for a couple of decades and I flew him in to Israel so he could speak at the conference. He was very worried for his life once here.
@ yamit82:
Maybe a couple of cogs (gears)….. solution…replacement and oil. and don’t put so much strain on them..
Maybe the guy wore false whiskers, horn rimmed “spectacles” and a wax nose…. Very popular amongst “secret agents”.
*which reminds me” of a joke I can’t tell on this site.
@ yamit82:
Who’s this guy ergo..? I don’t know him at all. (is he good for the Jews?) I suppose that when you make such profound and revealing remarks on Jew-Hate….. which are very well known already to everybody and his ergo, it deserves SOME answer …Maybe it should just be….. “ergo (so) what”….??
A good description of your -unknown until now- “revelation” about Jordanian hatred of Israelis and Jews would be “preaching to the choir”
Edgar G. Said:
Secret?
Ted Belman Said:
Edgar G. Said:
Ergo…???
@ yamit82:
@ Ted Belman:
If your unnamed Bedouin leader signed on to your plan then it must be known by King Abdullah and his security service…..???? What am I missing???
Ted Belman Said:
Doesn’t add up. He is here speaking openly of sedition and is still breathing?
@ yamit82:
I’m butting in here. You seem an expert in “detecting underlying inferences”…as you are expert in EVERYTHING,, even in things you know nothing about, but want to at any cost.. Your response s full of sophistry. Slippery and very dodgy. Again I say that you reserve the right to privacy about your private matters, with which I agree. But you damned well know that my query was NOT offensive as you try to impute (except maybe as an excuse for you to cut me down) and was just to expose that “what’s good for the goose is (NOT-but should be) good for the gander”. Meaning the same as “some are more equal than others” which I posted earlier.
Be assured I am not interested in your haaaahaaaaa clever stuff. But I DO ask seriously how you can be so crass as to insist on ferreting out for public scrutiny, information which if released now, could be a catastrophe. Your brilliant mind must understand the wonders of possibly getting rid of most, or even -at some future time- ALL of the cursed Arabs. And you want to destroy that chance just to gratify your overweening curiosity
So sleazy egotistical excuses to Adam lowers you in my estimation, when before, my opinion was high.. Not that you care, but I want you to know this .
Oh..Every Tom Dick and Harry knows that the Jordanians Hate Jews.
What I read above indicates that the State of Israel would be providing handouts to the Palestinians, the Egyptians and the Jordanians; probably to the Syrians and Lebanese too, to get rid of the Arab population within Israel. I suggest that these economics do not make much sense since the “exiled” Arab population would probably apply to the UNHRC to force Israel to rerun their move to/from Israel repeatedly including all the handouts and benefits.
Think up something more realistic! I doubt the Donald would make suggestions like these…
@ yamit82: I believe what you say about Jordanian attitudes towards Israel. It confirms what numerous other visitors to Jordan report.
@ Ted Belman:
That Bedouin leader told you that the Jordan Military follows the USA military?
Ted, a clarification and partial walk-back of my earlier comments about the Jordanian army’s non-participation in any efforts to repress the anti-government demonstrations. It is quite true that the army has not been sent in to repress the demonstrations. And even the Jordanian police have by and large treated the demonstrators with kid gloves, at least by Arab standards. They have allowed most of the demonstrations to take place with out making arrests. They did break up a demonstration in Amman’s Fourth Circle square in early January. Several policemen and demonstrators were reportedly injured after, according to the Jordanian official spokesman, demonstrators attacked the police. But even after this incident, few demonstrators were arrested. According to demonstration organizers (who declined to identify themselves with any political organization), the government is holding 34 protestors prisoner–not a very larger number of people in mention after a year of almost weekly protest demonstrations.
There are two possible explanations for this unusual restraint by the Jordanian authorities towards the protestors. One is your interpretation, that the military is planning a coup. My guess is that King Abdullah has ordered the army and police to exercise maximum restraint in dealing with the demonstrations, because he realizes that a harsh crackdown will only intensify the domestic opposition to him and also arouse increased foreign hostility to his regime, particularly in the United States. He does not want to suffer the same fate as the Shah of Iran, whose use of the military to try to suppress the demonstrations against him backfired badly.
Bear Klein Said:
The leader of the largest Bedouin clan in Jordan spoke at my conference as a big supporter. This clan signed on to the Jordanian Opposition coalition about 4 years ago.. Smells good to me.
adamdalgliesh Said:
Not secret but in the way it was put to me and the underlying inference I detected from Edgar G.
My reply stands unchanged to him. Not secret…Not Sensitive… still its none of his business… As I said I only brought it up to lend credence to my statement re; Jordanian attitudes towards Israel and that negative attitude crosses all economic and social strata in Jordan.