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King Abdullah says no

In resisting pressure to take charge of security in the West Bank, Jordan’s King Abdullah has displayed a sense of commitment to principle as well as political maturity. This slice of territory is nominally under the control of Fatah, which runs what remains of the Palestinian Authority after Hamas wrenched control of the Gaza Strip. In reality, Israel with its overwhelming military presence dominates the West Bank. Different motivations underlie the effort to persua de the Hashemite kingdom to step in. Fatah traditionally had the upper hand in the West Bank but support for Hamas has grown significantly over the past few years. Currently, the Islamist outfit is lying low because the security forces of Israel and the Palestinian Authority are hunting its cadres. However, Fatah cannot afford to let the impression grow that it maintains its grip solely with the help of the Israeli state. So the idea has popped up that a pliable Arab country could assume responsibility for propping up the Palestinian Authority. Israel might not mind if its forces in the West Bank were replaced by Jordanians. After all, the security and intelligence services of the Hashemite kingdom have been fairly effective in preventing terrorist attacks. A White House with a penchant for thinking up simplistic solutions to complex west Asian problems seemed only too ready to give its blessings to the project.

King Abdullah has refused to fall in line. After the partition of pre-1948 Palestine, the House of Hashem nurtured the hope that the international community would formally recognise its sovereignty over the West Bank, which it had seized during the war following the creation of Israel. However, the former monarch, Hussein bin Talal, relinquished this dubious claim in the late 1980s, declaring that the Palestinians were a nation in their own right. In reiterating this position without ambiguity or vacillation, the current occupant of the Hashemite throne has, at one level, reiterated the principle that a sovereign state is the birthright of the Palestinians. At a practical level, he has made it clear that by bringing the West Bank under its sway, Jordan would only be inviting trouble. As for the treatment of Palestinian refugees, Jordan has a better record than most other Arab countries. But the friction between the very similar yet distinct peoples is not negligible. Census data are a bit unclear but the educated guess is that Palestinians already outnumber native Jordanians in the kingdom. King Abdullah would not want the balance to be altered any further.

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