Palestine: a match made in heaven

I know my history as well as you, my dear partner in peace. We both agreed that Jordan was part of Palestine - part of the problem and part of the solution..…

Yitzchak: We really should have built on this common agreement when we finally decided to talk about peace.

Yasser: … I also told Der Spiegel in 1986:

Jordanians and Palestinians are indeed one people. No one can divide us. We have the same fate.

Yitzchak: Even Jordan recognised the historic and demographic reality of what you were saying. As early as Spring 1982 Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan was quoted in the Foreign Affairs Review as endorsing the words of a leading Jordanian social scientist:

the Jordanians and Palestinians are now one people, and no political loyalty, however strong, will separate them permanently.

Yasser: Farouk Kadoumi, the Head of the Political Department of the PLO, told Newsweek on 14 March 1977:

Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people.

Farouk stood by my wife Suha during my dying days in hospital in France. Now there is more concern about whether I was poisoned than there is about the failed peace process.

Yitzchak: So why did you insist on separate Palestinian and Jordanian delegations at the Madrid Conference in 1991 instead of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation?

Yasser: Come on Yitzchak. You know there had been a power struggle between King Hussein and myself for control of Jordan. Could I ever forget or forgive how my followers and I were driven out of Jordan in September 1970 and the slaughter that was inflicted on us at that time? Do you think it was fun being shunted to Lebanon and thence to Tunisia?

Yitzchak: But surely you could have resolved your dispute by retaining King Hussein as Jordan's monarch and appointing yourself as Jordan's Prime Minister. By burying your differences you could have ended up as Prime Minister of 80% of Palestine instead of President of nothing.

Yasser: That's all water under the bridge. Now that I have been removed from the scene is there perhaps something we can do to influence those left behind down there to re-subdivide Palestine along the lines you suggested 27 years ago?

Yitzchak: Well I know Shimon is just as aware as you and I are of Jordan's role in bringing peace to the region. Shimon told the Jewish Telegraph on April 19, 1991:

It is not obstinacy to regard the populations of Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza as having greater similarities than differences. The Jordan River is not deep enough to turn into a knife blade serving to cut one piece of territory into three slices. Most of Jordan's population are Palestinians: the residents of the West Bank are Jordanian citizens and Jordan has distributed tens of thousands of passports to residents in the Gaza Strip. Jordan is therefore an existing State. It has an army. There is therefore no need to set up another State, another army.

Yasser: Shimon might now be President – but he is not the Israeli Government.