HKOPS: The other two-state solution Biden could endorse

President Biden has for the first time suggested his readiness to abandon the failed two-state solution embodied in Security Council Resolution 2334 (Resolution 2334 two-state solution) – endorsing instead a different two-state solution that could possibly be the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (HKOPStwo-state solution).

This change in Biden’s thinking emerged at an election fundraiser in New York City when Biden - sitting alongside his predecessors Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton - told the guests:

I’ve been working with the Saudis and with all the other Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan and Qatar. They’re prepared to fully recognize Israel. There has to be a post-Gaza plan, and there has to be a trade to a two-state solution. It doesn’t have to occur today. It has to be a progression and I think we can do that.

The HKOPS two-state solution presents a very different - and revolutionary - two-state solution to the Resolution 2334 two-state solution - created only after the Obama-Biden administration abstained from voting on UN Security Council Resolution 2334 on 23 December 2016 - as they were packing up to vacate the White House following Donald Trump’s election as President.

The Resolution 2334 two-state solution calls for the creation of an independent Palestinian Arab State between Israel and Jordan – the two successor states to the 1922 Mandate for Palestine- already sovereign rulers in 95% of the former territory of the Mandate. Biden’s pursuit of this solution since becoming President in 2020 has borne no results.

The HKOPS two-state solution on the other hand proposes that:

• Israel acquires part of the West Bank
• A newly created territorial entity be formed by the merger of Jordan, Gaza, and the remainder of the West Bank to be named “The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine”

The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (HKOPS) – authored by Ali Shihabi - an advisor to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) - was published in the Saudi Government-controlled Al Arabiya News on 8 June 2022 and subsequently revised – presumably after considering objections by the three major players affected – Jordan, the PLO and Hamas.

It is highly significant that MBS, Jordan’s King Abdullah, PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas Leader Khaled Meshaal have not publicly disavowed HKOPS in the eighteen months since its initial publication and revision.

HKOPS:

·       abandons the right of return to Israel.

• Offers Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and stateless refugees full citizenship in the merged Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine with all the elements of sovereignty applicable to those Territories that belonging to a fully recognized state in the UN entail.