Two-state Solution Has Reached a Dead End, Former Jordanian Ambassador to Israel Says
The Jordanian government must adjust its approach from solely promoting a Palestinian state to advocating for Palestinian rights within a unified country, one of the architects of the Israeli-Jordanian peace deal says.
Israel and the Palestinians have “reached a dead end with regard to everything related to the two-state solution,” and the Jordanian government must adjust its approach from solely promoting a Palestinian state to advocating for Palestinian rights within a unified country, one of the architects of the Israeli-Jordanian peace deal declared this week.
In an opinion piece published in Haaretz’s Hebrew edition on Sunday, former Jordanian foreign minister Marwan Muasher wrote that while “Jordan believes that abandoning the two-state solution would bring about a one-state solution – Israel maintaining an apartheid regime,” such an approach “ignores the fact that an Israeli apartheid regime is not a future threat, but rather an existing reality.”
Muasher, who served as Jordan’s ambassador to Israel in the 1990s, argued that because a two-state solution is currently impossible “we must simply put another question on the table” and ask “what must be done today to ensure that the single state that is taking shape is a democratic state rather than a racist state?”
“The new Jordanian position therefore needs to refine its approach,” he continued, writing that while Amman should not give up on “the fundamental principles of the establishment of a Palestinian state on Palestinian land,” it ought to “shift from focusing on the form of the solution as its lofty goal and focus on equal rights for both sides as a basis for any future solution, regardless of its form, and reject any approach that does not adopt that position.”
The Hashemite Kingdom should focus its efforts on achieving Palestinian unity between Fatah and Hamas and encouraging new elections, he argued. And while financial support for the Palestinians should be emphasized, “Jordan should halt all economic cooperation with Israel, particularly on the subjects of energy and water.”
“Such cooperation,” Muasher argued, “is not consistent with Israel’s aggressive steps against the Palestinian people or with Israel’s repeated attempts to solve the conflict at Jordan’s expense.”
Moreover, “Jordan should act in tandem with the international community to halt several countries’ trade in settlement products and define them as illegal according to international law” while working to “maintain strong relations with the U.S. administration as well as with other countries, to have the international community understand that it will be facing a new situation in which it won’t only have to deal with the occupation, but with a regime of racist separation that the people of the world won’t accept.”
“In the past, Jordan didn’t fail to act or express its positions,” he wrote. “Today, too, there is no reason that it should continue to act as if the two-state solution were approaching. It must therefore shift direction and promote a new policy in the spirit of what I have noted here.”
Muasher served as Jordan’s first ambassador to Israel following the signing of the two countries’ peace treaty in 1994 before going on to serve as Jordan’s envoy to the United States, foreign minister and deputy prime minister. He helped shape the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative but later became disillusioned with the prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace, telling AI Monitor in 2013 that he predicted "more turmoil and bloodshed” and that “if there is no two-state solution, the relationship between Jordan and Israel can only get worse, and will heighten Jordanians’ feelings that Israel will attempt to solve the conflict at their expense.”
In 2019, he told Jordan’s Al-Mamlaka TV that by failing to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, Israel was "actively working against Jordan's national interest” and as a result he supported “reexamine” the peace treaty "as well as our entire approach towards Israel.”
More recently, in an article published in Foreign Affairs this summer, he came out against the Abraham Accords, writing that “sidelining the Palestinians' is a recipe for violence, not peace."