JORDANIAN OPTION

A term used to describe the foreign policy of the Israeli Labor Party; a preference for reaching a settlement with the Hashimite rulers of Jordan rather than with the Palestinians.

The origins of the Jordanian Option can be traced to the contacts between the Jewish Agency (the official link between the Jews in Palestine and the British mandate authorities) and King Abdullah I ibn Hussein of Jordan, which culminated in a secret agreement to partition Palestine between themselves in 1947. After the attainment of Israel's independence, on 15 May 1948, Israeli leaders saw the survival of the Hashimite monarchy in Jordan as essential to their own nation's security.

After Israel captured the West Bank of the Jordan River during the 1967 Arab–Israel War, Labor Party leaders opposed the creation of a Palestinian state and strove, unsuccessfully, for a territorial compromise with Jordan. The Jordanian Option ceased to be Israel's official policy following the rise to power of the Likud Party in 1977. Later, whether in opposition or as the Likud's coalition partner, the Labor Party continued to advocate the Jordanian Option. By cutting the links between Jordan and the West Bank in July 1988, Jordan's King Hussein announced, in effect, that a Jordanian Option no longer exists—if it ever did.

see also abdullah i ibn hussein; arab–israel war (1967); hussein ibn talal; jewish agency for palestine.

Bibliography

Shlaim, Avi. Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.

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