JORDANIAN PALESTINIAN CONFEDERATION

Proposed solution to the Palestinian issue, associating an autonomous Palestinian territory with Jordan. Since the 1930s a number of proposals have been made for uniting Palestinian territory with Jordan, but until 1977 they involved the merger of such territory into the Jordanian state (as actually happened when Abdullah I incorporated the West Bank into Jordan after the 1948 War), rather than a confederation between sovereign political entities. In 1972 King Hussein proposed that the West Bank be merged with Jordan as the United Arab Kingdom, but the idea was rejected by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In 1977 he revived the idea as a federation between an autonomous Palestinian West Bank and Jordan. This too was rejected. In 1982, the Reagan Plan proposed by the United States provided for Palestinian autonomy in association with Jordan, and Hussein again offered the PLO a confederation. This time the Palestine National Council approved the federation in principle, but only when both parties were sovereign. In 1985 Hussein and the PLO agreed to make a joint proposal for a settlement that included a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation, based on United Nations resolutions, to be negotiated at an international conference including the permanent members of the UN Security Council, Israel, and a joint Jordanian-PLO delegation. It was opposed by the United States and Israel; both refused to settle the matter in an international conference or to negotiate with the PLO, and Israel claimed the right to approve the Palestinian negotiators. Hussein and the PLO also had disagreements over UN Security Council Resolution 242. This proposal was given up in February 1986.

In March 1992, during the Madrid Conference talks, which were then stalled, Yasir Arafat proposed to King Hussein that the PLO and Jordan form a confederation in order to get the talks moving and to strengthen both their hands in the negotiations. It is not clear how far the proposal went toward being realized; Hussein was agreeable and even discussed the matter with his contacts in the US government. Many Palestinian leaders were opposed, including Saib Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator in Madrid, who believed it was premature given that the negotiations were over interim arrangements only. Others believed it was mainly a way for Arafat to regain some control over the Palestinian negotiators. In any case, before anything concrete resulted, Arafat, without informing Hussein or the Madrid negotiators, started an entirely new set of negotiations directly with Israel, in Oslo; King Hussein is known to have felt betrayed by Arafat, and the confederation proposal, as well as the Madrid talks, became moot. Thereafter when the issue was raised with the king he took the position that confederation might be discussed when there was a sovereign Palestine for Jordan to deal with, but not until then.

SEE ALSO Abdullah I ibn Hussein;Arafat, Yasir;Erekat, Saib Muhammad;Hussein ibn Talal;Madrid Conference;Oslo Accords;Palestine Liberation Organization;Palestine National Council;Reagan Plan;Resolution 242;West Bank.