Today, when King Abdullah of Jordan, who is visiting Washington for the fifth time since taking over the throne, meets for the second time with President Bush, a new proposal for the peace process may emerge, which will probably be called the "Jordanian Initiative."
It's only a coincidence that Abdullah's visit is taking place at almost the same time as that of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Sharon was called to Washington, Abdullah has been planning this visit for months.
The king has a different approach to the peace process. Unlike the Saudis and the Egyptians, not to mention the Americans and the Israelis, he doesn't think it's possible to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem with interim agreements or by adopting the Mitchell proposals. He believes that it's preferable to adopt an overall approach, as broad as possible, which is designed to solve the entire conflict, rather than attempting to achieve one stage after another, a course that is likely to cause the process to collapse along the way.
According to a senior Jordanian source, the king believes that the right approach is to begin to discuss a schedule that will include overall withdrawal from the territories, in order to achieve an overall peace agreement with the Palestinians and with the Arab countries at the end. "The Oslo agreement is a dead agreement, in the king's opinion, and there is no point in reviving parts of it in order to achieve one more stage, which will not help in ending the conflict," says the Jordanian source. "The relations between the Palestinians and Israel are at a terribly low ebb, and it would seem that a process that includes confidence-building measures cannot be of help at this stage. If Israel wants to separate from the Palestinians, it's better to do it all at once, and without hesitation. Confidence-building will take place on the basis of a formal peace treaty, rather than as a prelude to it."
Overall withdrawal and declaring Jerusalem the capital of Palestine are the two main foundations of what will probably turn out to be the Jordanian initiative, which will try to conceal the issue of the right of return, or to accept the formula accepted in the decision of the Arab summit conference in Beirut. According to this formula, a just solution must be found to the problem of the refugees, in coordination with UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (of December 1948).
A just solution, in Jordan's opinion, will definitely not include settling Palestinian refugees in Jordan, and Jordan expects that if the time for discussion of this problem does arrive, Israel will make an effort to consult with Jordan before making any decision. "This issue is far from us meanwhile, and it's better not to raise it at the moment," says the Jordanian source. "Jordan's position on the issue is clear, as Prime Minister Ali abu al-Ragheb has said several times. No Palestinian refugee will enter the country."
Katyusha smugglers were arrested
In Jordan, it's hard to find optimists who will agree to say that the king's initiative, whether it comes in a package of ideas, or as an orderly plan, will bring about the ultimate solution. Jordan has already proposed in the past, even before the Saudi initiative, to present Arab guarantees to Israel for its security, in exchange for a solution of the conflict with the Palestinians. The proposal was quickly shelved after Israel made it clear that it is not looking for such guarantees. But the idea continued to circulate between Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, until it took on its final form in the new Saudi initiative.
"We are today in a new Arab political phase," says a Jordanian commentator. "If in the past the Arab countries observed the conflict from afar, and the only thing they agreed to do was to allow Arafat to conduct the policy, and only to give him moral support, today the situation is different. The Arab countries - and I refer to those that are interested in an agreement, like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf States - have understood after 19 months of intifada that it is essential to take an active part in the solution. Not instead of Arafat, but alongside Arafat. In Jordan, this problem is even more acute than in other countries. We are threatened by the demographic problem as well."
Over 60 percent of the population of Jordan is Palestinian, and the idea of the "alternative homeland" - the threat of the possibility that Israel will want to create a Palestinian state in Jordan - is a subject for discussion, and beyond that, a subject for fear. "How will you be able to convince Jordanians that Israel does not want to build a homeland for the Palestinians in Jordan, when Sharon's government includes ministers who speak freely, with no public reaction, about transfer of Palestinians? Transfer to where - to the moon?" asks the Jordanian commentator.
Israel for its part is working hard to calm Jordan's fears on this issue, and grants it a special relationship. Jordan is the only Arab country that was given permission to transfer assistance to the Palestinians. Jordanian trucks have recently made their way to the border and unloaded tons of food and medicines; Jordanian helicopters were allowed to land on Palestinian Authority territory.
King Abdullah, for his part, has not avoided condemning Israel or supporting the Palestinian struggle, but within Jordan the government has wielded a firm hand against any public sign of support for the intifada. Jordanian television is very miserly in its descriptions of the events in the territories; on the bridges, there are strict instructions to make sure that there is no unusual traffic of Palestinians to Jordan; and in the Palestinian refugee camps, where there has been damage to public property such as public telephones or electricity poles, the government has not been quick to repair the damage.
Jordan also deals severely with any discovery of attempts to carry out terrorist attacks, or to smuggle weapons to the Palestinians. In recent days there have been several arrests, and members of subversive cells have even been sentenced to jail; the patrols along the border with Israel have been reinforced; and relations with Syria have entered a deep freeze. Last November, arms smugglers crossed the border from Syria to Jordan, in an attempt to smuggle Katyusha rockets to the Palestinians. Their capture aroused the anger of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who condemned Jordan for causing the "failure" of this assistance to the Palestinians. Since that event, the connection between the palace and the office of the Syrian president has been almost completely severed.
Inside Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood is continuing with activity against normalization with Israel. Their newspapers explain to readers how one can identify Israeli products disguised as American products. But at the moment, this is the only open channel of anti-Israel activity that the Jordanian government does not stop. "It's a dangerous channel," says a Jordanian journalist, "because through it the Islamists are accumulating more and more power. They influence the policy of the parties in Jordan, and we will see this struggle later on in the Jordanian parliament, when new elections take place."
In the elections held last month for the Engineers' Association, the largest and most important of the professional associations in Jordan (with about 20,000 members), the Islamic bloc won a resounding victory. This is only one front with which the King has to deal. The economy is the second threatening front.
A very informed envoy
Jordan's activity in the field of security is garnering a great deal of praise in Washington, and the U.S. administration has a warm feeling for King Abdullah. An American diplomat calls him one of the wisest leaders in the Middle East, and adds that when one talks to him, one can sense how he creates the analysis in the course of speaking. He says the king avoids cliches and knows very well where he wants to go. The diplomat also says that it's worth noting that the king's English is better than his.
The king will try to exploit this warm feeling for the benefit of Jordanian interests, and not only to try to solve the political conflict. Jordan's ambition is to double American aid this year - which came to about $350 million in 2001 - and, primarily, to convince American investors to come to Jordan. The American diplomat warns that without foreign investment, Jordan will go bankrupt. This danger is known in Washington, which will act to approve the doubling of the aid package.
Before his trip to the United States, the king appointed Karim Qawar as Jordan's ambassador to Washington; he will replace Dr. Marwan al-Muashar, who is already serving as the Jordanian foreign minister. Qawar is a surprising appointment. Without any experience in diplomacy or in conducting foreign policy, Qawar will be asked to focus on promoting trade relations between Jordan and the United States.
Qawar, 38, is a close friend of the king and of his wife Rania, he is a graduate of Boston College in business administration and computers, and above all, he is a successful businessman.
He started his first computer company when he was 20 years old, and since then the company, Idealsoft, has become the leading software company in Jordan. Together with two other companies, Idealsoft received a supplier's permit from Intel, and employs over 250 workers. Qawar is the head of the Information Technology Association, and is a member of the economic council established by the king for promoting the Jordanian economy.
The development of information technology is King Abdullah's pet project, and he is offering outstanding benefits to foreign companies that will agree to move their central offices, or to establish software companies and plants in this field in Jordan. Qawar, who headed the royal initiative to promote the subject, said two years ago that Jordan must and can reach a sales volume of about $550 million, with another approximately $150 million in investments.
(In 1998, Jordan sold software products on the local market to the tune of $22.5 million, and exported such products for a sum of about $7.5 million; that same year, Egypt sold software products worth about $100 million in all, whereas Israel sold over $800 million worth on the local market, with exports valued at over $1.5 billion.)
The dream of Qawar and the king is still far from coming true, for lack of investments. The intifada, which emptied out Jordan's hotels, the second most important source of foreign currency (after export of phosphates), also kept away investors. The Palestinian market, Jordan's important potential market, is entirely paralyzed, and the Gulf States aren't showing any great enthusiasm for employing Jordanian workers, or Arab workers in general. These are sufficiently good reasons for Jordan to want to see the Palestinian problem disappear soon
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