Comments on: Would Egypt and Jordan take back the occupied territories?

By: Tzetzes

Tzetzes — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:50:15 +0000

John Bolton suggested the same thing a few days ago. Carl in Jerusalem on January 8, 2009 at 11:42 AM

Here, if anyone would like to read it.

By: lexhamfox

lexhamfox — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:44:42 +0000

The real question is would Israel be prepared to evacuate their settlements on the West Bank. Seems odd that they still insist on expanding those settlements.

By: mikeinamman

mikeinamman — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:35:44 +0000

Creating Jordan as a homeland for Palestinians may be historically accurate, but Churchill in the back of his taxi didn’t take into account that the Palestinians–or at least the Arabs who now call themselves “Palestinians”–are not Hashemites, and in this place, where even their national elections are based on tribe and clan, that matters. King Hussein’s brother, Hassan, is not the king because Hussein was afraid that he would not have protected the Hashemite dynasty as well as he should have. So the Jordanians–the Hashemite Jordanians–don’t want the Palestinians, and never did, even before the creation of Israel. And when you get Jordanians in private, they will admit as much–they don’t want them in their country for the exact same reason the Egyptians don’t. They don’t want their country turning into a terrorist hellhole, and above all, even Arabs don’t consider all Arabs equal, and the Jordanians simply believe they are a higher class of Arab. Many of them really do hate the Palis more than they hate the Israelis.

And as for the West Bank behaving themselves, whoever wrote that is absolutely right, to the point that the Israelis themselves have three times warned leaders there of Hamas plots at assassination.

By: beththebaker

beththebaker — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:12:31 +0000

I have a better solution: the ‘palestininans’ go to the homeland created for them – Jordan.

Vashta.Nerada on January 8, 2009 at 11:35 AM

Yeah! DING DING DING! You win the grand prize for knowing your history of the region!!!!

+10

By: Johan Klaus

Johan Klaus — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:36:43 +0000

The real advantage of the 3-state plan, as I see it, is that it would enable Jordan and Egypt to ferret out and eliminate the active terrorists in a way that Israel can’t. Israel gets crucified whenever a Palestinian gets a papercut; in contrast, there’s a great deal of data that would suggest the world doesn’t much care about Arabs dealing harshly with other Arabs.

Infidoll on January 8, 2009 at 2:15 PM

Especially the liberal world.

By: Infidoll

Infidoll — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:15:59 +0000

The real advantage of the 3-state plan, as I see it, is that it would enable Jordan and Egypt to ferret out and eliminate the active terrorists in a way that Israel can’t. Israel gets crucified whenever a Palestinian gets a papercut; in contrast, there’s a great deal of data that would suggest the world doesn’t much care about Arabs dealing harshly with other Arabs.

By: ProfessorMiao

ProfessorMiao — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:44:30 +0000

I was surprised to read this from Pipes, who I generally think of as being pretty sensible. If Egypt refused sovereignty over Gaza in the 1979 Camp David accord, why on earth would they be willing to assume it now?

By: Johan Klaus

Johan Klaus — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:38:21 +0000

Oh. I hate to sound so dumb, but why would the Jordanians do that?

JiangxiDad on January 8, 2009 at 11:23 AM

Because they did it before?

By: MarkTheGreat

MarkTheGreat — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:38:15 +0000

Except modern day Israel, you mean.

angelat0763 on January 8, 2009 at 12:19 PM

Even modern day Israel. Research the Ottoman Empire, WWI, and the British Mandate.

By: DL13

DL13 — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:24:02 +0000

Hamas and Hezbollah are like weasels that that will do anything in their power to win, no matter what. They will sell out their own integrity and wouldn’t hesitate to kill their own mother if it would gain political points. Bush has been fighting terrorists since 9/11 and knows that you don’t negotiate with terrorists, you kill them. If you be kind to them they will find a way to use your kindness against you. The UN is a joke and keeps coming up with plans that won’t guarantee Israel’s safety. If the terrorists were to lay down their arms there would be peace and prosperity for the whole region, something that Iran and Syria don’t want. If Israel were to put down their arms there would be no more Israel. Perhaps the UN would even issue each and every Israeli citizen a pair of running shoes, to make things a little more sporting during the ensuing onslaught.

By: Socratease

Socratease — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:04:51 +0000

Palistinians: Could have had a country, but would rather have a war.

By: Illinidiva

Illinidiva — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:50:57 +0000

The Palestinians on the West Bank under Fatah have been behaving themselves and IMO they have shown that the can be trusted with a state. Israel should negotiate with Fatah over the West Bank as a gesture of goodwill and a “carrot” for their behavior during the recent violence.

The only way that the Gaza problem will be solved is if the Iranian mullahocracy is overthrown. This will cut off Hamas’s main pipeline of support and make them easier to destroy.

By: thinkagain

thinkagain — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:50:44 +0000

Why not offer Fakeistanians and all muslims the same option they give us evil unbelievers: convert or die.

Form two lines, those willing to leave Islam will be part of a new secular-democratic state with full western assistance (something Bush should’ve done in Iraq). Those who prefer jihad until Islam rules the world, will get to join Allah but not get 72 virgins.

People over-complicate the issue, it really is this simple. The problem its not being done is that so few truly understand the nature of our enemy or Islam or even desire to examine its root causes of these conflicts.

So the murdering of innocent civilians (and muslims) by other muslims will continue indefinitely while blind idiots in the West keep running around looking for a solution to gain lasting peace and ignoring the ideology that spawns all the hate, violence and warfare (Islam).

By: mikeinamman

mikeinamman — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:30:24 +0000

And one of my simple pleasures in life is watching one of my liberal colleagues start spouting off about the Palestinians, and having Jordanian students tell them to shut up.

By: mikeinamman

mikeinamman — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:27:27 +0000

Frankly, most of the people I know in Jordan who are sympathetic to the Palistians, especially in Gaza, are the liberal expats the I work with.

By: SKYFOX

SKYFOX — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:26:20 +0000

When will the Palestinians ever learn that they are the patsies of the schmucks who hate Israel but don’t have the stones to attack them directly? (past failures still sting) Why take a chance on suffering retaliatory strikes in Jordan or Egypt or Iran, etc. when you have this ready supply of human canon fodder. If the Palestinians ever decide to rub two neurons together and form a rational thought, maybe they will see how badly they’ve been used by everybody except the Isralis. Up to now, they’ve shown no evidence of even such simple reasoning. Hatred is indeed the acid that destroyed the Palestinian vessel.

By: mikeinamman

mikeinamman — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:25:21 +0000

Except modern day Israel, you mean.

angelat0763 on January 8, 2009 at 12:19 PM

Well, every present nation in the Middle East was a product of restructuring after WWI. Jordan, for example, was given its borders to reward the Hashemites for their service–see Lawrence of Arabia for details. One of the reasons for the present conflict between Iraqis and Jordanians is that Jordan was originally supposed to include much of Iraq. So I’m not sure what your point is here.

By: JiangxiDad

JiangxiDad — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:23:56 +0000

mikeinamman on January 8, 2009 at 12:14 PM

tks. very int. stuff.

By: mikeinamman

mikeinamman — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:22:08 +0000

A few other facts about Jordan. Of course, they’re never going to elect a Jew to Parliament, but they are very tolerant of other religions, easily the most tolerant of any Arab nation. Christians are allowed Christian holidays away from work or school, you can hear church bells on Sunday, and there are a number of Christian primary schools of all denominations. As I say, they are Arabs, so we will always have major disagreemenst about many things–freedom of speech, for example, I have a student whose band has been banned by the government for the style of music they play–the treatment of women–and some others. But once again, overall, they are one of the few grown up societies in this area of the world.

By: angelat0763

angelat0763 — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:19:04 +0000

Why should Israel give up land taken as conquest under assault. It’s how every country was formed.

Except modern day Israel, you mean.

By: mikeinamman

mikeinamman — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:14:34 +0000

I’m a long-term foreign resident of Jordan, and I don’t believe that the Jordanians would take back the West Bank, and I don’t believe that they would begin shelling Israel if they did. One of the worst kept secrets of the Middle East is how everyone hates the Palestinians, even more than they hate the Jews. Palestinian refugees and illegal immigrants have turned parts of Amman into a third-world craphole, and most of the Jordanians hate them for that. At the universities, Jordanian and Palestinians engage in gang fights on nearly a daily basis, and landlords will refuse to rent to Palis. And let alone the peace treaty, Jordan’s economy is very closely tied to Israel. The fact is that, although you still hear the usual Jew-hatred among some of the Jordanian people, King Abdullah is one of the few grown-ups in power in this part of the world, and Jordanians are rightfully proud of that. And most of them are coming around to the fact that Israel is there, and is there to stay. Make no mistake, Jordan is an Arab society, with all the ills that that entails, but their government is an ally, and they themselves have been victims of terrorism, three hotel bombings in 2006.

By: forest

forest — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:07:50 +0000

No way does Egypt want that hellhole.

The West Bank and Jordan may be a long shot – after all, Jordan did annex is once before. I think it was a after the 1948 war until the 1967 war when they were relieved of it.

By: irishspy

irishspy — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:59:04 +0000

What this conflict needs is better leadership on the part of Palestinians.

Right. Ron Paul will become president before that ever happens. As Abba Eban once said, “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Their society is so poisoned by Jew-hatred and the jihadist ideology that I don’t think they’re capable of governing themselves now, and won’t be for a couple of generations, at least.

Besides, Egypt doesn’t want Gaza or the headache of Hamas. Egypt has a Sunni ruling class, and the last thing they need to do is absord an Iranian-backed Shi’ite proxy army that would then have free rein to move within Egypt’s borders.

Minor quibble: Hamas does indeed suckle at the Iranian teat, but they’re Sunni, not Shiite. They are united, however, in their Jew-hatred and pursuit of Islamic supremacy.

So, perhaps it’s a distinction without a difference.

By: clnurnberg

clnurnberg — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:58:01 +0000

The problem will continue as long as the West continues spreading the lie that Palestinians love their wives and children. They put them deliberately in harms way for PR advantage. The women are deemed no better than cattle. The media ignores this reality and persists in projecting western values on men who cut the genitalia off their daughters and see women as property. An ugly culture, a viscious culture and not an “equally valid” culture.

OT: Is there anything worse on WABC that the little Mika?
Her daddy was a Carter man who helped grease the wheels that brought us the Iranian Islamic Republic and our current woes. Now she is a moral authority on war and peace?
The nauseating woman should be ashamed of her background not running her mouth on Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel.

By: piraticalbob

piraticalbob — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:44:20 +0000

Sure, go back to the 1967 borders, with the understanding that the Palestinians currently in Gaza be sent to the West Bank to join their countrymen, and Gaza be turned over to the Egyptians. Let the West Bank become part of Jordan, and the Palestinians become Jordanians. Then it’s Abdullah’s problem to take care of.