Adam Garfinkle and I took aim at this argument in 1988 in a long Commentary article, "Is Jordan Palestine?" (And then in a brief National Interest piece, "President Arafat?") This weblog entry keeps an eye on the fancy that refuses to die. For starters, Sarah Honig, "(Trans) Jordan is Palestine," revives the semi-moribund Jordan-Is-Palestine thesis today in The Jerusalem Post. (August 6, 2009)
June 20, 2010 update: Geert Wilders has endorsed the J-i-P argument, as reported by Yedi'ot Aharonot:
Jordan is Palestine. ... Changing its name to Palestine will end the conflict in the Middle East and provide the Palestinians with an alternate homeland. ... There has been an independent Palestinian state since 1946, and it is the kingdom of Jordan." Wilders also called on the Dutch government to refer to Jordan as Palestine and move its embassy to Jerusalem. ...
Jordan's minister for media affairs and communications, Nabil Al Sharif, asked for clarifications. He described Wilders' declaration as "an echo of the voice of the Israeli Right" and "crows' screams. ... Jordan is an independent and secure country which supports the Palestinian issue, and these imaginings of finding them an alternate homeland are nothing but the delusions of a few people."
Apr. 23, 2011 update: My former colleague Asaf Romirowsky writes today in "Revisiting the Jordan option" that recent tensions in Jordan could revive the Jordan option.
Amid the unrest now sweeping the Middle East, Israeli government and security officials are quietly discussing an unusual strategy that would pass the Palestinians' political future off to Jordan. With the odds of a negotiated two-state solution at an all-time low, former Defense Minister Moshe Arens, Knesset Member Arieh Eldad, and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin resurrected the "Jordan is Palestine" model for regional peace.
He concludes that, "as uncomfortable as it might be for Palestinians, Israelis and Jordanians to admit, the Jordanian option might be the best one they have."
Mar. 15, 2012 update: The Palestinian Authority's "prime minister" Salam Fayyad announced at a meeting with Jordanian parliamentarians that "Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine."
Apr. 23, 2013 update: Daniel Tauber offers a rare vote of agreement today that the Jordan-is-Palestine idea is a bad one in "Should Jordan be Palestine?" Two key paragraphs of his fine analysis:
The "Jordan-is-Palestine" plan is ... a right-wing fantasy which mirrors the left-wing fantasy of the "two-state solution." Both are based on the assumption that if the Palestinians had a state of their own, the conflict would cease, Israel would capture the moral high ground and the fundamental perception of the conflict would shift, that it would become be a run-of-the mill territorial dispute between states, etc.
The right-wing version, however, is more hypocritical as its proponents recognize something their leftwing counterparts fail to: that the creation of a Palestinian state in the "West Bank" would not lead to an end of the conflict or improve Israel's diplomatic position. Despite this recognition, the Jordan-is- Palestine proponents pursue in the east bank the very logic they rightfully reject with regard to the west bank.
Oct. 2, 2016 update: The Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh has endorsed the Jordan-is-Palestine idea.
Aug. 21, 2019 update: Lo and behold, a Saudi writer, Abdul Hameed Al-Ghabin, has endorsed the Jordan-is-Palestine idea in an Israeli publication:
How can we achieve peace if the Palestinian people remain without a place to call home? The answer is simple: Jordan is already 78% of historical Palestine. Jordanians of Palestinian origin are more than 80% of the population according to US intelligence cables leaked in 2010.
Jordan is essentially already the Palestinian Arab state. The only problem is, the king of Jordan refuses to acknowledge this. Nonetheless, the world will eventually recognize Jordan as the place for Palestinian statehood. It could be sooner than we think.
Comment: I hope this author is an actual Saudi.
Mar. 2, 2020 update: Ali Shihabi, who definitely is an actual Saudi, has also endorsed Jordan-is-Palestine:
The most logical vehicle for ... the solution to the Palestine problem is the kingdom of Jordan. Over the last seventy-five years, Jordan has developed into a relatively well-governed state, although the impact of regional political turmoil has caused it to fail economically and become heavily reliant on foreign aid for its survival. It is this Jordanian governance infrastructure that needs to be captured and put to productive use in integrating the millions of Palestinians and Jordanians into a modern, reasonably well-functioning state that would, in an era of real peace and economic integration with Jordan's neighbors, have a much higher chance of growth and prosperity.
Sep. 1, 2023 update: Geoffrey Clarfield endorses Jordan-is-Palestine in "The Promised Land of Jordan."
Nov. 26, 2023 update: The Dutch civilizationist politician disrupted public life in the Netherlands in the elections on Nov. 19 when he won about twice as many seats (37) was expected. Yesterday, he mildly disrupted Middle East diplomacy with a brief tweet that a day later had been seen 3.2 million times:
Jordan is Palestine! Arab states condemn Wilders for push to relocate Palestinians to Jordan
The tweet then links to an article about the Arab states' reaction.
Comment: While Wilders has made the point before (e.g., here in 2016), he's never been the center of attention as he is now.
Jan. 29, 2024 update: David Singer takes several authors, including myself, to task for not discussing the Jordan-is-Palestine thesis (or what he confusingly calls the "Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution"). Jan. 31, 2024 update: David Singer wrote me asking for a response and I replied:
Mr Singer:
Yes, Ali Shihabi's eccentric article of March 2, 2020, in which he argued that "The most logical ... solution to the Palestine problem is the kingdom of Jordan," received considerable attention from advocates of Jordan-is-Palestine.
But Adam Garfinkle and I wrote an article in 1988, "Is Jordan Palestine?" that can plausibly lay claim to be the definitive refutation of this instance of wishful thinking. Accordingly, I see no reason to repeat its contents each time the argument is rediscovered, something that happens quite often (see a partial collection of instances here).
You might benefit from the conclusion to that article, every word of which but one ("Soviet") remains apt 36 years later:
"The Jordan-is-Palestine idea is not only historically wrong, legally superficial, geographically ignorant, and politically procrustean, but its implementation would be extremely dangerous. Espousal of this idea by people who genuinely care about Israel's security, and who long to make the conflict less intractable by widening the territorial scope for its solution, does not reduce the danger it poses. The true dimensions of the Jordan-is-Palestine folly begin to come into view when one combines the specter of an isolated, internally divided, and weakened Israel with a radical Soviet-supported Filastin on the east bank. This is where the path of Jordan-is-Palestine leads, and it is a direction Israel should not travel."
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Pipes
Apr. 4, 2024 update: Moshe Dann writes about "A paradigm for peace: Jordan as Palestine," calling this "the real 'two-state solution'." He holds that "Jordan/Palestine can become an oasis" by "utilizing abundant water sources in Turkey and/or the Caspian Sea." He sees Jordan-is-Palestine leading to "peace and prosperity," "security and stability," "opportunity and hope," and "creativity, cooperation and freedom."
