On July 25, the Qatari-owned London-based Al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper carried the following opinion piece by Jawad al-Anani: “This is probably the most complicated question. And had it been limited to the relations between Jordan and Palestine, it would have been easy to answer. However, a lot of time has gone by since Jordan adopted a decision in August 1988 to ensure political and diplomatic disengagement between the East and West Bank, which created a new reality and provoked a constitutional and political predicament in Jordan… But can Jordan disengage from any future final negotiations surrounding Palestine? Will Israel be able to monopolize the implementation of the special law recently ratified by the Knesset to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state?...

“What should the Arab position be? If the war ends in Gaza sooner or later, the Arabs must realize that the decisive answer is that in the West Bank, whose population is treated by Israel as residents, not citizens, the International Court responded by saying that the Israelis, whether Semite Jews or non-Semites, are the intruders and residents, and should be the ones to leave. And so that the situation does not become more complicated, this requires the Arab Summit conference, which at one point opposed the unity of the two Banks, to adopt a decision reversing the previous one (1974) and confirming that the West Bank is part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which is a sovereign state who territories should not remain under occupation…

“Afterwards, Jordan and Palestine would agree that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a confederation composed of Jordan and Palestine, each with its own local and international administration while going back to the 1950 agreement in distributing the federal positions and keeping Jordan a Kingdom. As for Gaza, it should be part of Palestine. And if it wants to, it could enter the confederation as a third component after agreeing on that with Egypt, which just like Jordan, will have special relations with the confederation state. Once this is complete, a schedule would be drawn up to implement the recommendations of the International Court of Justice and the other relevant international resolutions based on documented international guarantees.

“In parallel, the international community would offer between $150 and $200 billion in compensations to the confederation to rebuild Gaza and the West Bank, while the schedule would outline in detail the practical steps that would ensure Israel’s full withdrawal from the occupied territories in Palestine. The new state would then draw up security, border, economic, and military agreements, guaranteeing the right of each component to a decent and safe life. Considering the complications that emerged due to the horrendous Israeli offensive on Gaza, I do not see any other solution in the next 20 years. This is my opinion, and I am solely responsible for it. And the Arabs are required to agree on a similar scenario while capitalizing the advisory decision of the International Court of Justice and the reality of the current war, and realizing that their combined pressures will place Israel before a new reality…”