Palestinian-Jordanian crisis erupts ahead of Biden-Abdullah meeting

A senior Palestinian official has triggered a crisis between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Jordan after stating that the Palestinians alone had thwarted former US President Donald Trump’s plan for Mideast peace. 

The Jordanians say that they also played a major role in derailing the Trump plan as they feared the plan was aimed at turning their country into an alternative homeland for the Palestinians.

The PA dismissed the Trump plan, which was unveiled in January 2020, as a conspiracy aiming to liquidate the Palestinian issue and Palestinian rights. The Arab League, including Jordan, also rejected the plan, saying it would not lead to peace or meet the minimum rights and aspirations of the Palestinians.

The crisis emerged on the eve of a meeting in Washington between Jordan’s King Abdullah II and US President Joe Biden.

It also comes two weeks after PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Abdullah agreed during a meeting in Amman to coordinate positions “on the interest of the Arab nation and its common cause, primarily the Palestinian cause,” according to the PA’s official news agency WAFA.

During the meeting, Abdullah reiterated Jordan’s support for the Palestinians “in achieving their just and legitimate rights and establishing their independent, sovereign and viable state on the June 4, 1967, lines, with east Jerusalem as its capital,” Jordan’s official Petra news agency reported.

The crisis erupted during a recent meeting of the Arab Parliament, the legislative body of the Arab League. A video of the rare public, heated discussion appeared over the weekend on various social media platforms, drawing sharp criticism from Palestinians and Jordanians alike.

The Palestinian official, Azzam al-Ahmed, a veteran member of the Fatah Central Committee, said in a speech before the parliament that the Palestinians alone had foiled Trump’s “Deal of the Century.”

“We are the ones who clashed with America,” he said.

Ahmed’s speech was interrupted by Jordanian parliament member Khalil Atiyyeh, who said, “Azzam, you were not alone in the field. Until now, we [Jordanians] are paying the price for our position over the ‘Deal of the Century’ and support for the Palestinians.

“There are conspiracies being concocted against Jordan and the king,” he said. “The Jordanian people are being starved because of their opposition to the plan.”

The head of the “Palestine Committee” in the Jordanian Parliament, Mohammed al-Zahrawi, expressed his appreciation for the position of Attiyeh and denounced the Palestinian official’s “failure to address Jordan’s firm position under the king’s leadership in defending the Palestinian cause and the rights of the Palestinian people.”

Zahrawi accused the Palestinian official of ignoring Jordan’s role in supporting the Palestinian issue. “Jordan confronted the ‘Deal of the Century’ and all schemes, and was subjected to pressure as a result of its firm stances, which Azzam al-Ahmed deliberately did not address in his speech,” he said.

Several Palestinians criticized Ahmed both for his speech and his participation in the Arab Parliament gathering.

In 2018, Abbas dissolved the Palestinian parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), which has been paralyzed since 2007 when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip. In 2006, Ahmed was elected as a member of the PLC representing the area of Jenin as a Fatah candidate.

“Is Azzam al-Ahmed still a member of the parliament?” asked Palestinian journalist Naela Khalil. “Didn’t the president dissolve the Palestinian Legislative Council?”

Another Palestinian journalist, Muath Hamed, commented on Ahmed’s speech in a post on Facebook by reminding him that he was not speaking on Palestine TV. “You are talking in front of Arab parliamentarians, not Palestine TV,” Hamed wrote. “This means that there are microphones and the attendees can reply to you on the spot.”

Some Jordanian social media users accused the Palestinians of being “ungrateful” and praised the Jordanian parliamentarian for “silencing” his Palestinian colleague.

Jordanian Professor Faiz Zoubi commented on Twitter, “Thank you Khalil Attiyeh for your firm stance in the face of Azzam al-Ahmed. The Jordanian people and their leadership have been looking after the Palestinian cause for 70 years. The king is now in the US for the sake of the Palestinian cause, and where are you [Ahmed]?”

The Trump peace plan, officially titled “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinians and Israeli People,” was authored by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.

Israeli analysts raise 10 fears after victory of Joe Biden

Israel emerges as the first country to raise fears after the victory of Joe Biden in the US Presidential Election. Its biggest fear is that the US policy in the Middle East, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran, is likely to undergo a dramatic sea-change, after Joe Biden enters the White House in January 2021.

1. Trump’s "Deal of the Century"

Israel’s biggest fear is that Biden will end any possibility that Trump’s plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, known as “Peace to Prosperity” or by its nickname as the “Deal of the Century”. The plan had offered a radical break from past initiatives and allowed Israel to eventually annex up to 30% of the West Bank and promised to recognize Israeli sovereignty over most of east Jerusalem. As part of the plan, Trump had also included the first ever published map of suggested borders for a two-state resolution to the conflict. The plan was unveiled only in January 2020, with an invitation to the Palestinians to negotiate, which they rejected. The Trump administration itself sidelined the initiative this summer in favor of prioritizing Israeli-Arab normalization deals, with the idea that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would come at a later stage. Now Israel fears Biden will not adopt it.

2. West Bank annexation

A Biden victory removes any possibly of unilateral West Bank annexation, even a minor one. Biden will not support it and the Trump administration is unlikely to move on it during the time it has left, because his administration promised to suspend it in exchange for normalization deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Biden will want any sovereignty moves to wait until a final status agreement is reached with the Palestinians. His map of a two-state solution is unlikely to include all the settlements, and as a result, the fear of future settlement evacuations and a possible settlement freeze now returns to the discourse. The settlers and the Israeli Right had warned that the first 10 months of this year represented an unprecedented window of opportunity to annex the settlements. That window has now closed.

3. Onus on Israel to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians

The former Obama administration had held Israel liable for continuation of the conflict, holding that its continued settlement activity was a stumbling block to peace. The Trump administration flipped that calculation. It placed the onus for the conflict on the Palestinian Authority (PA) for failing to negotiate and for incitement. It held in particular that terrorism was a stumbling block to peace and took the PA to task for its continued support of terrorist activity through the payment to individuals jailed for terror activity and to family members of terrorists. The Trump administration also divorced settlement activity from the peace process either with the Palestinians or with Arab states. The onus will now flip back to Israel to resolve the frozen peace process, with renewed emphasis on the connection between the peace process and settlement building, which will once again become a stumbling block to peace.

4. Settlements will once again be considered illegitimate

Biden is likely to reverse the Trump administration’s dramatic upending of longstanding US policy, which held that Israeli activity over the pre-1967 lines in the West Bank and east Jerusalem was illegitimate. The Trump administration had recognized Israel’s historic and religious rights to that territory. While it never recognized Israeli sovereignty there, it held that such settlement activity was not inconsistent with international law and allowed for the building and expansion of Jewish settlements. To underscore the deep Jewish roots in the territory, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman spoke of that area as Judea and Samaria. Concepts that were eliminated as part of the blanketed US support for all the settlements, such as settlement blocs, isolated settlements and the pre-1967 lines, will all be resurrected.

5. US embassy in Jerusalem

Biden is among the signatories to the US Embassy Act of 1995 that recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and mandated its embassy be relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The embassy was only moved in 2018, under the Trump administration. During the campaign, Biden said he had no intention of reversing that move. To date, only the US and Guatemala have embassies in Jerusalem. The Trump administration has actively campaigned and enticed a small number of other countries to follow suit. His loss brings an end to that campaign. It is now unlikely that other countries, even ones who have pledged to do so, will move their embassies to Jerusalem.

6. Revival of Palestinian Authority

A Biden win breathes new life into the Palestinian Authority, which had been on the verge of financial collapse. It’s expected the Biden administration would restore ties with the Authority that had been severed during the Trump administration. This would include reopening the PLO mission in Washington and the US Consulate General in Jerusalem that served the Palestinians. Biden is expected to restore much of the financial assistance to both the Palestinians and to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency which services Palestinian refugees, all of which had been cut by the Trump administration. The absence of those funds had created a financial crisis that was compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the PA’s decision to protest Trump’s peace initiatives by refusing to accept the tax revenues which Israel has collected on its behalf. It had also cut security ties. News of Biden’s victory allows it to restore security ties with Israel and to receive the tax revenues.

7. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations

A Biden administration would likely be able to revive the frozen Israeli-Palestinian talks by leveraging the shelving of the Trump administration’s peace plan and any possibility of West Bank annexation to entice the PA back to the table. It would be difficult for the PA to refuse Biden, after taking such a harsh step against Trump. PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s age would also be a factor, he is 85 and can’t afford to wait out the Biden administration, like he did the Obama and Trump administrations.

8. Israeli-Arab normalization

Biden supports the Israeli normalization deals with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan and is expected to work to advance them. But he is less likely than Trump to be able to advance new ones, since some of the impetus for the deals was the creation of a regional alliance against Iran. Still, the basic paradigm shift that divorced Israeli-Arab ties from the fate of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians will remain in place.

9. US Israel bonding

Under a Biden administration the United States still stands with Israel at the United Nations. This show of solidarity has been a main feature of US policy for at least the last three administrations. The Obama and Bush administrations stood with Israel at the UN due to the body’s bias against Israel, even though they philosophically agreed with many of Israel’s opponents. The Trump administration stood with Israel both on the grounds of bias and because it philosophically supported Israel on many of the issues. Biden is more likely to go the way of the Obama and Bush administrations. Biden’s anticipated elimination of the Trump Administration’s paradigm understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will likely weaken the impact of his administration’s support for Israel at the UN.

10. Iranian deal

Biden victory may reverse the Trump administration’s policy towards Iran and restores it to that of the Obama administration, which had brokered a 2015 deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear program. Trump withdrew the US from that deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, between Iran and the six world powers. It has re-imposed US sanctions on Iran and fought – albeit unsuccessfully – to restore the international ones as well, including the arms embargo. Now Biden may work to rejoin and revive the deal, which still has the support of the other five world powers.

Iran rejects Deal of the Century proposed by US President Donald Trump

In a move consistent with the Islamic Republic's decades-old policy regarding Israeli-Palestinian issue, Iranian officials have harshly criticized US President Donald Trump's "Deal of the Century".

Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani wrote a letter to the heads of parliaments around the world describing Trump's Deal of the Century as "disgusting," and "in violation of all international agreements and laws including the UN Charter."

Larijani wrote, “The deal ensures the continuation of occupation of Palestine and promised that Muslim nations and countries will confront the imposition of this unilateral deal."

He accused the US President of acting based on his personal interests rather than consulting the UN or the Palestinians.

Larijani also echoed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's idea of holding a referendum in the Palestinian territories to determine the fate of Palestinians.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed the US plan as "a nightmare for the region." He wrote in a tweet that the Vision for Peace "is simply the dream project of a bankruptcy-ridden real estate developer." Zarif hoped that deal would be "a wake-up call for all the Muslims who have been barking up the wrong tree."

In an earlier tweet, Zarif characterized the Deal of the Century as "an illusionist plan that is dead on arrival."

Repeating the idea of holding a referendum in the Palestinian territory, Zarif suggested that “Instead of a delusional ‘Deal of the Century’—which will be D.O.A.—self-described ‘champions of democracy’ would do better to accept Iran's democratic solution proposed by Ayatollah Khamenei.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Abbas Mousavi expressed Iran's official view saying, "The Zionist regime is an occupying regime and the only solution to solve the Palestinian crisis is a referendum among all main residents of the Palestinian land and such vicious plans are doomed to failure."

Mousavi called on "All free nations and governments in the region and across the world to counter Trump's "disgraceful" scheme." However, he regretted that "some Muslim countries have forgotten the Palestinian cause," adding that such an attitude will undermine "the future and prestige of Muslims and Islamic countries."

Khamenei's office belatedly posted a series of tweets on the issue Tuesday afternoon which appear to have been taken out of his previous speeches.

In the tweets Khamenei said, "The Deal of the Century will never bear fruit," and called the "Jewishization of Qods" a "foolish and unwise" act. He reiterated that "The Palestinian nation and all Muslims will definitely stand up to them and not allow the so-called Deal of Century to be realized."

Usually, as it works in Iran, during the first hours after a development like the announcement of the Deal of the Century, everyone who considers himself or herself a politician says something about the matter which may not necessarily reflect the views of the government. Later, the Foreign Ministry Spokesman offers the regime's attestation in the matter.

The spokesman's statement as seen above contains three elements.

First, the regime does not like the Deal of the Century, second, it calls on other Muslim nations to oppose the deal and third, it offers Khamenei's solution which is holding a referendum.

All later comments, including Friday prayers sermons, embodied one or more of the three arguments. Naturally, those who take a more hardliner stance on the issue, including military officials, will focus on the confrontational part, calling on other nations to resist Trump's idea.

However, in this particular case, any comment by officials or any analysis by the media are also mixed with the usual anti-US and anti-Trump jargon while also marking the Islamic Republic's antagonistic opposition to the existence of Israel.

Traditionally, the Islamic Republic has opposed all solutions to the Israel-Palestinian conflict throughout the past four decades. Ayatollah Khamenei came up with the idea of referendum inspired by former ultraconservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but put it forward after his Presidency.