Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine trashes UN & Arab failed policies

· Other refugee populations who were not fed any illusions of return--(as Palestinian Arabs were by the creation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)--ed)--accepted the stark reality of their permanent displacement. They were also ultimately able to move forward with their lives because they were granted citizenship in their adopted countries and hence built new lives for themselves and their descendants.

· The illusion of “return” has served some Arab regimes’ interests by giving them a powerful excuse to avoid integrating Palestinian refugees as citizens, particularly in Lebanon and even Jordan, both of which have millions of disenfranchised Palestinians in their camps. These regimes feared that these refugees-cum-citizens would alter their demographics and threaten their ruling order. Consequently, the excuse given was that since the Palestinians would eventually return to Palestine, giving them citizenship would technically undermine their “right of return” and hence they should be denied citizenship. Palestinian leaders actively colluded in perpetuating this tragedy.

· The Palestinian problem can only be solved today if it is redefined. The issue for people right now should be not so much the ownership of ancestral land but more the critical need to have a legal identity--a globally respected citizenship that allows them to operate in the modern world. Labor now is mobile and having citizenship in a country that facilitates such mobility is critical to human development.

· The most logical vehicle for this redefinition and hence for the solution to the Palestine problem is the kingdom of Jordan--(not the creation of another state between Israel and Jordan--ed). 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 have a much higher chance of growth and prosperity.

· Palestinians in Arab countries like Lebanon can become citizens of this enlarged kingdom while also getting full residency rights in Lebanon, equivalent to what an EU citizen has in the European Union outside their home country. This would allow the Palestinians to gain full civil rights as legal foreign residents without impacting the local political or sectarian balance in these countries.

· Jordanians and Palestinians are as similar as any people can be. They are Sunni Arabs from the same neighbourhood. Merging them will not create any long-term ethnic or sectarian fault lines.

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· The transition to an expanded Palestinian–Jordanian kingdom will be relatively straightforward since it will simply involve the current kingdom of Jordan’s widening its writ to cover Gaza, part of the West Bank and the diaspora in a step recognized by all relevant countries. This would be accompanied by a withdrawal of recognition of the Palestinian Authority.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres:

· Your failure during the past 22 months to get the Security Council to consider replacing its own failed 2016 two-state solution with HKOPS has been shameful.

· Stop playing the undertaker by continuing to bury HKOPS.

· Start becoming the peacemaker: Urge the Security Council to urgently adopt HKOPS before the Middle East becomes one huge killing field.

Please join my Facebook Page: “Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine supporters”

Author’s note: No pithy cartoon this week from Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”--as he is not well. We all wish him a speedy recovery.

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