If the ground changes before negotiations begin, negotiations will later be negotiating the outcomes that were imposed beforehand. If the West Bank becomes a collection of separate areas, the facts in Jerusalem change, settlement continues, and Gaza turns into a devastated area that will take years to rebuild the minimum of life, the world may remain committed to a two-state solution while its geographical and political substance erodes before it.
This sensitivity is even greater for Jordan in the West Bank. Gaza represents the greatest humanitarian tragedy today, but the West Bank carries a strategic question that directly affects Jordan. The weaker the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state west of the river, the more the question automatically arises: Where will the Palestinian issue go? If the possibility of a solution on Palestinian land is closed, the pressure will not disappear; it will look for another direction, and the nearest geographical direction is Jordan.
Therefore, the absolute Jordanian rejection of displacement goes beyond rejecting the transfer of Palestinians from their land, as dangerous as that is morally and legally. For Jordan, displacement means transferring the results of the conflict from west of the river to east of it, and gradually turning Jordan from a country defending the establishment of a Palestinian state into an area intended to absorb the results of the absence of that state. This is why the rejection of displacement is organically linked to the rejection of an alternative homeland; the two issues are essentially a rejection of the idea that the Palestinian issue can be resolved by changing Palestine and Jordan together instead of ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state.
Jerusalem enters the core of this equation, not just as a religious or symbolic issue, but because it is the knot capable of moving the conflict from a theoretically negotiable political space to a religious confrontation whose boundaries are difficult to control. Any fundamental change in its status does not remain within the city, but extends to the Arab and Islamic street, and increases the ability of extremist forces to turn the conflict from a question of land, rights, and sovereignty into a conflict of identity and belief. Therefore, protecting the historical and legal status in Jerusalem, for Jordan and the Hashemite custodianship, is also an attempt to prevent changing the nature of the conflict itself.
But the issue goes beyond Palestine to a more dangerous question: What happens to the regional system when force becomes able to create legitimacy? If it becomes possible to change facts by force and then demand the world to deal with them as a fait accompli, the danger does not stop with the Palestinians. Borders become less secure, and the sovereignty of states becomes more linked to their military capabilities than to law, and the regional system becomes a field governed by shifting balances of power instead of fixed rules.
This is a very dangerous model for Jordan, which has built much of its political strength on legitimacy, institutions, international relations, diplomatic ability, respect for borders, and the law. Therefore, the decline in the value of international law is not an academic discussion for it; as the rule is weakened in favor of sheer force, the environment surrounding stable countries becomes more dangerous, no matter how great their ability to protect themselves.
This is why His Majesty the King addresses the international community in its own language: law, sovereignty, the Palestinian state, displacement, Jerusalem, and international responsibility. His Majesty does not ask the world to invent new principles, but places it before the principles it has declared itself and asks it practically: Are these rules binding when the cost of their implementation is high, or do they only work when their implementation is easy?
The international community does not suffer from a lack of knowledge. It knows the position of international law on occupation and settlement, it knows the danger of displacement, and it knows the limits of the settlement it has been talking about for decades. The problem is no longer reaching a formula for a solution, but having the will to prevent the collapse of the possibility of a solution before reaching it.
Time itself becomes part of the conflict. In traditional diplomacy, buying time can help calm things down. But in the current Palestinian situation, time can work in the opposite direction. Every month that passes with the changing facts on the ground can make the solution that the world talks about more difficult in the following month. Delay is no longer necessarily neutral; it can become, in effect, a factor that helps the party capable of changing reality. Therefore, Jordan warns not only about what is happening, but about what may become irreversible.
If the possibility of a Palestinian state collapses, the Palestinian issue will not disappear, but its image will change. The question will shift from: How will two states be established? to a more complex question: What will happen to millions of Palestinians and their political and national rights if the state is no longer possible? This is a more dangerous question for Palestinians, Israel, Jordan, and the entire region than the question that the world is postponing today.
Therefore, Jordan's defense of the Palestinian state is not an emotional position or mere Arab solidarity. The establishment of a Palestinian state is a direct Jordanian national interest. It anchors the Palestinian on his land, closes the door to displacement, determines that the solution to the issue lies west of the river, not east of it, and gives the region a political framework that can move it from managing the conflict to trying to end it.
In this equation, the importance of King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein's leadership of this file appears. His Majesty does not treat Palestine as a file separate from Jordan, nor does he consider protecting Jordan as the opposite of defending Palestine. On the contrary: protecting the Palestinian right to a state is at the same time protecting Jordan from becoming an alternative to it. This is an equation that His Majesty understood early on and has steadfastly maintained in the most difficult moments of the region.
In the core of King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein's speech is a message that goes beyond the current moment: protecting the right of Palestinians to their state is protecting the stability of the region and preserving Jordan's supreme interests at the same time. In a phase where the space for politics is narrowing and attempts to impose facts are accelerating, His Majesty continues to carry the Jordanian position with steadfastness and responsibility; adhering to the rights of the Palestinian people, rejecting displacement and an alternative homeland, and guarding Jordan's interests and sovereignty. It is a leadership that understands the weight of the moment and knows that the positions that preserve homelands are not measured by their noise, but by their steadfastness when hardships intensify.
Dr. Yazan Haddadin
Lawyer and legal expert
yazan.haddadin@haddadinlaw.com
