{"id":13811,"date":"2018-09-04T05:26:05","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T05:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13811"},"modified":"2018-09-04T05:26:05","modified_gmt":"2018-09-04T05:26:05","slug":"palestine-and-jordan-reject-confederation-trial-balloon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13811","title":{"rendered":"Palestine and Jordan reject \u2018confederation trial balloon\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nAMMAN: Jordanian and Palestinian officials, experts and activists are united in their opposition to a confederation that precedes the end of Israeli occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nPalestinian and Jordanian official speakers have rejected the idea circulating in the Israeli media following a discussion President Abbas had with Israeli peace activists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nIn the discussion, Abbas told the Israelis that Trump Administration mediators offered the idea of a confederation with Jordan but that Abbas rejected the idea unless it also includes the state of Israel.<\/p>\n

\nZiad Abu Zayyad, international spokesman for Fatah in Jerusalem, told Arab News that the confederation discussion is premature.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cA Palestinian state must be established with security, borders and a capital before talking about any kind of confederation since it is needed to be able to achieve such a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nMahdi ABdulHadi, head of the PASIA think tank in Jerusalem, also called the US and Israeli discussion about Jordan \u201ca new version of their obsession\u201d and suggested that this \u201ctrial balloon should be left alone because it will soon run out of air.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nNajeeb Qadoumi, a senior Fatah leader in Jordan and a member of the Palestine National Council living in Jordan, told Arab News that this is an old topic and Abbas has tried to avoid dealing with. Qadoumi noted that a confereration is a union between \u201ctwo independent states and must be approved after their independence by means of a referendum.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nQadoumi said that if the goal is to be a confederation \u201clike the EU where countries like France and Germany are sovereign that there is no problem as long as all of the West Bank including East Jerusalem and Gaza are included.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHamadeh Faraneh, who has the distinction of having been a Jordanian member of Parliament and a member of the Palestine National Council legislative councils, told Arab News that the confederation issue was a political trick that president Abbas was able to cleverly circumvent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cEveryone knows that Jordanians reject confederation because it attempts to make Jordan become a replacement of the PLO and because it will be the beginning of a process that aims at kicking Palestinians from their home and country.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nFaraneh told Arab News that \u201cany unity at this time while occupation has not ended and Palestinians have not enjoyed true independence is totally unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nFaraneh said that president Abbas is aware of this and that is why he escaped this issue by adding Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cPalestinians are the only common denominator that is present in all three regions in Israel, Palestine and Jordan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nFormer Jordanian member of parliament Ghazi Musharbash told Arab News that the Americans and Israelis really want a Jordanian federation without Gaza.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis is why the late King Hussein and King Abdullah II are consistently on the record as opposing the idea and have repeatedly said that they are only willing to discuss the idea once Palestinians are genuinely independent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nMusharbash notes that while everyone talks about confederation to soften the blow, what the Americans and Israelis mean is a federation and this \u201cis totally impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AMMAN: Jordanian and Palestinian officials, experts and activists are united in their opposition to a confederation that precedes the end of Israeli occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state.\u00a0 Palestinian and Jordanian official speakers have rejected the idea circulating in the Israeli media following a discussion President Abbas had with Israeli peace activists.\u00a0 In…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}