A Saudi journalist, Ali Shihabi, known to be close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has just published an article insisting that the world abandon the notion of creating another Arab state – “Palestine” – between Jordan and Israel. A report on this remarkable piece, that appeared in Al-Arabiya news in early June, is here.
Saudi Arabia has sent US President Joe Biden and the United Nations (UN) a clear message to abandon the idea of creating a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan in an article published in Al-Arabiya News on 8 June headlined: The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine.
Its author – Ali Shihabi – is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill journalist. He supports and has the ear of Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS) – the controversial next successor to the Saudi throne.
MBS is the driving force behind NEOM – a brand new US $500 billion megacity to be built on 26500km² in northern Saudi Arabia – an area larger than Israel – powered by 100% renewable energy. The project includes a bridge spanning the Red Sea – connecting NEOM to Africa. NEOM will be close to the borders of Jordan, Egypt ,and Israel.
Shihabi has been a member of NEOM’s Advisory Board since 2020.
MBS has not sought to publicly distance himself from Shihabi’s article.
Al-Arabiya is 60% owned by the Saudi government. Nothing published in it can appear without the approval of the Saudi monarchy, which means the approval of the Kingdom’s de-facto ruler, MBS. Furthermore, Shihabi is no ordinary journalist; he sits on the Advisory Board of NEOM, the gigantic, $500 billion megacity that MBS is building as his monument. He’s closer to MBS than any other journalist. What he writes can be assumed to reflect precisely the view of the Crown Prince.
Shihabi dismisses Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Jordan claims to be separate entities:
“Jordanians and Palestinians are as similar as any people can be. They are Sunni Arabs from the same neighborhood. Merging them will not create any long-term ethnic or sectarian fault lines.”
Remember Zuheir Mohsen, the leader of the Palestinian terror group As-Saiqa? He’s the one who famously noted that the “Palestinian people” did not exist, but were invented by the Arabs for propagandistic reasons, so that the Arab gang-up on little Israel could be presented as a war to defend the rights of the “Palestinian people” against the oppressive Zionists.
In a March 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw, Mohsen stated that “between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese there are no differences. We are all part of one people, the Arab nation […] Just for political reasons we carefully underwrite our Palestinian identity. Because it is of national interest for the Arabs to advocate the existence of Palestinians to balance Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons”.
Significantly Shihabi’s proposal does not call for Saudi Arabia to replace Jordan as Custodian of the Islamic Holy Sites in Jerusalem – a fear long-held by Jordan.
No doubt MBS has decided to drop any Saudi attempt to share, with Jordan, in the custodianship of the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, because he wants to keep Jordan on his side as he tries to promote his, and Ali Shilabi’s, insistence that Jordan must assume the politically challenging task of incorporating the Palestinian-ruled parts of the West Bank, and possibly Gaza, too, into an enlarged Jordan.
This Saudi concession should help embolden Jordan to begin negotiations with Israel on this Saudi Arabian initiative – which could see…
-The two-state solution contemplated by article 6 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the 1945 UN Charter finally brought to fruition.
Here I beg to differ with Elder of Ziyon, at whose site the news about Shilabi’s article first appeared in English. Article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine does not mention any “two-state solution.” Read it here:
ART. 6.
The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.
In fact, right up until late 1947, there was no suggestion by anyone that the territory “from the river to the sea” should be divided into two states. It was only on 29 November 1947 that the UN General Assembly voted for a Partition Plan, by 33 votes for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions, that would override the original provisions of the Palestine Mandate, and instead divide the territory “between the river and the sea” between a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jewish side, desperate to have a state where hundreds of thousands of Jews who had somehow survived the Nazis could be taken in, accepted the UN plan for the establishment of two states. The Arabs rejected it and five Arab armies launched a war of annihilation against the Jewish state. When the war ended, Egypt held Gaza and Jordan held the West Bank, but neither Arab state made a move to create a “Palestinian” state incorporating those two territories. Nor did any Arab state mention the “Palestinian people” until after the Six-Day War, when – as Zuheir Mohsen noted – it proved useful to invent that separate people and demand that the international community provide that “Palestinian people” with a state of their own.
Now the de facto ruler of the most important Arab state, speaking through his close friend Ali Shihabi, is denying that the “Palestinians” are a separate people; they are exactly like the Jordanians in language, religion, culture: “Jordanians and Palestinians are as similar as any people can be.”
The Jordanian state is built on 78% of the land that was originally supposed to be included in the territory assigned to the Mandate for Palestine, but that the British, for their own reasons, turned into the Emirate of Transjordan, and handed the new state over to the Hashemite Emir Abdullah, as his consolation prize for not trying to seize Syria from the French.
The Crown Prince is no fan of the Palestinians. He’s tired of their constant litany of lament, their demands for more financial aid, their refusal to accept any of the generous territorial offers made by the Israelis, including Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, for a “two-state solution.” He has told Mahmoud Abbas, in exasperation, to “just take whatever deal the Americans offer you.” MBS knows — he can’t be fooled by his fellow Arabs, even if Westerners are taken in — that any separate state of “Palestine” that is created west of the Jordan River will not bring peace but will whet, rather than sate, Palestinian appetites. The determination of many Palestinians to destroy the state of Israel will only have been reinforced. But MBS wants quiet, not conflict, on his northwestern border, right across from where the NEOM megacity is now beginning to be built. He wants nothing to happen that might endanger the security of his project. He wants the Jordanians to enlarge their state to include the “Palestinians” now living in the PA-ruled parts of the West Bank.
It’s unclear what MBS would wish for Gaza. Perhaps he wants the Egyptians to again take control of Gaza, as they did between 1949 and 1967. And just as the Saudis have paid Egypt $25 billion for the transfer to the Kingdom of two islands, Tiran and Sanafir, in the Red Sea, MBS could pay much more if the Egyptians were willing to take on the task of incorporating Gaza into their state. But if Egypt refuses, then Gaza could become an exclave of Jordan, connected by a network of roads and tunnels that would be used exclusively by Arabs to travel to and from the Jordanian parts of the West Bank.
The “Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine.” That sounds good to you, and to me, and obviously to Ali Shihabi and, above all, to the Saudi Crown Prince. The idea has now been run up the flagpole of Al-Arabiya. We can hear the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in Ramallah, but so what? Let’s see who else, tired of the “Palestinian problem,” thinks the best solution has now been found.
Sunny Imarhiagbe says
To me, that is OK. There is nothing like “Palestinian state, it was coined by the romans to subjugate the Israelites.!
somehistory says
OT kinda’
“Rights group: Palestinians torture detainees with impunity”
AP
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/rights-group-palestinians-torture-detainees-with-impunity/ar-AAZ43Go?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=14370ed8f3b8435a8466e8b795
Infidel says
Historically, that is accurate (excluding the Maronites, who are Phoenicians and the Hebrews). The definition of Syria, or as-Sham during the Umayyad caliphate, when Damascus was the capital, was everything west of the Euphrates up to the Mediterranean, and including the Sinai. In other words, from Antioch to the Suez, and from Raqqa to Basra
During Arab rule i.e. the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, there was no such thing as Jordan or Palestine or Lebanon, it was all ‘Syria’, or the Levant. In b/w, you had the Crusader territories from Lebanon to Central Palestine. But politically, everything under the Arabs was just ‘Syria’. This continued under the Ottomans. The map we see today was drawn up by the Brits & French who liked drawing boundaries on maps like I did when I was a kid
D Cripps says
Many thanks for this article. It seems a fine idea (due to proximity, I had also thought that a jihadi-cleansed Gaza might be better incorporated into Egypt). MEMRI, which recently presented translated excerpts from ‘Ali Al-Shihabi’s article, mentioned that he also suggests granting Jordanian citizenship to the Palestinians living in other countries, who can continue to live in those countries as legal foreign residents with full civil rights. MEMRI also documented angry reactions to his article, along with Mr Shihabi’s responses to these: https://www.memri.org/reports/angry-responses-social-media-and-arab-press-article-saudi-journalist-ali-al-shihabi-calling. (MEMRI did not mention popular support for the idea.)
Mitchell Bard’s recent JNS article, “Who stole Palestinian land? Jordan” (https://www.jns.org/opinion/who-stole-palestinian-land-jordan) looks at the idea, after a ‘history lesson’: “The Hashemite family ruled over Mecca and Medina until it was defeated in 1924 by King Abdulaziz bin Saud, founder of the current Saudi kingdom. Beforehand, the Hashemites, led by Sharif Hussein, allied themselves with the British and mounted a successful revolt against the Ottoman Turks. As compensation for their assistance, the British decided to make Hussein’s sons kings of the territories carved out of the Ottoman Empire following World War I. One of those territories was Palestine…As a consolation prize for the Hijaz and Arabia going to the Saud family, Churchill rewarded Sharif Hussein’s son Abdullah by installing him as Transjordan’s emir…The Palestinians were not indigenous to what is now Jordan but had a presence in the area for perhaps a thousand years after their ancestors left Arabia. The Hashemites had no connection to the land until the Arab revolt, and then Abdullah was imposed on the residents by imperial Britain.” Hmm
Mr Bard’s article does not mention the ‘Palestinian Arabs’ descended from economic migrants following 19th and 20th century Jewish settlement and the resulting employment opportunities: “The Arab population shows a remarkable increase …. partly due to the import of Jewish capital into Palestine and other factors associated with the growth of the [Jewish] National Home” (The Peel Commission Report, 1937). (I presume the “Palestine” here referred to is what was left after severance of Transjordan in 1921.) For more details, see the Ettinger Report: https://theettingerreport.com/arab-migration-shaped-palestinian-society. And then there seem to be ‘Palestinians’ de guerre… Yasser Arafat, one-time leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, was Egyptian. Hamas politician Fathi Hammad in Gaza, trying to cajole the Egyptian government on a matter, declared: “Who are the Palestinians? We have many families called al-Masri, whose roots are Egyptian! They may be from Alexandria, from Cairo, from Dumietta, from the north, from Aswan, from Upper Egypt. We are Egyptians; we are Arabs. We are Muslims. We are part of you. Egyptians! Personally, half my family is Egyptian — and the other half are Saudis.” (In Fathi Hammad’s case, perhaps his forebears were economic migrants.)
After analysis of the antisemitic thinking apparent in the Palestinian national movement and some of its defenders, Mitchell Bard goes on to explain a couple of problems current with recognising Jordan as the Palestinian state: “Most of the Jordanian population is Palestinian, but they are feared as a fifth column that threatens the Hashemites’ dominance. Those fears have been exacerbated by the influx of thousands of Palestinian refugees from Syria. The king also remembers the PLO’s attempt to take over the country in 1970, which led to the expulsion of Palestinians to Lebanon. While it has come to be associated with the right-wing in Israel, it is a fact that Jordan is geographically and demographically a Palestinian state. The Hashemite dynasty is over if Jordan becomes the de facto Palestinian state. Is it any wonder King Hussein abandoned his claim to Judea and Samaria? Ironically, the Palestinians and their supporters don’t recognize that having their state on both banks of the Jordan would give them a stronger foothold and the capacity to build a modern state with an army. They would also not have to contend with a dispute over the rightful owners of the land. Israel could say the Balfour Declaration (and the historical record) intended that the area given to Jordan should be part of Israel, but the Zionists long ago gave up that claim. If the Hashemites want to fight over their homeland, they will have to challenge the Saudis…Besides Palestinian and Jordanian opposition to the idea, recognizing Jordan as Palestine would have mostly negative consequences for the United States and Israel. It would mean the end of the pro-Western Hashemite dynasty. It would give Palestinians, potentially led by Islamists, control over an area more than four times larger than Israel, a stronger state than what two-staters advocate and a direct link to Israel’s most implacable enemies. The Palestinians, who covet the small fraction of Palestine that is Israel, are too myopic to see the benefits of the Jordan solution. Many Israelis who make this case are equally foolish, because Palestine replacing Jordan would create a greater security threat than a rump state in a portion of Judea and Samaria linked to Gaza, which would be surrounded by stronger powers whose interest is to ensure the Palestinian state remains as weak and unthreatening as possible.”
One of those objecting to Mr Shihabi’s proposal was senior Saudi analyst Khaled Al-Dakhil, who tweeted: “Mr. ‘Ali, the problem is not recognizing reality or Israel. Since ’77 Arab states have been normalizing relations with Israel, yet it has not changed its positions or its policy towards the Palestinians or the Arabs. Normalization for nothing is no longer the solution. Moreover, the Palestinian problem is also an Israeli problem. Why should the Arabs undertake to resolve it for Israel for free?” Though Mr Bard’s article does not mention Mr Shihabi’s, is he perhaps reminding some Saudis that (apart from religion) Jordanians and some Palestinians are not necessarily “as similar as any people can be” but that Saudis and Hashemites are? However, solution to Hashemite dynastic concerns remains opaque; and are the Saudis in a position to ensure that an expanded Jordan would remain “pro-Western”?
I do not know if discussion of Mr Shihabi’s proposal has appeared in the Israeli press. Mr Bard is American, not Israeli, but his response suggests that Israel might be largely favourable to the proposal could security concerns be resolved. His JNS article may draw focus upon the Islamist threat that remains a problem whether for formation of a Palestinian “rump state” or for Palestinian incorporation into Jordan/Egypt: I wonder if we will we see more about this directed toward Palestinians and their leadership from the Arab world. Another matter to be resolved was raised by another critic of Mr Shihabi’s proposal, businessman ‘Odeh Aburdene, who commented: “Ali this is a grotesque fantasy unless Israel gives up the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem which I do not see on the horizon. Israel’s desire to keep large part of Area E 1. will make your proposal dead in the water.” Israel has remained open to ceding areas of the West Bank, but would Jordan really demand East Jerusalem and Area E 1?
Were such hindrances to be resolved, Mr Shihabi’s proposal seems like a route to Palestinian prosperity, and I hope it continues to be floated out there, if possibility remains for it to be ‘licked into shape’.
davidpbfeder says
Largely absent from this article is the implication that the Saudis would expect Israel to give away her holiest center and areas that have been Jewish and Israel for thousands of years before there were Saudis, Jordanians, and most certainly before Islam. All of which sets things back to Square One. The plan sounds generous and dramatic, but at the end of the day, it is yet another denial of what is irrefutably Jewish land and rightfully belongs to Israel and the Jewish People.