Jordan is in an uproar over the revival of the "Jordanian option" - the thesis that Jordan is the true home to the "Palestinians." Reports that a top advisor to US Presidential candidate John McCain is promoting this idea have led to a flurry of press reports in the Arab media, as well as a denial from Jordan's King Abdullah himself. Some officials in Israel and the United States, however, feel it's the only way to prevent the formation of a Palestinian state.
Though Arabs today call Israel "Palestine," MK Benny Elon (National Union) told IsraelNationalNews that in this case, "the words 'Palestinian homeland' can mean Jordan as well... Certainly Abdullah himself remembers that the original Palestine includes Jordan - but perhaps he assumes that everyone else does not." Elon was referring to the fact that the area of Palestine, as recognized by the League of Nations and the British rulers nearly 100 years ago, includes what is today Israel and Jordan. King Abdullah's remarks, therefore, can mean precisely the same idea that Elon has been promoting: The Arabs of Judea and Samaria should be "annexed" to Jordan.
For years, Elon has been promoting a peace plan called The Right Road to Peace, or the Israel Initiative, as an alternative to the accepted Roadmap two-state solution. "The establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (the West Bank) will only prolong the Arab-Israeli conflict and exact a heavy toll in human life," Elon explains.
Elon explained that Jordan is very wary of having on its western border a Hamas state, which a future Palestinian state is likely to become. "Jordan also has an increasingly extremist-Muslim Iraq to contend with on its eastern border - a very uncomfortable situation for King Abdullah," he continued. Elon noted that the Jordanian monarch dispatched his former Prime Minister Abdel Salam al-Majali to discuss the plan with the Israelis.
"If Jordan knows that the plan is serious, and has the support of the United States, and that it can work, it will support it," Elon said.