Kushner’s Middle East peace plan has alarm bells ringing in Jordan, where it could ‘open the gates of hell’
- In addition to hosting millions of Palestinians, the country has taken in a mass influx of refugees from Syria and Iraq
- The country is home to 9.5 million people, more than half of them of Palestinian origin
A controversial US plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace could spell the demise of Jordan and turn it into a “Palestinian state”, Jordanians and analysts warn.
The initiative launched by US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner at a June conference in Bahrain dangles the prospect of US$50 billion of investment into a stagnant Palestinian economy.
But it fails to address key issues such as an independent Palestinian state, Israeli occupation and the Palestinians’ right to return to homes from which they fled or were expelled after Israel’s creation in 1948.
The Palestinian Authority boycotted the Bahrain forum, accusing the unabashedly pro-Israel Trump of using the prospect of cash to try to impose political solutions, and of ignoring the fundamental issue of occupation.
Trump has taken the landmark step of recognising disputed Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Kushner has suggested the peace plan would not mention a Palestinian state.