Arabs used to demand the right of Palestinians to return to Palestine; now everyone is demanding a stop to displacement instead. That is, rather than demanding that refugees return to their homes, we have come to demand that no new refugees be sent to Jordan and Egypt specifically.
اضافة اعلان
We heard the Israeli prime minister and his defense minister, following the stabbing attack in Nablus, threaten to destroy the Oslo authority and wage all-out war against what they called terrorism, and to invade the entire West Bank if a third intifada were to break out. This means Israel will use the incident within a plan prepared in advance to terrorize Palestinians, destroy their homes, kill innocents, and push many of them to leave the West Bank amid a deteriorating security climate.
The belief that soft, gradual, and voluntary displacement is dangerous is not entirely accurate, though it is a real possibility. Mass, forced displacement may in fact be the more dangerous scenario, and this is a pattern we have already seen in three areas: Gaza, southern Syria, and southern Lebanon. That is, the Israeli occupation's advance into the targeted land, the displacement of population blocs in all these areas, and the pushing of innocents toward alternative locations. We saw the same thing in a fourth area, the West Bank, when population blocs were displaced and pushed out from the camps of Jenin, Tulkarm, and Ein Shams.
These are four similar models of Israeli security policy: ground incursion and occupation of land, and the displacement of population blocs from their locations to alternative ones. It is entirely possible that this could be repeated in the story of the West Bank now, on a wider scale, meaning an invasion of cities and rural areas, giving Palestinians a time limit, and displacing population blocs under the threat of tanks and aircraft toward alternative locations. All the information suggests these could be the Jordan Valley on the western side as a first foothold, paving the way for a second stage that could involve pushing them into Jordan through various means, specifically into two areas: the first stretching from the north of Jordan to its east, and the second some areas of the south.
Jordan will not accept any waves of displacement, but the Israeli plan might rest on manufacturing a war with Jordan through a fabricated security incident across the border, or fabricating a crisis that justifies an attempted Israeli military intervention and an attempted incursion into Jordan toward sparsely populated areas, in preparation for forcibly transferring Palestinian population blocs there. This could even come through manufacturing security chaos via organizations or general popular unrest, or engineering economic instability, so that Jordan becomes weak and fragile in the face of a scenario of ground incursion and displacement of population blocs.
Some may see this as exaggerated, but what is certain is that displacement toward Jordan requires, according to Israeli planning, a Jordan that is weak, divided, or open without resistance. This underscores the importance of Jordan remaining stable and being spared any crises, especially at this juncture — a task for official bodies, governments, society, and political parties alike. Every active party in Jordan understands the nature of the plans ahead on the road, while believing that Jordanians will never abandon Jordan in the face of such schemes, and will defend it with their blood.
Contrary to some people's fears about pressure to draw Jordan into a functional role in the West Bank, whether an administrative role, or through a confederation or federation, all indicators suggest that Israel does not want the identity of the West Bank to be either Jordanian or Palestinian so that we do not keep spinning in a vacuum with our own ideas because Tel Aviv wants the West Bank and Jerusalem to be Israeli and Israeli alone, and wants to get rid of their population. This means it will ultimately not accept dismantling the Oslo authority and replacing it with Jordan, or any other Arab or international party.
If Israeli extremism reaches this point, then according to analysts there is no solution except establishing safe zones near the Jordanian-Palestinian border on the western side, preventing the flow of refugees, and thwarting the Israeli project — while recognizing that establishing safe zones inside Palestine near the border means a military confrontation between Jordan and Israel. Official Jordanian statements have already declared openly that displacement means war.
The scenario of safe zones between the two banks, on the western side of the border, does not mean accepting displacement, nor waiting for it to happen, nor leaving Palestinians to face this fate alone. We must bet on the Palestinians' continued presence, their steadfastness, and supporting them against this plan, so that we do not wake up to find them left alone in control of Al-Aqsa, the jewel of Palestine and of Muslims.
All solutions remain possible, as long as Jordan remains stable, and preserving its stability is our foremost task.
