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<div class="gmail-inner-article-top"><h1 class="gmail-">The end of the two-state illusion: West Bank is gone, Jordan is in the firing line</h1><p class="gmail-">Israel's
annexation of the occupied West Bank has killed any prospect of
Palestinian sovereignty. Now, with Tel Aviv and Washington backing plans
to offload the Palestinian cause onto Jordan, the Hashemite Kingdom
faces the gravest threat to its stability in decades.</p><div class="gmail-another-name"><p><a href="https://thecradle.co/authors/a-cradle-correspondent-117" style="color:rgb(164,4,4)">A Cradle Correspondent</a></p></div><div class="gmail-another-name" style="margin-top:16px"><p><span style="color:rgb(84,88,94)">JUL 21, 2025 - </span><font size="1"><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/the-end-of-the-two-state-illusion-west-bank-is-gone-jordan-is-in-the-firing-line">https://thecradle.co/articles/the-end-of-the-two-state-illusion-west-bank-is-gone-jordan-is-in-the-firing-line</a></font></p></div></div><div class="gmail-inner-article-img"><font size="1"><img src="https://thecradle-main.oss-eu-central-1.aliyuncs.com/public/articles/72c574ba-6640-11f0-9cdd-00163e02c055.jpeg" alt="" width="394" height="187" style="margin-right: 0px;"></font><span>Photo Credit: The Cradle</span></div><div class="gmail-inner-article-content"><div class="gmail-row"><div class="gmail-col-md-8 gmail-col-sm-7"><div class="gmail-article-content"><span class="gmail-article-body"><p>Successive
Israeli governments, whether Labor, Likud, or their extremist
coalitions today, have never viewed the West Bank as occupied land.
Within the Zionist project, it is not a disputed territory but a divine
entitlement \u2013 \u201cJudea and Samaria,\u201d core to the mythology of <a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/davids-corridor-israels-shadow-project-to-redraw-the-levant">Eretz Israel</a>. </p><p>The
Israeli presence there is not a military necessity or a negotiating
chip. It is the bedrock of a colonial vision that treats Palestinian
sovereignty as a threat to be dismantled, not a right to be recognized.</p><p><strong>\u2018Creeping annexation\u2019 </strong></p><p>Today, the occupation state is executing the most aggressive stage of this project through silent, <a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/declaring-war-on-the-west-bank-will-only-sink-israel-deeper">sustained annexation</a>.
Without declaring it formally to avoid diplomatic fallout while the
genocide continues in Gaza, Tel Aviv is redrawing maps on the ground. </p><p>It
is expanding settlements at an unprecedented pace, building bypass
roads exclusively for Jewish settlers, and entrenching the architecture
of apartheid across Area C, which is the largest segment in the occupied
West Bank, comprising over 60 percent of the territory. Israeli
military control, sanctioned by the 1993 Oslo Accords, is being
leveraged to achieve full territorial domination.</p><p>The occupation state exploited its <a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/iran-and-israel-at-war">13 June</a>
military assault on Iran to escalate its chokehold on the occupied West
Bank by erecting new checkpoints, blocking access to Palestinian
villages and towns, intensifying daily raids and mass arrests, and
severely restricting the daily life of some 3.2 million Palestinians. A
systematic destruction of infrastructure in refugee camps has <a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/west-bank-witnessing-largest-forced-displacement-of-palestinians-since-1967-un">displaced</a> at least 40,000 Palestinians in recent months \u2013 a slow, quiet ethnic cleansing unfolding beneath the fog of war.</p><p>These tactics are reinforced by an Israeli <a href="https://peacenow.org.il/en/cabinet-decision-land-registration?">cabinet decision</a>
on 11 May to initiate widespread land registration in Area C. While not
officially labelled a \u201cRegularization Law,\u201d the \u201cland settlement
process\u201d mirrors the intent and structure of the 2017 legislation by
legalizing settler outposts and formalizing the theft of Palestinian
land. </p><p>The revived effort gives the occupation state sweeping
authority to expropriate land and deepen its hold over occupied
territory under the guise of bureaucratic order. </p><p>In parallel,
Israeli authorities moved to revive the long-stalled E1 settlement plan
near occupied East Jerusalem, which includes the construction of <a href="https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/130717">3,412 settler housing units</a>.
The plan would cut off occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the
occupied West Bank and forcibly displace Bedouin communities like Khan
al-Ahmar. </p><p>In late May, the Israeli cabinet also approved the establishment of <a href="https://peacenow.org.il/en/cabinet-decision-22-settlements?">22 new illegal settlements</a>
across the occupied West Bank and retroactively legalized several
existing settlement outposts. This reinforces the apartheid architecture
stretching from Jerusalem to the Jordan Valley. </p><p>The goal is not a
secret \u2013 to reshape the map in ways that render a future Palestinian
state geographically and politically unviable. It is the creation of a
West Bank with <a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/israeli-plan-for-demographic-change-sovereignty-over-west-bank-underway-report">no Palestinian sovereignty</a>,
no territorial contiguity, and no future state. Under this plan,
compliant Palestinian Authority (PA) will govern civil affairs under the
boot of Israeli military control, a Potemkin authority with no power,
no land, and no dignity.</p><p><strong>Jordan faces the heat </strong></p><p>In
the face of these developments, Jordan is perhaps the most concerned
neighboring state. The Hashemite Kingdom shares deep historical,
geographic, and societal ties with the occupied West Bank, particularly
during the period of union from 1948 to 1967. This history grants Amman
special sensitivity to changes across the Jordan River.</p><p>Yet what
raises alarm is the absence of a serious, clear, and direct Jordanian
position on the growing threat of Israeli control over the occupied West
Bank. Official statements remain limited to generic diplomatic
objections, lacking any firm deterrent policy or strategic mobilization.</p><p>The
Hashemite Kingdom has long feared being forced into playing the role of
a \u201csubstitute homeland\u201d for Palestinians. Ideas like the \u201cAlternative
Homeland\u201d and confederation \u2013 which aim to shift the Palestinian issue
onto Jordanian soil \u2013 are not new. They have resurfaced cyclically since
the 1970s, but today they appear increasingly structured as an
alternative path to liquidate the Palestinian cause. </p><p>More than
half of Jordan's population is made up of Palestinian refugees and
citizens of Palestinian descent, with deep familial and national ties to
the occupied West Bank. Any attempt to dissolve the two-state formula
without a sovereign Palestinian alternative risks turning Jordan into a
demographic pressure valve. It would trigger unrest, displace new waves
of Palestinians, and unravel the <a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/how-a-single-jordanian-tribesman-put-the-cold-peace-with-israel-at-risk">fragile equilibrium</a> within the kingdom.</p><p>Jordanian officials have consistently warned that forced transfers of Palestinians would be <a href="https://thecradle.co/articles-id/11899">considered acts of war</a>.
Their concern is not hypothetical. Israeli lawmakers have repeatedly
promoted variations of the \u201cJordan is Palestine\u201d plan, where West Bank
Palestinians would either be displaced or ruled by Jordan through an
Israeli and western-imposed confederation that absolves Israel of all
responsibility. The \u201cJordanian\u2013Palestinian Confederation\u201d aims to assign
Jordan the role of administrating the remnants of the Palestinian
population, following Israel\u2019s completion of territorial control.</p><p>Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear his strategy:
Palestinians may receive administrative authority, but not territorial
sovereignty. He seeks to preserve Israeli control under a veneer of
delegated power, turning any Palestinian \u201c<a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/the-pas-west-bank-crackdown-a-crisis-of-legitimacy">authority</a>\u201d into a fig leaf for continued domination.</p><p>In an interview with Fox News, Netanyahu made a telling statement:</p><blockquote><p>\u201cWe aspire to give the Palestinians authority, not land.\u201d</p></blockquote><p><strong>The confederation trap</strong></p><p>This
is why Amman views the confederation proposal as a strategic trap.
Without the establishment of a truly independent Palestinian state, any
form of administrative arrangement serves as a smokescreen for
annexation.</p><p>The real objective is to outsource the management of
Palestinians to Jordan until Israel can complete its demographic
re-engineering of historic Palestine.</p><p>Proponents of this plan
believe regional conditions are more favorable than ever. Since US
President Donald Trump's first term in office in 2017, several Arab
League states have normalized relations with Israel as part of the 2020
\u201cAbraham Accords.\u201d This is despite longstanding treaty violations,
including Israel\u2019s repeated breaches of the 1994 <a href="https://thecradle.co/articles-id/27566">Wadi Araba</a> peace agreement with Jordan, one of the first Arab states to formalize relations with the occupation state.</p><p>Others,
including Saudi Arabia, are reportedly nearing similar agreements.
After the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's government,
Syria \u2013 now ruled by ex-Al-Qaeda chief Ahmad al-Sharaa \u2013 is also being
groomed to join this \u201c<a href="https://thecradle.co/articles-id/31869">Abraham Alliance</a>.\u201d </p><p>Elements
of this scheme can already be found in US President Donald Trump's 2020
so-called \u201cDeal of the Century\u201d peace plan and in a 2020 Saudi
initiative for a \u201c<a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/356187?">Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine</a>,\u201d allegedly endorsed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS).</p><p><strong>Diplomacy buried under bulldozers</strong></p><p>With
Washington's political posture shifting, the collapse of the two-state
formula has gone from possibility to policy. Trump has made clear that
he intends to discard Palestinian statehood altogether. </p><p>His State
Department has refused to endorse the two-state solution, and in
February, Trump declared, \u201cThe US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we
will do a job with it too,\u201d in reference to his post-war <a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/trump-acquits-israel-shifts-gaza-problem-to-arabs">Gaza Riviera plan</a>. </p><p>Even
UN Security Council Resolution 2735, drafted by former US president Joe
Biden's administration and adopted in June 2024, now rings hollow. It
calls for two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by
side in peace. But Israel's ongoing annexation makes this vision
impossible. Tel Aviv is burying the resolution in the same ground it
paves for Zionist settlers.</p><p>Jordan, which <a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/arab-states-assist-israel-in-shooting-down-waves-of-iranian-drones">rushed to Israel\u2019s defense</a>
during the three direct Iran\u2013Israel military engagements, is no longer
on the sidelines \u2013 it is now directly threatened by the occupation
state\u2019s expansionist ambitions. </p><p>As Tel Aviv accelerates its
efforts to erase the Palestinian cause, Amman finds itself cornered \u2013
pressured by Washington\u2019s apathy, surrounded by Arab states deepening
ties with Israel, and bound to a peace treaty that no longer offers even
the pretense of balance.</p><p>The PA, once Washington\u2019s preferred
administrator for Palestinian affairs, is collapsing under the weight of
its own irrelevance. It commands no land, wields no authority, and
retains little popular legitimacy. If it disintegrates entirely, Jordan
will be the first to feel the impact.</p><p>The Hashemite monarchy faces
a moment of real historic peril. To avoid being conscripted into
managing Israel\u2019s occupation by proxy, Amman must break decisively from
failed formulas and build a coherent, collective Arab-Palestinian
front. </p><p>Without this, Jordan risks being swept into a new regional
order in which it becomes both the buffer and the scapegoat for the
final burial of Palestinian statehood.</p></span></div></div></div></div>
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