The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that former United States President Donald Trump attempted to “give” complete control of the West Bank to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Citing an excerpt from The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021, an upcoming book by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, the report said that the offer was made to Jordan’s King Abdullah II in January of 2018 – two years before the Trump administration released its two-state “Deal of the Century.”
King Abdullah was quoted as saying to an American friend that he “thought he was having a heart attack” when presented with the offer.
“I couldn’t breathe. I was bent doubled-over,” the king was quoted as saying in the book, making clear that he had no interest in taking control of the territory.
Jordan had ruled over the West Bank – a term coined in the 1950s referring to the Jordan Valley, most of Samaria and most of Judea – from the time it conquered it from Israel in the 1948 War until Israel won it back during the 1967 Six Day War.
It was not mentioned in the excerpt whether Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) knew of Trump’s offer to the Jordanian monarch but what should be obvious from the offer is that from the perspective of US interests, an Israeli withdrawal is more important than addressing the actual needs of Palestinians.
This reality was first made evident during a March 1978 meeting between US President Jimmy Carter’s administration and an Israeli delegation led by Prime Minister Menaḥem Begin. When Begin expressed his willingness to offer Palestinians the option of Israeli citizenship with full equality, Zbigniew Brzezinski – Carter’s national security adviser – rejected the offer on the grounds that Israel would then retain control over the West Bank.
Trump’s behavior demonstrates once again that American efforts at dividing Israel into two states has less to do with achieving independence or dignity for Palestinians and more to do with separating Israel from the cradle of Jewish civilization. But it should also put to bed the myth that Trump was a friend to Israel while in office.
In the years leading up to the publication of Trump’s plan, Vision Magazine had asserted on several occasions that the plan would aim to divide our country into two separate states. In the months following its unveiling, we called for it to be resisted in its entirety and pushed back against right-wing claims that Israel could annex 30% of the West Bank while ignoring the parts of Trump’s plan that called for Israel to surrender the remaining 70.
Despite the obvious signs that Trump would attempt to force Netanyahu to accept partition, Trump’s team successfully neutralized most of the Israeli and Diaspora Jewish figures who would normally oppose such a plan. This was largely achieved through granting them access and a proximity to power they had never before experienced. Because most rightists lack the geo-political awareness to understand US interests or how imperialism actually operates, Jewish nationalists were easy to manipulate and reassure in their moments of doubt.
This complete ignorance for the role US interests and demands play in Israel’s major policy decisions is arguably the Israeli national camp’s most dangerous strategic weakness.
According to a new book by Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner, it was actually Netanyahu who ultimately thwarted Trump’s plan – a claim supported by journalist Barak Ravid’s interviews last December that clearly demonstrated Trump’s deep disdain for Netanyahu.
Trump wasn’t the great friend to Israel that so many rightist Jews wanted to believe him to be. His “Deal of the Century” essentially repackaged the same partition plan Washington has been trying to impose on Israel since the Six Day War. But the fact that Trump succeeded in manipulating and neutralizing Israel’s nationalist opposition to his plan should alert us to the fact that Jewish national consciousness – no matter how deep – isn’t enough to resist efforts to divide our land if not combined with a more sophisticated and principled understanding of imperialism and geo-politics.
