Jordan would look "positively" on the creation of a binational state that guarantees equal rights to Israelis and Palestinians if Israel's proposed sovereignty of the Jordan Valley and settlements in Judea and Samaria closes the door on a two-state solution, Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz said Tuesday.
In the wake of Israel's plan to apply sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley, in line with US President Donald Trump's Mideast plan, many in the international community have warned this would be the possible end to the two-state solution, despite the US plan allowing for a Palestinian state after a four year trial period during which the Palestinians have to meet certain requirements. Many believe the Palestinians will be unable or simply unwilling to meet the standards presented by Trump's plan.
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"You close the door to the two-state solution, I could very well look at this positively, if we're clearly opening the door to a one-state democratic solution," Razzaz told the UK's The Guardian newspaper in an interview published Tuesday.
"But nobody in Israel is talking about that, and so we cannot just sugar-coat what they're doing. Who's talking about the one-state solution in Israel? They're talking about apartheid in every single sense," he added.
"I challenge anybody from Israel to say yes, let's end the two-state solution, it's not viable," he said. "But let's work together on a one-state democratic solution. That, I think, we will look at very favorably. But closing one and wishful thinking about the other is just self-deception."
Earlier this month, a prominent Jewish American commentator came out in favor of a binational state, sending shock waves through the Jewish establishment and Washington foreign policy circles.
Peter Beinart, a journalism professor at City University of New York and contributor to The Atlantic, argued that the two-state solution was no longer possible and endorsed the idea of a single democratic state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River with equal rights for Jews and Palestinians.
Support for a democratic, binational state is still largely confined to a small group of intellectuals on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No major party or faction in Israel or the Palestinian territories endorses it. The proposal is highly controversial, because many argue that it would spell an end to the Zionist enterprise and result in disaster.
While the two-state solution is still widely seen as the only way of resolving the conflict, the two sides remain deeply divided about the core issues and have not held substantive talks in more than a decade.
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