A few years ago, at a dialogue meeting between Israelis and Palestinians, the Palestinians were asked what they thought of the idea voiced by Ariel Sharon that Jordan, with more than two-thirds of its population Palestinian, is in fact a Palestinian state. And if that is not today the case, then when Jordan becomes a constitutional monarchy or enjoys some other form of regime that expresses the will of the majority, it will indeed become Palestinian.
The Palestinians taking part in this conversation, without exception, condemned the very question. They replied angrily and aggressively: if you continue to talk about this issue, we Palestinians will end the meeting.
That dialogue was held at a time when the political bon ton, following Oslo, encouraged discussion of "two states for two peoples". Heaven on earth in the form of the "New Middle East" promised by Shimon Peres--despite the suicide bombings that had already commenced--was touted energetically at every real or virtual (media) podium. So loud were the drums announcing two states that the drummers, certainly on the Jewish side, ignored and compelled others to ignore any indication that the Palestinian side, from Yasser Arafat on down to the last Israeli Palestinian intellectual, didn't really intend to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and the national home of the Jewish people.
All the Palestinians did then was to pay lip service to the two-state idea in order to help Arafat get back on his feet. Anyone in need of proof that this was indeed Arafat's objective received it in the form of explosions in buses and malls, beginning shortly after the Palestinian leader entered Gaza along with some 40,000 of his fighters, all fully armed and equipped.
If Israel had real media and enjoyed political dialogue free of calumny and narrow personal and economic interests, this was the time when Israelis who innocently supported the idea of two states for two peoples should have opened their eyes and recognized that this concept in fact was never really accepted by an absolute majority of Palestinians. It was never accepted by their political leadership, certainly not by their religious leadership and not by their intellectuals--especially the Israeli Palestinians, who provided the latest proof with the "vision documents" they published in 2007-8 and by their unequivocal, vocal and successful opposition to Mahmoud Abbas' (Abu Mazen) original intention to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people at the Annapolis conference.
Today, with little remaining of pretense, it is hard to find serious Arab counterparts for dialogue who continue to talk about two states. Of course they blame Israel for the change in their approach as they fall back on the one and only idea the Palestinians have every truly believed in: a single state for a single people--the Palestinian people.
Indeed, Palestinians never really abandoned the aspiration for a single, Arab state. During the first 35 years of Israel's existence most didn't believe it could be realized in the foreseeable future. But ever since Israel agreed to withdraw from Sinai and destroy its settlements there; since it lost its capacity to win on the battlefield, meaning since the 1982 Lebanon war; and in view of the growing polarization among Israelis, the decline in motivation to serve in the army and, as we witnessed only recently, the frightening price Israel is prepared to pay to retrieve the bodies of its soldiers--Palestinians have become filled with hope that Israel, divided and bereft of internal unity, just might at some point soon not be able to muster the strength to continue to struggle for its existence as the state of the Jewish people.
These Palestinian hopes are based on perfectly logical data. But data, as we have seen throughout human history, have a tendency to change. Thus it is very probable--and this is what I believe--that at the moment of truth the Jews will take themselves in hand and once again be what they were when they fought for and achieved their independence.
Recently, quite a few years after the meeting of intellectuals described above, two members of that forum, an Israeli and a Palestinian, met again privately. The angry and emotional Arab reaction to mention of "Jordan is Palestine" was mentioned. Why? asked the Israeli. His Arab counterpart replied: from an internal Arab standpoint this is the most secret wish of Palestinians. Its chances of reaching fruition are greater even than the possibility that you Israelis will give up. But to agree to discuss it even in a closed meeting is like admitting that you covet your neighbor's wife.
In other words, the Israeli mused, in your heart of hearts you are perhaps dreaming of no fewer than four Palestinian states: in Jordan, in the West Bank (the Abu Mazen state), in Gaza (a Hamas state) and in Israel itself--certainly among the Palestinian population concentrations in Israel.
That's a wild exaggeration, replied the Palestinian totally unconvincingly.
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