Ex-Jordan FM: Two-state solution is 'dead and cannot be revived'

The former Jordanian foreign minister has declared that the two-state solution is no longer a viable option, as the extreme far-right in Israel’s coalition government is “impossible to be flexible and adaptive too.”

In an interview with the Arabic-speaking Radio Al-Balad station, Marwan Muasher, said: “We are dealing with a religiously and ethnically extremist Israeli government which is impossible to be flexible and adaptive too.”

He also explained that Jordan must implement a new approach with the Israeli government and terminate its “diplomatic and flexible” methods.

“When extremism is the byword of the government, diplomatic tools do not work on it. This government does not give any weight to diplomatic tools,” he added. “And if the government is extremist from two angles, ethnically extremist and religiously extremist?”

Criticising Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who denied the existence of the Palestinian people, saying the Palestinians were “an invention” from the last century and people like himself and his grandparents were the “real Palestinians”,  Muasher said:

Never before in the history of Israel has there been such a government, in which some of its members openly believe that Palestinians have no right to exist and define the Land of Israel as including Jordan and Palestine.

Muasher’s criticisms comes after the Jordanian Parliament last month voted on a proposal to expel the Israeli ambassador from Amman in protest against Smotrich’s racist statements and his use of a map of ‘Greater Israel’ that included Jordan and the occupied Palestinian territories during an event in France.

“There is a real danger. Israel does not want a Palestinian state to stand in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and it does not want there to be a Palestinian majority in the lands it controls,” said the former envoy.

“It is clear that this government does not recognise the right of Palestinians to exist on their land. So there is only one solution left: transfer, which directly affects Jordanian national security. We are incredibly concerned with this issue because it is not only a Palestinian-Israeli issue but also a Jordanian issue par excellence,” he said.

In 1995, Muasher served as Jordan’s first ambassador to Israel, a year after the peace agreement was signed. From 1997, he served as Jordan’s ambassador in Washington until he returned to Jordan in 2002 to serve as foreign minister. After quitting politics in 2010, he became Vice President for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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