Senator Brownback On Palestinians And Jordan

Looks like the topic has found its way into the open again:

Robert Kagan, foreign policy advisor to Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain, has vehemently denied reports on a Jordanian blog that Sen. McCain would declare Jordan the home for Palestinian Authority Arabs if he is elected president. The Arabic language Al Jazeera network reported that Kagan suggested the idea in a lecture at New York University.

Sure enough, there does not seem to be any indication that Kagan has been advocating the idea--The Elon Plan. But someone else has been--

Sen. Brownback: PA Idea Doesn't Work

Senator Sam Brownback (R – KS) gave a strongly pro-Israel speech at the Jerusalem Conference Tuesday, in which he advocated rethinking the idea of letting the PA administer itself. Instead, he suggested a confederation between the PA and Jordan, with the Arabs of Judea and Samaria enjoying limited self-rule. The current path to peace “isn’t working, wasn’t working, and will never work,” he said, drawing strong applause.

The PA, said Brownback, is not capable of administering its own territory. "After 15 years, billions of dollars in aid, massive international attention and unlimited diplomatic support," he asked rhetorically, "what do the Palestinians have to show for it?"

"Nothing," he answered.

"If our leaders want to talk in terms of a two state solution, it's high time that we started thinking of Jordan as the second state in that equation," Brownback told the audience at the Jerusalem Hyatt Regency Hotel auditorium. He cited a 2007 poll in which 42% of Palestinians expressed support for the idea of a confederation.

Read the whole thing.

You can view a video of an interview with Senator Brownback from the February Jerusalem Conference at the end of the article here, or you can download the video (wmv format).

In addition, there is also a video that Senator Brownback made back in October:



Benny Elon did an interview with Caroline Glick back in July 2003. At the end of the interview, there is a brief outline of the plan:

The Elon Plan

The PA

Immediate dissolution of the Palestinian Authority, a non-viable entity whose existence precludes the termination of the conflict.


Terror

Israel will uproot the Palestinian terror infrastructure. All arms will be collected, incitement will be stopped and all the refugee camps, which serve as incubators for terror, will be dismantled. Terrorists and their direct supporters will be deported.


Jordan

Israel, the US and the international community will recognize the Kingdom of Jordan as the only legitimate representative of the Palestinians. Jordan will once again recognize itself as the Palestinian nation-state.

In the context of a regional development program, Israel, the US and the international community will put forth a concerted effort for the long-term development of Jordan, to rehabilitate its economy and enable it to absorb a limited number of refugees within its borders.


The territories

Israeli sovereignty will be asserted over Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The Arab residents of these areas will become citizens of the Palestinian state in Jordan. The status of these citizens, their connection to the two states and the manner of administration of their communal lives will be decided in an agreement between the governments of Israel and Jordan (Palestine).


Refugees

Israel, the US and the international community will allocate resources for the completion of the exchange of populations that began in 1948, as well as the full rehabilitation of the refugees and their absorption and naturalization in various countries.


Normalization

After implementation of the above stages, Israel and Jordan (Palestine) will declare the conflict terminated. Both sides will work to normalize peaceful relations between all parties in the region.

If the third step is dependent on carrying out the first two, the plan is doomed.

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