Will Secret Talks Lead to Mideast Breakthrough?

JERUSALEM, Israel, May 3, 2007 — -- Desperate for a Mideast breakthrough, Palestinian, Jordanian and Israeli academics and officials have begun secret talks on forging a confederation between Jordan and a future Palestine, ABC News has learned.

According to the plan, Jordan would assume future security responsibility over the West Bank and perhaps Gaza alongside the Palestinians -- possibly facilitating the declaration of Palestinian independence before President Bush leaves office.

The three sides reason that Israel is more likely to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state with a Jordanian guarantee that a future Palestine will not rise up against it. Jordan and Israel have shared close military and intelligence ties since the two states signed a peace accord in 1994.

A leading figure affiliated with Israel's opposition party, Likud, told ABC News, "The old paradigm of negotiations failed and new ones are necessary." Speaking on the condition of anonymity he added, "This [the confederation option] creates a whole new paradigm with which to operate."

With the ruling Kadima party disgraced following a damning government inquiry into its conduct during the war in Lebanon last summer, a poll released Wednesday in the Israeli paper Maariv showed Likud and its leader Benjamin Netanyahu would sweep the next elections.

The knowledge that Jordanian troops and officials would prevent anarchy or armament in a future Palestine affords Israeli negotiators more flexibility in dealing with the thorny issues of refugees, the division of Jerusalem and territorial concession.

The Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli delegates -- primarily academics and top Palestinian officials from the Fatah party -- have met in Jordan, Israel and several European capitals over the past two months, delegates told ABC News.

The talks started quietly following Jordan's King Abdullah's address to the U.S. Congress on March 7. That speech focused on galvanizing Congress into immediate action on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Abdullah said peace between Israel and the Palestinians, not the war in Iraq, is the region's core issue.

While the idea has the quiet support of the Jordanian Royal Court, the monarchy is hesitant to progress with such a plan. The plan, they believe, officially supports the Saudi-sponsored Arab peace initiative, which offers Israel full peace and diplomatic relations with all the Arab states if it evacuates the West Bank and Golan Heights, captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

Ayman Safari, editor in chief of Jordan's Al Ghad daily and former director of information for the Royal Court said, "Jordan is always concerned about retaining its sovereignty. Plans like this should not be seen as turning Jordan into 'the Palestinian state.' Jordan constantly fears the resurgence of claims but has rejected claims by right-wing Israelis in the 1980s that Jordan should be the homeland for all Palestinians."

The Palestinian aim, according to one of the delegates, is to invite the Jordanians into the West Bank to enforce security before a Palestinian state arises. But Safari insists Jordan would only agree to a confederation after a Palestinian state is born.

Under the developing plan, the Palestinians would retain all the other trappings of an independent state. Part of these talks would also focus on a form of Jordanian and Palestinian economic union; the Palestinian economy has been severely stunted by economic sanctions and six years of conflict.

The Jordanian delegate to the talks is former Prime Minister Abdel Salam Majali. Majali led Jordan under former King Hussein, a longtime proponent of the confederation. Over 60 percent of Jordanian citizens are of Palestinian descent, including the kingdom's Queen Rania. Jordan controlled the West Bank from 1948 until it lost it to Israel in the 1967 war.

A Palestinian legislator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said in order to avert a total collapse, the Palestinian authority must to be buttressed by something stronger, namely the Jordanian regime. "We have no other choice," he said, "the people are desperate for some diplomatic movement, and above all some stability and security."

A major sticking point in the talks is whether Jordan would assume security control over the Palestinians before a Palestinian state is established, or after. One interim solution is to deploy the 20,000 strong Palestinian Badr Brigade, currently based in Jordan, to the West Bank. Founded in the 1960s to fight Israel, the Badr Brigade is trained by Jordan and answers directly to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas. However, the brigade's staunch affiliation with the PLO and the Fatah party could spark additional unrest between the dueling Hamas and Fatah factions.

A senior Western official here said the United States has no connection to the talks. Yet the source acknowledged that U.S. officials have traveled to observe Badr Brigade training in Jordan.

According to one of the members directly involved in the talks, Abbas supports the talks, and believes they could be integrated with the 2002 Arab Initiative.

The 1993 Oslo Accords afforded the Palestinians a graduated level of autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza. But the destructive mixture of Palestinian suicide bombers, continued Israeli settlements, Palestinian intransigence and internal Israeli politics soured relations.

A major breakthrough in late 2000 was ruptured by the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising, the Intifada. Since then Israel left Gaza but continues to control the West Bank and its cities.