Official Jordanian Perspectives - Solving Jordan’s Identity Crisis
- Reducing Government Spending on Palestinian Refugees in Jordan
Now that the signing of the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement removed the political obstacles to an active Jordanian involvement in the negotiations about the future of Palestinian refugees, Jordan aims at achieving a solution which will provide a Palestinian “right of choice” in favor or against the return to a “Palestinian entity” (sic). Each Palestinian will then have to decide whether s/he considers her/himself a Jordanian citizen or not (double citizenship will not be permitted), and only then will the Jordanian society cease to be this complex political body which is so difficult to rule. This interest outweighs common concerns about the demographic and economic upheavals which will result from a Palestinian mass departure from Jordan. It is commonly expected that only a minority of Jordan’s Palestinians, mainly those living in the refugee camps (248,000,i.e. 20%), would actually leave. The rest would become full Jordanians without a split identity.
The “right of choice” favored by Jordan is certainly not identical with the Palestinian demand for the Right of Return which included the right to self-determination and the option to return to an independent Palestinian state. For Jordan the question of what kind of entity will be the option for its Palestinians is secondary: even the model of Gaza and Jericho in its current dependent form fulfills their purpose. In fact, the 70,000 - 100,000 Gazans living in Jordan without Jordanian citizenship are already considered illegal residents and would be requested to leave - if only the Israeli authorities would permit their entry into the Gaza Strip. Department of Palestinian Affairs
Until 1970, the Jordanian government had delegated the provision of services to Palestinian refugees to its Ministry of Construction. In 1970, the Ministry of the Occupied Territories (MOT) was established and an executive committee of the Ministry took on responsibility for state services to Palestinian refugees in coordination with UNRWA and the Joint Committee (Jordan-PLO). Following the 1989 administrative separation between Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the MOT was replaced by the Department of Palestinian Affairs (DPA) under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
DPA services are similar to UNRWA services and especially since the budgetary crisis of UNRWA the DPA has had to finance a growing portion of the agency’s regular services. Other than UNRWA, the DPA provides services to both Palestinian refugees and displaced persons (195,000 families) in 13 camps, three of which are not recognized by UNRWA. The DPA budget for services in the camps is 156 million JD (US $ 202,8 mil.) annually, i.e. more than the regular UNRWA budget in Jordan.
The DPA is a participant in the multilateral talks on refugee affairs, the four-party negotiations on the 1967 displaced persons and in the meetings between UNRWA and its donor states. DPA officials criticize the international donor countries’ financing of UNRWA - Peace Implementation Programs (PIP) almost exclusively in the Gaza Strip. They demand that Jordan, which hosts 40% of the registered refugee population, should be allocated a larger share of UNRWA’s budget; international support should be “better spread, because peace must be tangible not only in Gaza, but also outside the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
DPA officials strongly dismiss rumors concerning the resettlement of Palestinian refugees from Lebanon in Jordan and emphasize that Jordan will not force anybody to leave: ”Our priority is to establish the right to chose - either to return to a Palestinian entity or to become full-fledged Jordanians. The only exemption are the approximately 70,000 Gazan refugees living mainly in Gaza Camp near Jerash. They are not citizens and according to the Jordanian position, they must return to Gaza.”
[Source: Asem Ghoshe, Director General, DPA; Abdul Karim Abu l-Haija, Director of Information and Public Relations, DPA] The Jordanian Delegation
[Dr. Ahmad Qatanani, member of the Jordanian delegation to the multilateral talks on refugee affairs and to the negotiations on the 1967 displaced persons talking with the AIC-delegation; Amman, 22 March 1995; excerpts] How are the multilateral meetings on refugees evaluated by the Jordanian delegation? Are they dying? What about the European and the US position in the multilaterals?
No, they are certainly not dying. The multilateral simply deal with different issues than the negotiations on the `67 displaced persons. Here we can talk about all dimensions of the refugee problem. The Jordanian delegation has always emphasized the political dimension of the refugee issue, but the EU and the US certainly have not done so. but we must remember that we are still in the interim period. The final status negotiations will start next year and then all the political dimensions will and must be discussed, if there should be peace. Because we cannot go on talking about water, health and Middle East peace without tangible results. If so, there will be no peace. The multilateral Steering Committee will meet in Switzerland in May; Canada will present a vision for the interim period, the final status and for ten years from now [See ”Negotiations Update”, below] Is it true that Jordan was reluctant to participate in the four-party committee for negotiations on the 1967 displaced persons, at least until the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement?
Jordan was reluctant for a short period only, only a few days after Oslo. We were not part of the Oslo Accords and not part of this decision. But this was not the reason for the delay of the negotiations on the matter. The call for the establishment of the four-party committee was included in Article 8 of the Israeli-Jordanian agreement and since then Jordan has been pushing for the start of the negotiations. What is your evaluation of the first meeting on `67 displaced persons in Amman on March 7? Was it a success as suggested by the Palestinian delegation?
The first meeting did not fix modalities for the return of the `67 displaced, only modalities for the negotiations. This is a humble result and certainly not a success. Maybe you could call it a success because usually the situation is so bad and a meeting is in itself already a success. After all, the results are weak and the Arab delegations are disappointed, because there was no reference to UN-resolutions on refugees. The first technical meeting is scheduled to take place within a month and will probably convene in Israel, maybe in Tiberia. [See “Negotiations Update” below] Which UN-resolutions serve as terms of reference in both the multilateral and the four-party negotiations?
Until now, we do not have a consensus on the terms of reference in the multilateral. The Arab position is that UN-resolution 194 should be the basic terms of reference. This has been rejected by both Israel and the US. In the four-party negotiations on the 1967 displaced persons, the Arab delegations proposed UN-Security Council resolution 237 as the term of reference. Israel objected any mentioning of this resolution in the final statement of the first meeting in Amman. What is the Jordanian experience with the Israeli delegation in the multilateral talks?
The Israeli delegation is always stalling and reluctant. They try to raise the refugee issue as a “humanitarian issue” and raise objections to the composition of the Palestinian delegation; at one point they even opposed the discussion of family reunification as part of the agenda. However, the main contradiction is that we regard the issue as a political issue with a humanitarian dimension, while the Israelis handle the issue as a pure humanitarian one. More than four months ago, we submitted a list of 6,500 names of persons whose ID cards were declared invalid by the Israeli authorities, because we wanted to test the reaction of the Israeli side. Until now we have not received a response. We have heard much about the sensitivity of the issue of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, even on the level of gathering data ...
Yes, beyond the technical problems, the issue is very sensitive. As a state you cannot simply categorize your citizens into refugees, displaced and Jordanians. This is politically problematic. Our position, however, is clear and unambiguous concerning the Gazans living in Jordan. They are approximately 100,000 living mainly in two camps (Gaza RC, Shneller RC). These Gazans do not have Jordanian passports and according to our official position, they are staying illegally in Jordan. They have two options: to apply for citizenship or to leave for Gaza. |
