Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the opposition Yisrael Beiteinu Party, recently surprised political circles by proposing that Jordan assume responsibility for administering Areas A and B of the West Bank, particularly in the security sphere, in place of the Palestinian Authority. His remarks immediately revived an important question: Are we witnessing a trial balloon for a broader Israeli or regional plan, or is this merely the political position of a party leader who today represents a relatively limited minority in Israel?

 

The answer was not long in coming. Prime Mmnister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly attacked Lieberman, accusing him of having become a “leftist” and categorically rejecting his proposal. The irony lies not only in the fact that Lieberman, historically one of the most prominent figures of the Israeli right, can now be labelled a “leftist” in Netanyahu’s political lexicon, but also in what prompted the accusation: Merely contemplating Arab administration—Jordanian, in this case—over parts of the West Bank.

 

This exchange reveals how dramatically the centre of gravity in Israeli politics has shifted. Lieberman’s proposal does not envisage a Palestinian state, nor does it call for a return to the 1967 borders. Rather, it effectively seeks to weaken or bypass the Palestinian Authority and transfer responsibility for administering Palestinian population centres in parts of the West Bank to Jordan. In other words, it offers a “regional solution” as an alternative to Palestinian statehood. Yet, even this proposal appears, from the perspective of Netanyahu and Israel’s religious-nationalist right, to constitute an unacceptable concession.

 

Such a formula does not currently represent a strategic option for Israel’s governing mainstream, though it may find supporters within parts of the opposition who see it as a way of circumventing the question of Palestinian statehood altogether. Diplomatic sources familiar with the matter confirm that US President Donald Trump raised a similar idea with His Majesty King Abdullah during his first presidency, but that the King rejected it categorically.

 

This recalls an important episode recounted by Martin Indyk in "Master of the Game", his book on Henry Kissinger’s Middle East diplomacy. Indyk notes that in early 1974 Kissinger proposed to His Majesty the late King Hussein an “Jericho First” scenario that included the Gaza Strip. The King rejected the proposal at the time, whereas Yasser Arafat accepted the “Gaza–Jericho First” formula roughly twenty years later. The point of recalling this episode is not to equate two very different historical contexts, but rather to highlight Jordan’s longstanding sensitivity toward partial arrangements that might ultimately become substitutes for resolving the Palestinian question itself.

 

This position has become even more firmly established over recent decades, evolving into something resembling a Jordanian political doctrine: no alternative homeland, no displacement of Palestinians, and no resolution of the Palestinian question at Jordan’s expense. King Abdullah has also been unequivocal regarding scenarios of a Jordanian-Palestinian federation or confederation: there can be no discussion of such arrangements before the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. This position also corresponds with a broad current in Jordanian public opinion and is perhaps one of the relatively few issues around which there is near political and social consensus.

 

This brings us back to King Abdullah’s recent address to the United Nations General Assembly, in which he sharply criticised Netanyahu’s government and its policies in the Palestinian territories—from settlement expansion and land seizures to settler violence and de facto annexation. The King warned that the trajectory Israel is pursuing ultimately leads to one scenario: The forced displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank, alongside the destruction of any remaining possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state.

 

The contrast between Lieberman and Netanyahu therefore reveals something deeper than an electoral disagreement. Lieberman proposes dispensing with the Palestinian Authority by resurrecting the “Jordanian option”, which in practice means bypassing the idea of Palestinian statehood. The governing Israeli right, meanwhile, goes further, towards annexation, the transformation of the demographic and geographic realities on the ground, and control over Jerusalem.

 

Between a regional project that eliminates Palestinian statehood and a religious-nationalist project moving towards annexation and displacement, the political distance within Israel is narrowing considerably. The real question raised by Lieberman’s remarks, therefore, is not whether Jordan will return to the West Bank; Jordan’s answer to that question was settled long ago. The more important question is what these remarks reveal about Israel itself. The growing disagreement within Israel no longer appears to be about how to establish a Palestinian state, but rather what to do with the Palestinians once that state has been removed from the equation.