Offering King Hussein an unexpected — and unwanted — peace dividend, right-wing Jewish groups are looking into establishing settlements in Jordan.
These groups argue that the time has come to implement the ideology of Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky, who more than 70 years ago advocated Jewish settlement on both sides of the Jordan river.
And, they say, they plan to send delegations to Amman to look into buying real estate.
The Kingdom of Jordan is not amused.
A government spokesman denounced the plan as “an irresponsible act which by no means serves Arab-Israeli peacemaking.”
Peacemaking, however, does not seem high on the agenda of the would-be settlers.
“It’s a big gimmick,” conceded Mike Guzof- sky, who heads the extremist Kahane Chai in New York and hopes to send a delegation to Amman soon.
“We’re saying there is no peace, and Jordan is not moderate. If such a tiny thing, like Jews wanting to buy a little land and settle there, causes an uproar, then it’s proof this isn’t much of a peace,” he said, referring to the Washington Declaration, ending the state of war between Israel and Jordan.
The declaration was signed in July by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan’s King Hussein.
Guzofsky said he is organizing the effort for Kahane Chai after Binyamin Ze’ev Kahane, son of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, announced the idea earlier this month in Israel and sparked the Jordanian government protest.
“We think it will be a lot easier for us to do it from the U.S.,” explained Guzofsky.
Kahane Chai is banned as an extremist organization in Israel.
The early Zionist thinker, Jabotinsky, broke with the labor-dominated Zionist Organization in 1923, and the Revisionist Zionist movement he led fathered today’s Likud Party.
Throughout the years, Jabotinsky’s youth movement, the Betar Zionist Youth Organization, kept “both banks of the Jordan” as a slogan.
Now, Betar leaders plan on moving forward with Binyamin Kahane’s initiative, though they say they are working independently of both Kahane and Guzofsky.
“Jabotinsky’s dream has always been (Jewish settlement on) both sides of the Jordan river,” said Ronn Torossian, national coordinator of Tagar, Betar’s college wing.
“We feel with this breakthrough in peace, we have the ability to do this,” said Torossian, a student at the State University of New York in Albany.
Leading the way is Betar’s Cleveland chapter.
“Yes, it’s possible, and we should do as much as possible to get Jews to live in biblical Israel,” said Daniel Lubitz, the chapter’s director and a student at Cleveland State University.
A ‘SILLY AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE’ SCHEME
“Right now in Cleveland, we’re setting up a delegation of people to travel to Jordan to buy land. We have people who have the ability to invest in real estate in Jordan,” Lubitz said, adding that he has people who have agreed to put up the airfare for the delegation.
“It is a feeling of accomplishment, as Jabotinsky is actually coming true,” he said.
Abraham Foxman, a Betar member in his youth and today national director of the Anti-Defamation League, denounced the scheme as “silly and counterproductive.”
He said that Jabotinsky’s concept of “both banks of the Jordan, as annunciated and when annunciated, was both prophetic, and ideological and political.
“Today it is a nostalgia concept, and anyone who takes it verbatim, literally, is fantasizing or smoking something,” he said.
Foxman noted that Benjamin Netanyahu, who as leader of the Likud Party is the successor to Betar ideology, has just met with Jordanian Crown Prince Hassan “to talk about how the two countries could live together.”
Torossian, however, said that his organization “categorically rejects the so-called peace agreement between Israel and Jordan,” just as it rejects the peace initiative between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Calling Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin “a swindler, a liar,” Torossian added, “We intend to raise any voice we can to get Rabin out of office, and see the Jewish state remains safe.
“The prime minister feels this is peace,” he said, “then we’re going to test this peace process.”
He said that “Jordan is occupied Jewish territory. Jews lived there in the times of David; we were promised it in the Balfour Declaration.”
The Balfour Declaration, issued in England in 1917, stipulated the establishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine.
Jordanian government officials are condemning the proposed moves by the right-wing Jews.
“I see their statement as very provocative and irresponsible and uncalled for,” said Rania Atalla, director of the Jordan Information Bureau in Washington.
“Coming to Jordan to erect settlements and referring to Jordan as occupied Jewish territory is anti-peace,” she said.
Asked whether Jews could move to Jordan or receive Jordanian nationality, Atalla said, “The way we deal with non-Jordanians is based on nationality, not religion.”
She said she was unsure of naturalization procedures, adding, “I think we do it on a case by case basis.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
