As Trump eyes postwar diplomacy, Israel’s leaders resist renewed calls for Palestinian statehood. Senator Lindsey Graham warns annexation would erode U.S. backing, while talk of a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation quietly re-enters the debate. History and Security demand that there be no Arab state between “the river and the sea.”
When U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham told The Jerusalem Post that “being pro-Israel means telling hard truths,” his remarks carried both warning and weight. At the Republican Jewish Coalition summit in Las Vegas, the South Carolina senator — long one of Israel’s staunchest allies — declared that “the only path that keeps Israel Jewish and democratic is a two-state framework, when the conditions are real.”
That assertion, though well-intentioned, runs headlong into Israel’s post-October 7 reality. The massacre shattered any residual faith in Palestinian governance, convincing most Israelis that sovereignty next door means security suicide. Across Israel’s political spectrum, the very phrase “two-state solution” has become shorthand for naïveté. For Graham and other American policymakers, however, abandoning the idea altogether would forfeit Israel’s moral high ground and risk eroding bipartisan U.S. support.
Israel’s Red Line
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that Israel will “never again allow an independent entity between the Jordan and the sea.” His government — reflecting overwhelming public sentiment — now defines victory not in diplomatic terms but in perpetual security control from the river to the Mediterranean. That includes freedom of action in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) and a postwar Gaza arrangement that leaves Israel holding ultimate authority.
Graham’s message to such thinking was stark: “If you want to marginalize the Jewish state, go down that road. You would lose support here in America, and you would isolate Israel from the world.” He urged Israelis to preserve a political horizon, however distant, warning that permanent rule over millions of disenfranchised Palestinians would invite diplomatic collapse.
Trump’s Strategic Lens
Within Trump’s orbit, advisers echo that balance of power and vision. They see the opportunity to rebuild Gaza and expand the Abraham Accords — but only if there is a “credible political destination.” Trump’s foreign-policy circle, informed by Gulf partners, has been exploring new configurations that would preserve Israeli security while giving Arabs a stake in reconstruction and governance.
At the center of that emerging discussion lies an old idea with new logic: the Jordanian-Palestinian confederation.
The Jordanian-Palestinian Solution
The premise is straightforward — and politically explosive. Most Palestinians in the world are already Jordanians; Jordan itself was carved from the original British Mandate of Palestine. A Jordanian-Palestinian framework would recognize that historic and demographic reality. Rather than creating yet another state, it would reunite the Palestinian population under Amman’s sovereignty, with localized autonomy in parts of Judea and Samaria administered through a confederal structure.
Israel would retain overriding security control — including the Jordan Valley, border crossings, and airspace — ensuring no armed threat emerges west of the river. Palestinians would gain civic and economic agency within a broader Jordanian-Palestinian polity, while Israel’s Jewish and democratic character would remain intact. No populations would be uprooted, no soldiers withdrawn from strategic highlands, and no new army permitted across the border.
Advocates of the plan argue it could anchor regional stability by linking Palestinians to an established, moderate Arab state rather than to a failed revolutionary movement. Critics caution that Amman would resist absorbing additional instability and that Palestinian nationalism cannot simply be rebranded. Yet, compared to the alternatives — an unviable mini-state or endless occupation — the Jordanian-Palestinian option offers a path toward functional coexistence without existential risk.
Beyond the Old Two-State Dogma
For Trump, who sees himself as a dealmaker rather than a traditional diplomat, such pragmatism has appeal. It avoids the failed Oslo framework while giving Saudi Arabia and other Arab partners the “dignity” component they demand for normalization. The vision is not of two equal states but of one secure Israel and one Arab partner — Jordan-Palestine — connected through shared administration, open borders, and Western economic support.
Graham’s own phrasing hinted at this sequencing: “You put Gaza in the hands of Arabs who do not want to kill all the Jews… You devolve authority based on performance. If they cannot meet the metrics, they do not get the power.” That same principle could govern a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation — gradual empowerment tied to peace, not promises.
The Coming Crossroads
When the fighting in Gaza ends, Trump and his allies are likely to press Israel for a political roadmap. It will not be Oslo revisited but something new: a pragmatic architecture that secures Israel’s borders while giving Palestinians a life to live for, rather than a cause to die for.
Israel, however, remains unmoved. Its leaders insist that October 7 proved the futility of compromise. For them, security control is not negotiable. The United States — even under a pro-Israel president like Trump — may soon test how far that principle can stretch before friendship itself begins to fray.
The next phase of U.S.–Israel relations may thus hinge not on the old two-state paradigm, but on whether both sides can recognize what was always true: that Jordan and Palestine are one, and that Israel’s future security depends not on partition, but on permanence — a structure that keeps it strong, sovereign, and secure.
Israel knows the “Palestinians ” cannot remain on their soil. They are mostly Jordanians, and Egyptians by heritage, with Jordanians the dominant population. It’s past time they go home, and leave the Israelis alone. It’s just WRONG, and evil to try to force these enemies on the Israelis, simply because their own dedicated state doesn’t want their trouble-making; they aren’t trying to kill Jordanians for simply existing as they are doing Israelis!