Up until the convening of the Arab League summit in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, in October 1974, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was the official representative of Palestinians. After all, Jordan was home to most Palestinians before 1967, and the West Bank (including east Jerusalem) was part of the kingdom from 1952-1967. Palestinians living on both sides of the Jordan River were — and many still are — Jordanian citizens.
During the summit in Rabat, the Arab League recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization as the “sole and legitimate” representative of the Palestinian people everywhere. For the most part that has been accepted. But Jordan continues to host the single-largest group of Palestinian refugees: 42% of all registered Palestinian refugees live in Jordan and have full Jordanian citizenship.
It is this fact that has caused Jordan to try to wiggle its way back to some sort of representation. Jordanian governmental and parliamentary officials have recently stepped up their rhetoric about the need for Jordan to play some kind of role in representing those refugees, who are also their citizens. The potential of the success of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s mission has heightened interest by Jordan.
Jordan’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour opened up this new line of discussion by stating Jordan’s official policy on Palestinian refugees: "Every Palestinian refugee [who came] to Jordan between 1946 and 1949 has the right of return and compensation." Ensour also said all refugees who have become citizens should exercise their personal rights to return and receive compensation. Jordan also hosts nearly half a million refugees from the Gaza Strip who have not been granted citizenship. Their fate is also of extreme importance to Jordanians in terms of the country's demographic balance; many conservative Jordanians fear that the country’s original citizens might become a minority in their own country. This means that Jordan thinks it has a say in at least three different categories of Palestinians: those who entered Jordan before the 1949 armistice agreement, those who became refugees in 1948 and 1967 and those from the Gaza Strip who have made Jordan their refuge but have never received citizenship because the Gaza Strip was never part of Jordan.
AL-MONITOR All-Access gives you unlimited access to all our journalism, the full Daily Briefing, exclusive interviews, premium newsletters, and live events — for less than $2/week.
