A political firestorm has erupted following the revelation that last year, the Donald Trump administration attempted to circumvent the two-state solution by proposing to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the establishment of a confederation with Jordan. According to Israeli Peace Now activists who met with Abbas on Sept. 2, Abbas reportedly didn’t reject the offer but said his acceptance was conditional upon including Israel as a member of the Jordan-Palestine confederation.

Jordanian and Palestinian officials have publicly dismissed the idea. Jordanian government spokesperson Jumana Ghunaimat said on Sept. 2 that the idea of a confederation is “not under discussion” in Jordan. In Ramallah, presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said the idea has been around since 1984. “The position of the leadership has been since that time and until now that the two-state solution is the road to the special relationship with Jordan,” he said, adding, “The decision of confederacy is decided by the two peoples.”

Former Palestinian local government minister Khaled Qawasmi said that the latest Israeli and US proposal of a confederation is an attempt to bypass the two-state solution after removing the issues of Jerusalem and refugees from the negotiating table.

Qawasmi told Al-Monitor that the aim of the US offer is to show that there are options available. “They [the United States] want to claim that there is a political opportunity and that things have not reached a dead end.”