Jordanian Palestinian pro-democracy activist: “Kerry’s peace plan is unrealistic”

In an interview with Jerusalem Online News this week, Jordanian Palestinian pro-democracy activist and journalist Mudar Zahran, who has been mentioned as a possible successor to the Jordanian king, came out against Kerry’s peace plan, stressing that the main person who benefits from it is the Jordanian monarchy.

Zahran feels that the average Palestinian and Israeli gains nothing from it, as he views that the world should invest in establishing a democratic Palestinian state in Jordan rather than in the Hashemite dynasty and the Palestinian Authority, whose leadership will likely reject the deal out of the fear of falling victim to the Arab Spring. He emphasized, “Kerry’s peace plan is unrealistic,” citing an Al Quds Al Arabi report claiming that the U.S. offered Jordan’s king $55 billion in exchange for settling Palestinian refugees presently living across the Middle East in Jordan.

According to Zahran, the Jordanian “king’s media has been celebrating the $55 billion deal as it would mean the king will remain in power with American support. In fact, Ynews provided clear information that Jordan’s king proposed the peace plan to Obama in order to prevent Jordan from becoming Palestine.” The problem, from Zahran’s perspective, is that the king himself predicted his own downfall within a year and the country’s Palestinian majority already wants a democratic country where Palestinians would have a right of return.

Mudar Zahran believes it is very important to find a proper solution to the Palestinian refugee crisis. He accuses the various Arab regimes of engaging in apartheid practices against their Palestinian citizens. Jerusalem Online News reported that in Lebanon, the situation is so dire that descendants of Palestinian refugees are barred from 20 different professions and have no access to public social services. Even their access to health and educational services is limited.

In Syria, Palestinian refugees are barred citizenship rights and because of this status, it has been more difficult for them to flee Assad’s democide than other residents of Syria. Jordan has denied entry to thousands of Palestinian refugees from Syria. As a result, they are mainly stuck in Syria, a country where over 130,000 people have been slaughtered, 6,000 women have been raped, 2,000,000 have become refugees, and countless others were tortured, while their homes and neighborhoods were transformed into rubble.

In the Palestinian Yarmouk Refugee Camp in the Syrian capital city of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights noted that 85 Palestinians have been killed since June 2013 merely because of starvation and illnesses that could be prevented, due to a lack of food and medical supplies because of the democide that Assad is committing against the Syrian people. In 2012, the Jerusalem Post reported that the Palestinian Authority accused Assad of massacring Palestinians, after 25 residents of the Yarmouk Refugee Camp were killed.

In regards to Jordan, Mudar Zahran wrote in the Jerusalem Post, “Jordan is a country with a Palestinian majority which allows them little or no involvement in any political or executive bodies or parliament. This lack of political and legislative representation of Jordanians of Palestinian heritage has been enforced by decades of systematic exclusion in all aspects of life expanding into their disenfranchisement in education, employment, housing, state benefits and even business potential, all developing into an existing apartheid no different than that formerly adopted in South Africa, except for the official acknowledgement of it.”

However, despite the dire need of a solution to the Palestinian refugee crisis, Zahran calls on the United States and international community to invest in the Jordanian democratic leaders of the Arab Spring in order to bring about a resolution rather than the Hashemites. He told Jerusalem Online News: “Why would the world give Jordan’s current king $55 billon for settling his own citizens? There are 5.9 million Palestinians in Jordan. It’s their own country and it has been since day one, when it was the Eastern part of the British Mandate for Palestine.”

“This is as silly as giving Sweden’s king $55 billion for having Swedes in Sweden. The king does not represent us as Palestinians and we will never accept any deals that involve him. He is irrelevant.” Zahran concluded, “Also, with $55 billion the world could turn Jordan into another Dubai, and make the Palestinians majority in Jordan live happily. Why give it to the king who could also fall to the Arab Spring like any other Arab dictator and then he would leave and take the $55 billion with him.”