Liberman’s Jordanian plan is a recipe for disaster

Jonathan Pollard warns that Liberman’s plan to hand Jordan control of Palestinian areas could destabilize the kingdom and threaten Israel’s security.

By Jonathan Pollard

Avigdor Liberman, chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, has once again sparked a political firestorm with his newly unveiled plan, “Israel’s Endgame in the West Bank and Gaza.”

Departing from his previous political positions, Liberman is now calling for the complete dismantling of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the establishment of an “Israeli-Jordanian confederation” to manage Judea and Samaria.

Under this framework, Jordan would assume full administrative, civil, and policing responsibilities for the Palestinian populations in Areas A and B, while Israel would annex Area C and retain overarching security control.

While Liberman correctly diagnoses the complete bankruptcy of the PA, his proposed cure is an unworkable illusion that threatens Israel’s national security and regional stability.

By attempting to outsource Israel’s most complex challenges to Amman, his plan ignores critical geopolitical realities, echoes failed historical proposals, and avoids what I believe is the only definitive resolution left after the catastrophe of October 7: the full assertion of Israeli sovereignty and the permanent transfer of the Arab population residing in the Territories.

A History of Flawed Territorial Plans

This is not the first time Liberman has proposed redrawing maps to avoid direct governance. His current plan closely mirrors his controversial 2004 “Populated-Area Exchange Plan,” in which he proposed transferring Arab-majority regions within Israel’s sovereign borders, specifically the Triangle towns of Umm al-Fahm, Taibe, and Tira, to the PA in exchange for annexing Jewish settlement blocs that supposedly fell within Israel’s “national consensus.”

That proposal encountered overwhelming opposition. Notably, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raised severe strategic objections, warning that relinquishing control of the Triangle would compromise vital military logistics routes to the north and effectively isolate Jewish communities in the Galilee.

Liberman’s current plan suffers from the same fundamental flaw: it treats complex territorial defense and demographic realities as lines on a map that can be shifted without severe strategic consequences.

Revisiting Failed Proposals from 2024

Liberman’s current strategy expands upon equally flawed and dangerous ideas he floated in early 2024.

At that time, he declared the two-state solution “dead” and suggested a regional confederation in which Egypt would assume control over the Gaza Strip while Jordan would oversee Palestinian enclaves in Judea and Samaria.

Predictably, that initiative went nowhere. Egypt had no desire to be dragged into bloody urban combat with Hamas if the terrorist organization refused to disarm, while Jordan recognized that becoming entangled in a conflict involving radical Islamists and remnants of the PA security apparatus could threaten the stability of the Hashemite monarchy.

Yet Liberman now appears determined to resurrect essentially the same concept, despite the fundamental obstacles that made it unworkable in the first place.

Threatening Jordan’s Stability

Liberman’s strategy rests on the assumption that Jordan can be compelled to police volatile Palestinian population centers such as Nablus, Jenin, and Tulkarm. This assumption fundamentally misreads the fragile domestic balance within the Hashemite kingdom.

Amman has historically and consistently rejected any framework that positions Jordan as an “alternative homeland” for the Palestinians.

For the Jordanian monarchy, assuming responsibility for millions of Palestinians and policing terrorist strongholds would represent a potentially existential threat, risking domestic upheaval fueled by Palestinian discontent and an emboldened Muslim Brotherhood.

Liberman dismisses these concerns by claiming Jordan would have “no choice” but to comply out of fear of a Hamas vacuum on its border.

In reality, given the choice between fighting an urban guerrilla war inside Judea and Samaria or allowing the IDF to manage the threat, Jordanian leaders would have every incentive to leave the security burden to Israel rather than risk a jihadist conflict that could destabilize their own kingdom.

Creating New Security Risks

Introducing foreign Arab military and police forces into the strategic heartland of Judea and Samaria would create serious additional security risks. Following the catastrophe of October 7, Israel cannot afford to introduce more armed actors into an already volatile environment.

Rather than bringing stability, the presence of Jordanian security forces alongside heavily armed local factions and active terrorist organizations could create a chaotic, multilayered security nightmare.

If Jordanian forces failed to contain local terrorist groups, Israel would still be forced to intervene, but under far more complicated circumstances. The IDF could find itself operating in areas under Jordanian administration, creating the additional diplomatic danger of confrontation with the forces of a country with which Israel maintains a peace treaty.

Israel would therefore retain ultimate responsibility for preventing terrorism while surrendering much of its freedom to manage the territory directly.

The Case for Sovereignty and Population Transfer

Liberman’s proposal represents an attempt to evade the difficult realities of direct security management by transferring responsibility to a neighbor that neither wants the burden nor possesses the means to carry it effectively.

The reality after October 7, in my assessment, is that decades of systematic PA indoctrination, antisemitic incitement, and the glorification of terrorism have produced a deeply radicalized Palestinian society in the Territories.

Israel can no longer afford to base its security strategy on the expectation that these attitudes will somehow disappear under a new administrative arrangement.

Accepting a persistently hostile population within Israel’s historic heartland is, in my view, no longer a viable security posture.

Instead of pursuing unworkable confederations or preserving the failed status quo, Israel must consider a fundamental change in strategy built around three decisive measures.

Renounce the Oslo Accords: Formally dismantle the frameworks that empowered a hostile Palestinian leadership structure and left Israel confronting persistent security threats from territories at the heart of its historic homeland.

Declare Full Sovereignty: Extend complete Israeli sovereign control over the entirety of Judea and Samaria, ending the ambiguity that has allowed competing authorities to undermine Israel’s security.

Implement a Permanent Population Transfer: Compel the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria to relocate to neighboring regional states, including Syria, as part of a permanent territorial and demographic settlement.

Large-scale population transfers have historical precedents, including the 1947 Partition of the Indian Subcontinent, the post-World War II population relocations in Eastern Europe, and the post-1948 exodus of Jewish communities from Arab nations.

These events occurred under different historical circumstances and often involved immense human suffering. Nevertheless, they demonstrate that major demographic changes have accompanied the resolution or restructuring of longstanding territorial and national conflicts, even if their consequences remain deeply contested.

Shifting the Burden is Not a Strategy

Ultimately, Liberman’s latest proposal exposes what I regard as a chronic and disqualifying flaw in his strategic thinking: a persistent preference for assigning Israel’s existential security problems to foreign actors who lack the will, the capability, or the responsibility to secure the Jewish state.

From his 2004 proposal to transfer Israeli Arab communities in the Triangle, to his 2024 attempt to draw Egypt into responsibility for Gaza, and now to his proposed Jordanian confederation, the underlying approach remains the same.

Rather than confronting Israel’s security challenges directly, Liberman seeks territorial and administrative arrangements that depend upon the cooperation of neighboring states whose interests are fundamentally different from Israel’s own.

Security threats cannot be wished away by passing them to neighboring countries, nor can the defense of Israel’s heartland be entrusted to foreign forces.

History has repeatedly demonstrated the dangers of relying on outside actors to govern or police hostile elements along Israel’s borders. Israel alone bears ultimate responsibility for eliminating the threats to its existence.

True strategic clarity requires us to confront those dangers directly, assert sovereignty, and take responsibility for our own future rather than placing our national survival in the hands of others.

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