US officials working on a Middle East peace plan have asked Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas about forming a confederation with Jordan, Abbas told activists Sunday, according to one of them. Abbas recounted the conversation he had with White House aides Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt during a meeting with Israeli peace activists in Ramallah, said Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now NGO, who attended.
According to Ofran, Abbas said he told the US officials he would only be interested if Israel was also part of such a confederation. It was not clear when the conversation took place, though Abbas has declined to meet with the White House since US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December.
Abbas's office confirmed Sunday's meeting with the peace activists, but not the comments on the confederation. Israeli media also reported Abbas's comments on the confederation proposal. Ofran said Abbas did not go into further detail. A Palestinian-Jordan confederation has been favoured by some on the Israeli right as a way to avoid granting full state status to the Palestinians for now.
In such an arrangement, Israel could also avoid taking responsibility for the some 3.5 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Abbas's response was essentially a way of torpedoing the proposal since Israel would likely not agree to join such an arrangement, Ofran told AFP. "He did say that Kushner and Greenblatt came to him and asked 'would you agree to a confederation with Jordan'," Ofran said, stressing she was paraphrasing his remarks.