Jordan’s Queen Rania Makes Most Sense of Mid-East Conflict

Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein has been the King of Jordan since 1999. Schooled in the West, he has been a level-headed ruler, with insight and wisdom regarding Mid-East turmoil and a promoter of inter-religious dialogue, especially between Muslims and Christians. His wife Queen Rania is just as wise as he is about these matters and equally articulate.

ABC News interviewed her yesterday about the current Israel-Hamas War in Gaza, which has now lasted almost one year, and what now appears to be an imminent widening of this war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Queen Rania points to another area of concern, saying the Jewish settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is alarming. She mentioned “Israel’s decades long strategy of completely dominating the West Bank, of it expansionist settlement policy—make life as miserable as possible for people in the West Bank, drive them out and then move into their homes and territory.” Queen Rania and her husband are way more intelligent and wise about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than any U.S. president has ever been, thus including President Biden.

Queen Rania continues, “If Israel was to achieve its objectives, even it it was to kill every last Hamas fighter, every last Hezbollah fighter, … As long as there is illegal, crushing occupation, … there will always be resistance.” She says there must be a “comprehensive peace deal that really addresses and gives rights to both sides.”

In 2001, I was in Washington, D.C., and met with Mid-East analyst Judith Kippur with the Center for Strategic and International Studies to discuss my proposal, set forth in my book, Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia, for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As can be easily gleaned from this title and the map on the book’s front cover, I allege that the traditional two-state solution of a Palestinian state in the separated territories of the Gaza Strip and West Bank is wrong-headed, a non-starter, and that an alternative two-state solution should be adopted. It is that the Palestinian state be located solely in the coastal plain, as a very expanded Gaza Strip, with Israel annexing all of the West Bank.

This arrangement coincides with historical precedent. That is, the ancient Philistines, who we read so much about in the Bible’s Old Testament, had their nation Philistia in the coastal plain and the Israelites had their nation mostly in Judea-Samaria, which amazingly represents today’s West Bank and was the very heartland of ancient Israel.

This arrangement, of course, requires a transfer of populations, with Jews moving out of today’s western Israel south of Tel Aviv and Palestinians from the West Bank replacing them. Ms. Kippur objected adamantly to my proposal by saying, “You can’t tell the Palestinians to get out of the West Bank.” I replied, “But what if Israel makes it so unbearable for them to live there that they want to live somewhere else?” That is what I believed would likely happen. Well, guess what! That’s what has been happening for decades, and its getting worse and worse and worse for West Bank Palestinians due mostly to two things.

First, for many decades Israel has been violating UN principles by allowing Jewish settlements to be developed in the West Bank. According to the UN, that is “occupied territory” that Israel is supposed to return to the Palestinians. Its called “the occupation.” This is a major issue which most Americans do not acknowledge or appreciate, especially Christians Zionists who wrongly advocate what Queen Rania mentioned—Israel’s expansionist policy to drive the Palestinians out of the West Bank and then annex all of it to Israel. But it involves more than that. Israeli leaders such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks about Israel having all the land “between the seas,” meaning between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea.

Second, the Israel Defense Forces control the West Bank and constantly turn a blind eye to atrocities committed by Jewish settlers therein against Palestinians. Israel does not allow Palestinians in the West Bank to have guns and rifles, yet Israel does allow the Jewish settlers therein to have them. That is a major reason why during hostilities, Palestinians are more vulnerable to injury and death than Jewish settlers are in the West Bank. And since the Israel-Hamas War began, Jewish settlers have increased their violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

I believe here’s what could happen in the future. When this Israel-Hamas War ends, and Hamas can no longer be an armed threat to Israel from Gaza, the Gaza Strip is going to have to be rebuilt. When this is contemplated, I think what could happen is that my proposal be considered as the most reasonable thing to do: a two-state solution with the State of Palestine existing only in the coastal plain south of Tel Aviv and Israel annexing all of the West Bank.

Where do I get this idea? I interpret it from end times Bible prophecies, beginning with Isaiah 11:14. Want to know more? Go to my website and click on Theologian and On Palestine. Half of the book is there for free reading—the portion about Bible prophecy. Better yet, get the book at amazon.com. Published in 1990, it was a book before its time. Since then, events have been moving in the direction of what I say in this book is going to happen. This book is still the only book published that sets forth this proposal for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.