Trump said to have proposed ‘great deal’ to Jordan’s King Abdullah II: Control of the West Bank

Trump said to have proposed ‘great deal’ to Jordan’s King Abdullah II: Control of the West Bank

The Times of Israel reports:

Former US president Donald Trump offered control of the West Bank to Jordan’s King Abdullah II, a shocking proposal that led the monarch to think he was having a heart attack, according to a new book.

Trump offered the “great deal” to the king in January 2018, according to The Washington Post’s excerpts of an upcoming book.

The report said that Trump seemed unaware that the move could have a potential destabilizing effect on the Hashemite Kingdom, over half of whose 9.5 million population is of Palestinian descent, some of whom have called for the monarchy to be overthrown.

“I thought I was having a heart attack,” Abdullah II reportedly told an American friend later that same year

“I couldn’t breathe. I was bent doubled-over,” the king said.

The book said Trump believed he would be doing the king a favor with the offer, apparently not seeming to grasp its wider implications, or the fact that he was offering land that did not belong to the US.

The report did not say if Israel was aware of the offer at the time.

Israel captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war. The Palestinians want both territories to be part of their future state, a position with strong Jordanian and international support. [Continue reading…]

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