WASHINGTON (Middle East Eye) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump offered Jordan’s King Abdullah II control over the occupied West Bank in 2018, a new book due to be published next week has revealed.
According to a report in the Washington Post, the book details how on receiving the offer the king told a friend: “I thought I was having a heart attack. I couldn’t breathe. I was bent doubled-over.”
Jordan ruled the West Bank from 1948 to 1967, when it was captured and illegally occupied by Zionist troops. Around 60 percent of the Jordanian population is of Palestinian descent.
Jordan’s government has always supported Palestinian statehood and any change in that policy would have been momentous and destabilizing.
The previously unreported offer comes after the Washington Post obtained a copy of Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021.
The book says Trump’s offer was made in January 2018 and is among several new details about his presidency revealed by Baker, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, and Glasser, staff writer for the New Yorker.
Since the start of the occupation, the Zionist regime has been building settlements in the West Bank that are considered illegal under international law. The settlements are said to be one of the main impediments to ‘peace’ in the region.
Despite signing a treaty with Tel Aviv, Amman has not recognized the Zionist regime’s 1967 occupation of east Al-Quds and other parts of the West Bank.
Trump’s offer came as Washington had no authority to give away this Palestinian land. The former U.S. president had been condemned by Palestinians for his pro-Zionist stance. Among his controversial measures with regard to Palestine was relocating the U.S. embassy to Al-Quds, not considering settlements inconsistent with international law, and pushing for a plan which had not included Palestinian rights.