°®Âþµº

Skip to main content

No Palestine, no peace, Jordan king says after Amman protest

Jordan king says 'no stability in Middle East without a Palestine' after protests rock Amman
MENA
2 min read
11 October, 2023
Jordan's King Abdullah II said on Wednesday that peace without a Palestinian state would not be possible after pro-Palestine protests rocked the Jordanian capital of Amman a day earlier.
Jordanians took to the streets in a pro-Palestine protest in Amman on Tuesday [Laith Al-Jnaidi/Anadolu via Getty]

Jordan's King Abdullah II said on Wednesday that peace without a Palestinian state would not be possible after pro-Palestine protests rocked the Jordanian capital of Amman a day earlier.

He told Jordan's parliament that a two-state solution with a sovereign Palestinian state established on land that Israel had captured in 1967 and since occupied was the only option.

"Our region will never be secure nor stable without achieving just and comprehensive peace on the basis of the two-state solution," he said in a speech at the opening of a new parliamentary session.

"A Palestinian independent and sovereign state should be on June 4th, 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and so that the cycles of killing, whose ultimate victims are innocent civilians, end."

The monarch's comments followed a large rally in central Amman on Tuesday, where several thousand protesters chanted slogans in support of Hamas, demanded the government close the Israeli embassy in Amman, and scrap its decades-old peace treaty with Israel.

There have been protests worldwide since Saturday when Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel.

Israel has almost relentlessly bombarded the Gaza Strip since, killing over 1,000 Palestinians, including dozens of children. Hamas has continued to launch rockets into Israel.

Jordan normalised ties with Israel in the 1990s, but the deal is widely unpopular with Jordanians who see it as selling out of the Palestinian cause. The country is also home to a large Palestinian population.