The Hashemite king's ability to ride this tiger can only be made more difficult, however, if the Bush Administration succeeds in creating a Palestinian state on the West Bank of the Jordan River.
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And since the Mandate envisioned a Jewish state on both banks of the Jordan River, at a minimum the peace treaty sets a precedent for a future annexation of the west bank of the Jordan.
Mr Bennett combines talk of Jewish spiritual renewal with an implacable hostility towards the creation of a Palestinian state on the West Bank of the River Jordan and in Gaza - the so-called two-state solution which has been the cornerstone of international diplomacy in this region for decades.
Earlier on Wednesday, he visited Qasr el Yahud - the site on the West Bank of the River Jordan where Israel says Jesus was baptised.
Israeli settlement-building would make a viable Palestinian state ever harder to achieve: this summer Israel, ignoring its own road-map obligations, announced plans to increase the number of settlers in the Jordan Valley, in the east of the West Bank, by 50% in one year.
Obama has visited Israel, the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, Jordan and several other Middle Eastern and European countries.
In the Six Day War of June 1967, Israel defeated the combined armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, capturing the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula.
President Barack Obama plans to visit to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan in the spring, stepping into some of the thorniest foreign-policy challenges facing his second term Iran's nuclear program, unrest in Syria and long-stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
The delegations of Egypt and Jordan may include Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza or other Palestinians as mutually agreed.
At the current summit, Israel is being called upon to concede its vital strategic buffer, especially in the Jordan Valley, and to withdraw from 90 percent of the West Bank, precisely at a time in which the Western alliance has failed to maintain the monitoring of Iraq, which is only 250 miles to the east and has engaged Israel in four wars.
When talking about Palestine, the speaker is referring to the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River that includes the Jewish state of Israel and the Palestinian lands of the West Bank and Gaza.
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Jordan's purported annexation of the West Bank in 1950, recognized virtually nowhere, was the fruit of aggressive war and did not terminate Jewish rights in the territory. u.n.
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These negotiations will be conducted among Egypt, Israel, Jordan and the elected representatives of the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza.
On Thursday, Israel said it had detained a truck driver from the West Bank town of Nablus, whom it accused of smuggling dozens of weapons from Jordan to Israel under boxes of vegetables.
Mitchell's stop in Israel is part of an eight-day tour, which includes visits to Egypt, the West Bank, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the State Department said.
The Jordan Valley - most of which lies within the eastern strip of the West Bank - is about 120km long (75 miles) and 15km wide.
But in the Six Day War of 1967, Israel emerged victorious and captured the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
Certainly not Jordan, which quarantines exports from the West Bank until they are proven to be free of Israeli content, further burdening Palestinian businessmen.
On Wednesday, Jordan sent a convoy of trucks across the Jordan River packed with relief aid for Palestinians under Israeli curfew in the West Bank.
Israel is also claiming vast amounts of money, partly to rehouse those of its settlers who will have to leave the West Bank, partly to buy yet more splendid military equipment to offset the loss of security from handing over control of the Jordan valley.
As soon as possible, but not later than the third year after the beginning of the transitional period, negotiations will take place to determine the final status of the West Bank and Gaza and its relationship with its neighbours and to conclude a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan by the end of the transitional period.
Repercussions Elsewhere in the Region: As a practical matter, a new Palestinian entity on the West Bank particularly one under unabashedly radical leadership will also have the undesirable effect of destabilizing the neighboring kingdom of Jordan.
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