Israel and the issue of preserving the peace with Jordan - by Caroline Glick

Jordan’s actions over the past several weeks reinforce what has been clear for some time. In its rush to protect Abdullah and the peace, Israel has forgotten to deter Abdullah to preserve the peace. The time has come for Israel to correct its behavior. (Including requiring Jordan to  extradite the terrorist Ahlam Tamimi - YH)

Caroline Glick..
Carolineglick.com..
06 December '19..
Link: http://carolineglick.com/preserving-the-peace-with-jordan/

Tuesday Israel’s Channel 13 reported that President Donald Trump’s Deputy National Security Advisor Victoria Coates held a meeting at the White House last week with the ambassadors of Oman, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco. She reportedly asked the emissaries to check whether their governments are willing to consider signing non-aggression pacts with Israel.

The story, which the White House did not deny indicates the Trump administration has embraced an Israeli initiative, raised publicly last month by Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz. The idea is that through the non-aggression pacts, which are less than peace treaties, Israel and its Arab neighbors will be able to sidestep the issue of formal relations, replete with embassy opening ceremonies, and simply engage in open relations, for the benefit of all sides.

This has been the central goal of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s diplomatic strategy. For decades, foreign policy practitioners and activitists in the U.S., Europe and the Israeli left have insisted that peace between Israel and the larger Arab world is impossible so long as Israel has not concluded a peace treaty with the PLO. This view gives the PLO the power to dictate if, when and under what conditions Arab nations will be “allowed” to have normal relations with the Jewish state.

Netanyahu’s goal has long been to rescind the PLO’s veto. By working behind the scenes to build constructive, stable ties with the states of the region predicated on mutual interests, Netanyahu has made great strides in achieving this goal. The very fact that Coates reportedly held the meeting with the Arab ambassadors in the White House is testament to the success of his efforts.

The dimensions of Netanyahu’s achievement are clear when you compare Israel’s constructive, mutually beneficial ties with states with which it lacks formal peace treaties to Israel’s ties with Jordan.

In recent remarks before a Knesset meeting marking the 25th anniversary of the signing of Israel’s peace treaty with Jordan, Netanyahu explained that the basis of Israel’s peaceful relations with Egypt and Jordan is not emotional. The Egyptians and Jordanians haven’t embraced Israel as a neighbor and friend. Rather, Israel’s peace treaties are the products of its deterrent power.

In his words, “As long as we are stronger – they are with us. If we become weaker, then the peace agreements will hang by a thread.”

That means that practically speaking there is little substantive difference between Israel’s ties with say, the UAE, and Israel’s ties with Egypt. So long as both perceive Israel as strong and helpful, and impossible to destroy, they will have good relations with it. If Israel becomes a strategic basket case on the other hand, then those relations will rapidly deteriorate.

In Egypt’s case, the combination of Israeli strength and shared interests in combatting Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood improved relations to an unprecedented degree. Acting on these shared interests and his recognition of Israeli power, Egyptian President Abdel el-Fattah a-Sisi played a significant role in cultivating ties between the Sunni Gulf states and Israel.

Jordan is a different story. While Israel’s relations with Egypt have never been better, its relations with Jordan have never been worse. Indeed, Israel’s informal ties with Saudi Arabia today are arguably better than its formal ties with Jordan. So what is going on? Is Israel doing something wrong? What does it get out of its ties with Jordan to begin with?

The most important advantage Israel gains from its ties with Jordan is a long peaceful eastern frontier. But that peaceful border, which is a function of Israel’s control of the Jordan Valley on the one hand and to Jordan’s actions to secure its border with Israel on the other, predates the peace treaty by more than 20 years. Moreover, given the downward trajectory of bilateral ties, it’s hard to know how long Jordan will remain committed to securing the border. From week to week, Jordan’s growing hostility towards Israel become more difficult to countenance or explain away.

Consider events of the past three weeks.

We listened carefully to Jordan's minister and we have 10 questions - by Arnold Roth

...We assume these questions are going to be ignored as all our previous questions, comments and suggestions to the Jordanian ruling clique have been. We know how easily voices like ours can be brushed aside. But we hope to show the minister and his king that brushing aside the questions themselves is going to be less easy.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
26 July '17..

For reasons that regular readers will know, we watch events in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan with more than the usual amount of interest.

Here's an article, under the headline "Jordan sees Israeli reactions to embassy case ‘absurd’" that gets prominence in today's Jordan Times:

AMMAN — A senior official on Tuesday described as “absurd” the Israeli reactions after a diplomat who killed two Jordanians on Sunday arrived back in Israel. Israeli media on Tuesday showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu giving a hero’s welcome to the unidentified embassy staffer who killed a 16-year-old boy and a surgeon.
“Absurd [are] some of the reactions that are coming of Israel which are trying to show this as if the ambassador and the suspect were under siege and were somehow liberated and celebrating them as heroes coming back home. This is really absurd. This is a criminal case and I think it is in everybody’s interest that it is pursued as such,” Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told CNN in an interview on Tuesday.
Instead, he said, justice should be allowed to take its course, and to respect the fact that two Jordanians were killed, he added.
Safadi said: “Jordan acted legally and morally [by complying to international laws on diplomatic mission]. It is upon Israel to do the same and allow for justice to take its course and to stop provocative behaviours that distort the facts here.
“We respected our obligations under international law because the suspect enjoys diplomatic immunity. We agreed with his statement, which we did and we agreed with the Israelis that he goes back. So Jordan did what it had to do under international law and now it is incumbent upon Israel to also do what it has to do under the law, which is to allow for the criminal justice to take its course and also to act morally and allow for justice to happen.”
Safadi acknowledged that Jordan’s abidance by international law drew fire domestically, especially from MPs.
“The government is under pressure by deputies because it allowed the Israeli killer to leave,” he said, stressing that the decision had to be taken in this way out of Jordan’s commitments to international conventions.
["Jordan sees Israeli reactions to embassy case ‘absurd’", Jordan Times, July 26, 2017]

Interesting ideas, and some striking expressions that we highlighted. Now we have some questions for Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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If Jordan's stand on terror is "clear to everyone", can they answer these 2 questions? by Arnold Roth

We absolutely share the Jordan foreign minister's view that Jordan's "positions" ought to be "clear to everyone". As clear as they can possibly be.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
16 May '17..






Over at Ynet, there's a report ["Responding to Netanyahu, Jordan says stance against terrorism 'clear to everyone'", Roi Kais, May 14, 2017] from last night that's hard for us to ignore.

It quotes the foreign minister of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan attempting to explain, in the wake of bitter criticism from Israel a day earlier, that when it comes to defeating the terrorists, Jordan is on the right side:

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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A Jordanian stabs an Israeli and the Jordanians are outraged (so are we, for different reasons)

...Don't bother looking for Jordanian sympathies for the Israeli injured or Hashemite wishes for their speedy recovery. They don't exist. Mr Al-Momani's call for "collective efforts" to "confront terrorism" wherever it exists is obviously quite selective. He doesn't, for instance, mean to include our daughter's murderer, Ahlam Tamimi, who has been given shelter in Jordan even though she is now on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
13 May '17..

Recent (and very recent) events have gotten us thinking about the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and its attitude to terror. One thing's clear: there are aspects of this that ought to be much better known. We feel a duty to help that happen.

First, the drama of today. There has been an early-afternoon Arab-on-Israeli knifing attack in Jerusalem's Old City today (Saturday), close to what Israelis call Lions' Gate. It's also known as St. Stephen's Gate or Sheep Gate and it's one of the seven open Gates in Jerusalem's Old City walls.

The Israeli victim is injured but alive and getting emergency treatment at Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center for knife wounds to the neck and head. He was conscious and in stable condition when rushed to the hospital.

The attacker, said to be a visitor from Jordan who arrived in Israel (yes, indeed, Jordanians can do that) a couple of days ago, is dead.

What happened is, as usual, largely a matter of the prejudices and openness a person brings to the discussion.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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What a Jordanian hero and his admirers tell us about the likelihood of peace - by Arnold Roth

...If there's any news coverage of the feelings and responses of the families of those sweet girls he murdered, we haven't found it yet. The same goes for any Jordanian or other Arab voices expressing disgust at the after-the-fact bravado of a man with a big gun who took aim at unarmed girls and has come to fame only because of what happened to them when he pulled the trigger again and again and again.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
12 March '17..

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan this morning released from prison a man called Ahmed Mousa Daqamseh.

Not such a well-known name in Western countries, he's something of a folk hero among the Palestinian Arabs who constitute the clear majority of Jordan's population.

This is because he recently won the Arab Idol television competition and his songs are heard everywhere.

No, we're not being serious. He doesn't write songs. He doesn't perform on TV. His fame comes from the fact that he developed a wildly-successful best-selling app for the Android smart-phone platform.

No, no, that's not true either. We don't actually think the high school dropout has any facility with technology after years behind bars. No, he's famous - truly - because he plays center-half in one of Europe's most-high profile soccer teams and is one of the team's stars.

No, not that either.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Mahmoud Abbas’s Careless Candor by Sarah Honig

...If anyone can lay claim to utmost mastery of the thriving arts of history-forging it’s the Jordanians. Their entire state, nationhood and very identity are a sham. Had the international community not been sympathetically predisposed to lap up the lie, Jordan obviously couldn’t pull it off. Its wholesale deceit hinges on a world contentedly complicit in hoodwinking itself – to no small measure because it’s loath to overcome its congenital Jew-aversion. So the deceit blithely thrives in a world so eager to be deceived. The recent-vintage Jordanian and Palestinian pseudo-ethnicities are presented as bona fide nationalities. Moreover, it’s brazenly asserted that they are dissimilar and deserve self-determination in separate homelands.

Mahmoud Abbas (right) to King Abdullah-
We are one nation in two states

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
18 June '15..

Abraham Lincoln once famously said that “no man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”

Honest Abe of course never encountered Palestinian Authority figurehead Mahmoud Abbas, who’s certainly a hugely successful liar. Nonetheless, Abbas, like most liars, does find it exceedingly hard to keep track of all the whoppers that incessantly escape his lips.

The more he fibs, the harder it becomes to bear in mind at each and every moment what version of which pretense he had used on each occasion and with whom. Eventually, even a consummate liar like Abbas is sure to slip up.

That’s what happened to him during his recent stopover in Amman, on the way back from Doha where he married off his grandson in sumptuous style. But Abbas, alas, found himself in a bit of hot water as soon as his visit began.

The Hashemite Kingdom’s loyalists didn’t take kindly to reports that Jibril Rajoub – Abbas’s fellow Fatah honcho and chairman of the Palestinian Football Association – had failed to vote for Prince Ali Ibn al-Hussein to head FIFA. Ali is King Abdullah’s own brother who, owing to the monarchy’s non-too-regulated nepotistic inclinations, is also president of the Jordan Football Association. Rajoub’s attempts to kick Israel out of soccer’s international federation didn’t mitigate the royal umbrage.

Seeking to sooth the offended Hashemites, Abbas assured them that “the relationship between Jordan and Palestine is the relationship of one nation living in two states.”

Quite inadvertently, the above blandishment may well be the truest statement to have been uttered by Abbas in a very long time. It doubtless resulted from a memory lapse of the sort Lincoln judged that all liars are inevitably liable to experience.

Overwrought, Abbas briefly forgot to toe his own line and explicitly contradicted his own two-state refrain – the mendacious mantra about two states for two nations that’s reiterated everywhere as if it were infallible God-given gospel.

Abbas unintentionally admitted is that the so-called Palestinians and the so-called Jordanians are one and the same, that there’s no difference between them, that a two-state solution is already in force and that Arabs already control nearly 80 percent of Palestine. Hence, Abbas’s claim that he represents yet another nation that clamors for yet another Palestinian Arab state is nothing but an expedient scam.

The divergent Arab ethnicities, accepted at face value by the gullible non-Arab world, are all counterfeit. The Jordanians/Palestinians offer a cogent case in point.

A World Where Fictional Creations and Old Antipathies Die Hard by Sarah Honig

...Nonetheless, the dysfunctional family of nations decrees that for the sake of world peace the Etzion Bloc must forever revert to its brief erstwhile judenfrei status. Why? Because old antipathies die hard. In some cases they just never die at all, the staggering volatility around us notwithstanding. Otherwise sterling democracies still hold fast to their archaic prejudices despite the dizzying flux and scary savagery of our times – especially in the logic-defying Middle East.

Feisal I, arbitrarily declared
King of Syria and later
King of Iraq [1919 portrait
by renowned British
painter Augustus John]

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
11 September '14..

Why are the White House, Whitehall and hubs of diplomacy in all the capitals of the EU so irascibly indignant over Israel’s decision to declare 400 hectares in Gush Etzion state lands?

Under whichever conceivable future compromise (if any) this minuscule area is sure to remain Israeli, as it was even before Israeli independence.

The Etzion Bloc fell to Arab besiegers in 1948 and its Jewish defenders were cold-bloodedly massacred after they had already surrendered. Destroyed and desolate, it languished under Jordanian occupation for merely 19 years. Nonetheless, the dysfunctional family of nations decrees that for the sake of world peace the Etzion Bloc must forever revert to its brief erstwhile judenfrei status.

Why? Because old antipathies die hard. In some cases they just never die at all, the staggering volatility around us notwithstanding. Otherwise sterling democracies still hold fast to their archaic prejudices despite the dizzying flux and scary savagery of our times – especially in the logic-defying Middle East.

Until lately hardly any statesmen, observers or scholars dared question the region’s national divisions or the borders delineating them. The sole exception, not unexpectedly, was their inimical perception of the Jewish state’s legitimacy. To all and sundry it seemed that Iraq, Syria or Libya were ancient nations with distinct characters and cohesive identities all their own.

Casting doubt on this was not only politically incorrect but it was castigated as heresy of the most profane and preposterous kind. Most unwelcome were reminders about the imperialist post-World War I deals between Britain and France which blatantly invented nationalities, defined their jurisdictions and even assigned them rulers. Highlighting any of this was judged to be arcane nitpicking, irrelevant and even subversive.

What was imposed by the superpowers of a hundred years ago on the Fertile Crescent, for example, was accepted as irrevocable. Opinion-molders inculcated in the masses worldwide the notion that yesteryear’s capricious concoctions are for keeps.

Doubters – few and far between – were derided and denounced.

Who, for example, cared that His Majesty’s government once sucked up to the Hashemite clan that ruled Islam’s holiest sites in what was known as Hejaz? In return for (not very valuable) Hashemite support during the Great War, Sharif Hussein bin-Ali, Mecca’s Hashemite emir (also self-proclaimed Caliph of all Muslims) was assured that his sons Abdullah and Faisal would be handsomely rewarded.

Hussein, by the way was the one who in 1924 lost control of Islam’s sacred city and surrounding provinces to a rival clan, the Saudis. Had he won, we’d be speaking today of Hashemite Arabia instead of Saudi Arabia (which is also no long-established monarchy in situ from time immemorial).

Abdullah, the older Hejazi princeling, was to get as his gift/payoff nearly 80% of the British Mandate over Palestine, which originally extended over both banks of the Jordan. It was all land designated by the League of Nations as the National Home for the Jewish people.

To be sure, Hashemite appetites weren’t quite sated by the freebee. Abdullah sought the title of Emir of Palestine – a country to which he had no previous connection whatsoever. Britain made him settle for Transjordan – on the east bank of the mini-river.

The Kingdom of Jordan Also Has Reason to Worry About the Two-State Solution

...Jordanians reject Secretary Kerry's proposals because they are only "playing host" to Palestinians who they believe should not be not full citizens. And they believe only the IDF, not the U.S. or the UN, will protect them from an unwelcome influx of more.

Shoshana Bryen..
JPC/Forbes..
07 February '14..

It has been said that Jordan is the only Arab country in which Palestinians have "full citizenship." That is less than a complete truth. As Secretary of State John Kerry pursues his plan for a "two state solution," the insecurity of Palestinian legal status in Jordan is emerging.

Israel's vociferous objection to removing the IDF from the Jordan River line in the West Bank is easy to understand. Maj. Gen. Ya'akov Amidror, former National Security Advisor said bluntly, "Only Israeli forces can make us sure that we will not find ourselves living with another Gaza Strip in Ramallah, which is five miles from the Israeli parliament in the city of Jerusalem. This is so important for us that we are not going to give it away."

The Jordanians, too, are adamant about rejecting the proposal. There is close security cooperation between the Israeli and Jordanian security services. The Jordanians are capable and dedicated to preventing infiltration of operatives and weapons into the West Bank through its territory. The Israelis are equally dedicated to border security along the Jordan River that helps keep the Kingdom secure.

But more is at work.

The estimable Arab-Israeli journalist Khalid Abu Toameh, senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, reported this week that a group of retired Jordanian army generals issued a statement warning their government against accepting Kerry's proposals for fear that Palestinians would be "settled" in Jordan. "This is an American-Zionist plot to liquidate the Palestinian cause at the expense of Jordan."A Jordanian columnist wrote, "Jordan's politicians and parties want to alert the world that Jordan is playing host [to Palestinians] and Jordanians believe that Kerry is offering to turn Jordan into a Palestinian state."

MP Abdel Hadi Majali accused Kerry of "diluting the Jordanian national identity by dropping the right of return for Palestinians and granting them Jordanian citizenship."

Why would Israel want to replace its best friend in the Arab world–Jordan–with its worst enemy, a radical Palestinian State with the size, infrastructure, finances, weaponry and international legitimacy of the Kingdom?

It doesn't. The Jordanians are, in fact, reflecting a little-known fact of life east of the River: the shaky legal status of Jordanian Palestinians and the deep desire of East Bank non-Palestinians to be rid of them. A quick recap of Jordanian/Palestinian history:

Another brilliant idea! Pushing for an Israeli withdrawal that would destabilize Jordan

...If the West truly cares about stability, pushing for an Israeli withdrawal that would destabilize Jordan, one of the region’s last remaining islands of stability, seems highly counterproductive. Indeed, given how often Israeli pullouts have had negative results, the West might do better to abandon this paradigm altogether and start searching for a new one. Supporting a permanent Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley would be a good place to start.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
02 January '13..

In the run-up to John Kerry’s arrival in Jerusalem today for yet another round of Israeli-Palestinian talks, media attention naturally focused less on real obstacles to peace than on an Israeli bill to annex the Jordan Valley that supporters and opponents agree hasn’t a prayer of becoming law. Yet despite this coverage, the most interesting fact about the bill has been largely overlooked: One of the biggest behind-the-scenes fans of Israel retaining control of this strategic location is none other than the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Last month, the Israeli daily Maariv reported that Jordan has been urging Kerry to support Israel’s demand for a permanent IDF presence in the valley under any deal with the Palestinians. Three months earlier, the Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh quoted a senior Jordanian official’s response when asked in a closed briefing how Amman viewed the possibility of Palestinians replacing Israel along the Jordan border:

“May God forbid!” the official retorted. “We have repeatedly made it clear to the Israeli side that we will not agree to the presence of a third party at our border.”

The Jordanian official claimed this has been Jordan’s position ever since 1967. But it was undoubtedly reinforced by watching the deleterious effects on Egypt’s security of Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.

(+Video) Promotion of the values ​​of Jordanian tolerance and moderation

LOTL..
16 April '12..

One visiting the official website of the Jordan Radio and Television Corporation, the Kingdom of Jordan State TV, will find the following in its mission statement. One thing it shows, is a dedication to journalistic and media practices, of which many of those who live in Western countries, hold dear.

Vision

Provide meaningful national information dedicated to freedom of expression and opinion, within an atmosphere based on independence and responsible freedom of expression and the homeland of all classes and sects and reverse the will and aspirations, in addition to the practice of media performance are based on professionalism, excellence and responsibility.

Message

Promotion of the values ​​of Jordanian tolerance and moderation, pluralism and the preservation of the identity of Jordan by highlighting the popular tradition and the need to give a wider horizon of local dimensions, and more attention, through the expansion of the follow-up news and local events.

Strategic objectives

Cover the entire area of ​​the Kingdom of radio and television broadcasting.

Spread the message of Jordan to the corners of the globe.

....

And in practice? Time to meet the neighbors.

Friday Sermon on Jordan TV: Jordanian Army Is Invincible, Will Shatter the Might of Israel - Jordanian TV - March 23, 2012
http://www.memri.org/


Published on Apr 8, 2012 by MEMRITVVideos

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page. Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand 
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Singer - Palestine - Fixing The Figures, Fudging The Facts

David Singer
canadafreepress.com
03 October '11

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/print-friendly/40908

As the United Nations Security Council and the General Assembly continue to consider the PLO application for the State of Palestine to be admitted as the 194th member of the UN - there is concern in Jordan that approval of such application could:

1) represent a distinct threat to continued Hashemite rule in Jordan and

2) challenge Jordan’s right to exist as a viable and independent State within secure and recognized boundaries.

Jordan’s King Abdullah had indicated his concern at these possibilities prior to the PLO presenting its application for membership to the UN on 23 September.

Clearly worried by the possible outcome of the current UN hearings - the King had been at pains to stress Jordan’s independence stating on September 12:

“Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine. We haven’t changed politically and we will not change. The ‘alternative Palestinian homeland’ will never be part of the discussion; it is not an option and is not in the Jordanian lexicon”

Jordan’s foreign minister - Nasser Judeh - reportedly said two days later that whilst his country supported the Palestinian campaign - the best way to attain statehood was by direct negotiations.

Whilst this might well be Jordan’s position - it is certainly not the PLO‘s.

Jordan’s fears appear to be have been well founded after PLO Chairman - Mahmoud Abbas - told the General Assembly on 23 September :

“ Yet, because we believe in peace and because of our conviction in international legitimacy, and because we had the courage to make difficult decisions for our people, and in the absence of absolute justice, we decided to adopt the path of relative justice - justice that is possible and could correct part of the grave historical injustice committed against our people. Thus, we agreed to establish the State of Palestine on only 22% of the territory of historical Palestine - on all the Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel in 1967.

Mr Abbas’s statement followed closely on the heels of a similar one made just four days earlier by Palestinian Ambassador to Australia - Izzat Abdulhadi - who said:

“Palestine would become a State on the Occupied Palestinian Territories or 22% of historic Palestine, while Israel retained 78% of historic Palestine.” (Australian September 19).

The publication of these virtually identical - but misleading and deceptive - statements within days of each other must surely have confirmed King Abdullah‘s worst fears.

Zahran - A Plan B for Jordan?

Mudar Zahran
Hudson New York
16 September '11

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2429/jordan-plan-b


The King of Jordan, Abdullah II, delivered a speech on September 11, in which he mentioned the Jordanian civil war of 1970 for the first time ever: "There are not any issues we are too embarrassed to discuss, even if there is someone who wants to discuss the incidents of 1970, this is a part of history; let us think of the future and not the past."

Commenting on the fear of Jordan's Bedouin minority -- who make up the king's military and are the protected class -- that Jordan might become the Palestinian majority's homeland -- a plan dubbed "the alternative homeland" by the local media -- the king said: "I would like to assure everyone that Jordan will not be an alternative country to anyone. Is it even logical that Jordan will become an alternative to anyone while we sit there and do nothing? We have an army and we are willing to fight for our country and for the future of Jordan, and we must speak vigorously and not ever allow this idea to remain in the minds of some of us….We have fought Israel before many times."

"Jordan and the future of Palestine," he added, "are much stronger than Israel today; the Israeli is the one who is afraid….When I was in the United States, I spoke to an Israeli intellectual; he told me that what was happening in Arab countries today is in the interests of Israel. I told him, 'I think it is the opposite: your situation today is much harder than before.'"

King Abdullah also mentioned the need to address the issue of "national identity" in Jordan -- a phrase associated with isolating the Palestinians, who make up 80% of the population, in favor of the Beduin minority, for whom he would establish Jordan as a purely Bedouin state: "We must speak with a loud voice about the Jordanian identity," he said, "yet national unity is a red line." In other words, the king openly supports talk about imposing a Jordanian Bedouin identity on the country, while at the same time prohibiting any "unity" with the Palestinians -- a notion he had previously denounced.

Shine - King Abdullah fears the Arab Spring

Chaim Shine
Israel Hayom
13 September '11

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=481

King Abdullah II of Jordan, addressing recent developments in the region, claimed this week that Israel is worse off in the wake of the Arab Spring. "The futures of Jordan and Palestine are more certain and solid than that of Israel," Abdullah said, adding that Israelis are the ones who are frightened nowadays. I tried really hard to find these frightened Israelis on the street, but could not.

The Talmud says that every man reveals his heart's ruminations when he speaks, and indeed, King Abdullah is scared. He fears the possibility that the small emirate received by his great-grandfather King Abdullah I from the British, in recognition of his cooperation with them against the Turks during World War I, could disappear. A political flood is sweeping the Arab world toward absolute chaos, and no one knows where it will end.

Until 1948, the population of Jordan was composed of half a million Bedouin tribesmen, inhabiting vast swathes of desert. To this day, Bedouin tribesman constitute the anchor of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, serving in its army and security forces. The Bedouin's loyalty is the only thing guaranteeing the royal family's continued rule. But this is a conditional loyalty, similar to that of Saddam Hussein, Mubarak and Gadhafi loyalists.

After the War of Independence, in which the Jordanian army took an active role in the coordinated attack by the Arab states against Israel, the cease-fire lines were established. Those lines gave birth to the area known as the West Bank, which Israelis call Judea and Samaria, which Jordan controlled and annexed in 1950. Only two states officially recognized the annexation: the U.K. and Pakistan. Until the Six Day War, Palestinian residents of Judea and Samaria lived under Jordanian rule. They joined hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who crossed over into Jordan during the War of Independence, in the hopes of returning to Israel, from which they fled, following promises by their leaders that Israel would soon be destroyed.

The Future of Jordan

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
08 February '11

http://www.hudson-ny.org/1870/future-of-jordan

Jordan's King Abdullah II has good reason to be worried about the future of the monarchy in the Hashemite Kingdom. If he fails to implement real political and economic reforms, Jordan could easily fall into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood group or turn into a Palestinian state.

Last week, in an attempt to contain public anger, the king, in a wise move, sacked the government of Prime Minister Samir Rifai. But the king's choice for a new prime minister, Marouf al-Bakhit, has not been equally wise.

Al-Bakhit, a former prime minister and ambassador to Israel, does not seem to be accepted by most of the Jordanian opposition parties, including Muslim Brotherhood.

Even more troubling for the monarch is the fact that many of the kingdom's tribes, which make up nearly 40% of the population, do not see the appointment of the new prime minister as a step in the right direction. I is hard to see how the king would be able to survive without the support of these tribes, which have long been supportive of the royal family in Amman.

In an unprecedented move, leaders of several Jordanian tribes this week issued a strong warning that the kingdom could plunge into anarchy if the king did not move quickly to combat financial and administrative corruption.

"The Tunisian and Egyptian hurricane will come to Jordan, sooner or later," said a statement signed by 36 tribe leaders. "We express regret over the fact that the regime has surrounded itself with a group of corrupt commercial partners. Jordan is suffering from a regime and government crisis, as well as a crisis of corruption."

The statement is seen a huge challenge to King Abdullah II: these tribes have always been known for their blind and unwavering devotion to the royal family. Some Jordanians fear that radical Muslims have managed to "infiltrate" many tribes, inciting them against the monarch and turning them into a tool in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood.

But the tribes' discontent with the monarchy is not the only challenge. The king also needs to be worried about the "Palestinian problem" in his kingdom.

Millions of Palestinians living in the kingdom also pose a threat to the king. Many of these Palestinians live in harsh and inhumane conditions in refugee camps on the outskirts of the Jordanian capital of Amman.

Poverty and deprivation have driven many of these Palestinians into the open arms of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood – two groups that would like to see an Islamic "caliphate" replace the royal family.

If the Palestinians revolt and bring down the monarchy, Jordan could become a Palestinian state. The Palestinians, under such circumstances, would end up with three states: one in the West Bank, a second in the Gaza Strip and a third in Jordan.

King Abdullah II needs to wake up before it is too late.

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Jordan reveals the purpose of UNRWA

Elder of Ziyon
28 September '10

Jordan has written a "carefully worded" letter to the head of UNRWA and to the Arab donor nations warning about the shortfall in UNRWA's budget.

Originally reported in Saudi Arabia's Okaz on September 19th, the letter emphasized the dangers to Lebanon and Jordan of reducing the UNRWA budget.

Even though the vast majority of so-called "Palestinian refugees" in Jordan are in fact Jordanian citizens, the Hashemite kingdom shows no interest in integrating those residents into Jordanian society and has consistently worked to keep the Palestinian Arabs crammed into these miserable camps under UNRWA control rather than integrate these citizens into Jordanian society.

UNRWA - Lords of Misery Film made by Pierre Rehov 
Used with permission (Y.)

Redemption1948

The newspaper said that Jordan regularly warns of the dangers of reducing UNRWA's budget, as "these UNRWA camps are meant to keep the issue of Palestinian refugees alive."

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The Debt Of Today's Arab World To British Colonialism

Daled Amos
18 August '10


In his discussion of Historical Fiction, Dore Gold discusses the claim that Israel is the result of colonialism. He notes that Jews were already exercising their right to self-determination in the land before the 1922 British Mandate and before the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire.

The same cannot be said of the Arabs at the time. In fact, historically

most of the Arab states owe their origins to the entry and domination of the European powers. Prior to World War I, the Arab states of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan did not exist, but were only districts of the Ottoman Empire, under different names. They became states as a result of European intervention, with the British putting the Hashemite family in power in two of these countries.

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The Gazans who are in an open-air prison - in Jordan

Elder of Ziyon
10 August '10

Did you know that there were well over 100,000 Gazans in Jordan with limited rights - and no easy way to get out?

An Arab researcher named Oroub El Abed has been documenting the plight of two little-known groups of Palestinian Arabs - the Gazans who live in Jordan and the PalArabs who live in Egypt.

Here is an excerpt from an article she wrote in Forced Migration Review about the Gazans in Jordan:

Gazans in Jordan are doubly displaced refugees. Forced to move to Gaza as a result of the 1948 war, they fled once more when Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967. Guesstimates of the number of Gazans in Jordan range between 118,000 and 150,000. A small number have entered the Jordanian citizenship scheme via naturalisation or have had the financial resources to acquire citizenship.

On arrival in Jordan, the ex-residents of Gaza were granted temporary Jordanian passports valid for two years but were not granted citizenship rights. The so-called ‘passport’ serves two purposes: it indicates to the Jordanian authorities that the Gazans and their dependents are temporary residents in Jordan and provides them with an international travel document (‘laissez-passer’) potentially enabling access to countries other than Jordan.

The ‘passport’ – which is expensive – has value as an international travel document only if receiving states permit the entry of temporary passport holders. Few countries admit them, because they have no official proof of citizenship. Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and some Gulf States are among those who refuse to honour the document. Any delay in renewing the temporary passport or in applying for one puts an individual at risk of becoming undocumented.

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Has Israel abandoned the Mount of Olives?

It seems inconceivable that nothing can be done to deter predations on the slopes where Jews have been interring their dead for more than 3,000 years.


JPost Editorial
15 May '10

Lost among more sensational findings last week were the state comptroller’s lamentations over the sad state of the Mount of Olives Cemetery – the Jewish people’s most ancient burial ground and final resting place to a pantheon of religious, spiritual, cultural and national paragons, including even the prophets Zechariah, Haggai and Malachi.

While noting with approval moves begun in December by the Prime Minister’s Office to supervise security at the cemetery, State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss excoriated ongoing neglect by successive governments: “Repair work proceeds at a snail’s pace, maintenance standards are inadequate, security is sorely lacking and vandalism and criminal acts continue unabated, accentuating the danger that funds and labor already invested at the site will go down the drain.”

These admonitions were ironically underscored on the very day the nation marked the 43rd anniversary of Jerusalem’s reunification. As parades and celebrations were underway elsewhere, busloads of funeral participants were stoned near the cemetery. Four mourners needed medical care. Those who made it inside found 23 headstones smashed in one section alone.

It seems inconceivable that nothing can be done to deter deliberate unremitting predations on the mountain slopes where Jews have been interring their dead for more than 3,000 years. Its proximity to the city and the Temple Mount, as well as the traditional proscription against burials within Jerusalem’s walls, made the Mount of Olives hallowed already in First Temple days.

The chain had been unbroken, save for 19 years of Jordanian occupation (1948-67), during which the cemetery was callously and systematically desecrated in blatant violation of the Hashemite Kingdom’s pro forma undertakings to preserve holy places. The destruction was unbridled and premeditated. Ancient tombstones were torn out to be used as latrine floors, urinal walls and pavement stones. The Intercontinental Hotel and Jericho Road were constructed over graves. Garbage was regularly dumped on the tombs.

After Jerusalem’s liberation, burials were resumed but dignity, good order and safety weren’t restored. Though public figures such as former prime minister Menachem Begin, author Shai Agnon, poet Uri Zvi Greenberg, rabbis Shlomo Goren and Zvi Yehuda Kook – among numerous others – asked to be laid to rest there, their choice failed to bring even minimal proper upkeep and security to what doubtlessly is a cemetery of historical continuity and significance unmatched anywhere in the world.

AS UNDERSCORED by the state comptroller, the cemetery is visited regularly by Arab vandals, whose favorite target is unaccountably the Gerrer Rebbe’s tombstone, but Begin’s has also been damaged over the years. They sometimes smear human feces on the tombs and deluge them with household rubbish and construction debris. Markers have been daubed in tar and paint, hate graffiti has been scrawled and gravestones have been hammered and shattered.

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Abdullah in Wonderland

Victor Sharpe
American Thinker
12 April '10

When Alice fell down the rabbit hole, encountering situations that defied logic and characters who acted in bizarre ways, she was fortunate not to meet Jordan's kinglet, Abdullah II. Kinglet is an apt description for this monarch, first coined by columnist Ruth King.

Jordan's king, a member of the Hashemite tribe, is named after Emir Abdullah, who was assassinated on July 20, 1951 after leaving Friday evening prayers at Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque. Abdullah was in favor of making peace with Israel but, like Egypt's Anwar Sadat, he was murdered by Islamic extremists for his moderation. The assassinated emir was accompanied at the mosque by his grandson, King Hussein, also the present Jordanian monarch's father. In a recent interview in the Wall Street Journal, King Abdullah II announced that at his forthcoming meeting with America's president, Barack Hussein Obama, he will ask the president to pile on yet more pressure upon embattled Israel over Arab territorial demands on Israel's capital, Jerusalem.

The kinglet stated in his WSJ interview that "Jerusalem specifically engages Jordan because we are the custodians of the Muslim and Christian holy places and this is a flashpoint that goes beyond Jordanian-Israel relations."

And here we descend the rabbit hole. Abdullah II chose to hide the unpleasant facts that under his father, King Hussein, not only did Jordan refuse to allow Jews access to their holy sites during Jordan's illegal occupation of East Jerusalem from 1949 to 1967 (including the Old City, the Western Wall, and the Temple Mount), but it desecrated the ancient Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives, ran a road through the cemetery, used many of the gravestones as latrines for the Arab Legion, deliberately destroyed and desecrated scores of ancient synagogues throughout the Old City, and used the Tomb of Simon the Just as a stable. The Jewish inhabitants of the Old City and areas of east Jerusalem, meanwhile, had been driven from their homes and forced to flee to safety in West Jerusalem.

(Read full article)
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Israel the strong horse

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
10 April '10

What does Jordan's King Abdullah want from Israel? This week Abdullah gave a long and much cited interview to the Wall Street Journal. There he appeared to be begging US President Barack Obama to turn up the heat still further on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. As he has on a number of occasions, Abdullah argued that the Palestinian conflict with Israel is the cause or the justification of all the violence and emerging threats in the region. By his telling, all of these threats, including Iran's nuclear threat, will all but disappear if Israel accepts all of the Palestinian, (and Syrian), demands for land.

Abdullah's criticism of Netanyahu dominated the news in Israel for much of the week. Commentators and reporters piled on, attacking Netanyahu for destroying whatever remains of Israel's good name. In their rush to attack the premier, none of them stopped to consider that perhaps they were missing something fundamental about Abdullah's interview.

But they were missing something. For there is another way to interpret Abdullah's complaints. To understand it however, it is necessary to consider the strategic constraints under which Abdullah operates. And the Israeli media, like the Western media as a whole, are incapable of recognizing that Abdullah has constraints that make it impossible for him to say what he means directly.

Abdullah is a Hashemite who leads a predominantly Palestinian country. His country was carved out by the British as a consolation prize for his great-grandfather after the Hashemites lost Syria to the French. As a demographic minority and ethnic transplant, the Hashemites have never been in a position to defend themselves or their kingdom against either their domestic or foreign foes. Consequently they have always been dependent out outside powers - first Britain, and then Israel, and to a lesser degree the US - for their survival.

(Read full article)
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