Israel Matzav

15 years of 'peace': Jordanians support rocket attacks on Israel 2-1

Monday will mark the 15th anniversary of Israel's 'peace treaty' with Jordan. In connection with the 15th anniversary, the Israel Project commissioned a poll of Jordanians that reached what is probably an unsurprising conclusion: Jordanians favor rocket attacks on Israel by a 2-1 margin.

The poll, face-to-face interviews of 250 Jordanians, was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQRR) as part of a larger study for TIP that included interviews with 250 Gazans, 250 people in the West Bank and 500 Egyptians.

The poll found that the Jordanian public, comprised largely of Palestinians, is opposed to accepting and engaging Israel. Not a single respondent gives Israel a favorable rating, a level of rejection that GQRR has never seen toward anyone or any entity in its 29-year history as a firm. In Jordan, Israel gets 99 percent very cool ratings (ratings between 0-25 on a scale that ranges from 0 to 100).

Even 15 years after peace was made between Israel and Jordan, Jordanians have not reconciled themselves to the existence or permanence of Israel as a Jewish state. Less than a quarter of respondents in Jordan think Israel has the right to exist, and three-quarters think Israel is “not necessarily here to stay as a permanent Jewish state.” It is not surprising, therefore, to find that most Jordanians also oppose the country’s diplomatic relations with Israel.

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While a slight majority believes the Palestinians should negotiate directly with Israel, the Jordanians continue to support terrorism and targeting civilians. In Jordan, three-quarters agree that targeting Israeli civilians or sending suicide bombers is justified to fight the occupation and defend the Palestinians.

And while the Gaza crisis produced support for stopping the rocket attacks among Egyptians and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, Jordanians are an outlier, supporting the continuing use of rocket attacks by a 2-1 margin.

“Jordan has a very large Palestinian population, but they are out of the line of fire in the West Bank and Gaza. On a number of measures, Jordanians are very rejectionist and stand out from their neighbors,” said Stanley Greenberg, Ph.D., the chairman of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.

Said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder and president of The Israel Project, “The data show that most Jordanians get their information on Israel from the Arab media – and the attitudes resulting from what they see are catastrophic. It is critical for Jordan to open up their TV shows to the reality of the many coexistence projects that are enabling Jews and Arabs to work together to create jobs and hope.”

Well, don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

In Jordan, as in Egypt, the problem is that Israel made peace with a leader (King Hussein) and not with his people. When the leader passed away (in this case of natural causes) soon after signing the treaty, there was no one interested in following through on positive relations.

Peace can only be made with nations, and not just with leaders. Leaders come and go, whether naturally or unnaturally. While successive Israeli governments have prepared Israelis for peace with our neighbors, our neighbors have no reciprocated. Until the 'Palestinians,' the Syrians and others stop inciting against Israel and start preparing their people to live in peace with it, there is no point to any further discussions about peace.

The only other way to make peace - and in this case seemingly the only way - is for Israel to totally defeat the surrounding Arab nations and the 'Palestinians' militarily.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:15 PM