I have written many times on this blog that I do not ascend the Temple Mount because my rabbis don't allow me to until the Messiah comes (speedily and in our times). But this headline from the JPost is way out of whack:
Report: Jordan vetoes Israeli request to allow Jewish prayer on Temple Mount
Oh wait - we won the 1967 war but our moronic 'leaders' gave them back the keys....
Abd Al-Nasser Nassar, who serves as Amman’s top legal adviser for
Islamic and Christian property in Jerusalem, is quoted as telling the
Jordanian daily al-Rad that his government rejected an Israeli request
to allow for Jews to pray in a small, designated area atop the site.
In the peace treaty signed between the two governments nearly 20 years ago, Israel acknowledged the Hashemite Kingdom’s “special role” in the custodianship of the holy sites in Jerusalem. In any final-status arrangement, the Israeli government pledged to “give high priority to the Jordanian historic role” when weighing any deal.
Last week, Arab lawmakers stormed out of a meeting of the Knesset Committee for the Interior which was devoted to the issue of Jewish visitation rights on the Temple Mount.
The Arab MKs wildly and ferociously denounced Bayit Yehudi and Likud lawmakers before exiting the proceedings.
Look, I don't have a problem with Jews not going there. I have a problem with us needing to 'consult' Arab Muslim 'leaders' to make that decision. Jordan ought not to have any say in this.
The US has recently warned Israel that an
Israeli strike on Iran will likely cause Egypt and Jordan to annul their
peace agreements with Israel and sever ties, according to a senior
Israeli official quoted by the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth on
Thursday.
“These days, Arab leaders don’t rule their
people. Rather, the street rules its leaders,” the official was quoted
as saying. “An Israeli strike is exactly what the Iranians need: the
entire Arab and Muslim street will go out to demonstrate.”
The Israeli official reportedly linked between
the anticipated Arab reaction to an Israeli strike and the current
rage-fueled wave of anti-Western protests in the wake of the publication
of a trailer for a new film, “Innocence of Muslims,” that denigrates
Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
“What we’ve been seeing with the anti-Muhammad
film is nothing but a preview for what’s going to happen if Israel
attacks,” the official was quoted as saying.
Obviously, I have no way of knowing whether the US issued such a warning or whether the warning itself had a basis other than the imaginations of Obama, Clinton and the State Department. But if the State Department actually received warnings to that effect, they are morons to use those warnings to threaten Israel. What they ought to be doing instead is to be warning both Egypt and Jordan that (a) if they abrogate their treaties with Israel, they can kiss every last dollar of US aid good bye, meaning that the Egyptians, at least, will starve, and (b) they should be warning Egypt and and Jordan that if they abrogate their treaties, there will never again be a treaty between Israel and any Arab or Muslim entity and their beloved 'Palestinians' can permanently kiss their statereichlet good bye.
Representatives from additional countries will also take part in the exercise, known as Eager Lion 12. However, it is primarily intended to increase the cooperation between the US and Jordanian armies.
The US army's announcement stated, among other things, that the exercise is intended for handling terrorism, which clearly points to one of its central goals.
The exercise will take place for approximately three weeks, and will include various air, sea, and ground scenarios. Some of the forces will be deployed near the Israeli-Jordanian border in the area of Aqaba in the framework of the exercise and live fire will be used for parts of it as well.
Special teams will train for what is being referred to as "handling a large-scale chemical leak event." According to Israeli sources, a scenario in which chemical weapons are used by countries such as Iran in a future regional conflict are being concealed under this definition.
Hmmm. I would say that in the case of Jordan, the danger from a chemical link is much more likely to emanate from Syria than from Iran. But those weapons would be aimed at Israel. Are the Jordanians practicing for winds blowing the wrong way?
What bothers me more about this is that there is no indication that Israel is a participant. Are we? I'd bet that we're not. What could go wrong?
'Peace partner's state television promises to 'retake Jerusalem'
Our 'peace partner's state television last month broadcast a sermon by an imam that promised to 'retake Jerusalem.' But this time, it wasn't the 'Palestinian Authority.' It was Jordan, a country with which we are allegedly at 'peace.'
Article 11 of the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty calls on both countries “to abstain from hostile or discriminatory propaganda against each other, and to take all possible legal and administrative measures to prevent the dissemination of such propaganda by any organization or individual present in the territory of either party.”
Requests to the Jordanian Embassy in Israel for comment went unanswered Sunday.
Why would anyone be silly enough to expect Arab Muslims to abide by treaties when it no longer suits them? Oops - we did that, didn't we? What could go wrong?
Fate of Camp David accords shows why 'land for peace' is not viable
Menachem Begin made one big mistake when he entered into a peace treaty with Egypt - he made peace with the Egyptian leader, Anwar Sadat, and not with the Egyptian people. While Sadat's successor, Hosni Mubarak, continued to abide by the treaty (and Begin went through with the bargain by giving the Sinai to Egypt after Sadat's death), Mubarak allowed his state-controlled media to continue to stir the anti-Semitic pot against Israel for the last 30 years. Now that Egypt stands on the verge of democracy, the only thing that continues to hold them to the treaty is the billions of dollars in US aid that they would stand to lose if they abrogated it altogether and if the US government of the day decided to respond in kind.
Elliot Jager, whom I would characterize as a moderate. argues cogently that what is happening today with the Egyptian treaty calls into question whether 'land for peace' is viable at all, precisely at the moment that Israel is being pressured to extend it to the 'Palestinians.'
Egyptians say they view the need to obtain Israeli approval for shifting troops into Sinai an affront to their national pride and their country's sovereignty. Egypt's Supreme Military Council has been pushing hard to amend the peace treaty, arguing that new security threats demand permanently lifting the ceiling on the number of troops allowed into the Peninsula. The treaty does contain a clause that allows security arrangements to be amended by mutual agreement — though both Cairo and Jerusalem agree that ad hoc solutions have been exhausted. Israel's Haaretz newspaper supports official Egyptian demands to amend the treaty; Egypt's Al Ahram said what Egyptians really want is to have it abrogated altogether. Indeed, leading Egyptian figures have repeatedly emphasized that the peace treaty is not "sacrosanct."
Thus, in advance of anticipated presidential elections in Egypt this winter, Barak has been floating the idea of holding a strategic dialogue with Cairo. The goal would be to find ways to make the treaty more palatable to Egyptian voters indoctrinated against Israel by the venomous cant of their media. Barak hopes that the treaty can be salvaged by amending the demilitarization clauses — which probably would result in Israel losing its veto over how many Egyptian troops can be stationed in Sinai. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is opposed to changing the treaty but said that he would bring any proposed changes to the Cabinet.
Hosni Mubarak, while in power, did nothing to foster support for the peace treaty and occasionally diverted attention away from Egypt's domestic woes by playing the anti-Israel card. Egypt's de facto ruler, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, has followed a similar line. Still, if Tantawi or one of his henchmen continues to rule, the bare bones of the treaty are likely to be preserved, in return for continued U.S. military aid ($40 billion since the 1970's). On the other hand, virtually all of Egypt's declared presidential candidates from across the political spectrum have staked out positions that put into question the long-term viability of the treaty.
But modifying the treaty to appease popular anti-Israel sentiment could open a Pandora's box of demands on Israel. If today's limit on the number of soldiers is an "affront" to Egyptian sensibilities, who's to say forbidding the Egyptian Air Force from holding maneuvers over Sinai won't be the next "affront" to be overcome? The Jordan-Israel peace treaty is no less unpopular. Wouldn't amending the treaty with Egypt put pressure on King Abdullah II to push for similar amends? Moreover, any viable Israeli deal with the Palestinian faction led by Abbas would require the demilitarization of the West Bank. What signal would backtracking on the demilitarization of Sinai send to the Palestinians?
If the treaty with Egypt must be gutted in order to save it, something may be terribly wrong with the underlying land-for-peace approach.
The biggest problem with 'land for peace' is not the exchange itself (which is unreasonable in any event - why should parties who lost wars of aggression be able to get the land they forfeited back for a piece of paper, and where else in the world other than Israel has that happened), but the fact that the 'peace' has always been made with the leaders and not with the people. While some people may not have considered the possibility that some day the Arabs would demand democracy, they - including Israel's leadership - most certainly should have considered it.
Asaf Romirowsky and Efraim Karsh argue that if the UN recognizes a 'Palestinian state' it will be betraying the 'land for peace' formula.
The public diplomacy of Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, also ran contrary to the letter and spirit of 242. The Palestinians have consistently misrepresented the resolution as calling for Israel's complete withdrawal to the pre-June 1967 lines, while claiming that its stipulation for "a just settlement of the refugee problem" meant endorsement of the Palestinian "right of return"—the standard Arab euphemism for Israel's destruction through demographic subversion. They also sought to undermine the resolution's insistence on the need for a negotiated settlement, seeking time and again to engineer an internationally imposed dictate despite their commitment to a negotiated settlement through the Oslo process.
When Israel offered at the American-convened July 2000 peace summit in Camp David to cede virtually the entire territory of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the nascent Palestinian state and made concessions with respect to Jerusalem, Arafat responded with a campaign of terror unmatched in the history of the Jewish state. Seven-and-a-half years later, at yet another U.S.-sponsored summit, Mr. Abbas rejected Israel's offer of a Palestinian Arab state in 97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, and categorically dismissed the request to recognize Israel as a Jewish state alongside the would-be Palestinian state, insisting instead on full implementation of the "right of return."
Since the inauguration of the Obama administration, Mr. Abbas has dropped all remaining pretenses of seeking a negotiated settlement, striving instead to engineer international enforcement of a complete Israeli withdrawal without a peace agreement, or, indeed, any quid pro quo. Were the U.N. General Assembly to fall for the Palestinian ploy, it will not only reward decades of duplicity, intransigence, and violence and betray its own formula of "land for peace," but will be introducing a new and dangerous stage in the century-long feud between Arabs and Jews: that of "land for war."
I wonder if 242 could be passed - or repealed - today. Hmmm.
A Kuwaiti paper reported last week that Jordan will vote against the creation of a 'Palestinian' reichlet if it comes up for a vote in the UN General Assembly in September.
On the other hand, Jordan is nearing a crossroads in its attitude toward the Palestinians. In my book, The Political Legacy of King Hussein (2004), I analyze the advantages that Hussein could have found in losing of the West Bank to Israel.
First and foremost, Israel would be in charge of resolving the Palestinian issue, and the Palestinians would not be in a position to claim Jordan as a Palestinian state.
In recent months, Israel seems to have divorced itself from its traditional policy of resisting a Palestinian state at all costs.
In the Jordanian mind, this translates to a position that might endanger the very existence of the Hashemite Kingdom, as well as the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian Peace Treaty, and a de-facto abandonment of the traditional friendship between the two countries that has survived many crisis since 1960.
Jordan has tried (and usually succeeded) in letting Israel lead the way against the creation of a Palestinian state. However, Israel is now seen as being too weak to halt a Palestinian independence process. The creation of such a state would put Jordan’s very existence in jeopardy: The PLO is formally and spiritually committed to taking over all of mandatory Palestine – i.e., Jordan, the territories and Israel. Considering that Israel would hold its ground within the 1967 lines, the next target of a small, economically weak, irredentist Palestinian state would be Jordan – a country that has already served as a battleground for the PLO in 1970-71.
If, indeed, this is the current Jordanian reading, it follows that the US and Israel are seen as weak players that cannot be trusted to support the kingdom.
This would include boosting economic ties, for example, expanding the “Bridging the Rift” science center, a joint Israeli-Jordanian-American center backed by Stanford and Cornell where the focus lies on science providing a common language between Israeli and Jordanian students. More Israeli support would come via shared intelligence as it relates to fighting terrorism and Islamism in both countries. Both forms of support would serve Abdullah well as he attempts to illustrate how Jordan is stable and economically viable.
Beyond the above, Israel has some leverage as it relates to the shared national interest of the Jordan Valley water, which both countries deeply depend on. Israel could expand its desalination efforts in a way that benefits Jordanians. Expanding this collaboration is something Abdullah can use to stress the added value the monarchy and the peace bring to both countries.
If East Bankers and West Bankers unite under an umbrella of hatred towards Israel and the United States, the ongoing asymmetrical warfare Israel faces will only intensify. Abdullah and his monarchy are not perfect, but they remain an island of stability in a region where no one yet knows what the future holds.
I'm not feeling very warm and fuzzy about King Abdullah. I find him much more difficult than I found his father. Perhaps that is why Romirowsky - a former IDF liaison to Jordan - wrote this article.
Abdullah is making problems for Israel. He is revoking Jordanian citizenship from 'Palestinians.' He has become one of the most hysterical advocates for 'Palestinian statehood.' He insists on keeping the 'Palestinians' out of the military, while the Bedouin become more and more disenchanted with both Abdullah and the 'Palestinian' majority. He has fostered closer relations with Tehran (yes, I know, Obama is to blame for that). After 17 years of 'peace' with Israel, his media still believes that the struggle between Israel and the Arabs is existential, and the 'peace' with Jordan is about as cold as it can get.
In sum, Abdullah is a real obstacle to peace, and while that doesn't make Jordan like Syria - where anything would be better than the current government - it does mean that we ought to be open to change to a government that might improve relations with , as much of a longshot as that may be.
It's been seventeen years since Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty pursuant to which Jordan dropped all territorial claims against Israel and agreed to make peace in exchange for land. And on June 5, the 44th anniversary of the outbreak of the Six Day War, an op-ed appeared in the Jordanian daily al-Dustour, which admitted that the Arab (not 'Palestinian' - Arab) struggle against Israel is existential.
"The events of history, both ancient and recent, have proven that the Arab ummah has no other path to ensure its survival, to repel the Zionist aggression, and to liberate the land, Jerusalem, and Al-Aqsa Mosque but [the path of] unity, the unification of fronts, the use of force, the utilization of the ummah's resources toward [resolving] its issues, the strengthening of democracy, and respect for human rights. It has already been proven that dictatorship, oppression, and corruption are incapable of state-building or of repelling aggression. They have been and will remain instruments of destruction rather than of construction, and the main cause of the long series of defeats suffered by the ummah.
"Arab Jordan, under its illustrious Hashemite leadership, has worked toward building Arab solidarity and [resolving] inter-Arab disputes as the only path by which to unite fronts and [solidify] a unified and effective stance that can stand up to the Zionist genocidal enterprise, which poses a threat to the entire ummah. Jordan has invested all its diplomatic and material capabilities in supporting its brother Palestinian people and that people's just struggle to realize its national and historical rights, its right to establish an independent state on its national land with holy Jerusalem as its capital, and [the right of] return for refugees.
"On the 44th anniversary of the Zionist aggression against the ummah on June 5, 1967, the eternal facts are verified: The struggle with this enemy is an existential struggle rather than a territorial one, and it requires the ummah to adopt all means and measures that will lead to victory and repel the Zionist invaders...
"After four decades, it has been proven that the entire ummah has no enemy other than the Zionist enemy that insists on banishing the Palestinian people from its homeland, despoiling [its] holy places, and Judaizing Jerusalem."
And the Obama administration and the European Union want us to trade more land for more 'peace' like this?
Since the establishment of the Hashemite rule -- on the Eastern part of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1921 -- the Hashemites have been following the classic policy of divide and conquer by turning the Bedouin minority into their own army, and banning everyone else from joining.
This dependency on the rule of the minority worked out for the Hashemites when they occupied Judea and Samaria in 1948 and ruled the Palestinian population west of the Jordan River. It also served them well later, in 1970, when the Palestinian Liberation Organization was competing with King Hussein over who should rule Jordan.
The Hahsemites' doctrine of creating a loyal minority has resulted in the Palestinian majority being stripped of most of their basic rights and privileges, with the Bedouin meanwhile receiving massive benefits from the Jordanian state, such as free university education, exemption from most taxes, exemption from the high car tariffs, and at the same time being given generous land grants and lavish scholarships to Western graduate schools. This disparity has left the Palestinian majority somewhat miffed at the regime, and willing to replace it. This disparity has also turned the Hashemite regime into a virtual hostage to the Bedouin loyalists who control the army and the police, and who could topple the regime any time they wished.
Recently there have been signs that the Bedouin are no longer loyal to the Hashemites; they are seeking to rule Jordan on their own. On June 13th, when the King made a trip to the Southern Bedouin city of Tafillah, his motorcade was attacked by the local Bedouin, who threw stones and empty bottles on it. Although this incident was confirmed by a Jordanian official to the Jerusalem Post, and reported by the Agence France Presse, it was later denied by the Jordanian government's spokesperson, Tahir Edwan, who claimed that the stone throwers were just citizens stampeding to take a look at the king -- a claim similar to the recent one by Libya's Colonel Muammar Qaddafi to Christiane Amanpour that the people protesting against him were his followers rallying for support. Unconfirmed reports stated that the incident evolved into a standoff between the King's bodyguards and the usually heavily-armed Bedouin locals.
Deposing Abdullah would not necessarily be a bad thing - he has no more legitimacy than Bashar al-Assad, who controls his country in a similar way. The bigger problem is the Bedouin agenda.
The Bedouin who oppose the King are promoting an alarming agenda: to strip the Palestinian majority universally of their Jordanian citizenships and to end the peace treaty with Israel.
Since April 2010, Bedouin figures and senior retired army officers have been issuing public statements and open letters to the King, calling on him to de-naturalize the Palestinians and turn them into residents rather than citizens. They have also been calling for hostility against Israel, a plan that includes "ending the peace treaty with the Zionist entity" and "re-establishing Israel as an enemy state." Retired Bedouin army figures issued a statement in May openly demanding that the King establish serious ties with Hamas "as the one and only true representative of the Palestinian people."
This is a case where a strong US leader would encourage Abdullah to open the military to the 'Palestinian' majority in order to maintain his hold on power. But there isn't a strong US leader, and any attempt by Israel to encourage a move like that is bound to backfire. And so, the assumption is that sooner or later Abdullah will fall, and that the US and Israel need to be prepared for such an eventuality.
Jordan's King Abdullah is between a rock and a hard place in dealing with Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood.
But if today's volatile Middle East is the new normal, Admiral Mullen's presence may do little to prevent instability in Jordan. Contagious political protests have emboldened the monarchy's existing opponents. For the first time since "Black September," when Palestinians tried to hijack the country in the early 1970s, a small but growing group of anti-regime Jordanian activists openly seek to end the monarchy. Their new websites allege human-rights abuses, corruption, and worse. Meanwhile, 36 influential tribal patriarchs have warned of an uprising if the King's wife Queen Rania, who is of Palestinian descent, continues to build "power centers" that threaten the traditional Hashemite leaders.
But it is Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, known as the Islamic Action Front (IAF), that may be best poised to stir up popular unrest. In Jordan, as in Egypt, these Islamists are well organized. The king, seeking to stave off a crisis, met with the IAF earlier this month for the first time in nearly a decade. The group opposes the king's recent appointment of Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit, who they rightly note does not qualify as a reformer. More importantly, the IAF seeks to amend Jordan's election laws. This is where King Abdullah skates on thin ice.
If the law is amended, the IAF could regain significant parliamentary power, and possibly even a majority. The IAF could then challenge secular Jordanian laws, the king's economic ties with the U.S., and Jordan's unpopular peace with Israel.
Then again, if the king keeps the country's election laws as they are, the IAF could intensify its protests and prompt the King to suppress them with force, thereby weakening the regime's credibility and international standing.
Jordan is yet another country where we made peace with the leader and not with the people. On top of that, Abdullah is nowhere near as warm to us as his father Hussein was.
On March 13, 1997, Jordanian Army Cpl. Ahmed Daqamseh opened fire on a group of girls from Beit Shemesh’s Feurst School. The girls were on a class trip to Naharayim in the Jordan Valley, visiting the “Island of Peace,” a joint Israeli-Jordanian tourist resort under Jordanian rule. Seven of the girls were murdered.
Daqamseh was sentenced to life in prison, which is a de facto 25-year sentence in Jordan. Now, his lawyer, Hussein Mjali, has become Jordan's Justice Minister. On Monday, Mjali joined a demonstration calling for Daqamseh's release. In Israel, we are outraged.
The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem issued a statement saying that Mjali’s comments were received in Israel with “revulsion and shock.”
“The gravity of this call is all the more pronounced when coming from the minister in charge of law and justice,” the statement read. “Israel has turned to Jordan for explanations, and made clear its expectation that the convicted murderer bear the punishment imposed on him by the Jordanian justice system.”
Israeli Embassy spokeswoman Merav Horsandi said it “is difficult for us to comprehend how there are people who support the release of a cold-blooded murderer of young children,” adding that an early release would contradict the spirit of the 1994 peace treaty between the two countries.
“Israel cannot imagine a situation in which such a vile murderer will be set free by Jordan,” Horsandi said. Monday’s protest outside Mjali’s office was organized by Daqamseh’s family. The minister joined the protesters, saying he was participating in his capacity as the soldier’s former lawyer.“I’m committed to be here with you as his lawyer,” Mjali told the cheering group.
Mjali was appointed in a government shakeup last week in the wake of protests inspired by the Egyptian uprising. The protests ushered in a broad-based cabinet pledging greater democratic freedoms, including the rights of assembly and speech. He said on Monday he joined the cabinet because he wants to see greater freedom of speech in Jordan. It was not immediately clear if his appearance at Monday’s protest would have repercussions.
This is how the average Jordanian relates to their 1994 peace treaty with us seventeen years later.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
