Zogby is back

James Zogby is one of the freshest columnists there is who writes about the Middle East. When I was in Jordan his column appeared regularly in the Jordan Times and I always devoured it.  Returning to the U.S., I found his column was hidden in the back pages of the Arab American Institute, and very hard to find as the Zogby family polling enterprise would always come up first in google. Now you can read him at Huffington Post and subscribe to his feed here.

There are a lot of columnists who write about the Middle East. Often they have a solidified point of view, choosing a particular “party line” and  presenting whatever the current talking points are. This type of columnist, whether you’re looking at Juan Cole on the left or Daniel Pipes on the right, might be interesting if you want to follow all the political footballs as they are tossed back and forth, but in the long run, they don’t shed any light on anything. They cling to dogma to advance a particular side, but reveal little of what is actually going on in real time–the kind of information needed for problem solving.

Zogby thinks for himself, and is able to extract nuggets for thought out of the entrenched, convoluted mess that is Middle East politics.  The first Zogby post that appeared in my  Google feedreader when I subscribed last week was “The Evolution of the Acceptance of a Palestinian State”.  A good subject.  I have spent a good deal of effort advancing the idea of a two state solution across the blogosphere, based on what I saw when I lived in the Middle East. Says Zogby,

Even here in the US, it is a near “article of faith” to project a two-state solution as the only acceptable outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Zogby then traces the idea of Palestinian statehood through the various presidents and departments of government. He sums up:

We are now in the 43rd year of the occupation. The landscape of the occupied lands has been dramatically transformed: a half million settlers reside there; a network of settler only roads, coupled with an intrusive barrier wall, has cut the territory into cantons; Jerusalem is burgeoning with settler colonies and is cut off from the West Bank; and the long physical and now political separation of Gaza from the West Bank has made unity of Palestine’s parts more difficult.

The Palestinians are often their own worst enemies.  Does no one in the Middle East hire consultants to burnish their image? Still, living with them has convinced me of the basic justice of the position. It is not reasonable to expect the Palestinians to live spread across the Arab landscape, in countries that refuse to give them passports, and only grudgingly allow them to live in the refugee camps they have occupied since both the ‘48 and ‘67 wars.  And it is certainly not fair to Jordan, the one country that has welcomed refugees and given them Jordanian passports (and the one Arab country the U.S. still has a decent relationship with) to overthrow their government in order to give it to the Palestinians, who the last time they got close to having their hands on the reigns of the Jordanian government in 1969 tried to use it to wage war on Israel from across the border. By the same token, it is simply not possible to turn back the hands of time to a period before all the population shifts happened.  That type of thinking is totally unrealistic but all too common among Palestinians.  Some right wing American Jewish interest groups have also been slow to give up the idea of a single state solution with themselves in the leadership and everyone else forced out of the coutnry.  They still control blogs at places like Widdershins and Pumapac, whose latest contribution to cross-cultural acceptance and understanding is the adoption of the slogan “Islam sucks”.  I no longer comment at places like that–partly because I don’t want to be associated with that type of viewpoint  (and if you google their readership numbers, they are most satisfyingly down to unmeasurable lows) but  mostly because I agree with Zogby that Palestinian statehood is done deal.

Pumasphere 2.5

Some time ago Riverdaughter (riverdaughter.wordpress.com) wrote about the breakup of the liberal blogosphere prior to the election. Many of the bloggers who now write for Puma blogs started writing on liberal blogs. When some blogs decided to support Obama, the writers who were undecided or supported another candidate got unceremoniously kicked off the blog on some pretense or another. Now another breakup is happening. I almost didn’t see it because it was disguised as a personality conflict but really now, does that type of thing really happen on political blogs? What I’m talking about is what is known as the P/I issue. As in “Palestine Israel”.

Maybe this is time for a little disclaimer about who I am. I am Christian, of the non-literalist variety, but I take spiritual vitamins from other traditions. I believe in dinosaurs. I believe in the Two State Solution. I believe peace in the Middle East will happen in my lifetime. I believe my actions in the blogosphere can help make that happen. I believe the biggest threat to peace today (and the long-term security of Israel) is the right wing Israel lobby. If someone else does not believe this, please do explain it to me.

So back to the Palestine/Israel Pumasphere breakup. The first breakup was at the Confluence a few weeks ago when there was a discussion about the anti-semitism on the Cannonfire blog. Cannonfire was removed from the blogroll, but nonetheless, several Jewish Pumas left the Confluence. They’re blogging at Widdershins, but I so far I haven ‘t seen any hard hitting middle Eastern commentary that would justify their migration. (Cannonfire, who sets off all my internal anti-tolerance alarms, is now back on the Confluence sidebar.)

Meanwhile, over at PumaPAC (pumapac.org), two commenters, BrianH and sue66, had kept up a storm of right wing Israeli settler propaganda of the most offensive sort. It took the form of massive numbers of links to right-wing Israeli hate publications and videos. It was also about this time I recieved this hate mail (NSFW), using a Swiss-based  anonoymous email service. Then, suddenly they were told they could no longer post the links. They immediately disappeared. It looked like PumaPAC was making a play towards the center and more respectability. Now, suddenly, inexplicably, out of the clear blue sky, two new commenters have appeared, with the same old tired anti-Islamic schtick. No video links this time–they’re linking to racist hatebaiting standards like Sweetness and Light and Religion of Peace. They’re not sneaking in the back door late at night, either. They’re right out there in broad daylight and PumaPAC appears to have embraced them.

If there was any doubt at all left, it evaporated in the 4-7-09 blog talk radio/free us now broadcast. The guests were none other than Marcia Pappas and Dr. Phyllis Chesler, talking not about the recent legal changes in Afghan law but about Buffalo beheading of Aasiya Z. Hassan by her husband way back in February. Then, halfway into the talk, I started hearing little buzzwords like dhimmi and sharia, words that show up on right-wing Israeli propaganda websites. So who are these guys anyhow?

From Dr. Phyllis Chesler’s website: “Some of you might be most interested in my recent work about Islamic gender and religious apartheid, the psycho-analytic roots of Islamist terrorism, or in my work about anti-Semitism and Israel.” Hmmm. Her biography also notes that she is “an affiliated Professor with Haifa and Bar Ilan Universities” (in Israel) and has been profiled in Jewish Women in America.

So let me get this straight. PumaPAC wants to influence Moslem thinking by quoting someone who is Jewish? This is just insane on so many levels. Unless of course, the real agenda isn’t about the women at all.

I’m not against anyone Jewish having a role in Puma, not at all. For instance, jenniforhillary has done a noteworthy job in the past with explaining voter fraud. It’s just that I don’t believe someone from outside any religious tradition can really explain it adequately, especially to someone inside the tradition.

And who is the other one, this Marcia Pappas? She’s the director of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women. When she started talking about beheadings back in February, the Muslimnista posted this open letter:

…your comments that Ms. Hassan’s murder is a “terroristic version of honor killing, a murder rooted in cultural notions about women’s subordination to men” and that “too many Muslim men are using their religious beliefs to justify violence against women” are a disservice to our community, to people of diverse cultures and faiths, and to our daily work as advocates for survivors of domestic violence from South Asian and Muslim communities.

In this particular scenario, Ms. Hassan had an order of protection, law enforcement officials confirmed a history of domestic violence, and the crime occurred after she filed for divorce. Would you call a Christian woman in this same scenario murdered by gun violence a victim of an honor killing? Femicide is femicide and this tragedy is one more disturbing face of domestic violence.

Your comments eclipse domestic violence for what it is. As we know from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in this country every day, on average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends and in 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. We should, together as women’s rights advocates, be able to name domestic violence when we see it. When we do not, it reinforces the silence around domestic violence and stigmatizes minority communities by condoning “cultural” excuses for violent behavior.

Your comment dangerously re-casts focus on culture, religion, and particularly American stereotypes of Islam. As multi-faith advocates, we reject the idea that any faith condones violence. In fact, we have been working for years to change the language around “honor killing” for we reject the notion that there is any honor in killing – and many of our community members agree. We would hope that an organization as esteemed as NOW would not reinforce stereotypes in the media – especially when this is how many of our fellow Americans shape their understandings of our communities as well as domestic violence.

Well said, Fatemeh. Violence against women is not an Islamic problem; it is a world problem.  Moslem women may be even more reluctant to come forward with reports of abuse if they fear it maybe used as a political tool against their ethnic group.

I suppose I should post that on PumaPAC, but it looks like they’re having a little technical difficulty:

Invalid username, huh. Well, I hope they get it straightened out. Do you suppose one of PumaPAC’s political enemies hacked into it? They’re always bragging about “separating one from the herd” and all the provocative comments they have posted at PumaPAC with fake aliases.

Well, back to Islam.

Suppose you read the words “I have declared war on homosexuals.” Would that work for you? What about “I have declared war on Jews”? Or what about “I have declared war on blacks”? Or women?  Murphy over at PumaPAC says,

i AM fighting (my own tiny personal little) war against islam.

War against Islam? I’m not gonna touch that one.

I have been blogging for a while now, but I have never invoked Godwin’s law. It’s time. Neimoller, where are you?

First they came for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

They just came for the Moslems.

Jordan’s King Abdullah: “Israel is at a critical juncture…”

Jordan’s King Abdullah was optimistic as usual about the possibilities of peace in the Middle East when he talked to NPR’s Michele Kelemen yesterday.  The transcript and a link to the audio are here.  Some notable sound bites:

The core problem in the Middle East is the Israeli- Palestinian one. From that resonates all the other problems that we have and most people in the Middle East understand that this is the core issue. And so we’ve got to be very careful that if economic outreach is going to be a substitute for a two-state solution, then it’s not going to work.

On the Palestinian side, more than 85 percent want their Palestinian leaders to have a negotiation of peace with the Israelis. Even in Israel the overwhelming majority of the population still wants a negotiated settlement. And so it’s really empowering the people to convince their politicians that peace is the only way out as opposed to the other way around at this stage.

…Israel, I think, is at a critical juncture: whether it wants to be …integrated into the neighborhood or whether it wants to continue to be Fortress Israel. And what Fortress Israel means is no two-state solution; therefore, tension and violence between Israelis and Arabs/Israelis and Muslims, which nobody can afford. This is a small world and we’re all affected by it

Palestinians

“How can I find out about what Palestinians think”, I was asked on another thread. Well, there’s the Jordan Times. And I forgot to mention all of King Abdullah’s speeches. What an intellect.

And what about this issue and that issue that people keep bringing up? You can’t really talk about it in a short quip on a thread. Sometimes it’s more complicated and takes time to explain. So here is a list of sources I recommend as well as what is on this blog about Palestinians so far. Sort of an index.

News sources

The Jordan Times-Jordanian online newspaper in English (the King reads this paper)

The Maan News Agency- Palestinian news service, because you know it’s not going to be on the evening news.

bitterlemons-international.org-Middle East round table–op ed’s reprinted from various international publications.

The Christian Science Monitor-always in depth and reflective when they write about the Middle East

The Israel Lobby

Chomsky Ditches Rockefeller Chapel, Politics is Still Local-Chomsky, the Israel lobby, and professors Norman Finkelstein and Mehrene Larudee

J Street–a new American Jewish lobby for a two state solution- not all American Jews are neocons who oppose the formation of a Palestinian state

Chomsky, Israel Lobby co-author Mearsheimer to speak at Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel in October 2007-book: Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer’s The Israel Lobby and U.S. Policy. Is the Israel lobby the only thing preventing the formation of a Palestinian state?

A Moslem Conspiracy: Brigitte Gabriel’s frightened war-zone vision of population politics-Gabriel is a Lebanese Christian who grew up in a war zone in Lebanon and was helped to asylum by Israeli sources.

Arab Extremists

Jordan stops flirting with Hamas…for now-sequel to “American loses it last Arab friend” about the unfortunate “Jordan as Palestinian homeland” provocation

America loses its last Arab friend-Jordan talks to (gasp!) Hamas. Yup, it’s about that “Jordan as Palestinian homeland” business again

Hamas takeover of Gaza- “Follow the money–another proxy war between Iran and the U.S.”

Vintage 1969 Middle East Fanaticism Quotation-the secretive Miles Copland

Palestine just a pawn in Copeland’s 1952 Game of Nations-Promoting stability in the Middle East. “After Nasser’s successful Egyptian coup, his people were again in touch with American diplomats and eventually they came around to the American view of the necessity of using Israel as the scapegoat to unite the country…”

Speeches by Abdullah II, King of Jordan.

This guy is my hero. Seriously. His photo is above my computer, and I have archived a lot of his old speeches from back when the Jordan Times articles were only online for a week.  When I take a notion to monitor the use of this website, I can see people from university IP’s looking at these speeches for long periods of time, so I know I’m not the only one who appreciates both his scholarship and his street wisdom. The King has some of the speeches (like the Amman Statement about moderate Islam–oh wait that has its own website) on his official website as well, also some op-ed pieces he has written for major western publications. He believes in Palestinian statehood, and his confidence makes me sure it can happen now, in this election cycle.

The Amman Message: how Jordan understands Islam–text of remarks by King Abdullah II, November 2004

Text of King Abdullah’s message to U.S. congress March 7, 20007

Transcript of Interview, Jordan’s King Abdullah 4-10-07

Transcript of interview with Jordan’s King Abdullah May 9, 2007 with Egyptian Al Ahram daily

Prosperity, stability, a crucial model for other countries: Text of King Abdullah II remarks at opening of Dead Sea G-11 Economic Summit 5-19-07

Remarks by King Abdullah 5-21-07 to Nik Gowing, BBC World, at the side of G11 Economic Forum

Text of Jordan’s King Abdullah’s remarks to Al Ghad daily July 1, 2007

Text of Jordan King Abdullah’s remarks at Canadian Foreign Ministry 7-13-07

Text of Jordan King Abdullah II interview with JTV 8-31-07

Text of remarks by King Abdullah II to the World Economic Forum at Sharm al-Sheikh 5-19-08

Palestinian Statehood

U.S. pledges $900 million at Gaza conference-Hillary says money will not go to Hamas

Palestinian Scuttlebutt: “Mish Harb”-sniffing the Arab Street in Chicago after the Gaza military action

If Mahmoud Darwish wrote the Palestinian Declaration of Independence–where is it?- by the end of the rant I have found the link–yes, it’s real.

Remembering Mahmoud Darwish-the Palestinian poet who wrote the Palestinian Declaration of independence–links to poems that are incredible even in translation.

Palestine screws up again, rejects statehood- a rant against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for rejecting an offer of statehood as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert leaves office–because of Jerusalem.

Palestine Independence: Who would provide security?

Obama weasels on Palestine-parsing Obama’s campaign speech in Amman and his answers to questions that seem evasive on second glance, and I’m afraid another rant.

Obama: remaking the world is not for Woman-Obama campaigning in Israel and writing an inscription–but not with gender neutral language

Does John McCain want to destroy Jordan?-A report that an aide to presidential candidate John McCain wants to “turn Jordan into a Palestinian state” is apparently a hoax on the part of a website dedicated to “Destroying the kingdom of Jordan peacefully”.  I like Jordan.

The Palestinian State: Parsing King Abdullah-still trying to figure out the mystery of what exactly is holding up statehood for Palestine–it sure isn’t the King.

Palestinian Independence: Waiting for the Pole to Turn Green-a meaningless rant expressing impatience with the Palestinians for not unilaterally declaring independence.

Is a Palestinian State Offensive?- a rant against Palestinian apathy about statehood

U.S. pledges $900 million at Gaza conference

“Who pays the piper calls the tune”?

From ABC News:

Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt: Speaking to an international donors conference set up to aid the Palestinians in war-torn Gaza, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today pledged $900 million in U.S. aid, saying, “We gather today to address the humanitarian and early recovery needs of the Palestinian people after the recent conflict and the United States joins with others in generously stepping to help.”

Only a third of the U.S. money — $300 million — is directly slated for Gaza, and Clinton said there would be tight restrictions to keep the money out of “the wrong hands.” By “the wrong hands,” Clinton means the militant group, Hamas, which controls Gaza.

“We have worked with the Palestinian Authority to install safeguards that will ensure that our funding is only used where and for whom it is intended,” Clinton said.

Excellent. Another $600 million to the Palestinian Authority–$400 million for reform and development $200 million for wages.

Just for comparison, the amount the U.S gave to Jordan during the time of King Hussein was $150 million, and after his son Abdullah became king, $300 million. Israel and Egypt each get over a billion.

Clinton today also reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to a two-state solution, saying, “Time is of the essence. We cannot afford more setbacks and delays or regrets about what might have been had different decisions been made. Now is not the time for recriminations. It is time to look ahead.”

Finally.  A U.S. policy in the Middle East that makes sense.
It will be money well spent.

Lebanon stabs Palestine in the Back

At first glance, today’s editorial in the Lebanese Daily Star is a real shocker.  The Palestinians have wanted statehood for years. But the Lebanese paper says forget Palestine.  Why? Vengeance against Israel. Clearly defined borders, it says, will set the stage for slapping Israel on the wrist if they cross them.  No corresponding recognition of the problem of rockets fired on Israeli towns from inside the Palestinian towns and the security issues that creates.  Just a poo-pooing of the entire idea of building Palestine in exchange for feeding the latest cycle of hate.

With Arab brothers like Lebanon for friends, Palestine doesn’t need enemies.  Why place an artificial obstacle of borders to statehood?  Did the U.S. have borders carved in stone before declaring independence?  Of course not.  That’s why the American flag has grown from thirteen stars of the original colonies to a flag with 50 stars.  America has always been a work in progress.

So why insist that a country like Palestine have unshakable borders before anyone will do business with it as a country? Because someone somewhere has an ax to grind. Hatred against Israel is what keeps incompetent regimes in power.  Any number of Arab governments don’t want to lose the suffering of the Palestinian people as the national scab they can continuously pick in order to keep the hate levels ratcheted up and keep themselves from actually having to govern.

So much Arab power feeds on the misery of the Palestinian people.  You can expect that any attempts to secure independence for Palestine will be met with determined behind the scenes resistance from the Arab community at the same time they are paying public lip service to the rights of the Palestinian people. It is no accident that the only peace process to make any headway within the last 20 years has been the 1993 secret negotiations at Oslo, on a parallel track to other negotiations and kept secret even from the U.S. government.

Let’s hope the Obama administration and the Clinton Department of State can pull this one off.

Here is the editorial:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s pledge to “vigorously” pursue a peace process that will lead to the creation of a Palestinian state is not likely to generate huge excitement among Arabs in the Middle East. Even though we would like to believe in the change promised by President Barack Obama’s administration, many of us have grown disillusioned with a lengthy peace process that has produced so few tangible results. Decades into the conflict, the long-promised state that would give Palestinians their most basic rights as human beings – including citizenship, freedom of movement, and the right to study and work abroad, for example – Palestine still seems to be out of reach. Instead of building up our hopes again, Clinton should focus on an easier achievement: Create an Israeli state.

Yes, the United States formally recognized Israel just 11 minutes after Zionists declared its creation on Palestinian land in 1948, and most other nations have since followed suit, but the Jewish state remains a nebulous entity because its exact borders have not yet been drawn. This territorial ambiguity has allowed Israel to continue with its endless expansion and conquest of Palestinian lands, resulting in new “facts on the ground” that make Palestine’s creation increasingly impossible. The Israeli organization Peace Now, for instance, warned this week that current expansion plans would double the number of illegal settlers in the Occupied West Bank. Plans such as these have been carried out under the noses of the international community for far too long because no one has tried to put territorial limits on Israel’s insatiable appetite for more Palestinian land.

We have long heard promises that a Palestinian state is within reach, and have later been told that more hurdles need to be cleared before this basic right of self-determination will be acknowledged by the international community. Early in his presidency, George W. Bush vowed that such a state would be created through his own peacemaking efforts by the year 2005, but later pushed that date back, promising that he would press for its creation before he left office in 2009. Clinton would do well to avoid repeating the mistakes of Bush and his predecessors by raising – and then crushing – the hopes of yet another generation of Arabs.

Instead, she should work with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to nail down the exact borders of the state of Israel. Then at least Israel’s egregious acts of expansion would be defined as taking place outside the Jewish state’s borders. Maybe then the world would finally put an end to this crime.

~~~~~~~~

O Brother in Islam, the pillars of Zionism in Palestine are three: the Balfour promise; the European nations that have decided to expell the Jews from their lands and direct them to Palestine; and the extremists among the Arabs who do not accept any solution, but simply weep and howl, calling for help from those who cannot do them any good.  So behold Palestine, breathing its last!”

-King Abdullah I, 1932

Jordan stops flirting with Hamas…for now.

Last September I bookmarked a newspaper piece about Jordan courting Hamas and promptly forgot about it.  The headline was “As a Palestinian state recedes, Jordan contacts Hamas“, the piece in the Lebanese Daily Star by Saad Hattar, but only the first paragraph is still available without a subscription to the archives.

Jordan’s move to thaw relations with the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) following nine years of estrangement has raised eyebrows as to the timing and the motives behind this tactic. Internal and external factors dictated the rapprochement amid growing Jordanian dismay at American and Israeli behavior.

Today there was a new headline, “Jordan and Hamas: a window briefly opened, then shut” and Hamas has once again become the orphan child in Jordan.  This piece is by Rana Sabbagh-Gargour, who the Daily Star  describes as “a journalist and former chief editor of The Jordan Times”. Since these things tend to disappear quickly, (yes, I know people use these pages for research) I have also archived it here.

I remember the first time I met Rana Sabbagh, as she was called then, at the old Jordan Times building in Amman. It started with a chance meeting with a man named Abdul Rahman on a bus. Many people gave me their addresses or phone numbers when meeting me for the first time, and I usually filed them and ignored them, but for some reason, after a week or so I went and looked up Abdul Rahman at the small supermarket (a hole in the wall grocery store, actually) where he worked. It turned out he had been an editor in Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War. The country of the paper he was working for at the time was at odds with Iraq, so he had spent some time in Iraqi prison and still had problems walking as a result of strokes he had after being beaten in prison. He knew I was a teacher, but he told me I should write, and introduced me to his friends as “a journalist”. “Write a newspaper article about this subject”, he said, mentioning something that had just happened that day. “Then take it to the Jordan times and ask for the editor”, he told me. I did. At the desk at the entry to the Jordan Times/al-Rai building, they were dubious, but they made a phone call and directed me to that area. Rana Sabbagh was in a meeting at the moment, but I was escorted to a small room where I explained my business and handed over the article I had written. A half hour later, she appeared. She was concise, brief, strictly business. She told me exactly why she couldn’t accept the article, and told me what to do about it. A week later I brought her another article which she bought. I cannot even begin to describe what it feels like to see your own byline for the first time. Thank you Abdul Rahman; thank you Rana Sabbagh.

So back to Jordan and Hamas.  If you really want to understand the complicated dance between Hamas and Jordan, read the whole thing.  You will get everything you need to know about the situation without having to read anything else for background.  But one thing really struck me. Jordan is allied with the Egypt/Saudi/PLA group and against terrorism of Hamas/ Hizbollah/Iran/ Syria.  Jordan was itself the target of a spectacular assault on a wedding party by suicide bombers.

What then could entice Jordan, which some have called America’s only Arab friend, to open talks with Hamas, a notorius group on the CIA’s terrorist list that Jordan has little reason to love? Jordan hates religious extremists.  Jordan hates terrorists.  There were the usual answers you would expect about yesterday’s elections in Israel, and wanting to give the new U.S. president time to format policy, but just like back in the days when Rana Sabbagh was editing the Jordan Times, when the most startling and provokative ideas were found after you turn the page five, column six,  Rana Sabbagh has buried her most interesting observations in the ending paragraphs of her piece.   Jordan’s sudden courtship of Hamas was triggered by the fear of  a new massaive influx of refugees, this time from Palestine.

Insiders say the GID had little confidence that Abbas’ PA would not collapse in 2009, either leaving a power vacuum in the West Bank that might be challenged by Hamas or allowing Hamas simply to take the helm. In either case, the GID assumed that Hamas would prevent the influx of West Bank Palestinians to Jordan. And it would help ease the spillover of any security deterioration that would likely follow the PA’s collapse.

[Mohammad] Dhahabi’s [former head of Jordan's General Intelligence Department (GID), who was removed on December 29] calculation also reflected growing mistrust within the Jordanian establishment of Fatah, the dominant faction in the PLO, which Abbas heads. Dhahabi was worried that Fatah elites might negotiate a peace deal at the expense of Jordanian interests to save their faltering legitimacy. Having Hamas and the Jordanian Islamists on the side of official Jordan would curb the agenda of influential politicians in the US and Israel who continue to see Jordan as an “alternative homeland” for Palestinians.

Jordan’s sudden affection for Hamas, then was a result of powerful American interest groups (Jewish and Christian, although Sabbagh is too polite to say so) who do not accept the two state solution.

Jordan has now changed direction, but for how long?  Sixty per cent of Jordanians are Palestinian.  Jordan has welcomed wave after wave of refugees–Armenians, Circassians, Palestinians (after both the 1948 war and the 1967 war), and then the Iraqis.  The Palestinian refugees, led by Hamas, started a civil war against Jordan in 1969, because after being pushed out of the West Bank, they wanted to use Jordan to continue their war on Israel.  Several assassination attempts against King Hussein failed.  How much more chaos can Jordan absorb?  If Jordan’s Kings weren’t possibly the smartest heads of state in the world, America and Israel might long ago have lost their staunchest ally in the Arab world to religious extremists.

For now, the rapprochement with Hamas is (officially, at least) dead.  But I suspect it wouldn’t take much to bring it back.

“We will continue to push for a two-state solution to protect Jordan’s security and stability while making sure that Palestinians in the West Bank are empowered with security and economic stability to stay on the ground and to bury the ‘Jordan is Palestine’ scenario,” a Jordanian official has said.

“We will not allow any local or regional forces to push us to embrace the agenda of chaos and destruction that Iran and its allies are pursuing.”

This is a joke right? Americans would never tell a sovereign nation they had to accept a massive resettlement of people from another country so they could be forced out because they were the wrong ethnic group?  Wrong.  Since the latest action in Gaza, the late night threads of PumaPAC have teemed with exactly that kind of sentiment.  I thought it would disappear after the inauguration, but it has continued.  In fact just yesterday it appeared here.  If Jordan does ever embrace terrorism it won’t be because they want to but because they were pushed to by American extremists like this.

Palestinian Scuttlebutt: “Mish Harb”

This week the Middle East blog chatter has been heating up.  Blogs that cater to American politics have seen a sudden influx of right wing pro-Israeli propaganda of the most extreme kind.  These cut and paste spam artists start work long after even the west coast Americans have gone to bed.  Like maybe at about 8AM Tel Aviv/Ramalla/Amman/Jerusalem time.  And they never discuss American politics; they just drag out every anti-Palestinian, pro-settler propaganda piece that ’s ever been done in the last 10 years. For a while, I tried to counter the hate, but it was like trying to empty the ocean with a thimble.  Then two days ago the Israeli-bots  went mostly silent, or cut back on the comments, until yesterday when Israel announced the unilateral cease-fire against Hamas in Gaza–along with a resumption of the occupation of Gaza that they had unilaterally ended in 2005.  (It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out they would announce a cease-fire before the American inauguration Tuesday–the Middle East is completely attuned to the American election cycle.)  My curiosity was piqued and I had to make a foray over to the Arab neighborhood to see how the Arab street was taking this.

It turns out they are taking it very well.  In fact they are jolly.

Mansef, I decided.  I’ve got plenty of hummus at home–tonight I would have to eat something special.  Arriving at my favorite mansef place,  I saw in the window a sign that said, “Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you have never been hurt. Dance like no one is watching.”  Not very Arab, that.  And inside the furniture was covered with drop cloths while a half a dozen Arab men sat around a big table with huge argila pipe discretely on the floor between them. They cheerfully waved me in.  “Remodeling,” said one, proud of the word.  “We can accommodate you”, said another.  I was in the right place, for sure.  But the mansaf special was yesterday.  “We have mansaf”, they declared confidently.  Just for kicks I ordered the kubba too.  Of course they didn’t have it.  On the South Side it’s always on the menu but they never have it.  You have to go to the North Side.  Mint tea, but with dry mint.  Can’ t have everything. In the winter you should really drink sage tea, but it’s the thought that counts.

From my hiding place in a booth, I couldn’t help but overhear what they were saying–and although I couldn’t follow the conversation  it was pretty clear what they were talking about.  Filasteen, Iss-rah-el, Muser (Egypt), Mubarak, Hamas, and of course yahood. One topic after another was discussed and dropped.  No saber-rattling, for sure. I would recognize that sound.   Then agreement around the table.  “Mish harb.”  (Not war) “Mish harb.” “Mish harb”, everyone agreed–cheerfully. “Did you solve all the problems of the world yet”, I asked on my way back from paying the tab.  “Not yet”, one said, as cheerful as anyone can be without alcohol consumption, “but we’re this close.”  He held his thumb and finger an inch apart.

A harmful neighbour will either die or move away

Al-Ahram, a weekly from Egypt, showed up on my google reader’s list of top recommendations this week.  It is described as the “Arab world’s leading English-language publication.” Thanks, but no thanks.

Curious, I looked up last weeks’ confrontation in Hebron that was going on at the same time as the terrorist attack in India. A quick skim was disappointing. There was a picture of some people with guns and Jewish attire labeled “Israeli settlers teach their children to kill Palestinians”, but no Palestinians being aimed at.  A promised photo of a grave marker with a star of David was not posted. The world “Nazi” was sprinkled liberally throughout, and paragraph after paragraph claimed to know the thoughts, motivations, hearts and minds of a group of people who are not generally known for sharing their innermost thoughts and feelings with Palestinians.   The central incident the piece revolved around was vandalism in the middle of the night, resulting in breaking of car windows.

“The last time I went to submit a police complaint in Kiryat Araba one policeman took me to the next room and told me ‘I want to advise you, there is no point in submitting all these complaints. We simply can’t do anything to help you. The settlers control the state and the army can do little to protect you from them.’” Asked what he would do next to protect his family, Daana said, “I have no choice but to remain steadfast. A harmful neighbour will either die or move away,” said Daana quoting an old Arabic proverb.

Nice proverb.

Going to a Jewish source brings out a few more facts about the incident without the adjectives and heavy-handed world-view speculations of the Egyptian source.

Statements from the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Congress, and the dovish groups Ameinu and J Street criticized the settler reaction, which included setting fire to olive trees, stoning vehicles and pedestrians, and defacing Muslim graves with the Star of David. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert termed the violence a “pogrom.”

A strong condemnation of the settlers.

But leave it to the Christian Science Monitor to put the incident in context of the upcoming Israeli February elections, the government /settler split, and the cultural background of the city.

The violence here last week that started with the Israeli army evacuating ultranationalist settlers from a disputed house was captured on film and broadcast around the world. One thing it made clear for many was the extent to which extreme right-wing Jewish settlers have gone beyond the control of the Israeli government and army….

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Hebron is a city that is complicated at its core. Jews and Muslims regularly pray here at the tomb of their common forefather Abraham. Jews call it the Cave of the Patriarchs and Muslims call it the Ibrahimi Mosque. To suppress the chances for violence, there are separate entrances to the holy site. The city itself was divided into Israeli and Palestinian-controlled sectors in 1996, leaving just about everyone miserable with the results….

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Some say the move to evacuate the settlers was a preelection ploy. Israel faces parliamentary elections in February, out of which will come a new prime minister and a new government.

The big question now is whether growing settler violence will lead to a more radical or moderate direction for the Israeli right.

On Monday, members of the right-wing Likud Party were going to the polls in primaries to choose a new leader. The toss-up is between Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawkish politician who served as prime minister from 1996 to 1999, and Moshe Feiglin, a harder-line, religious figure who is closer to the settlement movement….

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“We appreciate that the army threw them out. I don’t see that any Arab army has been able to do that,” says Mussab Jabari, who lives across the street from the evacuated building. He has covered his windows with cardboard slats to protect against the rocks thrown at the house. “Last week, we saw the good side of the Israeli soldiers,” he says. “There’s a change in their attitude toward the settlers.”

Maybe that will give the Arabs a new proverb, something like “A harmful neighbor will either die, move away, or be removed by the government.

America loses its last Arab friend

In the excitement over the two political parties’ nominating conventions in the last couple weeks, a small news item has slipped through the cracks.

Jordan, our only Arab ally, has quietly started courting Hamas.

In case you don’t remember, Hamas is on the State Department’s terrorist list.

Hamas members are sent from Iran to teach Islamic extremism to Lebanese school children.  Hamas members garner great appreciation in the Arab world by supplying a few blankets and supplies to disaster areas while workers from other relief groups are mysteriously killed. Hamas is the organization that won an election in Palestine and, instead of sharing power with the PLO as they were elected to do, quickly subverted the democratic process and executed a complete military takeover in Gaza.

What does Hamas mean in Jordan? Hamas is the organization that tried repeatedly to assassinate Jordan’s King Hussein, the father of the present King, among other things, by putting poison in his eye drops. Hamas is the organization that successfully embarrassed the royal family for years by waging a terrorist war against Israel by crossing the border at night, then retreating across the safety of the Jordanian border whenever pursued. Hamas was the entity that tried to take over the Jordanian government in 1969, while Syria backed them by crossing Jordan’s northern border with tanks.

There are still bullet holes in the buildings in downtown Amman from that civil war. There are still land mines under the streets of Ramtha near the old Syrian border.

And now Jordan’s King Abdullah II wants to make nice with Hamas.  His Royal Highness is far from stupid. King Abdullah took his military training in England and his academic training in the U.S. He has written numerous op-ed pages for U.S. periodicals that are scholarly and also make quite a bit of sense.  More importantly, the King has an instinctive street wisdom that I would compare with his namesake, King Abdullah I who singlehandedly founded Jordan as an emirate and then a country.

Abdullah has gone farther than his father ever did in backing the U.S. King Adbullah’s father, King Hussein, was the first Jordanian ruler to establish ties with the U.S. during the era of declining British world influence.  King Hussein did NOT back the U.S. during Desert Storm, although he later pretended he had.  During that conflict between the U.S. and Iraq, he sided with his old hunting buddy, Saddam Hussein, and when the Desert Storm was over, Jordan continued to enjoy low gas prices and deeply discounted oil from Iraq’s oil wells. King Abdullah did support the U.S. in its latest Iraqi adventure, and Jordan has become home to countless Iraqi refugees. Who knows the price the King has paid for his loyalty to American interests.

If King Abdullah now wants to strengthen ties with Jordan’s oldest hereditary enemy Hamas, you had better believe it’s in the best interests of Jordan and the Royal Family. You can be equally certain it’s not in America’s best interest.

Is George Bush listening? Or are we about to slide into a McCain presidency where once again the Palestinians are ignored as world opinion condemns the only country–us–capable of putting pressure on Israel to accept Palestinian statehood.  Will McCain’s good buddy and world adviser Joe Leiberman, who is Jewish, be put in charge of our relations with the Arab world? The pundits are now saying McCain confidante Leiberman would be offered a cabinet post in a possible McCain presidency.

I say we should accept Palestinian independence quickly.  Now, while the PLO is still running the show. And prop them up with as much foreign aid as necessary.

Former President Nixon is remembered for the worst ethical scandal in American history.  He is also remembered for recognizing China.

President Bush will long be remembered for his war in Iraq.  It’s not too late for him to also be remembered for recognizing Palestine.

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[Another copy of Saad Hattar's piece Jordan-Hamas: the untold story is at Bitterlemons-international.org |here|.]