Skirt-fronting Putin Can Help Eradicate Islamic State Crisis

[Published 22 October 2014]


The possibility of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott shirt-fronting Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit in Brisbane next month over the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in Ukrainian sovereign territory with the loss of all on board - including 38 Australians - has receded following Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s 25 minute meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the Asian Europe Summit held in Milan this week.

Abbott had vowed:

“I’m going to shirtfront Mr Putin. I am going to be saying to Mr Putin Australians were murdered. There’ll be a lot of tough conversations with Russia and I suspect the conversation I have with Mr Putin will be the toughest conversation of all.”

“Shirtfront” is an Australian slang term used in Australian Rules football to describe;

”a head-on charge aimed at bumping an opponent to the ground”

ABC News reported on Bishop’s meeting with Putin:

“The Foreign Minister said she received assurances from Mr Putin that he would help facilitate access to the crash site for international investigators but could not confirm a timeframe in which the Russian president would act.

“I had a very detailed discussion with him. I expressed our concerns about the Malaysia Airlines crash. He said that he would seek to respond to my request by asking the separatists to provide that access.

I announced to the gathered world leaders that I’d had a conversation with President Putin and that he had been most cooperative and had responded very constructively to my request that Russia use its influence to ensure that the independent investigators can have access to the crash site of MH17.”

Hopefully such access will have occurred well before the G20 leaders meet.

Putin however should not believe he will have a trouble free ride in sunny and welcoming Brisbane.

Australia punches well above its weight and is a member of the American-led coalition fighting Islamic State (IS) in Iraq — whilst carefully avoiding confronting IS in neighbouring Syria.

Australia - also currently a member of the United Nations Security Council - should be increasingly concerned at the lack of a specific Security Council Resolution authorising the use of force against IS.

Bishop was alerted to Iraq’s frustrations with the Security Council - when Iraqi Foreign Minister Al-Ja’afari stated at a joint press conference with Bishop in Baghdad on 18 October:

“We have requested assistance with air strikes, logistic preparations, and the provision of intelligence information from the Head of UN Security Council and all the member countries. We also asked for their help with humanitarian assistance for 100,000 people who have been internally displaced from Mosul and other areas in Iraq. We have asked a number of countries to help us in rebuilding infrastructure, especially in Mosul…

...The clear message we send to the Head of the UN Security Council was that any country that wants to work with us needs to coordinate and communicate closely with the relevant authorities. The main points we have mentioned in our letter to the Head of the UN Security Council and to coalition member countries and non-member countries such as China and Iran are that they must avoid striking civilian targets and residential areas. China and Iran have offered to help Iraq. China is not a member of the coalition. We will work with any countries that want to help and assist Iraq even if they are not members of the coalition”

The idea that China and Iran should offer any help to Iraq outside the American—led coalition — which itself is operating without Security Council authorisation — seems a recipe for disaster.

Only a UN Security Council mandated force—backed by Russia-can degrade and destroy IS and end what has become a crisis of increasing international concern.

Putin - from his perspective - needs to ensure that the passage of any such Security Council resolution does not result in Syria’s President Assad being removed from power.

Russian and Iranian national interests in Syria dictate that Assad remains in power - whilst his American-supported opponents attempt to overthrow him in a conflict that has raged for more than three years and seen over 200000 deaths and three million refugees - with no end in sight.

Putin has previously supported a Security Council resolution that removed a common threat to both American and Russian interests — Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal — whilst leaving Assad untouched.

The looming threat that battle-hardened Chechens fighting for IS represent for Russia is made chillingly clear in this report:

“When the Islamic State commander known as “Omar the Chechen” called to tell his father they’d routed the Iraqi army and taken the city of Mosul, he added a stark message: Russia would be next.

“He said ‘don’t worry dad, I’ll come home and show the Russians,’” Temur Batirashvili said from his home in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, on the border with the Russian region of Chechnya. “I have many thousands following me now and I’ll get more. We’ll have our revenge against Russia.”

Iran’s Shiite population has no illusions about the threat the Sunni ideologically-based Islamic State poses.

America and Russia face that same common threat.

Ms Bishop—meeting Putin again in Brisbane on the sidelines of the G20 Summit - could be the catalyst persuading Putin to back a Security Council resolution to eradicate the Islamic State.

“Skirt-fronting” could well become the new buzz word in international diplomacy.

Palestine - Jordan Faces Looming Crisis With ISIS

[Published 30 June 2014]


Jordan has mobilized its military forces along Jordan’s 180 kilometre border with Iraq - deploying rocket launchers, armored personnel carriers and tanks following the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) reportedly taking control of the Trebil crossing between Iraq and Jordan on 23 June.

Other reports said members of this Salafist jihadist group took over a number of Iraqi towns in Anbar - including al-Rutba - 40 kilometres from the Jordan-Iraq border.

Osama Al Sharif reports:

"Jordan maintains close ties with the Sunni tribes of Iraq, especially in Anbar. But these tribes provided sanctuary to ISIS founder, Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, who was killed in Iraq in 2006. It is believed that Jordanian intelligence and an anti-terrorist squad helped the Americans locate and liquidate Zarqawi. The spread of ISIS in Anbar will raise red flags in Amman."

Taylor Luck - Amman-based political analyst specialized in jihadist movements - opines:

“Jordan’s greatest national security threat currently is neither the Syrian regime or the potential use of chemical weapons - it is the spread of the Islamic State’s ideology and the spillover of the jihadist civil war into Jordan.”

Al-Monitor confirms these assessments:

“The quick takeover by ISIS and Sunni rebels of at least three Iraqi governorates in the past two weeks, including the city of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, has created unease in Jordan for a number of reasons. ISIS has in the past threatened the regime and video clips on YouTube by Jordanian members of the organization, vowing to march on the kingdom and burning their passports, have generated concern. No one really knows how many Jordanians have joined this radical Islamist group, but there are estimates that at least 2,000 jihadists have joined Jabhat al-Nusra, which is associated with al-Qaeda, and ISIS to fight in Syria.”

These developments followed Jordan’s King Abdullah’s surprise meeting with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya last week.

Europe Online magazine explains:

“Jordan has a significant community of ethnic Chechens stemming from 19th century emigration from the Russian empire, while Chechens are thought to make up a significant proportion of Islamic State fighters, who are currently spreading unrest in Iraq.

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - currently waging offensives in Syria and Iraq - claims that up to 2,000 fighters in both regions are from the Caucasus.

Kadyrov, who has been battling Islamist insurgents in Chechnya and neighbouring regions, has in the past vehemently denounced Chechen jihadists in the Middle East.”

Abdullah was obviously concerned about the extent to which Chechens already in Jordan might make common cause with ISIS Chechen militants outside it.

Paul Saunders assesses the help Kadyrov could give Jordan:

“While he likely has extremely limited influence over the extremists fighting in the Middle East, he does have a variety of tools at his disposal that go beyond those normally employed by states. One example has been Kadyrov’s apparent deployment of his pro-Russian Chechen fighters in eastern and southern Ukraine to support pro-Russian forces there; Crimea’s new leaders went so far as to award him a medal “For the Liberation of Crimea,” a fact proudly reported on Chechnya’s official news website. In explaining the award, a Crimean official said that “at the request of Chechnya’s leader, the Chechen diaspora supported Crimeans in a difficult time.” Kadyrov may well have very useful channels into Jordan’s Chechen diaspora too.”

Abdullah’s visit to Kazyrov — his “brother and friend” - will not have earned him any brownie points with America or the West.

The US Department of State has described Kazyrov’s rule as “corrupt and brutal” and Western human rights organizations frequently condemn his government’s conduct.

Abdullah is desperately seeking to strengthen the protective umbrella afforded by Israel and the West that has shielded its Hashemite rulers against past PLO, Hamas and Moslem Brotherhood attempts to destabilize Jordan and overthrow the Monarchy.

The Hashemites are long time survivors - having astutely managed to retain 78% of Mandatory Palestine under exclusive Arab sovereignty for the last 92 years.

Jordan has been a safe haven for millions of refugees from past conflicts in Kuwait and Iraq. It currently hosts 599461 registered Syrian refugees — of whom approximately 27% are aged between 0-17.

Osama Al Sharif warns:

“The possible collapse and partition of Iraq will also have grave geopolitical repercussions on Jordan. The creation of a Sunni enclave along Jordan’s eastern borders will have political, economic and social effects on the kingdom. Israel, too, is worried about such a possibility since Jordan has acted as a buffer zone between the Jewish state and Arab heartland. Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported on June 23 that Jordan and Israel have increased their security consultations to deal with the latest ISIS advances in Iraq.”

Jordan badly blundered in ignoring Israel’s warning to stay out of the 1967 Six Day War — resulting in Israel capturing the West Bank and East Jerusalem — ending Jordan’s 19 years of uninterrupted occupation since 1948.

Direct negotiations with Israel to redress that fatal decision by redrawing the boundaries between Israel and Jordan within the framework of their 1994 Peace Treaty should now become an increasingly attractive proposition for King Abdullah to seriously consider. Article 4.5 provides for co-operation in combating terrorism of all kinds

Jordan—facing its looming crisis with ISIS - risks suffering the same political and humanitarian disasters currently embroiling Syria and Iraq.

Israel could be Jordan’s lifeline in preventing this happening.

Palestine, Peoplehood And Presbyterians

[Published 8 July 2012]



The attempt by the Palestinian Arabs to create a second state - in addition to Jordan - reached the hallowed halls of the two million members of the Presbyterian Church in America this week.

By a razor thin margin of 333-331 with two abstentions, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), being held in Pittsburgh, rejected a motion to divest from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions.

The General Assembly is the highest decision-making body for the church.

A 2011 church report found that Caterpillar supplies bulldozers for the demolition of Palestinian homes, Motorola provides cell phone technology to West Bank settlements and Hewlett-Packard manages information technology for the Israeli Navy. The decision to vote on divestment came after the companies allegedly refused the church’s entreaties to change their policies in regard to providing services to Israel.

The ongoing fascination the Presbyterian Church apparently has for the cause of the Palestinian Arabs does not appear to be matched by any concern for other peoples around the world struggling for recognition of their right to self-determination.

Steven Carol has highlighted the plight of many such groups in these eloquent terms:

“Must all national and ethnic groups that want their own states and have struggled for them - get them, in the name of self-determination?
If so, why haven’t the Imazighen (Berbers), who predate their Arab conquerors by millennia and who have had their own language and culture, have their own state?

Why is there no independent Euskadi state for Basques? Elsewhere in Europe, why is there no state for the Bretons of Brittany, the Flemings of Flanders, the Catalans of Catalonia in north-eastern Spain, the Frisans in the Netherlands, and the Sami people in northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and on the Kola Peninsula of Russia?

Why is there no state of Tibet, Jola state of Casamance (southern Senegal), Lunda state of Katanga, Luba state of South Kasai, Ibo state of Biafra, Tuareg state of Azawad, stretching across the Sahara from Mali to Niger, Tamil state in north-eastern Sri Lanka, a state of Cabinda, and a state of Kurdistan?

Of all the peoples on earth who have not yet been granted the sovereignty they have fought for–the Chechens of Russia, the Uighurs of China, the Karens of Myanmar, the Mizos and Nagas of northeast India, the Saharawis of Morocco, and the Acehans of Indonesia, to name but a few–why must the Palestinian Arabs be given a second Palestinian Arab state?

They already make up some 80 percent of the population of Jordan, a nation created by the British in 1921 from 77.5 percent of the original British Mandate of Palestine which was to be the Jewish National homeland.

There never was a separate Palestinian Arab people, distinct from other Arabs during the 1,192 years of Muslim hegemony in Palestine under Arab, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Seljuk, Ayyubid, Mameluke, and Ottoman rule.

Should the Palestinian Arabs alone be acknowledged by many, of deserving not one, but two states?

One important benchmark of nationhood must be the degree of difference from its neighbors, and the need for a state to protect that uniqueness. The Tibetans, for example, have their own special culture, language, and religion, which they will lose if they continue to be ruled by the Chinese; the Kurds have a culture and language unlike that of the Arabs; the Karens, a language and religion different from that of the Burmese.

There never was a separate Palestinian Arab people, distinct from other Arabs during the 1,192 years of Muslim hegemony in Palestine under Arab, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Seljuk, Ayyubid, Mameluke, and Ottoman rule.

All through the period of the British military occupation and the subsequent British Mandate of Palestine, countless official British Mandate documents speak of the Jews and the Arabs of Palestine—not Jews and Palestinians.”

Unlike these various groups around the world - the Palestinian Arabs were offered their own state by the Peel Commission in 1937 and by the United Nations in 1947 - and rejected both opportunities.

Between 1948-1967 the Palestinian Arabs could have created an independent state in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - but chose to unify the West Bank with Jordan and become Jordanian citizens.

In 2000 and 2008 Israel made generous offers to the Palestinian Authority to divide sovereignty between them - which offers were again rejected.

The daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arab population are now under the direct control and administration of the Palestinian Authority.

The state of Palestine has been admitted as a member state of UNESCO, competes in FIFA Soccer international competitons and will march under its flag at the Olympic Games in three weeks time. Palestine has more diplomatic missions in countries around the World than Israel.

Why has the Presbyterian Church therefore thought it necessary to continue to concentrate its efforts in support of the Palestinian Arabs to the exclusion of other peoples engaged in the same struggle around the world - especially as the Palestinian Arabs have been offered so many opportunities in the past to obtain what they seek now - but have rejected those offers on each occasion?

The same question could equally be asked of the following groups:

1. Pension funds in Norway and Sweden - that have divested themselves of holdings in some firms involved in building in settlements or helping to erect Israel’s contentious West Bank separation barrier.
2. European activists - who picket stores that sell goods produced by Israelis, interrupt concert performances by Israeli artists in theatres around the world and object to Israeli academics lecturing in overseas universities.
3. The United Nations and the United Nations Human Rights Council - that both focus almost entirely on the plight of the Palestinian Arabs and virtually none of those other peoples around the world denied any international recognition or support of their Peoplehood.

The Presbyterian Church and these other groups must believe that their actions can influence the resolution of the conflict between Arabs and Jews in relation to the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Otherwise why engage in this kind of conduct?

Why then do they not take similar action against China, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, Iraq and Indonesia to support many of these other groups striving for recognition of their own Peoplehood?

Are the Jewish people being singled out once again - whilst other national, religious and ethnic groups slip under the radar?

Double standards - clearly evident in the support of one group to the exclusion of other groups similarly seeking self-determination - requires to be explained.

Palestine - Unleashing The Self-Determination Genie

[Published 17 June 2011]


It is hard to believe that the possibility of the Palestinians successfully approaching the UN in September and obtaining “a license to statehood“ is even being seriously contemplated.

The Palestinians have never comprised a separate and unique group in recorded history.

Their defining Constitution - the PLO Charter - which only came into operation in 1964 makes this quite clear in Article 1 which states:

“Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.“

Palestinians are Arabs - part of the Arab nation currently comprising 21 independent States. The vast majority of Arabs only came to live in Palestine in the 20th century at the same time as the country was being opened up and developed by the return of the Jews.

Article 5 again confirms the Arab identity of the Palestinians by declaring:

“The Palestinians are those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or have stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father - whether inside Palestine or outside it - is also a Palestinian."

Jews and non-Arab Christians residing in Palestine in or after 1947 are excluded. This smacks of apartheid and racism at its worst - which the international community accepts without a whimper.

Any approach to the UN in September will seek to have the UN recognize a Palestinian State in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza - which runs counter to the provisions of Article 2 of the PLO Charter which affirms:

“Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”

British Mandatory Palestine comprised:

1. Jordan - almost 77% of Palestine
2. Israel - about 17% of Palestine and
3. Gaza and the West Bank - the remaining 6% of Palestine

Would the Palestinian Authority be prepared to forgo its claim to Jordan and Israel as a quid pro quo for UN recognition? I doubt it.

The fiction that constitutes the Palestinian identity is revealed in Article 4 of the PLO Charter:

“The Palestinian identity is a genuine, essential, and inherent characteristic; it is transmitted from parents to children.”

Certainly at the time the Mandate for Palestine was created in 1922 by the 51 nations comprising the League of Nations - no Palestinian identity rated a mention. The Preamble to the Mandate document spoke of :

“ … the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine .."

The censuses undertaken by the Turkish and English authorities in Palestine had always been based on counting the numbers of Jews, Moslems and Christians. The idea of a separate Palestinian identity never arose.

In 1946 Transjordan (now Jordan) was granted its independence by Great Britain. No attempt was made to define its Arab residents as Palestinians. They were called Trans-Jordanians and later Jordanians - even though that territory comprised almost four fifths of Palestine and the entire population comprised Arab nationals residing in Palestine at the time.

In 1947 the UN Partition Plan proposed for Palestine spoke of dividing the remaining 23% of the territory of the Mandate into a Jewish State and an Arab State - not a Palestinian State.

After the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza had been occupied by the invading armies of Jordan and Egypt from 1948-1967 - the Palestinian Arabs chose to unify the West Bank and East Jerusalem with Jordan in 1950. West Bank and East Jerusalem Arabs became Jordanian citizens. Any claim to a separate Palestinian identity was still well and truly hidden from sight. The State they now demand could have been created at any time during those 19 years when not one Jew lived there after all had been driven out during the 1948 War.

1964 really marked the starting point for a claimed Palestinian identity as defined in the PLO Charter. A very successful campaign undertaken during the last 47 years has seen this identity internationally deserving of recognition as a distinct separate and national group.

But what does this say for long standing authentic national and secessionist movements such as the Kurds, the Tibetans, the Chechens, and the Basques?

If the road to self-determination can be successfully pursued through the UN by the Palestinian Arabs on what is at best a contrived and artificial identity - then how can the UN possibly refuse to grant similar recognition to these other far more credentialed and long standing peoples with their own history, culture and language going back centuries and even into antiquity?

If the Palestinian Arabs can have a state recognized by the UN - what arguments can possibly justify the UN refusing to accord the same status and recognition to these other groups ?

In the case of Palestine the legal conditions required for the declaration of a Palestinian State - as laid down in the Montevideo Convention 1933 - are not capable of being met unless first agreed in direct face to face negotiations with Israel.

A similar obstacle impedes the many other nationalist and secessionist movements around the world and makes their independence or breakaway conditional on agreements being successfully negotiated with their host states.

The large number of these movements looking on with keen interest from the sidelines can be gauged from the following survey [http://www.jinsa.org/jinsa-reports/palestinian-un-vote-fraught-global-implications:

“There are 37 recognized and recognizable secessionist movements in Africa. There are 65 in Asia, including 13 in Burma, five in China (Uighurs, Tibetans and Mongolians among them). Russia straddles continents and faces five secessionist movements in Asian Russia and 13 more in European Russia, including Chechens. The rest of Europe has more than 50, including 18 in Italy and nine in Spain. France has four irredentist movements, four secessionist movements, five autonomist movements and several movements to change the borders of Departments. There is one each in Poland, the Netherlands, Romania and Switzerland. Parties in Greenland want to secede from Denmark and in Puerto Rico they want to secede from the United States - which also has American Indian, Southern and Texan movements to secede, as well as one in Manhattan and one in New York State. The Miskito Indians want to secede from Nicaragua and Chiapas from Mexico. French and British colonies in the Caribbean and Oceania have separatist movements.”

The UN needs to tread carefully to avoid unleashing the genie of self-determination by ignoring the well established principles of international law. This genie will have the capacity to wreak havoc in the conduct of the affairs of a large number of UN member states who will have their flanks exposed to similar demands.

As you sow - so shall you reap.

Jordan-Palestine ties strained by peace talks

[Published 23 March 2014]

Al Monitor

Mohammad Ad-Fdeilat

Jordanian politicians are good at using a sieve to hide the sun — even the bright sun at the height of summer. Worse, they are convinced of what they are saying, and they try to convince the people, too. They try to address the country’s most difficult problems using slogans that become legally binding without being stipulated by law, and that makes these slogans vulnerable to being replaced by new slogans at any time. Thus, the problems remain unresolved and end up exploding later. This is what is happening with Jordanian-Palestinian relations in Jordan now.

A problem that slogans cannot hide

Jordanian-Palestinian relations have been complicated since the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan in 1921, which became a kingdom after gaining independence in 1946 and the Palestinian nakba in 1948. The root of the problem is that Palestinian refugees were forcibly moved to the other bank of the River Jordan without the ability to return and became Jordanian citizens in accordance with the Jordanian-Palestinian unity decision of 1949. The latter claimed the Palestinian territories that were not occupied in the nakba as part of Jordan, under the throne of King Abdullah I. The constitution stipulated that the non-occupied lands were an integral part of Jordan and that their inhabitants were Jordanian citizens.

The matter became even more complicated with the June 1967 defeat, in which Jordan lost even more land, over and above those areas lost in the nakba of 1948. After the defeat, more Palestinians in the West Bank moved to Jordan (the East Bank) and became Jordanian citizens.

Then, in 1988, Jordan’s late King Hussein disengaged Jordan administratively and legally from the West Bank, a decision that violated the Jordanian constitution. Jordan justified that move by claiming that Arab pressure was exerted on Jordan to empower the Palestine Liberation Organization, which had been recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians in 1974. The Jordanian and Palestinian public criticized the decision, which they considered as conceding occupied Jordanian land that was not occupied on unity day.

Jordanian-Palestinian relations have been formed by political decisions taken by the heads of the political structures on both banks of the river. Those decisions have affected the entire structure of the two peoples, whereby any change will collapse the whole structure.

At first, the relationship was marked by sympathy for a people who had lost their land and become refugees dreaming of return. That sympathy developed into active support for a cause that was considered the primary cause of the Arabs. Moreover, the Palestinian cause became a Jordanian cause in the unity framework. But that didn’t last; in the wake of the 1967 defeat, a new terminology appeared: east Jordanians and Jordanians of Palestinian origin. The objective of that terminology was to consecrate the idea that there are two separate peoples and reject the two peoples melting together into one.

East Jordanians feared that the Palestinian majority would crowd them out of the country’s resources and control the Jordanian economy. Thus, east Jordanians rushed to fill the top positions in the state and said that they feared for their national identity. They revolted over losing benefits they would have had were it not for the Palestinian presence.

Racial division was thus established in Jordanian society, and that division was reinforced by the events of Black September in 1970 between the Palestinian resistance and the Jordanian army. This ended with the exit of the Palestinian resistance from Jordan forever.

The Palestinians said that they left Jordan after a massacre that targeted their presence, while the Jordanians said that they protected their country from the ambitions of armed gangs. Each party retains a painful memory of what happened and considers itself the victim.

Amid this complex relationship and the growing racial discourse, the Jordanian government did nothing to address the root of the problem in the historical context that created it. All the government did was adopt the slogan launched by the late King Hussein: “A country of immigrants and supporters.” But the slogan failed to address the problem because it consecrated the notion that there are two peoples in Jordan, with the east Jordanians having a privileged status over Jordanians of Palestinian origin.

Then the king repeated other slogans whenever the Jordanian-Palestinian relationship was tense: “Jordanians from various roots and origins” and “National unity is a red line.” The elite produced its own slogan: “We are all Jordanians for the sake of Jordan and we are all Palestinians for the sake of Palestine.” Under these slogans, it was forbidden to talk about problems in the relationship and the fears of both sides. East Jordanians who raised the slogans “Jordan is for Jordanians” and “Let’s preserve the national identity” were fought. And slogans launched by Jordanians of Palestinian origin, such as “Fair representation in state institutions” and “Those with transgressed rights,” were also fought. The latter slogan was used after a campaign of systematic exclusion, which Jordanians of Palestinian origin considered a denial of their role in building the country.

The “fire under the ashes” ended up burning the “romantic” slogans, and east Jordanians ended up clashing with Jordanians of Palestinian origin. They traded accusations. The Palestinians were accused of “selling their country,” while Jordanians were accused of being “conspirators against the cause.”

The two sides are fighting to control the majority

The Palestinians are not the only ones who were added to Jordan’s demographic makeup. Before them came the tribes that migrated from different Arab countries over the years, and earlier came the Circassians who took refuge from the Tsarist invasion of the Caucasus in the 19th century. There are also the Chechens, the Armenians and the Hijazis who came with the army of the Great Arab Revolt, which was led by King Abdullah I, the son of Sharif Hussein bin Ali. Then came the Iraqis in the wake of the occupation of Iraq in 2003. And today, there are the Syrian refugees.

In all this mosaic of Jordanian society, east Jordanians have no quarrel except with Jordanians of Palestinian origin, who make up one side in the eternal bilateral conflict for the majority.

Official Jordanian statistics show that the number of Jordanians in 1948 was 400,000; that, in the wake of the nakba, the country received 100,000 refugees; that Jordan’s population in 1967 reached 1.2 million and received 400,000 new refugees; that the population in 1990 was 4.17 million and received 300,000 refugees — the Palestinians who were living in the Gulf. The statistics ignore the fact that the latter already had Jordanian nationality and that non-Palestinian Jordanians are also diverse. The statistics make it look like Palestinians were being added to a pure east Jordanian people.

Amid the competition for the majority, the two biggest components recognize that Jordanians of Palestinian origin make up about 35% of Jordan’s 6.5 million people — a figure that has remained constant throughout the history of the relationship, with the rest being east Jordanians — without considering the other components of the social fabric.

A “Catholic marriage” and charges of treason

Efforts to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations aimed at reaching a “final solution” to the Palestinian cause usually raise the tension in Jordanian-Palestinian relations, while that tension declines when the negotiations stall.

The negotiations harm Jordanian-Palestinian relations whenever the proposed solution doesn’t allow for the return of the refugees. Such solutions raise the fears of east Jordanians that Jordan may turn into an alternative homeland for the Palestinians, an idea promoted by the Israeli right. Some fear the formation of a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation, where the Palestinian identity will predominate over the Jordanian one.

Throughout the 66 years of the Jordanian-Palestinian “Catholic marriage,” both sides have accused each other of treason. Therefore, both sides settled on being afraid all the time. Moreover, that fear will continue amid the slogans that try to address the imbalances in the relationship. The latest of these slogans is “in defense of Jordan and Palestine.” It was devised to face the growing racial discourse that accompanied the tour of US Secretary of State John Kerry in the region. Under the slogan of “harmony,” the two sides traded accusations that are sometimes whispered and sometimes said publicly, to assert their inability to reach a final resolution for the relationship.

The above article was translated from As-Safir Al-Arabi, a special supplement of As-Safir newspaper whose content is provided through a joint venture of As-Safir and Al-Monitor.

Author Mohammad al-FdeilatPosted March 23, 2014

Translator(s)Rani Geha

Original Article اقرا المقال الأصلي باللغة العربية

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2014/03/jordan-palestine-relations-tense-peace-talks.html#ixzz2wv3Dm4B4