The Jordanian dilemma after the war

         

Marwan Muasher

A whole year has passed since the Israeli war on Gaza, during which Israel has crossed all humanitarian, political and military boundaries.
The Israeli Prime Minister does not seem to have any clear strategy other than staying in power for as long as possible. After Israel's assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, Netanyahu's popularity seems to be on the rise, which strengthens his ability to remain in power today. It is also not unlikely that he will seek to prolong the war for another reason, which is his unwillingness to give Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris any positive role in stopping the war and his preference to wait for the results of the US elections over Trump. If he wins, he will deal with him better than the Democrats, even with Biden's blatant support for Israel and providing it with all the weapons it needs to perpetuate the war.
But the war will end one way or another at some point. Post-war Jordan will face a major dilemma in terms of its approach to the future relationship with Israel. Official Jordan used a previously convincing justification in its promotion of signing a peace treaty with Israel to its citizens. This justification was that signing the treaty forced Israel to recognize the Jordanian state and Jordanian borders, which would bury the notion of an alternative homeland, which in practice meant emptying the Palestinian land of its population and claiming the existence of a Palestinian state in Jordan and not on Palestinian soil. Jordan even insisted on including in the treaty an explicit text against any attempt at mass displacement of the population (i.e. from the Palestinian territories to Jordan).
In addition, after Netanyahu and the extreme right came to power, the official Jordanian position was that Israel's stubborn position on the peace process did not represent the end of the road, and that Netanyahu would leave power at some point, and that Jordan should wait until a more flexible and balanced Israeli prime minister comes, which would allow for the resumption of talks with Israel about ways to end the occupation and establish a Palestinian state.

The crossroads that Jordan will face is of great importance, which calls for a serious national dialogue about the future of the Jordanian-Israeli relationship.

The Israeli war on Gaza has greatly weakened both of these justifications. It has become clear that one of Israel’s main goals in the war is to get rid of as many Palestinians as possible in Gaza, either by direct killing or by making Gaza uninhabitable after Israel has destroyed all the necessities of life in the Strip, from road networks, electricity and water to schools, hospitals and places of worship. In addition, Israeli settlers in the West Bank continue to attack Palestinian population centers, with the support of the Israeli army, in blatant attempts to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, in preparation for creating or taking advantage of conditions that allow for displacement.
The second argument, which was hoping for the arrival of an Israeli prime minister with whom Jordan could reach an understanding regarding the establishment of a Palestinian state, also fell, especially after the Israeli Knesset passed a law last July, with the approval of all the main Israeli parties, both pro- and anti-Israel, against the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The current division in Israel is only between those who support Netanyahu and those who oppose Netanyahu. As for the Palestinian issue, there is a near-unanimous Israeli rejection of a Palestinian state. This stubborn Israeli popular and official position is not expected to change. Israeli society has been increasingly radicalized for more than twenty years, and there is no significant Israeli popular critical mass calling for peace, neither now nor in the foreseeable future.
Accordingly, Jordan faces a real dilemma in the post-war period. Resuming economic and security cooperation with Israel would expose the government to a direct confrontation with an angry and hostile public opinion, and would give Israel the impression that Jordan is not serious in its opposition to Israeli policies. Continuing Jordan’s current position, which is ahead of other Arab countries in terms of its harsh criticism of Israel, would expose it to serious pressure from the United States and others.
Hence, the outcome of the Jordanian elections is extremely important. Instead of being a stark expression of where Jordanian public opinion stands, the Jordanian decision-maker can use this outcome to resist any external pressures that Jordan may be exposed to.
The crossroads that Jordan will face is of great importance, which calls for a serious national dialogue on the future of the Jordanian-Israeli relationship. While the cancellation of the peace treaty may not be on the table for several reasons, studying the remaining options and choosing the best of them is a national necessity, because it is clear that returning to the status quo between Jordan and Israel before October 7 of last year is neither possible nor acceptable.

Former Jordanian Foreign Minister

A good and factual article by Mr. Muasher, it could as well transcribe to other Arab countries of the region.....           As usual, my many thanks to all for following and reading.    

HISTORY DIDN"T BEGIN OR END ON OCTOBER 7th

 
Dr. James J. Zogby ©
President
Arab American Institute

On October 7th, the continuing genocide in Gaza and the massive bombings in Lebanon will likely be ignored by US officials and media outlets as they solemnly commemorate the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel.  What they’ll ignore is that the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict didn’t begin on October 7th, nor did the suffering end on that day. Nor did the ugly conflict in Lebanon and its blind mass killing and destructions start on Oct. 8th. 

October 7th was a horrific day, to be sure, of condemnable acts committed by Hamas against innocents. It is important that the stories of those who were murdered and those taken as hostages be told and that we hear their cries and mourn their loss. And it’s right that Hamas be condemned for the crimes they committed. But history didn’t start on that nightmarish day, and it certainly didn’t end there either. 

Since then, from what we know for certain, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed, 97,000 wounded, with upwards of 20,000 missing. Entire Palestinian families have been wiped out, neighborhoods leveled, most housing in Gaza has been destroyed along with its schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. Aid has been restricted, resulting in deaths from disease, starvation, and malnutrition. And all kinds of psychological disorders have taken hold resulting from prolonged trauma. What Israel has done we are told by respected international agencies is genocide—the destruction of a society, its culture, and well-being. And now the devastation and trauma are being extended to Lebanon. 

When America’s political leaders and media commemorate the horror of October 7th, what happened after that day will not be considered. What began on October 8th and continues until now will be ignored. Worse still, those who dare to speak of the tragedy that followed will be denounced for their insensitivity to Jewish suffering. It will be as if the cries of the Israeli victims will drown out those of the Palestinians. One people’s pain will be prioritized over another’s. It’s something that Arabs have come to expect: They are not seen as equal human beings.

 
To be crude, this is not making a case for Palestinians winning the Victimhood Olympics. Rather it is merely a reminder that Palestinian lives matter as much as Israeli lives and that history didn’t begin or end on October 7th. But this is not the story that will be told on that day, in the US media or in Congress or by the White House. And it’s not the way this story will enter our history books. 

It’s often noted that history, as it’s taught in a society, is written by the dominant group. The story that is told is a function of the perspective of the person who’s relating it. It’s how they see it from where they stand, and its meaning is determined by where they choose to start their narrative. 

When I was in school, the American history we learned began with Columbus’ “discovery” of what was termed “the New World.” “Indians” were savages and the “3/5ths compromise” was presented as a logical answer to how to count slaves in the census. 

The world history we studied was Eurocentric. Islam was a barbaric threat; China was a mere footnote “discovered by Marco Polo”; Genghis Khan was a marauder. And the British and French, we were told, brought civilization to the primitive people of the south and east. 
In reality, of course, the “New World” was populated with ancient civilizations that had built magnificent cultures, slavery was a barbaric institution, Islamic civilization taught the West a great deal, Genghis Khan was one of the great conveyors of culture from East to West, and colonialism was an evil that subjugated and exploited and distorted the economic and political development of the conquered nations. But that’s not the story that was taught, because those who wrote the history we learned in school began their story in 1492 and told it from the perspective of Americans or Europeans looking out at the world.

Back to October 7th. Palestinians have a tragic story to tell of dispossession, displacement, and horrific oppression that began a century ago. But here in the US, their story is not the dominant narrative. The nightmare they’ve lived isn’t understood or is outright rejected. 
In mid-October 2023 I had an encounter with a senior Biden administration official. After he spoke passionately about October 7th and the trauma it evoked for Jews everywhere, I told him I understood. I noted how my uncle, a US soldier in WWII, told me about what he saw on entering the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. His stories and The Diary of Anne Frank, which I read in high school, helped me understand Jewish trauma and be understanding of their fears. I cautioned him, however, that there was another people who also had a history of trauma and that what Palestinians were seeing play out evoked for them the nightmare of the Nakba. We must, I insisted, be sensitive to the horror and trauma of both peoples. He angrily shot back, dismissing my observation saying that it smacked of “whataboutism.” I was stunned and angry. It was one thing for Israelis to feel that only their suffering matters and that anyone who attempts to distract from that one-sided view is either dismissive of Jewish pain or is defending those who inflict it. It’s quite another for US officials and major media figures to share this view. 

Public opinion in the US is changing with more Americans understanding the Palestinian story and empathizing with their pain. This broader view, however, has not taken hold in official political and media circles. They still see history through the eyes of only one side. For them, only Israeli lives and suffering matters and the story of the current tragedy began and ended on October 7th.

 
Yes, another factual and so very true article by Dr. J. Zogby, describing the actual horrific situation a full year down the line...... And now widening to brutally engulf Lebanon and possibly the entire region and the world. 

 
As always, my many thanks to all my good readers. 

DEBUNKING AND EXPOSING A FASCIST COLONIAL IDEOLOGY.....

This may be of interest, opinion of an Israeli jew turned anti Zionist.

 Alon Mizrahi

 Many times in the past months I've been asked, by so many people, what I thought was going to happen, or where things were going. My answer has always been the same: a bigger war was inevitable. Israel was going to launch a major offensive against Lebanon, then Iran.

 I even added a timeframe for that war: it was to happen in the fall of this year (2024), or by next year's spring at the latest. 

 Things have zigzagged in terms of a sense of an imminent conflagration, but now I think this view has become prevalent, if not dominant. Even Haaretz military analysts, traditionally critical of Netanyahu's government (to a degree) and Israel's security apparatus (to a much smaller degree) seem now to agree that 'Israel has no choice' but to start 'a limited war' against Hezbollah (hope you're laughing bitterly at this as I do).

 

 Two potentially related incidents from the last couple of days add to this growing feeling of imminent war: Iran's launch of a new satellite into orbit, and the Houthis' successful use of maneuvering and therefore uninterceptable hypersonic missile against Israel. 

 Iran and the Axis of Resistance it heads have access to high-quality, real-time intelligence on Israel, and a [proven ability to hit basically anywhere in it within minutes. These two developments alone shatter any previous balance of power (but they are not alone: Israel reaches this point weakened in so many different ways it needs a separate mega-post). 

 My assessment of the inevitability of a major war, though, did not and does not rely on an analysis of military capabilities. It is based on my intimate and extensive reading of Israel's psychology, and that of its messianic right wing (which only differ in degree, not in essence).

 You see, Netanyahu, Israel's government and establishments and the whole Zionist infrastructure don't live in the present moment, or the present place.

 They are not bluffing or pretending: for them, life is really and authentically made of holocaust speeches, imagined ancient kingdom bygone glories, and a future filled with domination and unshakable supremacy - the views that would get you forcibly institutionalized as an individual, but are somehow made to appear tolerable when an entire major Western political movement expresses them.

 Netanyahu grew up in a family of utter psychos and has been escorted by state security almost every minute of his adult life. He doesn't even know what normal life is. He's never been exposed to that. Every aspect of normalcy (marriage, children) in his life is a carefully cultivated insane lie. Netanyahu hasn't even seen a normal person his entire life; he's 100% a deluded sociopath with unlimited power over Israel and near unlimited power over US political and defense establishments.

 (By the way, and I don't want to expand on this now, but this metaphysical view of life, which irrevocably blurs one's judgment, is one of Judaism's biggest failures, or dangers; I will expand on that, as on other major themes mentioned here, separately.) 

 Politically in every sense of the word, but also as supported by religious and Zionist beliefs, Netanyahu and Israel have nowhere to go but over the cliff, in the hope that god (which is one with his holy spirit, the US) (the father being 'King David' and the son being Netanyahu in this Zionism Catholicism) intervenes and brings about their astronomically unlikely salvation and final triumph over global historic antisemitism (incarnated in poor Palestinian babies).

 

 In a more grounded political way, things are so fucked in Israel, these bunch of psychotic losers can't even imagine how to amend them. Netanyahu is entangled in a series of high corruption crimes; the settlements movement is unsustainable and globally furiously (deservedly) hated; the ultra-religious won't let any serious liberalization of Israel's Judaism come about but also won't partake fully in the Zionist holy ritual of military service; the Palestinian cause is drawing more sympathy by the day; Israel's entire military and expansionist philosophy is fully exposed and at a dead end: how can this group of depraved idiots even begin to cope with any of this? their safest and easiest bet is a big war, a US miraculous rescue, and a strategic reshuffle of everything. 

 That's exactly what's going to happen, but just not like they imagine it. Israel is going to lose a big conventional war and become politically, socially, and economically broken, guaranteed by US and Western 'support'.

 I am not sure Israel has more than a year or two to survive as a single recognizable political entity. The big war that its nature and leadership push toward is going to finally break it, after having completely and historically destroyed the reputation of everyone who had anything to do with it, from Balfour onward.

 

 The main victims of Zionism, the Palestinians, are going through a period of heightened pain and loss. In the long run, I think that it will be understood that this tragic option was better for them than an eternal unnoticed grind that would have sent them to their collective grave unknown and forgotten by humanity. After this catastrophe, I see a real chance of a new Palestine emerging from this - one that is not constantly wrecked by its internationally supported belligerent neighbor.

I've copied previously an article by Alon Mizrahi, this one would be my second, although it's couple months old, but it's predictions about Lebanon's involvement and expanding the war against all its neighbors, including Lebanon and Iran is obvious. More so after the devastating bombardments of central civilian areas of Beirut. It's very perceptive and describes very well the psych of the present Israeli regime, I'm very appreciative of his acute analysis.

My profound many thanks to all.