|
July 11, 2008
Relations not quite neighborly
Despite a formal peace treaty, many Jordanians still don't recognize the state of Israel.
RHONDA SPIVAK
As Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary, it is difficult to find people on the street in Jordan even willing to utter the word Israel. Most of the Jordanians I encountered during an eight-day stay in the country, referred to all of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan river as Palestine. This was the case notwithstanding the existence of a peace agreement between Israel and Jordan since 1994.
I spent three nights in the small remote village of Umm Qais, where everyone in town thought I was a Christian Canadian. I sat with Ibrahim Al-Arousan, 37, at the Resthouse restaurant, which has a commanding view of the Kinneret, the Golan Heights and the Galilee. Al-Arousan has a degree in conservation and heritage management from Yarmouk University, in Irbid. As he looked out to the Kinneret, he said: "There is Tabariyyeh [Tiberias] and Lake Taberiyyah [the Sea of Galilee] in Palestine.... Before the occupation in 1948, my father and uncle used to travel back and forth with their caravan of camels from Taberiyyeh to Umm Qais."
When Mustafa Mahmoud, who is studying to be an accountant, was asked whether he would like to visit Lake Taberiyyah, he answed, "No, I don't want to go." He gestured as if he was holding a gun and said, "War." His friend, Hammad Ibraham, from Amman, looked toward Israel and said, "It's dangerous."
In Madaba, outside of Amman, Esau Amjad, an archeologist, referred to a mosaic map of Ashkelon as Ashkelon, Palestine. When asked again where Ashkelon was located, he answered Palestine. When confronted with the fact that Ashkelon is in Israel, he begrudgingly said, "Yes, it is in Palestine, in Israel."
In the village of Pella, Adnan Matar, a wealthy building contractor looked out past the Jordan valley, saying, "That's Palestine, occupied Palestine." When asked what he saw beyond the West Bank, he refused to say Israel, but answered, "That's west of Palestine."
In Amman and its environs, many tourist shops sell coffee mugs with a map of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as pre-'67 Israel with the word Palestine on it. There are also gold necklaces for sale with the same map as the coffee mugs, also marked Palestine.
Abdullah Aloush of Umm Qais, who spoke English fluently, made a distinction between Jews and Israelis. "There's no problem for Jews coming here. Even if the villagers know they are Jewish, nobody will be against them." But when asked about Israelis coming to visit, Aloush, who spoke with a very moderate tone, would not use the word Israel or the word Israelis.
In the five star Royal Amman Hotel, Mohammed Alkalq, who is studying hotel management, said he left his birthplace of Jenin because of the economic stagnation there. "There is no tourism in Palestine, because of the war there." When asked who the war was between, he answered "Between Palestine and the Jews." When asked if he means that there is a war between Palestine and Israel, he refused to use the word "Israel." He answered "No, between Palestine and the Jews."
About 60 per cent of Jordan's population is made up of Palestinians who fled, mostly from the West Bank, during the wars of 1948 and 1967 and after the Gulf War in 1990-'91.
The relatively few Jordanians I encountered who were willing to use the word Israel, were not of Palestinian origin. For example, at the Pella Resthouse, built in 1992 by U.S. aid, manager M.E. Deeb Hussein said, "I have been to Israel four times. I studied archeology in Jordan and Israel. I have been to the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot and to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.... Everyone is welcome here."
Mohammad Janajrah, a driver for Payless Car Rentals in Amman, who recently retired from the Jordanian army after 18 years of service, used the word Israel and said his parents had been to Tel Aviv. But I did not come away with the impression that Janajrah's accepting attitude toward Israel represents the bulk of Jordanians.
Throughout the trip, I could not help but notice the security measures that were in place to ensure that terrorist groups do not cause instability in the kingdom or infiltrate its border with Israel.
In Umm Qais, which borders Israel and the Golan Heights, it is impossible to enter or exit the village without passing through Jordanian army checkpoints, with armed soldiers and tanks. In the village, where most men attend prayers daily at the central mosque, there are many Jordanians of Palestinian origin.
Anna, a middle-aged German volunteer at the Umm Qais archeological site told me, "Security is especially tight here because the Jordanian government is worried about Islamic extremists getting to the border with Israel and conducting terrorist attacks or undermining King Abdullah's [Hashemite] regime. Northern Jordan traditionally has been the centre of Palestinian extremism. There is a big Palestinian refugee camp in the city of Irbid, less than an hours drive from here. In Black September in 1974, Irbid was considered the stronghold of Yasser Arafat and Palestinian nationalists [who challenged the Hashemite regime]."
Catherina, another German volunteer at the site, added, "I was in Irbid the other day and a soldier got on the city bus to look at everyone's passport. He wasn't interested in women's passports, but in the men's. The regime is fearful of Muslim extremists who want to carry out terrorist attacks.... There are concerns that there are Al Qaida cells around here.... I have heard that there are more checkpoints now than there used to be, but it is hard to be sure."
Israeli security officials have been reportedly concerned that Al Qaida might try to kidnap an Israeli farmer or soldier near the Jordan valley.
Al Qaida's presence in northern Jordan is not new. An Al Qaida group is believed to have been behind an attack that took place last year against a Jordanian resort not far from Umm Qais, near Israel's Kibbutz Ein Gev on the Sea of Galilee. Additionally, an Al Qaida group is believed to have been responsible for the firing of a Katyusha rocket from Jordan into Eilat.
There is a large police presence at tourist sites throughout Jordan. This has been the situation since the triple suicide bombing of three Western-owned hotels in Amman, carried out by the Iraqi branch of Al Qaida, led by the Jordanian militant Abu Masab Zarqawi. The blast, which took place in November 2005, killed 60 people.
Many Israelis are wary of travelling to Amman, ever since a deranged gunman attacked Western tourists in broad daylight in the city's downtown Roman theatre in 2006, claiming to have acted in response to the fighting in the Second Lebanon War.
An American institution I visited in Amman currently does not display an American flag or any other identifier. As Danny, an American singer who has been living in Amman for the last couple of years, said, "I thought about playing piano and singing regularly at the Holiday Inn hotel in Amman, but decided not to because it is too high profile."
Hotels frequented by tourists have extensive security, far more than their counterparts in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Netanya. In the parking lot of the Marriot Hotel in Amman, guards check both the underside and inside of vehicles entering the complex. Anyone entering the hotel must go through airport-style security procedures, including luggage scanning, as well as walk-through metal detectors. A sign in the hotel elevator reads: "This elevator is under electronic surveillance."
This year, Jordanian authorities banned all events marking the Nakba, or Catastrophe, a term used by Palestinians to refer to the creation of the state of Israel 60 years ago. A number of pro-Palestinian groups and Jordanian opposition parties had been planning to hold a rally in Amman. This event and other "illegal" public gatherings were disallowed.
According to Jutta Haesner, director of the German Protestant Institute of Archeology in Amman, "[Most] people in this country are interested in living in peace. They [Jordanians] don't want Iran or Syria to get them into trouble. They see the refugees from Iraq coming here and what kind of trouble there is in Iraq and they don't want to be part of it."
However, as Israel turns 60, King Abdullah is reportedly concerned about the ongoing crisis in Gaza and fearful that the instability there could lead to a Hamas takeover of the West Bank, which would have negative implications for Jordan.
Large billboards of King Abdullah and his deceased father, King Hussein, are located everywhere throughout the kingdom, a reminder to all of who is in charge of the country.
Rhonda Spivak is a freelance writer living in Winnipeg.
^TOP
|
