Jordan - New Government Resorts to the Oldest Trick in the Book

Things are not looking too dandy for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The East Bank bedouin tribes are demanding a greater say in the affairs of state of the kingdom which is ruled by the house of Hashm, which was transplanted from Hejaz after the First World War. There has been much criticism of the king's Palestinian wife and her lavish, wasteful lifestyle. They also demand a faster transition towards a more restrictive constitutional Monarchy. Currently the king has authority to dismiss both the executive branch and the legislative branch of governmnet, on an ad-hoc basis.

From the other side, the country's majority Palestinian population are continuously treated as some sort of an underclass. Their ability to climb the military ladder, as well as the state bureaucracy is greatly impeded by the bedouins. More recently, there is a trend of expropriating Palestinians and stripping them off from their Jordanian citizenship. A friend of this blog, Mudar Zahran frequently voices the concern of his Palestinian/Jordanian community.

Mudar also recently wrote an excellent post on how regressive Arab regimes use Israel bashing as the opiate of the masses. It seems that the new cabinet in Jordan has already caught on!
Jordan's new minister of justice, Hussein Mjali, has already resorted to playing the oldest trick in the book: antisemitism. Sorry, I meant to say 'Anti-Zionism' ;)

Jordan's new Justice Minister Hussein Mjali called Israel an "enemy and terrorist state" in an interview with Jordanian Arabic-news daily. Mjali joined protests in Jordan Mondaydemanding the release of Ahmed al-Daqamseh, a convicted terrorist who gunned downseven Israeli schoolgirls at Naharayim in 1997.Mjali commented that "Israel arrests and practices destruction on a daily basis, and it is obvious that Israel would issue a counter-position to our request that Ahmed al-Daqamish be released."

It's amazing that the minister of 'Justice' in a country that at least pretends to be a democratic constitutional monarchy defends the acts of a maniac who gunned down seven innocent girls from across the border. Perhaps the honorable  minister wants to bring justice to his Palestinian constituents? Perhaps he wants to address the high level of injustice in his country and address some of the legitimate grievances of its citizens?

Naah... Bashing Jews is just too fun to pass up on. 

The Jordanian government refuses to do squat about. Except for emphasizing the fact that the minister expressed his personal opinion, not that of the government.

Jordan's Foreign Ministry immediately issued a statement following Mjali's comments saying that the justice minister's opinions do not represent the official government stance, and that Mjali was practicing his right to freedom of speech.  
Jordanian officials relayed messages to Israel Tuesday that there were no plans to release Daqamseh. The messages came the same day Israel summoned Jordan’s representative in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to protest a call that Jordan’s new Justice Minister Hussein Mjali made a day earlier to release Daqamseh.

 It's amazing how in the old Middle East, where there is very little freedom of speech, they rush to defend antisemitic advocates of ethnic genocide are defended on the basis of freedom of speech!

-QP