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KING COLLABORATOR

MER - Washington - 17 March:
   The Hashemite King of Jordan visits Washington once again and meets with President Clinton Thursday afternoon.  Himself quite a philanderer -- both sexually and politically -- he has much more serious matters to discuss with his friend Bill.  At stake is not only his continuing rule, but the continuing dominance of the American Empire in the Middle East, how to resurrect the infamous "peace process" and keep the Palestinians tightly controlled, the still-likely future bombing of Iraq, and of course more U.S. money and arms for the ever-compliant "Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan".
   More than any other Arab family, it is the Hashemites that have been used by the West throughout this century to control and manipulate the Arab peoples.  True, his days of official payments from the CIA ended some decades ago...but the overall relationships and connections have expanded considerably.
   After their defeat and exile from the Hejaz by the al-Sauds, Hashemite regimes were set up by the Brits in TransJordan and Iraq; and the Middle East has never been able to right itself since.
   King Hussein's relatives were dismembered and dragged through the streets of Baghdad some decades ago.  It was of course Hashemite rule there in the cradle of civilization that lead to the Bathist party and
Saddam Hussein.  So far, the Jordanian King has remained and prospered, continually propped up and, at crucial moments, occasionally saved by the Americans and the Israelis.
   Moreover, the Israelis never would have won the civil war of 1948 had it not been for the secret agreements reached between the Ben-Gurion Jewish Agency and King Hussein's grandfather, himself assassinated by a Palestinian a few years later when trying to visit Jerusalem.
   Indeed, King Hussein personally wins the award for the longest and most intimate history of collaboration with Israel as well as his record of lackeydom for the Western powers.
   Fear and repression are rampant throughout Jordan today; admittedly masked at times by public relations manipulation of much of the media.
Even MER supporters have been "warned" and threatened not to be; while after a particularly revealing article last year a prominent crony of the King lashed out at MER directly with this threat:

    Jordan's national Assembly is one of those subterfuges the Arab people are forced to succumb to.  The most recent "elections" were largely boycotted, and rightly so.  The most vocal and prominent opposition leaders are either in jail or continually "threatened" and "encouraged" to stay loyal to the King or else.  The Hashemite regime uses the terminology of democracy as a veneer to disguise the all- controlling police-state just under the polite polished surface.
    The Crown Prince of Jordan recently made a very public visit to Israel, the regime eager as effort to work closely with the Israelis to control and weaken the Palestinians. Public and private visits from the highest-ranking Israelis are now constant in Amman.  The regime has even developed close relations with
Ariel Sharon, a man who has made a career of bludgeoning and massacring Palestinians and the primary architect of Israeli expansion and settlement policies.  It is all part of the ongoing Hashemite quest to
outmaneuver the Palestinians and preserve Jordanian economic and political influence in the "autonomous" areas that more and more resemble Reservations and Bantustans.
    As King Hussein and entourage visit with their American allies the rest of us should remember what his regime is all about and what the Hasehmite-U.S.-Israeli collaboration has become.  Below is a list of

MER articles from the past year dealing with the realities of Jordan -- all collected at:

http://www.MiddleEast.Org/Jordan.htm

for easy review.

 
 
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