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May 1998 return to index |
"King Hussein of Jordan wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week complaining that he feared becoming 'THE FIRST VICTIM' of the deadlock in the peace process, the HAARETZ newspaper reported Monday." - 4/21/98* [Quoted from private letter to Israeli Prime Minister]
MER - WASHINGTON - 29 May: But the Hashemite regime is nervous these days. Having made the
collaboration public with the recent Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, and with the
extraordinarily close relations between the regime and even the worst of the Israelis,
including Ariel Sharon, there's a certain wobble these days to the Hashemite Regime that
goes back to Lawrence of Arabia days. Indeed, the As a result, arrests, censorship, and repression are all on the upswing in Jordan. The situation has even grown so tense that the Hamas Leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, courted so demonstrably when released by the Israelis last year, has now been refused entry back into King Hussein's Jordan. The following excerpts are from an article recently published in an Egyptian English publication:
AL-AHRAM WEEKLY: EXPLOSIVE AMMAN - [Heading:] A series of carefully-planned and targeted bomb attacks in and around the Jordanian capital would seem to have been mounted in protest at King Hussein's policy towards Israel. Al-Ahram Weekly's special correspondent in Amman reports. Last week was an explosive one in Amman. It culminated when an
Israeli car with Jordanian license plates was set ablaze outside the five-star Jerusalem
Hotel, damaging six other adjacent vehicles. It is common practice for Jordanian license
plates to be issued to Israeli cars the minute they cross over into Jordanian territory
for security reasons, following a number of attacks on Many analysts believe that this explosion was meant to send a message to the government of Abdel Salam Majali. The Jordanian government refused an earlier request submitted by the Jordanian political parties to hold a rally commemorating 50 years of Palestinian dispossession while the Israeli Embassy was seen to be celebrating its Jubilee on a grand scale. Popular frustration against Prime Minister Majali's repressive measures has been expressed in a series of events ranging from last month's riots to this month's small home-made bombs targeting symbols and representatives of the political regime. The Jerusalem Hotel bomb follows on from a series of explosions that have created widespread panic among the 1.5 million inhabitants of Amman, shattering their provincial tranquillity. In Amman, it is widely believed that all these explosions are
political in intention, since their "modus operandi" has been designed to avoid
any loss of life, and their timing carefully chosen for the chilly hours of early morning
when no passers-by are likely to be injured. Yet, despite such "reassuring" The sequence of attacks started on 21 April when a police high-way patrol command station 15 miles from Amman had five of its cars blown to pieces at 3.30a.m. The explosion caused $70,000 worth of damage, but nobody was hurt. There is speculation that the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) (General Command) headed by Ahmad Jibril, might be behind the explosions, since several of its members were arrested six weeks ago on the Syrian border as they tried to infiltrate Jordan, carrying explosives. Those arrested later said their aim was to attack Israel. Around 20 people were arrested from the Palestinian refugee camps, all of whom are suspected of affiliation with Jibril's PFLP-General Command. ..Amman has become another Beirut, with other people's political scores being settled on Jordanian terrain. There were attempted fire-bombings at the Israeli and British embassies last month and an explosion at an American school. Six Iraqi businessmen including a diplomat were massacred on 15 January and two prominent Jordanians, a top lawyer, Dr. Hanna Neddeh and a top psychiatrist, Dr. Anwi Saad, were assassinated on 8 April. Dr. Youssef Qussous, an army general who is head of the military medical services, had his house sprayed with bullets on 25 April. So far, none of these cases have been solved. The finger of suspicion has also pointed to Syria. Sour relations between Amman and Damascus had earlier resurfaced with the press and television of the two countries aiming barbed comments at each other. Tension between the two Arab neighbors has been escalating since Jordan signed the October 1994 peace treaty with Israel, without honoring its earlier commitments to maintain unified coordination for a joint policy. >From Al-Ahram Weekly 7-13 May, 1998 |
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