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Jordan Says No to Kerry "Conspiracy"
by Khaled Abu
Toameh
February 4, 2014 at 5:00 am
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Kerry has managed to escalate
tensions not only between Israel and the Palestinians, but also between
Jordanians and the Palestinians inside Jordan.
Kerry will now have to find a way to
calm King Abdullah and his constituents before Jordan slips into civil war.
"Jordan is playing host [to
Palestinians] and no agreement can pass without Jordan." — Fatin
al-Baddad, Jordanian journalist.
Jordan's government officials and ordinary citizens have come out against
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's proposals for reaching a peace agreement
between Israel and the Palestinians.The Jordanians fear that such an agreement would be concluded at their expense and undermine King Abdullah's rule. The Jordanians' biggest fear is that Kerry is seeking to "resettle" Palestinian refugees in their country, effectively turning the kingdom into a Palestinian state. Palestinians constitute more than half of Jordan's population. More than 2,000 Jordanians from various political groups gathered in Amman on February 2 to condemn Kerry's "malicious conspiracy."
A group of retired Jordanian army generals issued a statement warning their government against accepting Kerry's proposals. The retired generals expressed fear that the proposals were designed to "settle" Palestinians in Jordan. "Jordan is going through a dangerous historic moment," the statement read. "This is an American-Zionist plot to liquidate the Palestinian cause at the expense of Jordan." The retired generals, headed by member of parliament Abdel Hadi Majali, vowed to use all means to block Kerry's proposals, which are aimed at "dismantling the foundations of the kingdom and diluting the Jordanian national identity by dropping the right of return for Palestinians and granting them Jordanian citizenship." Jordanian columnist Fatin al-Baddad said that Jordan was extremely worried because Kerry was ignoring any role for the kingdom in his efforts to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Noting that Jordanians have declared an intifada [uprising] against Kerry and his proposed "framework agreement," al-Baddad said that the Jordanian people are furious because they feel that the U.S. Administration has "marginalized" the kingdom. "Jordan's politicians and parties want to alert the world that Jordan is playing host [to Palestinians] and no agreement can pass without Jordan," he wrote. "Jordanians believe that Kerry is offering to turn Jordan into a Palestinian state." Last month, dozens of prominent Jordanian figures, including former parliament members and party leaders, also expressed fear that Kerry was seeking to turn Jordan into a Palestinian state. A petition published by the same group even called on the Jordan's government to revoke the Jordanian citizenship granted to Palestinians after 1988, when the late King Hussein "divorced" the West Bank by cutting off administrative and legal ties with it. "The heroic Jordanian people will struggle with all their force and means to thwart this scheme, regardless of the price," the petition cautioned. On February 2, Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh appeared before parliament to voice his concern over Kerry's ideas. In a bid to calm the parliament members, Judeh declared that Jordan would not be an alternative homeland for the Palestinians. "This is a red line and we can not accept it," Judeh said, stressing that Jordan would not accept any deal that comes at the kingdom's expense." Judeh also hinted that Jordan would demand compensation for playing host to the Palestinians over the past few decades. "Jordan has rights as a host country for Palestinian refugees," he added. Following the session, the members of parliament issued a statement which also warned against Kerry's ostensible scheme to establish a Palestinian state in Jordan. "There is a state of fear among Jordanians and Arabs that Kerry's plan might succeed in involving the Palestinians in a new agreement that extracts from them political concessions so as to establish a Palestinian state with no borders and sovereignty," the statement said. The panic in Jordan has re-ignited tensions between Jordanians and Palestinians living in the kingdom. Some top Jordanian officials have been accused of making "racist" statements about Palestinians. One of them, retired general Riad Abu Karaki, called on his government to stop granting citizenship to children born to Jordanian women who are married to Palestinians. "Why aren't the children of Jordanian mothers granted Palestinian citizenship of their fathers?" he asked. "The Palestinians have a recognized entity called the Palestinian National Authority." Kerry has managed to escalate tensions not only between Israel and the Palestinians, but also between Jordanians and the Palestinians inside Jordan. The growing tensions in Jordan pose a threat to stability in the kingdom and could easily undermine the only stable regime in the region. Kerry will now have to find a way to calm King Abdullah and his constituents before Jordan slips into civil war.
Related Topics: Khaled Abu
Toameh
Free Speech Wars: The Blasphemy Fashion Police
by Douglas Murray
February 4, 2014 at 4:00 am
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Subsequently, Nawaz began to receive
serious death-treats. Then the same figures who had appeared to organize a
lynch-mob against Nawaz complained that they themselves had also been subject
to death-threats -- a hit-list of British targets issued by the terrorist
group Al-Shabaab. Is anyone ever going to concentrate what the problem is
here?
Meet the latest victim of the "Cartoon Wars": Maajid Nawaz, head
of the counter-extremism Quilliam Foundation and prospective parliamentary
candidate for the Liberal Democrat party. He was on a BBC program discussing
free speech and the right to offend, when two students from a London Atheists
and Secular Society were present. They were wearing T-shirts with a cartoon
strip on them called "Jesus and Mo."
The wearing of such T-shirts has become a matter of principle for them since
students manning the stall of the Atheists and Secularists society at the
London School of Economics freshers' fair last October were asked either to cover
their T-shirts up or be physically removed. No prizes for guessing who
complained about the T-shirts, but it was not the LSE Christian Society.This local infringement on freedom of speech caused some embarrassment for the LSE, and the debate over the dreaded T-shirts of hate rumbled on until December when the university authorities apologized for becoming the blasphemy fashion police. But as everybody who remembers the Danish cartoons affair will remember, these things are never contained. Indeed so fevered is this debate that there are endless Hydra-headed spin-offs each time the cartoon wars crops up. Each time someone tries to chop its metaphorical head off, another cartoon affair pops up somewhere else. In any event, this time the spin-off was the BBC Sunday morning discussion show on which the students turned up, again with their T-shirts. The BBC refused to show the T-shirts and some artful filming protected the audience from the full horror of having to see a stick-figure called "Mo" saying "How ya doin?" to Jesus, who is saying "Hey." During the debate, a number of Muslims pointed out how offensive they found this outrageous image, and how against the feelings of all Muslims it was. And Nawaz was the only one to point out that he, as a Muslim, did not find this offensive at all. Rightly amazed at the BBC's genuflection to a new blasphemy law, when the program had finished, he sent the cartoon out to his twitter followers with a message saying that he thought his God was bigger than to find offense at something like this. Cue the latest deluge of utter souped-up outrage. Prominent "moderate Muslims" immediately started to pass word around that a great offense had been committed. All around one could hear the sound of old scores being settled. One such figure – who runs an outfit called the "Ramadhan Foundation" announced that he was going to notify not just all Muslim groups but also Islamic countries of the "offense." Subsequently Nawaz began to receive serious death-threats. So serious have they become, in fact, that the UK police appear to have advised him to keep his head down and not make public appearances for a while. Then emerged the backlash to the backlash. The same figures who had appeared to organize (in the words of one BBC journalist) a lynch-mob against Nawaz complained that they themselves had also been subject to death threats. In some instances this may be true. Two of those who whipped up outrage against Nawaz for tweeting out the cartoon of "Jesus and Mo" were recently on a hit-list of British targets issued by the terrorist group Al-Shabaab. Their offense, in the eyes of Al-Shabaab, was that they had spoken out against the decapitation of Drummer Lee Rigby by two jihadist maniacs in London last year. All of which is certainly a new riff, but it is on an old tune. Round and round we go in the cartoon wars. And all the time, the underlying problem goes unaddressed. When Nawaz and I debated whether Islam is a "religion of peace" in New York, the scales-falling-from-eyes moment from the audience occurred when it became clear that everybody on all sides of the debate – Muslim and non-Muslim, believers that Islam is a religion of peace and those who believe that it is not – were all the subject to some degree of threat to their lives. It is the same in the latest round of the cartoon wars. Nawaz rightly said he was not offended by a cartoon. But a bunch of individuals thought he should be and helped whip up a storm against him. In their defense, they then pointed out that their lives were in danger too. All of which reminds us, is anyone ever going to concentrate on what the problem is here?
Related Topics: United
Kingdom | Douglas Murray
Canada: CAIR-CAN, The NCCM and "The Islamic Victimhood Narrative"
by Raheel Raza
February 4, 2014 at 3:00 am
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"We will not take seriously
criticism from an organization with documented ties to a terrorist
organization such as Hamas." — Jason MacDonald, spokesman for Canada's
Prime Minister, Stephen Harper
According to extensive research done
by an anti-terrorism expert in Canada, who has been following the patterns of
CAIR-CAN/NCCM for over a decade, but who is currently under threat, the group
has a record of propagating what is commonly referred to as the "Islamic
Victimhood Narrative" -- exaggerated claims of wide-ranging persecutions
of Muslims by mainstream Canadians and Americans.
While Canadians exercised their freedom of expression by venting both positive
and negative comments about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's recent trip to
Israel, the West Bank and Jordan, a huge controversy has been created by a
Muslim organization, which appears to expose the attitude of most Muslims
towards Israel and a rise in anti-Semitism. Had this trip been to any other
country, probably there would have been no response.As among those accompanying the Prime Minister were a number of rabbis, a Muslim organization, formerly CAIR-CAN (Council on American-Islamic Relations - Canada), but now known as the National Council of Canadian Muslims [NCCM] , objected to one in particular, Rabbi Mendel Kaplan, who last year had invited to Toronto Pamela Geller, who the NCCM had said would spread hate. The Prime Minister's spokesman, Jason MacDonald, dismissed the objection. "We will not," he said, "take seriously criticism from an organization with documented ties to a terrorist organization such as Hamas." In response, Ihsaan Gardee, NCCM's Executive Director commented that MacDonald's statement was "categorically false, offensive and defamatory." Currently, NCCM/CAIR-CAN has announced it wants an apology from the Prime Minister's Office and will move ahead with a lawsuit if they do not get one. "To say that our organization has illegal affiliations," Mr. Gardee said at a press conference, "is deeply offensive to us and to Canadians of all faiths and backgrounds and only serves to reinforce ugly stereotypes about Canadian Muslims." He does not, however, speak for our organization, The Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow, and many other Muslims we know. Two interesting points emerged, however: One is that this protest was never really about free speech -- it was about Israel. The other is that NCCM/CAIR-CAN, a Muslim organization with Arabs as part of it, knew about the Prime Minister's visit to the Middle East, so one would hope they would have given some deep thought to ideas about peace-making and perhaps offered suggestions to Mr. Harper on whom to meet or how to proceed. But no, like a pack of predatory hunting animals, they honed in on the weakest link in the herd, an act acceptable under Canada's laws of freedom of expression. What does Pamela Geller have to do with the Prime Minister's trip to the Middle East anyway? Besides, anti-Semitic hate-mongering speakers are invited by Muslim groups to Canada on a regular basis. Incidentally, while NCCM/CAIR-CAN were so focused on their angst against Israel, at stops in the West Bank and Jordan, Harper in his meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pledged $66 million for economic aid, and security and humanitarian assistance. In Jordan, the Prime Minister committed more than $250 million in aid, largely to help the nation cope with the fallout of the Syrian conflict, notably an influx of more than 500,000 refugees fleeing the violence. Meanwhile NCCM/CAIR-CAN are falling over themselves to say that they have no connection with the Washington-based, Hamas-linked organization, The Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] which was founded in 1994 by three leaders of the Islamic Association of Palestine [IAP] -- at the time, a Hamas front in the United States. When we take a closer look at the details and links, not in the least NCCM's own declaration in its name-change announcement that "We remain the same organization," it leaves little reason to doubt that NCCM remains, in most substantial respects, CAIR-CAN. This is what emerges upon closer study:
·
NCCM/CAIR-CAN is the Canadian chapter of the
Saudi-funded, Washington, DC-based Council on American-Islamic Relations,
which was designated by the United States Justice Department an unindicted
co-conspirator for the purposes of the largest terror-funding trial in US
history, the Holy Land Foundation criminal prosecution. The
prosecution was considered extremely successful, and achieved widespread
convictions.
·
When confronted about their name, NCCM/CAIR-CAN
associates have sometimes said that their organization is wholly independent
of the American mother group. They point to NCCM/CAIR-CAN having its own
board of directors and being incorporated in Canada. That claim, however, has
been defeated by considerable evidence. Most revealing was the discovery and
publication of a December 2003 affidavit sworn for the Ontario Superior Court
by NCCM/CAIR-CAN founder and then-Chair, Dr. Sheema Khan, in the course of a
trademark dispute. This
document states categorically that CAIR-CAN (and now, by implication,
NCCM) is under the direction and control of the American CAIR organization.
·
According to extensive research done by an anti-terrorism
expert in Canada, who has been following the patterns of CAIR-CAN/NCCM for
over a decade, but who is currently under threat, the CAIR/NCCM/CAIR-CAN
group has had a record of propagating what is commonly referred to as the
"Islamic Victimhood Narrative" -- exaggerated claims of
wide-ranging persecution of Muslims by mainstream Canadians and Americans. As
mainstream Muslims have indicated, such claims are not merely statistically
inaccurate, but divisive and potentially dangerous. The hazard is discernible
in that a common thread through various Islamist terror plots and attacks in
North America, has been the perpetrators' misguided insistence that
aggression was justified "in defense of Islam." The methodology of
NCCM/CAIR-CAN's 2005 "survey" of
Muslim perceptions was considered especially faulty in its distortions.
·
CAIR and NCCM/CAIR-CAN have been prominent in promoting
the term "Islamophobia," an expression held by many moderate
Muslims to have been contrived some years ago by U.S. Muslim Brotherhood
affiliates at a meeting at the Northern Virginia International Institute for
Islamic Thought, to silence both Muslims and non-Muslims concerned about
radical Islam, and to deflect attention away from the activities of the
Islamists.
It is no wonder that Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird directed
Canadians to the internet: "I'd encourage any Canadian to Google the
group in question," he said, "and do some research on their own and
come to their own conclusions."
Related Topics: Raheel Raza
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