Ahead of the announcement of the American Middle East peace plan being called the “deal of the century,” and in light of concerns in Jordan that the deal may threaten the kingdom’s stability, scathing articles have recently appeared in the Jordanian press, including in the government daily Al-Rai, containing calls for, among other things, a new Palestinian intifada in the West Bank in order to thwart the deal.
The following are excerpts from some of these articles:
Al-Rai: A serious intifada in the West Bank is the best way to thwart the ‘deal of the century’
In his April 26 column in the government daily Al-Rai, titled “How Shall We Deal with the Deal of the Century?,” journalist Muhammad Ali Marzouq Al-Zuyoud wrote: “I believe that the crime of forming this ‘deal’ will advance [the goals of] burying the right of return, settling the [Palestinian] refugees [in the countries hosting them], declaring all of Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the occupying Zionist entity, and confining the Palestinians to small areas in the West Bank, with Abu Dis perhaps serving as the capital ...
“All the Palestinian forces and factions, chief of them Fatah and Hamas, must reconcile directly and re-embrace the principles of liberation, otherwise their positions on the ‘deal’ will be cast into severe doubt. ... [The Palestinians] must immediately stop the security coordination with the occupation, support and encourage all the liberation forces in Palestine, and spread the spirit of resistance and confrontation among the people—for a serious revolution or intifada inside the occupied territories is the best way to thwart any deal or plan.”
Al-Dustour: ‘We need a Palestinian intifada that will reverse all the existing equations’
In his April 23 column in the Al-Dustour daily, Hussein Al-Rawashdeh wrote: “What is happening in our Arab world today is the blatant declaration of a third nakba [“catastrophe” referring to the creation of the State of Israel], and if we do not confront it with a third intifada, the aggression will [continue] and we will pass down its effects and tragedies to our children and grandchildren, as we have done for the past decades ...
“We, the [Arab] governments and [Arab] societies alike, are all in a difficult position, paying the price for the helplessness, failure and fear that have gripped us for decades, during which we completely scorned our national, religious and humane duties, until today we stand almost completely exposed before a cruel world that wants to defeat us, deprive us of the bare needs of existence and send us back to the stone age.
“The Palestinians themselves have not yet declared their intifada. Do we now need a third intifada that will reverse all the existing equations? Yes we do, [but] only the Palestinian people itself can reshuffle the deck and create [new] options. It may be [true] that we must closely examine the dangers inherent in this option, [and it may be true] that the Palestinians’ current condition is worse than ever. ... But despite all this, the Palestinians, who are now seeing the first signs of a new nakba aimed at eliminating the Palestinian cause, have no choice but to [declare] a new intifada, which this time will unite them by the force of their determination and their stones and embarrass the [Arabs] who watch from the sidelines and the proponents of dialogue, or will expose [their shame] more effectively than the wars in Gaza and the long-standing siege on it.”
The complete article is available on the MEMRI website.
