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Jordan shares Palestinian despondency on peace
[Al Arabiya Latest] Outside the West Bank and Gaza Strip, despair at the failure of years of U.S.-led Middle East peacemaking is perhaps felt nowhere more keenly than in Jordan.
"The Palestinians are cornered," said Taher al-Masri, a former Jordanian prime minister of Palestinian origin who is now deputy speaker of the kingdom's upper house of parliament.
"They have to look for alternatives other than just calling for negotiations. It doesn't mean they have to go to war, but depending on the good faith of the Americans or Europeans or on a positive Israeli response has ended now," he added.
| Good -- reality is setting in. So they have three choices: starting a war they'd lose, terrorism, which doesn't seem to work anymore, or surrendering to the ebil juices and accepting the status quo. I imagine they'll choose dithering for another decade or several, instead. |
Jordan, a small aid-dependent country with many Palestinians among its 6 million people, has for years hitched itself to Washington in the hope that its U.S. ally would one day cajole Israel into accepting Arab demands for an end to occupation and the emergence of a Palestinian state in exchange for peace.
| The poor, disappointed darlings. |
| The heart [urp] bleeds ... |
The peace treaty the late King Hussein signed with Israel in 1994 was never popular with his subjects and, 15 years on, even those who once backed the "peace process" now view it as futile.
| Well gosh, how many wars have they lost since they signed it, none? I'd say it paid out in spades. |
| Not to worry, the Jordanian army has used the time well and is fully prepared to lose the next war they fight with the Israelis ... |
President Barack Obama's failure to secure his own demand that Israel stop building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is seen here as a humiliating sign that U.S. diplomacy can never achieve the far harder goal of a two-state solution.
| Yup. It's up to the Palestinians, now, to actually make their own peace, instead of having another surrender handed to them. |
Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Joudeh last week dismissed as "insufficient" a 10-month Israeli halt to some construction in West Bank settlements, excluding those in East Jerusalem.
Obama's Cairo speech in June briefly raised hopes among some Arabs that the new president grasped their grievances and might adopt a less Israel-indulgent policy than his predecessor.
| A great many people are disappointed that President Obama did not turn out as their imaginations had painted him. |
Posted by: Fred 2009-11-30 |
