Jordan is following Mahmoud Abbas’ race track to the United Nations and has asked the Security Council to convene an emergency meeting to discuss “dangerously escalating tensions” in Jerusalem, meaning allowing Jews on the Temple Mount and building more homes for Jews.
Despite all the hullabaloo over Jordan’s going through the motions of letting Mahmoud Abbas think it really cares a hoot about him, Jordanian English media and even the official Jordanian press agency did not make such a big splash with the announcement.
Jordan currently is a member of the 15-member Security Council,, and Amman’s spokesman for the Jordanian mission to the United Nations asked for the emergency session after the Palestinian Authority ambassador Riyad Mansour wrote a letter to the Council to demand that Israel “cease forthwith all of its illegal settlement activities.”
The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Rage went into action immediately following Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s took off the kid gloves and announced that in effect that the United Nations and the United States can go fly a kite over Jerusalem “settlements” that will continued to be expanded for Jews as well as Arabs.
Netanyahu hammered home the point by removing the de facto freeze on major development in Judea and Samaria and announced new homes, parks and roads will be built for Jews.
The more immediate bullet that the Arabs cannot bite is the new Israeli policy of facing off against Muslim rioters on the Temple Mount instead of turning a blind eye and chasing Jews away.
Jordan’s reaction was mild compared with that of Ramallah’s Minister of Rage.
The kingdom’s official news agency, Petra, stated:
“Jordan has been making extensive contacts with international partners to pressure Israel to halt its violations against the Al-Aqsa Mosque and warn it of the implications of such moves….
”Israel has been sealing the Al-Aqsa Mosque’s gates to Muslim worshippers, assaulting Awqaf [Waqf] employees and granting access to Jewish extremists to the holy compound under heavy police protection.
“The minister demanded the international community to assume its responsibilities to these attacks and violations and pressure Israel, as the occupying power, to abide by its obligations in accordance with the international law.
“In its capacity as custodian of the holy shrines in Jerusalem, Jordan reserves all legal and diplomatic options to stop the Israeli violations, the minister asserted.”
The statement also “condemned an Israeli government decision to approve the construction of 1,060 new housing units in occupied East Jerusalem.”
The Palestinian Authority was much more to the point and fell back on its favorite peace partner tactic, which is violence.
One of the leading hawkers of incitement in Abbas’ Fatah party is Jibril Rajoub, who warned, “Such unilateral acts will lead to an explosion. Mr. Netanyahu should not expect a white flag from the Palestinian people.”
Abbas joined the chorus and said that “incursions by extremist settlers” would cause an “explosion.”
Saeb Erekat, who was the senior Palestinian Authority official in the fictional peace process negotiations, also did not settle for diplomatic language in his response to the building plan, which he charged “amounts to evidence of an intent to further commit crimes defined by and punishable under international law.”
The Arab world has never been able to swallow the fact that in 1967, it lost another offensive to annihilate the State of Israel. The Yom Kippur War failed to do so, the intifada failed to do so, the Oslo War failed to do so, and the “peace process” failed to do so.”
It is putting all of its chips in the United Nations, whose only major achievement that past few decades has to been to keep thousands of people off the unemployment roll.