About 50 protesters in Amman oppose Jordan’s multi-billion-dollar pipeline deal with Israel in a demonstration at the Parliament, observed by Alice Rothchild. One sign: “The gas of our enemy [Israel] is occupation.” But police soon move in to scatter the demonstration.
Alice Rothchild visits a church in Amman that has gained a regional reputation for caring for refugees from Syria and Iraq, many of whom fled ISIS atrocities and are afraid to return. “Forty percent of the women are widows and many refugees have experienced unimaginably severe and chronic trauma from abuse.”
Alice Rothchild travels to Jordan on a trip to report on refugee conditions and is struck by the lack of omnipresent security that she experiences in Israel. She wants to yell out to security, “I’m over here guys, in Jordan. On the east side of the Jordan River!!! It’s me!”
To understand her background in Palestine, Amal AlHazred had to learn about olive trees. “I remember how my father in Jordan held a seed and said ‘These will be Palestinian olives’ and how inspired he was.”
Early this morning Jordan submitted to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) a draft resolution on behalf of the Palestinians to end Israel’s occupation of territory occupied in June 1967 through a negotiations process. The resolution would be the first to call for a third-party security presence to “guarantee and respect the sovereignty of a State of Palestine,” but it puts no deadline on Israel’s withdrawal.
Jordan’s King Abdullah and Mahmoud Abbas (Photo: Mohamad Torokman/Reuters) The headlines on Israel/Palestine today predictably…