Ammon News - AFP - Israel summoned Jordan's ambassador Thursday to protest an "anti-Israeli" article by a former Jordanian foreign minister, in which he based his argument on a Hitler quote, the foreign ministry said.
Spokesman Yigal Palmor said Israel's embassy in Amman also sent the foreign ministry there an official protest over an article published on Monday by Kamel Abu Jaber in The Jordan Times.
In the second paragraph of the article titled "The big Zionist lie and the task ahead", Abu Jaber, foreign minister from 1991 to 1993, uses a quote from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf to make a point about lying in "the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility".
"The Zionist big lie about Palestine 'a land without a people' that the entire Western world adopted, and the biblical, Talmudic myth of the 'chosen people' have been the most important factors behind all the tragedies and atrocities that Palestine and the Palestinians have been subjected to since (...) l897," Abu Jaber wrote.
"We Arabs, Jordanians and Palestinians especially, are victims of a torrent of lies by a few international media magnates that every day enter every room of every household, propagating not only sex and violence but also, above all, the Zionist ideas of the extreme right," he wrote.
Palmor said foreign ministry deputy director general Aviva Raz called in ambassador Walid Obeidat to protest about the piece, "which was in essence anti-Israeli, but basing it on Mein Kampf is definitely a red line, which brought an anti-Semitic spirit to some of the remarks."
In the letter to the Jordanian foreign ministry, Israel says of Abu Jaber that "constructing his arguments on Hitler’s racist and anti-Semitic philosophy is outrageous and offensive not only for Jews, but also for any human being who believes in the basic values of humanity."
Publishing Abu Jaber's piece on Monday, the day Israel remembered the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, was "not by coincidence", the protest letter read, calling for "firm actions against the writer and the newspaper".
Tensions between Israel and Jordan, which signed a peace treaty in 1994, have risen following a series of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Under the treaty, Jordan is the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.
Israeli soldiers in March killed a Jordanian judge at a border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, with the army saying it was investigating the circumstances.
The Article
"The big Zionist lie and the task ahead"
By Kamel S. Abu Jaber
Influential American writer of the late 19th century H.L. Mencken once wrote of mass psychology: “The men… people admire the most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth…”
In his book “Mein Kampf”, Adolf Hitler states that in “… the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature…”.
The Zionist big lie about Palestine — “a land without a people” — that the entire Western world adopted, and the biblical, Talmudic myth of the “chosen people” have been the most important factors behind all the tragedies and atrocities that Palestine and the Palestinians have been subjected to since the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in l897.
Our Arab-Muslim civilisation has never had a moment of rest, or peace of mind, since Zionism was able to penetrate Western civilisation to the point where tens of millions of Westerners, the neoconservatives, adopted that esoteric Talmudic myth, placing Zionist interests before and above their own national interests.
We Arabs, Jordanians and Palestinians especially, are victims of a torrent of lies by a few international media magnates that every day enter every room of every household, propagating not only sex and violence but also, above all, the Zionist ideas of the extreme right.
American Secretary of State John Kerry has been travelling to the region for some time now in an effort to bring about peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
So far, his efforts have been shattered against the rock of Israeli resistance.
What will get Israel to agree to a settlement is not going to be good sentiments or feelings, wishes or intentions.
What is needed is a counterforce, be it military, political, economic or the oil weapon.
Unfortunately, such force is not available now, nor does it appear to be likely in the near future.
And while we are arguing and fighting among ourselves about Jordanian-Palestinian identity, right of return, Sunni-Shiite issues, etc, the land continues to be swallowed up by the insatiable appetite of a settler-, citadel-minded Zionist state supported by the full force of the West.
Joschka Fisher, former foreign minister of Germany, recently wrote regarding peace in our region: “No such hope currently exists for the Middle East…” (The Jordan Times, January 31-February 1, 2014)
An Arabic proverb says: “The rope of lies is short.”
Hopefully that will prove to be true in the case of Zionism, too, though for that to happen, we need to intensify our efforts in that direction.
I believe that Jordanians and Palestinians alone are a match for Israel, and that while we will welcome any support from other Arabs, Muslims or others, we can face Israel alone.
We have a great storehouse of sympathy and support throughout the world, even in the West: people whose sense of fairness, justice and humanity has made them stand with us and against the lies.
And these are the people with whom we should remain in close and constant contact.
It is perhaps time for the appointment of a high-ranking roving ambassador for Jerusalem affairs, personally deputised by His Majesty King Abdullah and the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose mission would be to attend every meeting, conference, symposium that discusses Jerusalem, Palestine and all other related issues, with the authority to call for meetings, even with heads of state, should the need arise.
By the terms of the l994 peace treaty with Israel, Jordan was entrusted with the care and protection of the holy places in Jerusalem.
The agreement signed by King Abdullah and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last year is only a reminder of that sacred duty.
As the first qiblah of Islam and holding the most sacred shrines of Christianity, Jerusalem needs to be kept in the hearts and minds of just people everywhere, and His Majesty’s ambassador should be the symbol of that trust.
The writer is director of the Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies and former foreign minister of Jordan. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.
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