NOVANEWS

  الاخبارية..Shoah

اسئلة كثيرة تدور حول لقاء الملك عبدالله الثاني والرئيس الصهيوني شمعون بيريز اليوم الاثنين.

لماذا هذا اللقاء الان؟! لقاء لم يعلن عنه سابقا ولم يحظى بضجيج اعلامي تمهيدا له، أي لقاء اقرب الى السرية، رغم كل ما يحيط بالاردن خارجيا ووداخليا من عواصف سياسية اقرب ما تكون الى العواصف الثلجية المدمرة احيانا…ياتي هذا اللقاء ليصفه الديوان الملكي باللقاء الدافئ والودي!!!! هل كانت المحادثات لزيادة العقبات امام يحدث في سوريا، لان الكيان الصهيوني شريك في يطبخ في الاروقة العربية، او الاتفاق على شكل ما لتوطين الفلسطينيين وتجميل فكرة الوطن البديل!!!

ما هو السبب الحقيقي للزيارة الذي لم يأتي بيان الديوان على ذكره؟!!

علما ان مكتب بيريز في القدس المحتلة قال في بيان صحفي ان الرجلين “تبادلا التقييمات للاوضاع الاخيرة في المنطقة” وناقشا العديد من القضايا الثنائية.

ما اسهل اللقاء مع الصهاينة والاتفاق معهم على ابناء جلدتنا!!! وما اصعب اللقاء مع الاشقاء وتبادل الاحاديث والحوارات من اجل مصلحة الوطن والشعب!!!

علما ان الديوان الملكي الاردني قال في بيانه ان الملك عبد الله والرئيس “الاسرائيلي” بحثا خلال اللقاء سبل تجاوز العقبات التي تعترض مفاوضات السلام بين الفلسطينيين و”الاسرائيليين” على اساس حل الدولتين وفي اطار قرارات الشرعية الدولية والمرجعيات المتفق عليها خاصة مبادرة السلام العربية وبما يعيد الحقوق المشروعة للشعب الفلسطيني”. حسب البيان

واضاف البيان ان الرئيس “الاسرائيلي” استعرض الجهود التي يمكن ان تقوم بها “اسرائيل” في المرحلة المقبلة لبناء اجواء الثقة مع السلطة الفلسطينية.

ووصف البيان استقبال عمان “بالدافىء والودي”، موضحا ان الملك وبيريز اتفقا على”مواصلة المحادثات في المستقبل القريب”.

وتأتي زيارة بيريز المفاجئة الى الاردن عقب زيارة الملك الى رام الله ولقاء ابو مازن !!! وفي الوقت التي تشتد فيه المؤامرة على سوريا ويتكالب عليها العربان من خلال فرض العقوبات الاقتصاديةعلى الشعب العربي السوري.

NOVANEWS

by crescentandcross in Uncategorize 

NOVANEWS

After the Arab Spring, media restrictions tighten in ways unprecedented in Randa Habib’s 24 years as Agence France-Press bureau chief in Amman, and her life is threatened because of what she reports.

By Randa Habib

My fate to become a journalist in Jordan was sealed in the 1970′s when I was a second-year political science student at the French-run St. Joseph University in Beirut, Lebanon. I was freelancing for a Lebanese magazine when I had the opportunity to interview the late King Hussein and also met with the Jordanian man who would become my husband. In 1980 I joined Agence France-Presse (AFP) and seven years later became bureau chief in Amman, Jordan.

The road has been bumpy ever since, given that my instincts push me toward the news, ignoring the restraints imposed on the Jordanian media. I encountered problems not only when I covered the bloody 1989 clashes in southern Jordan, where the authorities sought to impose a blackout, but also for less sensitive news like the creation of an economic council for Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Yemen. While the authorities could easily prevent any local newspaper from publishing my AFP stories, they could never stop people from listening to my reports on Radio Monte Carlo’s popular Arabic-language program.

Jordanian officials were not alone in their desire—or attempts—to silence my reporting. During the 1990-1991 Gulf War and what followed, Iraqi authorities, angered at my uncensored reports, didn’t hesitate to publish threats against me in local newspapers: “If Radio Monte Carlo does not shut up this correspondent, we know how to shut her up forever,” read one of them. And they were not joking. They orchestrated several attempts on my life. But that was Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

In Jordan at the time, despite numerous government denials of my accurate news reports, I never feared for my life. I was not in danger, even when I broke a taboo in reporting for the AFP the ailing King Hussein’s intention to change the successor to the throne, before he officially announced it. When he returned to Jordan in January 1999 two weeks before he died, he named his eldest son Prince Abdullah as heir, instead of the monarch’s brother, Prince Hassan. I exposed in my 2007 book, “Hussein and Abdullah: Inside the Jordanian Royal Family,” the details of King Hussein’s decision and described how I learned (from the king himself) about this change in succession.

A Jordanian policeman inspects the Agence France-Presse (AFP) offices in Amman after a break-in on June 15, 2011. Two days earlier the news agency was among several foreign media to report that the king’s motorcade had been attacked. Photo by Khalil Mazraawi/AFP.

A Fearful Climate

Today, unfortunately, there are more taboo topics and less of a sense of safety in crossing the lines. Since February, the Jordanian authorities have shown a tougher edge in their dealings with the news media. I was made the subject of a defamation campaign, as some officials explained in private, because of the “dangerous impact and credibility” of my reports. Indeed regional events of the Arab Spring have created a tense climate across Jordan as its leaders are wary of taking risks by allowing their people to be aware of information not in line with the government’s official position.

So the authorities, particularly the palace, now move quickly when displeased by news coverage. On February 9, after AFP—like all other major international media outlets—published excerpts from a statement of 36 tribal figures criticizing Queen Rania and accusing her family of corruption, I was the only journalist targeted. In an unprecedented move, the palace issued a harsh communiqué, attacking me personally, and instructed the Jordanian media to publish the communiqué in full and in the most obvious way, which they did.

A three-page letter, signed by the Royal Court chief, was addressed to Emmanuel Hoog, AFP chairman. It denounced my alleged lack of professionalism, accused me of being not a journalist but an activist, and encouraged AFP to replace me with someone else, who, the palace assured, would be treated very well.

As expected, Hoog defended and supported me. But following his response, the media department at the Royal Court decided to boycott AFP in Amman, denying us access to any activity and removing us from its official mailing list. It is interesting to note that no action has been taken against the tribal personalities, at least to my knowledge.

The government-controlled Jordan Times newspaper decided to stop my weekly Randa Habib’s Corner column, published there on and off since the 1980′s. I reacted by publishing my column in English and Arabic on the popular local news website Ammon. But after things turned violent here in June I decided to stop writing my column to help calm things down and avoid adversely affecting the lives of those around me.

A Threat, Then an Attack

On June 13, AFP and other international media quoted security officials and other sources as saying that the “rear part” of the king’s motorcade was attacked by youths during a visit to the southern city of Tafileh.After the news hit the AFP wires, I started receiving threatening phone calls accusing me of being a “traitor” who is “trying to undermine the country’s security and stability.”

Three members of Parliament were particularly persistent, demanding the government try me in a military court. One of them is the controversial Yehya Saud, a member of Parliament from Tafileh, who organized protests outside AFP offices and the French embassy in Amman. He repeatedly demanded the government close the AFP bureau, take me to court, and expel me. The first protest Saud organized was announced by Petra, the Jordanian official news agency, which provided the street address for the AFP office.

Two days after the report, I received a call on my mobile phone. The caller confidently presented himself as Saud before he directly threatened me. “I will make you pay. I will chop you up into pieces. I will destroy your office and all those working there,” Saud told me. I let him know that I would sue him for his threats. “I do not care,” he assured me. “Those who [tapped the phone] are listening to this call know my plans.”

I responded to all of this by informing the police, Amman’s governor, and the prime minister and asking them for protection. But nothing happened. I announced the threat on Twitter. Three hours later, 10 men broke into AFP’s offices and destroyed windows, furniture and equipment. I wasn’t there during the attack, but a reporter who was managed to escape unharmed. Police assigned to protect Al Jazeera since that network had received threats in mid-March did not notice the attack against our news agency, even though their car was parked outside offices a few yards from the AFP building.

We still do not have the police report about the attack we need to take legal action. We have given the police all the details they requested; our neighbors have identified at least two of the assailants and two Al Jazeera staffers saw Saud overseeing the attack a few yards away from the AFP office. Meanwhile, Saud continues his tirades against me, warning that if France keeps protecting me, its relations with Jordan will be at risk.

In July, while King Abdullah was meeting France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, Saud demonstrated again outside the AFP offices. “We are still waiting for the government to put Randa Habib on trial,” Saud said in a speech. “We give the government 24 hours to try and expel her.” Protesters tried to attack our office but the police stopped them.

The next day Saud led another demonstration outside the French embassy in Amman, again demanding my resignation.

Reaction to the Pressure

Bernard Valero, spokesman for the French foreign ministry, said, “Over recent days, the bureau and staff of Agence France-Presse in Amman have been the target of aggressive demonstrations that have raised our concern.” After Sarkozy met with the king, a source said that “the issue [of the attack against AFP] was raised on the sidelines of a working lunch he had with the king. We are especially concerned about the safety of the AFP bureau in Amman and its staff.”

Many have condemned the attack and the demonstrations. Information Minister Taher Adwan, a veteran journalist who was the editor of an independent newspaper, vocally denounced it. He took part in a demonstration in support of AFP. When he resigned a few days later in protest of restrictive laws that the government is proposing, he referred to them as “a blow to the reform drive.” He harshly condemned attacks on the media, accusing the authorities of being lenient toward such abuses.

But threats and attacks against the press persist. The editor of a news website wants to sue Saud for allegedly threatening to put a bullet in his head after the journalist refused to remove an article published on his site. Another journalist is seeking legal action against the same member of Parliament because he beat him during a demonstration.

Nobody knows if Saud is acting alone. Or does he enjoy the support of authorities who are so far turning a blind eye to his actions, giving him the opportunity to present himself as a savior of the country? What we are left knowing is this: Journalists and citizens sense that their country is in turmoil as the drafting of restrictive laws proceeds while an evident pressing need for governmental reform and change is denied.

With the eyes of the government fixed on the rippling revolutions of the Arab Spring, the dangers for independent journalists are on the rise at a time when the consequences for those who threaten and attack them seem not to exist.

NOVANEWS

Here’s a remarkable piece on the MSNBC news site.

Israel was evacuating its embassy in Jordan on Wednesday in advance of a demonstration promoted on Facebook under a banner “No Zionist embassy on Jordanian territory,” The Jerusalem Post reported without citing sources.

Security forces in Jordan were preparing for the protest, which was scheduled to take place Thursday at the embassy in Amman, Israel’s Ynet news reported. Armored vehicles and security officers were stationed at the building, according to the website.

The move comes days after the Israeli Embassy in Cairo was ransacked by hundreds of protesters, forcing the the ambassador to flee the country.

Story: Israeli PM condemns embassy attack in Cairo

Elsewhere in Amman, demonstrators demanded the closing of the U.S. Embassy in Jordan over WikiLeaks cables suggesting covert U.S. plans to turn Jordan into a home for Palestinians.

It was a rare anti-American demonstration in Jordan, a close ally of the U.S.

The 70 activists burned American and Israeli flags in a noisy protest opposite the embassy in Amman on Wednesday.

They chanted, “The people want the Americans out.”

Roughly half of the country’s 6 million population is of Palestinian origin. With Palestinian-Israeli peace talks stalled, some Jordanians fear Israel may try to deport Palestinians to Jordan.

This week Jordan’s King Abdullah II spoke out strongly against using Jordan as a substitute for a Palestinian state, a concept favored by a tiny extremist minority among Israelis.

This is fascinating. Could King Abdullah really be so poorly informed as to speak out against another ethnic cleansing campaign if only a “tiny extremist minority among Israelis” supports the idea?

It’s good news that ordinary people in the front line states are severing diplomatic relations with Israel but the fears expressed at the end of this article go to the heart of Israel’s existence. Ethnic cleansing is certainly extreme when it happens in most places but in Israel it is considered the norm.

See: Jews Sans Frontier

NOVANEWS

It seems that the Hashemite monarchy gave an early warning to Zio-Nazi regime  about an impending attack.   Will Queen YouTube tweet on th

«يديعوت أحرونوت»: الأردن حذرت إسرائيل من «حادث إيلات» قبل الهجوم بدقائق

أحمد بلال

تصوير أ.ف.ب

قال الموقع الإلكتروني لصحيفة «يديعوت أحرونوت» إن الأردن أبلغت قوات الأمن الإسرائيلية عن «خلية تخطط لتنفيذ عمليات ضد إسرائيل»، قبل دقائق من الهجوم على حافلتي الركاب الإسرائيليتين، الخميس، ونقلت الصحيفة عن مصادرها إن الأجهزة الأمنية الإسرائيلية كانت لديها تحذيرات جادة تفيد بوقوع هجوم محتمل في هذه المنطقة بالتحديد.

وأشار الموقع الإلكتروني لصحيفة «يديعوت أحرونوت» إلى أن الأجهزة الأمنية بدأت تحقيقاً في إطلاق النار على حافلتي الركاب في إيلات القريبة من الحدود المصرية، الخميس، وقال الموقع إن التقديرات الأولية تشير إلى أن عناصر «إرهابية» هي التي قامت بالهجوم، وبحسب الشهادات التي حصلت عليها الأجهزة الأمنية الإسرائيلية، فإن ثلاث «مخربين» كانوا يحملون بنادق كلاشينكوف هم من نفذوا إطلاق النار على حافلة الركاب، بعد ذلك غيروا ملابسهم، وارتدوا ملابس جنود إسرائيليين، بحسب «يديعوت أحرونوت».

NOVANEWS

King Hussein was betrayed by both Israel and the US, as Israel continued “colonizing the occupied territory, and the Palestinians were left without a state.”

by James M. Wall

This betrayal was the price Hussein paid “to find out that the Israelis preferred land to peace and that the Americans didn’t care which of the two the Israelis chose.”

From time to time, just as the Middle East political cauldron reaches one of its major boiling points, the New York Times‘ Thomas Friedman sits down to write an open letter to the leaders of a particular Middle Eastern state, offering sage advice on what action Friedman thinks the leader should take.

Thus far, I have resisted following the Friedman letter-writing format. But the time has come for me to do my own version of Friedman speaking truth to the powerful.

I do not expect my communiqué to have the impact of a Friedman letter (his readership is larger), but I do have a suggestion that I think would be helpful to the six-member Palestinian delegation that will soon request full membership in the United Nations General Assembly.

I propose that they each read, very carefully, a new book, by Jack O’Connell, King’s Counsel: A Memoir of War, Espionage, and Diplomacy in the Middle East. 

Here is why I believe this book is important:

Jack O’Connell was a young CIA agent who was sent to Jordan by the agency to help preserve the monarchy of King Hussein, the father of the current King Abdullah. O’Connell was 37 and King Hussein was 22 when they first met.

This book was the memoir that King Hussein wanted to write. O’Connell relied on his own notes and records, and on long interviews with the King over the years that O’Connell worked as Amman CIA station chief.

Paul R. Pillar , a former national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia at the CIA, wrote a review of King’s Counsel for the Washington Post. Pillar teaches at Georgetown University and is the author of the forthcoming “Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy.” He describes O’Connell’s role as station chief:

O’Connell was heavily involved as an intermediary between Hussein and senior U.S. officials in the negotiation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, the framework for what was supposed to have been Israel’s withdrawal from territories it occupied in the 1967 war. O’Connell’s account makes it clear that the United States promised Hussein that withdrawal meant a full pull-out subject only to “minor reciprocal border rectifications.”

This paragraph alone should be marked and absorbed by the Palestinian delegation, before its members make its case to the 193-member UN General Assembly. In talking to other nations’ delegates, the Palestinians will want to insist that Israel’s claim to any West Bank land  along the 1967 borders must be rejected in any future agreement, except for “minor reciprocal border rectifications”.

Har Homa, for example, is not a “minor reciprocal border” adjustment.  It is rather, a colonial housing development that destroyed the forests which covered the Palestinian mountain once known as Jebel Abu Ghneim.

The 2011 General Assembly that meets to discuss a Palestinian request for membership should be reminded that on March 12, 1997, the GA passed the first of several resolutions by a margin of 130 to 2, with the two negatives votes cast by the United States and Israel. The initial resolution expressed “deep concern at the decision of the Israelis to initiate new settlement activity in the Jebel Abu Ghneim area,” using the Arabic name for Har Homa.”

The initial resolution also labeled all settlement activity “illegal and a major obstacle to peace,” and urged that Israel “refrain from all actions or measures, including settlement activities, which alter the facts on the ground, preempting the final status negotiations, and have negative implications for the Middle East Peace Process.”

This Har Homa project, now a massive colonial housing development along the highway between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, was built after King Hussein renounced any Jordanian claim to the West Bank and signed its peace treaty with Israel in 1994.

O’Connell makes it clear in his book that King Hussein was betrayed by both Israel and the US, as Israel continued “colonizing the occupied territory, and the Palestinians were left without a state.”

This betrayal was the price Hussein paid “to find out that the Israelis preferred land to peace and that the Americans didn’t care which of the two the Israelis chose.”

O’Connell adds that “in the king’s mind, no good would come” from this situation”. He was right.

This book contains other remarkable examples of American resistance to Israel’s conduct. O’Connell writes at one point of a telegram from President Jimmy Carter to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in which Carter told Begin that unless he stopped using US military equipment to shell PLO units, he would stop US military aid to Israel.

O’Connell writes that he personally doubted that Carter could carry out his threat because of the congressional support behind Begin.  But the Israeli leader could not be sure, so he stopped the raids.

Then there was speculation from O’Connell that when Carter said in a speech that the Palestinians had “the right of self-determination”, Israel began immediately to link all things Palestinian to “terrorist”. The label worked with the American media and the American public.

I will write more about the “self-determination” incident in a later posting, but for the purpose of this Friedman-style suggestion to the Palestinian six-member delegation that travels to the UN General Assembly in September, I will save that story for a second installment on O’Connell and King Hussein.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian delegation should listen to King Hussein and acknowledge what has long been obvious: Israel has never wanted to negotiate for any fair agreement with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.  Israel wants it all.

The UN General Assembly should recognize this reality and give Palestine a proper statehood with contiguous, realistic borders that will not hand over large Palestinian land masses to Israel.

ABOUT  THE AUTHOR: James Wall is currently a Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, based in Chicago, Illinois.  From 1972 through 1999, he was editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine.  He has made more than 20 trips to that region as a journalist, during which he covered such events as Anwar Sadat’s 1977 trip to Jerusalem, and the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. He has interviewed, and written about, journalists, religious leaders, political leaders and private citizens in the region.  Jim served for two years on active duty in the US Air Force, and three additional years in the USAF (inactive) reserve. Jim launched his new personal blog Wallwritings, on April 24, 2008. He can be reached at:  jameswall8@gmail.com

Also see:

King Hussein’s grandfather King Abdullah Addresses an American Audience in 1947

“As the Arabs see the Jews”
His Majesty King Abdullah,
The American Magazine
November, 1947

I am especially delighted to address an American audience, for the tragic problem of Palestine will never be solved without American understanding, American sympathy, American support. Read here

NOVANEWS

Look at him.  I mean, who would do that?  What kind of uniform is this?