Jordan is tiny, poor, and it stinks. Give it up people!

It is important for people to have national pride. It forms their identity and it announces to the world their allegiance to a nation. Also, it gives them a sense of belonging. However, Jordanians go too far in many ways. 

I mean the country is tiny, poor, and if you have been to Zarqa, it stinks! 

Jordan is so tiny that you can drive from extreme north (Ramtha) to extreme south (Aqaba) in about 4 hours; less if you don't count a couple of check points and peoples' urge to take breaks as if they're driving the whole length of Hwy 80.  I remember those school trips we took to Aqaba in the early 90's, when, at arrival, students would race to the main post office to call home and yell at the top of their lungs that everything is OK and they arrived safely. I did that too. But to think of it, you just saw your family three hours ago. Is it necessary to call them right away as if you flew across the atlantic. Give it a rest. they are probably happy they got you out of the house. 

And, don't get me started on the Dead Sea. On a visit to Jordan I asked if anybody wanted to go the Dead Sea "now." The look on their faces was like a little kid being told there is no Santa, you're adopted, or "let's go to the dentist." 

Let's leave it to the weekend, they would say after the shocking looks on their faces have subsided. Have in mind that the Dead Sea is less than 30 minutes away from Amman. A 30 minutes trip does not require the devotion of a whole weekend. 

I guess my family's idea of a trip is waking up at 4am, cook magloubeh and sfee7a, and ride donkeys and camels until we reach El Ghour in time for lunch, then pack up and head back. 

Jordan is so poor, thanks to الحكومة الرشيدة و المسؤولين الكفوئين . Think about it. I remember paying 3.15 JDs ($5) tuition for a whole year of public schools' education. Textbooks included. You might say that this cost is more expensive than that of US public schools, which are free. But, when your family "qualifies for a discount" from that 3.15, then you're poor living in a poor country. 

Jordan stinks so bad. I had the unfortunate experience of living in the stinkiest parts of the of the stinkiest city. I lived in the area surrounding the only refinery in the country. Aside form the dreadfully polluted air, the daily, very loud 7am horn sound, and the slippery and dangerous streets going in and out of the refinery and it's neighbour: King Hussein electric station, Aside from all that is محطة السمرا للتنقية. Imagine those hot summer nights' breeze bringing you the pungent aroma of what used to be the above mgloubeh! 

I also had to go through the Zarqa transportation complex. Anybody who was ever courageous enough (or had no other option) to cross into the complex on a daily bases deserves وسام الاستقلال من الدرجة الاولى more than those disappearing ambassadors. 

There you have it. Jordan first or not, sometimes you have to sit back and take a look at your country and stop electing your second cousin's uncle's brother in law to the parliament and elect somebody who has the guts to demand change!

The only good thing about Gaza

was the timing.

And the new American administrations new direction is evident by the immediate appointment of an envoy, George Mitchell, who has a lot of experience in the area and in international conflict resolution.

Who Needs Obama, when you have Saudi Arabia.

There is no reason not to expect a different, and improved, foreign policy from the new US administration. Obama built his whole campaign on promises of hope and, more importantly, change. As is the norm with politics, however, promises don't always translate into action. But, Bush messed up so bad that an improvement will be achieved regardless of who is taking the helm in DC. So, after watching Obama's inaugural speech, and hearing him mention Muslims twice, I thought that change is indeed coming.

The Middle East has spent the last eight years waiting for that change. Although Clinton had some positives going for him in regard to inching toward peace in the Middle East, he was just another ring in a chain of American influence without substance in the area. Arabs keep waiting for change from the wrong source. Change that is dearly needed on many levels and within many areas of life. Change that all the masses are calling for openly and otherwise. Change that could have been brought upon without the need for US presidents' approval or desire.

As the world witnessed during the Bush years, the influence of the US has teetered, along with Bush's approval ratings, to lows not seen since the Vietnam war. But, that same influence has kept up its weight in two countries: Egypt and Jordan. Although the two countries are of the top recipients of US financial and military aid (in 2007, Egypt was second and Jordan was fourth), the aid was a very low price to pay to quell the opposing voices to the Iraq war and the Israeli killing machine, and to convince them of a lurking Iranian threat.

Arab governments would have been in a far better position to oppose, and act, in response to the Gaza massacre had they not been “owned” by the US. After all, Egypt and Jordan between them have the majority of Israel-Arab borders. They very much protected Israel from the steaming public.

Now if one takes a look at the amount of “reported” aid. In the year 2007, Egypt and Jordan received ~$2.4B and ~$457M from the US government, respectively. At the same time, financial aid given by Arab countries has for decades exceeded these numbers. In the book The Pattern of Aid Giving By Eric Neumayer, aid from Arab countries in the years 1974-1994 has averaged 1.5% of GDP. If these numbers held up to these days, that would translate into $35 Billion for the year 2007 alone. That's $35B of aid given by Arab countries to Arab and non Arab countries throughout the world.

The following sheds the lights on the realities of Arab aid:

The Arab aid paradox

It is a little known paradox that the Arab world, despite its own, often onerous, domestic challenges, is one of the most generous providers of development finance. And, moreover, that this financing reaches far beyond the confines of the Arab world to over 140 developing countries around the globe. Many would be surprised to learn, for instance, that Arab aid has built hospitals in Albania and Senegal, schools in Jamaica and Burkina Faso, and roads in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Honduras. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Arab aid is responsible, too, for countless other improvements across the entire development spectrum. It has helped ease the movement of goods and people, facilitated access to jobs and social services, provided clean water, sanitation and electricity, and improved food security and nutrition. Indeed, for four decades, Arab aid has been instrumental in improving living standards and life expectancy among millions of the world’s poor. It is a record that speaks for itself, and one made all the more remarkable by the fact that the Arab countries are themselves developing and face many problems of their own. Regrettably, it is a record that has gone largely unrecognized, primarily because of the modest spirit in which the Arab donors have traditionally given their assistance.

Therefore, as seen above, given the sheer amount of Arab wealth evident in their giving to various countries the world over, it is conceivable that the influence of the US on Arab countries be minimized, and eventually reversed, if Arabs shopped around for influence (if they insist on not having influence of their own) from other permanent members of the Security Council, by re-channeling their aid to Egypt and Jordan just enough to replace that of the US.

The best article describing Gaza's Situation in US media

KUHN: When Israel expelled Palestinians:

What if it was San Diego and Tijuana instead?

Randall Kuhn
Wednesday, January 14, 2009

In the wake of Israel's invasion of Gaza, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak made this analogy: "Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico."

Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.

Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.

What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.

What if the United Nations kept San Diego's discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live. And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.

Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn't allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn't even allow them to fish.

Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been "freed" from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind. The majority, instead, supported against all hope negotiations toward a peaceful solution that would provide security, freedom and equal rights to both people in two independent states living side by side as neighbors. This is the sound analogy to Israel's military onslaught in Gaza today.

Maybe some day soon, common sense will prevail and no corpus of misleading analogies abut Tijuana or the crazy guy across the hall who wants to murder your daughter will be able to obscure the truth. And at that moment, in a country whose people shouted We Shall Overcome, Ich bin ein Berliner, End Apartheid, Free Tibet and Save Darfur, we will all join together and shout "Free Gaza. Free Palestine." And because we are Americans, the world will take notice and they will be free, and perhaps peace will prevail for all the residents of the Holy Land.

Randall Kuhn is an assistant professor and Director of the Global Health Affairs Program at the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He just returned from a trip to Israel and the West Bank.

Stop the BS. Jordanians and the Government are not in Sync Over Gaza.

I am sick of hearing/reading the constant barrage of Jordanian media's nonsense promoting the alignment of views between the Jordanian leadership and Jordanians.

توّحد الصفّ الاردني
الشعب و القيادة في خندق واحد
تثمين الرؤية الهاشمية
الاردنيون يتضامنون حول العائلة الهاشمية في نصرة غزة

One virtue of being away from Jordan is the ability to see the big picture. Being away from all the brainless propaganda of Jordanian media is a helpful way of clearing up thoughts and becoming able to analyze happenings. Being away of the interference of "thought police" is important in forming ones own ideas and independent take on events.

Therefore, to claim that Jordanians agree with the government's decisions and actions regarding Gaza in particular is baseless. If it were up to the Jordanian street, the Israeli embassy would close, the peace treaty would be withdrawn, and, quite possibly, a war state would be declared. However, the wants of the people in Jordan are probably the last thing on the minds of decision makers in a country that is effectively controlled by outsiders: mainly the US.