generalspeaking

Jordan and Israel, Striving to Endure and Surmount Terror

"We have an extending of the network of ISIL in Jordan. It is a minority but it is very dangerous."
Mohammed Abu Rumman, extremists expert, Amman, Jordan

"Jordan is at a level just like any other societies in the world. [The government is challenged to reach and prosecute extremists to] make sure we have enough awareness in the society against these elements."
Mohammed Momani, Jordanian government official, Amman, Jordan

"Things are getting worse and worse. What kind of future do we have here? What are we going to leave for our kids and young children?"
"[Although peace is elusive] still something can and should be done right now."
General Amnon Reshef, former commander, Israel armoured corps

Hundreds of Muslims on the Temple Mount, yelling and throwing objects, surround three Jewish men and their children, as about a dozen police officers try to hold back the angry crowd and evacuate the Jews -- Gatestone Institute: Khaled Abu Toameh

Where in the Middle East is there no threatening presence of violent jihad? Even as governments of Islamic nations attempt to protect themselves against the infiltration of Islamic State operatives establishing bases in their countries, the Islamic State is succeeding in making a notable presence in those countries where no functional government exists that is capable of amassing a force required to destroy their viciously bloodthirsty presence.

Both Iraq and Syria have failed, enabling the Islamic State to venture well beyond a foothold, to establish the basis of their caliphate on vast tracts of land both of these countries were unable to prevent falling into the hands of the jihadists who have gone on to their program of ethnic and religious extermination of minority tribal groups unable to defend themselves from mass rape, murder and slavery. Libya and other African countries find themselves beset by ISIL.

Epidemics of viral violence are all too common in the Middle East, thanks to viciously fractious relations resulting from traditional historical tribal antipathies and sectarian hatred. The madrassas that Saudi Arabia funded to aid in the prosetylization of their brand of Wahhabist Islam has bred a Salafist-pure lust for a return to the Islam of the 7th Century with its unbridled violence in conquest to prosecute surrender to Islam, when assassinations of rivals was rampant.

Jordanian authorities are attempting to impose state security to identify and imprison Jordanians who express through social media their support for the Islamic State; any links to ISIL brings suspects in for questioning under anti-terror laws. Recent attacks and suspicions have surfaced the reality that homegrown extremism is as much and more of a concern in Jordan and elsewhere as it is in the West with its own problems echoing those of the Middle East.

A suicide attack emanating from Syria detonated a car bomb close by a Jordanian border post targeting and killing soldiers in the kingdom. The problems besetting the Middle East with its proliferation of jihadist violence has become a global concern. According to an understatement from U.S.-based analyst David Schenker, recent increases in jihadi activity "points to a threat that is not insignificant".

Jordanians returning from Afghanistan where the faithful were called to defend Islam against the occupation of Soviet troops, brought back with them the message so beloved of fanatic Islamists. An estimated ten thousand jihadi Salafists are present in Jordan and loyal to ISIL, with roughly two thousand fighting in ISIL and al-Qaeda ranks in Syria and Iraq.

Israel is not an island to itself, secure and at peace as a Jewish state dedicated to the safety and security of Jews while remaining a haven for ethnic and religious and ideological and gender minorities, singling it out as an anomaly in an otherwise-Muslim geography where Christians, gays, tribal and religious minorities are oppressed, threatened and murdered.



But it is a nation aspiring even now to fulfill the biblical prophecy that it is meant to be a 'light unto the world' by welcoming plural diversity, protecting the vulnerable, upholding universal ethics of equality and human rights through its judiciary. And frustrated ultimately in an unending series of military and guerrilla attacks against the state and its people, unable to bring peace and security either within the state or to the region.

While Jordan, long a key ally in the region to the West is struggling to contain the jihadi elements that threaten its stability, Israel has long been beset by differing attitudes on how best to contain the threats that endanger the state and its population both from within and without. Now, over 200 retired leaders representing the nation's military, police, spy agency and security service have devised a plan to end what is viewed as the occupation of the Palestinians.

The solution they bring to the excruciating dilemma is nothing new. It is for the absolute abandonment of any West Bank presence, in a desperate hope that there would not be a repeat of what occurred when the decision was made to abandon its presence in Gaza. Yet given the explosive mass temperament of tribal psyches allied with the viral message of jihad in the Koran it is difficult to see what else could be anticipated under those circumstances.

Israel's six million Jews, goes the thought, must detach themselves from the equivalent number of Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza. To do so, goes the wishful thinking, would result in the mass pacification of the Palestinian Arabs who would no longer have a 'reason' to view Israel and its Jews as threats to their own aspirations as a nascent nation, one with no legitimate heritage in the region to match that of Israel's, but whom constant historical rewrites have convinced they do have.

Both the relatively moderate Arab nation of Jordan whose citizens consist of minority Bedouin originally from Saudi Arabia, and the far less-inclined-to-moderation majority Palestinians who make up the greater bulk of Jordan's population, and the Jewish state with its population mixture, hope against hope that good intentions and a determination to endure and to persevere will gain them the existential advantage they hope for.

Labels: Conflict, Islamic State, Israel, Jihad, Jordan, Palestinians

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, June 30, 2016