النص الكامل للرسالة التي بعث بها معارضون اردنيون للكونغرس الامريكيJanuary 13 2011 01:39 الناطق الرسمي It is with regret that we bring to your attention an issue of grave ethical and political implications to U.S foreign policy in the Middle East. The subject of my letter is the United States aid to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Over the last Ten years; since the monarch of Jordan, King Abdulla II has succeeded his father, King Hussein, the government of Jordan has engaged in systematic, institutionalized discrimination against its silent majority; Jordanians of Palestinian ethnicity. The practice amounts to an apartheid system similar to that of South Africa Over the last Ten years, Jordan’ Interior Ministry has withdrawn the citizenship from more than 50 thousand Jordanians of Palestinian origin; a clear violation of international law, U.S policy and Jordan’s constitution. A Human Rights Watch report titles: “Palestinians in Jordan, Stateless Again”, tackled the matter in details and proved the practice was discriminatory and based on ethnicity; this by itself constitutes an apartheid practice as non-Palestinians in Jordan do not face such discrimination Furthermore, the Government of Jordan has been promoting a very disturbing excuse for the practice above, which has included 2,700 citizens so far and is said to threaten thousands more. Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Nayef al-Qadi, defended stripping Jordanians of Palestinian heritage of their citizenship; in an interview with a London-based Arab newspaper, Qadi said that “Jordan should be thanked for standing up against Israeli ambitions of unloading of the Palestinian land of its people” which he described as “the secret Israeli aim to impose a solution of Palestinian refugees at the expense of Jordan Today, Jordan continues to discriminate heavily against its Palestinian majority. By changing the status of the Palestinian majority from 1st class citizens to persona non grata. The implications of Jordan’s practice are that Palestinians in Jordan will now begin to seek resettlement and compensation from both Jordan and Israel. Many have made serious effort to return back to Israel; to the towns and villages where there parents and grand parents have once lived prior to Israel’s independence in 1948. In recent years, thousands of Jordanians of Palestinian origin have sought out marriages from Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza to escape Jordan’s apartheid. In recent years, a significant number of Jordanian-Palestinians entrepreneurs have begun to seek investments in Gaza, the TheJordanian government's attempt to preserve its totalitarianl rule at the expense of turning 5 millions of Jordan’s population into refugees will not bring peace to the region. The very existence of Israel and the peace process will be threatened if Jordan’s Palestinian majority continues to be oppressed and marginalized Jordan has been up scaling the dissemination against its citizens of Palestinians heritage. With the advent of the new batch of Wiki leaks classified documents, came a cable issued by the U.S. Embassy in Amman that reported "bullying" practiced by the fans of al-Faisali Soccer Club (predominantly East-Bank Jordanians) against the fans of al-Wihdat Soccer Club representing enthusiasts of Palestinian origin On Thursday 10 December 2010, days after that cable referred to above was leaked, the generously-US financed and partially US-trained Jordanian gendarmerie locked thousands of Palestinian fans of al-Wihdat club in a stadium after a game and attacked mercilessly attacked those leaving hundreds wounded including one child in critical condition (http://alsawt.net/?p=8265 ) [warning: graphic image], where eyewitnesses, including a former parliament member of Palestinian origin, reported that the gendarmerie attacked the fans without being provoked at all. Below are links to YouTube videos showing the brutal details of the indecent The attack was televised live on several news agencies including Aljazeera, which showed the Palestinian soccer fans were victims of unprovoked and extreme police brutality. In a sign of approval and blessings, the Jordanian government promoted the Jordanian Police Commander into the rank of a Field Marshal in less than 24 hours. Analyst and observers, have analyzed such move as a clear message to the Palestinians in Jordan was willing to abuse its Palestinian majority should they think the American State Department was willing to write anything in defense of their rights, as was the case in the leaked American Embassy-Amman cable The seriousness of the situation in Jordan should rightfully concern all countries involved in the peace process in the Middle East; if the Jordanian government is intolerant of its Palestinian majority, and is willing to exert violence against them just to make a political point, then that is an issue for the international community to watch With the United States being the major aid money-provided and military mentor of the Jordanian government, the US Congress must observe the legitimacy of the Jordanian government’s deployment of generous aid money, taken from US tax dollars to support an apartheid system in Jordan that is tampering with regional security and therefore the Unites State’s interest and commitment to peace and prosperity for all of the countries in the Middle East region American tax dollars must not finance apartheid rule in Jordan or threaten the prospects for peaceSincerely The Middle East Democratic Reform Forum Attachments A full description of Jordanian apartheid policies, and links to the brutal attack that took place Videos of Police Attack on Palestinians soccer fans http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrK8Z_wXUFk&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVnOgbVwH9Q&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc2Y4hHVhXY&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt7HitFwQwI 1-Jordanians of Palestinian heritage have to report their "country of origin" whenever they approach any government agencies, it is a must-answer question in order to be able to process anything, and that involves every single government application in Jordan 2-Army positions, military, security, and intelligence jobs all require listing the names of the applicant's father, grandfather, and great grandfather, what most Westerners fail to realize, the name in Jordan tells easily where you are from, for example, if your father's name is Oglah, he sure is a Jordanian, if your father's name is Sameer, he most likely is a Jordanian of Palestinian heritage. This is conducted systematically and openly in ads advertised for the air force, the only military agency that runs ads for recruitment; it requires applicants to list names of their fathers, grandfathers, and family name. The air force does not have a single fighter pilot of Palestinian origin, and so has been the case since the 70s 3-All government forms require mentioning the "native country", this is discrimination 4-US Department of state reports, particularly one published in 2006, shows Jordanians of Palestinian heritage have a minimal representation in the Government and the Parliament 5-All Government jobs, media jobs, and academic jobs, are not advertised and therefore not chosen based on equal opportunity, this has been interpreted into a particular discrimination against the Jordanians of Palestinian heritage. For the last ten years, and since King Abdullah II has come into power, the lists of Government ministers, Secretary generals (equivalent to deputy Secretaries in US), general managers, mayors, Ministry of Interior governors, and state universities presidents, have all been non-Palestinians, except for very few exceptions. This is easy to confirm by any researcher as the list of those are available and even accessible on line. Again, the problem for foreign researchers is that they would not be able to make the difference of who is Palestinian and who is not by the last name 6-Security agencies, particularly the General Intelligence Department and its former strong economic arm, the Anti-Corruption Department, rarely targeted Jordanians of non-Palestinian heritage, this is now public knowledge. Former Parliament member, Toujan Faisal, wrote a letter to the King in 1999, openly saying that the anti-corruption entities in Jordan had become a tool for corruption. This is more intensified if the victim is a Palestinian. In fact you cannot process any of the regular applications and dealings with the Government unless you use a native Jordanian as your "wasta", usually in exchange for money, former Chief of the Royal Court, Palestinian Adnan Abu Oudeh mentioned that to Aljazeera and even signifies that in his book 7-All municipalities board members are elected, except for Amman, which has a Palestinian majority, they are appointed by the Government, thus banning Palestinians from choosing their local officials, this has been the case since 2005. Those appointed are all native Jordanians 6-Striiping Jordanians of Palestinian heritage of their citinzeships, a common practice by the Jordanian Ministry of Interior, based on their own ethnicity or origins is an act of apartheid by itself as apartheid is legally defined 7-A Jordanian of Palestinian heritage is forced to refer to the Department of Follow Up and Inspections at the Ministry of Interior, other nationals of different origins, even newly-naturalized Jordanians of Syrian heritage, are not asked to do the same, the mere condition of doing so is an act of apartheid and discrimination, this means, a Jordanian of Palestinian heritage who wants to renew his or her driver’s license is asked to send many more days awaiting clearance from the department mentioned above. Many of those ended up having their citizenships revoked. This is now creating a whole group of stateless undocumented Jordanians who are just too afraid to deal with the government with any documents 8-Last November, Jordanians of Palestinian heritage who wished to register at their constituencies in order to vote in the parliamentary election were forced to get a clearance from the Department of Follow Up and Inspections, this has deterred most of them from participating in the process in fear their citizenship would be revoked, this has been heavily covered in the press. This is no coincidence as the General Intelligence Department has first-hand control of such things, and obviously would not like less Palestinians to vote 9-As you already realize, Jordanians of Palestinian heritage are minimally represented by parliamentary seats, Kerak, a city of 100,000 has 10 parliamentary seats, Tafilah, a city of 40 thousands has 6 seats and now one more was added with the women quota, while the dominantly Palestinian Zarqa, with 1.25 million citizens, has only 8 seats. Distributing parliamentary seats based on ethnicity is an act of apartheid 11-the position of Amman's Mayor, has not been filled by a Palestinian over the last few decades. The position is extremely significant as Amman Municipality is the richest in the country as well as a major revenue-generating machine 12-Disenfrenchsed Jordanians of Palestinian heritage have lost grip on education, economy and local polices, making them live in isolation and fear for themselves particularly with their citizenship rights, which re-enforce their isolation and hence their potential of equal opportunity for progress. For example, the General Intelligence Department interferes in all major appointments, even the appointment of Jordanians at international entities and companies working in Jordan 13-The Jordanian government is very shrewd in covering up its apartheid, unlike South Africa did, the government keeps verbally embracing "equality of all citizens" at all proper occasions 14-Discrmination in education is severe, especially with admissions to state universities, and at the same time, in banning private universities from establishing certain schools such as medical and engineering schools, as those are in demand by Jordanians, making accessibility to those schools only available at state schools which grant an odd affirmative action to native Jordanians. Therefore, most new graduates of medical schools are native Jordanians, this reinforces a social engineering that will build into a completely different society where Jordanians of Palestinian heritage are not only discriminated against, but also lack the skills and education to compete 15-All major corporate that have emerged over the last ten years had to either be run or owned by native Jordanians because they have the ability to force political will and power into their businesses. While Jordanian of Palestinian heritage face deliberate obstruction and obstacles created by the Jordanian government The government of Jordan is playing its apartheid policies under the radar screen. The term apartheid must be brought into discussion Further Readings -Stateless Again , Palestinian-Origin Jordanians Deprived of their Nationality -Jordan, Dr. Peace and Mr. Apartheid http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=182474 -Jordanian Police Atrocities Against Palestinians, a Message to Israel |