AMMAN – Jordan is increasingly on edge as Israeli politicians work to outbid each other over who will keep more of the territories captured from the Arab states in the 1967 war.
“Israeli governments that spoke of the possibility of returning this area were making a grave strategic and security mistake,” said opposition leader Benny Gantz who toured Jordan Valley border settlements on Tuesday, “We see this strip of land as an inseparable part of the State of Israel.”
FILE – Israeli soldiers stand guard in an old army outpost overlooking the Jordan Valley between the Israeli city of Beit Shean and the West Bank city of Jericho, June 23, 2019.
The valley comprises 20% of the West Bank’s land and extends 300 kilometers (185 miles) from the Galilee in the north down to the Dead Sea.
Prime Minister Netanyahu stated his intention to apply sovereignty to the disputed territory before the last Israeli elections in September.
Now courting votes from the valley’s s 11,000 Jewish settlers, Gantz’s Blue and White Party aims to improve on its 33-32 performance over Netanyahu’s Likud as Israel heads to its third round of voting in 11 months. . “This leads the vast majority of Jordanians to perceive Israel as one right-wing bloc with no difference between Likud and Blue and White,” said Hassan Barari, an international relations professor at the University of Jordan. “Benny Gantz’s alliance is led by ex-generals like Moshe Ya’alon. He’s even more right-wing than Netanyahu.”
On Monday, Ya’alon, a former Israeli army chief of staff, insisted both he and Gantz are more serious about annexing the Jordan Valley than their opponent.
“He [Netanyahu] has done nothing to invest in the area. But when I served as defense minister, I actively assisted Jordan Valley [Jewish] communities with water and electricity issues,” Ya’alon told The Jerusalem Post.
Widespread resentment, royal restraint
The spectacle of Israeli politicians vying over who is more certain to take more Arab territories nurtures a growing frustration among Jordanians.
“This is an Israel that we don’t want to see,” said Barari, “It’s an expansionist Israel denying the Palestinians rights to self-determination. It doesn’t believe in the two-state solution, which is a key to Jordan’s national security.”
FILE – In this Nov. 20, 2019 photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during an extended meeting of the right-wing bloc members at the Knesset, in Jerusalem.
During Israel’s last election campaign, Jordan considered downgrading its diplomatic presence in Tel Aviv after Prime Minister Netanyahu’s promises to annex the Jordan Valley.
At the time, sources close to King Abdullah II said the 57-year-old monarch concluded that Netanyahu was “just playing to his base.”
The assessment shifted in November as the two countries sullenly marked the 25th anniversary of their peace treaty.
Abdullah declined to renew an annex to the 1994 agreement that had granted Israel the use of two small agricultural areas along the border, and the Israelis were miffed.
FILE – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, listens to Jordan’s King Abdullah II, left, during a group picture ahead of Islamic Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, June 1, 2019.
Then Netanyahu told the Knesset that Israeli security helped the king and Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi “prevent the takeover of their territories” by armed Islamist groups.
The remarks were hurtful to Amman’s security establishment, which has kept both ISIS and Iranian backed terror organizations from staging any operations on Jordanian territory.
In response, Abdullah launched an international messaging campaign. With speeches and TV interviews in New York, Brussels, and Paris, he warned of the risks posed by the annexationist drift in Israeli politics and the re-emergence of ISIS close to Jordanian borders in western Iraq.
“I hope that whatever happens in Israel over the next two or three months, we can get back to talking to each other on simple issues that we haven’t been able to talk about for the past two years,” Abdullah told attendees at a November 27 New York event where he was honored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Israel’s future is being part of the Middle East, [but] unless we can solve the Israeli-Palestinian issue, we’ll never have the full integration that all of us deserve.”
Meanwhile, the Jordanian street erupted in frustration over continued regular economic ties with the Jewish state even as the king maintained a facade of mild disappointment with the surge Jordan Valley sovereignty declarations from the politicians across the river.
Annexation anxiety led thousands to take the streets of Amman, and even quiet provincial cities from Irbid to Aqaba held demonstrations against a $10 billion, 15-year gas deal with Israel.
Jordan’s government-owned national electricity company and Texas USA based Noble Energy signed contracts in 2016 to import gas from Israel’s East Mediterranean Leviathan field.
FILE – An oil platform is seen in the Leviathan natural gas field, in the Mediterranean Sea off the Israeli coast.
The arrangement may make economic sense for Jordan, which is paying $.30 less per heat unit than the Israeli consumer — but with a population that is as much as fifty percent of Palestinian origin — the deal is perceived as a sell-out to a nation that has dispossessed them.
“It’s not Israeli gas, it’s actually Palestinian gas that has been stolen by Israel,” said Lujain al-Fayez, a protester against the deal.
“If the occupation keeps moving forward and Israel annexes more land, we wonder, how much to trust their commitment to the signed peace treaty with Jordan,” said 28-year-old human rights organizer Dima Hashim.
Just ten days after the Israeli gas started flowing through the pipeline, Jordan’s parliament unanimously passed a bill to cancel the contract.
“The talk of halting Israeli gas supplies to the country is a sham,” said Amman economist Marwan Kardoosh. “Neither the government or the parliament makes these kinds of decisions. They are made within the confines of the Royal Court, in close coordination with the U.S. Embassy and the American administration in Washington.”
Uncertainty over Washington’s Mideast plan
President Trump’s Mideast peace team led by senior adviser Jared Kushner is expected to arrive in Israel by Thursday to explore releasing the U.S. plan for the region in consultation with both Netanyahu and Gantz.
It’s unknown if the three-person group will be stopping in Amman to meet with King Abdullah.
FILE – Presidential advisers Jared Kushner, center left, and Jason Greenblatt, third left, meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, center right, and his advisers, in Amman, Jordan, May 29, 2019.
“Jordan today fears that Israel is not serious about the two-state solution,” said Marwan Muasher, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Amman and a former foreign minister. “They seem to have designs that will solve the Palestinian question at our expense.”
“Meanwhile, all the indications from the U.S. actions around the yet to be published Deal of the Century suggest that they are fully on board with the Israel position,” Muasher said. “The United States might not want to hurt Jordan intentionally, but we have become collateral damage.”
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
