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.”
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he will not be taking advice from Pierre Poilievre after the Conservative leader challenged him to bring down government.
“I say directly to Pierre Poilievre: I’m not going to listen to you,” said Singh on Wednesday, accusing Poilievre of wanting to take away dental-care coverage from Canadians, among other things.
“I’m not going to listen to your advice. You want to destroy people’s lives, I want to build up a brighter future.”
Earlier in the day, Poilievre challenged Singh to commit to voting non-confidence in the government, saying his party will force a vote in the House of Commons “at the earliest possibly opportunity.”
“I’m asking Jagmeet Singh and the NDP to commit unequivocally before Monday’s byelections: will they vote non-confidence to bring down the costly coalition and trigger a carbon tax election, or will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?” Poilievre said.
“It’s put up or shut up time for the NDP.”
While Singh rejected the idea he would ever listen to Poilievre, he did not say how the NDP would vote on a non-confidence motion.
“I’ve said on any vote, we’re going to look at the vote and we’ll make our decision. I’m not going to say our decision ahead of time,” he said.
Singh’s top adviser said on Tuesday the NDP leader is not particularly eager to trigger an election, even as the Conservatives challenge him to do just that.
Anne McGrath, Singh’s principal secretary, says there will be more volatility in Parliament and the odds of an early election have risen.
“I don’t think he is anxious to launch one, or chomping at the bit to have one, but it can happen,” she said in an interview.
New Democrat MPs are in a second day of meetings in Montreal as they nail down a plan for how to navigate the minority Parliament this fall.
The caucus retreat comes one week after Singh announced the party has left the supply-and-confidence agreement with the governing Liberals.
It’s also taking place in the very city where New Democrats are hoping to pick up a seat on Monday, when voters go to the polls in Montreal’s LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. A second byelection is being held that day in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood—Transcona, where the NDP is hoping to hold onto a seat the Conservatives are also vying for.
While New Democrats are seeking to distance themselves from the Liberals, they don’t appear ready to trigger a general election.
Singh signalled on Tuesday that he will have more to say Wednesday about the party’s strategy for the upcoming sitting.
He is hoping to convince Canadians that his party can defeat the federal Conservatives, who have been riding high in the polls over the last year.
Singh has attacked Poilievre as someone who would bring back Harper-style cuts to programs that Canadians rely on, including the national dental-care program that was part of the supply-and-confidence agreement.
The Canadian Press has asked Poilievre’s office whether the Conservative leader intends to keep the program in place, if he forms government after the next election.
With the return of Parliament just days away, the NDP is also keeping in mind how other parties will look to capitalize on the new makeup of the House of Commons.
The Bloc Québécois has already indicated that it’s written up a list of demands for the Liberals in exchange for support on votes.
The next federal election must take place by October 2025 at the latest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
