The Press Calls Israel Right-Wing, But Gives a Free Pass to Jordan
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Jordanian Salafi-Jihadi Abu Muhammad Al-Tahawi
Photo Credit: MEMRI
Those of us who live in the liberal Jewish state have become accustomed to suffering through the steady stream of unhinged, if predictable, stories in the Guardian – as well as in the mainstream media – warning ominously of Israel’s dangerous political lurch to the right.
The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland (one of the more sober Guardian journalists) was the most recent Guardian contributors to warn of ”Israel’s pronounced shift to the right, but such warnings, with varying degrees of hysterics, have been advanced continually - with several CiF contributors even evoking the risible specter of an Israeli descent into fascism.
The relative media blackout (outside a few Jewish and Israeli sources) about recent news from Jordan, on the other hand, demonstrating an extreme right political culture, is quite telling.
If you’re planning to visit the sprawling, modern metropolis of Amman, the ancient city of Petra, or one of the many beautiful seaside resorts in Aqaba, you may want to pack your bags taking into account the necessary cultural sensitivities.
The the Jordanian Tourism Ministry has recently issued a memo to tour operators warning Jewish visitors not to wear “Jewish clothing”, or pray in public places, in order to avoid possible antisemitic attacks.
Times of Israel reported the following:
“According to a copy of a ministry memo issued at the end of November, Amman instructed Jordanian tour operators to inform their Israeli counterparts to advise Israeli visitors not to wear “Jewish dress” or perform “religious rituals in public places” so as to prevent an unfriendly reaction by Jordanian citizens.
…
Israelis and Jews are typically advised not to wear outwardly Jewish clothes or symbols, and occasionally are met with trouble from Jordanian authorities when crossing the border.
Earlier this year, six Israeli tourists were assaulted in a market in southern Jordan after vendors were angered by their traditional Jewish skullcaps.
The six men and women arrived at a market in the town of Rabba, 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of the capital Amman, when one of the vendors identified the tourists as Israeli due to mens’ skullcaps, which “provoked the sensibilities of the vendors,” independent daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm reported.”
Yes, those “sensibilities”.
Now, remember that the Jewish population of Jordan is literally zero, and while the phenomenon of antisemtism without Jews is not unique to Jordan the mere ubiquity of such irrational anti-Jewish racism certainly shouldn’t render it any less abhorrent.
Further, while Israel’s progressive, democratic advantages in the Middle East are self-evident, and definitively documented, Jordan is consistently given one of the worst scores on human rights by the respected organization, Freedom House. In addition to the state’s systemic abrogation of political rights (such as severe restrictions on political expression and the media), an even more remarkable and under-reported violation of democratic norms relates to the Kingdom’s treatment of a much discussed group: hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are still denied the right to vote.
So, if, according to the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood, Likud-Beiteinu represents a “right-wing electoral alliance”; the Jewish Home party is an “extreme right-wing nationalist,” how should reasonable political observers characterize the political center of gravity in a neighboring state which denies basic civil rights, creates an apartheid like system for its Palestinians, and is so infected with a Judeophobic culture that the government had to issue a warning to Jewish visitors not to engage in Jewish prayers, wear Jewish symbols, or even wear “Jewish clothes”?
Can we fairly characterize Jordanian political culture as dangerously reactionary, racist, extremist, and ultra, ultra, ultra far-right?
Of course, the Guardian’s Jordan page has absolutely nothing by any of its liberal reporters or commentators warning of the nation’s dangerous lurch to the extreme right abyss.
Could it be that most journalists within the mainstream media – and at the Guardian – fail to hold Arab states accountable to the same moral standards as they do the Jewish state?
Of course, such an ethnically and religiously based disparity in journalistic critical scrutiny would be racist, wouldn’t it?
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tell a friendAbout the Author: Adam Levick serves as Managing Editor of CiF Watch, an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), and is a member of the Online Antisemitism Working Group for the Global Forum to Combat Antisemitism. Adam made Aliyah from Philadelphia in 2009 and lives with his wife in Modi'in.
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One Response to “The Press Calls Israel Right-Wing, But Gives a Free Pass to Jordan”
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Pres. Al-Tahawi, why are you leaning to the right? Here in the USA, our right is slowing funding to our Pres. Obama as you may know, so that withdrawal from Afghanistan is slowed. I don't know how you can have the patience to be a diplomat, but please help us Jews in Milwaukee USA to work together with Christians and Moslems to end WW 5, the Iraq and Afghanistan war! Jews are just very short by nature, but they grandfathered Jesus who said "love one another."