By Ted Belman
The long awaited conference on The Jordan Option came and went, not without its drama.
First the event itself and then the drama.
About 200 people showed up for this historical event including many bloggers and i24 News. We could have and should have had more main stream press. Of particular note was that Amira Haas of Haaretz registered for the Conference.
The speakers performed brilliantly in so far as what they had to say and how they said it. Its all on video tape. I am working feverishly to get it loaded. It will be available to anyone who donates $18.00 to Israpundit.
I am judging the success of the conference by the reaction of the audience to the ideas put forward, Aside for repeated applause of various remarks, many speakers were applauded vigorously when their remarks were delivered.
There was one coffee break in the morning. The crowd couldn’t be contained. The excitement was palpable. It was fabulous. The same at lunch time.
The following is our list of speakers: Yehuda Glick MK, Arieh Eldad, Prof Mordechai Nisan, Dr. Martin Sherman, Dr Edy Cohen, Rachel Avraham, Prof Salim Mansur, Geoffrey Clarfield, Ted Belman, Michael Ross, Jeremy Saltan, Yishai Fliesher, Abed Almaala, and of course, Mudar Zahran.
To highlight a few remarks cannot possibly do justice to the full remarks, so you will just have to donate the $18.00 to listen to it all, but do not do so until I have posted it.
Now for the drama.
Amb. Danyy Ayalon agreed to Keynote the conference two days before but had to cancel the night before the event. But he did call me up during the conference to ask how it was going and to suggest that we should meet in Jerusalem soon. He is very interested in the Jordan Option.
Abed Almaala, who is in constant fear for his life, not without cause, arrived safely in the late afternoon the day before the conference. I had booked him in to a hotel in eastern Jerusalem at his request but upon arriving there, he freaked out and rushed to go to another hotel even though I had paid for three nights stay. He called me up and told me where he was. But then he got a call from an Arab from California and the caller asked why he was there. He freaked out again and wanted me to arrange other accomodation. All my friends who run B &B’s (three of them) were booked. So I decided to send him to the accomodations I has et up for Mudar who had not yet arrived. Then I had to prevail upon the hotel that he was calling from to cancell his reservation and not charge him. They did so so I am giving them a shout out. The Jerusalem Dan Hotel.
Then I walked to where I told him to go to welcome his arrival. He arrived safely and I returned to my place.
While all this was happening another drama was unfolding.
Mudar’s flight was delayed 2 hours which ment he would miss his connecting flight and would not be able to arrive at the conference. So the defaulting airline got him a seat on an El Al plane. There he sat on the tarmac for 2 hours before the plane was announced unfit for flight so the flight was cancelled. Mudar then frantically searched for another flight to Israel but none could be found to get him to the conference in time for his speech at the end of the conference. You can imagine how distraught he and I were. We decided to enable him to address the conference on Skype. After all if Donald or Bibi could do this, so could he.
We didn’t know if Skype could be set up to work and projected to a big screen. I also decided to keep this secret til just before he was due to speak. I didn’t want to announce it at the beginning as it was such a downer. So I decided to wait.
Skype was set up and worked without a hitch.
Mudar preformed brilliantly. He first gave a 30 minute talk without notes. He is a born politician.
Then came time for questions. I told the audience that I would be asking all the questions that was on their minds. I told them that I would ask the most difficult of questions. No holds barred. This I did then I asked about 4 questions the audience sent in to me. Here are the questions that I can now recall.
People are saying you will be dead within 24 hours of getting installed. What do you say?
The border has been quiet for 30 years, how can you assure us that under your administration, it will remain quiet?
The Bedouin used to be allies of the king and now you say they are your ally. How come?
Will the Gulf states support the coup?
What will you do regarding the Temple Mount?
What is your position on the separation of Mosque and state?
Why is Jordan so poor?
Mudar didn’t blink an eye and answered all questions convincingly. The audience was spellbound. The conference ended at 5:30 PM and many people stayed for another 30 minutes to express their excitement and to thank me for organizing the conference.
All’s well that ends well.
Now we have to focus on making this happen within the next few months.
By the way Mudar dubbed Arabic translation into my ILTV 5 minute interview and posted it on Arabic social Media. Within a week it had 100,000 hits.
I greatly appreciate the work and effort put into the conference by Ted Belman. The wide range of speakers made the day very informative. It was special to have two speakers of the Palestinian opposition in Jordan. This to me is the first conference that focused with the issues that Israel has pushed around concerning Judea and Samaria for years. I will be carefully digesting all I heard and making thoughtful decisions about where I stand. There are many opinions, but we do need to unite behind the most practical solution. Frank Mecklenburg
One attendee writes,
Email received.
Email received.
Email received.
Generally very good. A much needed discussion.
I propose to start a dialogue in Australia on this theme.
AND WE WANT ALL OF JERUSALEM BACK
After the conference thoughts:
I’m extremely appreciative to Ted and all the presenters for their heroic efforts to start the brain-storming on the Jordan-West Palestine/Israel-East Palestine initiative. I think there is possibility for positive outcome for the benefit of Israel, but ONLY with very careful planning.
Here are some of my concerns:
I did not hear anything from any presenter about the biggest elephant in the room for Israel: Allowing a population of Arabs to remain in sovereign Israel (regardless of Jordanian citizenship). The repetition of this idea from Mudar told me that he does not understand the Israeli position fully and has not thought out the future effects on Israeli security of Arabs remaining in Israel.
Essentially, allowing any population of Arabs in sovereign Israel will be the same as returning to the pre-1967 borders.
There will be arabs as Jordanian citizens residing within in Israel’s borders as well as in Jordan. They want Israel to subsidize what amounts to second homes, create jobs and build cities for them. It solves nothing for us.
An Arab family currently residing in “West Palestine”-Israel, can easily have several homes on BOTH SIDES of the Jordan River- -one for each wife, one for each child over 18, etc. How does this help Israel’s security?
Population transfer must be ALL OR NOTHING. Otherwise,Israel will be buying homes and building cities for arabs in jordan while continuing to contend with a growing population of arabs in Israel- Jordanian citizens or not, sovereign Israel or not doesn’t matter- they are still in our country, growing larger and most assuredly- making trouble and killing Jews.
The Jordan option perspective as presented yesterday, unfortunately reiterates the liberal agenda: the Zahran plan proposes that the underlying cause of the Arab-Israel conflict is about demographics and poverty.
It is not about this. It is about: 1) the underlying, distorted muslim global agenda, and 2) anti-semitism.
With this plan as presented currently, Jordan will once again have a stake in the Jewish area west of the river as they did pre-1967 in the form of a troublesome anti-semitic Jordanian population still residing in Israel. This is unconscionable.
It doesn’t matter how one labels the Arab population, the short story is- All Arabs must leave Israel for any Jordan as East Palestine plan to be feasible for Israel’s national security. because why?
1) It’s impossible to vet all arabs for loyalty, non-violence, potential terrorism and 2) This plan ignores the fact that we Jews want our land back and no longer want to feel unsafe or segregated in our land:
we want Hebron back,
we want Shechem back,
we want Yericho back,
we want Beit Lechem back,
we want the Galil back,
we want ALL our ancient Jewish homeland back in all the areas of our country.
Furthermore, if Mudar sincerely wants to see 2 separate states for 2 peoples, he should set the example by selling his holdings in Beit Lechem where he owns a house to Jews.
If someone has a different perspective, I’d love to hear it.
The Jordan Option Conference:
We were made aware of the deep corruption of the Jordanian king by Abed Almaala, the sheik of the ‘million-man’ Bani Hassan tribe, as well as Mudar Zahran. Rachel Abrahamson, of Beit Agron Int’l Press Center in Jerusalem, made us aware of the shame-based, abuse-fueled, fabric of Jordanian society.
These self-destructive characteristics are similar to other clan-based societies where one’s willingness to die and kill for family and tribal honor is the standard of virtue just like we see in muslim culture today.
With that kind of cultural background to contend with, giving money, free houses, establishing jobs, cities, etc is the same path as other failed welfare programs where entitlement is based on victimhood and not earned by personal effort.
If a sociologist had presented at the JIP conference, s/he might have brought our attention to similar incalcitrant, violent and destructive populations in other countries where similar ‘welfare’ type programs have been tried unsuccessfully.
Housing projects, racially-weighted hiring and university admission policies are the darlings of socialist liberals who continue to hope that individual human integrity can override a backward, self-destructive, medieval culture. One can see these failed projects in almost every western country where these cultures remain corrupt: criminally and abusively inclined despite generous subsidies and free money. Socialism and free money boomerangs on the giver.
However, what does work are capital investments for profit ventures and identifying those entrepreneurial, sincere individuals in an otherwise regressive, corrupt culture.
The most successful and workable solution has been to help people to help themselves and NOT shower free money on people without requiring individual personal investment in time, effort, education and character integrity.
If western countries, including Israel, incentivize population relocation by investing in Jordan, and at the same time, cutting off or redirecting into investment funding the international welfare/bribe/ransom money oozing from the EU, UN, US, etc that have been flowing into arab pockets, this might stand a better chance of initiating a population flow out of Israel and into other countries such as Jordan.
At the same time, a corrupt pretend king who is no longer serving his purpose as peace-keeper will likely stand in the way of honest business initiatives if his position is being challenged. So removal, in some manner, seems like the best way forward.
There is so much treachery afoot in the ME (and the US as well!) right now, none of this surprizes me. If you want the US involved, talk to Jared — he holds the ME portfolio.
Were I an advisor to the US President, I would advise against this scheme. President Obama did the world a great disservice, in plotting to overthrow Mubarak, Gaddafi and Assad. That’s water under the bridge now. Abdullah II has been at peace with Israel. God, this whole thing stinks! I certainly don’t support it; but I would like to support Ted for the good work he’s been doing in maintaining this site. I lost the address to mail the check to
Regardless of what happens in Jordan and the PA, I see a very, very serious situation unfolding in Syria and Iraq. The US military is getting surrounded by hostile powers (including our phony allies, Turkey and Iraq), who are all allied to Russia and Iran. Meanwhile, the US President has turned his back on our only friends there, the Kurds. As I said, treachery is in the air everywhere. It will not work out for the good.
The problem in the Levant is this: With ISIS effectively gone, the Sunni Arabs have no champion in Iraq and Syria, other than the Kurds. The Saudis have somehow gotten themselves castrated there, if they ever had anything to cut off; and any Arab who trusts a Turk is an utter fool: Turkey is in league with Assad and Iran now, because this is convenient to Erdogan.
Meanwhile, with the Kurds deserted by the US, the Sunnis have no helper. A really oddball suggestion, is that we offer them King Abdullah II, similar to what the British did in their high-handed days. The problem is that we are not the British, and we have a MUCH weaker hand in the area. Even if we could do that, though, I doubt the Syrians and Iraqis would want the king any more than the Palestinians do. The ones who WILL fill the Sunni void, after crushing the Kurds, are the Turks. Their plans for Israel are spelled out in Ezekiel 38-39.
Interesting times… God, help us!
That is wonderful news. Yet, I wonder why nothing was reported in Arutz 7, nor any other paper… also maybe no A7 reporter was there, although it would have needed a political analyst rather than just a reporter. I wouldn’t think that Amira Hass, if she actually turned up, would have been there for any good, only the opposite. Haven’t heard much from her lately nor seen her ugly kisser (genetic chance) displayed as it so often used to be.
I saw the report of the cracked El Al window and wondered if it was accident or intentional, especially since it was comparatively new. Didn’t occur to me that M. Zahran had been on it….. I should have guessed.
I’d like to have seen a list of all the questions asked..and assume that they were all answered.
Email received from person in attendance