Jordanian parliament declares that "jihad against Israel" cannot be considered terrorism

From Jordan Times:

Tareq Khoury

The Lower House on Wednesday endorsed draft amendments to the State Security Court (SSC) Law following extensive discussions over its provisions.

The deputies excluded "resistance actions" against Israel from the court's jurisdiction, following a proposal to do so by Deputy Tareq Khoury (Zarqa, 1st District).

The deputies agreed that any actions against Israel cannot be "terrorism" at all; hence, they approved a provision that excludes actions against Israel from terrorism crimes.

The draft amendments limit the jurisdiction of the SSC to five crimes specified in the Constitution: treason, espionage, terrorism, drugs and money counterfeiting.

The bill will be sent to the Senate for deliberations and endorsement, after which it will be forwarded to His Majesty King Abdullah for ratification.

It goes into effect once it is published in the Official Gazette.

Last month, the Lower House gave the bill urgency status and started deliberations over it immediately.

Under Article 101 of the Constitution, "no civilian may be tried in a criminal case where all its judges are not civilian, the exception to that are the crimes of treason, espionage, terrorism, the crimes of drugs and currency forgery."

The government changes to the SSC Law ensure that civilians indicted on state security charges, other than those listed in the said constitutional article, are tried before a court whose judges are all civilians and one that is affiliated with the Judicial Council rather than the SSC.

Khoury, the sponsor of the bill, quoted the Koran: "If inch of occupied land of Muslims, jihad has become an individual duty for every Muslim."

The MP said that the bill aimed to retain the right of Jordanians to defend Jerusalem, which Khoury promised "will only be achieved with resistance to the occupation of the Holy Land."

Khoury told Al Quds al Arabi "I feel betrayed when there an equivalence between Arab terrorists and those who work or are trying to work against Israel. It is not our job to protect the Zionist entity, which targets Jordan and Jordanians as well as Palestine and the Palestinians."

"Jordanians as a people support operations against Israel as long as it occupies the Al Aqsa Mosque and any inch of our land."

Khoury is a Christian.

(h/t Kramerica)