After some 14 hours, Jordan’s Foreign Ministry issues a statement containing a brief condemnation of today’s terror shooting attack by a Jordanian man that killed three Israelis on the West Bank side of the Allenby Bridge Crossing.The Jordanian statement was carefully crafted not to condemn the shooter, and the entire statement blames the incident wholly on Israel. In fact, it can be read as a condemnation of Israel for killing the shooter!
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates confirmed today that the relevant authorities are following up on the investigations into the incident in which a Jordanian citizen opened fire on the Palestinian side of the King Hussein Bridge, which is controlled by Israel, which led to the killing of three Israelis.The official spokesman for the ministry, Ambassador Dr. Sufyan Al-Qudah, said that initial investigations confirmed that the incident, in which the shooter was also killed, was an individual act.The Ministry stressed Jordan's firm position in rejecting and condemning violence and targeting civilians for any reason, and calling for addressing all causes and escalatory steps that generate it.Ambassador Al-Qudah stressed that Jordan is continuing its regional and international efforts and movements aimed at reaching a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, stopping the dangerous escalation in the West Bank, and reaching a comprehensive calm and launching a real political effort that restores hope in the possibility of achieving a just and lasting peace based on the two-state solution, and protects the entire region from the consequences of the continued deterioration that perpetuates despair and extremism, and detonates cycles of violence and killing, the price of which everyone pays.Ambassador Al-Qudah stressed that a just and comprehensive peace that meets all the rights of the brotherly Palestinian people and embodies the independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the lines of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, based on the two-state solution, to live in security and peace alongside Israel, is the only way to achieve security and stability for all, and to stop the spread of violence and the escalation of conflict in the region.Ambassador Al-Qudah referred to Jordan's repeated warnings of the consequences of the continued Israeli aggression on Gaza, the dangerous escalation against the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, and the attacks on Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, and the repercussions of this on the entire region.
Commenters on the tweet understand the language. They consider all Israelis to be soldiers, and the only civilian killed in the incident was the shooter, Maher Diab Hussein Jazi, himself a former Jordanian soldier. (Early reports indicated that Jazi killed three "security forces." Two of the victims were in their 60s.)
When you read the condemnation with this understanding, against "targeting civilians for any reason," you can see that Jordan wrote the statement intentionally to avoid condemning the terrorist. The ministry is saying Israel had no right to kill Jazi.
The rest of the statement squarely blames and justifies all violence as normal responses to Israeli actions.
This becomes even clearer when you look at the Jordanian Foreign Ministry website. As of this writing, the statement which merely implies condemnation does not even appear. But there is a clear and unequivocal condemnation of the death of the American ISM activist on Saturday that Jordan blames on Israel:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned in the strongest terms the targeting of the American activist of Turkish origin, Aysinur Ezgi Eci, by the Israeli occupation army, a heinous crime that requires holding those responsible accountable..
So is their unqualified sorrow at the deaths of victims on a Kenya school fire.
By contrast, this statement does not express condolences to the families of the victims.
It is obvious that Jordan's statement is reluctant and purposefully ambiguous at best. The people of Jordan understand this and are celebrating the shooter as a hero, something that wouldn't be done nearly as much if the government - or the king - had unequivocally condemned the attack.
