Crossing The Jordan

Those who are fearful of the Muslim Brotherhood, in its origins entirely a creature of British intelligence and still possessed of a pronounced Anglophilia alongside a distinctly social democratic streak among its activist even if not always among its leaders (remind you of anyone?), need to consider that no one, or at least not anyone serious, proposes ending the status of Egypt as a Major Non-NATO Ally of the United States. Nor will anyone, or at least anyone serious, propose ending the status of Jordan as a Major Non-NATO Ally of the United States in the increasingly likely event of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover there, as free and fair elections would certainly deliver.

President Morsi has appointed Copts to key positions and is on course to appoint a Coptic, as well as a female, Vice-President. There is no suggestion that a like-minded Jordanian Government would threaten the reserved parliamentary representation for the Christian minority. For that sort of thing, you need to look to the people to whom we are giving not only moral, but also material, support in Syria. And, of course, you need to look to Israel.

We are told that “Jordan is Palestine”. Indeed she is. Jordan as created at the end of the British Mandate. That is to say, including the West Bank. There has never been a state with its border at the Jordan, and the populations of the two Banks are one people. The answer to the question of why anyone ever designed a country so short of water as Jordan is, is that no one ever did.

The Declaration of a Palestinian State on the West Bank would be the end of the Hashemite Kingdom, which is just as much a foreign imposition as the Zionist project, and which was imposed by the same colonial power, which therefore bears the same historic responsibility. The pressure for incorporation into a Palestinian State would be irresistible. That, rather than the destruction of Israel, would be the great national aspiration. And then, following its rapid and its largely, if not entirely, bloodless achievement, that would be the great national triumph.

The proposed revocation of citizenship from 1.8 million Jordanians with especially strong family ties across the River, in a country of only 6.5 million, indicates that the Hashemites and their entourage are fully aware of this. Let their fear be proved well-founded. It is time to be radical, to go back to the roots.