As these protests swell, it’s unclear how far some Arab leaders will have to go to suppress anti-Israeli demonstrations–and how these eruptions will shake up other Arab countries. There’s also the fear that this popular rage will stoke anti-American feelings that seemed to have ebbed in recent years.
The Western media have captured these crowds burning American and Israeli flags and venting their anger on symbols of Israel and its Western allies–flags, fancy parked cars, flashy fast-food billboards. Luckily, the violence next door hasn’t sparked a wider war or fueled anti-American hostility in Amman. Americans like myself still wander through crowded downtown streets, squeeze into packed buses and sit in crowded cafes without attracting so much as a glare. All of this is remarkable considering that we rub elbows on a daily basis with some of the millions of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, many with numerous relatives still living in the West Bank and Gaza, and many of whom have been killed or wounded by America’s close allies, the Israelis.
On a cool morning late last month, I had a conversation over coffee with my friend Maha, one such Jordanian with Palestinian relatives. She insisted that the massive uprisings in the West Bank and Gaza could not have been orchestrated by Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Instead, Maha said, they were an uncontrollable response to yet another insult by Ariel Sharon, the leader of Israel’s right-wing Likud party, who triggered the violence Sept. 28 by barreling through a site held sacred by Muslims. The visit, she added, was simply a spark that ignited decades of pent-up frustration with Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land in open defiance of United Nations resolutions. And like many people in Gaza and the West Bank, Maha regards Arafat and his ruling circle as corrupt and compromised, and therefore without the power to either incite the current uprising or–as the Israelis demand–rein them in.
One image sums up the ongoing clashes: the TV footage of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy screaming helplessly before being shot dead by an army sniper. Against such a backdrop, the Arab leaders’ tough talk of cutting ties with Israel is seen as stale bluster. No one here believes Arab leaders will risk losing U.S. aid or trade ties by tangling with Israel, though they’re afraid to say this publicly for fear of government reprisals.
Just last year, for example, Jordan’s government cracked a ring of alleged anti-American Islamic terrorists; last month, its armored vehicles quashed several anti-Israeli demonstrations. These internal clashes, in which one Palestinian was killed, have sent tremors along old fault lines between Jordanians and their refugee guests. Palestinian refugees here still bitterly remember “Black September” in 1970, when government troops crushed a PLO effort to make Jordan a safe base for attacks on Israel. The latest crowd-control measures, implicitly sanctioned by Jordan’s King Abdullah, have drawn dark mutterings from many Palestinians, who have suffered for decades in squalid refugee camps located here.
Their anger and frustration is further compounded by Western news coverage of the recent clashes in Palestine. Jordanians who look at Western news accounts will find descriptions like “lynch mob” and “murder” repeatedly attached to Palestinian actions. But corresponding words are difficult (if not impossible) to find in reports on Israeli measures. Most Jordanians would agree that words like “overkill” and “brutal suppression” would be appropriate descriptions of the Palestinian deaths at the hands of the Israelis, but see nothing of the sort in the Western media.
Against this backdrop, growing anti-American sentiment in the Middle East would come as no surprise. And no matter how much some Arab leaders try to keep the peace, it would be naive to think they can quell growing popular hostility toward Israel and its backers as long as Palestinians continue to fill fresh graves and hospital beds.
Jon Pattee lives in Amman, where he recently finished a year of work as an editor for The Jordan Times.
