Jordanians Outraged That Israeli Soldiers Would Defend Themselves

Amman, Jordan, March 12 – Following the shooting by IDF soldiers of a Jordanian man at a border crossing, Jordanian officials and protesters have expressed rage at the notion that Israeli soldiers take actual measures to defend themselves as necessary.

A Palestinian-Jordanian judge was at the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge crossing when, according according to eyewitnesses, he ran toward a group of Israeli soldiers, shouting,”Allahu Akbar!” a call often used as a battle cry. Soldiers fired at the man’s legs, but he continued to attack, at one point attempting to strike them with an iron rod and trying to grab a soldier’s gun. The soldiers continued to fire, eventually killing him. Jordanians erupted in protest, with calls to abrogate the 1994 peace treaty with Israel and to bring to Jordan for a murder trial the soldier who fired the fatal shot.

Israel conveyed its regret over the incident to Jordan, and agreed to form a joint committee to investigate the incident and formulate a policy to forestall recurrences. But that was insufficient for Jordanians, who held demonstrations around the Israeli embassy in Amman and demanded retaliatory measures.

“This travesty, this Israeli arrogance, is the last straw,” said Ahmed Jamali, head of the Jordanian Bar Association. “It is deeply offensive to the Jordanian and Palestinian peoples that a man of the law, a judge, cannot act with impunity.” He added that it was patently unjust to allow Israeli soldiers to carry weapons, as the only proper use for weapons is to shoot Israeli schoolchildren, which IDF soldiers have demonstrated they are unwilling to do.

Israeli dedication to maintaining life has long been a source of tension with some aspects of neighboring culture. Whereas Israeli soldiers take for granted that protecting lives is their paramount mission, their opponents see human lives as expendable resources in a larger political struggle, and as such make no distinction between military and civilian targets. Thus, an attack on any Israeli is legitimate, and the death of any Arab, even if he is engaged in an attempt to harm Israelis, must be condemned and avenged.

This contrasting attitude also plays out on the refugee front, with Israeli insisting that the 1948 and 1967 refugees be allowed to establish productive lives for themselves in their host countries, and the Palestinian leadership refusing to allow any of the Palestinian refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war into Palestinian territory lest such a move be perceived as waiving their right to return to the homes they fled decades ago. Thousands of Palestinian refugees are among the more than 100,000 dead in the Syrian war, killed because they have been caught in the crossfire between insurgents and Assad loyalists.

For its part, the Jordanian government is trying to downplay the incident, as it already faces significant internal trouble handling refugees from Syria and keeping the war there from spilling over onto its territory, and seeks to avoid further unrest. King Abdullah issued a statement condemning the killing and calling for a full investigation, but disappointed hard-liners by stopping short of calling for the beheading of all the Israelis who were within a 200-kilometer radius of the attack.