Israel summons Jordanian ambassador to protest anti-Semitic op-ed by one of his predecessors

Op-ed published in 'Jordan Times' by a former Jordanian foreign minister used quotes from Mein Kampf to support his vehemently anti-Israel argument.

By HERB KEINON
Jordanians protest outside the Israeli embassy in the capital of Amman. (photo credit: REUTERS)
Jordanians protest outside the Israeli embassy in the capital of Amman.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Israel summoned Jordan’s ambassador to the Foreign Ministry on Thursday to protest an op-ed in the English-language Jordan Times by a former Jordanian foreign minister who used quotes from Mein Kampf to support his vehemently anti-Israel argument.
Kamel Abu Jaber, who served as Jordan’s foreign minister from 1991-1993, quoted Hitler as saying that in “the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature…” In the piece, which appeared as Israel commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jaber prefaced his citation of Hitler by quoting H.L. Mencken as saying “the men… people admire the most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”
Jaber went on to discuss the “Zionist big lie about Palestine – ‘a land without a people’ – that the entire Western world adopted, and the biblical, Talmudic myth of the ‘chosen people.’” In the piece, “The big Zionist lie and the task ahead,” Jaber wrote: “Our Arab-Muslim civilization has never had a moment of rest, or peace of mind, since Zionism was able to penetrate Western civilization to the point where tens of millions of Westerners, the neoconservatives, adopted that esoteric Talmudic myth, placing Zionist interests before and above their own national interests.”
Jaber, currently director of the Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies, channeled classical anti-Semitic tripes, such as that Jews control the media, by writing, “We Arabs, Jordanians and Palestinians especially, are victims of a torrent of lies by a few international media magnates that every day enter every room of every household, propagating not only sex and violence but also, above all, the Zionist ideas of the extreme Right.”
Jaber said that “what will get Israel to agree to a settlement is not going to be good sentiments or feelings, wishes or intentions,” but rather “counterforce, be it military, political, economic or the oil weapon.”
In a rare move, Aviva Raz Shechter – deputy director- general of the Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Division – called in Jordan’s envoy Walid Obeidat to protest the piece.