Abdullah Shows Chutzpa In Washington

There is that old Leo Rosten Joke that the definition of chutzpa is someone that would kill his mother and father then throw himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan King Abdullah II of Jordan has Chutzpa. Over the last sixty years his country has created the Palestinian refugee problem. Instead of absorbing refugees, as Israel did with all the Jews that were kicked out of Arab countries, the "Trans-Jordan refugees" have been forced to say on the boarder as a pawn to keep pressure in Israel.

So the diminutive King comes to Washington and ask for Jewish Organizations to help him with the peace process. What the hell has he ever done to help the peace process. WHEN DID HE EVER PUT PRESSURE ON THE TERRORISTS? WHY DID HE CONTINUE HIS FATHER'S RACIST POLICY OF NOT LETTING THE REFUGEES SETTLE IN JORDAN. THERE IS A TWO STATE SOLUTION---YOU ARE THE KING OF ONE OF THEM.

YOU, my short silly King, YOU HAVE CHUTZPA !!!

In Plea for Peace, Abdullah Asks for Jewish Leaders' Aid

BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
March 8, 2007


WASHINGTON — Jordan's king is aiming to enlist American Jewish and pro-Israel groups to urge Congress to support his quest for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

After making the plea for peace in an address to a joint session of Congress yesterday, King Abdullah met with a handful of Jewish leaders, including representatives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, to press his case for renewed American engagement in the dormant Arab-Israeli negotiations.

According to three participants in the meeting, the Jordanian leader said an upcoming Arab summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, presents an opportunity for Israel to reenter new negotiations with the Palestinian Authority over the final borders of an independent Palestinian Arab state.

The speech before the joint session of Congress focused almost exclusively on how the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs is a root cause of the violence in the Middle East.

"The wellspring of regional division, the source of resentment and frustration far beyond is the denial of justice and peace in Palestine," the king said.

The reaction from Congress was muted. The House majority leader, Rep. Steny Hoyer, a Democrat of Maryland, said he was "disappointed" with the speech, according to Fox News. The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Tom Lantos, a Democrat of California, called the speech "profoundly disappointing."

In the speech, the king also expressed optimism about a Saudi-brokered initiative from 2002 that the Arab League later modified and accepted at a meeting in Beirut. Under that proposal, Israel must withdraw from all the territory in won in the 1967 war and accept the return of Palestinian Arab refugees to its pre-1967 borders.

That issue came up in the meeting with Jewish leaders, according to one participant, who said King Abdullah indicated that the so-called right of return would be non-negotiable as part of the Arab offer.

"The Egyptians, Saudis, and United Arab Emirates are reaching out. The king thought there was an opportunity to move forward," one participant in the meeting, who asked not to be identified, said. "Even the private sector believed now was the time to engage in Israel. He was here to encourage the administration to stay on this. The leadership needed to move forward."

The executive vice president of B'nai B'rith International, Daniel Mariaschin, who also attended the meeting, said, "The king is a friend." But he added, "The frustration here is there needs to be a Palestinian interlocutor that can not only sign an agreement but also effectuate and enforce and agreement. Therein lies the dilemma. The king certainly is doing his best to try to create the kind of environment that could lead to that. I think it is a major task, but right now we don't have that interlocutor."

The question of an interlocutor is important now because the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is in negotiations with Hamas — which Israel and America consider a terrorist group and which does not recognize Israel's right to exist — over the composition of the government with which Israel will negotiate.

On Tuesday, more than 5,500 members of Aipac will lobby Congress, in part to urge the Bush administration to continue to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist and renounce terrorism. The authority is still under financial stress through secondary bank sanctions as a result of the Hamas victory in the January 2006 legislative elections.

The recently departed Washington bureau chief of the respected Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat, Salameh Nematt, said he thought the emphasis on the Palestinian Arab-Israel problem is shortsighted. "While solving the Palestinian-Israeli issue would help Jordan because of its unique demographic situation, half of Jordanians being of Palestinian origin, it will have absolutely no bearing on the crisis in Iraq or the crisis in Lebanon. This linkage between these issues is an overstretch," he said.