Jerusalem is Arab; so is Golan

His Majesty King Abdullah warned on Wednesday during a visit to Zarqa Governorate that Jerusalem is a red line, and that the Jordanian people stand behind him on this issue.

On Monday, the King cancelled a scheduled visit to Romania planned to start the same day after its prime minister on Sunday expressed her country’s intention to move its embassy to Jerusalem.

The Royal visit to Romania, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, had been scheduled to include meetings with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and parliamentary leaders, in addition to the King’s participation in the Aqaba meetings, which had been planned to be hosted by Romania in partnership with Jordan.

A business forum scheduled to be held on the sidelines of the visit was also called off by Jordanian business leaders, who expressed support of the cancellation of the Royal visit, affirming their full support for Hashemite Custodianship of Christian and Muslim holy places in Jerusalem.

For Jordan, its Hashemite leadership and its people, the Israeli-occupied city of Jerusalem is a red line, as the King said, and it should be tackled through peace talks, rather than through unilateral measures by world politicians trying to win over lobby groups and dirty money to support their campaigns.

Romania, which has always been a friend of Arabs, and a historical supporter of the Palestinian people, should not be changing its stance to follow the whims of leaders seeking to score personal gains at the expense of ties with the Arab peoples. It should instead work to support a peaceful solution to the issue of Jerusalem and not to blindly follow the camp of US President Donald Trump who seems to be focused on appeasing the Jewish lobby in the US and to please his son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose questionable ties to Israel should be a good reason to remove him from his post as presidential adviser in charge of brokering a Mideast “peace” deal, which will certainly be at the expense of justice and Arab rights.

The nepotism of Trump that is affecting his Mideast decisions, including his most recent decision on Monday recognising Syria’s Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, as part of Israel, should not be copied by other countries of the world.

If Trump and Kushner love Israel so much they can donate US land to them, but not Palestinian and Syrian land. Any country in the world that also supports Israel so much can do the same by giving it part of their national land, not Palestinian or Syrian land.

Jordan’s stand on Jerusalem should be emulated by other Arab countries, which are scheduled to convene for the annual Arab summit in Tunisia next week. Arab leaders should rise to the occasion and work to translate the will of their peoples on the Holy City of Jerusalem, on the suffering of the Palestinian people and on the Golan Heights. These peoples will judge their leaders harshly, as they will judge other countries that are doing them and their causes injustices.

Friendly people in Europe, the US and around the world have to loudly express their rejection of any measures aiming to preempt the outcome of Arab-Israeli peace talks, which should be the focus of all justice-loving countries in the world.

The world as whole should still have faith that a just peace is the only answer to all Middle East problems, not one-sided unilateral measures.