Flags, slogans denouncing Trump deal raised for third week across Kingdom

AMMAN — For the third week running, crowds of people on Friday protested across the Kingdom in rejection of US President Donald Trump’s recently announced peace plan for the prolonged Palestinian-Israeli conflict, known as the ‘Deal of the Century’.

Bundled up against the chilly weather, participants in Amman waved placards while carrying Jordanian and Palestinian flags, expressing their refusal of Trump’s document, which he unveiled on January 28 alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but with no Palestinian representatives.

“We chanted slogans with words like ‘free Palestine’, ‘slap of the century’ and ‘we sacrifice our souls for the sake of Al Aqsa’, with the aim of expressing our solidarity with Palestinians,” Jordanian demonstrator Nedeljka Velcic told The Jordan Times on Friday.

“This deal excluded Palestinians’ rights and the most visible evidence of that is the absence of any Palestinian consultation,” Velcic said, adding: “Jordanians and all Arabs are not willing to sell Palestine in exchange for a fabricated peace deal, which shows the fragility of the ineffectual peace process.”

Awni Sawalme, a Jordanian citizen who participated in Friday’s protest, said: ”Giving away Palestine, which is the mind, heart and conscience of Arabs, is considered to be the greatest corruption of all time.”

“Our stance on the deal will not change,” Narmina Hasan, a Jordanian protestor told The Jordan Times.

Demonstrators converged near Al Husseini Mosque in downtown Amman, voicing their solidarity with Palestine, refusing the peace plan and also touching on the Israeli gas agreement.

In Zarqa and Irbid, similar sit-ins were organised after Friday prayer, seeing protesters expressing their "full rejection" of Trump's plan and calling on Arab, Muslim and peace-loving powers to reject the deal, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.