For Some Arabs, Preventing Peace with Israel Is More Important Than Combating Coronavirus

by Khaled Abu Toameh

• The project sounds like the type of assistance that Jordanian women need, especially during this difficult period of the economic and health crises in their country.
• What particularly irritated the anti-normalization activists and groups in Jordan was that some of the Jordanian women appeared in a video praising the project and talking about how happy they were to join forces with their Israeli neighbors on the other side of the border.
• This Jordanian writer [Mohammed Sweidan] has taken it upon himself to be the spokesman for all women in his country. He claims to have some special knowledge of their actual intentions. Notably, he did not even bother to contact the Jordanian women to ask them about their attitude toward the joint project with the Israeli women.
• These [Arab] leaders and media have filled the Arab people with so much hate against Israel that participating in a positive, productive endeavor becomes a major crime.
• As long as such incitement against Israel in the Arab world continues, any talk about peace will be a pipe dream with hopes going up in smoke.

Instead of focusing their efforts on trying to find solutions to the severe medical crisis in the country,
many Jordanians are busy condemning a meeting between Jordanian and Israeli women that took place
in Wadi Arava, an area south of the Dead Sea Basin that forms part of the border between Israel and Jordan. Pictured: The Wadi Arava area on the Jordanian side. (Image source: Zairon/Wikimedia Commons)

Hatred for Israel (and Jews) in many Arab countries continues to take priority over economic, health and political problems. Some Arabs prefer to dedicate more time and energy to combating peace with Israel than to dealing with the deadly fallout of COVID-19 in their own backyards.

Jordan, an Arab country that signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, is no exception.

On March 31, Jordan reported 111 COVID-related deaths, the highest daily toll since the outbreak of the pandemic. The report came as some Jordanians took to the streets to protest the government's failed policies, especially in healthcare and the economy.

Instead of focusing their efforts on trying to find solutions to the severe medical crisis in the country, many Jordanians are busy condemning a meeting between Jordanian and Israeli women. These aggrieved Jordanians are dubbing the meeting an act of treason and calling for a commission of inquiry into the encounter.

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