Democratic Palestine : 20 (ص 20)
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- Democratic Palestine : 20 (ص 20)
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Al Rafa’i. In an interview with the
Lebanese magazine, Al Hawadeth,
August 22nd, he said «Jordan’s finan-
cial situation does not allow it to
finance the plan.» Therefore, he added,
the money needed to make the plan
possible will be provided by «the Arab
and Islamic governments, Arab funds,
European countries, the US, Canada
and Japan» - ie., imperialist and reac-
tionary forces.
In his last visit to Washington, King
Hussein discussed the issue with the US
government.(S5) US officials have
recently said that Washington was very
satisfied with the latest Jordanian pro-
cedures. They also said that Wash-
ington is searching for ways to incor-
porate the Israeli and Jordanian plans,
in order to define the size of the aid that
will be given.
In light of the developments towards
implementing the plan for ‘improving
the quality of life’, the Kuwaiti
paper, Al Watan, on October 2nd, said
that Britain and other European coun-
tries are planning to send representa-
tives to Jordan in November, to look
into a financial program for the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, amounting to 100
million pounds. London radio quoted
Timothy Rinton of the British foreign
ministry, who visited Amman early in
October, as saying that Britain will
participate in the conference that will
be held in Amman in November, to
discuss the details of the financial aid.
Moreover, the EEC at its September
4th meeting in Brussels, approved a
proposal allowing West Bank and Gaza
Strip produce to be sold on EEC mar-
kets, offering Palestinian farmers
conditions similar to those offerred
‘Israel’, Jordan and other Mediterra-
nean countries, such as a 60% decrease
in tariffs. The EEC’s head of deve-
lopment plans arranged for this deal
when he visited Tel Aviv and Amman
last year.
A spokesman of the EEC replied to
those who warned of possiple political
consequences, saving, «There are no
political aims behind the EEC’s deci-
sion.» However, he added, «The
committee had noticed that there is a
deplorable situation,» pointing to the
situation of the Palestinian farmers in
the occupied West Bank and Gaza
Strip, who are being discriminated
against.(6)
Related to this, the US is involved in
funding the construction of a $25 mil-
lion highway linking Jericho in the
West Bank,with Na’our in Jordan.This
would facilitate the transport of pro-
ducts from the occupied territories to
markets abroad. It could moreover be
used by the Israelis to circumvent the
Arab boycott against their products.
In Jordan, the official papers daily
publish scores of government decisions
to allocate tens of thousands of Jorda-
nian dinars for the plan for ‘improving
the quality of life.’ The Jordanian
daily, Al Ra’i, reported on October
10th, that the Jordanian government
had allocated 35,000 dinars to the li-
teracy program and the unions of wel-
20
fare societies in the West Bank; 15,000
dinars to the union of welfare societies
in Jerusalem, and 10,000 dinars to each
union in Nablus and Al Khalil.
On October 9th, Dr. Al Qatanani,
Jordanian deputy minister of Occupied
Territories Affairs, received Mr. M.
Abdul Fattah, the representative of
medical laboratories and blood banks
in the West Bank. The deputy minister
promised to look into the needs of the
medical labs and blood banks within
the framework of the development plan
for the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
On October 8th, AJ Ra’ published a
lecture by Marwan Doudeen, Jorda-
nian Minister of Occupied Territories
Affairs, entitled «The West Bank after
Two Decades of Occupation.» In this,
he said that the suspension of coordi-
nation between Jordan and the PLO
meant termination of financing of the
Steadfastness Fund that is supervised
by Jordan and the PLO. According to
Mr. Doudeen, this caused the Jorda-
nian government to draw up its own
program to finance the development
plan, in order to resolve the crisis of the
Palestinian people in the West Bank!
To all this ‘aid’, we can only say that
the social, economic and health situa-
tion in the occupied territories has been
deplorable for years. The sudden con-
cern of the Jordanian and Western
European governments smells suspi-
ciously like bribery. The Palestinians
under occupation are to be given some
marginal benefits that don’t alleviate
the basic problem of occupation, in
hopes that they will tie their fate to the
Jordanian monarchy. Thus, the PLO
could be cut out, and the Middle East
conflict solved to the interests of impe-
rialism, Zionism and reaction. The
Gulf states’ refusal to meet their finan-
cial commitments to the Palestinian
National Fund (the PLO’s treasury)
shows Arab reaction’s complicity in the
plot to eliminate the PLO’s role.
INFILTRATING THE TRADE
UNIONS
It has also been decided to send a
delegation of pro-Jordanians from
West Bank trade unions to Amman, to
meet with Marwan Doudeen and draw
up a work plan, in order to control the
trade unions by flooding the nationalist
unions with new recruits.
Another decision recently taken by
the Jordanian government is to appoint
70 new engineers to work in the muni-
cipalities of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip. In practice, this means flooding
the Palestinian Engineers’ Union with
elements that are supportive of the
Jordanian regime’s policies. The Jor-
danian government also appointed a
number of doctors and nurses in the
different clinics and hospitals of the
West Bank for the same purpose that it
appointed the engineers. Recently the
Jordanian government resumed pay-
ment to lawyers in the West Bank,
taking over the previous funding role of
the PLO-Jordanian Joint Committee.
At the same time, the regime reinstated
lawyers who were previously suspended
by the union for failure to abide by the
1967 decision to boycott the courts. The
resumption of payments is an attempt
to gain at least part of this sector of our
people to the Jordanian regime’s side.
With the same aim, salaries have also
been resumed to teachers, the largest
single sector of employees in the West
Bank.
DOUBLE IRON FIST
Along the same lines, a reshuffle in
the Jordanian cabinet has resulted in
the promotion of a hard-line, former
intelligence officer to the important
post of Minister of Interior. The
appointment of Mr. Rajai Al Dajani,
one of the few Palestinians to
renewed attempts by Jordan to increase
its influence in the occupied territories.
This move is a signal to Jordan’s men
that the regime is determined to protect
them from the wrath of our masses,
particularly after the appointments of
three mayors in the West Bank, by the
Zionist authorities.
It is very obvious that both the Jor-
danian regime and the Zionist Labor
party are determined to continue their
conspiracy, and they have already
taken concrete steps towards achieving
it. Moreover, the Likud, headed by the
new prime minister, Shamir, has not
rejected the division of functions plan.
In fact, Shamir has more than once
expressed satisfaction with the Jorda-
nian procedures, for these aim at eli-
minating the role of the PLO in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. What
would Shamir and the Likud want more
than liquidating the PLO and normali-
zing relations with Jordan, in order to
reach the point of direct negotiations?
Shimon Peres has eliminated the
Jordanian regime’s fear that Shamir’s
government would work to deal a blow
to the plan and abort the whole process.
Early in September, Peres met Hikmat
Al Masri, Vice-president of the Jorda-
nian senate, and gave him a message to
King Hussein, saying that the political
trend of the coalition government will
continue in one of two ways: Either
Shamir will accept continuation of the
same path, or Peres will disrupt the
coalition after Shamir takes power, in
order to have new Knesset elections. In
this case, the Labor party will definitely
take power, according to Peres.
It is worth mentioning that the Jor-
danian procedures were not confronted
by the right-wing leadership of the
PLO. The least the PLO leadership
could do is to officially cancel the
Amman agreement, especially since
Jordan’s foreign minister, Taher Al
Masri, has said that all the measures
taken by his government are based on
the spirit of the Amman accords.
(1) Al Nahar, October 3, 1986.
(2) Al Safir, September 19, 1986.
(3) op. cit., September 29, 1986.
(4) The Guardian, September 20, 1986.
(5) Al Fursan, July 1986.
(6) Al Safir, September 5, 1985. @ - هو جزء من
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