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AMMAN — Members of the Jordanian-Irish Friendship Committee in the Senate discussed on Sunday with Irish Ambassador Marianne Bolger the ongoing war on Gaza and international efforts to impose a ceasefire and ensure the delivery of relief aid into the strip. They also hailed Ireland's “steadfast support and firm stance” on the Palestinian cause and the war on Gaza, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. Senator Mustafa Hamarneh, head of the committee, stressed the need to further enhance the Jordanian-Irish relations across various fields, underlying the importance of establishing a joint position on current regional and international issues to promote security and peace. Bolger commended the Kingdom's efforts to maintain peace and stability in the region and its role in providing logistical support and medical assistance to Gaza.

AMMAN — Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Maj. Gen. Yousef Huneiti on Sunday received a Canadian military delegation, headed by Commander of the Canadian Joint Operations Command and Vice-Admiral Bob Auchterlonie. Huneiti and Auchterlonie discussed means to enhance cooperation and coordination on several matters of mutual interest to the armed forces of the two countries, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. Also on Sunday, Huneiti met with Kuwaiti Ambassador to Jordan Hamad Al Marri over cooperation between Amman and Kuwait in military fields, Petra added. 

AMMAN — Jordan on Sunday welcomed the recent announcement by Azerbaijan and Armenia regarding the adoption of confidence-building measures, which are intended to pave the way for the signing of a peace agreement between the two countries, according to a Foreign Ministry statement. The ministry's spokesperson, Sufian Qudah, commended the remarkable development, which resulted from the negotiations held last Thursday between the offices of the Azerbaijani president and the Armenian prime minister. Qudah voiced hope that the diplomatic development would lead to a peace agreement, contributing to the promotion of international security and peace.

AMMAN — The Azerbaijani embassy in Amman on Sunday praised the deep-rooted and multifaceted relations between Jordan and Azerbaijan, highlighting the ongoing progress on various fronts. The statement issued to mark the anniversary of the passing of Heydar Aliyev, the fourth president of Azerbaijan, highlighted that the distinguished ties date back to the efforts of the late King Hussein Bin Talal and Aliyev who initiated collaboration on December 13, 1994 during the Islamic Summit in Morocco. “This meeting laid the foundation for years of cooperation, marked by mutual political, economic and cultural exchanges,” the statement said. The embassy said that late president Aliyev maintained a “clear and firm position, as evidenced by his meetings with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat”, reaffirming Azerbaijan's unwavering support for Palestine.

AMMAN — Head of the Lower House's Legal Committee MP Ghazi Thnaibat said the panel has not yet received any petition regarding a general pardon law. Thnaibat’s remarks came during a meeting with members of the King Abdullah II Fund for Development's parliamentary fellowship project. Members of the panel explained that the law on the right to access information, which is being drafted, is in line with international conventions and it aims to the promote transparency, integrity and anti-corruption measures, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra. 

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a January 2022 State Security Court (SSC) ruling, sentencing a man to two years in prison after convicting him of possessing illegal narcotics in Amman in March 2021.

The court declared the defendant guilty of obtaining illegal narcotics for personal use on March 29.

The SSC handed the defendant two years in prison and ordered the defendant to pay JD2,000 in fines.

Court documents said the Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) learnt the defendant was in possession of illegal narcotics and placed him under surveillance.

On the day of the arrest, the court maintained, AND officers raided his house and found a variety of illegal narcotics including Captagon pills and Crystal meth hidden in his house.

“The law-enforcement officers found over a dozen of Captagon pills and Crystal meth in the house,” court documents said.

 The defendant contested the ruling arguing that the prosecution failed to provide solid evidence to implicate the defendant.

The SSC prosecutor asked the higher court to uphold the prison term and the fine.

The higher court maintained that the SSC had followed the proper procedures in issuing the sentences against the defendant.

“It was clear to the court that the defendant confessed willingly to possessing the illegal drugs,” the higher court said.

The Cassation Court bench comprised of judges Mohammad Ibrahim, Fawzi Nahar, Ibrahim Abu Shamma, Majid Azab and Hayel Amr.

AMMAN — The Palestinian NGO Sada Social has detected over 3,000 digital violations against Palestinian content on social media platforms during November 2023. 

This brings the number of recorded violations against Palestinian content to 14,000 since October 7, the digital watchdog stated in its November report. 

The detected digital violations concerned deleting accounts or pages in 32 per cent of cases, while the remaining 68 per cent included various “restrictions”, such as banning posts as well as preventing livestreams, paid advertisements, interactions and sending private messages. 

The report noted that violations particularly targeting journalists and media organisations, which publish Palestinian content, accounted for 55 per cent of the total number of recorded violations, which marks a 10 per cent increase compared with the previous month. 

It also pointed out that the Israeli occupation forces have killed 72 journalists in Gaza since October 7. They have also arrested 26 journalists and activists, including the Palestinian journalist Sumaya Jawabreh, a seven months pregnant mother of three, who is currently held under house arrest. 

Sada Social additionally detected over 27,000 “inciting content” against Palestinians in Hebrew and other languages since October 7, including explicit calls for murder as well as defamation of reporters and rallying groups to go after them. 

The digital watchdog stated that these instances weren’t subjected to the same level of oversight enforced by social media platforms on “Arab content”. 

It further noted that the detected digital violations were not only limited to Palestinian users of social media platforms, as 17 per cent of complaints received by Sada Social were from Arab users and supporters of the Palestinian cause from around the world. 

Majority of Jordanian content talks Gaza, Palestine. 

Abdurrahman Al Husami, founder and CEO of Makana 360, a data driven communications consulting firm, said that 70 per cent of digital content published in Jordan on all social media platforms is about the Palestinian cause and the Israeli aggression on Gaza. 

His remarks were made last Tuesday, during a media forum organised by the Centre For Defending Freedom of Journalists to discuss media and social media platforms during times of war and crises, with a focus on the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza. 

In response to restrictions imposed by social media platforms on pro-Palestinian content, many Jordanians are taking part in a recently launched global campaign under the hashtag #WeWontBeSilenced. 

“Dear world, stop giving Israel the green light,”X user from Jordan Rania wrote, calling out what she described as “genocide” against the people of Gaza. 

“Don’t stop talking about Gaza! Your constant posting about Palestine is raising awareness! Keep posting, liking, and sharing,” she added under the hashtag #WeWontBeSilenced.

AMMAN — In one collective voice, pro-Gaza protests and walkouts continue across different parts of the Kingdom, sparked by the indiscriminate atrocities and attacks that have resulted in wiping out entire families in the besieged city.

In street protests, demonstrators chanted slogans such as, “Free free Palestine” and “Gaza resists”, with many waving the Palestinian flags and holding banners saying “Save Gaza”, “Ceasefire Now”, “We Stand with Gaza” in both Arabic and English.

Online videos and content on social media platforms showed the huge turnout of demonstrators in the Kingdom, who have rallied in solidarity with Palestinian families in Gaza, condemning the high rate of casualties.

“It has been two months since the onset of the Gaza war, large crowds of demonstrators continue to take to streets and we are not planning to stop,” Nada Fawaz, a demonstrator near Al Kalouti Mosque on Friday, told The Jordan Times. 

Calls for a permanent ceasefire will continue, she said. Fawaz noted that people of all ages are actively taking part, particularly in the nationwide protests occurring on Fridays after prayers.

Nermina Nazzal, also a protestor near Al Kalouti Mosque said, “We are sending our message loud and clear…the spiraling violence in Gaza is intolerable, and the least we can do is voice our anger and concern during peaceful demonstrations.” 

The protests are not only taking place on ground, but also on social media platforms where huge waves of anger are voiced, she noted. 

On Saturday, Moataz Al Omari who joined a protest in downtown Amman, said that “people are not giving up because the Palestinian cause is their cause as human beings”.

Omari emphasised that whoever is against the people in Gaza being killed and targeted is supporting genocidal actions. 

Other pro-Palestine protests on Friday, took place in Amman’s downtown, Ajloun, Karak and other governorates.

AMMAN — The Limes Arabicus was a desert frontier established by the Roman Empire, and stretched from the Gulf of Aqaba and ancient Ayla all the way to northern Syria, with 1500 km at its greatest extent. Several fortresses and watch towers were used to prevent attacks from nomadic raiders and military moves of Parthians and troops of Sassanid Empire.

Next to the Limes Arabicus, Emperor Trajan (53AD-119 AD) built a road, the Via Nova Traiana, from Bosra to Ayla, which was 430 km long. The purpose of the road was to facilitate efficient transport of commercial caravans that came from the Arabian Peninsula as well as the Roman officials and military.

“This is a border area between the desert and the sown, which corresponds with the limitrophe [frontier], where nomadic groups would have interacted with settled populations living in cultivated areas since prehistory. New Arab tribes also regularly migrated towards this area from Yemen and the Hijaz, joining groups that had inhabited these steppe zones from the 6th millennium BC,” noted a Spanish Professor Ignacio Arce from the German-Jordanian University, adding that the interaction of these new waves of Arab tribes, especially the migrations that occurred in the Levant in 4th century AD, which was ´ between fellahin and bedouin, and the patterns of social relationship they developed, are essential to understanding the late antique socio-political and military contexts during the last phases of Roman / Byzantine activity in the region. 

While the Arab tribesmen were new to the area, it should be remembered that efforts to control various groups of Bedouins had been made by fellahin since the prehistoric era, and that even when the practice of sedentarisation was successful it was not an irreversible process.

“An interpretational model explaining the range of consequences of this frontier is provided here, which can be labeled the Double Frontier Model,” Arce underlined, noting, that this paradigm recognises the continuity of the social model between peasants and pastoralists, between urbanites and semi nomads, and their respective cultural landscapes, which coincides with  military frontier.

The model explains four aspects of the region in late antiquity: the effects of the change of Byzantine defensive strategy, the adaptation and re-occupation of abandoned forts as monasteries and palatial venues by the Ghassanids or Jafnids, the later reoccupation of the same sites by the Ummayads and the proliferation of fortified monasteries along the limitrophe as defensive and logistic bastions of the new political and religious agenda of the Ghassanids, Arce elaborated.

The role of monasteries, especially in the 6th century, as key logistic elements of the new defensive strategy, gave rise to recurrent use of fortified towers.

“It could be argued that the proliferation of defensive elements was motivated by the local desire for self-defence against Saracens but it seems clear that coordinated operation on a wider territorial scale, a strategy, was involved,” Arce underlined.

The Limes Arabicus was overrun by Sassanid Persians in 611 AD and during the early Islamic times it was partly restored by Ummayad rulers of the area.

AMMAN — Members of the ministerial committee, formed by the Joint Arab-Islamic Summit, urged the US on Friday to take "decisive" measures to impose an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. 

During a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington, the top diplomats of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Qatar and Turkey, expressed "dissatisfaction" with the US's veto of a Security Council's bid for a ceasefire in Gaza, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

Emphasising their united stance, the members of the committee condemned the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza, reiterating their call for an immediate and comprehensive cessation of hostilities.

They also stressed the need to protect civilians in compliance with international humanitarian law and urged an end to the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza by lifting all restrictions hindering the entry of vital humanitarian aid.

The foreign ministers also expressed rejection of any forced displacement of Palestinians and reaffirmed their countries' commitment to counter such schemes.

They also reiterated the need for a "genuine" political path based on the two-state solution and relevant international resolutions that can lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders. 

The meeting brought together Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Ayman Safadi, Qatar Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Bin Jassim Al Thani, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt Sameh Shoukry, Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad Al Maliki, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey Hakan Fidan.

Also on Friday, the foreign ministers organised a press briefing for the international media outlets during which they underlined the need for imposing an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and protecting innocent civilians from the "killing machine" of the Israeli occupation forces.

They also said that any discussions on the future of Gaza and the wider Palestinian cause should "only take place after a ceasefire and de-escalation of the unjustified military aggression".

They also called on the international community to act and ensure the delivery of humanitarian assistance into the besieged Gaza Strip.

The foreign ministers  met on Thursday with chairman and members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The meeting covered the latest developments in to the Gaza Strip and the escalating military tensions in the region, as well as efforts to impose an immediate ceasefire and protect the lives of innocent civilians in the coastal enclave.

The top diplomats expressed their rejection of "all violations of the Israeli occupation forces, including the settlement activities, forced displacement and the bombing of civilian structures".