Jordanian journalists slam 'enemy' Israel for protesting terror praise

Embassy in Amman protested "incitement to kill Israelis" in the Jordanian press.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Updated: JUNE 25, 2015 13:44
Jordanians read a newspaper in a popular Amman restaurant (photo credit: REUTERS)
Jordanians read a newspaper in a popular Amman restaurant
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Jordanian journalists angrily rebuked Israel’s “enemy embassy” in Amman on Thursday after the Israeli mission in the Hashemite kingdom protested the media’s praise of Palestinian terrorist attacks.
The row was triggered by a June 24 article in the daily newspaper Al-Dustur glorifying the Palestinian attacks which left one Israeli dead in the West Bank and another Border Police officer wounded by stabbing in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The Israeli embassy protested the article, deeming it “ugly and shameful...incitement to kill Israelis.”
Al-Dustur rejected the embassy’s protestations, calling the Palestinian actions “martyrdom operations...[in] heroic defense of their land and rights.”
“Just as [Israel] rejects these operations, we reject the killing of unarmed innocents...in Palestine and their displacement from their land and the desecration of their holy places in front of their eyes,” the newspaper wrote.
Although Israel and Jordan are officially at peace by dint of the treaty signed 20 years ago, public opinion in the Hashemite kingdom remains hostile to the neighbor from the West.
King Abdullah’s regime has been criticized, particularly by the Islamist opposition in Jordan, for adhering to the peace treaty in light of the stalemate in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.