Meanwhile in Jordan...

So the Friends of the Earth Middle East organised a conference in Amman yesterday. Here's what it found on the front page of the Jordan Times:


"Released at the “Bringing the Jordan River Back to Life: Strategies for Rehabilitation Conference”, the report indicated that Israel diverts the highest amount from the river, totaling 46.47 per cent, followed by Syria at 25.24 per cent, Jordan at 23.24 per cent and Palestine at 5.05 per cent."


And here's what I also found in the Jordan Times, on the front page:



"The Professional Associations' Anti-Normalisation Committee on Monday criticised the Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) for inviting Israeli officials to take part in a conference in Amman on the Jordan River.
Badi Rafaya, the committee's president, said the "Bringing the Jordan River Back to Life: Strategies for Rehabilitation Conference”, which opened yesterday... serves as "a cover" for boosting ties between Jordan and Israel."

These constant attempts by international organisations to force normalization down Arab throats are having an opposite effect on those who have an ounce of self respect: people see right through the colonial "mission civilisatrice" aiming at subduing the natives and are rapidly rejecting them, except for a handful of kollaborators who ingratiate themselves to the White Man and the colonials and benefit with jobs, consultancies and other flatteries. I'm just out of one of these meetings, in which I was told by some of the Arab organizers that the UN organization in charge of the meeting, which was about land, had tried as much as it could to bring Israel in a meeting of the Middle East and North Africa in which Iran was the only non-Arab country (I believe brought in on purpose in order to avoid calling it a meeting of the Arab World). They even tried asking a Palestinian living in 1948 territories with an israeli passport to represent israel in order to be able to say that israel participated in the conference. Eventually it did not work and I wont say why to avoid embarrassing some people.

We should really start to systematically reject all appellations that are geographic (West Asia, North Africa, Middle East, Near East, Mediterranean) and insist on Arab World or Arab countries, and on Arabic as the language of meetings and conferences. Otherwise, we are just paving the way for the forcing of israel into the groups. My friend Ali came up with a nice one to respond to those international organizations who insist on including the zionist temporary usurping entity in meetings and workshops involving and aiming at Arab countries. He asks: "Where do they play football?" The answer is, of course in Europe. Ali's response is:"Let them meet as part of the group of countries they play football with.".