A United Arab Emirates-backed Saudi effort to wrest control from Jordan of Islam’s holy places in Jerusalem signals a sharper, more overt edge to Saudi religious diplomacy and the kingdom’s quest for regional hegemony that risks deepening divides in the Muslim world.
(MEMO) — Syria’s permanent representative to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari has accused the United States of training “terrorists” in sites that it occupies in his country, near Jordan’s border, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) has reported. The Syrian diplomat said during a Security Council meeting that in the past eight years his country has suffered from a […]
(MEE) — Four Arab countries are backing Donald Trump’s plan for a settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, according to an Israeli newspaper, and are willing to sideline the PA’s President Mahmoud Abbas to see it done. According to a report in Israel Hayom, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan told Jared Kushner, the […]
(ZHE) — Images surfaced overnight Thursday of a large Jordanian military convoy reportedly headed to the border near the Syrian province of Daraa, including M-60 battle tanks and heavy military equipment. This as German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with Jordan’s King Abdullah in Amman on Thursday, telling him, “You live not just with the Syria conflict, but also we see Iran’s […]
Selected excerpts from War on the Rocksmy limited commentary in red
This battle is a game changer. The outcome will decide Syria's future. Concisely.SAA and allies are going to have a most heated battle to take this territory back.Behind the rebels in this area are the US and Israel. The two biggest destabilizing forces in all of Syria. From the first day through to this very day. That all said if Syria is to have a chance at remaining intact with an eye to rebuilding the state they have to take this section of Syria back. That's my opinion.
(MEE) — Jordan’s new prime minister on Thursday announced a controversial IMF-backed income tax bill will be withdrawn after it sparked a week of protests in the kingdom. Crowds have taken to the streets to demand the government drop the unpopular reforms in some of the biggest economic protests to hit Jordan over the past five years. Doctors, lawyers […]
(MEE) — Jordanian Prime Minister Hani Mulki resigned on Monday after five days of mass protests in the kingdom over austerity measures. Omar Razzaz, a member of the Jordanian cabinet, was appointed to form a new government. Razzaz is a former World Bank economist and was education minister in the outgoing government. Mulki, who was considered a business-friendly […]
It was NBC’s Cal Parry who summed up the obscenity of Donald Trump’s ignorant and igniting decision to move the US Embassy to West Jerusalem, then to celebrate the inauguration on Monday, 14th May: “Well dressed American and Israeli officials on one side of the screen: desperation, death and fires on the other.”
