I'm David by Sam yon this edition of A Our features Rami but hoosh on Jordan Palestine Israel and the United States Jordan's borders were drawn by British Imperial cartographers after World War One it was then called Trans-Jordan and sparsely populated today it has a large Palestinian population many of them refugees from the Nakba the catastrophe of 1948 and the 1967 war in recent years it has also seen a huge influx of refugees from Iraq and Syria Jordan is ruled by a hereditary Hashemite King who has absolute power there are internal tensions in the country that so far have been kept under control the Palestinians lack political power but dominate the economy the kingdom's alliance with the United States makes some Jordanians very uncomfortable Jordan's neighbor Israel the highest recipient of U.S. Aid continues to build more settlements on Palestinian land in defiance of international law while Washington approves the Middle East and U.S. Involvement in that region continues to be a major source of global instability our guest today is Rami Bhatt hoosh He's an activist and president of the Arab group for the protection of nature known as a PM It's based in a man Jordan I talked with him in and that. Welcome to the program glad to be here what is A.P. And what is its work. The Arab group for the protection of nature is a Jordanian organization that was in 2003 this was around the cup the 1st couple of years of the Palestinian intifada which is the uprising of the Palestinians against Israel's occupation we saw how the Israeli occupation forces were systematically working the strolling the livelihood of the Palestinians on their own land. And for the Palestinians trees are the sustenance that they live off all the trees victory's citrus and so on and their and their connection to that most of these trees were planted by their ancestors we have some trees a couple of 1000 years old the oldest all of tree in the world isn't Bethlehem it's about 5000 years old so the trees are are as old as the Palestinians in Palestine so they don't only consider the trees their sustenance and their livelihood but they also consider them their connection to the land the Israelis were systematically uprooting them area by area under pretext pretext of security of passing road of enlarging settlements you know so many different excuses so that they can cut the trees and leave the Palestinians with without any alternatives this way they would weaken Israeli army in the Palestinian communities in Palestine this way they can make it easier for their occupation to last so we decided to set up an organization in Jordan to try to raise some funds so that we can help the Palestinian organizations the agricultural organizations in Palestine to try to plant some of the trees that the instead of that of the ones that were uprooted by the Israelis. How do you do that how do you get the seeds to those areas that you recruit volunteers. Our job here in Jordan is basically getting the funds from local companies local donors maybe some Arab companies and donors as well to try to get the funds into Palestine and directed towards the co-ops the or the agricultural unions the agricultural organizations inside Palestine they take this money to go and contract nurseries that that provide the plants and they go and get their volunteers and get you know with the help of these villages that are going to benefit from these funds they go and the plant the trees. How easy is it or how difficult is it to go back and forth over land from Jordan into Israeli occupied territories. Palestinians are not torture opinions were not allowed to go back to Palestine. Until Jordan signed the peace treaty with Israel in 1904 after that Israelis were allowed to come to into Jordan without visas where as Jordanians were only allowed to enter Israel after obtaining the visas and the visas usually are very hard to obtain most of the cases get refused and when they do they only do this after a lot of scrutiny so getting into Palestine is a real big problem for most of us. And for people under occupation and the stresses and difficulties that occupation Intel's what kind of consciousness or awareness is there about environmental issues. First of all the Palestinians have always been agricultural communities they are a people that sustain themselves based on their agriculture so their connection to the land is very strong that they feel the soil they feel the water they feel the trees after the occupation after the Israeli occupation of Palestine the Palestinians were even limited more to agriculture because they were not able to do any trading you know the borders were sealed off of them they couldn't import they couldn't export they couldn't start industries because they couldn't get any machines inside they couldn't you know get permits for things like that so the Palestinians were really restricted to agriculture and you know when you're when you're an agricultural person when you're a president when you're a farmer you are an environmentalist by by the fault because environment is your life the water you know you harvest the water you take care of the soil you take care of the trees you know you don't want pollution too to ruin your land and so on so the Palestinians are I would say environmentalists by nature Boulder Colorado where I live and work has a sister city project with novelists inside of Palestine how important is that kind of solidarity to in terms of overcoming the difficulties that people face in the day to day lives. You know when you are in dire situation like the Palestinians I'm going to quote something that I read awhile ago an interview with Nelson Mandela and the person that was interviewing him asked him what were the main reasons for the success of the South African revolution against or the South African revolution against the other whites the apartheid system and he gave 2 main reasons the 1st one was that they stuck to their strategies and kept changing the tactics but they never changed their strategies they never compromised on their principles the 2nd one was that the international community's support was so important for them it kept giving them life no matter what happened on the ground they knew that people outside of South Africa were following it up where were supporting them even morally it gave them fuel it gave them power as if they knew they were getting closer to their goal I say Palestinians need the support not only monetary support they need to know that people appreciate that they are resisting occupation people like activists people with morals people with principles are looking at them and seeing these you know the Palestinians need to get a solution need to find a way out of the occupation and it is very important for us that people in the United States people in Europe look at the Palestinians and do something because for us the Europeans and the Americans come from prosperous communities from prosperous countries they have means they come from countries where there is participation in decision making democratic governments if they understand the situation of the Palestinians they may be able to influence their decision makers the people they elect to try to do something in. And leave you think they're hot shit. 27000 marks a couple of adverse or is that have had a big impact on the situation in the middle east west Asia it's the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration and it's the 50th anniversary of the 6 Day War 50 anniversary of the occupation of the West Bank Gaza and excision of its true Islam and accession of the Golan Golan Heights let's start with the Balfour Declaration and why was it important. The Balfour declaration I think is one of the big crimes of the putting a century somebody promises something that he doesn't own that he has no right to to somebody else that has no right to it so the British promised the Jews a national home over the land of Palestine so the Palestinians were the victims of this agreement and and there are so many books that came out so many reasons why people think that Balfour gave that promise to the Jewish community and at it to a Jewish Lord in England but at the end of the day we think it's was unfair we still think that United Kingdom should apologize for this criminal declaration and this was the beginning of our problem of our catastrophe when when the when the Ottoman Empire the true most of the areas that are now the Arab world are part of which was Palestine the Ottomans were defeated in the 1st World War and the British and the French took a mandate over these areas the British decided that Palestine should go on as a national home for the Jewish people Palestinians had communities they had life leasehold they had ports they had farms you know they had schools and colleges all of this meant nothing to the British when they gave Palestine as the national home for the Jews no consideration was given to them because of so many other formulas that were benefiting the British at the time that didn't have anything to do with the Palestinians and when the declaration was made by Balfour in the 1917 approximately how many Jews were in Palestine what percentage Palestine had always consisted I think somewhere between 4 and 3 percent Jews 6 to. Who 10 percent are Christians and the rest were Muslims but all were Palestinians. The Palestinian Jews lived with the Palestinian Muslims than the Palestinian Christians as one people there was never any difference between them they work together they went to school together they lived in the same villages and towns the problem that started everything was the idea of Zionism it was a European colonial idea European Jews wanted to create a national homeland for 4 for the Jewish people they decided it should be Palestine and they started working on transforming a religion into a race into an ethnic race and for the for this ethnic race to be accepted it had to have a homeland and they decided that Palestine should be the homeland now for them to make it a Jewish homeland they needed to become a majority and for them to become majority they needed to kick out the existing majority and this is the big crime that they committed against the Palestinians for them to set up their state they had to kick out the original people the indigenous people the rightful owners of Palestine they had to kick them out otherwise there would not be a majority and they would not form their Jewish state so for them to justify their And they had to occupy Palestine by the year 948 they had destroyed over 560 Palestinian towns and villages they had over a 1000000 Palestinians as refugees outside of outside of their towns and cities and they had killed so many others and set up their state on the ruins of the Palestinian nation. So let's say I grant concede everything you say is accurate you know isn't it time for bygones to be bygones and some Israelis and their supporters say well you know there are 20 more than 20 Arab states Jordan has a huge Palestinian population why don't they go there. It is hard for me to even consider answering such questions I know they've come up many times it's like saying the Jews are very powerful in New York they are respected they are maybe the most powerful community in New York the mayor is usually Jewish why don't all the Jews go to New York the United States loves them they support them they you know they feel at home there why don't they make New York their state it's doesn't work this way the Palestinians belong to Palestine they are the rightful owners they are they have been in Palestine forever if you read the history of this area you know that has always been inhabited one of the oldest cities in the world as the city of Jericho the Palestinians belong in Palestine it doesn't matter of the Palestinians can go to any other place any you know this doesn't this doesn't have anything to do with the conflict for us to say bygones are bygones 1st of all you need to solve the problems that these the establishment of the state of Israel left so many Palestinian refugees outside of Palestine in Syria and Lebanon in Jordan living in refugee camps and still something most of which still are considered not citizens of these countries now these people deserve to go back this is not only the rightful place to go back it is also international law resolutions in the United Nations give the Palestinians the right to go back by guns can be bygones when these Palestinian refugees get the right to return and let me just say something if you are a Jew who has never even been outside of let's say the United States or Poland or Russia and you decide to go to Israel the minute you land in the airport you become an Israeli citizen. There's a law in Israel called the Law The Law of Return for Jews any Jew and you are in the world can just land in Israel immediately become a citizen whereas the millions of Palestinians and their descendants who were kicked out of their lands can never go back cannot even go for a visit and are concerned not even considered in the negotiations that the Israelis are talking with the Palestinians. And psychological if you could generalize what this is due to the psyche of the people that have been dispossessed and the night. The Palestinians have so many memories of Palestine and even though the Palestinians have been 55 percent of the Palestinians are are outside of Palestine they try to form their own communities they try to keep their traditions but at the end of the day this is not only a Palestinian issue it has become a world issue you know so many people around the world are sympathizing with the Palestinian cause because it is the longest standing occupation in history or in modern history the Palestinians you know issues have not been addressed so many resolutions there are you know in the United Nations were made to try to enforce the rights of the Palestinians about about 70 or maybe more than 70 of these resolutions vetoed by the United States alone the fact that Israel gets this unconditional support from the world superpower the Palestinians are helpless you know and there is consensus around the world that the Palestinians have rights and need to go back to their homes look at the resolutions discussing the end of the occupation of Palestine and the General Assembly usually the whole world votes that you know the Palestinians should go back to their land the occupation should and Israel should go back to the borders before the conflict of 167 and you know how many countries voted against it the United States and maybe 3 or 4 or 6 or 7 other countries countries you know with all due respect that do this because the United States asked them to say countries like now rule or 2 of or Micronesia you know so the rest of the world is an agreement in. I think around 2003 or 2004 there was discussion in the criminal court of justice as to the legality of the separation wall that Israel was building. Around the Palestinian side and the West Bank this lawsuit went so many you know so many length in understanding the issue 1st of all the 15 judges of the criminal court of justice that belong to the United Nations looked at the occupation all 15 of them said that the occupation was illegal occupation of Palestine was illegal and one of these judges was American and not only American he was an American Jew the judge from Britain was a British Jew and all of them voted unanimously that the occupation was illegal now when they came to the wall they voted against the wall against the building of the separation wall that Israelis were building around the Palestinians $14.00 to $114.00 judges voted that the wall is illegal the judge from the United States said it might be illegal in most of the areas but we have to address the terrorism and the problems that Israelis are getting on some parts where the wall was being built and maybe that should be justified but see there is consensus around the world the Palestinian case is very clear there is military occupation it has been longstanding you know occupation is oppressive it's violent you know it destroys nations it shouldn't. And that wall that you mentioned apparently 10 percent more house in land was annexed as a result of that war wall and sometimes farmers who are in that side of the wall cannot get to their land which is now on the other side of the wall. Let's go back a little bit to you know to the past in 1947 the United Nations passed the resolution partition in Palestine this partition plan gave the Palestinians 45 percent of the land and it gave the Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia you know in different European countries 55 percent Now the Palestinians did not accept the partition plan and there was war the War of 1908 when the British mandate ended in Palestine the outcome of 1908 war was that the Israelis control 78 percent of the land of Palestine and left 22 percent to the Palestinians this this 22 percent is what you now know as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip now throughout the years the Israelis get breaking international law using occupied land for their own benefit and building illegal settlements all over the West Bank you have so many settlements in the West Bank dissecting the West Bank into Bantustans and small small areas small pockets for the Palestinians and the settlements you know need to grow the needed highways needed service stations to village and so on so the Palestinians were left with about 10 percent of the of Palestine of the land of historical Palestine then came the wall the wall you know went around the areas that are the West Bank but you know gave gave fruit for it the Israeli settlement rolls for the settlements and so on and took some more of the Palestinian land and left the Palestinians with that with about 8 percent of the land of Palestine and this is 8 percent is really in question now because you know it is being controlled in every aspect no borders the. Have no borders that's controlled by the Israelis no. No airports the air you know the space is constant it's controlled by the Israelis no ports because all the all the sea is controlled by the Israelis so even this is a present it's a place that is impossible to live in and this is what the Israelis have been working on slowly but surely they're trying to make the Palestinian survival on their land impossible so that they could succumb to them leave or or end up working as you know just cheap labor for the Israelis. I talk about the importance also of water which is so critical in water stressed area of the world. You know. The Palestinians were left with the like I said the 8 percent of historical Palestine parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and these areas have less water than the rest of Palestine now in the West Bank if you look at the West Bank alone the West Bank has the water capacity of about 600000000 cubic meters a year due to rainfall and some little rivers here and they're out of the 600000000 cubic meters the Israeli settlements are consuming 580000000 and the Palestinians are left with about 20000000 cubic meters the Palestinians are suffering from the affluence sewage from the from the Jewish and Israeli settlements and you know near their villages in the West Bank. They are suffering from the use of pesticides from the use of chemicals from the factories that they build around and all of this flow into material is being thrown into Palestinian villages Palestinian values destroying their agriculture and plantations and there was recently a very good report on pesticide use and in the West Bank by the. Asian pesticide network and it went into Palestinian areas and spoke to farmers and to Palestinians and what have you at that and to the Palestine Authority and they found out and they went and visited the sites where the Israeli settlements were you know dumping all their thoughts equation and all their chemicals into Palestinian villages and this is something very sad the the average Palestinian use is something some fraction of what the the Israeli citizen uses in terms of water per year the Israeli. Capital usage of water I think is around 260 cubic meters whereas the Palestinian is something around 50 or something like that and what is the situation of the Palestinians who remained what became the state of Israel inside the Green Line. These Palestinians who never left in 1948. Remain there and got citizenship but they don't but they are not nationals see there's something important about the state of Israel is that there's a big difference between a national and a citizen. And it's on your identity card what is yours or your nationality it says Arab Jew or maybe Druze if you're an Arab you don't have many of the benefits that the Jew has and in the state of Israel and this goes back to 3 years after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1051 when the Israeli Knesset signed something called the Basic Law basically what set up the state of Israel where the the Jewish Agency the Jewish land fund the Jewish world congress and they set up the you know they were establishing the state of Israel and once the state was set they needed to arrange the relationship between them and the newly established state so most of the funding or maybe all of the funding that comes from the Jewish organizations around the world goes to these organizations and not to the state and they give the funding to the Jewish citizens of Israel and not of the Arab citizens so the Arabs as a 2nd class. They don't get many of the of the benefits of being a citizen of Israel all you need to do is just go there and go to an Arab village and then go to a Jewish city and see the difference the Arab cities destroyed completely all the trade and all the commerce has been transferred transferred into the Jewish cities and the Arabs were left in small villages with very backward schools no funding and it is completely obvious to anyone who goes there what the difference is between that and what about the various Christian minorities Armenian Orthodox and Protestants Greek Greek Catholics Roman Catholics Greek Orthodox you know Palestine . Was made up of you know different ethnic groups majority were Muslim Palestinians but they also had. Armenian Palestinians Greek Palestinians Jewish Palestinians you know some some more rock and that had immigrated to Palestine hundreds of years ago and consider themselves moral kind origin but Palestinians all of these consider themselves Palestinians up to this day. They feel they feel that you know they are one with all the Palestinian suffering they feel that they have been deprived of their of their nationhood they're deprived of their homes they can't go back to their country and there is really no difference between any of them. What would you consider just an honorable solution to the conflict. I think that one democratic state on the homeland of Palestine would be the only possible solution I mean for so many years we were being told that the 2 state solution was the answer. There was you know there was general acceptance of the. Only possible solution whereas the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would become the state of Palestine and the rest of the land would become you know just would be the state of Israel but since 1967 since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by Israel every Israeli government one after the other regardless if they were labor or live who are conservative or liberal they were building settlements on Palestinian lands they were they were expanding their roads expanding industrial areas stealing their land destroying trees you know continuously and systematically destroying Palestinian survival now you're left with the Palestinians are left with nothing if you want to say let's have a 2 state solution the Palestinians cannot have cannot have a state of their own because their communities are separated they live in Bantustans they are separated from one another by Jewish settlements by Jewish only roads by Jewish you know sewage systems by Jewish industrial areas so the Palestinians are just you know divided pockets here and there there is no way they can form a state so now if we look back and look at the map of Palestine with these little dots here and there that will form the Palestinian communities still in existence and Palestine the only solution would be just a one democratic state secular not Jewish not Muslim just like every other state in the world and let me tell you something right now Israel is the only the only state in the world that is not the state of its citizens like I told you it is. Not the state of the citizens but the state of the Jewish people if you are a Jew you can go to Palestine or you can go to Israel and become an Israeli citizen immediately where as any other country you cannot do that if if if a Muslim wants to go to Saudi Arabia this Muslim let's say a Pakistani needs to go to Saudi Arabia this person needs to apply for a visa he may be accepted or not and of the views as approved he can only go there for a short period of time or for work or something but never become a citizen the only place the disciples it is real and this is not normal you know the Palestinians have no rights they need to be in their land the refugees and their descendants need to go back to their land and there is plenty of land for all all of the citizens of Israel will remain in the same country and it will become a secular country just like any other country in the world. You're listening to Ronnie bat hoosh on Jordan Palestine Israel and the United States this is independent alternative radio you can order companies of this program by calling 1800 triple 41977 that's 180-444-1977 or you can order online on our website alternative radio got ork Nats alternative radio got our G. . I've been seeing change on the Israeli side there are so many Jewish Americans and Jewish comedians and Jewish Europeans who look at the State of Israel and see if you know see signs of fascism apartheid signs of racism they don't accept these things because these are values that they were not raised with in their countries these are values that are looked down at you know in Europe in the United States and Australia and so on more and more European American Jews are looking at Israel and think to themselves I don't align myself with this ideology and we are seeing people that are coming out and talking you know intellectuals like you learn about the Israeli generals like me copilot and so on coming to the forefront of the discussion and saying loudly that this is wrong what you're doing to the Palestinians is unacceptable the Palestinians have nowhere to go they are not going anywhere you have to give them back their rights they have to live just like everybody else and their own country with respect and dignity now you've spent a lot of time in the United States you were educated traveled there what is your understanding in terms of why the U.S. People tend to have a very distorted view of the realities in this part of the world. Generally it's more than one reason one of the reasons why the average American citizen would look at the you know the Palestinian Israeli conflict and think that Israel is the victim is because the media in the United States has been you know influenced by a lot by the by the strong Jewish lobby in America you have organizations like a pack and Defamation League and so on that are really influential in decision making you know the they have very close contact with the Congress with different media. And you know there are strong lobbyists so that's one thing the other thing is that the you know for a while maybe for the for the for the past 50 years boil the Gulf oil Saudi Arabian oil and so on has been very very important for the for the American economy. You know Jimmy Carter said that the Gulf oil is a matter of national security for the Americans and the Gulf oil needed to be protected by a proxy something somebody close somebody a country that is going to protect it on behalf of the Americans and Israel was you know was doing that for them so there are interests involved. American governments felt that you know that Israel was the non Arab country in the region that was able to do their job in protecting the oil for American interests and so on but you know at the end of the day the Arabs are to blame to the you know the Arabs or the Palestinians have no voice in the United States they haven't done enough to talk to Americans to show them what you know has been done to them and to connect you know their problems with the problems of other movements and other you know nationalities in the world that went through something like that and is it your sense that ringing declarations that come from Arab capitals about Palestinian independence and Palestinian rights is just a lot of hardware and they pay lip service to the Palestinian cause but don't do anything about it. many of the arab regimes get their legitimacy enough run their populations they were not voted into and to their presidencies or you know or there are or their office as but they have their legitimacy come from superpowers like the united states and other big countries so they will function in the interest of those who gave them their legitimacy of those who give them their protection so if i get my protection from the united states i will do what and i was states wants me to do if i get my legitimacy from my people are will work for the good of my people unfortunately the air the arabs are also going through a problems they are a people have been trying to get back their rights and maybe you know in getting the kind of governments that will represent them and there are working want we saw that arab spring you know the people who are we're trying to get their voices heard but it's going to take sometime you know the these the counterforce as are too strong at this point Talk about the country you live in right now Jordan it's kind of and old land but a new country how was it formed. Jordan has 2 stories of how it was founded there is the view that Jordan was founded as a triumph of the Arabs Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire and the Turks towards the beginning of the 20th century the Ottoman Empire which ruled over all of the Arab world was we was getting weakened. And it was you know it hardly had enough resources to sustain its forces outside Turkey so the Arabs wanted their independence and the Arab revolt that created the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was considered. What to do the Hashemites that are ruling Jordan now it was the founding of Jordan was the the and triumph of the Arab revolt now the other the other view is that Jordan was founded as a byproduct of the buffer declaration in 1917 went bad for the secretary the foreign secretary of England gave the letter to Lord Rothchild that we promise you basically we promise you Palestine as a Jewish homeland. The area that is east of the Jordan River which was which was called Trans-Jordan which is today's Jordan was considered part of the Balfour declaration and then when the Hashemites worked with the British to get out the Turks from this area and by the end of the 1st World War the Ottoman Empire was finished the British felt that they needed to reward the Hashemites for their support in getting the Ottomans out and they promised East. Of the Jordan River to the Hashemites So it is either seen as a triumph of the Arabs against the Turks or it is seen as a byproduct of the big Zionist project that was manifested by the bow for that liberation but didn't the British and the French basically double cross the Arabs they were promising them if they joined the revolt against the Ottoman Turks that they would have independent states when the war ended they were promising everybody everything they promised the Saud family the whole of gnashed and his eyes which is that they Saudi Arabia they promise to Hashemites part of it which is today's Mecca and Trans-Jordan Palestine Syria and Lebanon they promised the Jews Palestine and then the 1st World War And so the British decided to divide the area that we call the Levant which today make up Palestine slash Israel Jordan Syria and Lebanon in the agreement of sites because they divided it so that Jordan and Palestine would go to the British Syria and Lebanon would go to the French they promise to Hashemites Jordan and Palestine but they also promised the Jews Palestine so there was double crossing at the end of the day the Jews got Palestine and the Hashemites got the area east of the Jordan river so the monarchy is established here in Amman and if in continues now. What is the structure of political power in the country is is the monarch a figurehead or does he wheeled actual power. The monarchy has absolute power here we have a parliament and it's elected but the Parliament can be dissolved by the king the head of the government is not elected you know the prime minister and the ministers are all appointed by the king the head of the army is appointed appointed by the king and the and I think the head of intelligence is also appointed by the king so the monarch really runs the show and joy. And what about economic power Jordan is a small country and it's you know surrounded by problems everywhere to the west we have the Palestine Israeli problem to the north we have the Syrian problem to the east we have a dark to the south we have Saudi Arabia and its problems with Yemen So Jordan has maintained its stability the monarchy or the King here has been very careful not to not to step on anyone and not to let anybody step on him so the country has kept its stability but at the same time you know because of its position between war you know warring countries everywhere trade has been difficult expansion you know in trade agreements has been difficult progress has been difficult so Jordan you know there isn't have a very bright future economically but I've heard in terms of division of labor if you will that political power goes mostly to the Jordanians for want of a better term and economic power lies mostly with the Palestinians who have been living in this country for many years. Since the establishment of the state of Israel. The Jewish terrorist gangs like Stern and so on were very effective in creating the refugee problem of the Palestinians and the Palestinians because of the military power of these gangsters and you know these terrorist gangs the Jewish gangs of the time had to flee so hundreds of thousands of Palestinians went to Jordan some went up to Lebanon and Syria and some went to Egypt. Or Jordan which was you know typically an empty and empty land with a few cities and some big drives some Bedouin tribes now had you know had hundreds of thousands of Palestinians come and stay as refugees these Palestinians had to you know build their selves into communities had to start trade and so on and then 20 years after that 1000 years after that 967 another war the occupation of the West Bank drove more Palestinians to Worth Jordan so now Palestinians Jordanians of Palestinian origin I might say because most of them got to Jordanian citizenship but Jordanians of Palestinian origin constitute something around 60 percent of the country King Abdullah the grandfather current king whose name is also Abdullah in 1050 Annex is the West Bank and he's assassinated by Palestinian nationalists the next year in 1951 what happened there. The Palestinians. We're not happy with the way the Arab leadership dealt with the Palestinian problem you know there were deals between some Arab leaders and the Jewish Agency before the establishment of Israel the Arabs did not put in their power to try to you know to help the Palestinians get back their country and King Abdullah was seen by some Palestinians as somebody who had betrayed their cause so somebody assassinated him when he was praying in the mosque and he was succeeded by his son Talal who very quickly you know left office and succeeded by his grandson grandson King Hussein who at that time was a teenager and he is the one you know often called the plucky little king and he died in 1999 he's kind of been the face of Jordan that a lot of people outside this region recognize yes when King Abdullah was assassinated his Something took office the law was a nationalist during his brief 2 years asking they drew up the Jordanian constitution of 1952 it was a very nice constitution it gave powers to the parliament and the parliament could appoint governments and you know it was it was a very good constitution that you know clearly divided powers in the country in a way that will sustain it efficiently but then after 2 years he was seen incapable of rule. By home but he was seen by Apparently the doctor of the family by his wife by the people close to him that he was incapable of continuing his rule so his son Hussein became king but his son was still young so his uncle his mother's brother. Was sort of a trustee until Hussein reached you know the proper age for kingship. And King Hussein dies in 1909 he's succeeded by his son King Abdullah who rules today what are his politics like. King Abdullah believes in. Ideas he believes that the government's hands should take a rest and the free hand of the market should work he believes in privatization of the economy he worked on doing some of these things Jordan owes the World Bank Jordan you know has that of the World Bank and the World Bank has a condition sometimes it's not that the king wants to maybe privatized or not the king that wants to sell the resources it is The World Bank's condition sometimes that force the country to do certain things to keep it on its good side when the king took control in 1909 he saw that the country was and that the World Bank advised that you know you should sell your resources to create cash flow you should reduce government spending so government spending was reduced and then there was a lot of deregulation so that you can attract investors to come and buy the government you know agencies or government companies that were being privatized I've seen flyers and posters around Jordan saying no to the gas deal but what's that about. Jordan historically has been buying natural gas from Egypt and then when Egypt from 2011 started going through its turmoil of the Arab Spring and afterwards there were some of the pipes so Jordan would have erratic supply of natural gas now the alternatives were many you know we can we can get the gas from the world market we can get the gas from we can get the gas from Algeria we can get the gas from any other country but unfortunately Jordan signed the agreement with Israel which found as on the Mediterranean outside of the shores to me that agreement with Israel to so that Israel would supply Jordan with us for 15 years and we see this as capitulation to a country that is occupying the land of Palestine we see this as an extension of the occupation of Palestine this is the kind of new occupation where they maybe they don't come here with their forces and military but they come here to control the economy are you the president of an environmental organization here in Jordan wasn't there any move toward sustainable energy such as all the sunshine you have here something like $300.00 days a year of sun and all the wind power that exists you know Jordan has plenty of area to put the solar panels Jordan also has a grid that is not very efficient and just you know fixing the grid would save something around 35 percent of the electricity. And we have different sources of natural gas we can get from other countries we have a lot of shale oil that we can extract if we wanted to we have one power but unfortunately Jordan has decided to buy the natural gas from Israel now we are working on you know in the country on some solar solar energy programs and projects but they haven't materialized fully yet and we hope that once they do we won't be in need of you know working with Israel. And what about for example alternative transportation to get some of the North Korea's traffic jams and then at least diminished what about recycling Are there any kind of state programs on those areas in general what is the environmental equal consciousness here in Jordan . Unfortunately we are very slow on these projects the Jordanians are hardly coping with a very fast increase in population in 2003 I'll go back to 1990 defers to American invasion of Iraq about 400-002-5000 extension 00 Jordanians that worked in Kuwait came back to Jordan created a big big change and the demographics 13 years after the American invasion of Iraq again. You know destroyed hundreds of thousands and you know some estimates would take that up to a 1000000 Iraqis came to Jordan So Jordan has been having one influx after the other and now after 2011 you have so many Syrians in Jordan Jordan is hardly coping with this fast fast fast growth in population you have problems and water supply you have problems and traffic and you know not much is actually being done to deal with all of this because of monetary hardships you know Jordan is a country that's and that it's trying to do things here and there but it's not enough. why did the king decide to deploy digital jordanian air force in syria you know joy than like i said has been very very careful not to not the step one anyone and you know joy than is the neighbor to the richest air country woods the sort which a saudi arabia and in so many instances when jordan was in and you know dire monetary situation and saudi arabia stepped and to help jordan and you know was a problems in syria saudi area of you was worried that if the problems get closer to jordan if the you know so you know radical groups like isis and so on would get to the borders of jordan maybe they could start problems and jordan and jordan is at the door steps of saudi arabia so there was a lot of pressure on jordan to join the countries that are fighting isis and syria jordan is also considered an american ally jure than tries to go on american lines to except the american de you know the american strategies for the sky for this region and there was pressure also from the united states to join the you know joins the alliance against isis and syria so jordanians are jordanian planes what is that to fight isis and in conversations i've had since i've been in a jordan for about a week lot of people ask me who is dished who is the islamic state who are these people where did they come from how diddly get their funding do you have any inside into their origins I'm telling you if anybody does you they know who dies as or who ISIS is or where their funding is coming it comes from I think they're lying they have so many cars they have so many people they have so many weapons you just don't know how it started you know they came out of nowhere all of a sudden occupying the city of Mosul learned arc declaring you know that Islamic State of Syria and Iran they become so powerful all of a sudden nobody understands what ISIS as. And King a beloved was in Washington meeting with Trump he made a number of a very supportive comments about the United States and. He said is bringing beginning to bring Palestinians and Israelis together is strength doing that in my missing something here I think the king goes to the superpower of the world he's going to say something positive about the president and other think it goes any further than that. I mean what is your reaction to the appointment of David Friedman who is Trump's personal bankruptcy lawyer and a supporter of us the Bethel settlement in the occupied West Bank. There is nothing new here you know the United States has been an unconditional support of Israel like one Israeli journalist and writer once said if the Jewish lobby in the United States wants to cancel the 10 commandments from the Bible they will get so with an overwhelming majority in the U.S. Senate that doesn't make any difference to us anymore who is in office in the United States who is the Embassador in Israel who is the ambassador in Jordan or Saudi Arabia to us the United States is going to be on the side of Israel they are not honest brokers when it comes to the Middle East when it comes to the Palestinian conflict to the contrary they keep fighting the Palestinians not to get their rights to keep supporting Israel despite Israel's abuses of international law despite Israel's at that against the Palestinians against the Lebanese despite Israeli checkpoints uprooting of millions of trees the robbing of Palestinian water and you know the continuous occupation and the building of the wall none of these instances that we see the United States step up to its moral responsibility to stop the funding of these atrocious acts so what gives you hope. What gives me hope is that things are changing with social media things are changing in the West and you know those who are liberal are fighting for morals and fighting for you know universal principles like human rights and freedom of expression and so on and we see so many people in the West looking at the Palestinian problem as a as a as a contradiction you know contradiction with what they believe in and especially Jews they're still marginal but they're they they are coming out and they are saying you know we don't approve of what the state of Israel is doing in the name of the Jewish people we are not like that our religion doesn't teach us to treat others like that this is completely something that is unacceptable by us and they are you know they're dissociating themselves from the state of Israel and they're And there's ainus ideologies and what is the background of your activism How did you get engaged. You know living in this part of the world you see the effects of American policy every day you see the effects of the wars every day and when the 2nd Palestinian uprising the intifada broke out we were seeing that 40 miles from here. People were being you know treated like animals every day in a small area like the West Bank you had over 500 checkpoints Palestinians could not move from one village to the other without being interrogated without being questioned without being harassed women were having their children on the checkpoints because the Israelis would not allow them to go to the hospitals let me tell you the occupation it is by default a military occupation so violent it is so oppressive it is so and human rights like and you know when you live so close to this youth you need you need to do something about it you need to alleviate the problems of your you know of your Palestinian neighbors. You were just listening to Rami but hoosh on Jordan Palestine Israel and the United States I talked with him in Amman Jordan Rami Barr who she is an activist and president of the Arab group for the protection of nature based in a man. This program is produced by alternative radio based in Boulder Colorado we are independent and part of the nonprofit media education organization rise up we are supported soley by individuals just like you we feature progressive voices rarely heard in the media such as Nancy McLean Noam Chomsky Max Blumenthal Michael Parenti Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz and Chris Hedges we have a number of programs on the Middle East to access our complete audio and book catalog and by the way my new book with Noam Chomsky has just come out and we have copies it's called Global discontents just go to our website alternative radio dot org Again our website where we are podcasting alternative radio dot au R.G.B. 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