Israel disavows general's prediction on Jordan rule

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli government launched a probe on Wednesday into a top army general who was quoted as suggesting that Jordan's ruling Hashemites could be at threat from the Palestinian majority in their kingdom.

A spokesman for Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said she called her Jordanian counterpart to clarify that comments by Major-General Yair Naveh, commander of Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, "in no way reflected government policy".

At a closed-door briefing on Wednesday in Jerusalem, Naveh discussed plans for the West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan in 1967. Palestinians seek statehood in the territory, while many Israelis consider it a Jewish biblical birthright.

According to an audience member, at one point Naveh digressed to say that Jordan, a constitutional monarchy under King Abdullah, "has its issues also".

"Given that, he (Naveh) said, it (Jordan) is 80 percent Palestinian, he wondered aloud if Abdullah might be the last Hashemite king," the audience member said on condition of anonymity.

The Hashemites assumed power in Jordan after it was carved out of British Mandate Palestine in 1922. The country's native Palestinian population was swollen by refugees from the 1948 war in which Israel was founded.

Israeli media reported that the comments' leak prompted fears in the Jewish state of a diplomatic crisis with Jordan, one of two Arab countries with which it enjoys full relations.

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz's office said in a statement that he and the military chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz, "instructed an immediate enquiry of the issue".

"Israel views Jordan as a strong and stable country with a glorious heritage and promising future," the statement said.

Jordanian officials declined immediate comment, saying that Amman awaited the results of the Israeli probe.

Prior to the normalisation of ties, some Israeli ultranationalists had suggested that Jordan, rather than the West Bank and Gaza, should serve as a future Palestinian state.

"We do not see Jordan as an alternative Palestinian state, and anyone hinting at that is not correctly articulating the policies of the government of Israel nor expressing the true long-term strategic interests of the State of Israel," Livni spokesman Mark Regev said.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman)

Source

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.