Jordan Archives - CrossFireArarbia

The Little Ball Unites The Big Globe!

Saleem Ayoub Quna
June 17, 2026

(Caption: Huge Jordanian crowds assemble at the Roman Theater in downtown Amman on Wednesday at 7 am to watch the first Jordan-Austria football match for the World Cup that was being broadcast live from San Francisco, USA. (Courtesy photo Dr Zeidan Al Kafafi, directly taken from the Amman Citadel.)

Two prominent universal endeavors help bring people closer to each other: Music and sports. Both can be performed without the need for language. One goes to the ear and the other catches the eye!

Today, the world is watching football matches played in three countries of North America by the best 48 national teams including Jordan for the first time, in this 32nd edition of the World Cup organized by FIFA.

It is important to notice that the power and impact of the little colorful ball being kicked by 22 players for 90 minutes, split into two halves, before an enthusiastic two huge crowds, each representing one team, surpass the effects of any other activity, theory, ideology or doctrine endorsed or practiced by the human race!

All participating nations in the ongoing tournament, big or small, rich or poor, old or new, would be chanting their national anthem and waiving their own flags in a joyful atmosphere that lasts for a whole month.

Also football and “foreign threat or aggression” to the nation have equal weight and role in uniting the people of any nation under one banner; one creates harmony between community members and the other feeds on the fear of the unknown!

Within the boundaries of each participant nation, a kind of a state of emergency prevails, where some days off are observed, city centers and businesses are closed and daily life takes a different beat. Crowds also gather before titanic screens in public places to watch their national team playing.

But some cynics have a different view. They call the soccer game a total nonsense, a sheer waste of energy and a preference of foot over the brain!

Whatever our attitude towards this sports event might be, many tears of joy or regret would be shed, many hearts would be broken and many dreams would be either, fulfilled or shattered.

By the end of the month, our bigger globe will take a break for four long years, then new hopes for a win will arise again and bless humanity with precious moments of joy and celebration.

Opinion

‘I Hate Israel’

marwan
June 8, 2026

By Ismail Al Sharif

On 4 June, the Pew Research Center released a survey titled: “Most People in 36 Countries Have a Negative View of Israel and No Trust in Netanyahu.”

The study, which polled 44,657 people worldwide, revealed that negative views of Israel have become prevalent in most of the surveyed countries. On average, 67% of respondents hold a negative view of Israel, compared to only 25% who expressed a positive one.

Notably, the study found only a handful of countries—no more than a handful—where Israel enjoyed a positive view among the majority of their people.

Perhaps most importantly, this decline is no longer limited to Muslim-majority countries or societies historically known for their negative stance toward Israel. It now extends to Western countries whose people were traditionally considered supporters of Israel.

In Europe, North America, and Australia, negative views are growing, particularly among young people and those on the political left. The study indicates that young people in several countries hold more negative views of Israel than the older generations there, making the crisis far from a passing phenomenon and giving it a generational character that could have long-lasting effects.

The study also shows the division over Israel has become clearly ideological. In the United States, for example, liberals hold far more negative views than conservatives, and young Americans are more critical of Israel than the older generations. This pattern is repeated in other Western countries, where the left tends to hold even more anti-Israel positions than the right.

President Donald Trump was right when he told the war criminal [Benjamin] Netanyahu in a phone call that the world hates him; the world’s hatred for him even surpasses its hatred for Israel. The study found that a majority in most countries do not trust him. In the United States, 59% of respondents do not trust him, compared to only 27% who do. Even among American Jews, although the positive view of Israel remains relatively high, trust in Netanyahu appears to be significantly low.

The study also indicates that some countries register very high levels of negativity toward Israel, such as in Turkey, where the negative view reached 97%. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, 85% expressed a negative opinion, compared to only 4% who expressed a positive one. It should be noted that the study did not include Gaza.

The few remaining points of support are mainly confined to some African countries, such as Kenya and Ghana, due to Zionist influence in them, but they do not amount to a clear majority in support of Israel. As for Netanyahu, he enjoys the trust of a majority of the population in only two countries: Kenya and the Philippines, where he is seen as a strong leader.

Unfortunately, this study did not include the opinion of Jordanians regarding Israel or the war criminal Netanyahu, an opinion that, in reality, does not require extensive polling. The Jordanian position on Israel and Netanyahu is well-known and consistent, and is confirmed by other studies.

A recent Arab Barometer survey revealed that Jordanians’ view of Western policies has sharply declined due to the Gaza war, with 81% believing that the United States defends Zionist interests. A 2023 Washington Institute poll found that 84% of Jordanians oppose establishing trade relations with Israel, even if they bring economic benefits to Jordan, and 76% refuse to accept humanitarian aid from Israel, even in times of disaster.

A 2025 survey of Jordanian university students showed that 92.6% consider Israel as the “main enemy” of Jordan and the Arab world.

Besides Jordan, the study omitted the countries surrounding Israel: Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. This omission is perhaps questionable, as the populations of these countries hold a deeply negative view of Israel and its prime minister. Their figures would have provided conclusive evidence that Israel remains a foreign entity in the region, despite peace agreements and economic interests that have failed to alter public opinion.

These figures would have raised broader questions among the world’s populations about the very notion of Israel’s acceptance within its surrounding region. If this entity is indeed surrounded by such rejection and hatred, then the logic of history and geography dictates that the region will ultimately reject it.

This article was first published in the Arabic Addustour daily newspaper and reprinted in crossfirearabia.com

Opinion

Memorizing The 1967 War Defeat!

Dr Khairi Janbek
June 5, 2026

By Dr Khairi Janbek

What can one say about the defeat of 1967 war, more than what the experts, the memoirs, and the active participants in it have said and written already, save from the eyes and ears of a child; for after all one was a child at the time and one must admit that growing up with defeat did have profound effect on one’s developing personality.

As it happened, in fact we were on a family holiday driving to Turkey when we heard the first actions in the war. By the time we crossed Damascus towards the north, the car radio was blasting with the advances made by the Arab armies on the path towards liberating Palestine.

However, by the time we reached an area close to the Syrian-Turkish border somewhere near Jabla in Syria, we discovered the the border was closed on the Syrian side and people including my late father were stuck around the big radio in the small roadside hotel talking about the destruction of the Israeli military forces, and the remarks that in a couple of days, Israel will cease to exist,

But low and behold, after a few days and by the time the border was opened, Egypt had lost Sinai, Syria, the Golan Heights, and Jordan the West Bank and Jerusalem; the jewel in the crown.

The car was tense, and for the first time I was disappointed, not because of the news of defeat rather, rather because I was no longer the centre of attraction for the family. As we entered Iskenderun in Turkey, a couple of young men crossing the streets, seeing our car number plate in Arabic, spat on the ground and said in Turkish; Pis Arap, meaning dirty Arab.

I didn’t undrestand Turkish at the time, until my father smiled bitterly and said, so we have just become dirty Arabs. In the small hotel in Iskenderun owned by a generous Armenian family, they brought us their transistor which could catch Syrian broadcasts and heard my father saying Nasser has resigned, and I was wondering how could he do that. For me, Nasser’s image was a cross between a king and an idol football player.

By the time we reached Ankara, it was all over. We were nothing in the eyes of the Turks at the time, but lying impotent Arabs. As the years passed, maturity set in as a strong slap in the face, with my childhood’s main scar left inside me, engulfing me with doubt, and disbelief, not only regarding what I now hear but also in what I see: with Arab politics to me, becoming just a mixture of cynicism, blatant lies, and regimes self-preservation.

The disaster from top to bottom was, unqualified military officers in Egypt, only accustomed to internal security and privileges were punching above their weight and carrying ranks which were above their undrestanding of warfare. Their ignorance was stark obvious when they knew about the attack and opted for absorbing the first blow before counter-attacking, not knowing they’ll have nothing left to counter with.

Jordan was squeezed between the hammer and the anvil diplomatically, though there were voices among the statesmen at the time urging not to participate in the impending whilst recognizing the perils, yet the decision to participate in the war and opening the Jordanian couldn’t be avoided because first of all the belief in Nasser’s victory held sway among the people, and secondly, to imagine an Arab defeat would not spare Jordan who will be blamed for this defeat due to the lack of giving support in the war.

In the case of Syria, how could an army in which the first officer who wakes up before the others and carries out a coup d’état, fight a war; and how could an army in which a general has to walk behind the coup d’état lower ranks whom are only concerned about preserving their own hold on power, conduct warfare? In fact the fall of the Golan Heights was declared by the Syria representative in the UN, 36 hours before it actually fell. And why was this? All in aid for withdrawing the army to protect Damascus.

Has anything changed? Everything has changed so that nothing changes!

Dr Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris, France

Features

Jordan 2007! Elections and Hiccups: Looking Backwards

CrossFireArabia
May 20, 2026

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was written more than 18 years again in October 2007 for the 7iber.com online portal and is reprinted her

Its election time! As a good non-totalitarian democrat I love the elections, when they happen that is. What I really love about the elections is the time leading up to their finale when voters go up to the polling stations and vote. Although I’ve never voted in my life, I’ve always carefully watched election campaigns, right from start to finish. They are exciting days, of banners hoisted, constituency meets, mini-rallies and all the rest of it.

Prospective candidates, some running for the very first time and of which we are expected to know and vote for, hoist their banners across streets and roundabouts, screaming at the electorate to vote for them because they are the best candidates.

This is the 15th elections for the 15th Lower House, and parliament in Jordan has consistently been in session since 1989, after a long absence of parliamentary life in the country. I am proud to say I covered the 1993 elections, the 1997 ones, and just about missed the 2003 elections because of being away from Jordan.

In all these years, the excitement never faded. Islamic Action Front candidates continuously stood under the IAF banner, but this was never the case with the other political parties, such as the nationalists, the leftists, the middle-of-the-roaders and the tribalists. Although a lot of parties came on the scene after 1993, like Al Ahad, Al Yaqatha and Al Risala and still many others, for some reason or another, many of their candidates preferred to stand as independents arguing they are known for their own independent political personalities rather than as representatives of their parties.

Is this a wrong attitude? Well, maybe. However, once some of them were elected to the Lower House of Parliament, they revealed their true political colors and supposedly argued on party-political lines. Ironically, most of the electorate never knew what those lines were when the MP was just a candidate running for a seat. Many of these parliamentarians argued that they stood a better chance of getting into parliament as individuals rather than under the banner of their political parties. This is due to the belief that such organizations were still seen as relatively new and unknown, despite the fact that many, including leftists, Arab nationalists and Baathists parties, had existed in the 1960s and 1970s, but many of which were effectively banned.

They may of course have been right in their assumptions as political parties were just made legal in the early 1990s, and have thus needed time to be nurtured. As independents, the negative connotations of belonging to political parties would wither away among the electorates who needed to get used to voting for candidates on party political platforms. But the problem with running on independent tickets is that it actually perpetuated individualism, parochialism and depended on the appeal to family, kinship and tribal relations. In past Jordanian parliamentary elections, and even today, the tribal bloc vote has been very important in deciding who wins and who loses.

The effect of this frustrates the process of developing political parties, which, except for the Islamic Action Front, remains weak, ineffective and are no more than talking shop. They have even been used by established politicians to further their own individual political ends and causes. This stands contrary to the need for building modern, strong political parties designed to make democracy and the democratic experiment effective.

Realizing that there is a lot to say about the tribal vote, sometimes political candidates, even Islamists, have been known to appeal to kinship and family relationships as a means of getting into parliament. Once they do, they start the usual game of political party meandering under the parliamentary dome.

That may also be why election banners and slogans on roads are no more than hackneyed, clichéd phrases emptied from their political content. They are read for what they are: brief formulaic statements, lacking the resonance of strong, vibrant agendas and political manifestos that promise change and development, as is the case with elections in more mature democracies around the world.

Political parties in Europe, for instance, are big machines with national and local clout. Everyone, especially the main personalities, know who they are, what they stand for, and what they hope to do once they form the government, or become the party in the majority. In this part of the world, the political culture, machinations and value systems are different and have to be treated differently.

However, in the final analysis, a political party is a political party in which ever part of the world it belongs to; sharing little differences with its counterparts. That’s why such parties have to be strong, come out of their closed shops and enclosures, and appeal to the masses; become broad-based with clout in order to be listened to by decision-makers.

In all fairness however, we have to be gentle with our political parties by understanding the history and the context of where they came from. It took political parties in the western world, centuries to develop and become the national institutions they are today.
They emerged through political struggles and a great deal of pushing and shoving.

But does that mean we have to take that long? Not necessarily, the element of transition from one era to another can take place quickly, but it has to be supported by the state and government. There has to be a political will for democracy, where parties are nurtured rather than left alone.

Jordan is doing well despite different hiccups, but the Arab world in general has to pull itself by the bootstraps if it is to enter into a meaningful political era where representation, democracy and political pluralism is seen as healthy for a society. Our problem now is to move faster in order to catch up with the rest of the world, and develop politically.

In the meantime, let’s for a minute stop and enjoy the political actions of the electoral campaign.

Analyses

Hormuz: Mines, Strategy or Business?

CrossFireArabia
April 19, 2026

By Ismail Al Sharif

The US thought that assassinating senior Iranian leaders would bring down the regime, but this did not happen.

Iran’s inability to match American military and technological superiority led it to adopt a number of strategies, most notably what is known in the military literature as the Mosaic Defense Doctrine. This doctrine is based on dismantling its military central command into small, independent units, each operating autonomously and making its own decisions without consulting the higher command.

From Day 1 of the war, Iran adopted this approach. However, the lack of coordination and the disintegration of the military hierarchy led to chaos and confusion which affected the management of its operations. The situation became contradictory; the politicians were declaring one thing and military commanders acting in a completely different manner and direction.

This was reflected on the ground through extremely dangerous behavior. Military units, using small boats, indiscriminately laid naval mines to deter enemy ships. However, the lack of coordination here backfired resulting in the Iranian navy officers losing their ability to pinpoint the coordinates of the mines they planted in the Hormuz Strait with no accurate maps or reliable records. Some of these mines may have been completely displaced by the currents of the sea. This was further complicated by the fact that these mines were not primitive but far from it; they were sophisticated and able to detect sound and pressure, and thus able to track the passage of large ships and submarines, and detonate automatically upon approach.

However, mine removal is not easy task, as history shows. Even today, news reports continue to surface of mines in various parts of the Kingdom, half a century after the last war. Indeed, mines from World War II are still being discovered on land and at sea.

Even with Britain’s pledge to remove mines after the war, and despite possessing the latest specialized technologies in this field, the task remains arduous, protracted, and uncertain. The specter of a sudden explosion looms, reminding us that the danger of mines is not easily eliminated.

But the decisive factor in weakening navigation in the Hormuz Strait is not primarily military, but rather material. Commercial ships are massive investments, with some vessels valued at around $150 million and their cargoes potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Therefore, a single mine explosion can cause catastrophic losses to both the ship and its cargo. Consequently, no ship sails without insurance; ports, banks, and shipping companies refuse to deal with uninsured vessels, and without insurance, global shipping grinds to a halt.

Herein lies the real surprise: the fate of the Strait is no longer dependent on Iran’s pronouncements regarding its opening or closure, but has effectively fallen into the hands of insurance companies. With the escalating risks, insurance costs have skyrocketed; “war risk” premiums have jumped from approximately 0.25% of the ship’s value to nearly 1% or more, exceeding a massive $1 million per voyage. And it doesnt stop there; seven major insurance companies announced their complete withdrawal, issuing notices of coverage cancellation just within just 72 hours.

And here comes the decisive turning point: Once the insurance coverage is lost, maritime traffic ground to a halt. During this 39-war, ships have effectively ceased sailing with the number of vessels transiting the Strait plummeting by more than 80%. Around 150 oil tankers remain anchored offshore, and major shipping companies suspended their operations, as if this vital artery of global trade had been frozen by a financial, rather than a military decision.

The US government attempted to provide alternative insurance coverage, but this effort failed and US President Trump’s pronouncements regarding mine removal were inconsistent with the reality.

The issue of reopening the Strait has once again become a prominent topic, but the deeper truth is that its fate is no longer determined by political statements or military actions, but rather by the decisions of insurance experts. Even if the war were to end immediately, ships would not resume sailing right away. Insurance companies need time to reassess the level of risk, and they base their decisions not on political logic, but on cold, hard numbers and rigorous data.

This article was originally published in Arabic in Addustour daily newspaper and republished in English in crossfirearabia.com.