Arab Regime Oppression Rears its Ugly Head
=================================

This evening in Amman I witnessed Jordanian security forces intercept
and savagely attack demonstrators headed for the Zionist embassy in al
Rabiyeh.  Tear gas was used by anti-riot police, and the demonstrators
responded with stones.  Several women were clubbed ferociously on the
face.  Security was swinging clubs indiscriminantly at the demonstrators
who scattered then regrouped at a distance and started chanting: “Why?
Why are you protecting the Zionists? Why?”

Several thousand demonstrators departed from the compound of the Union
of Professional Associations in Amman towards the Zionist Embassy after
getting frustrated with the tendency of opposition leaders to just talk,
talk, and then talk some more about the crimes being committed by
Zionists in Palestine.  At the end of the rally, a well-known Jordanian
Islamic opposition figure announced from behind the microphone that the
rally was all there is to the protest, as if to dissociate himself from
the crowd that was breaking out of the compound towards the enemy’s
embassy.

Throughout the boring speeches, including one by a former prime
minister, the audience was steadily growing restless.  A myriad of
groups would interrupt the speeches with chanting calling for an
immediate closure of the Zionist embassy in al Rabiyeh, Amman.  They
would say: “No embassy, no ambassadors!  Al Rabiyeh needs to be
liberated, from Zionist filth!”.

Then these groups got together and broke out towards the street.  Most
of the rest of the attendants of the rally followed.  Few hundreds
turned into few thousands and people passing by started joining.  The
chants indicated that the protesters were rank and file Islamists,
nationalists, leftists, and others who were disillusioned with the
flimsiness of the official opposition.  There were also supporters of
Hamas, Fateh, and everything else one can imagine.

As the demonstration tried to turn right towards the al Rabiyeh, where
the enemy embassy is located, it was blocked by the security apparatus
at each turn.  Hence, the demonstration kept going down the road until
the road ended and there was no choice but to turn either right or
left.  At that point the demonstrators formed an arrowhead and flew like
a magic carpet through the blocks and the chain that security had
formed.  Two or three hundred just ran up across the block to the dismay
of the forces of oppression.  Maybe less than two minutes later, before
the rest of the demonstration had had the chance to team up with the two
or three hundred in the front, massive reinforcements in armored
vehicles sped ahead of the demonstrators, intercepted them at the front,
blocked them from the rest of the demonstration at the back, then turned
on them like junkyard dogs.  Only a trickle from the body of the
demonstration managed to get through.

With the exception of Laith Shubeilat there was not a single opposition
leader in the fray.  In fact, his wife was clubbed on the face.  Members
of a leftist student group who were carrying a huge red flag with two
photos of Ernesto Che Guevara in the middle were beaten savagely.
Supporters of Hamas were chanting Allahu Akbar (God is Greater!).  One
of them was screaming at the security because they were beating up a
pregnant housewife who had joined the demonstration.  They responded by
turning on him.

In fact, I did not see the pregnant woman getting beaten, because one
can hardly see everything when one is thrashed sideways on the sidewalk,
but I did see the man screaming at security for beating the pregnant
woman, and I did see several people limping, including many women and
children, and helped carry one of the wounded outside the area.  To be
fair though, while the wounded man I clasped was still sitting on the
ground holding his head, an officer came for us again, swaying a club.
But when people screamed: “A wounded man, a wounded man…”, the officer
simply stepped over us to go for somebody else.  In the meantime,
several veiled women who were cornered in the entrance of a building
were screaming and protesting their heads off.  One of the bizarre
things that happened while this was going on was how a petite woman
demonstrator started eating a piece of chocolate when one of the
security hound dogs came for her.  He raised his club, but she said very
calmly: “Look, I have a very low blood-sugar level, and if you beat me
now, I might faint..”.  Dumfounded, he left her alone, and so she
strolled back slowly in the midst of the battlefield towards safety.

In short, Jordanian security forces are oppressing Jordanians and
Palestinians violently when they do more than talk, or more than walk in
the designated areas already agreed upon with opposition leaders
aspiring for a ministerial position or an important government post.

Yesterday, a demonstration of about one thousand few hundred departed
from the University of Jordan towards the Zionist embassy.  That one was
also intercepted, blocked, and diverted at the Athletic City Circle.
Also yesterday, groups of about one hundred and fifty middle schoolers
managed to make it to the Zionist embassy just close enough to hurl a
few good stones at it.  Those kids were savagely assaulted.  Several of
them were hospitalized for wounds and broken bones, especially in the
arms they used to hurl the stones.  Those among them checked into
hospitals are: Mayce Shawaheen, Raja’ee Shawaheen, Muhammad Omar, Sahhel
Soueiffan, Ali Beni Hani, Oulla Al’a Eddin, Jawad El Moussa, Noor Eddin
Hassan, Mohammad Abou Hudaib, Mohammad Ssyakhi, and Mohammad Friej.  All
in all, these add up to just eleven young heroes to shame Arab leaders.

The saga was repeated earlier today too as a group of High Schoolers and
University students tried to sneak it to the Zionist Embassy, but
actually could not.  Those were just clubbed on the arms and the legs.
A participant in that demo was holding her left elbow as she came to the
evening rally (that turned later into a spontaneous demo), and by the
time that was finished, she was also limping.  In that state, she joined
the few hundred who went back to the Union of Professional Associations
to chant protests against the all-bark-no-bite, lame-tame, wishy-washy,
and yellow-mellow speakers at the rally held there earlier, but those
‘nice guys’ already gone home!  The wounded man I had helped refused to
go to the hospital choosing instead to dizzily join the aforementioned
protest.

The way I see it, there are two mighty barriers between Zionists and the
Arab masses: one is the Arab regimes, and two is the second defense line
made up of opportunistic opposition leaders and intellectuals who spew
out great anti-Zionist rhetoric, but who take the wrong stand on the
issues, abort mass-movements, and cut secret deals behind the scenes,
all in the name of flexibility, “realism”, and whatever.

To annihilate the Zionists, which can be easily done if we can bypass
the two barriers delineated above, we need to find ways to bypass Arab
regimes and the opportunists among us.. which can also be done, even
though not necessarily as easily.  [Just in case I’m misunderstood,
note that ‘bypass’ is not necessarily the same thing as breaking things
down.]

Ibrahim Alloush

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