Former Jordanian Interior Minister Samir Habashneh, who has also served as Minister of Culture and Minister of Agriculture, said in a recent interview with Al Jazeera that Israel is transforming into a “Jewish ISIS” and pursues the “original” Zionist enterprise that views Jordan as an “inseparable part” of Israel’s territory.
The former minister argued that the map of Israel recently presented by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich during a speech, which also showed Jordan, constitutes a declaration of war, and he compared this to Germany adding Poland to its maps before invading.
Habashneh also said that Jordan should reinstate mandatory military service, and he called upon the people in Jordan to store weapons and ammunition, predicting that the extremists in Israel will form the majority in the next government, thereby threatening Jordan.
The interview, which aired on March 21, was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
“The State of Israel is quickly transforming into a so-called ‘Jewish ISIS’. Today, this state presents the Zionist enterprise in its raw and unfiltered form. This is the original Zionist enterprise,” claimed Habashneh.
“Today, [the present] Palestine and Jordan as inseparable parts of the Zionist enterprise. I view the map drawn by [Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich] as a form of war declaration. I remember &mdash or so I have read &mdash that before Germany invaded Poland, they had added Poland to the map of Germany,” he charged.
“I believe that we, in Jordan, must take seriously the growth of the extremist and [Jewish] ISIS force in occupied Palestine. I personally call to immediately restore mandatory military service in Jordan,” said the former minister, before adding, “I call on the Jordanian people from all sectors &mdash in the deserts, in the refugee camps, in the cities, in the villages &mdash to store weapons and ammunition, because I believe that while the extremists make up 40% of this Israeli government, they will form the majority in the next government, in light of the extremists growth in Israeli society. I believe that the threat to Jordan is at the same level as the threat to the planned Palestinian state.”
Jordan signed a peace deal with Israel in 1994 but its parliament, which is made up mostly of Islamists, remains anti-Israel and its members have more than once called to annul the peace treaty.
The Jordanian parliament has in the past approved a proposal to establish a committee to re-evaluate all formal ties with Israel, including the peace agreement. That decision does not necessarily mean that the peace accords with Israel will be annulled, as such a decision requires the approval of the government, the royal palace and the council advising Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
In 2017, a Jordanian MP praised soldier Ahmed Daqamseh, who in 1997 shot dead seven Israeli schoolgirls, saying he was a hero because he was retaliating against Israel and the teenage girls were “enemies.”
That year, the speaker of Jordan”s House of Representatives praised a terror attack on the Temple Mount in which two Druze police officers were murdered.
(Israel National News’ North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)
