The Jewish Calendar is based on the cycle of the moon, so we'll be celebrating the next Rosh Chodesh, new moon in just a few weeks.

 

I post much more frequently on Shiloh Musings and me-ander, so I recommend that you visit and check out the comments, too, which are different from what you'll find here.

The following post gives some very basic history, a prerequisite for understanding the Middle-East's current events.
There is no "Jordanian People."

And Who Really Is That Jordanian King Abdullah? And Whose Land is This?

I just read Arlene Kushner's latest posting, which got me thinking.  It's time to remind everyone that the king in Jordan has a very flimsy historical connection to what is called Jordan.  As I write this, "From Israel: Blowin' in the Wind" isn't yet on Arlene's site, but I trust that she'll have it up shortly and recommend reading it in its entirety.

Apparently many Arab leaders are getting nervous because of the spreading instability/unrest/demonstrations/violence and are setting up "insurance/emergency arrangements."

The news this morning was that PA president Mahmoud Abbas has secured Jordanian citizenship, as have his entire family and several other major Fatah figures such as Ahmed Qurei, Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh and Muhammad Dahlan.

According to Khaled Abu Toameh's report on this in the JPost, application for citizenship was made by PA leaders at a time when they were urging Jordan not to grant Jordanian citizenship to Palestinian Arabs so that they might "consolidate their Palestinian identity."

Jordan, itself, is a time bomb.  The skeleton, which is ignored by most international diplomats, the media and history books, is that Abdullah's family has a very recent and weak connection to the land and people they rule.

King Abdullah II, a Hashemite, sits uneasy on his throne, and fears the demographic threat of a growing Palestinian population within his kingdom.

Abdullah should be worried.  His family isn't native to the area at all.  They are Hashemites who were brought in and declared royal rulers.  Read this:

Although the Sykes-Picot Agreement was modified considerably in practice, it established a framework for the mandate system which was imposed in the years following the war. Near the end of 1918, the Hashemite Emir Faisal set up an independent government in Damascus. However, his demand at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference for independence throughout the Arab world was met with rejection from the colonial powers. In 1920 and for a brief duration, Faisal assumed the throne of Syria and his elder brother Abdullah was offered the crown of Iraq by the Iraqi representatives. However, the British government ignored the will of the Iraqi people. Shortly afterward, the newly-founded League of Nations awarded Britain the mandates over Transjordan, Palestine and Iraq. France was given the mandate over Syria and Lebanon, but had to take Damascus by force, removing King Faisal from the throne to which he had been elected by the General Syrian Congress in 1920.

In November 1920, Emir (later King) Abdullah led forces from the Hijaz to restore his brother’s throne in the Kingdom of Syria. However, the French mandate over Syria was already well planted, and Emir Abdullah was obliged to delay his pan-Arab goals and focus on forming a government in Amman. Since the end of the war, the British had divided the land of Transjordan into three local administrative districts, with a British “advisor” appointed to each. The northern region of ‘Ajloun had its administrative center in Irbid, the central region of Balqa was based in Salt, and the southern region was run by the “Moabite Arab Government,” based in Karak. The regions of Ma’an and Tabuk were incorporated into the Kingdom of the Hijaz, ancestral home of the Hashemites. Faced with the determination of Emir Abdullah to unify Arab lands under the Hashemite banner, the British proclaimed Abdullah ruler of the three districts, known collectively as Transjordan. Confident that his plans for the unity of the Arab nation would eventually come to fruition, the emir established the first centralized governmental system in what is now modern Jordan on April 11, 1921.

King Faisal I, meanwhile, assumed the throne of the Kingdom of Iraq in the same year. The Hashemite family ruled Iraq until King Faisal’s grandson King Faisal II and his immediate family were all murdered in a bloody coup by Nasserist sympathizers led by Colonel Abdel Karim Qassem on July 14, 1958. The Hashemites suffered another major blow in 1925, when King Ali bin al-Hussein, the eldest brother of Abdullah and Faisal, lost the throne of the Kingdom of the Hijaz to Abdel Aziz bin Saud of Najd. The loss, which was brought about by a partnership between Ibn Saud and followers of the Wahhabi movement, led to the establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and brought to an end over one thousand years of Hashemite rule in Mecca.

Emir Abdullah soon succeeded in loosening the British mandate over Transjordan with an Anglo-Transjordanian treaty. On May 15, 1923, Britain formally recognized the Emirate of Transjordan as a state under the leadership of Emir Abdullah. This angered the Zionists, as it effectively severed Transjordan from Palestine and so reduced the area of any future Jewish national home in the region. The treaty stipulated that Transjordan would be prepared for independence under the general supervision of the British high commissioner in Jerusalem, and recognized Emir Abdullah as head of state. In May 1925, the Aqaba and Ma’an districts of the Hijaz became part of Transjordan. (complete article)

There is no "Jordanian People."  
There is no such thing as a Palestinian people and history

It's a very recent invention of political and diplomatic convenience, less than a hundred years old.  It's much newer than the Zionist movement, and I have no doubt that if the Jewish People hadn't begun its return to the historic Jewish HolyLand, the middle-east would have had been ignored by the western world.

And that brings me to the most important point which must not be ignored nor white-washed.  There is no such thing as a Palestinian people and history.  It's a fiction, a modern invention.  The only People to have a national history and tradition based in this part of the world is the Jewish People. 

Judaism is more than a religion.  We're a People-Religion-Nation. 

We are unique.  We've survived our enemies.  We have returned to Our Land from which we had been exiled.  Statisticians have calculated that very soon most Jews will be living here in our historic homeland.  All those reports, predictions and attempts over the millennia to declare us dead are totally mistaken. 

We the Jewish People live and thrive in the HolyLand, thank G-d.