Middle East expert Dr. David Bukay said on Thursday that Israel’s decision to evacuate the embassy in Jordan was a serious mistake.
“We need to tell the Jordanians that it their its duty to protect our embassy just as they protect the American embassy,” Bukay, a professor at the Department for the Study of the Middle East at Haifa University, told Arutz Sheva.
Israel’s decision to evacuate its embassy in Amman came after Jordanian activists announced that they would hold a million man march in which they would demand that the Israeli Embassy in Amman be shut down.
The call to protest was welcomed among many political parties, among them the Coordination Committee of the Jordanian opposition parties, which includes seven parties, and the Islamic Action Front Party which represents the extreme Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.
Israel evacuated the embassy out of fear that the march might escalate to a violent riot such as the one in the Israeli Embassy in Cairo last Friday. In the end, only about 300 people came to the protest and police forces kept order.
Insisting the responsibility for the embassy must be placed on the Jordanians, Dr. Bukay told Arutz Sheva Jordan’s King Abdullah, like his father King Hussein, is disloyal.
“The Hashemite regime in Jordan is a minority compared to Palestinian majority,” he said. “Abdullah is well aware that without Israel his regime would fall. So we need to let him know that he cannot have it both ways: on the one hand benefit from his relationship with Israel and on the other hand allow the masses to hurt Israeli institutions in Jordan. He should protect us just like he protects American institutions.”
Bukay addressed the current situation in the Middle East, with Israel being at odds with both Egypt and Turkey, and said that Israel is at a crossroads today.
“The Arab world is undergoing a process of anarchy,” he said. “Islamic regimes are taking over the moderate secular regimes. You have to remember we made peace with countries and not with Islam. As soon as these regimes are weakened it's dangerous to our security.”
“I’ve always said that I prefer the regimes of Qaddafi and Assad to those of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda,” added Bukay. “I prefer secular regimes and military regimes over Islamic regimes and radical Islamic movements.”