Jordan’s King Abdullah conducts Palestinian purge of regime and army

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27 Aug. Jordan’s king Abdullah, who has always claimed to be an ardent champion of the Palestinians, is quietly acting to cut down their numbers and influence in his kingdom.
Just over 50% of Jordan’s six million citizens are Palestinian. On Aug, 6, he addressed the Jordanian General Staff in Amman with a warning that domestic and foreign plots were afoot to stir unrest among the Palestinian majority community.
Abdullah did not name the source of the threat. Some Middle East sources interpreted his unusually stern remarks as referring to Syria and Iraq and their possible exploitation of the Palestinian community for destabilizing the kingdom. Hence the following five steps disclosed here by DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources:

1. The king has ordered a massive purge of the Jordanian military, forcing hundreds of officers into early retirement. A survey of the names of the officers laid off and their replacements shows that none of the sacked officers bore Bedouin tribal names.

2. He is conducting the same process in the top levels of government.
Three officials elevated to the top of the pyramid are Prime minister Nader al-Dahabi, his half-brother Prince Faisal, who is now in line for promotion as chief of staff of the armed forces, the director of General Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Al Raqqad.

3. Not only were non-Bedouin officers’ services terminated, but the king secretly ordered the general staff to stop recruiting them to Jordan’s auxiliary units, such as transport, ordnance, quartermaster-general and surgeon-general.

4. The Jordanian ministry of the interior has begun the process for revoking the Jordanian citizenship of Palestinians who relocated from the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the Hashemite Kingdom in the last 40 year, as a means of reducing the size of the community.

Jordan was unique in granting citizenship rights to Palestinians, a status not conferred by any other Arab government.

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