Israel – Wiped Off the Map

King Abdullah of Jordan is as progressive a Middle East leader as you can find. He is working hard to modernize Jordan, and outside of President Mubarak of Egypt, he is the only regional Arab leader to publicly strive towards a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. Ok, the Saudis and the Arab League have made bold gestures, but I have my qualms about their sincerity. [Note: Queen Rania of Jordan is also very active in Israeli-Palestinian peace projects.]

In fact, last week the King reiterated his positions in a thorough interview with the Washington Post. Sadly, the King’s “progressiveness” is not shared by the majority of Jordanians from my experience. After all, it is estimated that between 60-70% of the Jordanian population consists of Palestinian "refugees". I put refugees in quotes because this is a very controversial issue. Of course, the vast vast vast majority of those classified as refugees were not born in Israel or the West Bank - they were born in Jordan. More on that issue in future posts.

Still, I was a bit surprised today when I took a closer look at the map of the world that hangs on the wall outside of my classroom.

The title of the map is “The World (Political)”. Here it is:

And now a closer look at the Middle East region (sorry about the poor quality of the photo):

Because the photo is poor, and I assume that the majority of my readers cannot translate the Arabic, let me point something out - Israel is not on the map. First of all, this map was published in 2005. Secondly, the purple country that is the State of Israel is labeled “Palestine”. The Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights are not pictured or labeled as unique territories, and while the West Bank is painted a different color, it is not labeled as a separate territory.

Of course, despite the peace treaty with Israel, I know that the Jordanian monarchy feels in its heart of hearts that the West Bank will always be part of Jordan.

Please note, the University of Jordan is the most modern university in this country. And the government is not shy about bragging about this fact. That is why I am intrigued by this map. I guess today I felt the need to dish up some some food-for-thought that wasn't hummus.