Jordanian media is filled with paranoia about the incident, and the rumors and lies are off the charts. Moreover, Jordan has strengthened its antisemitic policies of not allowing Jews to enter the Kingdom with any religious objects - including kippot and tzitzit:
In an interview with Ynet, tour guide Roni Ayalon, who was with the group of tourists, described being subjected to humiliating treatment by Jordanian authorities.
“They just stripped down all of us,” he said. “They took off the women’s head scarves. All the boys’ yarmulkes were taken off. They took off everyone’s shirts to see if they had tzitzit (religious fringes) under their clothes and took [the tzitzit] off them. They confiscated any religious symbols they found on us.”
“If there was this kind of humiliation of an Arab on our side who wanted to enter Jerusalem and they would dare to tell him to take off his shirt or confiscate his Koran, there would be a world war,” Ayalon said. “All the Arabs would jump up. But they can do whatever they want to us.”
There has been a perfect storm of events to highlight how the old fashioned Jordanian patriarchy, antisemitism and inferiority complex have been feeling under attack - and all centered in the archaeological site of Petra.
It started with a Netflix series, Jinn, about rich Amman high-schoolers who investigate the supernatural death of a classmate in Petra. That series was attacked for its depiction of teens kissing, as well as talking about sex and smoking pot. Jordanian ministers complained about the film and there were calls to censorship that failed. Jordanians said that the series was an attack on their "honor."
Then came the trumped-up accusations against another Netflix movie that was being produced in Jordan, named Jaber, which highlights what even the Quran admits - that Jews came from Egypt through today's Jordan before crossing the Jordan river. Pressure forced the director to abandon filming.
Part of the reason is that Jordan is convinced that Israel wants to take over their country. Old and absurd accusations of Jews going to Petra to plant old fake Jewish artifacts are being reported as fact again in Jordanian media. JBC News writes, "Jews believe that this place belongs to them, as they claimed to be the builders of the pyramids, after they failed to find any historical trace of the presence of their forefathers in Palestine, which led them to fabricate certain places."
There are now debates in Jordan's parliament about allowing the "normalization" of Jews visiting the kingdom.
Former tourism minister Maha Khatib is going on TV about how she found Jews trying to bury objects in order to claim Petra as a Jewish site, and how she heroically stopped them. It is taken as a given that Jews are attempting to take over Jordan.
Interestingly, Petra is in a southern area of Jordan that no one has ever thought of as being part of historic Eretz Yisrael - it was part of Edom. Much of the northern part was part of the Land of Israel in Biblical times, but for some reason I have not seen Jordanians worried about Israel claiming those lands. Their fears are always around Petra, because of the Biblical significance of it being a potential burial place of Aaron.
If Jordanians were secure in its own borders and history, they would laugh at any supposed Jewish attempts to take over. But they are so insecure that they see conspiracies at every turn of Jews taking over their land. It shows how little they believe their own narratives of an Arab people that pre-date the Jews in the region.
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