Jihad Ali Alwan, Jordanian writer. Photo: Facebook. Despite being arrested, fired from his job, called “crazy” and an “infidel” and being left destitute, Jordanian writer Jihad Ali Alwan, 42, has no intention backing off his full-throated support of Israel, and from every possible platform, Israel’s NRG News reported Monday.
Jihad Ali Alwan
“I don’t care what price I’ll pay. I will not apologize for my beliefs,” Alwan said, writing on his personal blog, “I suggest the Arabs normalize relations with Israel,” he wrote in October of last year.
The striking statements by the married father of four were read by some eight million readers, including the Jordanian Writers Association, who called him in for a clarification.
But after refusing to appear before the committee, the guild revoked Alwan’s membership. Which also prompted an irate blog post by the man known in the Hashemite Kingdom, as “The Normalizer.”
“A short time ago I was invited by the so-called ‘Committee of the Struggle to Oppose Normalization with the Zionist Enemy’ at the Jordanian Writers Association, located in Amman, and they told me to get to a hearing before the committee on my article under the title ‘normalization with Israel.’ I rejected the request, and then they told me, ‘If you refuse, then the decision will be made in your absence,” he wrote.
“I have suffered persecution for 16 years, economic and political persecution, and they accused me of courting Jewish and Christian Zionist institutions. All those who are attacking me, eat and drink in the United States and use American and Israeli technology in their homes; their flour comes from America and they receive financial support from the United States.
“I’m not a criminal, but rather a man of peace, a man of respect for others, and I suffer from hunger and poverty because no one will give me a job because of my position,” he declared, citing hostility and several bouts of administrative and security arrests.
“And yet you choose to continue to express your opinions?” he was asked.
“There were warnings, but I walked away with a clear conscience and clear sentiment that the State of Israel is to be respected and be committed to it as a nation of law. It is a country with institutions built on the basis of human dignity and freedom in terms of religion, thought and love,” Alwan said.
“This land that Jews and Muslims are fighting over – it was a Jewish state, which became the state of Judea and Samaria,” he wrote, “Every intelligent person knows that the Jews are occupying this land, because they were the subjects of the original period, and were betrayed and made to leave for the diaspora. We deny that the Jews were here before Muslims in Palestine, but we need to understand that Hebrew is part of the regional cultural milieu.”
In one article entitled, “Jews Are Endangered” Alwan wrote: “Jews are endangered, and they are good people; their dream is to live in security, but the plots against them are great. Jews suffered and will suffer slaughters and murders in European countries, which robbed their money and their wives … therefore, Israel transfers a fortune to its defense budget in order to protect Israeli citizens – be they Arab, Jewish or Christian.”
Jews were dispossessed of their lands by Islam, which expelled them from the land of Canaan. Today, the Arab world is against the Jews for no reason, and charges that they are occupying Arab land. Although they have some of the land of the Arabs, they have a right to build their temples on their land and they have a right to return to their homeland, which they lost due to religious and economic pressures.”
Alwan’s excommunication goes beyond Jordan. In 2006, he was declared an “infidel” along with 200 other Muslims, globally, and was ranked sixth on a list issued by Ibn Saud Islamic University in Saudi Arabia.
“Why are they familiar with my views, but not my financial situation?” he asked in a blog post. “I live in starvation,” he wrote. “Why do they not know I’m suffering persecution wherever I go?”
“I will defend my opinions, and not rescind my words, no matter what price I may pay. I do not apologize for my beliefs,” he announced.
Alwan’s views may even be considered too radical by many among the Israeli public.
“I am convinced that Israel has rights not only over Palestine, but over 90 percent of the Land of Israel,” he explained, “The Palestinians did not live in Palestine, but rather, came from the Italian island of Palast [sic], and Palestine was named after the Italian island. Secondly, Israel is a democratic state of law, a state of science, which respects the educated, the writers and poets.
“Israel supports writers and books 100 times more than all the Arab countries that spend a fortune on prostitution,” he asserted. “Not to forget that three Israeli universities are among the 500 most important universities in the world, and no Islamic Arab university in any Arab country is on that list.”
What does he think about the sequence of events in Operation Protective Edge?”
“The last thing I can say about the war is that Gaza had won or that Hamas won. Hamas failed miserably and hoisted a white flag. Israel did not kill a single Palestinian civilian. It was Hamas which killed the Palestinians, for heading out to an unequal battle. Israel could have destroyed all the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, but felt sorry for the innocent.
“Israel is a war-making machine, more powerful that all the Arab states combined,” he said.
“In my opinion, when Hamas announced that it won and Israel had not achieved its goals, it’s legitimizing another war to defeat the bad guys and Hamas. Exactly how did Hamas win? Hamas killed 72 Israelis, but Israel killed more than 2,000 Palestinians. Hamas was the one using Palestinians as human shields, fired from the rooftops, and Israel just reacted.”
“Hamas is the real killer because its men hide behind civilians and it does not have the courage to go into face-to-face battle with Israeli soldiers, while their leaders run the campaign from a five star hotel in the Gulf. I know if you were to ask the people of Gaza who’s rule they would like – Hamas or that of Israel – they would prefer Israel” he said.
Jihad Ali Alwan
