Jordan to Request Emergency U.N. Meeting On Israel

A spokesman for Jordan’s mission to the United Nations says his country will request an emergency UN Security Council meeting on behalf of the Palestinians, who have written to the council president about “dangerously escalating tensions” in east Yerushalayim.

Laith Ibrahim Obeidat confirmed the request in a message Monday and said his country, a council member, will ask the council president to set a date.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pushed back at criticism from the U.S. and Europe on Tuesday, asserting that it’s the condemnation of Israeli building in the capital, not the actual Israeli development, that distances peace,

At a ground-breaking ceremony for a new port in Ashdod, Netanyahu said Israel would continue to build new ports, pave roads, lay railroad tracks and “continue to build in our eternal capital.”

Meanwhile, President Reuven Rivlin lauded Jordan’s King Abdullah II as “a brave man who puts peace in the region at the top of his agenda.”

Rivlin, who was addressing a visiting delegation of honorary consuls at his residence on Monday, predicted that peaceful relations with Jordan will last. 

Out of 77 honorary Israel consuls, many of whom are not Jewish, 45 came to Israel at their own expense, and of these, 13 are from countries in which Israel has no embassy, and two, one from Nicaragua and the other from Bolivia, are from countries that have no diplomatic relations with Israel, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Despite the marking of 20 years of a peace treaty with Jordan, hostility toward Israel runs high, exacerbated by the recent Gaza war and ongoing tensions in Yerushalayim.

This article appeared in print on page 36 of the October 29th, 2014 edition of Hamodia.