Jordan Protesters Want Peace Treaty with Israel Annulled
Around 1,000 people demonstrated Friday near the Israeli embassy in Amman to protest the killing of a Jordanian judge by Israeli soldiers, demanding a peace deal between the countries be annulled.
Israeli troops shot 38-year-old Raed Zeiter, a Palestinian-Jordanian, at a border crossing on Monday, saying he attacked them and igniting a diplomatic row between Israel and Jordan.
Opposition Islamists, youth groups, leftists and nationalists took part in the demonstration that started after Friday prayers in Kaluti mosque, near the Israeli embassy in the Rabia neighborhood in West Amman.
Amid tight security, protesters waved Jordanian flags and banners reading "the people want to cancel the (1994) peace treaty," and "shut down the Zionist entity's embassy and kick the ambassador out for the sake of the martyr's blood."
"Zeiter you are a martyr and our rulers are slaves. We will not forget you," demonstrators chanted.
They tried to approach the Israeli embassy, but police prevented them.
On Wednesday, the lower house of Jordan's parliament, incensed by Zeiter's killing, demanded in a non-binding resolution the government free Jordanian soldier Ahmad Dakamseh, who was jailed after he opened fire on a group of Israeli schoolgirls in 1997, killing seven.
Lawmakers have also demanded the government expel the Israeli envoy in Amman and recall the Jordanian ambassador in Israel.
It gave the government until Tuesday to meet its demands, threatening a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur if he failed to meet the deadline.
Nsur has held Israel "completely responsible" for Zeiter's death and demanded an apology for the "hideous" killing.
Israel has expressed regret for the shooting but stopped short of apologizing to Jordan, which is the only Arab country besides Egypt to have made peace with the Jewish state.
Source: Agence France Presse
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