A Storm in the Face of the American Ambassador

It’s no exaggeration: Dozens of articles and hundreds of comments on Facebook and Twitter have poured their anger onto Alice Wells, the American ambassador in Amman, Jordan, based on her alleged statement that the number of Jordanians makes up no more than 27 percent of the kingdom’s population.

Highly educated intellectuals and writers have succumbed to the trap and been dragged into a fierce campaign against her personally and against Americans as well.

Some were drawn into stirring up old history by reminding the American ambassador of the crimes against the native Indians. Others have led a vehement campaign to defend the Jordanian identity against the alternative nation conspiracy insinuated by this evil statement.

Two days later, it turned out that whoever had circulated the statement attributed to the ambassador had turned it upside down. Unlike what was reported in the media, it was simply Wells inquiring about how truthful it is that 27 percent of the Jordanian population are refugees.

For those who are following the general situation, it is easy to see that there’s a mistake in the statement attributed to the ambassador. This percentage was mentioned many times in the statements of many Jordanian politicians to point out the impact of Syrian refugees on Jordan. Only yesterday, His Majesty said in an interview with an American TV station that the number of Syrian refugees has reached 20 percent of the total population. Add to this the number of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees who do not hold a Jordanian passport, in addition to workers from Egypt, and it makes the percentage of non-Jordanians go beyond the number mentioned by the ambassador.

It did not dawn on the ambassador’s attackers to ask themselves this question: Is it possible for a newly appointed diplomat to declare such provocative and inaccurate comments in public?

The truth is that none of them thought about reviewing the statement; if she said what she said, then it’s disgraceful of us not to stand up to her. That was the point of many writers, deputies and parties who were creative in showering insults over the ambassador and her country.

I am not going to dwell a lot on the demeaning language they used. We use the same in our national debates against each other, so it is not surprising that we did the same with the ambassador. What is interesting is our ignorance in how to manage our struggles and conflicts, regardless of who they are with.

America’s policies in the region are outrageous; they have caused misfortune to our nations. Iraq is a good example. The United States has a strong bias toward Israel, at the expense of the fair cause of a nation under occupation. America cares only about its interests. All this is true. However, for more than 60 years, we have been trying to change America’s policies to be more balanced and objective, but our means are outdated and backward. We use the same old dialogue every time, which does not help us make the U.S. review its policies.

This is a long debate, and here is not the place to discuss it. What I wanted to highlight was a tiny example showing our recklessness and ignorance in such evident media and political matters. In brief, I am not trying to defend the American ambassador here, but to respect our minds at all times.