3 Comments

Excellent, Peter! I have MANY personal anecdotes about Tribalism from my four deployments to Afghanistan: I experienced exactly what you described here many times.

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Jordan looks at Palestinians with a jaundiced eye for solid reasons. A Palestinian assassinated King Abdullah I in 1951. Following the Fatah take over of the PLO, they began to increasingly try to usurp the Jordanian governments power which led to arm conflict. Constant plotting against the Hashemite monarchy and the Jordanian Army ensued. Resulting armed clashes between Palestinian Fedayeen and the Army started drawing other Arab armies, especially Syria, into the mess. After the Egyptian brokered end to the fighting they regrouped, and formed Black September. From there they started wreaking havoc on Jordanians and all who took their part, including the slaughter at the Munich Olympics. Yeah, these are the kind of friends you DON"T invite to your house after the first party they trashed.

I have served in Jordan and I have trained, and trained with, Jordanian soldiers. When it came up, they made it clear that there is no love lost for the Palestinians, they consider them toxic and cancerous. They will not be accepting any refugees from Gaza.

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We're seeing the same here with "intersectionality" (among other things) - only with less violence, though I expect we might if the "oppressed" were in possession of the weapons Hamas manages to obtain.

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