May 18, 2009, 4:00 a.m.

Davos in the Desert, Part I
By Jay Nordlinger


Editor’s Note: Jay Nordlinger attended the World Economic Forum on the Middle East last week. It took place by the Dead Sea in Jordan. Below is the first installment of his journal.



Another May, another Mideast jamboree — brought to you by the World Economic Forum, the Davos people. In January, they have their big world convocation in Switzerland. But then they have these “regional meetings.” And the Middle East meeting began after 9/11, when Middle Eastern matters seemed especially urgent. This meeting alternates between Jordan, on the Dead Sea, and Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt — which is on the Red Sea.

And for years, I’ve told the same joke: Better Dead than Red, or better Red than Dead?

Well, they’re both good, and this year we’re Dead: in Jordan, about an hour from Amman. Israel is across the sea (or lake, if you prefer). Will this meeting ever be held in Israel? Um . . . don’t wait up nights.

Begin with the flight — my flight from JFK in New York to Queen Alia International in Amman. I can’t help thinking of Mark Steyn. It’s natural to think of Mark Steyn, isn’t it? In this particular case, I’m thinking of demography, and all the arguments Mark has made over the years. He speaks about “demographic energy”: and this is not coming from Westerners.

On my Royal Jordanian flight are many, many children. I believe half the passengers are under ten. Seriously. Parents have brought along three children, four children, five children, more. And I find myself thinking, “My, what large families.” But, when I was growing up — in good old America — that was pretty unremarkable, routine. Now there’s one child, or two if you’re really, really fecund and reckless. And these Middle Eastern families seem: large. “It’s all relative,” as the saying goes (and in this case there’s a double meaning, I guess).

Whenever I am on a “Third World flight” — impolite term — I notice this: children. On the flights within the U.S. I take, children are almost a novelty. Same with flights to and from Europe. But whenever I wander beyond those regions: kid-o-rama.

This cannot be without consequences, can it? Whether you regard them as good or bad: It cannot be without consequences. For more, please consult Mark Steyn.

Of course, the differences in numbers of children can be seen all the more once you’re on the ground somewhere. You may remember a journal I wrote last year, from India, and about India. One of the delights of such a trip is: the presence of children, in great numbers, and laughy, sparkling-eyed, charming children too. Even in squalor. (Pardon the stereotype, but it is quite true.)

I must acknowledge that, if I took a flight from, say, Milwaukee to Orlando, in late June, I would see a fair number of children: lil’ Disney-goers.

On the New York-Amman flight, I sit next to a Palestinian man, about 32, I should say. He lives in Bucks County, Pa. (A favorite getaway for New Yorkers who want some non-urban scenery.) He is from Hebron, and is returning for two months to see his children. At the end of this flight, he of course asks me to come be his guest, in Hebron.

I use the phrase “of course,” because such a gesture is habitual in the Middle East. I have often said, “Arab hospitality” is not a mere cliché. Of course, there are rules for accepting hospitality.

In any case, many of us have long been enamored of the Middle East, in particular Arab society — enamored, dismayed, and repelled at the same time. This region is like a drug, for many. And not all of them “go native,” à la St. John Philby, and more recent, unbalanced others.

On Royal Jordanian, they give you a health form, to fill out and present to an official — white-coated, it will transpire — upon landing. The form is touching in that the English words are misspelled — almost uniformly. Including “Hashemite Kingdom,” which is rendered “Hashemiie Kingdom.” This is amusing in part because the king’s English — that is to say, King Abdullah II’s English — is about as polished as you can get.

British “public” schools, plus Deerfield, plus Oxford, will do that to you.

King Abdullah has been in the news of late, insisting on a two-state solution between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and insisting that this be accomplished very, very fast. In fact, he is warning of war if this is not accomplished in a year or year and a half.

Our David Pryce-Jones had a comment on his blog (and his full entry is here):

The two-state solution is . . . an anachronism. The failure of the Oslo accords and the character of Yasser Arafat killed the whole idea. The one conceivable move at present is to return to pre-1967 conditions, and for Egypt to have the Gaza Strip and Jordan the West Bank. The snags involved might be surmountable. But right on cue, here comes King Abdullah of Jordan to say at the top of his voice that Israel and the Palestinians must make peace immediately, and failure to do so means a war within a year or 18 months. No responsible leader should hold out such a threat — but let that pass, the king doesn’t really mean it. Palestinians already compose three-quarters of his population, and he is fearful of acquiring the West Bank and a couple of million more. The threat of imminent war is a way of issuing a caution, “If the Israelis won’t have the Palestinians, I’m not having them either; get them off my back.” In other words, he’s anticipating that whatever Obama ordains won’t work out, and he’s not the only one to be doing so.

The king was in the U.S. recently, and among his activities was an appearance on Meet the Press. He spoke with David Gregory, who wanted to know what the king thought about the American “torture memos.” Abdullah was very disapproving, of American interrogation judgments and methods.

A colleague of mine, in an e-mail to me, wondered whether the king was just the right arbiter. Here is a slice of the State Department’s human-rights report:

Although torture is illegal in the country, an October report by the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), “Torture and Impunity in Jordan’s Prisons,” concluded that torture remained a widespread practice. Interviews with 66 prisoners in seven of the country’s 10 prisons produced allegations of ill-treatment, which HRW concluded often amounted to torture. Common forms of torture detailed in the interviews were beatings with cables and sticks and suspension in metal cuffs for hours at a time. Political prisoners, including Islamists convicted of crimes against national security, reportedly received greater abuse than ordinary prisoners. The report also documented the severe lack of punishment and failure to investigate abusive guards.

In a January 2007 report the UN special rapporteur on torture described police and security forces as practicing “widespread” torture based on “consistent and credible allegations,” which he stated were substantiated by forensic medical evidence. April and May 2007 reports from the Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR) and Amnesty International (AI), respectively, alleged torture and ill-treatment in government detention centers. The National Center for Human Rights’ (NCHR) “Fifth Report on Prison Conditions,” released in December 2007, reported 45 complaints of mistreatment or torture at Public Security Directorate (PSD) prisons. In 2006 there were 46 reported complaints, down from 70 the previous year and even higher numbers in years prior. The NCHR report recounted allegations of mistreatment and abuse in General Intelligence Directorate (GID) facilities, but it did not provide specific information on these complaints.

Uh-huh.

And I have just read a news article, here: stating that David Gregory asked the Jordanian king about Jordanian practices. Specifically, he said, “Did Jordan engage in torture in concert with the United States?”

Personally, I’m not sure that even the best, sunniest Arab states need a concert.

There is a lot of talk about ’67 — there always is. Israel is supposed to pull back to the 1967 borders (which Abba Eban once dubbed the “Auschwitz” borders, but never mind). Well, if it’s “back to the future” — why not have 1967 all the way around? DP-J reminded us of those circumstances: with Jordan controlling the West Bank, and Egypt controlling Gaza.

By the way, why did Israel occupy those territories in the first place? I can’t quite remember . . .

At the Amman airport, there are pictures of the king, as there are pictures of him all over the country. In a couple of photos in the airport, he looks very, very young. Those photos should really be updated.

Reminds me of photos of syndicated columnists. They should update them, every now and then. Some columnists have photos that are ten, fifteen years out of date. And sometimes you get a real surprise from a concert or opera program — that is, when you compare a photo in the program with the person on the stage. A fellow critic and I had a particular chuckle, a few seasons ago: There was a paunchy bald tenor onstage; and in the program, next to his bio, was a slim, shaggy-headed tenor.

At the airport, a friend and I are told, “Five minutes, five minutes.” That’s how long it will take for the car to show up. My friend, who has long experience in the Middle East, says, “Everything here is ‘five minutes.’ It’s sort of like ‘The check is in the mail.’” Five minutes could be a half-hour, an hour, an hour and a half — or even five minutes, I’m sure.

I’ve said in at least one journal past that Jordan reminds me of the Southwest — Arizona or something. Reddish, pinkish. For a while, you get scrubby desert. And then, all of a sudden, plunging canyons and proud mountains. Very nice. Jordan isn’t just Petra, although Petra is something, it is true.

I’m talking to my friend about Notre Dame, because he went there, and his son goes there now — and there has been a controversy, concerning the school’s invitation to President Obama. My friend talks about the diversity of people he saw on campus, when he was there in the Seventies. He remembers one panel on Vietnam: that included Tom Hayden and Curtis LeMay.

Can you beat that?

In addition, he graduated the day Carter gave his famous commencement speech, or infamous one. The year was ’77. You remember the speech? About how we had to get over our “inordinate fear of Communism”?

It was not so much a fear, I think, as a detestation.

Before we get to the resort on the Dead Sea, we see a restaurant, “Chili Ways.” (Picture of the king, natch.) I wonder whether that is chili like a beany soup — the stuff that Teresa Heinz Kerry couldn’t recognize when a campaign took her into a Wendy’s — or a misspelling of “chilly.”

Some pictures of Abdullah, along the highway, show him in military garb. One of those rulers who cover bases.

At the resort, I look across the sea to Israel — and wonder, not for the first time, whether it can make it. Or whether its enemies are too strong, and its friends too few and too weak.

Well, in tomorrow’s installment, we’ll start with a sunnier thought.

Ellie