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| Jordan’s King Abdullah II (L) in Ramallah with his host, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, |
Ali al-Shihabi, an author and commentator on Middle Eastern politics and economics with a particular focus on Saudi Arabia, last week threw a bombshell into regional Arab politics with an op-ed in the pro-Saudi TV channel and website Al Arabiya, headlined: “The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine.”
Al-Shihabi is a graduate of Princeton University and the Harvard Business School, and his articles are considered mainstream in the Sunni Arab world, which is why his op-ed caused such a stir and outrage on social media and news sites in Jordan. Former Jordanian Information Minister Muhammad al-Momani responded in an article headlined, “The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine – unrealistic, illogical, and not patriotic.” Some in Jordan have suggested that al-Shihabi’s article was part of a Saudi-Israeli plot designed to “bring the Palestinian issue to an end at the expense of the Palestinian people and the expense of Jordan.”







