There are moments in the life of nations that are not measured by what is said about them, but by what is not said. Moments where the scene is reorganized from under the table, then you are asked to applaud at the specified time, or else you enter the category of "psychologically disturbed". I read Dr. Tareq Sami Khoury's article, and I didn't read it as a passing opinion, but as a document. A document that reveals the structure of a question that does not seek to inquire, but to judge. A question that starts with "why" and ends with six ready judgments: psychological dissonance, pre-alignment, distorted media, fear, self-interest, priority crisis. Six empty categories waiting for those who do not applaud. Six cages placed before the trial.
But there is a seventh voice that Dr. Tareq did not invite to his text, because if he had invited it, the article would have collapsed upon its writer. A voice that does not want his country to be just a transit station. A voice that knows that the first question in politics is not "with whom do you stand?", but "who decides?". This voice is what makes "disturbance" an awareness, and silence a stance, and protecting the sky sovereignty.
We in Jordan rejoice when Israel is struck. This stance does not need interpretation. But rejoicing in the event does not mean acquiescing to the one who controls the event. There is a difference between who rejoices in the victory and who hands over his house key to the victor. The sky that passes over our land is not a slogan raised in festivals. It is the river that does not get crossed twice. It is the tree that if its roots are cut, it bears fruit for no one. It is the long road that cannot be abbreviated by a moment of victory.
And when the Arab Army defends the skies of Jordan, it does not defend Israel. It defends the principle that the state has an exclusive right to decide what enters its airspace. This principle is the divider between those who own their decision and those who are managed by another's decision. Either accept that Jordan has a sovereignty to preserve, or state frankly that sovereignty is a privilege granted to those who deserve it. And the latter is precisely what Israel says when it violates the borders of its neighbors. The difference between who crosses without permission and who prevents crossing is not a difference in principle, but a difference in slogans. And shrapnel does not read slogans.
Here appears the voice that Dr. Tareq wanted to be the only voice: a voice that wants the Palestinian cause to be reduced to a single flag, and the bias towards it reduced to a single dependency. As if our discomfort from the Zionist entity's bombing cannot be genuine unless it is under the banner of Tehran. Here the voices intermingle: the voice of the authority in Tehran when it talks about the liberation of Jerusalem, and the voice of its militias when they turn Syria into rubble, and the voice that justifies that this is "resistance", and the voice that objects in silence to the violation of his homeland, and the voice of the Arab street that feels before it interprets: that it is being used.
This is the project that is sold to us under the name of resistance. A project transformed Syria into a stage for its militias before turning it into rubble, prolonged the life of a regime that obliterated its people with chemical and barrel bombs. A project that made Iraq a state within a state, and Lebanon an equation that Lebanese never chose: a decision of war and peace that is not owned by parliament or people, and the bills are paid with blood and hunger. A project that turned Yemen into the biggest humanitarian catastrophe in the world, and aided in suppressing the public movement in Bahrain. A project that launches rockets outward and bullets inward with the same tool, calling the names different.
This is the model that Dr. Tareq wants to be the guardian over our sky. This is the "alternative" he offers to those who do not want American custody. As if the choice is limited between two custodianships, as if rejecting custodianship necessarily means being under one of them. But this is the illusion of the dependent mind: that it cannot imagine existence outside the replacement equation. Jordan is not under America's custodianship. Jordan is a sovereign state that establishes alliances based on its national interests. The difference between an alliance and custody is not a difference in degree but in kind. The alliance is conducted between two sovereign states, and its boundaries end where the boundaries of the independent national decision begin. Custodianship is imposed on a state whose will is violated, only able to exit it at a steep price. Jordan has established its alliance because it served its interest, and will remain as long as it does so. And this alliance does not negate Jordan's sovereignty, and the proof is that it clearly opposed the American desire at critical moments when national interest demanded it.
What Dr. Tareq asks of us is not liberation from a custody we do not suffer, but to enter into a new custody. To replace a sovereign alliance with a dependency called "resistance". To sell the roots of the tree we are in for the shade of a tree we do not know if it will shade us or fall upon us.
And here we reach the question that Dr. Tareq did not raise, because if he had, the paradox would have been exposed: What makes this model eligible to be custodian over our sovereignty? Is it its record of oppressing its people with live bullets in every decade? Is it its people chanting "No Gaza, no Lebanon, my soul for Iran"? Is it its collaboration with Israel in Iran-Contra to strike an Arab state? Is it its negotiations with "the Great Satan" behind the table after having raised it as a slogan above it? These questions are not serving anyone. They are the duty of those who do not want to replace one master with another. "The Great Satan" for Iran is not an existential enemy, but a partner when interests align, and an enemy when they do not. And this is the same logic that it criticizes in others. Either a principle is a principle, or interests are what control. Iran alone cannot have the right to be pragmatic, while we are asked to be idealistic to the point of martyrdom.
The Jordan that Dr. Tareq insinuates with phrases about "fragile stability" and "linked interests" does not need defense. It needs understanding that geopolitics is not a choice. Jordan is a small state in one of the world's most complex regions. Its secret of survival is not in slogans, but in its ability to manage balances. It is not weakness to know the limits of your capabilities. Rather, it is the very essence of wisdom. The Arab Army does not need anyone's certification of its nationalism. It is an army with its own doctrine, history, and clearly defined enemy. When it protects the skies of Jordan, it does not defend Israel. It defends the land it stands on, and the sky that shades it, and the principle that the state has sovereignty to preserve. Anyone who reads the Jordanian Army's action as a defense of Israel either does not understand the meaning of the national army, or wants Jordan to be without an army, or wants the Jordanian Army to be a tool in the hands of others.
True resistance does not get built on the violation of others' sovereignty. The Palestinian cause is a just cause, but it is not served by turning Arab states into open battlefields for conflicts they do not control. A state that loses its sovereignty cannot help anyone, because it would have lost the ability to help itself first. We in Jordan refuse for our skies to be a passage for others' wars. We refuse for our resistance to Israel to be reduced to us becoming a playground for others. We refuse for any conditions on relinquishing our sovereignty as proof of our bias. Palestine is our cause before anyone else, and it will remain so. But the cause is not served by turning ourselves into a cause.
Dr. Tareq wants us to choose between an American custodianship we do not suffer and an Iranian custodianship we do not want. We choose what we have always chosen: a strong Jordan with its sovereignty, clear in its bias, aware of its limits, not susceptible to being anyone's playground. We rejoice when Israel is struck, far from our sky. And we do not lend our sky.
And this is not psychological disturbance. This is not dissonance. This is not fear. This is not weakness.
This is stance.
And the meaning, in the end, is not made by those who have the loudest voice, but by those who have the sentence that is not forgotten. We do not lend our sky. A single sentence. Carrying a river of meaning. And a tree of context. And a long road for those who read a hundred years later and seek the text that understood its times before they passed.
