Ammonites, Part II; Ancient People From Lot, Nephew of Abraham

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                           

The Ammonites also lived in what is today's Jordan, coming from Lot; nephew of Abraham.  Their capital was called Rabbath Ammon, which is where modern Amman sits.  Being related to Abraham, they were also a Semitic tribe related to the Israelites.  That's the tribe Abraham had come from.  They developed throughout the 13th to 8th centuries BCE, then declined and were finally absorbed into other Arab tribes.
                                                                             

Statue of Ammonite King 

When the Israelites reached their goal after 40 years of traveling from Egypt to Canaan, they occupied it, but were often attacked by the Ammonites.  It took the Israelite leaders of Jephthah, an Israelite judge living in Gilead where the Ammonites had threatened his people,  and King Saul to finally defeat them.  Jephthah also had to fight against the Ephraimites who were one of the 12 tribes and therefore cousins, but they didn't like his leadership.  Jephthah did a deplorable thing by today's standards.  Before he went out to fight the Ammonites, he made a vow, which was something very sacred in those days.  He vowed to sacrifice whatever came first from his home if he returned safely. "Whatever emerges---what will emerge from the doors of my house---toward me when I return in peace from the Children of Ammon, it shall belong to Hashem and I shall offer it up as an elevation-offering."   What a way to pray for safe-keeping!  He probably thought some animal would appear.  Instead, it was his only daughter, his only child!  Judg. 11:30-12-5 telling that she consented to the ordeal  for her father's vow to be accepted.  He saw her and tore his clothes in shock and said, "Alas, my daughter!  You have brought me to my knees, and you have joined those who trouble me.  I have opened my mouth to Hashem and I cannot recant!"  She replied, "Let this thing be done for me:  Let me be for 2 months, and I shall go and wail upon the mountains and weep over my virginity, I and my friends."  He released her for 2 months. and then she returned to him.  She never knew a man.  She was not killed in sacrifice as human sacrifice was not allowed, but lived in seclusion all her life and she devoted herself to prayer.  After this, from year to hear the daughters of Israel would go to lament with the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, 4 days of the year.
                                                                   

King David (1010 BCE-970 BCE) fighting against the Moabites and Ammonites

 King David annexed their kingdom into Israel but they regained their independence and after King Solomon died in 920 BCE, they attacked the newer kingdom of Judah on many occasions.  Judah's first king was Rehoboam (933-917 BCE).a son of King Solomon.  Rehoboam had an Ammonite wife, Naamah!  Out of the 12 tribes, only Judah, Simeon and most of Benjamin were loyal to him.  Rehoboam had refused to lower Solomon's taxes on the people, so the nation of Israel split into Judah, named for the largest tribe following the king, and Israel then got Jeroboam (933-912) as their king, who was an Ephraimite.  He had been a superintendent of forced labor during King Solomon's days, and later led a revolt against Solomon's monarchy because of the taxation and forced labor.
                                                                           

Abram and Lot, his nephew, son of Abram's brother, Haran.  He had made the journey
with Abram from Aram-Naharaim to Canaan.  They parted company when their shepherds
quarreled with each other over pasture land for their sheep.  Lot settled in Sodom
but was captured by 5 kings who had attacked it.  It took Abram to rescue him with his men.
While he was drunk one night after losing his wife, his daughters took advantage of him to have sex,
thinking there were no other men in the world, and they had sons, Ammon and Moab.  This
explains why these 2 tribes were so cantankerous to the tribe of Israel.

After the destruction of the 1st Temple of Solomon in 586 BCE by the Babylonians, the king of Ammon, Baalis, instigated the murder of Gedaliah, the governor of Judah from a noble Jewish family to weaken Judah even more. Gedaliah had been appointed by the Babylonians.  Gedaliah was murdered by his own commander, Ishmael ben Nethaniah and his followers.  They had been planning a revolt against Babylon along with their neighboring peoples.  This caused Gedaliah's own supporters to flee for their lives to Egypt.  Actually, Gedaliah's murder, even though he was selected by the Babylonians, was bad for the Jews because it dashed any hope of holding the Jewish community together after the Babylonian conquest.   When the Israelites finally returned from Babylon, Ammonites joined Judah's enemies and Tobiah the Ammonite supported Sanballat in his opposition to Nehemiah, the next governor of Judah in 444 BCE.  His record was that he had been the cupbearer to the Persian king, Artaxerxes I.  It was Artaxerxes who appointed him governor of Judah .  On reaching Jerusalem, he organized the repair of its walls, completed in 52 days which was miraculous considering the builders were bothered by interference by neighboring peoples.  He was a great governor and even worked on social reforms.  He got people to start observing the Sabbath again from a lapse of negligence.  The law of cancelling debts owed by the poor was brought back.  After all, it had been 142 years that the Jews were taken out of Judah as slaves by the foreign and very different Babylonians who had been led by Nebuchadnezzer.

Found in Tel Siran (Tell Hesban) in Jordan is this metal bottle telling about King Amminadab II of Ammon. It is 5.6 miles  North of Madaba.  When the Israelites arrived in Canaan, they assigned this land which is east of the Jordan River to their tribe of Reuben.  

                                                                                 

During the Hasmonean rising, the Ammonites aided the Syrian forces, but Judah the Maccabee defeated them in 163 BCE.  Judah was the hero in the Jewish Chanukah story celebrated in December today.
                                                                                 

Ammon Citadel in Jordan's capital dating to Ammonite days 

Excavations have been done in Jordan show that the Ammonites had a developed kingdom with fortified frontiers, artistic tastes and advanced agriculture.  They worshipped fertility gods, the chief being Milkom.  Their religion was much the same as the Moabites who also had an adjoining kingdom that is now part of Jordan.  Being they were from Lot, DNA testing would probably not be able to tell if they were Moabites or Ammonites.
                                                                                       

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The Hashemite tribe from Saudi Arabia now live in Jordan as of 1921.  " The family belongs to the Dhawu Awn, one of the branches of the Hasanid Sharifs of Mecca – also referred to as Hashemites – who ruled Mecca continuously from the 10th century until its conquest by the House of Saud in 1924. Their eponymous ancestor is Hashim ibn Abd Manaf, great-grandfather of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad (570-632). . 
                                                                                     

On the left is Emir; then King Feisal, friend to Jewish leaders; and
on the right is King Abdullah Ist-brothers.  

The current dynasty was founded by Sharif Hussein ibn Ali. One of his sons was the first king of Transjordan, Abdullah I.  "His sons Abdullah and Faisal assumed the thrones of Jordan and Iraq in 1921. The land had been already promised to be the Jewish Homeland by the British, who went back on their word to the Jews in making this deal to take place after World War I. 

"In fact, under Hashemite control east Jerusalem was restored to rubble. Jewish shrines and cemeteries were sacked, torched, and defiled and access to Jews was forbidden and severely restricted for Christians."  Jordan attacked Israel with other neighboring states  in 1967 and lost.  They lost land on the Western side of the Jordan River this way to Israel, which is referred to as the "West Bank."  It is actually the side of the original Israel and Judah!!  Jews now live there as well as the many Arabs calling themselves Palestinians.  What they really are are people who entered around 1880 following Russian Jews making aliyah at that time who were escaping from more pogroms.  These "Palestinians"  came from near and far; all Muslims, with only a few being native Palestinians, meaning people who had migrated there after the Roman attacks and occupation of Jerusalem and war with the Jews in 135 CE when the Romans decided to call the land Palestine in order to wipe out the memory of Israel and Judah.  .  
                                                                            

Queen Rania of Jordan b: August 31, 1970 in Kuwait.
then resettled in 1991 in Amman, Jordan during Gulf War.  

"The Umayyads, who were fair to the Jews when they invaded them after 661 ,  were of the same tribe as the Hashemites, but a different clan.  They were defeated in 750, Since 1999,  Jordan is being ruled by Abdullah II, grandson of Abdullah I.  He  married in 1993  a woman said to be a Palestinian, Queen Rania.  She was born in Kuwait.  Her father was a doctor, and he and his wife were Palestinians from Judea/Samaria  who had moved to Kuwait.  

Reference:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Tanach; The Stone Edition (Bible)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashemites
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-hashemites-in-palestine-a-royal-scam-that-keeps-on-scamming
Textbook: Middle East, Past & Present by Yahya Armajani, Thomas M. Ricks; used by Portland State U.
http://www.biography.com/people/queen-rania-23468#synopsis 

Glaring Facts About Jordan

Jordan

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

Emir Abdullah I of Transjordan April 11, 1921 to May 25, 1946;  then King Abdullah I of Jordan April 3, 1949.  He established the Hashemite Kingdom.  Born February 1882, he died  July 20, 1951 at age 69.  

He was assassinated. "Abdullah, while visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, was shot dead by a Palestinian from the Husseini clan." That would be the clan of Haj Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who went against Emir Feisal in accepting Jews back and creating their own state.  His name was "Mustafa Shukri Ashshu, a 21-year-old tailor in the Old City.   During the Arab-Jewish war he was a member of the "dynamite squad" attached to the Arab irregular forces which were associated with the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem and became bitter enemies of Abdullah."

Because of Abdullah I's help in World War I, the Brits, who held the mandate over Palestine, detached 80% of the land earmarked for the Jewish Homeland and gave it to him in 1921. " 

A British Transjordan memorandum  stated that the Mandate east of the Jordan River would be excluded from all the provisions dealing with Jewish settlement west of the Jordan River. "  This was the deal they had made with Abdullah.    Abdullah called it Transjordan.  It incorporated all of Palestine east of the Jordan River.  It was done so that the Emir Abdullah, whose family had been defeated in tribal warfare on the Arabian peninsula, would have a kingdom to replace the one he lost.
                                                                                 

Another famous  view of King Abdullah I, King of Jordan

In the War of Independence of 1948, Jordan invaded along with the other countries and they occupied east Jerusalem.  Their army drove thousands of Jews--whose families had lived in the city for centuries---into exile.  The UN partition plan, including its proposal that Jerusalem be internationalized, had been overtaken by events.   The Arab refusal brought about Jerusalem's status.   From 1948 to 1967 Jordan maintained a state of war with Israel and Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan.  Jerusalem became 2 armed camps with concrete walls and bunkers, barbed-wire fences, minefields and other military fortifications.

 In his memoirs, Abdullah wrote: " It is made quite clear to all, both by the map drawn up by the Simpson Commission and by another compiled by the Peel Commission, that the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping. "  True, Arabs that owned any piece of land were more than happy to make a huge profit on it by selling it to Jews who were willing to pay exorbitant prices for it.  Even King Abdullah leased land to the Jews.  In fact, many leaders of the Arab nationalist movement, including members of the Muslim supreme Council, sold land to Jews.
                                                                       
In 1948 he annexed the eastern part of Cisjordan (Judea and Samaria-which he named the West Bank).  This section had been designated by the UN as a separate state.  Then he proclaimed the Kingdom of Jordan with himself as king.  That's why he had helped Britain fight against the Ottoman Empire in the first place.  He wanted a kingdom.  He was a descendant of Mohammad, he claimed, "through Mohammad's daughter, Fatima and her husband who was Mohammad's cousin, Ali the 4th."   The Hashemites didn't have a big population at this time, about the same as the Jews.  Why they got 80% of Palestine is beyond me.  The land of Palestine was to be the Homeland of the Jews, so they were left with only 20% mainly along the coast and mostly desert land.

It seems that his grandson does carry the J1 haplogroup some Arabs carry that is so close to matching the Cohen gene.

We know of the Palestinian refugee problem.  The Arabs followed their leaders' advice of leaving their homes and going to a safer place since they were attacking the day old Israel.  Even King Abdullah blamed Palestinian leaders for the refugee problem:  "  The tragedy of the Palestinians was that most of their leaders had paralyzed them with false and unsubstantiated promises that they were not alone;  that 80 million Arabs and 400 million Muslims would INSTANTLY and MIRACULOUSLY come to their rescue.  

What had happened was that panic had spread throughout Palestine, and the early trickle of refugees became a flood, numbering more than 200,000 by the time the provisional government declared the independence of the State of Israel.  The native Arab population lacked leaders who could calm them;  their spokesmen, such as the Arab Higher Committee, were operating from the safety of neighboring states and did more to arouse their f ears than to pacify them.

In one instance, the commander of Arab troops in Safed went to Damascus for safety.  The following day, his troops withdrew from the town.  The residents had realized that they were defenseless and had fled in panic.  They had been fed all sorts of lies about Jews and what they would do to them. " These same Arabs had thought that they would win in an attack against the Jews and that they would win in less than the twinkling of an eye and that it would take no more than a day or two from the time the Arab armies crossed the border until all the colonies were conquered and the Jews would throw down their arms and cast themselves on their mercy."

King Abdullah considered the Palestinian Arabs and Jordanians one people.  By 1950 he annexed Samaria and Judea and forbade the use of the term Palestine in official documents.

Samaria and Judea were never legally part of Jordan.  It was to have been part of an independent Arab state in western Palestine according to the UN's 1947 partition plan.  But the Jordanian army invaded and occupied it during the 1948 war.  Only 2 governments, Great Britain (of course) and Pakistan (?) formally recognized the Jordanian takeover.  The rest of the world, including the USA, never did.  Then from 1950 to 1967, Jordan permitted terrorists to launch raids into Israel.  When Jordan lost this land in 1967, they were supporting the Egyptian dictator, Gamal Abdel Nasser.
                                                                         

King Talal, Abdullah's son ruled from 1951 to 1952 and then abdicated due to his health.  He was born February 26, 1909 and died July 7, 1972 at age 63.
                                                                       

King Hussein in 1997, son of Talal, b: November 14, 1935-d: February 7, 1999.  He ruled from August 11, 1952 after his father abdicated till death.  

From 1952 the country of Jordan was ruled by his grandson, Hussein. Jordan was the only Arab country to welcome the Palestinians and grant them citizenship.  Jordan was the only Arab country where Palestinians as a group could  become citizens.   Many Jews have realized that Jordan is a state of Palestinian Arabs because of this fact.

In 1956 Jordan joined Egypt and Syria with Nasser in command of all 3 armies and attacked Israel in another war, signing on October 25th by blockading the Suez Canal and Gulf of Aqaba to shipping.  Israel attacked October 29, 1956.  The Arabs had blockaded this against all laws for 6 years and was in violation of the Armistice Agreement. (p. 60 in M & F)

The PLO was founded June 2, 1964 in Jerusalem, actually created by the Arab League with Arafat as leader.  Terrorist groups were set up in Jordan and Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.  All of them received varying degrees of support from the host governments.  Then they mushroomed after the Six-Day War of 1967.

 In 1967, Hussein entered the Six-Day War against Israel along with all the other states but his army was defeated and Israel took over Judea and Samaria.  Israel had begged him not to attack.  Jordan attacked the western part of Jerusalem anyway.  Within several days, the IDF had routed the Jordanians and drove them out of east Jerusalem.  The city is now united as one.   Samaria was the original Empire of  Israel where their capital was Samaria, and now the whole piece is labeled as Samaria.  Judea was the land allotted by Joshua for the tribe of Judah, the largest of the 12 tribes with the capital of Jerusalem.

After the Six-Day War, the Israelis found public school textbooks that had been used to educate Arab children in Judea and Samaria.  They were full of racist and hateful portrayals of Jews:  Such lies were--

1. The Jews are scattered to the the ends of the earth, where they live exiled and despised, since by their nature they are vile, greedy and enemies of mankind.
2. By their nature they were tempted to steal a land as asylum for their disgrace.
3. We shall expel all the Jews from the Arab countries.
4. Jews of our time are the descendants of the Jews who harmed the Prophet Muhammad.  They betrayed him, they broke the treaty with him and joined sides with his enemies to fight him.
      (This refers to a battle fought that has been thrown in my face by some of my Muslim friends as well, so          many use this as a reason to hate us.  They forget that they converted Jews in Saudi Arabia with the             sword and had killed whole tribes of Jews in the act.)
5. The Jews in Europe were persecuted and despised because of their corruption, meanness and treachery.
      ( I note that they use facts and then distort it with their idea of as to why things happened. No doubt                 Europeans thought the same things.)  

Because Israel was defending itself from aggression in the 1948 and the 1967 wars, international legal scholar Steven Schwebel wrote, "Israel  has a better  claim to sovereignty over Jerusalem than that of its Arab neighbors."  

Moshe Dayan left the Temple Mount in Jordan's hands after the 1967 War, mostly to keep the peace between the two states.  Muslim rights on the Temple Mount, the site of 2 major mosques, have not been infringed.  Although it is the holiest site in Judaism, Israel has left the Temple Mount under the control of Muslim religious authorities who will not let Jews close.  It they are seen moving their lips in prayer, they get arrested.  Yet it is the site of the First and Second Temples.  

In September 1970,  Hussein expelled the PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION (PLO)  from his country. The term Black September (Arabic: أيلول الأسود‎; aylūl al-aswad) refers to the Jordanian Civil War that began in September 1970 and ended in July of 1971. It was a war between Arafat's PLO and Jordan's army under King Hussein.  "The civil war sought to determine if Jordan would be ruled by the Palestine Liberation Organisation or the Hashemite Monarchy.  In other words, the PLO had tried a take-over.   The war resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, the vast majority Palestinian.   Armed conflict ended with the expulsion of the PLO leadership and thousands of Palestinian fighters to Lebanon. 

Israel was most helpful in 1970 when the USA asked for help in bolstering King Hussein's regime.  Israel was willing to aid Amman, and movement of troops to the Jordanian border persuaded Syria to leave the tanks it had sent into Jordan to support the PLO forces. during Black September.  The Soviets also saw that all the squadron leaders of the 6th Fleet landed in Israel to coordinate activities.  

Between June 1967 and September 1970, the Jordanian army and the Palestinian terrorist organization collaborated in an attempt to harass Israel from Jordanian territory:  Israeli villages in the Jordan Valley were frequently shelled and terrorists tried to infiltrate into Israeli-held territory.  By 1970, Israel closed the Jordan cease fire line almost hermetically.  Terrorist activities inside Israeli-controlled areas grew less and almost disappeared as they couldn't establish bases inside those areas.  Since the Jordanian army crushed the PLO groups, the Jordanian front had been quiet.  

The Yom Kippur War of October 6, 1973 was a surprise attack on Israel on their holiest day when they were fasting, from Egypt and Syria.  Jordan also sent two armored brigades and three artillery units to support the Syrians, but their participation in the war was not done with vast enthusiasm – probably because King Hussein of Jordan had not been kept informed of what Egypt and Syria planned.

In 1977, a Jordanian teachers' manual for 1st graders used in Samaria and Judea instructed educators to "implant in the soul of the pupil the rule of Islam that if the enemies occupy even one inch of the Islamic lands, jihad (holy war) becomes imperative for every Muslim.  It also says that the Jews plotted to assassinate Muhammad when he was a child.  

In  1982, a social studies book said that Israel ordered the massacre of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila, but does not mention the Christian Arabs who were the perpetrators.  

Later he reconciled with Arafat, their leader.  Hussein also acted as a protector of  Judea and Samarian Arabs, but in 1988 announced that he was withdrawing from this role and leaving it to the PLO.  He was allowing them to administer their own people.

In 1990 it was shown that Jordan  voted against  the USA 83% of the time at the UN.  Israel voted with the USA 88% of the time, being America's top UN ally.  In 1991, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon voted against Israel in the UN and voted to retain a resolution against her as did Saudi Arabia.  The Arabs were voting to impugn the very birthright of the Jewish State.  

Jordan had modernized its armed forces in recent years, and had them stationed all along its border with Israel during the Gulf conflict of Aug 2, 1990 to February 28, 1991.  Jordan had built up its arms inventories and now boasts one of the Arab world's most modern arsenals to go along with the most professional officer corps in the Arab world.  During the Gulf War, King Hussein went along with the Iraqis, arousing suspicions in Israel about his willingness to again join an eastern front.  

However, Jews were never permitted to live in Jordan.  Civil Law #6, which governed the Jordanian-occupied Judea-Samaria, states explicitly:  "Any man will be a Jordanian subject if he is not Jewish."  They have been as anti-Semitic as the other Arab states.  
                                                                                       

A peace treaty was signed on  October 26, 1994 between Jordan and Israel.  "The treaty guaranteed Jordan the restoration of its occupied land (approximately 380 square kilometers), as well as an equitable share of water from the Yarmouk and Jordan rivers. Moreover, the treaty defined Jordan’s western borders clearly and conclusively for the first time, putting an end" to the " claim that “Jordan is Palestine.”  Jordanians look at this claim as dangerous and false. Only half of the population are Palestinians, not all.  


                                                                           

King Abdullah II, son of Hussein-King on February 7, 1999 at father's death.  He was born on January 30, 1962, age 53 today.  

King Abdullah II's own position was delicate as his major support is derived from the Bedouin tribesmen of his country while a majority of its inhabitants are Palestinians.  He even married a Palestinian girl, Rania al Yassin.  They have 2 boys and 2 girls. He has stated that he doesn't want anymore Palestinians to enter Jordan.

Queen Rania of Jordan, parents Palestinian Arabs living in Kuwait, born August 31, 1970, now 45.  

The country had a population of over 2 million of whom 85% were Moslem Arabs.  The capital of Jordan is Amman.  The population has gone up to 5,568,565 with 95% being Sunni Muslims.  Islam is a state religion.  Their military power of active troops numbered 100,700 at this point. In 2013 their population was figured at 6.459 million, probably comparable to Israel today.  Half the population are Palestinians.  The Hashemites have descended from " mostly  village-dwellers and Bedouins originating in the Arabian Peninsula

One of the principal backers of Jordan since World War II has been the USA. An emergency loan of US$150 million dollars, approved in July 2013, helped affected households maintain access to healthcare services and basic household goods. Through the World Bank, they have loaned  Jordan 500 million dollars for 2  Development Policy loans.  Jordan has been hurting from taking in so many refugees from Syria and creating camps, and this will help.  Last I heard was that they will not take Syrian men into Jordan proper, but will their mothers if they are staying with relatives as  women are pretty safe.

"Both the Jordanian government (in the Treaty of Peace) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (in its various agreements with Israel) declared the end of hostilities between themselves and Israel. These instruments are unequivocal. (The PLO has already gone against this, since equivocal means having  uncertain nature and they have broken this agreement by siding with Hamas who are determined to destroy Israel and kill Jews.)    In Jordan's case, we find that

Peace is hereby established between the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan ... . They ... will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other and will settle all disputes between them by peaceful means.

The king's statements set the tone for other members of the government, which maintains active and public contacts with Israelis. For example, the Jordanian ambassador, Marwan Mu‘ashir told the Israel lobby in May 1998, that his government "is committed to a full peace with Israel ... . Jordan is committed to continuously addressing the Israeli public with a clear message of peace, regardless of agreement or differences with the sitting government in Israel."  The state-controlled radio and television reinforce the positive messages of the leaders."

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, Jordan.
1. Myths and Facts-a concise record of the Arab-Israeli conflict by Drs Mitchell G. Bard, Joel Himelfarb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September_in_Jordan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Rania_of_Jordan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_II_of_Jordan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_kings_of_Jordan
http://www.princehamzah.jo/english/the-hashemite-family/
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#gs_ssp=eJzj4tTP1TcwKrJIygAADOECtQ&q=queen+rania+of+jordan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Jordan
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/yom_kippur_war_of_1973.htm
http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/peacetreaty.html
http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/jordan/overview#2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_I_of_Jordan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War
http://www.meforum.org/474/can-arabs-make-peace-with-israel