JORDANIANS NOTE THAT STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH

C O N F I D E N T I A L AMMAN 000688

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/27/2014
TAGS: PREL KPAL IS JO KTER
SUBJECT: JORDANIANS NOTE THAT STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH
DOES NOT ADDRESS MEPP

REF: AMMAN 629

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires David Hale for Reasons 1.5 (b),(d)


1. (U) President Bush's state of the union address has
received substantial coverage in all major dailies. While
many of these reports were mostly factual in nature, several
prominent articles highlighted the absence of references to
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as well as the Democrats'
criticism of the speech. The day following the address, one
Arabic daily, for example, included a front-page title line
stating, "U.S. President ignores the Palestinian issue in his
state of the union address," while another daily's front-page
report read, "The Democrats and the American press criticize
Bush's state of the union address."


2. (C) Outside of the media, there was little public
reaction to the President's speech. When PolCouns asked
vocal MP Mamdouh Al-Abbadi (East Banker, Amman-3rd District)
for his view on the address, he opined that President Bush's
failure to mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict did not
bode well for the peace process. He jokingly expressed
relief, however, that the President had not named any new
"evil" countries for a possible future U.S. invasion.


3. (C) Similarly, the head of the International Relations
Committee in the Jordanian Senate, Fawwaz Abul Ghanam,
expressed disappointment to PolCouns that President Bush had
not mentioned the Palestinian issue, asserting that this
proves the U.S. has walked away from the peace process. Dr.
Duried Mahasneh, a former government official who helped
negotiate Jordan's peace treaty with Israel, told PolOff that
he was disheartened by the speech's exclusion of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and opined that President Bush
was not going to apply any pressure upon Israel to implement
its roadmap obligations during a U.S. election year.


4. (C) COMMENT: The lack of public evidence of forward
movement in the peace process, combined with the absence of
any mention of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in President
Bush's state of the union address, has left many Jordanians
wondering whether the U.S. is truly committed to
implementation of the roadmap. The return of John Wolf to
the region and renewed U.S. diplomatic engagement could help
counter these doubts. End Comment.

Visit Embassy Amman's classified web site at
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman or access the site
through the State Department's SIPRNET home page.
HALE