Jordan’s Professional Unions Association will place the Israeli flag on the ground at every entrance of its offices, the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, has reported.
The decision, Haaretz said, came in response to a complaint Israel submitted to Jordan’s foreign ministry last week when Jordan’s Information Minister Jumana Ghunaimat was pictured stepping on the Israeli flag at the engineers’ union building in capital, Amman.
Israel described the photo as an “act of disrespect” and summoned the Jordanian envoy to Israel, Mohammed Hmeid, for “clarifications”.
Majed Qatarneh, spokesperson for Jordan’s foreign ministry, responded last Sunday by saying the issue was being handled through “diplomatic channels” and that it was a private building.
Union officials said the flag was affixed to the floor of the building’s entrance for several years to protest against Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and Jordan’s normalised ties with Israel.
On Wednesday, the assistant to the speaker of the House of Representatives, Ibrahim Abu al-Sayyid, thanked the professional unions for their efforts to draw Israeli flags at the entrances of trade unions throughout Jordan provinces after Ghuneimat’s incident.
Speaking two days earlier, in front of parliament, al-Sayyid promised to step on the Israeli flag at the entrances of the trade union complex, stressing that Israel is not entitled to the land of Palestine and rejecting the crimes against the Palestinian people.
The Unions’ Association, which include 14 unions with more than 180,000 members, are the country’s biggest opponents of normalisation with Israel.
The trade union complex has an oath displayed at its entrance stating its objection to Israeli normalisation, which every member of the union has to take.
Israel and Jordan signed a peace agreement in 1994, but relations have often been frosty amid differences over Israeli policies in Jerusalem, where Jordan is a custodian of Muslim sites, and over the Palestine issue.
