A Jordanian MP, Imad al-Adwan, apparently assuming his car would not be searched because of his official status as a member of Jordan’s Parliament, tried to smuggle 160 Glock pistols and 17 M16 rifles, hidden inside his car, into Israel, along with a bar of gold. He was stopped, his car was searched, the weapons and gold were found and are now on display in Israel. He is currently being held by the Israeli police. More on his capture, and on the response of the Jordanians, can be found here: “Jordanian MP’s tribe proud of his smuggling arms to Israel,” Elder of Ziyon, April 24, 2023:
In a story that was originally censored by the Israeli media, a Jordanian MP was arrested in Israel after being caught smuggling a large cache of weapons to the West Bank.
Israel may have censored the story initially because it may have been trying to determine to whom Imad al-Adwan planned to deliver the weapons, or perhaps to spare the Jordanian government any embarrassment about a member of Jordan’s Parliament being a weapons smuggler.
Imad Al-Adwan was caught smuggling 160 handguns and 17 M16 rifles at the Allenby Crossing on the Jordan River on Saturday night.
That’s a very large shipment of weapons; the mayhem and murder they might have caused in the hands of terrorists were considerable. Fortunately, right at the border, at the Allenby Crossing, the Israelis managed to interdict the smuggler’s shipment before it could even be brought int Israel, and to seize all of the weaponry. No doubt the IDF or the Israeli police will find their own uses for all those Glocks and the M16 rifles.
Adwan’s tribe in Jordan issued a statement casting doubt on the charges, but saying that they are proud of his actions.
The statement said that Adwan “has a patriotic and national spirit” who exhibits a “desperate defense of the Palestinian cause.” It stressed “our lack of confidence in the Zionist side and its narrative,” and yet says “we are all proud of our son and his actions.”
His tribe’s statement about Imad Al-Adwan tries to do two contradictory things. On the one hand, it suggests that the charges about gun-smuggling were not proven, and it was likely, in any case, that any guns the Israelis claimed to have found were in fact planted by them, in order to have an excuse to arrest Imad al-Adwan and embarrass the Jordanians. And at the same time, the statement praised Imad Al-Adwan for his “patriotic and national spirit,” which must surely be a reference to his attempted smuggling of weapons needed by the Palestinian “resistance.” The tribe to which Imad al-Adwan belongs wants to have it both ways: no, of course he is innocent of the charge of gun-smuggling, and yes, he is a true patriot exhibiting “national spirit” by smuggling those guns.
The Adwan tribe also called on the Jordanian government to make every possible effort to “restore the member of the Jordanian legislative authority from the hands of the Zionists, as soon as possible,” considering that their son “is not a representative of his constituency, but of all Jordanians.”
Other Jordanian groups likewise tried to simultaneously call Israeli officials liars while admitting that this kind of action was exactly what Adwan would do.
The Jordanian message about the smuggling is clear: “No, Imad Al-Adwan didn’t do it, but if he did do it, that’s something to be very proud of, and it certainly is the exact kind of thing that our brother Imad Al-Adwan would have done.”
The National Forum to Support the Resistance and Protect the Homeland in Jordan called for Adwan’s immediate release, saying that “despite the lack of information received, which comes from the Zionist occupier only, every Jordanian knows is that Representative Imad Al-Adwan breathes Palestinian concern and identifies with the heroics of the revolutionary Palestinian youth.”
The Jordanian group, similarly, claims that the smuggling charges come from the “Zionist occupier only,” so are likely made up out of whole cloth, and yet Imad Al-Adwan “identifies with the heroics of the revolutionary Palestinian youth.” Again, this is a denial followed by a prideful acknowledgement of what had just been denied. The Zionists made the charge of smuggling, which must be false, but Al-Adwan is certainly capable of, and would have wanted to engage in, such smuggling of deadly weapons to “revolutionary Palestinian youth.”
For its part, the Jordanian Workers Party is incensed at Israel’s breach of protocol for not honoring Adwan’s parliamentary immunity. “This procedure should not have taken place in the first place, given that the representative holds a diplomatic passport, and international norms require that his car not be searched, and his arrest is contrary to international norms.”
From what I can tell, Adwan does not benefit from diplomatic immunity for any actions done in a private capacity – and presumably the government of Jordan did not want him to smuggle weapons.
Obviously Imad Al-Adwan had been counting on his claim of diplomatic immunity to allow him to avoid being searched by the Israeli police at the Allenby Bridge checkpoint. But he was wrong. Diplomatic immunity is never absolute. If a crime is believed to have been committed by a diplomat outside his official duties, that diplomat has no immunity from a search for evidence. The Israelis had a strong belief that al-Adwan was involved in smuggling; they had a right to search his vehicle. In fact, it is doubtful that Imad al-Adwan could ever have been considered a diplomat; he appears only to have been a member of the Jordanian Parliament, not a member of the Foreign Ministry. Now he’s been caught, and he’ll remain under arrest, I suspect, until he gives the Israelis the information they seek about what Palestinians in the West Bank were supposed to take possession of the smuggled weapons. And only after the Israelis have picked up those people will they be ready to release Imad al-Adwan to Jordanian authorities. And he certainly won’t be allowed to enter Israel ever again.
commonsense says
The contradictory assertions by al-Adwan’s supporters (i.e. that the Israeli charges are likely spurious, yet they are proud of al-Adwan’s attempt at smuggling weapons) may result from the dualistic thinking instilled by the Muslims’ acceptance of the numerous blatantly contradictory passages found in the Koran, which reflected changes in Muhammed’s status and power from the beginnings of his prophethood in Mecca, where he attracted few adherents, to his eventual success as a warlord and political leader after fleeing to Medina in A.D. 622. Muslims somehow have no difficulty accepting Koranic exhortations to not physically attack nonbelievers who do not accept Islam along with passages such as 9:5, 9:29, and 9:111 which are open-ended commands to attack and kill the same unbelievers. Muslim exegetes have devised rationales for such dualistic thinking, which likely permeates Muslim thinking in general. It should be remembered, for example, that many Muslims still hold the belief that bin Laden , along with the Saudi and Egyptian hijackers involved in the 9-11 atrocities were innocent, framed by the Israelis, while these same Muslims celebrated the terrorists’ actions.