After casting doubt last month on the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists in Israeli border towns and reports of children being slaughtered and beheaded, Queen Rania of Jordan on Monday criticized Israel and the support it receives from U.S. President Joe Biden.
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In an interview with CNN, Rania addressed antisemitism, claiming that the accusation has been lobbed at critics of Israel in recent years to silence them.
“Let me be very, very clear. Being pro-Palestinian is not being antisemitic, being pro-Palestinian does not mean you’re pro-Hamas or pro-terrorism,” Rania told CNN’s Becky Anderson on Sunday.
“I want to absolutely and wholeheartedly condemn antisemitism and Islamophobia…but I also want to remind everyone that Israel does not represent all the Jewish people around the world. Israel is a state and is alone responsible for its own crimes.”
Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden expressed doubt about the casualty figures published by the Hamas Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip. Rania told CNN that the U.S. president's skepticism was standard "Israeli propaganda."
The queen also called for a cease-fire in Gaza, saying that claims a truce will enable more Hamas attacks is "endorsing and justifying" the killing of civilians.
Rania also addressed Israel's call for residents of the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate southward, stating that the claim that Israel is trying to protect Gazan civilians is "an insult to one’s intelligence." Rania noted that she does not believe the evacuation calls were meant to benefit Gazans, but rather to legitimize Israel's actions in Gaza.
“When 1.1 million people are asked to leave their homes or risk death, that is not a protection of civilians, that is forced displacement,” she told Anderson.
In her previous interview with CNN, Rania cast doubt on reports Hamas terrorists beheaded Israeli children. "The U.S. president said he had evidence, that he had seen evidence that children's heads had been decapitated, only to retract it later because the IDF said there was no proof of this. This is confirmation bias," said the Kuwaiti-born queen of Palestinian origin.
"Even on CNN, at the beginning of the conflict, there was a headline that reported on Israeli children found slaughtered in an Israeli kibbutz. It was not independently verified. Would you publish something that was not verified that came from the Palestinians?" she questioned.
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour interrupted the queen and pointed out that there was proof. "Queen Rania, I have to stop you, because there were pictures that the Israelis and our journalists who were there showed. I'm not talking about beheadings, I'm talking about bodies of babies full of bullets," she said.
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Jordanian Air Force air-drops medical aid to Gaza
(Photo: Reuters, JORDAN ARMED FORCES/Handout)
Meanwhile, Jordan's air force personnel air-dropped urgent medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza early on Monday, according to a post on X from Jordan's king and state media.
"A royal air force plane dropped urgent medical aid using parachutes to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza whose supplies were about to run out due to the delay of delivering aid through Rafah crossing", Jordan's state news agency said citing a military source in the General Command of the Jordanian Armed Forces. Israeli officials said that the aid was delivered in coordination with Israeli authorities.
Jordan last week recalled its ambassador to Israel and told the Israeli ambassador to stay away in protest at the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, saying the attacks had killed innocents and caused a humanitarian catastrophe.