Sunday, March 31, 2013

Jews Stoned By Muslims at Temple Site in Jerusalem

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                          

King Solomon (961 BCE- 920 BCE) built our first Temple.  It was built as a shrine for the Ark of the Covenant, the sacred vessels and offerings, with a court for worshipers which was destroyed.   It had consisted of a hall, shrine and the inner sanctum, which was the "holy of holies."  The holy of holies is not mentioned in the Koran but is mentioned many times in the Torah.  For that matter, this very mosque is not mentioned  in the Koran either; only the "farthest mosque".

The holy of holies, called "devir" in Hebrew was where the ark was kept.  It had a raised floor and was windowless.  The ark  was a chest in which the 2 Tablets of the Law were kept, made of acacia wood inlaid and covered with gold.  It was held as being so sacred that even the high priest could see it only once a year on Yom Kipper, the holy day of atonement.  "When the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, he prayed for the peace of the People of Israel and the entire world." .  From the time of Moses to the Temple, the ark was taken out from the Holy of Holies also  in case of national need to lead the people on their journey and help them in battle.   Legend is that Josiah hid it when the Israelites were attacked by Babylon.   The Temple was destroyed completely by Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylon king  in 586 BCE.  

 Our 2nd Temple was rebuilt on Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem in 538-515 BCE and destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans .  Surrounding the Temple was the Western Wall, also called the Wailing Wall.  Today, part of the wall still stands in Jerusalem and it is a site where Jews go to pray.  The custom is to put slips of papers with one's prayer in between the stones of the wall.
                                                                            

The Mosque of Omar (3rd holy Muslim site) stands over the site of the Temple Mount, built after 70 CE in the Moslem Period.  It is also called the Dome of the Rock.  It was built in the center of the Temple area (al-Harim ash-Sherif_ in Jerusalem by Caliph Abd al-Malik in about 738 CE to replace the temporary structure set up by Caliph Omar a century earlier.  It is situated on the traditional site of Mt. Moriah.
                                                         
Moshe Dayan was very careful to allow Muslims the rights to the Mosque. Today the Waqf-the Islamic Religious Authority, with the agreement and cooperation of the Israeli government administer this site.   Extremist Muslims have been stopping Jews from accessing this holiest of Jewish sites in Israel.  Jews are met with attacks who try to get close to the former Temple. Jews are not the only ones wanting to visit.  Most all Christians also expect to visit this site as well.

The site was open from 11am and would reopen from 1:00pm to 2:30pm in the afternoon.  However, 30 teen-aged Arab rioters gathered around 10:30 am Sunday morning and started throwing rocks at the groups of  Jews who were touring the Temple Mount.  This day happened to be the end of the holiday of Passover.

 The Jewish group was escorted by the police as called for.  6 rioters were arrested.  There are many Jewish laws connected with how one goes up to and walks the grounds of the Temple Mount.  Because the exact location of the "holy of holies" is not known today, great care must be taken by educated, observant Jews who visit the area.

This was a serious attack during such an important religious holiday.  But this isn't the first, just one of many attacks.  On March 8th, 100 masked extremists attacked security forces by throwing rocks.  This was a Friday and it happened right after the end of Muslim prayers in the mosque.  They then threw petrol bombs at the police who had to fire back with stun guns.  Muslim women blocked the Jews.  Those injured by rocks had to be taken to the hospital.

This is Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.  Why is it that the Muslims cannot tolerate Jews who have legal rights to walk near the mosque at certain designated times as agreed with their waqf?  After all, it was the most sacred Jewish site, The Temple, in the first place.  Understanding, sensitivity that Moshe Dayan displayed is not to be given in return to the Jews?  This is deplorable for any religion.  With such a chip on their shoulder now, what would life be like with a Palestine next door as a neighbor?

Resource:  Arutz Sheva news@israelnationalnews.com, Eve of Holiday, Muslims Hurl Rocks at Jews on Temple Mount by Hana Levi Julian
http://www.jewishindy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=19423
http://www.templemountfaithful.org/Articles/golden-bell-and-a-temple-seal-found-near-temple-mount.htm
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia


Thursday, March 21, 2013

Gaza's Reminder to Obama of Their Presence: Two Qassam Rockets on Sderot

Nadene Goldfoot
On Obama's 2nd day of visiting Israel, at 7:15 am in Sderot, Quassam rockets were fired from Gaza.  What a surprise for a Thursday morning to have a rocket hit your backyard.  Another fell into an open area and about 3 others must have fallen into their own Palestinian territory.  First off, the air raid sirens went off 5 times.  .

This is certainly a break in the quiet enjoyed by the Israelis in southern Israel lately.   It's not a very nice thing to happen just before Passover.

Obama is talking to Assad who isn't all that popular in Gaza.  Could it be a message for Obama as well?

Resource:  http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4359306,00.html

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem


Nadene Goldfoot                                    
                                                                        King Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem                                                      
Another title for The Dome of the Rock is “The Mosque of Omar.  It is today a Moslem mosque built in the center of the  Jewish Temple area (al-Harim ash-Sherif) in Jerusalem by Caliph Abd al-Malik in about 738 CE to replace the temporary structure set up by Caliph Omar 100 years earlier.  It is situated on the traditional site of Mt. Moriah.

This is the site said to be the place where Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac but was stopped by G-d.  It turned out to be a test to see how far he would go to obey G-d.  It also turned out to be a lesson that he and his followers were not to sacrifice children anymore.  For that is what the Canaanites were used to doing along with the Phoenicians.  The Muslims have another story in that it was Ishmael and not Isaac that was placed on the altar.  They have a big holiday to commemorate this event.

Omar was a 2nd caliph who ruled from 634-644 CE.  He conquered Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia.  On his orders, most Jews were expelled from N. Arabia.  He is the one who made Jews into dhimmis or 2nd class citizens by having certain restrictions places on Jews.  They were excluded from public office, had to wear distinctive clothing marking them Jewish, could not built any new synagogues and other unpleasantries.  .

The Jewish Temple was first built by King Solomon of Israel who lived from 961 to 920 BCE and was the shrine to house the Ark, the sacred vessels and offerings and had a court for worshippers.  It consisted of a hall, shrine and inner sanctum (holy of holies).  It was completely destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon  in 586 BCE and rebuilt from 538-515 BCE.  This 2nd Temple was done in the periods of Simon the Just, Judah the Maccaabee, Simon the Hasmonean and Herod.  This was done when Cyrus  permitted Jews to return to Eretz Yisrael.

In the siege of Jerusalem during the Roman war in 70 CE, the Temple served as a center of military activity and was destroyed by the Romans then.  A Roman temple was later built on the site.  Since the Moslem Period the Mosque of Omar has stood there.

The only time Jerusalem is thought of is in chapter 17 of the Koran that tells about the white animal like a horse, Baraq, who carried Mohammad to the Masjid al Aqsa, the farthest Mosque.  It does not say this mosque was in Jerusalem.  Mohammad was born in 570 CE and died in 632 CE.   The soonest the temporary mosque  built by Omar would have been built was in 638 CE when Mohammad was already deceased.  Later, Anas ib Malik wrote a similar story in the Hadith calling the mosque Bait Maqdis and mentioned Jerusalem as to where the mosque was.  Anas would have been a little boy at the time of this flight, so was going by hearsay for this writing at a time that a mosque had been built over the Temple.

Notice the use of Jerusalem, a Jewish capital and the word Beit, Hebrew for house of.  He could have been a Jew who was converted to Islam.  Mohammad had married Safia, who was Jewish at birth.  The influence of Judaism was pretty strong for Mohammad, as he copied much of our history and then altered it to capture the interest of his own people.  He would have heard Jewish stories in the towns of Mecca and Medina as there were several Jewish tribes there that dealt with the Arabs.
                                                               Dome of the Rock        

Jews are not allowed to enter the Mosque.  They can give thanks to Moshe Dayan who was trying to be very Jewish and fair to the Muslims.  Jordan had to sanction anything out of the Mosque and Moshe didn't want to be like that. At the end of the 1967 War, Moshe "handed over the keys of the Temple Mount to the Waqf, the Muslim religious trust ..." The same went for the Cave of the Patriarchs.  He just hoped they wouldn't take advantage of Israel.
             
"Threatened by Arab countries, on January 5, 2012, Israeli authorities closed the Mughabri Bridge, preventing Jews and Christians from entering Temple Mount. Historically it should be noted that only under Israeli rule was the site open for everyone, Muslims, Christians and Jews. The Waqf is now attempting to deliberately destroy all archaeological evidence of Jewish claims to this site, while using terror and intimidation to impose its exclusive claim to Temple Mount."  The Temple Mount is the holiest site on earth according to Jewish tradition."  The Temple Mount means the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall.  It is the wall that had surrounded the Temple.

Resource: The Standard Jewish Encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isra_and_Mi'raj
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/geo/Mount.html
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=4154
http://www.thejerusalemconnection.us/blog/2012/01/05/moshe-dayans-colossal-blunder.html
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/163158
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Mount

Friday, March 15, 2013

SAMARIA; PAST AND PRESENT FOR JEWS; Dealing with Rock Throwing Arabs

                            A view of the Kana Nature Reserve, Karnei Shomron. In Biblical times, 
               the Kana Stream (center) divided the tribal portions of Ephraim and Manasseh.                                    
Nadene Goldfoot
Samaria,founded way after King Solomon had died in 920 BCE,  also called Shomron, Capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, founded in 880 BCE by King Omri (887-876 BCE) on a hill bought from Shemer.  It's cited in I Kings 16:24)  It fell in 721 BCE to Sargon II of Assyria.  He brought in another population while taking ours away.  It is where the ancient Jewish tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and part of Menasseh lived, Judah being the largest of the 12 tribes.  It is the very heartland of our ancient Eretz Yisrael (Israel).  Leave it to the British who held the mandate after WWI.  They did not know enough to include this territory into the National Jewish Homeland possibly because our friend, Emir Feisal, wanted to create Transjordan at the same time.  He was friendly with us as long as he got his fair share of land for having fought with the British against the Ottoman Empire.  But what a piece!  Our heartland!

"The world declares that the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria are illegal and must be destroyed and the Jews relocated. They base their claim on either the Geneva Convention, UN General Assembly Resolution 181, UN Security Council Resolution 242, or any number of other documents. The facts, however, prove otherwise. The Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria are, in fact, quite legal, under the provisions set forth in the previously mentioned documents and others, including the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine."

Are we Jews in Samaria illegally?  We think not.  "According to Eugene Rostow, a former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration, Resolution 242  gives Israel a legal right to be in the West Bank. The resolution “allows Israel to administer the territories” it won in 1967 “until 'a just and lasting peace in the Middle East' is achieved,” Rostow wrote in The New Republic (10/21/91). During the debate on the resolution, he added, “speaker after speaker made it clear that Israel was not to be forced back to the 'fragile' and 'vulnerable' [1949] Armistice Demarcation Lines.”"  Rostow is not alone.  There are many international lawyers who are in agreement with him.

"Perhaps the most significant of these decisions was the San Remo Resolution of 1920, which recognized the exclusive national rights of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel on the strength of their historical connection to the territory then known as Palestine. The outcome of this resolution was the 1922 Mandate for Palestine, an historical League of Nations document that formally established the legal right for Jews to settle anywhere in western Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. This includes  all of Judea and Samaria."

Maayana Miskin writes of an attack that happened to a Bitons, a Jewish family driving along in their car in Yakir, Samaria by rock-throwing Arabs. The town was near Ariel. Ariel  is one of 5 large cities in Samaria.  It is only 10.3 miles away from the Green Line established after the 1967 attack on Israel.  Ariel was established in 1978 and now has a population of 18,000. It is 21 miles west of the Jordan River.   "It is composed of veterans and young Israelis, English-speaking immigrants, and immigrants from the former Soviet Union with an additional influx of 10,000 students.  It is the fourth largest Jewish city in the West Bank,  Yakir is a town with 260 families and the population is about 1,300. It was developed in 1981 and is an Orthodox Jewish community about 35 km (21 miles)  east of Tel Aviv.    Their two-year-old girl was critically wounded in a rock attack  on Thursday night and remains in extremely serious condition.

The girl, Adelle Biton, was in a car along with her mother and two older sisters, 6-year-old Naama and 4-year-old Avigail.  Adelle was most seriously hurt. Her mother suffered moderate-to-serious injuries and the two  girls are in moderate condition.All four were wounded when Arab men hurled rocks at a truck traveling the opposite direction, causing it to veer off course and hit their car.

“The two-year-old toddler is in critical condition,” a doctor at Beilinson hospital said. “We aren’t giving up, we’re doing everything we can to save her. We’re optimistic.”

Just minutes before the attack in which the family was injured, terrorists carried out a similar attack targeting a car driven by a man from Eli. That attack wounded a one-year-old baby boy. The child suffered light injuries and is expected to recover.

A former MK’s wife was hurt in a third rock attack Thursday. Aviva Hazan, who lives in Ariel, was hit in the eye by broken glass when terrorists hurled stones at a bus headed for Tel Aviv, breaking its windows.
The attacks Thursday led to renewed calls for the army to take rock attacks seriously and to change the rules of engagement to encourage soldiers to fire on rock-throwers. The IDF has since arrested 10 suspects in one of the attacks.

By 1973 almost a million Arabs lived in the administered area.  640,600 of them lived in both Judea and Samaria which is 5,900 sq km or 2,270 sq miles.  The population of the areas was predominantly Moslem.  It was also called the West Bank of the Jordan, now spoken of as "West Bank" incorrectly.  Between 1948 and 1967 it was ruled by Jordan, which annexed it in 1950.  By 67 it was under Israel's administration.

Israel administered Judea-Samaria and local affairs were administered by the local population.  Open bridges on the Jordan allowed movement in either direction between the areas and the Arab States.  Arabs and Israelis, who until 1967 had lived in mutual separation and estrangement, began after 1967 to enjoy the beginnings of a peaceful and fruitful co-existence.  The hope was that this would contribute towards a transformation of Arab-Israeli relations from conflict into cooperation.

As of February 14, 2013 the Jewish population numbers 360,000 of both Judea and Samaria.  It has had its problems.    Arab leaders, Fatah and Hamas have had other ideas. They want Judea, Samaria, Gaza and East Jerusalem as their Palestine and it is to be Judenrein, free of all Jews.  They want all Jews to move out.  Yet, at the same time, Fatah is broke.  They do not have money on their own but must depend on the other Arab states to give them money.  At the same time they teach their population through schools and TV programs to hate the Israelis.  This rock throwing is a good example of the ethics they are learning.

 The rock throwers show their true goals of not accepting Israelis. However,  " Miri Maoz-Ovadia, spokesperson for the Binyamin Council, the largest council in Judea and Samaria, told Tazpit News Agency that the increase in the Jewish population growth rate is evidence of the prosperity of the region. “This prosperity has been supported by a development of joint industrial areas, shopping centers  open to all populations and an increase of tourism throughout the region. We hope that the development continues for the benefit of all residents living in Judea & Samaria.”"  Today's presence of an Arab population in Samaria should not in any way detract from the time-honored Jewish rights to this land.  

Resource: Arutz Sheva: http://www.israelnationalnews.com article by Maayana Miskin
Facts about Israel
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/settlements.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_(city)
http://emetnews.org/analysis/are_settlements_illegal.php
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/what-judea-samaria-mean-to-the-jewish-people/2013/01/17/#
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/02/14/jewish-population-in-judea-and-samaria-on-the-rise/
http://shomroncentral.blogspot.com/p/5-legal-rights-to-samaria.html

Tuesday, March 05, 2013

Farming in Land of Judea-Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza Strip Use by 1973

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                              
At the end of the Six Day War of June 1967 when all the Arab countries attacked Israel, Israel won, not only the war but was able to take over Judea and Samaria as well as East Jerusalem and Gaza.  

By September 1967 in Judaea and Samaria, over 40% of households-half of the total population-were registered as farmers.  This was an average of 30,000 men and 13,000 women, which was 39% of the region's working total.  Field crops filled 51% of all the tilled land with orchards more than 33%, vegetables about 6% and the rest was fallow.  The land under cultivation was 517,000 acres with only 4% of it irrigated.

In March 1971, Israel's Ministry of Agriculture, with their staff of 28 Israelis and 314 local employees, had a program to enhance yields, improve strains and acclimatize varieties that demanded much labor.  They worked to expand their export crops, especially in the Jordan Valley and to increase mechanization and encourage efficiency planning and instruction.

Yields of irrigated crops improved from 50% to 100%.  In the 1969/70 season, 1,000 tons of vegetables were exported.  Tobacco, babung, sesame and such industrial crops as cotton and sugar beets are now grown as well as new strains of wheat.  There is much more effective prevention of livestock ailments; cattle TB and foot and mouth disease especially.

Farmers can borrow money from the Ministry at low interest.  In 1970/71, 70,000 farmers took part in study days, demonstrations and tours.  The value of agricultural output went up from IL 135.0 million in 1967/68 to IL 227.4 million in 1970/71.  Farming income-output minus purchased input, rose from IL 113.6 million to IL 192.1 million or about 27% of the GNP.

The Gaza Strip and Northern Sinai had 50,000 acres cultivated in 1969/70 with 40% irrigated.  14% of all households were working the land, which meant 17,000 men and women or more than 1/3 of all the employed in the area.  Orchards occupied 30,000 acres.  vegetables, field crops and marrow-melon varieties were growing on the rest of the land.  Citrus was the main crop which covered 16,500 acres.  Over 6 million cases were shipped to regular markets or through the Israel Citrus Marketing Board.  3 packing plants were established; of which one was by an Israeli investor and the others by local growers.  They were expected to meet regional needs for a number of years.

The staff for this area was made up 11 Israelis and 171 local employees.  They did all they could to increase and improve crops.  Farmers were taken on tours of Israel, attended study days and visited experimental stations.  Israeli lecturers and instructors were tutored for work in the region.  They were able to see demonstration farms and 400 demonstration plots supplied seedlings and better seeds and gave practical lessons in advanced methods of production and agro-technics.  The Military Government lent many millions of pounds to hundreds of farmers.

Agricultural output went up from IL 53 million in 1967/68 to IL 106.5 million in 1970/71, and farming income rose from IL 36.3 million to IL 72.4 million.

Israel, however, was referred to as "Occupiers" by the outside world.  They must be the first occupiers in the world to try to help benefit people to learn to make a better living and learn a trade.  Israel was helping them, not harming them.  

The response was that Hamas took over Gaza forcing every single Jew out on the promise of peace for all with the result of constant shelling of rockets, missiles and mortars onto Southern Israel.  So much for farming and earning a living and feeling responsible for one's own family.  

Resource:  Facts About Israel 1973:  published by the division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem.


Sunday, March 03, 2013

Israeli Talks Centered in Istanbul

                                                                          
Nadene Goldfoot                                                     Omar Sharif in "Lawrence of Arabia": Fighting the Ottoman Empire

Turkey's Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan outraged most of the Western world by calling Zionism a "crime against humanity" at the UN.  At that moment Israeli and Palestinian Authority lawmakers were meeting with each other in Istanbul trying to re-start the peace process.  From being a friend to Israel a few years ago, he has moved towards the Muslim Brotherhood ideals.

On Friday John Kerry, the new US Secretary of State, arrived in Turkey to talk with Erdogan which included some of his strong language.  "At a press appearance in Ankara, Kerry condemned Erdogan’s comparison saying, "We not only disagree with it, we found it objectionable."

I've read an essay from a Turkish newscaster who is as loving and sweet as any young women in my own family.  She tries to answer about the antagonistic stance against Israel that her country has been displaying.  She feels there is a strong bond between the Turkish and Israeli public and hopes that the tension of the last few years is only temporary.  Most of the problem lies with the Mavi Marmara episode when this Turkish ship tried to break the blockade with this ship.  I wish she were president, as she stated that "as the Turkish nation, we want nothing more than the continuance of Israel's existence in peace and tranquility."  Perhaps that's why these meetings took place in Ankara.

Also meeting in Istanbul to discuss Obama's visit was labor MK Yitzchak Herzog. Yitzchak is the son of former president Chaim Herzog and is with the Labor party.  Netanyahu is with Likud.   He was there to speak with PA former official,  Yasser Abed Rabbo.  Neither man is a high official, so possibly took their own initiative to meet together.  Herzog was taped on Israel's Channel 10 News saying that he believes "that there is a chance for peace with their neighbors and we must not give up on it, not even for a moment.  Rabbo was a supporter of the Oslo Accords.  Yet he was promoting the false accusation that Israel had dug mass graves for 900 PA Arabs in Jenin.  He has since been removed from his post as a minister when Mahmoud Abbas took over.  Now he's just an adviser without a title.

If he's so for peace, it's crazy that Rabbo  would be so gullible as to even believe in such a terrible lie.   It's frightening how the Arabs can swallow such lies about Jews, even the intelligent ones in the seat of power. It gets back to the fact that what people would do themselves to others, they think that these others would do to them. It's  sort of like the Golden Rule.  It was not inconceivable to do this to Jews, evidently.  Our beliefs and mores are very foreign to Muslims except for the belief in one G-d. The problem lies on what that one G-d teaches the people involved.    For us to act so differently, the lessons are not understood in the same way.  Evidently this is also true with Christians who even interpret the very same doctrine otherwise.

I suggest that our government get busy and read many books on the subject of the Middle East.  I just read where Kerry read his first book about Islam which was from a very positive and flattering viewpoint.  Now he would be interested in studying about religions if he were not Secretary of State.   He should also read one I've started to read, "The Strong Horse" by Lee Smith.  It's full of insights about the Middle Eastern countries and what they admire in a culture and how they see themselves acting in it.  He's lived in the Middle East and even met Omar Sharif, the Egyptian who played the Jewish gambler, Nick Arnstein in Funny Girl, Barbra Streisand's great love. "His decision to work with co-star Barbra Streisand angered Egypt's government at the time due to Streisand's support for the state of Israel.  She happens to be Jewish. . Streisand herself responded with "You think Cairo was upset? You should've seen the letter I got from my Aunt Rose!" Sharif reprised the role in the film’s sequel, Funny Lady in 1975."  

The culture is so different from our Western culture and it's a challenge to understand this great difference.  According to Smith, Israel is not the big problem of the Islamic countries.  I hope all the talks go on well, just like talks between Barbra  and Omar  did when they worked together.  Oh, those love scenes!  .

Resource: Arutz Sheva: Israeli, PA Officials Meet in Istanbul by Chana Ya'ar
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/165798#.UTMTfqI4EaA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Herzog
The Strong Horse by Lee Smith

Saturday, March 02, 2013

Kings Abdullah I and II and Connections with Their Neighbor, Israel

Nadene Goldfoot
King Abdullah II of Jordan has been together about 4 times in the past 5 years with Prime Minister  Netanyahu of Israel with much to discuss.  They met just last week to talk about peace negotiations and the Civil War in Syria.  They were also very concerned about the chemical weapons Syria might be using soon.  This was the 2nd visit they had together in the past two months.

On May 14, 2009 they were together at the Royal Palace at Port City of Aqaba to meet and talk.  They renewed their meeting in 2010.  Netanyahu didn't extend the 10 month constuction freeze they had in the West Bank as nothing helped matters with the Palestinian Arabs.

 Golda Meir had a perilous secret meeting with King Abdullah I of Transjordan, just before the Arab invasion which was a dramatic attempt for last minute conciliation.  It was on May 10, 1948, four days before the official establishment of the state, Meir traveled to Amman disguised as an Arab woman for a secret meeting with King Abdullah  at which she urged him not to join the other Arab countries in attacking the Jews. Abdullah asked her not to hurry to proclaim a state. Meir replied: "We've been waiting for 2,000 years. Is that hurrying?"

In 1970, Israel helped Jordan by stopping the Syrians from making a move on the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan at a time when the USA was involved with Vietnam  and couldn't commit troops to protect Jordan, an Arab ally.

Jordan was the 2nd country to sign a peace treaty with Israel on October 26, 1994.  Jordanians had been entering Israel and working, then going back home to Jordan.

King Abdullah II is of the Hashemite Kingdom, a direct descendant of Muhammed through his daughter, Fatima and her husband Ali bin Abi Talib's elder son Hasan.  Ali ibn Abi Talib was also the Prophet's paternal first cousin and the 4th caliph of Islam.  Ali and Fatima had 2 sons:  Al-Hassan and Al-Hussesin.  The direct descendants of their eldest son, Hassan, are known as "Sharifs" (nobles), while the descendants of Hussein are called "Sayyids." (lords.).  The royal family of Jordan, the Hashemites, is descended through the Sharifian branch of lineage.  King Abdullah II is a descendant of Hasan, not Husain.  King Abdullah II is a Sharif."

 There are over 800 million Muslims in the world with about 5,568,565 living in Jordan and about 14 million Jews of which 6 million reside in Israel.

Resource: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-netanyahu-secretly-visited-jordan-to-discuss-peace-with-palestinians-1.506763
http://www.amuseum.org/jahf/virtour/page23.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/golda-meir
http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/islam_pillars.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashemite
http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/jordanian-israeli-relationship-reality-cooperation
Reference:  Ashir Khan