Jordanian king's political advisor quits his post
The Jordanian news agency, Petra, said on Wednesday that Jordan's King Abdullah Bin al-Hussein has accepted the resignation of his political advisor, Adnan Abu Odeh, who is considered the most remarkable Jordanian politician of Palestinian origin and who calls for equality in basic rights for the citizens of the kingdom, of whom the Palestinians constitute more than one half.
Abu Odeh, who was appointed to his post in 1998 during the reign of the late Jordanian King Hussein Bin Talal, told the press on Wednesday in Amman that his resignation came "only for having rest and calm" and that quitting his post of office "is not connected to any political reasons."
He added, "I have chosen withdrawal and returning back to the life of retirement I used to live before I was appointed as a political advisor for his majesty the king."
This resignation is the third at the Jordanian royal palace this year after the resignation of the former chairman of the royal court, Abdul Karim al-Kabareiti, and the director of strategic studies unity at the royal palace, Salamah Naamat. The two men justified their resignations as due to differences with Jordanian Prime Minister Abdul Raouf al-Rawabdeh.
However, observers in Amman say that the resignation of Abu Odeh, who calls for consolidating the concept of citizenship in Jordan dealing with its citizens and realizing equality regardless of the origin of citizens, falls in the course of several "withdrawals" made by "first line political decision making men in the kingdom after they have become hopeless of having political reform and their failure to achieve optimum political openness in the country in confrontation of the conservative trend which dominates the government and the parliament."
At the beginning of this year, Abu Odeh issued a book under the name "Jordanians and Palestinians and the Hashimite Kingdom" in which he reviewed the history of Jordanian- Palestinian relations on the internal and external levels and the intermingling of the identity between the two peoples.
He warned against a policy of discrimination pursued by the state against its citizens of Palestinian origin, asserting that the division of works in the higher posts in the state of Jordan are subjugated to regional basics and not to qualification criterion.
Abu Odeh, had held high-ranking political posts in Jordan since the 1980s. He was appointed as minister of information and then minister for the royal palace before he was appointed as Jordan's permanent representative at the UN at the beginning of the 1990s.