Only days before the scheduled signing of an Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, a 24-year-old tourist holding dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship was stabbed and lightly hurt in Amman, Jordan.
Israel Radio reported Sunday that David Friedman was on a bus in Amman when he told a fellow passenger he was visiting from Israel.
A third passenger overheard him, drew a knife and stabbed him in the back. Friedman was treated at a local hospital before being released.
In July, Israel and Jordan signed the Washington Declaration, officially ending their 46-year formal state of war. As part of the agreement, third-country nationals, including Israelis with a second citizenship, were allowed to travel between the two countries.
With the formal signing of an Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, nationals from the two sides will be able to visit each other’s countries by the end of the month.
In the first three months following the signing of the treaty, the number of people allowed to cross over from each side will be limited to 550 people per day, according to Fayez Tarawneh, the chief Jordanian negotiator in the talks with Israel. Businesspeople and journalists will not be included in the quota, he said.
The attack on Friedman came as members of Jordan’s Islamic Action Front Party voiced their opposition to the peace pact with Israel and said they would boycott President Clinton’s scheduled address before the Jordanian Parliament on Wednesday.
The party, which has 16 seats in Jordan’s 80-seat Parliament, accused Clinton of animosity toward the Arab world and of “legitimizing the Zionist occupation of Palestine,” according to a party statement.
The majority of members of the Jordanian Parliament are centrists who reportedly back Jordanian King Hussein’s peace moves with Israel.
In a separate development in the West Bank town of Hebron. Israeli security forces shot and killed a Palestinian on Sunday after he stabbed and lightly wounded an Israeli soldier in central Hebron.
Palestinian sources said the assailant was Nidal Tamimi, 24, whom they said was the brother of Ahmed Tamimi, head of the Interior Office for the Palestinian Authority.
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