The Jerusalem Post’s Washington correspondent, Wolf Blitzer, was dropped at the last moment from U.S. Vice President George Bush’s party visiting the Middle East this week, although Blitzer is an American citizen and an accredited White House correspondent.
Bush arrived in Jerusalem Sunday at the start of a four-day visit to Israel after which he will be going on to Jordan, Egypt and possibly Morocco.
Blitzer, who also writes for several other newspapers, was told that he could not accompany the Vice President as he would not be welcome in Jordan.
The reporter, who had originally been invited by Bush to join his entourage, had received a visa to Jordan personally signed by the Jordanian Ambassador to Washington, who had given Blitzer his “strong assurances” of a welcome in Amman.
Only a few hours before the trip, Blitzer was informed by Stephen Hart, Assistant Press Secretary to the Vice President, that Hart had been told during his preparatory trip to Amman that Blitzer would not be welcome because he would be writing about the trip for an Israeli paper, The Jerusalem Post.
POINT HAD BEEN CLARIFIED
Blitzer, however, says that he had personally clarified this point with the Jordanian Ambassador to the U.S., Mohammed Kamal, who himself had cleared the problem with Jordan’s Foreign Minister Taher El Masri.
Blitzer had accepted a Jordanian suggestion that he should present himself as a syndicated columnist although, according to Kamal, “everyone in Jordan” knew that he was the Post’s Washington correspondent and that his articles would appear in that paper.
After Bush’s rejection of Blitzer, the Ambassador received an assurance from the press spokesman at the Royal Palace in Amman that the reporter “would indeed be welcome.” However, in a subsequent conversation with Hart, Blitzer was told that the U.S. Embassy in Jordan had also informed the Vice President that Blitzer would not be welcome, and that his rejection from the travel party was final.
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