Jordan And The Water Wars

   I took notes in shorthand to back up the tape, finishing the sentence before I looked up into Saunders’ blue-eyed, frank stare. ‘What’s the scale of the problem?’ I asked.

   ‘Massive. Jordan has one of the world’s lowest levels of water resources. The country’s supply stands at less than a quarter of the accepted global water poverty level. And a huge amount, something like twenty-five per cent of that water, is currently coming from over-pumping unsustainable resources. Experts are forecasting the water supply will be a potential humanitarian disaster within fifteen years or so. Personally, I think it’ll come sooner.’

   ‘What’s the government doing?’

   Saunders reached behind him and pulled out a thick, spiral bound document. ‘This is the National Water Strategy. It was adopted in the late nineties and outlined any number of approaches to the problem but at the end of the day it didn’t result in concrete action. That’s one of the reasons the Ministry of Natural Resources was formed, to unify the government’s response. And that’s why they’re going into this privatisation process. It’ll likely be the single largest privatisation the country’s ever seen. It’s critical to Jordan’s future.’

   Saunders paused and some journalistic instinct in me sensed the inevitable spiel to come. I wasn’t disappointed. He laid his hands flat on the desk and leaned forwards, brows knit in intense sincerity. ‘And we at Anglo-Jordanian believe we have the solutions Jordan needs.’

Olives, Page 60

Paul’s interview with the manager at the potash extraction works on the Dead Sea, Clive Saunders, is where the water issue starts to become a prominent element of Olives - A Violent Romance. As I pointed out in my last post, water is a very real problem, not only for Jordan but all of the surrounding states – Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and yes, Israel.

The gravest environmental challenge that Jordan faces today is the scarcity of water. Indeed, water is the decisive factor in the population/resources equation.
King Hussein.gov website

It's that equation that's highlighted in Olives, the lack of water resources is actually critical and increasingly so.The Wadi Rumm pipeline will provide much-needed relief for Amman, but Jordan's an agrarian country and its valuable vegetable crops constantly demand irrigation. The massive depletion of the Jordan has meant the level of the Dead Sea has dropped over 150 feet since the 1960s. Jordan is below the water poverty line already - and it's only going to get worse.

The Jordan River, once a major source of water for the kingdom, was diverted after animosity grew between its stakeholders. The dams built by Syria, Israel and Jordan have caused the river to lose 95% of its original flow. This has also been the fate of Jordan’s other significant waterway, the Yarmouk River, which is now reduced to a mere muddy trickle.
It is an oft-repeated adage that the wars of the future will be fought over water – but this is already sad reality in the MENA region.
Bertelsmann Stiftung 'Future Challenges' 

Behind the natural problems of a lack of water resources are the additional problems of fighting off land grabs - the 1967 conflict lost Jordan Lake Tiberias (or the Sea of Galilee, depending on who you're talking to), a major water body that plays a key role in Daoud's water privatisation scheme in Olives. Israel's 'security wall' cuts deeply into the West Bank, scything up to 10% of the land from the '1967 border' defining the West Bank - almost every incursion loops around a water resource.

The conflict made every country do their best to grab as much as they can, and non-cooperation between them is what really affected the area.
Munquth Meyhar
Chairman, Friends Of The Earth Middle East

In the face of the challenge, various NGOs and other bodies have come together to call for 'regional dialogue' and 'regional co-operation', but these well-meaning calls seem to neglect the facts on the ground - the parties around the potential table these people are envisaging have their hands around each others' throats in every way. Co-operation to eke out water resources is hardly an option - everyone's grabbing what they can. And it's far too little. Especially for Jordan.

The report calls for a confidence-building initiative between the heads of water authorities of Israel and Palesinian Authority, with support of political leaders and under observation of representatives of Quartet or major donor countries, to assess the real situation with regards to the state of freshwater resources in the aquifers along with coordinated water management.
The Blue Peace: Rethinking Middle East Water

So what would you do if you could secure the future of your country's water supply with a brilliant scheme that tapped deep-down water resources based on tapping the ancient Roman 'Qanat Romani' aquifers? What if you could solve that problem on your own sovereign territory? Wouldn't you back a scheme like that?

That's what Daoud's bid is based on in Olives. Tapping the deep aquifers to let the water flow, once again, to Jordan.

The Dead Sea and the Water Crisis

   We drove along the coast of the Dead Sea.
   ‘What was all the checkpoint stuff about?’
   ‘Security. That’s Palestine over there across the water. And Israel. So Jordanian security here is tighter than usual.’
   ‘I thought you were at peace with the Israelis.’
   She looked askance at me, an eyebrow raised. ‘Jordan is.’
   We passed a tall, square metal tower overlooking the flat expanse of lifeless water. I gestured toward it and asked,  ‘Lifeguard?’
   ‘Gun position. They’re not usually manned these days, but when they are they turn the guns away to face inland. So does the other side. Peace, you see?’
Olives, Page 57

It wasn’t until the ‘noughties’ the gun positions on the Dead Sea were turned to face symbolically away from Israel. These days there aren’t even guns on the towers, but there are still military checkpoints as you drive down to the Sea, the remarkable expanse of super-saline water four hundred metres below sea level.

The Dead Sea is almost miraculous, a great expanse of water so saline you just float around in it, a meniscus of mineral oil floating on the surface. You really don't want to shave just before going in, I can tell you from bitter experience. The Jordanian side of the sea is home to a cluster of resort hotels, my personal favourite being the Movenpick Dead Sea. Further down the coast from Amman, the road snakes back up the escarpment, giving a view of the extensive moonscape created by the potash extraction operation, at one time Jordan's principle source of income - the country has never been a wealthy one. At the top you'll find the town of Kerak, home to a great crusader castle - and one of many places where TE Lawrence reported spirited gun battles with the Turks.

But the Dead Sea is under threat. The constant draining of the Jordan has reduced the river to a fragment of its former self and so the Dead Sea is literally dying, its levels slowly dropping to the point where you can actually see moorings something like thirty feet up in the cliffs around the current sea. There has been extensive discussion of remediation measures, including the 'Red Dead' project which would see Jordanian/Israeli co-operation to pipe salt water from the Red Sea.

A similarly visionary scheme is actually under way, seeing water pipes laid from Wadi Rumm right up through to Amman, one of the measures being taken to try and address the very real water crisis Jordan faces - the very water crisis that forms the backdrop to Olives, in fact. Jordan is actually the world's fourth most water challenged country.

In Olives, Daoud’s preoccupation with the water shortage is founded squarely in the story of the regional conflicts born out of 1948 – the Levant (Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Israel, although the term ‘the Levant usually refers to the Arab countries of the Western Mediterranean) is desperately short of water. Israel’s annexation of the Sea of Galilee (known as Lake Tiberius on the Arab side) in the 1967 war (the ‘six day war’) ensured a major source of precious water for Israel – fed by rivers and aquifers from surrounding Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Part of the background to Pauls’ dilemma in Olives is that the book's Daoud Dajani is a wealthy Arab businessman with major business interests and connections across the region who is mounting a bid for the forthcoming privatisation of the Jordanian water network. Daoud’s consortium is being opposed by a British-led consortium which is focusing its bid on conservation and efficient distribution. Daoud’s bid is based on a brilliant and dangerous scheme – to tap the deep seasonal aquifers feeding Lake Tiberius, bringing more water to Jordan at Israel’s expense. Worse, by depleting the fresh water supply into Tiberius, he will ensure the remaining water is more saline – saltier and therefore less suitable for agriculture and drinking water.

Daoud’s bid obviously cannot be tolerated by the Israelis and unites both Israeli and British interests. The question Paul has to resolve is whether Daoud is a businessman acting within the law and meeting unlawful state-sponsored opposition to his brilliant scheme to benefit Jordan or whether he is a fanatic hell-bent on flinging the region into war.

“There can be no peace without resolving water problems and vice versa... it is water that will decide the future of the Occupied Territories and, what is more, whether there is peace or war. If the crisis is not resolved, the result will be a greater probability of conflict between Jordan and Israel, which would certainly involve other Arab countries.”
Jacques Sironneau, quoted in the NATO 2002 Report, ‘Water Resources in the Mediterranean. 

The battle to secure supplies of ‘the universal solvent’ in the Eastern Mediterranean is insoluble. There are too many people living off the land, distribution networks are often creaky and wasteful and the struggle to gain control of resources is constant.

The research on the water crisis that forms the backdrop to Olives is solid – there is, indeed, a major humanitarian crisis brewing in the area and Israel has indeed annexed a large number of water sources by constructing its security wall to encompass them, carving strategic tracts of land from the ‘1967 border’. Each twist and turn of the wall is a bargaining chip at best, a fait accompli at worst. Carving farms in half (as, indeed, the Dajani’s farm in Qaffin has been carved), the wall makes the most of the scant water resources in the West Bank. The source of Lake Tiberius’ wealth (or the Sea of Galilee) is, as outlined in Olives, a mixture of rivers flowing down from Syria and Lebanon and aquifers that rise up into the bed of the lake. According to NATO, 90% of the West Bank’s water is used by Israel and the distribution of water in the area is ‘unfair’ and ‘restrictive’.

Olives

If the Olive Trees knew the hands that planted them, their oil would become tears. 

Mahmoud Darwish

   I followed Daoud, hoping my reluctance didn’t show. We stood together on the veranda looking out over the dark garden – a couple of acres of prime Abdoun real estate. He flicked a switch by the kitchen door and I saw part of the garden was laid to lawn, but the hilly rise to one side accommodated a small stand of olive trees.
   ‘Ibrahim and my father brought these trees from our farm in Qaffin and planted them here over thirty years ago. Back then it looked like we were going to lose everything from over there, so they thought they’d keep at least this much.’ He led the way down the steps to the trees. ‘Smoke?’
    ‘No thanks, I don’t.’
   He grunted, then lit up a Marlboro Light. ‘These trees are everything to the farmers. They are tended like fine grape vines, the olives are pressed like wine. The first cut is virgin, the finest. The olives weep the purest oil when they are first squeezed. We press them until they can weep no more, then we feed the remains back to the land, to the animals. We still press oil over at the farm on the old stone press. It is not much, it is not enough to keep the place running, but we help out, as Ibrahim said. It is the finest oil you will ever taste. It is a symbol for us too, you understand. Of hope.’
Olives, Page 46

“The olives weep the purest oil when they are first squeezed. We press them until they can weep no more...” the line about olives weeping was actually part of the first draft of Olives, it was years later I discovered the words of Mahmoud Darwish which are the frontispiece of the book – “If the Olive Trees knew the hands that planted them, their oil would become tears.”

This, of course, is why the book is called ‘Olives’ or, in Arabic, ‘Zeitoun’ – the symbol of the fictional Dajani family’s identity, the farm in Qaffin maintained by Mariam. One early reviewer, IMHO, nailed it: George Emerson: “The image of the lonely farm, with its olive trees, and a woman who has spent a life of hardship trying to protect it, is the strongest image of hope, but also of volatility of human existence that will be coming back to me long after the last page of the book is turned over.”

There is something fine about the taste of great olive oil and some of the finest I have tasted has come from Palestine and Jordan, a pure flavour that is fresh and somehow ‘green’.The struggle to keep the olive groves alive is a daily one for many Palestinian farmers and the olive trees, some hundreds of years old, are constantly being torn out of the ground by Israeli forces and settlers.

Oxfam used to have an olive tree as part of its rather brilliant gift catalogue, Oxfam Unwrapped. For those of us who have too much, to be able to gift someone else a goat for a village in Africa or an olive tree for a Palestinian farmer is, to me, a really cool way to show that we care without simply wasting money on a gift that nobody really want. I discovered this a couple of years ago and loads of friends and family got olive trees instead of stuff they didn't need.

You can buy aid for Palestinian olive farmers as a gift here.

The Demon Drink

   The Dajani house was in Abdoun, the wealthy part of West Amman. Aisha stopped the car at the top of the long, sweeping driveway and I tried not to stare at the huge villa with its pillared entranceway and imposing double doors. I felt like a slob.
   A woman stood in the doorway. ‘You must be Paul. Welcome. I’m Nour, Aisha’s mother.’
   She was in her late fifties, slim, elegant and pretty and I liked her instantly. Nour slipped her arm into mine and walked me into the house to meet the family, her manner easy and  intimate. Aisha’s sister Mariam was giggly, just seventeen and studying computer science at a private university. Ibrahim greeted me like the prodigal son and brushed away my attempts to thank him again for his help. He had a nasty Marlboro habit and I quickly discovered he made a natural comedy act with his wife Nancy, a wisecracking lady whose deep-etched laughter lines were somehow at odds with her sad-looking eyes.
   I was mildly surprised to be offered a beer: When Aisha and I had gone to dinner together, we had shared a bottle of red wine. We had been wrapped up in Ministry talk and I hadn’t asked her about when or how she drank. I had assumed her life at home, as a Muslim, would be teetotal.
Olives, Page 40

This aspect of the book has already caused considerable comment – the fictional Dajanis of Olives are 'sophisticated and Westernised'. They speak good English, too - although Ibrahim's is more accented. That's because he's older. And they drink alcohol. How could I have a good Jordanian/Palestinian family drinking alcohol? And why did I choose, one reader asked, to have them be 'non-practising Muslims'?

There are two answers, really. The Arab world’s relationship with alcohol is a complex one, with an enormous variety of attitudes expressed throughout the region. Clearly, the consumption of alcohol is prohibited in Islam and the vast majority of Muslims throughout the Arab World will not take alcohol.

However, some people drink on occasion, others will be tolerant of drinking and being in places like bars but not drink themselves, while (and I emphasise this) the vast majority will actively avoid alcohol and places where it is consumed.  Some people will drink and yet in other ways practice Islam, others will drink only in certain company or places - undercover drinkers. And some, as in other religions, do not practice their religion at all in any formal way and have a more secular outlook. As in so many things, while the most widespread practice of Muslims is not to drink alcohol, the region represents a kaleidoscope of belief and practice.

Attitudes to alcohol tend to soften with youth and sophistication. Many older men who do take drink in the Arab World take it in the form of Johnny Walker, which is to whiskies what Mercedes is to cars in the Levant. And Ibrahim is no exception. Aisha will drink socially on occasion, but she’s not a ‘drinker’ in the way Paul is, for instance. Paul's possibly a little too fond of the sauce. And Lynch, well...

Olives was originally written with a British audience in mind. I wanted to create a sense of empathy with the Dajanis in the book, particularly as we follow Paul’s journey to try and work out whether he believes in them as people, or whether he believes them capable of funding and even actively taking part in terrorism. I certainly wanted to avoid erecting barriers. And I also wanted to portray a sophisticated, wealthy family in West Amman. I have often been a guest in such houses and I have been offered drink. It's important the fictional Dajanis be more secularly minded as otherwise Aisha wouldn't have got within a million miles of Paul.

And so I chose to create an environment where Paul is surprised at the family’s openness and tolerance and at how welcome he feels with them, despite his innate alarm and suspicion at Daoud’s dark manner. It is Daoud who is more conservative and protective.

In doing so, however, I have not been 'untrue' to the spirit of the region or its people. It's not bandied about precisely because of the prohibition, it's not by any means widespread practice, but a number of people in the Levant do drink. And that's not about the British public being shallow, it's about reflecting a reality that was at the same time a narrative convenience to the author.

Winter Weather In Jordan

   The valet brought Aisha’s Lexus and we said goodnight. The cold night air on the walk back brought a resolution to spend what little remained of my first month’s overseas salary on warm winter clothes. I hadn’t expected English winter weather in Amman. My mind wandered as I walked, back to winter nights at home – strolling back from The Two Badgers arm in arm with Anne, huddled close together for warmth and tipsy from the insanely expensive bottle of red wine we’d shared over dinner in the little back room restaurant. Striding down the hill to my little Jordanian home, the wash of homesickness made me hunch up, my hands deep in my pockets against the foreign coldness creeping insidiously into me, making my bones ache.
Olives, Page 29

Jordanian winters never cease to amaze me, the Mediterranean summers seem impossibly far away. The winter weather always reminds me of the UK, long days of rolling black clouds and sheets of rain, cold snaps and snow no rare occurrence. When it snows, Amman grinds to a halt. The rain, however, can be pretty relentless and the water stays on the ground, everything gets covered in wet grime from the roadside and the darkness never quite seems to lift entirely.

The Dead Sea stays warmer, it’s always 8-10 degrees hotter there than in Amman.

Even when the days are coolly sunny, the night will bring plunging temperatures and people don their layers and crank up the heating to 11. It’s always important to keep those layers on whenever indoors, for some reason, even if the room itself is already boiling. 

It’s weather like this that drives me to the little restaurants in the Jebel Amman area, to sit near a warm stove by the window in good company with a bottle of red wine and watch the world scurry by with its arms wrapped around itself.


* Picture credit: Umm Ar-Rassas taken by Eddie Taylor. The extensive archeological site here, BTW, remains largely unexcavated. I didn't have a winter pic to hand and where better to get one than Twitter? Thanks @tayloreddie!

The Amman Bombings

   I took a cab to the Four Seasons, where we were stopped by security scanning the car with what seemed to be a divining rod. The cabbie chuckled throatily at the performance.
   ‘This little stick he find bomb too much, seer. Too much.’ He gestured with his thumb at the uniformed guard walking up and down balancing his little dowsing stick. I was still shaking my head at the strangeness of the whole rigmarole as I walked through the airy lobby, past a huge display of flowers and grasses arranged in ranks of tall glass vases. I found Aisha in the sumptuousness of the yellow-carpeted piano lounge, sitting at a big round table and tapping away at her MacBook.
Olives, Page 23

The Four Seasons Hotel in Amman is the city’s poshest hotel and also its most expensive. They make a smashing Martini and rare is the trip to Amman where I don’t find an excuse to sink a couple with friends. It’s a wee performance, the cocktail is made in an individual shaker, then brought over on a little silver tray with a napkin, the drink shaken and poured at your table.

In the wintertime, a rare treat is afforded by the open fire in the lobby lounge, sitting back on the comfy sofas and munching on the Four Seasons’ homemade potato crisps.

The oddness with the diving rod actually takes place, cars are stopped by security on the approach to the hotel and a guard does the ‘scan’, I have never been able to work out quite what science is behind this performance with a little black divining rod.

Security at all of Amman’s hotels was stepped up after the Amman bombing, the terrible night when sixty people lost their lives. It took place in 2005, which seems odd now because it feels like a million years ago. Amman reeled under the impact of the bombs, Jordan had lain in the middle of one of the world's most dangerous, conflicted regions for decades without having seen bombings like this. The country is safe and secure - the Jordanians are a hospitable, welcoming people and Jordan has long had a thriving tourist trade - in fact, it's a major earner for the country's economy.

A pal was in the reception area of the Grand Hyatt when the bomb went off and described how, in that moment, her life and world changed as the windows blew out. She was around the corner from the lobby lounge where the bomber killed seven hotel staff. The bomb at the SAS Radission, a short walk down the road from the Grand Hyatt, was detonated in the middle of a wedding party, killing many guests including the fathers of the bride and groom. The bomber must have known he was walking into a wedding. I still find his actions incredible, even considering the fact few of us can truly imagine what goes on inside the head of a suicide bomber.

The company I work at was one of the sponsors of an art exhibition held the week after to protest it and raise funds for the families, called ‘Into the light’. I flew in to attend the event. I remember checking into the Hyatt as one of sixteen guests in the hotel, the lobby area blocked off by plasterboard. Many of the staff I had known for years (our office was based in the Hyatt's Zara complex) were no longer there. Their names, along with the others, still hang in my house, two treasured monochrome calligraphies from the exhibition, each one starkly detailing the sixty names of the fallen.

Amman And Circassia

Image via Wikipedia

I posted the other day about how the village of Amman was settled by Circassians in 1878 following the Russian pogroms which killed something like 1.5 million and saw millions marched out of their homes in the Caucasus.

Every now and then you’ll meet fair-skinned, blue-eyed Jordanians. These are the ‘alsharkasee’, the descendends of those Circassians. A small but important part of the Jordanian community, they have a remarkable history. Originally a people of the Northern Caucasus, the Adyghe, they were conquered (with considerable effort) by Russia. Originally monotheistic, with their own religion, they converted to Christianity and then, in the 15th Century, to Islam. Most of the Ottoman Mamluks were in fact Circassian and from the 13th -15th Century, Egypt was actually ruled by Circassians.

Today there is actually a Republic of Adygh, a tiny statelet under the Russian Federation and located in the Northern Caucasus. Most of the population are Russians, but some quarter of the people are ethnic Adyghes, the few survivors of the massacres.

The Circassian genocide is not officially recognised, although there are groups currently lobbying for that recognition. Apparently the 2014 Winter Olympics is causing some controversy as construction of facilities in Sochi on the Black Sea coast is disturbing one of many Adyghe mass graves.

TE Lawrence reconnoitred the city of Deraa in disguise as a Circassian, to explain away his blonde eyes and blue hair. This turns out to have been something of a mistake as the Turks rather fancied him. The rest, as they say, is history.

Al Nakba - 'The Catastrophe'

    We talked about England and Iraq, about Jordan and the punishing Royal travel schedule and, of course, about the peace.
    It was like a mantra, everywhere I went. Eventually all conversations turned to it—the peace, the peace, the peace. The new deal the Americans had finally brokered between a reluctant, right-wing Israeli government and the tired, broken down remnants of the Palestinian administration had at least brought the hope this would, against all the odds, be the one peace. The deal to lead to the long-awaited ‘two-state solution,’ the first hope since the disastrous collapse of the jury-rigged Heath Robinson compromise of Oslo.
    The conversation turned to Palestine in the past, to al nakba, ‘the catastrophe’, the formation of Israel in 1948 and the end of the British Mandate in Palestine. When I asked Ibrahim whether he had ever gone back there, his bushy eyebrows shot up in astonishment.
Olives - Page 43

The story of Olives takes place in Jordan during ‘the new peace deal’, which could have been years ago or could be years in the future. There’s always a peace deal, you see. And in over sixty years, they’ve all come to nothing.

In 1948, the founding of the State of Israel marked the end of a long-held dream for a group of men who had laboured tirelessly since the late 19th century to found a home for the Jewish people. The Zionists strove not only to press the case for such a home, but also to conflate Jewishness with their campaign, which met with resistance from many Jews trying to get by in an increasingly anti-semitic Europe (Including Russia and Eastern Europe).

Using slogans like ‘A land without a people, for a people without a land’, they pressed their case that Palestine’s natural resources were being squandered, that the land was capable of bearing fruit if only it were managed by people who would be willing to work, to bring modern methods to bear and to settle the empty, open spaces of Palestine. The problem with this was, of course, that there was already a people on that land – the Arabic-speaking Palestinian Arabs: Muslims, Christians and Jews who had been living there throughout the Ottoman Empire.

1948 saw some 700,000 Palestinians displaced from their homes and forced out of the country, over 500 villages were destroyed. Fleeing the violence, these families found homes in squalid, teeming refugee camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands remained in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians call this event ‘Al Nakba’ or the catastrophe. It forms the background to Olives because it’s the background to the story of Aisha's (fictitious, Jordan!) family, the Dajanis.

Aisha slowly twisted her lighter between her thumb and forefinger. ‘My father met my mother in the camps. He was just another urchin in the streets there, but he was smart and started selling fruit on a street corner, grew it into a business by employing other kids so that eventually he could open a shop of sorts in the camp made of cinder blocks. He was a good businessman and soon opened a proper store in Amman. He opened more of them. He started to trade with the Syrians and the Iraqis before he left the Amman business in Ibrahim’s hands and went to the Gulf in the ’70s, to Kuwait, with my mother. The Gulf had oil and needed food, steel, concrete, cars. He did deals with family traders in the Gulf, gained a name for being able to get things nobody else could get, ship things nobody else could ship. Ibrahim found the supplies, my father sold them. My parents moved back here after I was born.’

‘And he met Arafat in Kuwait.’

Aisha’s eyes widened and she took a pull on her cigarette, staring at me, the lighter twisting in her hand, the shaking tip of the cigarette glowing momentarily as she inhaled. ‘Yes, he met Arafat in Kuwait. Through Kaddoumi. And he supplied Arafat. My father believed in Arafat. His family had lost everything, including my grandfather. My father believed that we had to try and fight to return to our country, to our land.’

‘But Arafat was a terrorist.’

She was trembling. ‘No. Abu Ammar was a unifier. There was no Palestine, no Palestinian people, no Palestinian identity. We lost everything, you see? Arafat brought us the dream that one day we could go back to things we had lost, that one day we could become a nation again. What could my father believe in other than this? We are lucky, at least we still have some of our family land, but only because we are on the border, only because we had an Arab Israeli lawyer on our side. Back then, there was no hope for any Palestinian other than Arafat.’

I was watchfully silent. Aisha gestured with a wide sweep of her hand. ‘My people lost everything they had, living in camps with rusty keys and English title deeds that meant nothing. The world stood by and let it happen. Who else offered any hope to the Palestinians except Arafat and the people around him? Who else was helping us?’

Aisha ground her cigarette viciously into the ashtray. ‘My father supported Arafat in the early days, but he turned away from them after the problems in Jordan. He stopped believing in Arafat’s way. Both he and Ibrahim became closer to King Hussein, then the King threw the PLO out of Jordan. We stayed here.’
Olives, Page 83

In Aisha’s case, the family were lucky. With an entrepreneurial father (and yes, with links to the PLO in Kuwait), now the Dajanis live in the wealthy Abdoun area of Amman and collectively help to maintain the farm in Qaffin, in the West Bank, where Aisha’s grandmother still lives. The farm stayed in the family’s hands because one of Aisha’s grandparents stayed in the new state of Israel and so became an Arab Israeli. A smart lawyer, he managed to keep the farm in the family’s hands (many weren’t so lucky) but even so, the olive groves have been split by the ‘security wall’ built by Israel to isolate Palestine and, it has to be said, to sequester thousands of acres of land and enormous swathes of the region’s scant water resources.

That wall, which cuts something like 10% of the West Bank beyond the 1967 border, is thought to be where Israel will place its border in negotiations.

Robin Goodyear

   Robin called after two, just as the Ministry people were knocking off for the day. As usual, his faux-posh voice was disgustingly cheerful as he brayed at me.
   ‘Stokesy. Hi. It’s me. You have a nice weekend? Settled in yet?’
   The bastard had booked me on a Saturday flight so I wouldn’t miss Sunday, a working day in Jordan. When our call was over he’d be off down to the pub then back home to Sunday roast and a pissy, red wine-fuelled row with his poor wife, Claire. The thought of Sunday pubs brought a wave of homesickness and the strong temptation to whinge to him about just how badly yesterday had gone. Ibrahim and Aisha’s exhortations to silence won the day. Just.
Olives - Page 15

Pauls' boss, publisher Robin Goodyear, never actually makes an appearance in Olives, he just lives on the end of a phone line, which is just as well because he’s an obnoxious sod. He’s also someone anyone who has worked in magazine publishing will identify immediately as belonging to their company. 

Robin lives in a converted barn in Kent and drives a BMW. He likes to do beers on Sunday with the CEO down at the Morgan Arms.

There are a lot of Robins out there, usually heading sales teams in trade publishing houses. Most publishers in trade publishing come from a sales background. The sales teams are the people the journalists love to hate, confident, brash and breezy, minted and possessing not one shred of sincerity. Of course, they're the reason the journalists are in a job (which they will waste little time reminding anyone who'll listen, particularly journalists) and the fact this is ultimately true is not something journalists like to be reminded of.

In Robin's case, Paul is living in Jordan for a year to produce the magazine the publishing company (TMG) has contracted with the Ministry of Natural Resources so Robin has a vested interest in motivating Paul which is offset by a keenness not to go spending too much money on his 'hack'...

Amman's Seven Hills

    Aisha took us downhill into a leafy avenue of fine old houses before she gestured, her wooden bangles clacking. ‘This is the First Circle, the centre of old Amman and it’s becoming fashionable for cafés and bars. There’s a place here that may be within your budget, but it’s unfurnished. It’s just up the street from the Wild Café, quite a popular place that the Americans built as a gift to Jordan. They like to give us little gifts.’

    I stayed quiet as she pulled the car to a stop in front of a flight of stone steps leading up to a house standing apart on the hillside, ornate wrought-iron railings protecting its windows and a vine trailing on the pergola in the garden to the front of it. I found myself following the swing of her hips as she led the way up the steps from the road. She turned abruptly at the top, caught me looking at her bum and raised an eyebrow. I felt my face redden. She pulled a soft pack of cigarettes from her burgundy handbag and offered them.

    ‘I don’t, thanks.’

    ‘Suit yourself,’ she said, lighting up and inhaling hungrily

From Olives, page 19

Amman’s not only built on seven hills, it’s also built around seven circles (although there are more than seven of them these days), the first circle being ‘old Amman’, the late Ottoman era houses and leafy, sometimes steep, hilly streets tumbling down to the wad- beds and to East Amman.

The area around the first circle, Jebel Amman, is home to a collection of cool cafes and restaurants, many of which are scattered along Rainbow Street. The amazing Arabic restaurant Fakhr El Din is probably the most celebrated eatery in the Jebel Amman area. Eating at Fakhr El Din should be compulsory for everyone who visits Amman – it’s in one of the larger Ottoman houses and serves a legendarily rich mezze (including delicacies like sheep’s spinal cords and 'assafir' plates of tiny birds intended to be eaten whole) alongside heaving dishes of Levantine delicacies and, of course, nargileh, or shisha. Sitting outside on the terrace in the summer chatting with friends and drinking a madly strong Turkish coffee with the smell of apple shisha on the breeze is one of life’s little delights.

The picture above, by the way, shows something Quixotic and wonderful you'll never see again - the 'Thieves' Market' in East Amman. This was where you'd go to buy back the video recorder or mobile phone that was stolen from you last week. I kid you not. Everything the local crooks had blagged in the preceding week was on sale here, a sort of public display of outrageous fencing. The Powers That Be have since closed it down, but it was a wonderful, odd, crooks' car boot sale experience.