Jordanian hotel workers in Eilat come to blows over ‘king’s honor’
Man from Hashemite Kingdom gets into fight with fellow national for 'disrespecting' monarch; police transfer attacker across border
A pair of Jordanian workers in Eilat got into a physical altercation over the “honor” of Jordanian King Abdullah II on Saturday, police reported.
According to a police statement, one of the Jordanian nationals felt the second Jordanian was disrespectful to the king and attacked him, inflicting minor injuries.
The attacker was taken in for questioning and then transferred back to Jordan.
The injured Jordanian was in hospital for treatment.
Earlier this year, Israel and Jordan negotiated a pilot project that would see a small group of Jordanian citizens gain employment in Israel’s hospitality sector.
The program permits 700 Jordanians to cross the border to work in the Red Sea resort town Eilat, and will eventually allow in 1,500.
Eilat’s 40 hotels employ 9,000 workers, a third of them in housekeeping.
The tightly regulated program requires the Jordanian workers to return to Jordan by 8:00 p.m. each evening, bars them from traveling outside the Eilat city limits and restricts them to cleaning jobs.
According to the Washington Post, the new employees are 99 percent male and, after being vetted by the Jordanian government and Israeli hotels, undergo a background check by the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency.
Because the program’s goals include ending the hotel sector’s reliance on illegal African migrant employees, hotels are required to fire an African each time they hire a Jordanian, according to the Post.
Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994, becoming Israel’s second Arab neighbor after Egypt to establish full diplomatic relations.