You really read him the riot act...

Interesting, though. Lebanon (in the past anyway) has had the market for elite-but-still-in-the-Arab-world university education - but none of the high-price private schools I know of have a serious boarding school element. Why in the world not? It seems like a market screaming to be filled.

Tom, those Arabs, in Morocco or Jordan, who are rich enough to send their kids to a private university will go for the real thing - the US, Canada or France. The local copycats will only draw who are too dim to get in abroad, or won't get a visa.

And as a means for universal peace and understanding, I'd say that investing money in basic education in low-income aread might be a trifle more efficient.

What are you talking about? Why, one or two more academies, something virtually unknown in the Middle East ever, where people LIVE, repeat LIVE, next to each other, even boys and girls, will cause the desert to bloom, Israelis to matriculate, democracy to spread, industry to flourish, apostasy to be state-subsidized, women to burn their hijabs, the King to be ever recalled as Prometheus unbound, and bin-Laden to melt like the wicked witch in Oz.

I can't argue that basic literacy across the board isn't a better hand to put a pile of chips on. However, this academy won't do any harm either, even if it is a nostalgic potemkin village of the curent monarch.

Incidentally, one of my longtime colleagues sort of knows Abdullah,albeit not well, having been related by marriage to the late King Hussein. From her telling it, there could be worse characters running things in Jordan.

I'm not saying that this particular project is a bad thing, it could even be profitable. What I'm saying is, don't turn that commercial venture into a political symbol - it isn't, or not the symbol you think...

"Tom, those Arabs, in Morocco or Jordan, who are rich enough to send their kids to a private university will go for the real thing - the US, Canada or France. The local copycats will only draw who are too dim to get in abroad, or won't get a visa."

That might be true for male students, but what about the girls? Many (most?) families would be reluctant to send their daughters to study abroad, or at least outside the Arab world. Or maybe I am just generalising from my experience in the Gulf, where the men's private colleges tend to be full of losers, whereas the girls' colleges often have some very bright students. This is because the top notch (financially and/or intellectually) male students usually go to the US or Europe to study, whereas social restrictions mean that all but the most 'liberal' girls will be obliged to study at home.

Are things very different in Shams or Egypt?

Most families? No. That's Khalij mate. Many, perhaps.

But the families that don't want to send their chicas overseas are not going to be thrilled about co-education either.

So the answer is, yes, in Sham and Egypt, things are quite different. The Gulf is far, far, far more conservative at the upper Middle Class to Elite levels.

That is not to say some of the same attitudes don't exist, but benchmarking off of the Gulf is an error.

As for Zenpundits ob re the King:

Well yes, Jordan could do worse. However, the salivating praise the King gets from the West - because he parrots back Westerner's latest jargon, obsessions and fasions in a media-friendly way irritates me. I am intimately familiar with the issues arising from Palace issues and corruption behind this nice facade. And while the Chubby One has many of the right ideas in mind, he's also not a very good manager (or perhaps too much of a micro-manager), rather susceptible to influence and fads.

Thus, I am not as infatuated with the Great Chubby Boy as most Anglos.

That being said, one could do far worse and probably would.

BTW, Tom, I believe the Leb situ arises out of a couple of business constraints - type of ownership, lack of vision, Civil War, getting property suitable, etc.

Ran into the same thing re finaning of private hospitals in the Levant (I did).

"the salivating praise the King gets from the West - because he parrots back Westerner's latest jargon, obsessions and fasions in a media-friendly way irritates me."

It's even worse when they praise his wanna-be Diana wife, because she is young, beautiful, wears Armani, and mouths the usual platitudes on Oprah or Larry King. In other words, you can almost forget that she's a Muslim, an Arab, much less - gasp! - a Palestinian. Of course, she goes out of her way to create this soothing image for US day time TV viewers, not least by adopting safe charities like immunising African kids, while never, ever mentioning her own people, the Palestinians. Except, perhaps, to voice the usual inanities about 'building bridges of understanding.'

"Wenn ich die Nahme Königins Rania höre, entsichere ich meinen Revolver"
German proverb, attested since the late 1990's

("When I hear the name of Queen Rania, I undo the safety catch of my revolver")

"("When I hear the name of Queen Rania, I undo the safety catch of my revolver")"

I know next to nothing about Rania but if you are unhappy that she's nothing but a P.R. adjunct for Abdullah, well that's unrealistic. The policy of the Hashemite monarchy has been quiet cultivation of Anglo-American elites ever since King Hussein first knocked back highballs with Dean Acheson. Being on-message is part of the queen's job description.

"The policy of the Hashemite monarchy has been quiet cultivation of Anglo-American elites ever since King Hussein first knocked back highballs with Dean Acheson. Being on-message is part of the queen's job description."

Surely that is reason enough to despise her?

Here is a Palestinian woman 'ruling' over a relatively poor, conservative Arab country where the majority of people are Palestinians and very upset about the treatment of their brethren in what used to be their homeland. Yet for this Armani-clad babe, the real issues are having computers in classrooms and making sure kids in Burkina Faso get their jabs. Now, of course I am not suggesting these are not worthy causes, but someone so obviously out of touch with 'her' people - in terms of lifestyle and priorities - and who claims indifference to pressing local concerns in order not to scare away her family's US backers, is obviously going to be disliked. To put it mildly.

Murph,

The reality is that Jordan is a weak state surrounded by much stronger neighbors and that Jordan's independence rides partially on having strong patrons from outside the immediate neighborhood and being unsentimental regarding notions of Arab or Islamic brotherhood when it comes to internal security threats. The Hashemites aren't Palestinians even if most Jordainians are.

The PLO and Nasser taught the Hashemite regime sharp lessons on whom the kingdom could not rely. Rania plays a (minor) role in sustaining an ongoing strategic relationship with the West. Replace Rania with someone else and you are apt to get the same story.

I believe Sideshow is highlighting Rania's Palestinianness and her utter ... silence on the issue is rather distasteful given her photogenic concern for irrelevancies.

Me, I merely dislike her because she yapps too much.

"Jordan's independence rides partially on having strong patrons from outside the immediate neighborhood "

What you seem to be saying is that Jordan's independence from its neighbours rests on giving up its independence to people from thousands of miles away?

"unsentimental regarding notions of Arab or Islamic brotherhood when it comes to internal security threats."

Whatever 'threats' the Hashemite regime faces have more to do with its espousal of foreign policies that are deeply unpopular with the vast majority of the population, than with 'threats' from its Arab neighbours. Plus, any unrepresentative dictatorship is going to face 'threats', particularly when you are foreigners imposed on the (invented)country by a former colonial power.

But Lounsbury basically sums up my position. My dislike of Rania has to do with the way in which she affects concern for safe, inoffensive causes which have nothing to do with Jordan or the Middle East. And I'm not sure her role is all that minor, at least not in PR terms. Having a queen who resembles a Levantine Diana - though Diana was far more interesting and politically incorrect - is a major plus in the Hello magazine world which the Hashemis, with their Saatchi and Saatchi contract, actively seek out. Imagine the Boy King were married to a hijab-ed woman who used her Larry King appearances to demand justice for Palestine and criticise US policy in the ME? You can be sure that would be her last Larry King appearance.