The date was March 21, 1968, and the Israeli army was trying to stem attacks by Palestinian fedayeen coming across the
Jordan River into areas occupied by Israel.
Accompanied by King Abdullah II of Jordan, right, Queen Rania, left and Prince Ghazi bin Mohammed, second right, Pope Benedict XVI visits the Bethany beyond the
Jordan river, the site of Christ's baptism, west of Amman, Jordan
Byline: Delegation introduced to programmes at
Jordan River Foundation.
One of the most recent projects was the
Jordan River Outfall Sewer.
The
Jordan River is considered by many Israelis to be a national embarrassment.
In "Saving the Jordan" (Currents, January/February 2007) Emily Hauser writes about an important and serious problem, namely the environmental problems facing the
Jordan River. Unfortunately she also uses this article to display a significant anti-Israel bias that is irrelevant to the subject of the Jordan's pollution.
In 1921, on the land east of the
Jordan River, Britain carved out Transjordan and placed Feisal's brother Abdullah on the throne.
He reported back to his superiors that those alarming tales of settlement growth were standard-issue media exaggeration, a "somewhat distorted picture of reality" In any case, he argued, Kalyah was too far from the highway and the
Jordan River to offer the new residents much of a military advantage.
Fault offsets and other damage to archaeological sites in the
Jordan River valley for example, has been used to determine the magnitude of biblically important quakes.
1947: The Dead Sea Scrolls, dated 150BC-AD68, were found in caves west of the
Jordan River. 1984: Bruce McCandless II made the first untethered space walk.
This "wilderness experience" was followed by a later similar experience in the lower
Jordan River district.
* It is receding at an annual rate of 300 yards since almost no water is received from the
Jordan River.
Jordan River - a river in Palestine that empties into the Dead Sea; John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan