Jordan’s new Justice Minister Hussein Mjali called Israel an “enemy and terrorist state” in an interview with Jordanian Arabic-news daily. Mjali joined protests in Jordan Monday demanding the release of Ahmed al-Daqamseh, a convicted terrorist who gunned downseven Israeli schoolgirls at Naharayim in 1997.

Mjali commented that “Israel arrests and practices destruction on a daily basis, and it is obvious that Israel would issue a counter-position to our request that Ahmed al-Daqamish be released.”