Eduardo Munoz/REUTERS
Israeli officials on Sunday accused a Jordanian government spokeswoman of desecrating the country’s flag, Reuters reports. Jumana Ghunaimat, Jordan’s minister for media affairs and communications, walked over an Israeli flag that was painted on the floor of a union’s headquarters in Amman. Ghunaimat was en route to a meeting between Jordanian Prime Minister Omar al Razzaz and union officials. Razzaz, unlike Ghunaimat, walked into the building through a back door, as to avoid walking over the flag. “The flag was painted on the floor several years ago to encourage passers by to tread on it, a mark of disrespect, unions said at the time,” explained Reuters pointing out that some Jordanians resent Israel despite their 1994 peace treaty. While the painting was done when Jordan’s trade unions were largely controlled by the country’s Islamist opposition, the trade organizations are generally now run by secular parties, per Reuters. In a statement on Sunday, Israel’s foreign minister reportedly slammed Ghunaimat as committing “desecration” and voiced “sharp protest.”