On a rare move among one of the Arab leaders or maybe any of the world’s leaders, King Abdullah II of Jordan, commented on local Jordanian blog Black Iris  and Addusstor Jordan’s daily newspaper web site.
On the blog the king was commenting on a post about his latest interview  with Petra ( Jordan’s Government news agency ) where he dismissed rumors about the future of  Jordan.

Here is the King’s comment on Black Iris:

Thank you all for your feedback and comments. I am very happy and proud to see so many responsible citizens engaging in this dialogue. People must not be afraid to express their opinions without using aliases. We are a country of freedom, tolerance, diversity and openness, and everyone has the right to express their thoughts – no matter what they are – in an atmosphere of respect, so long as they are not personally offending others, attempting character assassination or undermining the nation’s interest. Your comments only indicate how deeply you care about Jordan and its future and I am happy that we are partners in the development process.

I welcome this move by the King, and would love if he starts reading ArabCrunch and post comments on it because ArabCrunch champions Jordanain and Arab startups, and we aim to help transfer Jordan and the Arab world into the knowledge based economy, in line with his vision

We would like to see similar moves by other Arab and world leaders.

Embracing the internet and specially web 2.0  is one of the ways to reach grace root communities. This practice has been heavily used in the US presidential elections to promote the candidates and raise funds for their campaigns. For example some of the candidates setup Myspace and facebook profiles, twitter and digg accounts. But these tools were managed by the staff members of the candidate, while King Abullah comment is made by him.

Any one knows if George Bush has any real published comment on the internet? please comment .

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