In November 2001, Slahi was arrested in Mauritania and taken to Amman by Jordanian armed forces.
In Amman, the capital of Jordan, about 2,000 protesters organised by the opposition Muslim Brotherhood clashed with security forces.
Moreover, Amman is the main meeting-point for expatriate Iraqis, some 400,000 of whom are reckoned to live there, some connected to the old regime and the insurgency, others to the new order struggling to assert itself.
Almost none of the aging leaders in Amman presides over an economy that can provide these swarming youths with jobs.
Israel had released him in exchange for Jordan's release of two agents Mossad had sent on a botched mission to assassinate a Hamas official in Amman.
He rode through Amman in an open car, waving to cheering crowds despite wind and rain.
Yet his response to the Amman tragedy was an unequivocal call for global co-operation to combat what he blasted as the enemies of life, of joy, and of the light of day.Popular culture, too, has begun to reflect such shifts in attitude.
Gulf portfolio investment has turned once-sleepy stockmarkets in Cairo, Casablanca and Amman into some of the world's hottest performers and helped insulate them from global shocks.
"They are here till the war ends," says a sympathetic Jordanian policeman, who mans a checkpoint near the hostel to bar their way out.Close relations in Amman need permits to visit their camp in the midst of a barren free-trade zone rather hopefully named Cyber City, near Jordan's border with Syria.
In theory, Hamas is based in the occupied territories; its representatives in Amman were supposed to act as ambassadors and spokesmen, and not to organise inside Jordan.
Mr Netanyahu's people distanced him from Mr Barak's remarks, yet it was Mr Barak whom he pointedly sent to Amman last week for talks with Mr Abbas and King Abdullah.
