Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on May 14, 2017, 07:46:24 AM
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With the impending collapse of DAESH (I'm preferring DAESH over ISIS now) and its metastasizing throughout the region, particularly eastern Jordan the Great Fustercluck of the Middle East enters a new phase.
Jordan, the Royal Hashemite Kingdom, seems to be a unique Arab country see e.g. http://jordantimes.com/news/local/muslim-youth-take-initiative-guard-churches-easter-celebrated led by a unique man, King Abdullah facing unique complexities. Jordan has long and strong ties with the US. It does not fight Israel and King A. speaks openly of Christians and Muslims getting along. His wife the Queen, goes uncovered, and speaks of it being a woman's choice.
I'm opening this thread because I think King Abdullah is in a unique position to explain the Arab world to the West, and the West to the Arab world and it behooves us to develop understanding of Jordan's situation in all this.
I kick it off with this:
http://www.meforum.org/6560/is-jordan-muslim-brotherhood-still-the-loyal?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=78729d5f14-K%C3%B6pr%C3%BCl%C3%BC__Nur_2017_05_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-78729d5f14-33691909&goal=0_086cfd423c-78729d5f14-33691909
Is Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood Still the Loyal Opposition?
by Nur Köprülü
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2017 (view PDF)
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Until the 1990s, the Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood had been a tacit ally of the Hashemite monarchy. That close relationship has deteriorated, triggered in large degree by King Hussein's (R) decision to recognize and make peace with Israel in 1994. He is seen here with Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, the key Islamist movement in the country, has had a long-standing symbiotic relationship with the monarchy and, until recently, was not considered a threat to the survival of the Hashemite Kingdom.[1] But the rise and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the growth of militant Islamist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS) have alarmed the monarchy and led to a drastic shift in the nature of its relations with the Brotherhood from coexistence to persecution. Will the Jordanian regime be able to contain the Islamists and, in turn, will the Brotherhood choose to challenge the throne rather than to acquiesce in its continued suppression?
The Brotherhood and the Monarchy
Probably the foremost Islamist movement in the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 in Egypt. From there, it spread to other parts of the region including Jordan (1946) where it was incorporated into the kingdom's social and political fabric with some of its members even serving in cabinet. The group reciprocated by refraining from challenging the regime as had its founding organization in Egypt. Bilateral relations warmed substantially during King Hussein's long reign (1952-99) when the Brotherhood often functioned as a bulwark against anti-Hashemite forces. This was particularly evident during the heyday of pan-Arabism when Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser—who politically opposed the Egyptian Brotherhood—repeatedly sought to subvert the Hashemite monarchy.
The Muslim Brotherhood provided support to the Jordanian monarchy during the 1970 Black September uprising when the regime's existence was threatened by Palestinian guerrillas like these seen here near Amman.
The Brotherhood also provided support to the monarchy during the 1970 Black September events when the regime's existence was threatened by the Palestinian guerrillas encamped on its territory. And although political parties were banned between 1957 and 1992, the Brotherhood was able to function and attract new recruits since it was registered under the law of charitable clubs and associations. With the legalization of political parties in 1992, the organization established its political wing, the Islamic Action Front (IAF).
This close relationship between the Brotherhood and the monarchy prevented secular and leftist parties from challenging the kingdom's policies. The lack of any other previously organized mass party and the weakness of the secular ideological platforms helped the IAF function as the key ideological and political actor in Jordanian politics. This position was reinforced by the Brotherhood's strategic bond with the monarchy, which contributed to its reputation as a moderate, nonviolent group, distinct from its Islamist counterparts throughout the Middle East. In the words of German scholar Gudrun Krämer, Jordan
provides one of the few cases of an Arab government and Islamic movement pursuing a non-confrontational political strategy over an extended period. Traditionally, the Muslim Brotherhood has played not so much the role of opposition, but of virtual ally and, at times, of client to the king.[2]
This symbiotic relationship prevailed into the 2000s regardless of occasional frictions emanating from domestic and regional vicissitudes. The 1994 Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty, for example, triggered a heated debate between the "hawks" opting to confront the regime over the issue and "doves" urging conciliation yet failed to fracture the Brotherhood's overall relationship with the monarchy.[3] Likewise, the organization remained aloof vis-à-vis the post-9/11 measures taken by King Abdullah II—who had succeeded his father two years earlier—against the kingdom's militant Salafist movement urging the overthrew of the "infidel" monarchy. Unlike the Salafists, the Jordanian Brotherhood and its political arm, the IAF, have never had an overtly militant wing despite its organic link with and support for Hamas, the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood branch.
This restraint notwithstanding, relations began to sour following the November 2005 hotel bombings in the Jordanian capital of Amman, which left sixty people dead and 115 wounded. Organized by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a native Jordanian from the Salafist stronghold of Zarqa and leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) from which the Islamic State would spring, the bombings provoked a storm of anti-Salafism on the streets of Amman but could not hide the fact that increasing numbers of Jordanians had some jihadist sympathies. Though the Brotherhood had nothing to do with the attack, the Hashemites, always nervous about the stability of their throne, grew ever more suspicious of anything smacking of Islamism.
These concerns increased with the 2006 election of the hawkish Zaki Bani Irshid as the Brotherhood's deputy general-secretary and Hammam Said as the IAF's new leader, signaling to King Abdullah II an unwelcome shift. The king looked across the Jordan to see Hamas win the Palestinian parliamentary elections and taking full control of the Gaza Strip and did not like what he saw. This was especially troubling as there was a growing apprehension that the broader Muslim Brotherhood now "look[ed] to Jordan as an avenue for expanding its regional influence."[4]
In the next round of Jordanian elections in 2007, the Brotherhood's influence diminished further with the IAF capturing only six seats out of 110 in the lower chamber. The poor result was also linked to deepening divisions within the Brotherhood between hawks and doves, leading to the IAF's decision three years later to boycott the parliamentary elections and to adopt a more confrontational
approach toward the regime, thus further widening the rift between the Brotherhood and the monarchy.
Jordanian Identity and the Brotherhood
When considering Jordanian identity it is important to keep in mind the role of Islam and religion in the state/nation-building project that is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. What sets its case apart from that of most modern Middle Eastern states is that Islam was in a very real sense the main source of regime legitimacy in Jordan:
The king's claim to religious legitimacy [has traditionally been] based on his descent from the Prophet, distinguishing his rule from that of Tunisian and Egyptian counterparts ... Jordan offers a more complex set-up, in which Islamic activism and communal loyalties [referring to the Palestinians in particular] are to a certain extent connected or interrelated.[5]
The monarchy's distinguished origin also enabled it to use Islam as an integral part of its foreign policy, notably its demand for managing the al-Haram al-Sharif holy site (and by extension—to rule East Jerusalem and the West Bank). Consequently, not only did the Brotherhood pose no existential threat to the Hashemite throne, but the regime has actually used the organization as a crutch at critical moments.
But Jordanian society also consists of two main ethnic groups: the indigenous East Bank (Transjordanian) Bedouin tribesmen and the Palestinian-Jordanians, incorporated into the kingdom in the aftermath of the 1948 war, who came to form the majority of the kingdom's population and its economic bedrock.
Notwithstanding their importance for securing the demographic and economic viability of the nascent Hashemite kingdom, Palestinian-Jordanians have been systematically marginalized and discriminated against, with their Bedouin compatriots constituting the mainstay of the regime and controlling the kingdom's political institutions and security organs.[6] Tensions between the two communities intensified after the 1967 war as the kingdom was flooded by fresh waves of West Bank Palestinian refugees, shooting to new heights in the wake of the 1970 Black September events when Jordanians of Palestinian descent came to be increasingly perceived as a potential threat to the survival of the monarchy. Relations worsened with the signing of the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty in 1994, a weakening which, simply put, represents more of a Palestinian sentiment than an East Banker Transjordanian one.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been increasingly reliant on the votes of Palestinian-Jordanians.
However, a closer look at the composition of the Jordanian Brotherhood demonstrates that both the Brotherhood and the IAF were increasingly reliant on the votes of Palestinian-Jordanians. Thus, for instance, while in the 1989 elections, 16 of the Brotherhood's 22 deputies were elected from districts with a Transjordanian majority, in the 2003 elections, only 5 of its 17 deputies came from such districts.[7] Indeed, the prevailing tension between the old and new Brotherhood is largely an offshoot of the internal split over the movement's "priorities and identities," namely perceived Palestinian needs versus those of the Hashemite-allied Transjordanians.[8]
The recent public anger at the lack of sufficient political reform has exacerbated domestic instability in Jordan over the past few years. But a new twist came to light with the appearance of opposition from the East Bank-based, largely tribal Hirak movement, which led street protests in Jordan. This may represent the most immediate challenge to the kingdom, considering that it was coordinated through East Bankers whose loyalty was long considered set in stone. Palestinians and even radical Islamists, by contrast, represent more of a potential threat than a present one. On one hand, it was East Bank activism that gave rise to a strong opposition during the heyday of the Arab uprisings, as it previously was during the 1989 and 2002 riots in Jordan; on the other, it is the radical/jihadi Islamist groups that pose a real threat to the survival of the monarchy. In this regard, the alienation or weakening of the Muslim Brotherhood—with its long history of "loyal opposition" in the kingdom[9]—and other moderate Islamist groups might have detrimental effects on the monarchy given the rise in radical Islamist activism across Jordan's borders.
The Arab Upheavals
The upheavals that have engulfed the Middle East from late 2010 found resonance in Jordan although public protests were never allowed to disrupt the country's functioning. In January 2011, thousands of Jordanians followed the example of protesters in Tunisia and Egypt and staged massive demonstrations in Amman, protesting high prices for staples, soaring unemployment, perceived government corruption, and a general lack of democracy. With the crowds directing much of their anger against Prime Minister Samir Rifai rather than King Abdullah, the crown was able to placate the protesters somewhat, first by announcing subsidies for basic goods and then by dismissing Rifai.[10]
Following the Arab upheavals, the Brotherhood never came close to demanding a complete regime change.
Despite their late participation in public rallies, the Brotherhood's demands for political change were relatively moderate. They insisted on structural changes to the constitution, including constraining the monarchy's power, removing the king's ability to dissolve parliament, and preventing him from appointing a prime minister without parliamentary consent.[11]
Yet they refrained from going beyond previous acts of protest such as boycotting the parliamentary elections of 1997, 2010, and 2013 to test the boundaries of the regime's tolerance; neither did they ever come close to demanding a complete regime change as in other regional hotspots at the time.[12]
Ballot sorting during the 2016 Jordanian elections. Tensions with the Hashemite monarchy came to a head when the Muslim Brotherhood and its political wing boycotted the 2013 parliamentary elections. They also boycotted elections in 1997 and 2010 but agreed to participate in September 2016.
However, the growing splits within the Brotherhood, as well as the regime's changing perception of the movement, fostered an attitude of mutual suspicion that gradually replaced the longstanding non-confrontational relations between the group and the monarchy.[13]
Tensions came to a head when the Brotherhood and the IAF decided to boycott the January 2013 parliamentary elections, the first after the outbreak of the Arab uprisings. The groups' subsequent withdrawal from the National Dialogue Committee, set up for political reform after public rallies, furthered the strains.[14]
Then came the rise and fall of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood government under President Muhammad Morsi and the movement's subsequent labeling as a terrorist organization by Saudi Arabia in December 2013 and the United Arab Emirates in November 2014. When the Brotherhood's Bani Irshid attacked the Emirates' decision in a Facebook post, he was excoriated for "endanger[ing] 225,000 Jordanians living in the Emirates" and peremptorily put on trial in February 2015 under the anti-terrorism law for "disrupting relations with a foreign state."[15]
In February 2016, the Jordanian government declared the Muslim Brotherhood an illegal organization and licensed a new Brotherhood under the leadership of Abdul Majid Thunaibat (2nd from left).
A year later, in February 2016, the Jordanian government declared the Brotherhood an illegal organization and licensed a new Brotherhood under the leadership of Abdul Majid Thunaibat, a senior movement member of Trans-Jordanian origin (i.e., non-Palestinian). The following month the IAF's Aqaba office was ransacked, and, in April, the Brotherhood's offices in Amman and Jerash were closed, followed by those in the towns of Madaba, Karak, and Mafraq. The closures were linked to the implementation of a court decision "to transfer properties of the 'unlicensed' Muslim Brotherhood to the rival splinter group."[16]
The formation of the "new" Brotherhood, which attempted to re-register as the real Brotherhood and disassociate itself from its Egyptian parent organization, led to a questioning of the movement's status in the kingdom with the old Brotherhood insisting on its right to continue to operate and Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour disputing this right, arguing that the "Brotherhood in Jordan is illegal. It does not have a license of community statute and missed the right of legitimacy."[17] Clearly, the nature of the longstanding relationship between the throne and the Brotherhood had been transformed.
The Syrian Civil War and Jordan
With the onset of the Arab uprisings, the kingdom found itself in a delicate situation coping not only with growing internal opposition but also fighting the ascendancy of Islamist militancy and the escalation of radical jihadist movements such as ISIS and Jabhat an-Nusra on the other side of its borders with Syria and Iraq.
Among the effects of the Syrian civil war on Jordan, the foremost challenge has been the mass influx of Syrian refugees and their integration into Jordanian society. The presence of refugees has exacerbated the kingdom's existing economic problems. The thousands of Jordanians who attended public rallies in the wake of the Arab upheavals were not only complaining about lack of progress in democratic reform but were protesting a worsening economic environment that had accompanied the influx of Syrian refugees.
The war in Syria has increased internal instabilities and doubled the challenges the kingdom faces at the regional level.
Moreover, deepening political divisions within the country have been reflected in popular and vocal disagreement regarding the future of Syria. While Jordanian Salafi jihadists support the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, nationalists and leftists want the kingdom to refrain from any involvement in Syrian internal affairs. Still, others favor a peaceful transition that sees the gradual removal of the Assad regime. In such a divided society, the kingdom must pursue a cautious course of action, one that reduces the likelihood of military intervention.[18]
In addition, Jordan has been frustrated by Islamist activism and the rising influence of Salafists, including some who fought in Syria. According to Muhammad Shalabi (Abu Sayyaf), a prominent Jordanian jihadist, between 700-800 Jordanians have joined the fighting in Syria, many of whom had fought previously in Afghanistan and Iraq.[19] By most estimates, Jordanian Salafists number around five thousand[20] though some believe the actual number to be as high as 15,000. Thus, the war in Syria has not only increased internal instabilities but has doubled the challenges the kingdom faces at the regional level as well.
Conclusion
The Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood has historically been considered a "loyal opposition" that can play a useful role within the kingdom's political system even when its relations with the regime soured following the conclusion of the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty. But the Arab upheavals, especially the Syrian civil war, have forced the regime to strike a delicate balancing act between the need to clamp down on the rising tide of Islamist militancy and the desire to preserve the continued acquiescence of the more moderate Islamist elements in the rules and values of the political system.
Thus far the kingdom has managed to co-opt radical Islamist groups, including the Salafists, thanks to its relationship with the Brotherhood and its divide-and-conquer policies. It is, therefore, likely to do all that it can to keep the organization in its fold and to refrain from declaring it a terrorist group despite pressures from its Persian Gulf allies to do so. The IAF's decision to participate in the September 2016 elections and its reported severance of relations with the Egyptian Brotherhood suggest that they, too, seem to recognize the need to continue to operate within the confines of the Jordanian political system.[21]
Nur Köprülü received her PhD degree at the Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, in the field of international relations with a focus on Jordan, and heads the Department of Political Science at the Near East University, Nicosia.
[1] Jillian Schwedler, "The Quiescent Opposition," The Wilson Center, Washington, D.C., Aug. 27, 2015.
[2] Gudrun Krämer, "The Integration of the Integrists: A Comparative Study of Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia," in Democracy without Democrats? The Renewal of Politics in the Muslim World, ed. Ghassan Salamé (London: I.B. Tauris, 1994), p. 219; see, also, Curtis C. Ryan, "Islamist Political Activism in Jordan: Moderation, Militancy, and Democracy," Scholars for Peace in the Middle East Reports, June 2008, p. 3.
[3] Author interview with Zaki Bani Irshid, Jordanian Brotherhood's deputy general-secretary, IAF Headquarters, Amman, Nov. 9, 2010; author interview with Orab Rantawi, director of the Amman-based al-Quds Center for Political Studies, Amman, Nov. 8, 2010.
[4] Robert Satloff and David Schenker, "Political Instability in Jordan: Contingency Planning Memorandum No. 19," Council on Foreign Relations, New York, May 2013, §6.
[5] Krämer, "The Integration of the Integrists," p. 219.
[6] Mudar Zahran, "Jordan Is Palestine," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2012, pp. 3-12.
[7] David Siddharta Patel, "The more things change, the more they stay the same: Jordanian Islamist responses in spring and fall," Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, Rethinking Political Islam Series, Brookings Institute, Washington, D.C., Aug. 2015, p. 6.
[8] Al-Monitor (Washington, D.C.), May 12, 2015; David Schenker, "Amman's Showdown with the Muslim Brotherhood." The Washington Institute, Washington, D.C., Apr. 6, 2016.
[9] Shmuel Bar, The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan (Tel Aviv: The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, 1998), p. 19.
[10] The New York Times, Feb. 1, 2011.
[11] Tareq al-Naimat, "The Jordanian Regime and the Muslim Brotherhood: A Tug of War," Viewpoints, July 2014.
[12] Ibid; Patel, "The more things change," p. 3.
[13] Hasan Abu Haniyeh, "Jordan's strategy to fragment the Muslim Brotherhood," Middle East Eye (London), Apr. 19, 2016.
[14] Naimat, "The Jordanian Regime."
[15] Al-Monitor, Feb. 2, 2015.
[16] The Jordan Times (Amman), Apr. 14, 2016.
[17] TRT Haber TV (Istanbul), July 6, 2015; al-Monitor, Mar. 3, 2015, May 12, 2015.
[18] Khaled Waleed Mahmoud, "Where Does Jordan Stand on the Syrian Crisis?" Middle East Monitor, Sept. 16, 2013.
[19] Mona Alami, "Jordanian jihadists are on the rise," The Daily Star (Beirut), Mar. 4, 2014.
[20] The Jerusalem Post, Oct. 21, 2012; Al-Monitor, Apr. 23, 2013.
[21] The Jordan Times, June 11, 2016.
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From two years ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/world/middleeast/tribes-at-center-of-effort-to-free-jordanian-pilot.html?_r=0
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https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Jordan_Patel-FINALE.pdf
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a) http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/jordanian-stabs-israeli-policeman-in-old-city-of-jerusalem/?omhide=true
Is there more complete footage of this anywhere?
b) The second clip on this page shows terrible perimeter control e.g. that woman at 01:20 should not be where she is.
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Not one of Jordan's better moments
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jordan-calls-killing-of-jerusalem-attacker-a-heinous-crime/
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After being mentioned by President Trump by name in his speech, I see that King Abdulah was the first to speak after President Trump. Anyone have a transcript? Video with subtitles or something of the like?
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Until we get ahold of that, here is the result of a quick surf through youtube:
2009: Queen Rania:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=605Syyvoqbg
2015 King and Queen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUKShbcz9aI
2015 Warrior King
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_jrH_nWTqc
2016 Queen Rania with Amanapour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUqzQzq-o4I
2016 Queen Rania on Charlie Hebdo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHB9lv7niio (at 04:00+)
2016 King defends Trump's call for moratorium
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0y3jpv4_Uw
5 months ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biiHAWfWFAA
Press conference with Trump in Washington
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmTA6NZYLLM
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Jordan Intensifies Anti-Israel Rhetoric Despite Security Challenges
by Noah Beck
Special to IPT News
June 1, 2017
https://www.investigativeproject.org/6179/jordan-intensifies-anti-israel-rhetoric-despite
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Jordan, a country that has had a formal peace treaty with Israel since 1994, has seen an uptick in anti-Israel hostility.
Last month, Jordan condemned the killing of a Jordanian-Palestinian attacker who was filmed stabbing an Israeli policeman multiple times before he was shot, calling it "a heinous crime." In September, Israeli police killed a Jordanian tourist who attacked with a knife. Jordan described this act of self-defense as a premeditated and "barbaric act of the army of the Israeli occupation."
Israeli analysts disagree whether Jordan's rhetoric is a cause for concern.
Since the second Palestinian Intifada broke out in 2000, Jordan's public statements often contradict private behavior, said Elad Ben-Dror, a Bar-Ilan University Middle Eastern Studies senior lecturer. Publicly, "the Jordanian parliament and press are fierce in their denunciation of Israel... Beneath the surface, however, there is a strong link and security cooperation between the two countries, especially with regard to the war on terrorism."
Jordanian demographics drive the public vitriol, said Tel Aviv University Contemporary Middle Eastern History Chair Eyal Zisser. Palestinians comprise half the Jordanian population, "and because the population is conservative and very much Islamic, the regime lets the public...express anti-Israeli sentiments as a way to vent and reduce...pressure on the regime."
So "cheap shots" like condemning the shooting of a terrorist in the act of trying to kill are "aimed at showing the Palestinians in Jordan [that] the Hashemites have not abandoned them," said Oded Eran, a senior research fellow at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies. "The King expects the Israeli government" to ignore such statements. And for the most part, Jerusalem does.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently took exception. "It is outrageous to hear the Jordanian government's speaker support the terror attack which occurred today in Jerusalem's Old City," a statement released by Netanyahu's office said. "It's time Jordan stopped playing both sides of the game. Just like Israel condemns terror attacks in Jordan, Jordan must condemn terror attacks in Israel. Terror is terror."
Moreover, some anti-Israel hostility by Jordan goes beyond mere statements.
In March, Jordan released Ahmed Daqamseh, a former soldier who murdered seven Israeli schoolgirls as they visited his country. His tribe gave him a hero's welcome and he called for Israel's destruction on Al-Jazeera TV. Many lawmakers and politicians had reportedly lobbied to set him free, and doing so may have been a populist move.
Jordan also hosts "Al-Quds," the official TV station of Hamas, the Gaza-based terror group committed to Israel's destruction.
Some experts think Israel should stop turning the other cheek. "Israel is assisting Jordan economically, providing it with fresh water and [helping] in many other areas. It is entitled and even obligated to insist that Jordan moderate its criticism and certainly that it not support anti-Israeli terrorism," Ben-Dror said.
Israel should "slowly alter the rules of the game" by insisting that Jordan's monarch condemn Palestinian violence, said Bar-Ilan political scientist Hillel Frisch. "Israel has to make him sweat a little but not, of course, at the expense of his throne."
"I'm glad that Netanyahu rebuked him over the attempted murder of the policeman," Frisch said. "I'd like to see more rebukes in the future, especially regarding the Waqf guards' role in incitement on Har Habayit." Under the terms of Israel's peace treaty with Jordan, the Jordanian-run Waqf Islamic religious trust administers the Temple Mount, but has been leading efforts to deny and erase any Jewish connection to the site.
Last July, three members of the Islamic Waqf attacked a group of archeologists at the site. The harassment continued in January, when Islamic guards tried to remove an Israeli tour guide for calling the area the "Temple Mount," insisting that he use the Islamic term "Haram al-Sharif."
While King Abdullah might have an unspoken understanding with his "Arab Street" that requires regular condemnations of Israel, the sustainability of such an arrangement remains a concern. The same Islamist forces to which he panders could eventually hobble his policy objectives, or worse.
Last October, a grassroots campaign was launched by Jordanian activists to turn off the lights to protest Jordan's gas deal with Israel. The "lights-out action came on the heels of a protest march [recently] in downtown Amman that attracted an estimated 2,500 demonstrators, making it one of the largest protests in Jordan in recent years," the Jerusalem Post reported. The protests reportedly included chants against both the gas deal and Jordan's peace with Israel.
Reflecting popular opposition, the lower house of Jordan's Parliament overwhelmingly opposed the 2014 gas deal. The opposition includes leading Jordanian trade unions, Islamists, and secularists.
By indulging public opinion with anti-Israel rhetoric, Abdullah risks encouraging and popularizing the type of movement that could eventually topple him. Jordanian Islamists recently murdered a prominent Christian writer who faced legal charges for sharing a "blasphemous" anti-ISIS cartoon that outraged Muslim groups. Honor killings are increasing in Jordan.
Last November, Jordan's highest religious authority slammed as "false and insignificant" an Israeli bill to ban the Muslim call to prayer via loudspeakers during sleeping hours throughout Israel. The Israeli bill would apply to the sound systems of all houses of worship, not only mosques, and countries like India and Egypt have enacted similar limitations.
Anti-Israel hostility might be aggravated by Jordan's overall situation. Economic woes and an influx of Syrian refugees are bringing increasing instability, Israeli Ambassador to Jordan Einat Shlein warned in March.
Frisch is less concerned: "I remember from [over 50 years ago] how the pundits predicted the Jordanian monarchy's imminent fall. My take is that... [King Abdullah] has money (Saudi and Gulf) and lots of intelligence and logistical support (Israel, US, British) and the more heterogeneous his population, the more room for maneuver [he has] to play the role of arbiter."
Although Jordan has economic challenges, the regime is stable, Ben-Dror said. "Jordanians see what is happening in Syria and Iraq and appreciate the stability the regime provides. I think that most Jordanians want to preserve the status quo – the Hashemite regime. The combination of outside support for the country and the domestic support of its citizens guarantee its survival."
Mutual interests provide some insurance for Israel-Jordan relations, Eran said. Jordan needs Israeli cooperation and expertise when it comes to "security, water and...energy... [Jordan] also needs at least a semblance of a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians to prevent unrest" among Jordanian Palestinians.
Indeed, that synergy may explain why Israel's Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Jordanian hostility towards Israel.
"Jordan protects Israel from the east," Zisser said. "It's better to have the Jordanians as our neighbors than to have ISIS, the Iranians, the Syrians, or the Iraqis. So security is above all, and as long as the Jordanians keep the border quiet and cooperate with Israel," the rest can be tolerated.
Still, if King Abdullah views Israel as key to his regime's success, and he also needs support from the Jordanian "street" for his regime's survival, then why – despite being the most powerful figure in Jordan – has he done so little to align public opinion with his strategic objectives? If King Abdullah can order bloody crackdowns on terrorists, can't he promote more moderate thinking among the general population, by – for example – pushing the press to include fair and balanced coverage of Israel?
"The King is not as powerful as one thinks," Zisser said. "There were many protests against corruption, unemployment etc., so... [he] needs to maneuver carefully."
But Frisch disagreed: "Abdullah has been in the throne long enough to influence and shape public opinion rather [than] pander to it. He might be doing this deliberately to derail any peace process that might lead to a Palestinian state, which he certainly does not want. He wants Israel, as the strongest state on the block to contain Palestinian nationalism and radicalism."
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.
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http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Jordan-considering-banning-Wonder-Woman-over-Israeli-star-Gal-Gadot-495026
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http://ammanmessage.com/foreword/
http://ammanmessage.com/preface/
http://ammanmessage.com/introduction/
http://ammanmessage.com/
http://ammanmessage.com/the-three-points-of-the-amman-message-v-1/
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During their meetings yesterday with Jordanian King Abdullah, did US Defense Secretary Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Homeland Security Ray Kelly or Senior Presidential Adviser Jared Kushner bring up Ahlam Tamimi?
According to the Jordanian government press release, Abdullah was there on a "private visit," whatever that is. He didn't use his vacation to go to Disney World. He went to DC to talk to them about getting Israel to make concessions to the terrorists that run the Palestinian Authority as well as about fighting terrorism.
Well, Abdullah could do more to fight terrorism if he wanted to.
For instance, he could honor the US's extradition request for Tamimi, the mass murderer behind the 2001 Sbarro resturant bombing in Jerusalem. 15 people, including 7 children were massacred in the attack. Five members of one family were obliterated.
Tamimi is an unrepentant monster. And she's working as a TV host on Hamas TV in Amman. She uses her platform to incite terrorism.
In March Jordan rejected the US's extradition request.
How can Jordan be considered an ally in the US-led war on Islamic terrorism when Abdullah hosts Tamimi in this way?
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Apparently King Abdullah is in Washington meeting with President Trump, Sec Def Mattis, et al.
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I am told that since this piece on June 6, the Germans have acted
Posted by
Editor_Ben
Editor_Ben
June 6 in The Daily Round-Up
German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel visited Turkey on June 5, but failed to obtain an authorization for German MPs to visit German soldiers at the military base of Incirlik. Gabriel said that, as a result, Germany will have to move its soldiers away from the base. German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen confirmed that German troops in Incirlik will be moved to Jordan, to the air base of Azraq.
Based on statements from Turkey yesterday, it seemed like Germany was only initiating the first practical steps towards making a real decision on this, but reports later in the day indicate that Germany has already put everything in place and is ready to make the actual move.
The 250 German troops and associated aircraft could be expected to move from Turkey to Jordan in the near future. While in military terms only a small logistical feat, it marks another continuation of the Europe-Turkey rift within NATO.
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http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/17/middleeast/jordan-us-soldier-deaths/index.html
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-jordan-usa-idUKKBN1A20SM?il=0
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/politics/report-us-green-berets-jordan/index.html
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http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/31/u-s-jordan-discuss-placing-patriot-missile-batteries-in-jordan/
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Third post
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/06/politics/khaled-khoja-free-syrian-army-u-s-support/index.html
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fourth post
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/03/middleeast/jordan-border-security-isis/index.html
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Jordan: Second Fatality At Israeli embassy In Amman
A second Jordanian fatality has now been confirmed as a result of a shooting incident at the Israel embassy in Jordan's capital Amman, the BBC reported July 23, citing a local security source. The incident happened in a residential building used by the Israeli embassy. Those killed are believed to have worked for a local a furniture firm and entered the building before shots were fired. Thousands of Jordanians protested in Amman July 21, upset at the installation of metal detectors at a site in East Jerusalem sacred to both Muslims and Jews.
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The aftermath of a July 23 shooting continued to unfold at the Israeli Embassy compound in Jordan's capital of Amman on July 24, with Israeli officials continuing work to extradite the shooter, an Israeli guard, back to Israel, the Jerusalem Post reported. A high-level official is reportedly being sent to negotiate for the return of the guard, who killed two Jordanians in the incident: a man who attacked him with a screwdriver and a second man who was in the vicinity. Israel's Foreign Ministry says the guard has immunity from investigation under diplomatic conventions.
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https://sofrep.com/86384/eagle-murder-three-green-berets-video-jordan-doesnt-want-see/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlZx7pWeJC0
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Caroline Glick on the three Green Berets
Here is a video every American -- first and foremost, President Trump, James Mattis, Rex Tillerson and Jared Kushner -- should watch again and again.
They show a Jordanian soldier murdering three US green berets, Staff Sgt. Matthew C. Lewellen, 27, of Kirksville, Missouri; Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 30, of Tucson, Arizona; and Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty, 27, of Kerrville, Texas. in cold blood last November 4.
For eight months, Jordan refused to release the video footage of the terror attack. The terrorist received life in prison, rather than the death sentence for this action. Initially the regime said the US soldiers were drunk or trying to run the barriers at the entrance to the Jordanian base where they were serving.
The video footage shows this is a total lie. At one point they actually put their weapons down, put their hands up and pleaded with the terrorist to leave them alone saying, "We're Americans, we're friends." He kept shooting.
At another point, Sgt. Moriarty asked for help from the Jordanian soldiers.
As the video shows, the Jordanian soldiers did nothing to help them.
After the US soldiers finally neutralized the terrorist -- no thanks to the Jordanians -- the US army asked for a medivac to come in to care for the two wounded soldiers -- Lewellen was killed on the spot. It took over an hour for the helicopter to arrive and Sgt. Mcenroe and Moriarty bled to death on the ground.
A video of their comrade setting the record straight at a memorial ceremony posted by Moriarty's father is posted in the first comment.
A video of Moriarty's father demanding explanations for his son's murder is in the second comment.
Incidentally, or not incidentally, it is interesting that after all these months of refusing to release the video, the regime decided to do it -- and to convict the terrorist but not give him the death penalty -- the same day his comrades were holding the Israeli diplomats hostage and the same day the US got Israel to let arms continue to flow onto the Temple Mount by removing the metal detectors.
But I'm sure there's no connection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60PR47rwH-A
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Recently I heard a story about Israel insisting upon Jordan supplying it water. Help in tracking this down?
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Recently I heard a story about Israel insisting upon Jordan supplying it water. Help in tracking this down?
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Israel-PA-agree-on-water-deal-499575
This?
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Though interesting, no-- this is the PA.
I had a Syrian taxi driver (educated man in Syria) tell me an interesting story-- something along the lines of the Jordanians wanted of a deal wherein they provided Israel w water and the Israelis said no.
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(https://dogbrothers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/2017-08-17-crafty-jordan.jpg)
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http://www.jordantimes.com
It should be noted that the government subsidizes it, but the the Jordan Times is a surprisingly good newspaper.
Many articles of interest give a sense of where the government is looking to lead things e.g.
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/jd1m-allocated-build-shelter-honour-crime%E2%80%99-victims
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/children-jordanian-women-married-foreigners-be-granted-new-higher-education-rights-%E2%80%94
WW3 gets considerable coverage as well-- many items that go unnoticed here:
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/region/erdogan-vows-thwart-any-kurdish-state%E2%80%99-syria
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/region/armed-group-stopping-migrant-boats-leaving-libya
This includes big picture editorials that read like the editorial board may have been lurking here :lol:
http://www.jordantimes.com/opinion/editorial/assessment-consider
Jihadi terrorism is consistently denounced by King Abdullah and Jihadi attacks are noted
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/world/moroccan-asylum-seeker-targeted-women%E2%80%99-finland-terror-stabbing
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second post
https://www.facebook.com/prentice.crawford/posts/1429099530531211?comment_id=1429100323864465
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From https://clarionproject.org/trump-promises-youngstown/
“We will partner with King Abdullah of Jordan…”
King Abdullah was singled out by Trump as one of America’s partners who realize the “ideology of death must be extinguished.” Yet, in a speech Abdullah gave to the U.N. General Assembly in which he addressed “extremist terrorists” and their desire to “erase human civilization, and drag us back to the dark ages,” he chided Western officials, media leaders and policy makers for not understanding the “true nature of Islam,” which he said “teaches that all humanity is equal in dignity. There is no distinction among different nations or regions or races. The Qur’an forbids coercion in religion. Every citizen is guaranteed the state’s protection for their lives, families, properties, honor, privacy, and freedom of religion and thought.”
Clearly, part of Trump’s challenge with such “American partners,” is their failure to acknowledge the extremist parts of Islam that contribute to Islamist terror – namely the lack of religious freedom in Islamic societies including Jordan (as well as a host of others who are called “American partners.”)
Islamic blasphemy is on the books in Jordan. Also, in Jordan, Jews are not even allowed to pray in private or wear hidden articles of Jewish significance.
During the recent crisis on the Temple Mount in Israel – in which Israel installed metal detectors at the entrances to the mount after weapons were smuggled inside and used to kill Israeli police officers guarding the site for all worshipers — King Abdullah sided with the Waqf, the Islamic authority that administers the site and which demanded the metal detectors be removed. After the crisis was resolved (through Israel removing the detectors), Abdullah promptly pledged $1.4 million to the Waqf, which refuses to allow any prayer at the site except Islamic prayer.
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I post this because it brings up a few things I did not know, but IMHO is misleading because of things it leaves out:
a) Israel has an embassy in Amman and when a Isreali security guard killed two Jordanians under circumstances under dispute, he was allowed to leave due to diplomatic immunity;
b) King A. consistently denounces jihadi kamikaze attacks wherever they occur. It is perfectly reasonable for him to take the tack of saying that Daesh and its ilk are not really Islam-- see Reply#7 above
c) King A. consistently manifests openness with Christianity. Churches need not hide and the Crusader era monastery at Mt. Ebdo (where Moses got to see the Promised Land that God would not let him enter) has been lovingly restored and is hosted by Catholic monks and has been visited by the Pope.
Worth noting is that some 60% (working from memory here) of his population is Palestinian and he has over one million Syrian refugees. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
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https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/why-king-abdullah-chose-jews-as-his-bodyguards.422612/
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A few small, but important references to Jordan in this major piece of analysis-- the maps will not print here:
Syria’s Shattered Future
Sep 7, 2017
Editor’s Note: This Deep Dive was adapted from a piece originally produced for the Valdai Discussion Club, an institute devoted to analyzing Russia’s place in the world. The full version can be accessed here.
Summary
It’s useful to look at the past to predict the future. Little that happens in the world is truly new, and lessons can be learned from the way things transpired before. So, in trying to picture Syria’s future, observing the events that shaped present-day Lebanon is a useful exercise. Lebanon is much smaller than Syria, and its ethnic groups were more evenly proportioned before its civil war. Even so, in 1975, it went to war – and at war it stayed for 15 years. We expect Syria’s civil war – which is already midway through its sixth year – to last at least as long.
Lebanon’s post-war years haven’t exactly been peaceful either. Syria’s will be worse. The U.S. and Russia are working under the public supposition that Syria can be put back together once the fighting stops. They want a lot of the same things: to defeat the Islamic State and al-Qaida, then to build a new political system in the country. But Russia also wants to destroy any other rebel group fighting the Syrian regime, which Russia maintains is the legitimate government in the country, while the U.S. wants to form a new political system that is democratic and that excludes President Bashar Assad. They’re both likely to be disappointed. Syria is a broken country, and no amount of diplomatic handwringing or bombing is going to put it back together.
Demographic Chaos
The reason is simple: ethnic and sectarian chaos. The single-largest population group within the country is Sunni Arabs, whose main political forces are the Islamic State, al-Qaida and the Free Syrian Army (not counting the large number of Sunnis who still support the Assad regime). The U.S. and Russia will not accept a political system built around either of the first two forces, and the Free Syrian Army is too weak to defeat the radical Islamists or the Assad regime.
It is impossible to know the exact demographic breakdown of the country today because of the fighting and migration, but before the war, roughly 68 percent of Syria was Sunni. Of that, 10 percent was Kurdish and the rest was Arab. Alawites made up another 11 percent of the total population. We can assume that the country remains divided between three groups: Alawites, Syrian Kurds and Sunni Arabs. The Alawites are loyal to Assad; the Syrian Kurds are loyal to the People’s Protection Units, or YPG; and the Arabs are divided – some Islamist, some champions of Assad, and all competing for influence.
(click to enlarge)
The Assad regime, the Alawites and other minorities that Assad protects will never consent to democracy in Syria. To do so would open those communities to certain reprisal by Sunni Arab forces should they come to power. The same is true of the Syrian Kurds, who, despite being the smallest and newest Kurdish population in a Middle Eastern country, have secured a de facto state for themselves and are taking as much territory as they can to try to lend strategic depth to their indefensible position on the border with Turkey. Even if an agreement emerged that all sides agreed to, the system would collapse just as the U.S.-backed political system in Iraq collapsed.
Many of the areas dominated by Sunni Arabs are in the desert, in cities hugging the Euphrates River. Attacking these cities is difficult: It requires long supply lines through the desert, which invites the kind of guerrilla tactics at which IS excels. Similarly, the Alawite stronghold on the coast is mountainous and thus very defensible. Little suggests that these dynamics will change soon.
The most likely scenario is that Syria will eventually be divided into three main areas. The first area will be controlled by the remnants of the Assad regime, which will maintain authority over the major cities and the coastal strongholds that are the Alawites’ core territories. The second area will be the Syrian Kurdish territories. There are two main pockets of Syrian Kurds: an isolated and small group in Afrin canton and a larger group in northeastern Syria, which before the breakout of war had significant natural resources and decent farmland. The Syrian Kurdish territories are on a relatively flat plain and are vulnerable to attack, both from IS and from Turkey, which has thus far not attacked the Syrian Kurds besides the occasional artillery shelling.
(click to enlarge)
The third area will be a lawless swath of Sunni Arab territory. The precise names of the groups and the ideologies they employ are almost impossible to track, but they will be fighting each other for supremacy in these areas, as well as launching opportunistic attacks against Assad forces and Syrian Kurdish forces. Fighters will continue to move across the porous Iraq-Syria border and will increasingly put pressure on neighboring countries.
IS, al-Qaida and the Power of Ideas
This Sunni Arab territory deserves a closer look, specifically at the future of jihadist forces not just in Syria but throughout the region. The Islamic State and al-Qaida are the most substantial of these forces today, but this will not always be the case. Eventually, IS and al-Qaida will lose their strongholds. They will melt back into the civilian population until foreign forces leave. Another group may arise in their place, or they may regenerate their fiefs and even try to grab more land to the south, greatly straining two Sunni Arab countries that have thus far stayed out of the fray: Jordan and Saudi Arabia. They will not be able to stay on the sidelines forever.
At its height of IS expansion, the lands it controlled amounted to roughly 50,000 square kilometers (19,500 square miles), roughly the size of Croatia. Taking into account the sparsely populated deserts and other areas where IS can operate with relative freedom, even though it is not directly in control, this territory expands to approximately 250,000 square kilometers, roughly the size of Great Britain.
The U.S. State Department boasts on its website that U.S. coalition partners have recaptured 62 percent of IS territory in Iraq and 30 percent in Syria. In war, such statistics are meaningless. What matters is not the size of the territory but whether that territory is strategically important. So far, anti-IS forces in Syria and Iraq have not conquered enough territory from the Islamic State to cripple its ability to operate.
The Islamic State’s core territory is the stretch of land from Raqqa to Deir el-Zour in eastern Syria. The most recent Syrian census, done in 2004, estimated that close to half a million people lived in these two cities alone. In recent weeks, this territory has come under serious threat. Syrian Kurdish forces have closed in on Raqqa, and despite the Islamic State’s diversionary attacks, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have advanced methodically on the city. Meanwhile, the Russia-backed Syrian army has been making gains of its own. Syrian government forces crossed into Raqqa province at the beginning of June, and more important, they have begun an offensive into eastern Syria targeting Deir el-Zour and al-Mayadin.
(click to enlarge)
All evidence seems to indicate that the Islamic State has chosen to retreat from Raqqa to reinforce its position in Deir el-Zour and al-Mayadin. The SDF has made progress in Raqqa, but notably, it left the main highway heading east out of the city open. For months, reports have said IS fighters were leaving the city. When IS convoys have attempted to head west, Russia has made a point of targeting them, but there seems to be a coordinated effort between U.S. and Russian allies on the ground to push IS into a smaller area in eastern Syria that will eventually be attacked head on.
This would all seem to suggest that the defeat of the Islamic State is nigh. That would be a premature judgment. The hallmark of the Islamic State’s military capabilities has been its ability to avoid costly defeats. IS routinely retreats from positions it knows it cannot defend, regroups and then launches new attacks where its enemies are unprepared for them. If it turns out IS cannot protect its territory against the approaching forces, the most likely course of action is that IS fighters will withdraw or blend into the civilian population and give up the city without a fight. For all of the Islamic State’s religious bravado, it has shown itself to be pragmatic in its approach to war, and it would be out of character for it to make a suicidal stand against incoming forces. IS uses suicide bombs for offensive purposes; it does not view suicide in defense as any more noble than defeat.
Even if the physical caliphate is destroyed, the Islamic State’s ideology will persist in a region that is ripe for recruitment. The attacking armies are united in their opposition to IS but will find little in the way of a common cause if the Islamic State’s territorial integrity is broken. They will instead take to fighting among themselves, opening up new spaces for IS to capitalize on and return. The forces will eventually have to withdraw from formerly IS-held territories to attack al-Qaida and other targets in Syria as well, which will mean IS can bide its time. The Islamic State is playing a long game, and its religious ideology can and will preach patience to the faithful. It will not conceded defeat.
Al-Qaida’s position in Syria is more tenuous than the Islamic State’s, and as a result, al-Qaida is not seen as an equal threat and has been able to fly much more under the radar than its territorially focused offshoot. In Syria, the group has changed its name several times (the latest incarnation is Tahrir al-Sham), but it would be a mistake to call it anything but what it is: al-Qaida in Syria. Al-Qaida in Syria has tried to forge connections with other Syrian rebel groups and has captured fiefdoms of its own outside of Aleppo and Idlib. It has fewer fighters than IS, but like the IS fighters, they are extremely capable and have proved much more successful on the battlefield than any of the moderate Syrian rebel groups.
Al-Qaida is surrounded, however, by Syrian government forces. It is only a matter of time before the regime turns its attention to the group. The U.S. has said repeatedly that it plans to solve the IS problem before targeting al-Qaida, and one reason it can afford that approach is that it knows Assad and Russia view al-Qaida, which is closer to the heartland of the regime, as their more pressing problem. Once the Assad regime focuses the bulk of its forces on al-Qaida’s territories in and around Idlib, al-Qaida will gradually have to retreat and blend into the civilian population. The operation to retake these areas will come with mass executions and purges of all suspected al-Qaida sympathizers and collaborators.
The result is that likely in the next one to three years, the entities in Syria currently known as the Islamic State and al-Qaida will be dislodged from full control of their possessions. But the problem is not defeating these groups or taking their lands; with sufficient manpower and foreign support, these groups’ grip over their territories can be loosened if not broken entirely for a time. The problem is that unless a foreign force occupies these territories, the groups will reconstitute themselves and recapture the land they lost. And there is no country in the world whose strategic interests are served by holding territory in the middle of the Syrian and Iraqi deserts indefinitely.
Fighting groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaida takes place on two levels. The first is the military level. Tactical difficulties stand in the way of victory, but they can be overcome. The second level, however, is the realm of ideas. That radical Islamist ideology has a force of its own is indisputable at this point. For whatever reason – the lack of economic opportunity, the history of colonial oppression, whatever – this ideology has given meaning and organization to a generation of people.
In this sense, then, the Islamic State, al-Qaida and the myriad other groups that have sprouted up out of the power vacuum left by the civil war are unbeatable, because it is impossible to defeat an idea. This is a civil war between Muslims in the Middle East. The religious wars of Europe around the time of the Enlightenment each took decades if not centuries to play out before a somewhat stable system of political entities emerged. (And even this system eventually became so unbalanced that in the 20th century it twice brought the entire world into war.) There is no reason to expect that the Muslim wars will take less time than that, nor is there reason to believe that the U.S. or Russia or any outside power will be able to subdue these forces with the right combination of coalition fighters.
The best that can be achieved is containing these forces where they are. For the U.S., preventing their spread south into countries it counts among its allies is of prime importance. For Russia, preventing their spread north into the Caucasus is the bigger priority. Either way, the two sides share an interest in keeping these religious wars confined, as much as possible, to the deserts of the Middle East, rather than the streets of Manhattan or the subway stations of St. Petersburg.
Smoke billows in the embattled northern Syrian city of Raqqa on Sept. 3, 2017, as Syrian Democratic Forces battle to retake the city from the Islamic State. DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images
When it comes to Syria, then, the U.S. and Russia are already working together even if they don’t include each other in their coalitions. The tacit coordination in the Raqqa and Deir el-Zour offensives is evidence enough of that. Neither wants to see radical Islamism spread into its spheres of influence. Neither wants or has the forces available to commit to conquering radical Islamism in Syria and Iraq – and policing the territories after the fact. The U.S. and Russia do not see eye to eye on the legitimacy of the Assad regime, but the U.S. does not have the luxury of pushing for Assad’s downfall; what would arise in his place might be far worse. The U.S. will continue to search for partners to keep IS in a cage, and Russia will continue to prop up Assad as he eventually moves on to targeting al-Qaida. And while Russia and the U.S. continue to butt heads in other parts of the world, in this part of the world, they will quietly work, perhaps not quite together, but still in pursuit of a similar goal.
Great Power Politics
But the Syrian civil war will not stay contained in Syria. Even if the U.S. and Russia succeed in keeping radical Islamism bottled up in the country, Syria has become a battleground for proxies supported by countries around the Middle East. Here, too, Russia and the U.S. share an overarching goal, but occasional disagreements may arise. The only way this could be derailed is if both sides fail to put their Cold War rivalry behind them.
The balance of power in the Middle East mattered during the Cold War – when the region was responsible for a much greater share of global oil production than it is today, and when the balance of power in all regions mattered. The region’s wars were not just local; they were between the U.S. and the USSR. But those days are over. Now, Russia is back to Soviet-era levels of oil production. The U.S. has become one of the top oil producers in the world and no longer depends as much on the Middle East. And despite U.S.-Russia tensions since the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, there is no current conflict between the two that has the same weight as the Cold War.
Russia in 2017 is smaller, weaker and less ideological than its Soviet predecessor. This does not mean Russia has given up its position as a global power, but it does mean that a region like the Middle East is less important than it once was. Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia – all former Soviet lands – are far more important for Russia’s continued power. What the Middle East offers, however, is a chance to distract the U.S. from interfering in the regions where Russia cannot afford to lose influence, as well as the potential to inflate the price of oil – Russia’s top export – by hampering Middle East producers.
The U.S., meanwhile, has been desperately searching for a way out of the Middle East since 2007. The Bush administration tried to end the Iraq War with the overwhelming force of the troop surge, which had no lasting effect. The Obama administration tried to do as little as possible, and when it did act, its policy was largely incoherent. The Trump administration now seems to be contemplating a kind of surge of its own, which is sure to be ineffective. If Russia wanted to take over management of the Middle East and its crises, the U.S. would welcome it. The point is that the Middle East is no longer a battleground for world power. It is an annoyance that neither Russia nor the U.S. particularly wants to face.
The main threat for the U.S. is that a country or group of countries will come to dominate the entire region. Besides the threat of Islamist terrorism, the U.S. views IS and its sister groups as potential unifiers of the Sunni Arab world against the United States. It also views these groups as a direct threat to the countries the U.S. depends on to maintain a balance of power in the region, particularly Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Egypt is an economic basket case with an active IS insurgency of its own in Sinai. That Jordan has gone this long unscathed is a minor miracle. According to the U.N. refugee agency, Jordan has received over 650,000 Syrian refugees since 2011 – and those are just the registered ones. Syrian nationals now make up more than 20 percent of Jordan’s population. Saudi Arabia has built the legitimacy of its political system on all the generous services that petrodollars can buy. The decline in oil prices and the kingdom’s diminished share of global production have already manifested in significant cuts to social services and to the privileges of the royal family. Saudi Arabia is a breeding ground for the types of Islamist ideologies that have broken Syria and Iraq apart, and the Islamist groups want little more than to control the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
The U.S. upended the regional balance of power in 2003, and in recent years it has tried to re-establish it on the backs of four states: Turkey, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israel is too small to balance against Turkey and Iran, which makes Saudi Arabia a crucial part of the equation. Without the Saudis, the region devolves into a contest between the Turks and the Iranians, and Turkey has the edge in military strength, economic heft and geography. It would win out in the long term. The U.S. and Turkey have been allies for many decades, and Turkey is a NATO member, but Turkey is strong and growing stronger, and more and more it is disagreeing with Washington on major issues of national interest. Turkey is not yet strong enough to challenge the U.S. on these issues, but that time is coming. When it does, the U.S. will want to be sure that the Turks cannot dominate the Middle East unimpeded.
This is another area where the interests of Russia and the U.S. converge. Turkey and Russia have a long history of war between them. The most recent major incident between them was in 2015, when Turkey shot down a Russian aircraft over northern Syria. They have since resolved the dispute, but relations remain uneasy and complicated. As Russia weakens and Turkey rises, Turkey will start to challenge Russian influence in the Caucasus and the Balkans, areas that for Russia hold greater strategic significance than any country in the Middle East.
This is why Russia and the U.S. have both, to varying degrees, reached out to Syria’s Kurds. In March, the Syrian Kurds said Russia had agreed to build a base in northern Syria and to send military personnel to train the YPG. Russia’s Ministry of Defense disputed this depiction, saying it was setting up a “reconciliation center.” Whatever it is called, the construction is a symbol of closer relations.
The U.S., for its part, has come to rely on the Syrian Kurds as the largest ground force in Syria that is both able and willing to take on the Islamic State directly. The Obama administration tacitly supported the Syrian Kurds, but the Trump administration went a step further in May when it announced that it would supply them with weapons to fight the Islamic State.
Russian and U.S. support has not gone unnoticed in Turkey’s capital. In the same way that Ukraine is of fundamental importance to Russia, or that Cuba is to the U.S., the Kurdish issue is crucial for Turkey. It is also the one issue that could significantly complicate Turkey’s rise to power. The Kurds in Syria are not the problem – at least, they are not the only problem. The issue is that Kurds, with all their separatist ambitions, make up about 18 percent of Turkey’s population – about 14 million people – and most of them live in the southeastern part of the country near Syria. The Kurds are not a monolithic group; the roughly 29 million to 35 million Kurds in the Middle East speak different languages, have different tribal and national loyalties, and even have different religious faiths. But Syria’s Kurds are closely related to Turkey’s Kurds. In Turkey’s eyes, the YPG is the same level of strategic threat as IS or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party militant group, or PKK.
Both the U.S. and Russia have an interest, then, in preventing Turkey from intervening in Syria in any capacity beyond fighting the Islamic State. For one thing, Turkey is anti-Assad, and the rebel groups with which it is closest are ideologically incompatible with the U.S. and Russia. For another, Turkey would try to destroy the Syrian Kurdish statelet that has popped up during the war for fear that the spirit of independence might spread into Turkey’s own Kurdish region in the southeast, which has seen more and more clashes in the past two years between the PKK and Turkish security forces. The stronger both the Syrian Kurds and the Assad regime are, the harder it will be for Turkey to extend its power into the Levant, and the greater the balance against Turkey in the region will be as its strength grows over the next two decades.
Iran is another part of the equation, and here the intersection of U.S. and Russian interests is more complicated. The U.S. signed the nuclear deal with Iran because it needed Iran’s help to contain Islamic State forces in Iraq, but the U.S. also does not want to see Baghdad and the Shiite parts of Iraq become de facto provinces of Iran. The Americans need Iran’s help – and over the long term need Iran as a counterweight to Turkish power – but they will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. They will block any attempt by Iran to establish regional dominance, just as they would stop Turkey from forming a unified Sunni Arab force.
Russian relations with Iran have historically been fraught, but at the moment they are positive. This is in part because Iran supports the Assad regime and views every group in the region that is not Sunni as a potential proxy group. Iran’s Shiite proxies, such as Hezbollah, are also important for keeping up the fight against the Islamic State. Unlike the U.S., Russia is not too concerned with Iran’s westward expansion. It would not, however, tolerate Persian influence in the Caucasus any more than it would accept Turkish influence there.
The U.S. and Russia are not in total agreement in the Middle East, but their disagreements are not close to reaching the scale of the Cold War. And they both share a desire to limit the spread of Islamist ideology and to prevent any country or group in the Middle East from rising to challenge their interests. They will continue to compete in some ways – supporting groups in Syria that are fighting groups the other supports, for instance – but they ultimately want the same thing: for the Middle East’s problems to stay in the Middle East.
Syria’s immediate future, then, is bleak and will be marred by more years of war and Islamist insurgency. IS and al-Qaida will suffer defeats but will not be defeated. Turkey will rise. Saudi Arabia will fall. Iran will scheme. The Kurds will fight. And neither the U.S. nor Russia will be able to wash their hands of the region as this chaos unfolds.
The U.S. and Russia took different routes to Syria – the U.S. through the war on terror and a botched invasion of Iraq, Russia through a revolution in Ukraine and an unexpected drop in oil prices – but both are there to stay. They are at odds in many parts of the world, especially in Eastern Europe. But in the Middle East, they will work side by side – if not together – to eliminate IS and al-Qaida and prevent the emergence of any dominant regional power. The U.S. and Russia face different challenges from an unstable Middle East and will disagree over many of the particulars, but at the broadest level they will be working toward the same goal: a predictable balance of power. The Cold War is over, but for great powers, the world is a small place. The U.S. and Russia cannot help but run into each other.
The post Syria’s Shattered Future appeared first on Geopolitics | Geopolitical Futures.
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http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/ngo-teaches-refugees-make-ac-units-out-plastic-bottles
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/gov%E2%80%99t-launches-investment-map-governorates
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/jordan-iraq-agree-set-industrial-estate-border
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http://observers.france24.com/en/20160602-bangladesh-air-conditioner-plastic-bottles-technology
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http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/seminar-interfaith-highlights-common-vision-abrahamic-religions
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http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/no-delay-aid-rukban-dwellers-%E2%80%94-momani
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http://carolineglick.com/from-amman-to-jerusalem/
Five months ago, 28 year old Ziv Moyal, an Israeli security officer at Israel’s embassy in Amman, was stabbed in his apartment by a Jordanian assailant, whom he shot and killed.
Moyal also accidentally killed his Jordanian landlord, who was present on the scene.
(MARC: This sounds rather odd to me. Any chance that this is not the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth? Is this the same incident that was earlier reported as something about two furniture guys shot by an Israeli or was that a different incident?)
In the immediate aftermath of the incident, incited by the state-controlled media, the Jordanian public was whipped into an anti-Israel frenzy. In short order, a mob surrounded the embassy, to which Moyal and another 20 Israeli diplomats fled immediately after the shooting.
For 24 hours, those Israeli diplomats, led by Ambassador Einat Schlein were besieged.
Despite the fact that they are barred from doing so under the Vienna Convention, Jordanian authorities demanded to interrogate Moyal. By refusing to enable the diplomats to safely return to Israel until Moyal submitted to questioning, they effectively held Schlein and her colleagues hostage.
It took the intervention of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the life-threatening crisis. The price Jordan’s King Abdullah II exacted for the freedom and protection of Israel’s diplomatic personnel was high. In exchange for their safe passage, Netanyahu agreed to permit Jordanian officials to be present during Moyal’s questioning by Israeli officials. He also succumbed to Abdullah’s demand that Israeli police remove metal detectors from the Temple Mount, which had been deployed a few days before amid wide-scale violence by Muslim worshipers against Jews.
Since its diplomats were evacuated in July, Israel’s embassy has been closed. Jordan has refused to permit Schlein to return to her duties and has insisted that Moyal be tried for the death of his assailant and his landlord.
It was reported Wednesday that in the interest of ending the diplomatic crisis and reopening Israel’s embassy, Netanyahu has decided to promote Schlein to a senior position in the Foreign Ministry and appoint a replacement.
But Jordan isn’t interested in ending the crisis it deliberately precipitated.
On Thursday, Reuters quoted a Jordanian diplomatic source saying that a new Israeli ambassador “will not be welcome in Jordan until a due legal process takes its course [against Moyal] and justice is served.”
So, unless Israel criminally prosecutes its diplomat who was attacked in his home by a terrorist, Jordan will continue to breach its peace treaty with Israel and bar the Israeli embassy from operating in Amman.
Jordan’s latest round of diplomatic war against Israel took place while Abdullah was in Washington on a “working visit.”
More often than not, Abdullah, who is touted by the US as a moderate leader and a US ally, spends his visits in Washington lobbying against Israel. And, given his reputation as a moderate, he is usually successful.
This week’s visit was no different.
According to the Jordanian media – which he controls – Abdullah is devoting significant time in his meetings with senior administration and Congressional officials to attacking Israel.
Specifically, Abdullah is lobbying against President Donald Trump’s intention to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, in accordance with US law.
By December 4, Trump will have to sign a semi-annual waiver of the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act.
The act requires the State Department to relocate the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. If Trump doesn’t sign the waiver, the embassy will automatically be moved to Jerusalem, in accordance with the law.
Speculation that Trump may refuse to sign the waiver was raised this week by Vice President Mike Pence. In his speech at a UN event marking the 70th anniversary of the UN vote to end the British Mandate in the land of Israel and partition the land between a Jewish state and an Arab state, Pence made clear that moving the embassy is being actively discussed.
According the Times of Jordan, Abdullah told senior US lawmakers that “moving the embassy… could be potentially exploited by terrorists to stoke anger, frustration and desperation in order to spread their ideologies.”
During his visit, Abdullah also met with Pence, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster.
Although Jordanian media reports of those visits did not include information regarding the possible move of the US embassy, it stands to reason that Abdullah made similar points to Pence, Tillerson and McMaster.
It can only be hoped that Abdullah’s warnings were rebuked by his American interlocutors.
Because, if terrorists are motivated to act in the wake of a US decision to move the embassy, Jordan will hold a significant share of the blame.
To understand why, it is important to remember what happened last July in Amman. Had Abdullah ordered his media organs to either tell the truth about what happened at Moyal’s apartment or simply not report the incident at all until the embassy staff were safely in Israel, the diplomatic crisis would have been averted.
Abdullah chose, instead, to stoke the passions of his people, which wasn’t difficult. Thanks to decades of antisemitic incitement at the hands of his media, school system and religious authorities, the people of Jordan are overwhelmingly antisemitic. And this suits Abdullah just fine. He, too, is largely sympathetic to anti-Israeli terrorism and terrorists.
Last March, for instance, Abdullah rejected the US’s extradition request for Hamas terrorist and mass murderer Ahlam Tamimi, the mastermind of the 2001 Sbarro bombing in Jerusalem.
Fifteen people, including eight children were murdered in the attack. Tamimi selected the Sbarro pizzeria as her target because of the large number of children who frequented the eatery during summer vacation.
She was sentenced to 16 life-in-prison sentences, but was released in Israel’s exchange of Hamas terrorists for captive IDF sergeant Gilad Schalit in 2011. Upon her release, she moved to Amman where Abdullah gave her the red carpet treatment. In her new home, Tamimi hosts a show on Hamas’s television station. She uses her platform to incite terrorism and indoctrinate her viewers to aspire to murder Israelis, as she did.
Several of Tamimi’s victims at Sbarro were American citizens, including 15-year-old Malki Roth and 31-year-old Shoshana Judy Greenbaum.
Greenbaum was five months pregnant when her body was blown apart.
By harboring Tamimi, Abdullah tells his subjects they are right to hate Israelis and to work toward Israel’s destruction.
This brings us to the question of Trump’s possible decision to move the US embassy in Israel to Israel’s capital.
By having his media spew a constant diet of genocidal antisemitism, Abdullah is all but guaranteeing that the terrorism he warns of will occur if Trump enforces US law and moves the embassy. So he is not speaking as a worried friend when he tells his American hosts of the dire consequences of moving the embassy. He is threatening them with an outcome for which he will have significant responsibility.
One of the reasons Abdullah feels comfortable making the argument that moving the embassy will provoke terrorism is because that is the argument that has been used successfully to block the transfer of the US embassy to Israel in the past.
But, in October, we received a clear indication that these Chicken Little warnings are untrue.
In October, Trump overruled Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Tillerson and McMaster, and chose not to tell Congress that Iran was in compliance of the nuclear deal the Iranians were breaching. Supporters of the nuclear deal in the administration and outside of it warned that such a move would have a deeply destabilizing impact on the region and endanger the US.
As the past three months have shown, those warnings were entirely wrong.
The world did not explode after Trump rejected the received wisdom of the foreign policy establishment in Washington. Instead, the US’s Sunni-Arab allies have been empowered to join forces to combat Iran. Economically and diplomatically, Iran is far more isolated globally today than it was three months ago.
Moreover, freed from the need to pretend that Iran is a credible actor in the international community, Trump can base US policy toward Iran on reality.
No, Trump has not mapped out a clear strategy for containing and scaling back Iranian power. If he had, the US would have stopped arming and funding the Iranian-controlled Lebanese Armed Forces by now.
But, at least he hasn’t based an Iran policy on fantasy as his predecessor Barack Obama did.
Moreover, even the limited steps Trump has taken toward developing a strategy for dealing with Iran have been effective and rational. For instance, to protect the nuclear deal and maintain its claim that Iran was formally complying with its terms, the Obama administration paid the Iranian regime $8.6 million to buy heavy water that Iran produced in excess of the quantities permitted under the nuclear deal.
This week, the White House announced that it would stop this practice. As a National Security Council spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon, “The United States is not planning to purchase any Iranian heavy water. We have made it clear to Iran that it is their responsibility to remain under the heavy water limit.”
In summary, disaster did not strike after Trump bucked the collected wisdom of the entire foreign policy elite in Washington, including his top three national security advisers. To the contrary, things improved. By basing his policy on reality, Trump expanded his maneuver room, empowered US allies and began basing US policies toward Iran on reality.
By the same token, if Trump disregards Abdullah’s threats posing as warnings, and disregards the advice of Abdullah’s many friends in Washington, and moves the US embassy to Jerusalem, the sky will not fall. By recognizing the basic fact that Jerusalem is and always will be Israel’s capital, Trump will give himself the ability to develop Middle East policies that are similarly grounded in reality.
By calling the bluff of the myriad experts that insist recognizing reality will bring war, Trump can expand US power, credibility and deterrence in an unstable region. Far from causing a war, Trump can diminish the chance of war by demanding that Jordan and other disingenuous allies stop empowering jihadists and terrorists.
To this end, rather than heeding Abdullah’s threats of violence, Trump can tell Abdullah to prevent that violence by ending his media’s antisemitic incitement; extraditing Tamimi to the US; accepting the credentials of the Israeli ambassador; and reopening the Israeli embassy in Amman.
Truth is a powerful weapon. Once you base your foreign policy on it, there is no limit to the potential effectiveness of that policy in preventing war and expanding the prospects of true and lasting peace.
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Jordan, where Palestinians make up nearly half the population, will also have to deal with the fallout from Jerusalem's new designation. Just five months after a security guard at the Israeli Embassy in Amman killed two Jordanians, one of them by accident, the United States' announcement will further fuel outrage in Jordan against Israel. Jordanians will take to the streets to try to force their king to justify the existence of the country's 1994 peace treaty with Israel. At the same time, the powerful Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood will capitalize on the incident to gather strength in the country's parliament while eroding the monarchy's legitimacy. Attacks on the monarchy, in turn, could slow, if not reverse, Jordan's efforts at structural economic reform.
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http://www.jordantimes.com/news/region/ravaged-war-syria%E2%80%99s-homs-relishes-christmas-spirit
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World countries support justice despite intimidation
Dec 21,2017 - Last updated at Dec 21,2017
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Might does not make right. This was expressed clearly by the vast majority of the world countries when they defied pressure and intimidation and voted at the UN General Assembly in favour of a motion rejecting a US decision to recognise the occupied Palestinian city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The UN General Assembly (UNGA) emergency session on Jerusalem was convened Thursday specifically to overrule the US veto earlier this week of a Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling the US decision as null and void and urging Washington to rescind it.
True, the General Assembly resolution does not have the force of law, being only a recommendation. Its political import and implications are, nevertheless, far reaching.
UN General Assembly resolutions reflect the conscience and the will of the international community at large on issues that threaten regional or international peace and security.
The just adopted UNGA resolution once again referred to Jerusalem's unique spiritual, religious and cultural features and viewed the holy city as a final status issue to be freely negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Like the just defeated UNSC resolution, the UNGA resolution deeply regretted recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem, thus alluding to President Donald Trump's controversial position on Jerusalem without naming him.
The operative paragraphs of the resolution reaffirmed past UN resolutions on Jerusalem and considered any decision or action that "purports to alter the character, status or demographic composition of Jerusalem as having no legal effect and therefore null and void".
The overwhelming support to the resolution came therefore as a strong rebuke to the US for its defiance of practically the entire international community.
Yet the US remained defiant. President Trump said in so many words on the eve of the UNSC's debate of the issue of Jerusalem that he is issuing an ultimatum to all nations which oppose his position on Jerusalem by threatening to cut down or withdraw completely US financial or economic aid to them. So much for democracy and free will!
This intimidation along with extortion tactics continued during the consideration of the same issue by the UN General Assembly. US Ambassador Nikky Haley, in defiance of the world community and the principle of justice, said that the decision about where the US embassy would be located is strictly a US decision that the UN cannot and must not interfere with, warning that her country was “taking names” of countries opposing its decision. Haley was thus ignoring the many UN resolutions on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the fact that Jerusalem is an occupied city, that the US was supposed to be playing the role of an “honest” broker of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks and that justice will eventually be achieved for the Palestinian people no matter how long it would take.
Thankfully, the overwhelming majority of the UNGA did not think like the US and did not cave in to Washington’s pressure and intimidation, voting for what they thought was right.
Never before in the history of the UN did any member of the UN openly dared to intimidate other member states to follow in its footsteps or face the consequences! This open extortion tactic is alien to the UN and should be avoided at all costs especially by a permanent member of the UNSC irrespective of the merits or demerits of the criticisms levelled against the UN and its members.
What the US administration should have done under the circumstances is to inform the UNGA that it will take due note of its resolution and give it appropriate consideration instead of maintaining a defiant posture.
The friendly US people are not to blame for the decision by their administration and should be aware that instead of siding with one party of the conflict, their country can be a strong force for achieving justice and consequently peace.
They have to realise that the 12 million Palestinian people — half of them living on their land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea and the rest in the diaspora — will not vanish in thin air, will not accept any substitute for their homeland and will not relinquish their rights to Jerusalem as the capital of their state. They are ready to do it peacefully, or to wait no matter how long it takes.
Their aspirations, as shown by Thursday’s vote, are supported by the overwhelming majority of the world countries who still believe in justice and peace.
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Jordanian King Abdullah removed two of his brothers, Prince Faisal and Prince Ali, from top army posts. The palace has since warned that it would take legal measures against anyone who propagates “lies and false claims” in social media about the removals. What’s really behind the shake-up? What is stoking the palace’s fear about instability?
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second post of day:
Jordan’s foreign relations
Dec 31,2017 - Last updated at Dec 31,2017
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In recent weeks, there has been much commentary in Jordan on the importance of taking a new approach to Jordan’s bilateral relations. Strategically, it is imperative that Jordan continues to diversify its options, but this must be done with a clear plan and idea rather than clichés and propaganda.
Global political dynamics have shifted, particularly with respect to the Middle East. From the Syrian crisis to the first dual Chinese and Russian UN Security Council veto in 2012, the ground has been shifting beneath us for a few years now. We must rebuild our bilateral relations based on these changes, and the potential changes over the coming years.
Clearly, for a country like Jordan making a radical change in bilateral relations is not possible. The Jordanian alliances with Gulf states and the US are historic and cannot be changed in one day. However, we must face the new dynamics in the region and build relationships with new power brokers and influencers.
Political policies should be based on building economic independency so for a dependent economy like Jordan’s, it is difficult to fathom any radical shifts in alliances. We must consider and devise ways to move towards economic independence, including an effective food security plan. We are so reliant on US aid, that three ministers and the President of the Aqaba authority hosted a red carpet ceremony a few months ago to receive a donation of wheat from America.
Our bilateral relations must also reflect our geography and our neighbours, particularly as they have a great impact on our internal politics. If Jordan is to have any influence in the rebuilding of Syria and Iraq, then we need to consider how to transform the north of the country into an industrial and commercial hub for rebuilding Syria.
However, in order to be able to attract industrial investment from Europe and Asia, we must have a strategy for engaging with and rebuilding relations with Damascus. We need a similar strategy for Iraq. We have the potential to attract large agricultural and energy projects, but we need strategic cooperation with Russia, China and Germany to bring that investment in.
We must diversify our options, through long-term strategy and vision and finding mutual interests with new and diverse political players. We cannot follow populism, short-termism or the easiest path to our next aid donation. By the same token we cannot follow calls to build relations to Iran in response to US policy as there is no clear path to a better outcome for Jordan.
Jordan clearly needs to reconsider its policies and bilateral relations. However, a new approach must be focussed on establishing economic independence, building industry and better outcomes for Jordan and its people. We cannot engage in petty regional or global politics, as that is likely to leave us as we are now, relying on aid and donations and forever reliant on others.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/magazine/sleep-away-camp-for-postmodern-cowboys.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130721
The men of Team America were missing an assault rifle. “Everybody pulled a rifle, right, guys?” Eric asked. A 38-year-old ex-Navy lieutenant, he had blond hair to his shoulders and a few days’ worth of deployment stubble.
“We’re supposed to have eight,” Brian said. He and Eric worked SWAT together in Virginia and sometimes hunted together, too.
Brandon, 33, had six 9-millimeter Glock pistols stuffed in his pockets. He surveyed the room: “Two . . . four . . . six. . . . “
Carey, a sniper, tried to stifle a laugh. “Good thing they don’t have a counting event.”
It was a spring Saturday at the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center (Kasotc) in Jordan. The members of Team America were in their barracks after a morning at the range, cleaning their guns so the desert sand wouldn’t jam the actions. Kasotc — it rhymes with aquatic — sits in the blasted-out canyon of a rock quarry on Yajouz Road about 15 miles north of Amman. It’s a state-of-the-art counterterrorism-training base, with 6,000 acres ringed by sentry towers and razor wire. The sound of gunfire echoed off the limestone cliffs, spooking the sheep on nearby bluffs.
Team America were at Kasotc for the fifth-annual Warrior Competition in which 32 teams from 17 countries and the Palestinian territories would compete against one another on mock missions. Organizers have referred to it as “the Olympics of counterterrorism”: over the next four days, the teams would raid buildings, storm hijacked jets, rescue hostages and shoot targets with live ammunition, all while being scored for speed and accuracy. It was a stage-managed showcase for the 21st-century soldier — not the humble G.I., but the post-9/11 warrior, the superman in the shadows, keeping the world safe from murky threats. Bill Patterson, a former U.S. Special Forces soldier who oversees training at the base, said, “When you’re on that Black Hawk at 2 in the morning, on your way to target, and the bad guy you’ve been hunting for months is in that building, and there’s 25 guys with machine guns and only 6 of you — that’s a thrill you’ll never forget.”
Around 11 a.m., two Boeing Little Bird attack helicopters roared overhead, sending the base’s resident black tabby scurrying for cover. It was time for the opening
ceremony. As the teams gathered on the parade ground, they sized one another up. The Swiss team, the Skorpions of the Zürich Stadtpolizei, looked like off-duty ski instructors in their matching black jackets and mirrored sunglasses. The Lebanese Black Panthers, the SWAT team for Lebanon’s Internal Security Force, strutted in black hoodies and combat boots. The Jordanian special ops team stood straight-backed in their red berets, quietly confident in their home-field advantage. And the Russians, a bunch of ex-Spetsnaz and K.G.B. members who now worked for a private bodyguard service based in London and owned by an Iranian, showed off Chechen bullet wounds and waved the flag of the Russian Airborne. Its motto: “Nobody but Us.”
Everyone agreed that the Canadians would be tough. They were from Canada’s Special Operations Regiment. Recently back from a tour in Afghanistan, they sported combat beards, intimidating tattoos (Revelation 6:8, “And behold, a pale horse: and its rider’s name was Death”) and the kind of burly frames that come from carrying big guns over tall mountains for weeks at a time. “They look like the dudes from ‘300,’ ” a member of one of four U.S. teams said. Another said, “They look like werewolf lumberjacks.”
But most eyes were on the Chinese. China had two teams, both from the Chinese People’s Armed Police Force. The Snow Leopards were the favorite: formerly the Snow Wolf Commando unit, they were a counterterrorism squad established ahead of the Beijing Olympics. There was a rumor going around that they had been to eight more-specialized competitions and never finished lower than second. (The Chinese maintained this was their first competition.) They marched to the mess hall in formation and did push-ups for fun. By comparison, the American teams — three Army and one Marine Corps, who were at that moment posing for team pictures and smoking cigars — looked like high-school kids on a field trip.
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Team America, with their anonymous uniforms and nonregulation scruff, were the competition’s wild cards. The Dutch marines were pretty sure they were Deltas. The Canadians thought they were SEALs. During the ceremony, a Kasotc representative accidentally introduced them as “American Special Forces,” adding to the intrigue.
The truth was, Team America wasn’t actually called Team America. It was a nickname they chose for themselves, after the movie by the “South Park” creators — a sendup of patriotism that they knowingly repurposed as actual patriotism. Their official name was Team I.D.S., for International Defense Systems — a military supplier that specialized in tactical equipment and ballistics gear. In keeping with the corporate outsourcing of war, I.D.S. was a sponsor of the competition. The team was here not to represent the United States, but to promote the brand.
“Our guys are SEALs, S.R.T.” — special-response teams — “SWAT, ex-Secret Service,” Sebastian Van Duin, a consultant for I.D.S., said. He was a former intelligence specialist from the French Foreign Legion, who knew the team’s leader, Fred, from a job overseas. (What kind of job? They would rather not say.) A former special agent for the Department of Homeland Security, Fred had chased boats in the Caribbean, drug traffickers through Peru, a sniper in post-Katrina New Orleans and gunrunners in Iraq. For the Warrior Competition, he assembled a crew of guys he knew from his time as an S.R.T. commander in Washington, D.C. Most were ex-military: Brian, 35, had served in an elite Coast Guard unit, and Carey, 35, was an antiterrorism sniper in the Marines. Because they still worked in law enforcement, some undercover, they asked to be identified by their first names. One of them, A., did sensitive work for the government and asked to be identified only by a middle initial. Most of the other teams also requested anonymity for their members for security reasons.
These were self-proclaimed “regular guys” who chewed tobacco, talked camo patterns and sometimes educated one another in the ways of the world. (“Dude,” Brandon said one afternoon, “I just saw two Jordanian guys holding hands! They do that?” “Dude!” A. said. “That’s how you know that’s your bro!”) In idle moments, they would cast themselves in the kind of action movies that celebrate the soldiers they want to be: Brandon was Kevin Bacon. Fred was Bruce Willis. Carey, the “funny, fat guy,” was Jason Statham, “plus 40 pounds.” And A. was Matt Damon — the trained killer.
After some speeches by the Jordanian brass, the teams watched a demonstration by Jordan’s renowned counterterrorism unit, the 71st. A dozen commandos in black balaclavas stormed an Airbus A-300, while a dog named Nero apprehended a bad guy in a bite suit. The finale was a big gun battle that lasted five minutes and involved about $10,000 worth of live ammunition; but, for safety reasons, the spectacle unfolded on a shooting range that no one in the stands could see. It sounded very impressive.
Afterward there was a reception with tea and carrot cake, and the soldiers mingled with diplomats and military attachés. Over in a corner, Team America plotted how to smuggle a bottle of whiskey onto the base. “Hey, look,” Eric said, “they’re giving out free Cokes.” He walked over and stuffed a few in his pockets, to use as mixers later.
The Kingdom of Jordan is shaped like a holstered gun, which isn’t a bad metaphor for the country as a whole. A constitutional monarchy with a well-trained military and a relatively secular population, it is — for now — one of the most stable countries in a very volatile neighborhood: Syria to the north, Israel to the west, Saudi Arabia to the south, Iraq to the east. Jordan’s intelligence agency, the G.I.D., is a close partner of the C.I.A. in the Arab world, and over the past five years, the United States has given Jordan more than $3.3 billion in aid and pledged an additional $200 million to help cope with the refugees who have poured over the Syrian border since August.
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Kasotc was aid of a kind, too. The base was built by a U.S. construction firm on land donated by the king and paid for by a Defense Department program that provides weapons and infrastructure to friendly foreign governments. In the opening-day speech, Frank Toney, a retired U.S. brigadier general and commander of the Army Special Forces, who now works as Kasotc’s director, said, “We believe that if your partners are strong, then you will be strong.”
Training at the base is handled by the Jordanian armed forces and the ViaGlobal Group, a military contractor based in Annapolis, Md., and the base is staffed by ex-Army Rangers, Deltas and SEALs. (They don’t like to talk about it, but they helped teach the actors playing SEALs in the movie “Zero Dark Thirty.”) A week of training at the for-profit Kasotc can cost up to $250,000, including lodging, meals and ammunition; the Warrior Competition, however, was free to any team that could get there. “This is a marketing tool for Kasotc,” Patterson said. “We’re advertising our capabilities.”
Most countries send their elite teams to the Warrior Competition — the Malaysian special forces, the French Commandos Parachutistes de l’Air — but the United States often sends infantry regulars. Several Special Ops veterans said they wouldn’t risk tipping their capabilities. “Even when we train guys, you never teach them all the tricks,” one said. “Who knows? We might be back fighting them in a couple of years.”
There was another U.S. presence at Kasotc, this one more subdued: a couple hundred Army troops in combat fatigues, who spent their days lifting weights and smoking cigarettes and trying not to be noticed. They had come to Jordan to plan for a possible spillover of the Syrian conflict. The troops did most of their work in an aluminum-sided building with blacked-out windows and satellite dishes on the roof, separated from the rest of the base by concrete barriers and barbed wire. An Army M.P. stood guard nearby, shouting, “Don’t look over the wall!” at anyone who got too close.
One afternoon, on the patio outside the base’s store, two of these American soldiers sat at a table, drinking Red Bulls and snacking on Doritos. A Kasotc promotional video was playing on a video screen, and they watched it with interest. In one scene, a group of trainees practiced evasive maneuvers on the driving track. In another, they shot their way down a mock city block while explosions went off around them.
“Dude,” one said, “I want to do that!”
The other nodded glumly. “All this cool stuff, and we can’t do any of it.”
Luca Locatelli for The New York Times
Members of “Team America,” from left: Matthew, Fred, Sebastian and Brian.
The next morning, the Chinese jumped out to an early lead, winning the first three events. They were well on their way to winning the overall trophy. Watching them conquer an event called Method of Entry — breaking down three doors, scaling the side of a building, shooting a series of steel targets and sprinting back to the start — was simultaneously impressive and terrifying. Team America, who spent the previous night in their barracks drinking contraband rum, had trouble getting inside: they wasted five minutes trying to open the door the wrong way and finished near the middle of the pack.
At 12:45, the call to prayer sounded over the loudspeaker, and the teams went off to have lunch. A sign on the mess hall read, “Reminder: no weapons inside the dining facility.” When the Canadians learned they had placed second in a shooting event, sandwiched between the two Chinese teams, they joked that the third-place team was off somewhere getting 30 lashes. (They were actually doing wind sprints.)
That afternoon, during their downtime, the teams checked out the event’s vendors. Part of the draw for sponsors at the Warrior Competition is that they can show off their products to their target audience. The competitors play soldiers while on break from playing soldiers while on leave from being soldiers. If someone wanted to shoot a SIG716 rifle or knock a door off its hinges with a tactical breaching ram, he could do that. If he wanted to fly a small, unarmed drone that fit inside a suitcase and retailed for $200,000, he could do that, too. And if he wanted to try his hand at the AA-12 — a fully automatic 12-gauge shotgun (tag line: “Don’t Fight Fair”) capable of firing 300 rounds a minute — he could do that, too. Unless he was a member of the one of the Chinese teams, in which case it would be a violation of the U.S. State Department’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations.
Brian wanted to try the shotgun. “Let’s go shoot that shotty!” he said. He squeezed off five rounds and grinned. “That’d be hell on a whitetail.”
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That night, everyone loaded onto buses for a team mixer at the Intercontinental Hotel. “I hope they have karaoke,” Carey said. He turned to A. in the seat behind him.
“How do you say ‘Call Me Maybe’ in Arabic?”
“Ismeh robbama?” A. said. It meant, literally, “My name is Maybe.”
When they arrived, the reception was in full swing. The Malaysians were on the patio, drinking juice. The Russians were at the bar, definitely not drinking juice. There was tuna carpaccio and crudités and little ceramic bowls of gourmet potato chips. Outside, Sgt. Shkendije Demiri and Capt. Brittney Ray stood chatting in their uniforms. Demiri and Ray, both in the U.S. Army, are the first two women in the history of the competition. The Arab teams, in particular, seemed to love them. “They all want to take photos with us,” Ray said. “It’s like seeing a unicorn.”
Ray was an M.P. and platoon leader who graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and qualified for one of the Army teams by being a top pistol shot. She had also trained as a sniper and spent the previous afternoon teaching several Jordanians how to shoot. Demiri was a reservist who worked as a firefighter in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. She had been in the country a few months, doing joint training with the Jordanians, and said she had an enjoyable conversation with the Palestinians. “I’m trying to get them to bring a woman next year,” she said.
Back inside, Team America was talking hockey with the Russian Spetsnaz members. A. finished his second glass of red wine and looked across the room. “I’ll see you later,” he said. “I’m gonna go talk some Arabic with my Iraqi brothers.”
A. never called his unit by name. They were “the program” or “the community.” You would not have picked him out of a lineup. About 5-foot-10 and a little thick in the middle, he had a permanent look of pensive amusement. If you didn’t know better, you would think he was just Fred’s buddy who tagged along — which, in a way, he was.
A. grew up on the East Coast — “upper-middle-class, white, Mayberry.” He went to college and got a white-collar job, but after Sept. 11 he was compelled to enlist. “I didn’t want my grandkids to learn about 9/11 in history class and come home and say, ‘Hey, Granddad, what did you do when those savages flew planes into our buildings?’ and be like, ‘Nothing,’ ” he said. “I wanted to get my jihad on.”
A. served two tours in Iraq. The first was at the time of the surge, and there was a lot to do. He would go on two or three raids a night, targeting bomb makers, I.E.D. experts and money men. A. was an assaulter: he and his teammates would blow open a door with a strip of C4 then cover one another while they cleared the room. The missions were always capture or kill, he said. It was a tossup which way it would go. A. enjoyed his first tour in Iraq. He learned Arabic, fell in love with the people and the food. But by the second, he grew frustrated. “We used to hit a house like, boom,” he said. “Get the dude, grab anything that looks important and we’re out.” But now, he said, there were so many regulations that they couldn’t do their jobs. Sometimes he couldn’t even use his sledgehammer. “We actually had to do a soft knock on the door, instead of assaulting it,” he said incredulously.
A. left his unit when his commitment was up the following year, then spent some time in Afghanistan as an unarmed contractor before coming home. He said he didn’t miss it much. Granted, the nighttime raids were “pretty awesome.” “But you gotta remember,” he said, “your opportunity to do that is really small. Everyone got spoiled, because we had an unprecedented decade of two wars.” A. said he had a hard time relating to the average American, especially armchair patriots who didn’t join the fight when they had the chance. He said he felt more kinship with the Iraqis. He also drew a distinction between Special Ops guys who joined up when he did and those who enlisted during peacetime. “Pre-9/11, there were probably guys who didn’t even want to go to war — they just wanted to go on cool trips,” he said. “It’s just a different mind-set when you join up knowing you’re gonna get it on.”
Page 5 of 7)
A. was the kind of soldier even soldiers looked up to. Fred called him “the ghost” and “the invisible man” and their “special friend.” Sometimes A. played along, telling tales about blood-splattered Iraqi swimming pools and war-zone pranks that inevitably began, “So there I was. . . .” But more often than not, he seemed uncomfortable with the attention. “These are just competition teams,” Brian sniffed one afternoon. “A.'s not a competitor — he’s a killer.” A. gave a halfhearted smile and looked away.
On the third day, the Warrior Competition staged a pair of night events. A full moon hung low over the mountains, and the parade ground was illuminated by spotlights. Team America waited its turn at an event called Hostage Rescue, outside a big, Abbottabad-like compound in the center of the base. The objective was to blow a door with an explosive charge, rush inside, shoot some targets and escape with the hostage; basically what A. had done in Iraq.
A. was lying in the dirt with his eyes closed, using his helmet as a pillow. I asked if being here felt surreal — the desert compound, the moonlight, all the shooting. “Nah,” he said. “This is theater. It’s totally contrived.” Then he told a story from his time in Iraq. Members of his unit were hunting one of Saddam’s executioners, and an Iraqi civilian they were working with offered to help. A. said the Iraqi told him: “I know this guy. Give me a gun and a car, and I will kill him!” A. said he responded: “Dude, I hear you. And it sounds like a good idea to me on so many levels. But my government will put me in jail.”
As the men checked their helmets and body armor and loaded magazines into their M4s, Fred called them together to outline a battle plan. Moments later, Eric shouted, “Fire in the hole!” and blew the door. They moved through the building, clearing each room by firing two rounds into 3-inch-by-5-inch paper targets. From outside, you could track their progress up to the second floor by the steady pop of rifle fire.
A. grabbed the hostage — a 180-pound dummy — and the team raced back downstairs. Outside, in the glow of the spotlights, they whooped and high-fived over their score: zero misses in just over three minutes, the fastest time so far. Someone joked that they should change their name to the International Death Squad. Their daring night raid had been a success; all that was missing was the film crew.
In the van on the way back to the armory, A. struck up a conversation with the Jordanian driver. It turned out that he had worked with the Americans in Iraq. A. asked where.
“Ramadi,” he said. “2003 to 2006.”
“Oh, man,” A. said. “You were getting it on! Did you go out with them?”
“Sometimes,” the driver said. He didn’t elaborate, and A. didn’t ask.
For the first few days of the competition, friendships formed along geopolitical lines. The Americans hung out with the Canadians. The Russians hung out with the Kazakhs. The French kept to themselves, and the Chinese really kept to themselves. But as the days went on, people started to loosen up. The Greeks and the Palestinians played soccer together. The Americans and the Iraqis talked about Tupac. The Arab teams started rooting for each other, cheering, “Yalla, yalla!” — Let’s go, let’s go! The Canadians, inspired, added their own twist: “Yolo! Yolo!” (which is slang for “you only live once”).
One afternoon, the Swiss Skorpions were basking in the sun, sipping hot chocolate from a paper cup. “Not bad,” one said. He checked the back of the packet and smiled. “Nestlé. It’s Swiss.”
A few tables over, Brian swapped his American flag patch for a Canadian one. “We’re gonna need ‘em when the North Koreans come,” he said. Next to him, Carey was showing off pictures on his iPad: there he was with his Marine unit in Nairobi after the 1998 embassy bombing (“We were hunting Bin Laden before he was Bin Laden”), and there were his three kids dressed up for Halloween (one as a soldier). “Hey, want to see a picture of me and the president?” he asked. He swiped to a photo of President Obama and the first lady at an event in Virginia. “So there’s the president,” he said, then zoomed in on a tiny black dot standing on a rooftop, “and there’s me!”
(Page 6 of 7)
Sitting nearby was an officer named Mohammed, who described himself as a commander in the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Force. He was bald underneath his black beret, and his eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. On his arm was a patch bearing the unit’s symbol: an eagle perched on a skull. He joined Saddam’s army as an M.P. when he was 17 and stayed until the second Iraq war. He enlisted again in 2004, after the regime’s collapse and now was fighting groups hostile to the Americans and to the new Iraqi government.
The I.C.T.F. is based in Baghdad, where there were more than a dozen bombings in the previous month alone. A wave of attacks on the 10th anniversary of the American invasion had left 60 people dead in the week before the I.C.T.F. team came to Kasotc. “It’s a dangerous job,” Mohammed said. “But the pay is very good. And what we have faced before is much more difficult.” He said they wanted to win the competition like everyone else. But mostly they were here to learn new tactics. “This is not a vacation for us, like it is for some of the other teams,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the Swiss.
Mohammed said he had seen friends die, but he stayed in the army to provide his wife and children with a good life. He had four children; the oldest, a boy, was 15. I asked if he hoped his son would join the army someday. “No,” he said. “I lived the life of a soldier. I know how hard it is.” Instead he hoped his son would grow up to be a pharmacist or an engineer.
The last morning of the competition dawned cloudy and cool. As a few teams were finishing up the final event, word began to circulate that King Abdullah was on his way. Abdullah commanded the Royal Jordanian Special Forces before he was king, and the military is still close to his heart. A certified pilot, diver and parachutist, he frequently travels the country in a helicopter he pilots himself. He often visits his namesake base. “This is his baby,” Patterson said of Kasotc. “I’m not gonna say he’s just like George Bush, because some people would be offended — but he’s very proud of his country, and he loves his men.”
Two camouflaged Black Hawk helicopters circled overhead, followed by the arrival of the royal motorcade, six black Lexus S.U.V.'s with identical license plates. The king popped out and shook hands for a few minutes, a Jordanian TV crew trailing him. He tried his hand at the pistol range and hit every target.
That afternoon, A. went to say goodbye to the Iraqis. They were staying in a dorm at the end of a dusty gravel road. Issa, the sniper, greeted him at the door with a big hug: “Welcome, welcome.” The Iraqis had just finished showering, and they were in various states of undress: briefs and towels and shower shoes. The room smelled of sweat and cologne.
Issa sat down on a bunk next to A. and gave him some gifts: an Iraqi Army watch and a small I.C.T.F. flag. “Thank you,” A. said, bowing. “Shukran.” Then he opened his backpack and passed out his gifts: a combat knife for everyone, along with his extra shirts, pants and other gear.
“It’s too much!” Issa told him. “It’s too much, man.”
A. shook his head. “I don’t need it anymore,” he said. “I’d rather see you have it.”
A. and the Iraqis traded Facebook info and promised to keep in touch. Back at Team America’s barracks, the guys were playing spades and drinking screwdrivers. “Where you been?” Carey asked. A. told them, and they said they wanted to donate their gear, too. Only Brandon seemed unsure: “They’re not going to use it on Americans, are they?”
A. said these were the good guys. Brandon nodded. “If you’re good with it, then so am I.”
At 6 p.m. sharp, the teams boarded buses to go to the Four Seasons for the awards banquet. While they waited, some of the U.S. Army personnel were pushing tires around the soccer field. “Look at these ding-dongs,” Brian said. “What are they doing, Jazzercise?”
“Army guys are so weird,” Eric said.
On the way into the city was a slaughterhouse, which was reputed to have some of the freshest shawarma in town. Just as the bus drove by, one of the slaughterhouse employees walked over and shot a sheep in the head. “Did you see that?” Carey asked, his eyes wide.
A. smiled. “That was awesome.”
Page 7 of 7)
On stage at the hotel’s grand ballroom, two dozen trophies were laid out: 500 pounds of custom bronze, cast in the shape of Spartan helmets, crests and all. “Pretty pimp, huh?” Bill Patterson said to Fred.
“Really pimp,” Fred said. First there was an all-you-could-eat buffet, and then a slide show with a soundtrack by Linkin Park. When the awards started, the Snow Leopards were the big winners: they had taken first in 5 of the 12 events. They spent almost as much time on the stage as the master of ceremonies. When Team America finally broke the Chinese winning streak and collected a trophy for Hostage Rescue, the other teams let out a relieved cheer: “U-S-A! U-S-A!”
When the Snow Leopards got back up to accept their award as the overall winners, the room went quiet. Gracious in victory, the Chinese team handed out gifts: T-shirts and gym shorts stamped with the logo of the People’s Armed Police Force. In the lobby, Brian checked the tags. “Ha,” he said. " ‘Made in China."’
After the banquet, the Canadians, an Army team and Team America headed across town for a nightcap. In the taxi, A. tipped $5 on a $5 fare. (“That’s why they love us,” he said.) There was a bar in the basement of the Grand Hyatt, called JJs, that was supposedly pretty nice. Inside, everyone had to pass through a metal detector — the legacy of a 2005 suicide bombing in which a terrorist under the direction of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi blew himself up in the Hyatt’s lobby, part of a synchronized assault on three Amman hotels that killed 57 people.
A Gathering of Warriors in the Desert
Rounds were bought, stories were swapped. As the party wound down, one of the Army men came up to A. He was 38, a major; he had never seen combat. The front of his blue shirt was dark and wet where someone had spilled a whiskey and Coke. The major asked A. which branch he was in, and A. said had been in the Navy. They chatted for a few minutes about the week, about the competition. The major said he had the time of his life. “I gotta tell you,” he said. “I’ve been in the Army for 14 years, and I think this may be the highlight of my career.”
If A. had any thoughts about armchair warriors or guys who just wanted to go to cool places, he kept them to himself. Instead, he raised his glass of Amstel and smiled. “That’s awesome, man.”
Josh Eells is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and Men’s Journal. He last wrote for the magazine about Jack White.
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Jan 19, 2018 | 19:28 GMT
Israel: Government Sends An Apology To Jordan
(Stratfor 2018)
In Stratfor's 2018 Annual Forecast, we said that external players such as the United States and Egypt would continue attempts to broker a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. As part of this effort, the United States appears to be offering firm support in exchange for encouraging Israel to maintain peace with its neighbors, such as Jordan.
See 2018 Annual Forecast
As Israel grows more secure about the Trump administration's support, the country has begun mending fences with its neighbor, Jordan. Israel recently sent Jordan a memorandum expressing regret over the killing of two Jordanians at Israel's Amman embassy during the summer. Following the incident, Israel brought home the security guard involved in the killing, while Jordan closed the embassy and sought criminal charges. The affair has tested the relationship between the two, as Jordanians have pressed King Abdullah II to demand the return of the security guard so he can face trial.
Israel's rare public apology has given the king a chance to reopen the embassy and still maintain domestic support. In a region where symbolism remains politically potent, the apology benefits both sides by allowing Abdullah to claim a victory in the name of the victims, while also letting Israel show commitment to its peace treaties with its neighbors. Furthermore, the memorandum underlines just how high a premium both Jordan and Israel place on maintaining peace with one another (even after Abdullah condemned the U.S. declaration of Jerusalem as Israel's capital).
Washington's decision on Jerusalem and its increased pressure on Iran both likely contributed to Israel's unusually conciliatory mood. Such evidence of U.S. support has Israel's right-wing elements feeling more secure about the stability of their country than they did when former U.S. President Barack Obama was in office. The Trump administration, which is getting high marks from everyday Israelis, may well have leveraged that support by encouraging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to patch up relations with Jordan, a move that would benefit ongoing U.S. attempts to broker a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal.
The current U.S.-Israel dynamic has precedent: former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who did not have a reputation as a peacemaker when he entered office in 2000, famously withdrew settlements and troops from the Gaza Strip in 2005 under pressure from President George W. Bush. Sharon's bold move would have been unthinkable if not for the reassurances he received from Bush, another American president popular in Israel for his perceived willingness let the country solve security challenges on its own terms.
But if the United States is hoping a patch-up between Jordan and Israel will nudge along the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, it's overlooking obstacles within the Palestinian camp. Political parties Hamas and Fatah have yet to make a unity deal, as the two sides maintain opposing stances about how to respond to the American decision on Jerusalem. And without an established Palestinian representative, peace negotiations will struggle.
Still, Israel can overlook that for now. A secure frontier with Jordan, with whom it must cooperate to secure water supplies as well as prevent militant infiltration, is currently a greater priority. So, with an apology and an expression of regret, Israel has prevented the further disruption of that relationship.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/jordans-king-delivers-pointed-public-remarks-to-pence-in-wake-of-jerusalem-decision/2018/01/21/1369c282-fe92-11e7-bb03-722769454f82_story.html?undefined=&utm_term=.9de0ebe111ec&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
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Some links to click on in the article at http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/01/22/jordan-king-abdullah-disrespects-america-can/
Vice President Mike Pence met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Amman, Jordan on Sunday and praised the U.S.-Jordan alliance. In particular, Pence applauded Jordan’s role in the campaign that defeated the Islamic State caliphate in Syria and Jordan.
Abdullah was less enthusiastic.
Sitting next to Pence, Abdullah reinstated his outspoken opposition to President Donald Trump’s December 6 announcement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and committing the U.S. to moving its embassy to Jerusalem, in accordance with U.S. law.
Last month, Abdullah attacked Trump’s move and referred to it as “null and void.” In the weeks that followed Trump’s December 6 announcement, Abdullah went to Europe to lobby European governments to oppose the American move.
At least in part as a result of Abdullah’s lobbying efforts, U.S. allies like Britain and France were among the 178 nations, including Jordan, that voted on December 21 for the U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning America for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Sitting with Pence Sunday, Abdullah said, “Today we have a major challenge to overcome, especially with some of the rising frustrations” in the wake of Trump’s move on Jerusalem.
He said the goal of Pence’s trip must be “to rebuild trust and confidence” in America’s commitment to establishing a Palestinian state.
The most notable aspect of Abdullah’s role in the campaign to castigate Trump’s policy towards Jerusalem is that he owes his regime’s survival to the U.S. and Israel.
The U.S. provides Jordan with more than $1.5 billion a year in military and civilian aid. The Trump administration has pledged to maintain aid levels in 2018.
As Jordan expert David Schenker noted in a briefing last September, Jordan is one of the poorest states in the Arab world. Only a quarter of its adult population is gainfully employed.
Israel ensures the regime’s survival by providing Jordan with water and natural gas.
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There are more than 2,800 U.S. troops in Jordan. U.S. forces in Jordan use the kingdom as a base for anti-ISIS operations in Syria and Iraq. They are also tasked with protecting Abdullah’s regime.
Pence’s forbearance of Abdullah’s slights Sunday was in keeping with America’s consistent tolerance for Abdullah’s deeply problematic behavior.
On July 23, 2017, a Jordanian terrorist in Amman tried to stab Ziv Moyal, an Israeli embassy officer, with a screwdriver in Moyal’s apartment adjacent to the Israeli embassy compound. Moyal shot and killed his assailant. He also killed his landlord, who was present at the scene.
Moyal quickly sought refuge at the Israeli embassy. Within moments, all of Israel’s diplomats had converged there to avoid revenge attacks and to evacuate to Israel for safety.
Wild press reports claiming that Moyal had murdered two Jordanians in cold blood brought angry anti-Israel rioters into the streets. Protesters quickly surrounded the embassy compound, and effectively held Israel’s diplomats, including Israel’s ambassador to Jordan, Einat Schlein, hostage.
Under international law, Abdullah was obliged to protect the diplomats. But he refused, for nearly 24 hours.
A few days before the event, Muslim terrorists at the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem murdered three Israeli policemen. Israel responded by installing metal detectors at the entrance to the mosques to make it more difficult for worshippers to smuggle weapons inside the mosques.
Jordan serves as the Islamic administrator of the mosques on the Temple Mount. Rather than support Israel’s move, Abdullah condemned it.
But with Israel’s diplomats in danger, the Trump administration cut a deal with Abdullah to save them. In exchange for an Israeli pledge to remove the metal detectors at the Temple Mount, Abdullah sent his military forces to the embassy to extract the diplomats and enable them to cross the border to Israel.
In other words, to save the lives of Israel’s diplomats, the Trump administration convinced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make concessions to Jordan, which directly benefited terrorists like the ones who murdered the Israeli police officers.
Israel hoped that once the mob had dispersed, Abdullah would allow its diplomats to return and resume normal operations at its embassy, in conformity with the terms of its peace treaty with Jordan. But Abdullah would have none of it.
Abdullah insisted first that Israel replace Ambassador Schlein. Netanyahu finally agreed to replace the senior diplomat in late November. But then Abdullah ratcheted up his demands.
He insisted that Moyal be tried for murder, and that Israel apologize for the incident and compensate the families of the Jordanian landlord and Moyal’s assailant.
Over the weekend, the Jordanian media reported that Israel had accepted its demands. Israel reportedly agreed to pay millions of dollars in restitution to the families and officially apologized.
Netanyahu clarified that the government had “expressed regret” for the lives lost. A government source said Moyal will not be tried for any crime. Israel confirmed that it transferred $5 million to the Jordanian government.
Netanyahu thanked President Trump’s senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and his chief negotiator, Jason Greenblatt, for closing the deal with Abdullah that will enable the Israeli embassy to reopen.
But Abdullah’s refusal to protect Israel’s diplomats was in line with his general support for anti-Israel terrorism.
In 2011, Israel freed more than a thousand convicted Palestinians terrorists to secure the freedom of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli army sergeant who had been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza for more than five years.
Among the terrorists Israel freed was Ahlam Tamimi.
Tamimi masterminded a suicide bombing at the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem in August 2001. Fifteen were killed in the attack, and seven of the dead were young children. Tamimi specifically chose the pizzeria as the target of the bombing because it was a popular place for parents with small children during summer vacation.
Two of her victims were U.S. citizens. One of the 122 people wounded in the attack was an American woman who has been in a vegetative state ever since.
Following her release, Tamimi moved to Amman, where she received a royal welcome from Abdullah’s regime. She was also given a television show. On air, Tamimi routinely calls on her viewers to follow her example and murder Israelis.
In January 2017, the FBI placed Tamimi on its most wanted list. The Department of Justice formally requested her extradition to stand trial for the murder and maiming of U.S. citizens.
Jordan signed an extradition treaty with the US in 1995. Last March, Jordan rejected the U.S. request for Tamimi, claiming the treaty was unratified. The power to ratify treaties in Jordan belongs to the King.
So just in the past ten years, Abdullah has rejected a U.S. extradition request, and has lobbied the Europeans to condemn Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. He facilitated the siege of the Israeli embassy. He leveraged a hostage situation to undermine Israel’s counterterrorism efforts at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. He extorted blood money from Israel.
Yet rather than stand up to Abdullah, the Trump administration gives him a pass for everything.
And it has been right to do so.
Because it has no better option.
According to a 2014 Pew survey, 85 percent of Jordanians are anti-American. A 2006 Pew study found that 100 percent of Jordanians are anti-Jewish.
Abdullah and his Hashemite tribe are a minority among Jordan’s Bedouin tribes. And the Bedouin as a whole are a minority in Jordan where, according to the Congressional Research Service, Palestinians make up 55 to 70 percent of the population.
If Abdullah is overthrown, there is little likelihood that a successor regime will be pro-American.
With Abdullah in power, the U.S. is able to project its power from Jordan throughout the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. If the Pentagon concludes that it is necessary to close down its Air Operations Headquarters at Udeid air base in Doha, Qatar, Jordan could serve as the site of a replacement base.
None of this would likely be the case under a different regime. The Muslim Brotherhood is the largest political force in Jordan outside the regime.
So despite his double-dealing, the U.S. is better off supporting Abdullah than abandoning him.
This dismal situation is even more frustrating when you consider that Abdullah is arguably America’s most stable Arab ally.
And that’s the essence of the problem. America’s alliances in the Arab world are with regimes, not with nations. During his tenure in office, George W. Bush tried to overturn the equation with his democracy agenda. The devastating results of his strategy are still haunting the region and the U.S.
So long as majorities reject the values of liberal democracies generally, and hate the U.S. specifically, there is little chance of America leading a democratization movement that will result in anything positive. Minority regimes may make unreliable allies. But popularly elected regimes that embrace bigotry and reject the U.S. and democratic values will reliably be enemies.
In Abdullah’s case, while his dependence on the U.S. ensures his loyalty, his regime is inherently weak because he lacks popular support. To avoid widespread unrest, Abdullah proclaims and occasionally adopts extremist positions against Israel and the US and in favor of terrorists.
Abdullah benefits twice from his hostile policies. On the one hand, he keeps his opponents at bay by satisfying their anti-Americanism and hatred of Israel. On the other hand, by encouraging the public to hate America and Israel, he makes it less likely that any pro-American alternatives to his regime will emerge that could reduce U.S. and Israeli dependence on him personally.
To modify his behavior, the U.S. can and should demand that Abdullah bar anti-American and antisemitic incitement in his state-owned media. He should be required to extradite Tamimi to the U.S. and run programming explaining why she is a terrorist, not a hero.
Such steps can begin to move back the dial of anti-Americanism and antisemitism in Jordan, if only minimally.
Over time, such basic steps may diminish Abdullah’s perceived need to buy off the mob at his gates with pro-terror policies and reduce America’s need to accept his double-dealing, as Pence was forced to do on Sunday in Amman.
Caroline Glick, an IDF veteran and graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, is a world-renowned journalist and commentator on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. Read more at www.CarolineGlick.com.
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The news media is replete with information about immigration from Syria to Europe and, as small as the numbers are, to the United States. In 2016 the United States admitted only 14,333 Syrian refugees, according to the U.N. High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), a number that amounts to just four-thousandths of a percent of the total U.S. population. Germany has accepted 360,000 Syrians to date, 0.4 percent of its total population, while Turkey is hosting more than 2,814,600 Syrian refugees, 3.75 percent of its population. But the 1.27 million Syrian refugees living in Jordan today make up a full 13 percent of the kingdom's population.
Over the past 70 years, Jordan has welcomed refugees from war-torn geographies nearby. Many remain in refugee settlements, but others have settled permanently in the country. The Jordanian government and its citizens — as hospitable a people as most in the region — bear a substantial socio-economic burden in caring for the Palestinians, Iraqis and Syrians who wind up in their midst. During a recent visit to the kingdom, where I've lived and whose people and cultures I deeply respect, I was surprised to hear local residents talk about the personal sacrifices they feel they are making to maintain the well-being of displaced people. Even some of my most compassionate and hospitable friends there are beginning to experience discomfort and wonder how long their country's charity can last.
Bearing the Burden in Silence
According to the UNHCR, 80 percent of refugees in Jordan today live below the poverty line. As that population grows, new stresses affect the local, native population — Jordanian Jordanians, as they sometimes call themselves. The price of white pita bread, for example — a staple in virtually every home — went up nearly 60 percent during the last weekend of January after 20 years of subsidies ended. That followed other austerity measures and a tax hike guided by the International Monetary Fund designed to help reduce Jordan's public debt. But apart from a protest in Salt, a small city west of the capital of Amman, the Jordanian Jordanians' response to the price rises was generally self-contained.
"Beware the silence," a friend said over dinner in Amman last month just before the cuts went into effect. "The people will not protest cutbacks in food subsidies or the advantage given to Syrian refugee families. We will support the king because he is strong on Jerusalem. But inside we are angry."
I'll get to Jerusalem. But first, what advantages does she mean?
Helping Neighbors in Need
To avoid a humanitarian crisis of hunger and thirst, aid organizations such as the World Food Program distribute dry goods, bread and vouchers to Syrian refugees. The vouchers include coupons worth about $14. Jordanians tell me some Syrian refugees will sell them to locals at a premium. At the same time, water — already scarce at an annual supply of 145,000 liters (38,305 gallons) per person — is rumored to be diverted from local residents to refugees.
My friend travels the length of Jordan frequently, visiting women's centers and monitoring youth programs, including programs that serve refugee populations. She checks in with Syrian refugees, some of whom have integrated into Jordanian society with help from family members who came before the war, and some of whom live in tents or trailers in sprawling, ragged, overcrowded temporary camps. Everywhere she goes she engages people in conversation.
"Don't you want to go back now that Aleppo is secured?" she asked in a training meeting with 15 professional Syrian women. Some of the women had been judges in Syria, others were professors.
"They all said, 'no,' they didn't want to leave Jordan," she told me. Many of the children that are illiterate, she said, arrived in the country that way. "It's not that Jordan doesn't offer an education to refugees. Syria didn't provide it to its own," she stated. Some Jordanian primary school students now get only a half-day of class each day. Syrian students get the other half.
"How long can Jordanians sacrifice?" my friend wants to know.
The attitudes I describe here may not be universal. The stories may have more rumor to them than truth. Yet surely there is some truth. And in a region where perception often is acceptable as reality, this idea about refugees from Syria perpetuates tension and ill will.
"How long can Jordanians sacrifice?" my friend wants to know.
Still, so long as King Abdullah II stands strong for Jerusalem, it's likely that Jordanians will support him and his government. Jerusalem is a point of pride and heritage for Jordanians of all stripes — Christian, Muslim, Palestinian and the rest. Jordan held the holy city after the creation of the State of Israel until 1967, and since then, the country's king has been "custodian" of Jerusalem's Aqsa Mosque Complex, or Haram al-Sharif ("Noble Sanctuary"). For Jordan, the city is a symbol of the sacred and of staying power.
King Abdullah II's immediate reaction to the United States' announcement that it would relocate its embassy to Jerusalem was to advise President Donald Trump that the move would have "dangerous repercussions for regional stability." In an interview with Fareed Zakaria on Feb. 4, he was more diplomatic: "I think we have to look to the future of what we want for Jerusalem. Is Jerusalem a city that ends up dividing us, which I think would be catastrophic for mankind, or is it a city of hope that brings us together?"
Investing in Jordan's Priorities
Whatever the answer to his questions, Jordan will continue in the meantime to juggle the needs of its refugees with those of its citizens, balancing budgets and borders to preserve stability in uncertain times. On Feb. 1, the country's government, along with EU and U.N. agencies, endorsed the Jordan Response Platform for the Syria Crisis. The initiative "seeks to compensate Jordan for the burden it has borne due to regional crises by securing sufficient grants and concessional financing to address the general budget needs over the next three years." Recognizing the hard realities and rumors coexisting in his nation, the Jordanian prime minister declared, "Together we must invest in Jordan's priorities to help the government provide for those who sought refuge within our borders without undermining the needs of our citizens and our development. This is critical for Jordan's stability, security, and resilience."
Offsetting the cost of providing haven to those in need and maintaining a national standard of living, however, is itself an expensive endeavor. Price tag: $7.3 billion.
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second post-- March 2016 background context to the preceding post:
A joke of uncertain origin imagines that former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir had a complaint with God. "He led Moses through the desert for 40 years to the only place in the region that had no oil!"
That is partly true. Israel has recently discovered sources of fossil fuel. But its neighbor Jordan — an important part of Moses' trek — is truly bereft of liquid gold. In fact, Jordan is bereft of almost any natural resource besides sun and historical sites that are the envy of Greece, Rome and Egypt: Umm Qais in its northwest corner showcasing a second-century basalt amphitheater and perfectly preserved Byzantine mosaics; Jerash, with the best standing colonnaded street outside Rome; Madaba, home to the imaginative and surprisingly accurate sixth-century mosaic map of Jerusalem; a plethora of crusader castles; and the incomparable Nabataean capital, Petra.
But a tourism economy cannot make up for a lack of lucrative natural resources. Especially not now. The Islamic State looms at Jordan's gate. Refugees consume an increasing share of the nation's land, patience and essentials for survival. Even legendary Jordanian hospitality — giving without measure and invitation without introduction — is taxed to the breaking point by fleeing Syrians joining the Iraqis and Palestinians who sought sanctuary in Jordan before them. The tiny Hashemite kingdom — only slightly smaller in acreage than the state of Maine — is keeping its balance so far in a rising sea of chaos to the north and east. But to maintain its equilibrium, Jordan will need assistance to host the refugees arriving each day.
Resources Stretched Thin
For most of its history, Jordan has welcomed the tired, poor and huddled masses. Homeless and tempest-tossed refugees from the Palestinian territories arrived in 1948 and 1967. More began coming from Iraq in 1991, still dazed from bombs and sanctions, with their numbers swelling after 2003. For the past four years, scarred and scared people of Syria have poured over Jordan's northern border. Jordan's population, under a million in 1960, has now reached 6.9 million. Half the population is Palestinian, and now almost 21 percent is Syrian.
Mazen Homoud, Jordan's ambassador to the United Kingdom, takes pride in the fact that his nation is at the forefront of the global fight against terrorism. He wrote in the London-based Daily Telegraph, "We are a leading member of the international coalition fighting Daesh and all those who promote a hate-based ideology." But he also noted that the international community has delivered only 34 percent of the money pledged to fund Jordan's Syrian Refugee Response Plan, meeting only a fraction of what it costs Jordan to host refugees. With economic growth above 3 percent, Jordan is considered a middle-income country, ineligible for direct support. But its projected budget deficit for 2015 was 3.5 percent of gross domestic product. Most of the Syrian refugees are not living in Azraq, Zaatari or other refugee encampments; instead, they are hosted within Jordanian communities, working, attending schools and benefiting from national health services.
Jordan's population, under a million in 1960, has now reached 6.9 million. Half the population is Palestinian, and now almost 21 percent is Syrian.
And water? Jordan is already the fourth-poorest country in the world in terms of water resources. When I lived in Jordan in 2009-2010, we flushed the toilet only when needed and showers were short. Rainwater harvesting was the talk of the day, along with solar power. "When a country like ours imports 96 percent of its energy, it makes a big difference when we suddenly have to provide for 1.4 million more people," says Homoud.
Jordan is allied with the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel. The prospect of a weakened Jordan is a major concern for all. Yet although its government is far more stable than those of Syria or Iraq and its security forces have proved effective, if Jordan finds itself unable to care for its refugee population, there could be trouble.
A Complex Past, Present and Future
Like many of its neighbors, Jordan was established as a nation state at the end of World War II. Its 1946 independence from the United Kingdom turned sovereignty over to the descendants of Sharif Hussein bin Ali of Mecca's Hashim family. Since 1921, members of the Hashim family had been patient regents to the Iraqi and Jordanian thrones promised by British and French allies. They were denied kingship of Syria, despite a nascent pan-Arab parliament's election of one of Hussein's sons, Faisal, as its leader.
It was not until after World War II that the promise was honored. Seemingly arbitrary borders were drawn for Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian territories, Israel and Iraq. Complicating the matter, according to California State University professor David Klein, was that to weaken Arab nationalism,
"Britain blocked Iraqi access to the Persian Gulf by severing the territorial entity, 'Kuwait' from the rest of Iraq in 1921 and 1922. This new British colony, Kuwait, was given artificial boundaries with no basis in history or geography. King Faisal I of the new Iraqi state [who was denied Syria as noted above] ruled under British military oversight, but his administration never accepted the amputation of the Kuwait district and the denial of Iraqi access to the Persian Gulf."
We remain haunted by that truth: Iraq has lost over 155,000 civilians, and nearly 5,000 U.S. soldiers have died there. Meanwhile, many of Iraq's war-weary survivors have fled to Jordan.
Iraq's Faisal was the younger brother of Abdullah I, eldest son of Hussein, who became the first king of Jordan. That story is a geopolitical soap opera that deserves greater attention than it will get here. Suffice it to say that from their shaky start on the east side of the Jordan River, the Hashemites have presided over Jordan and maintained their steady rule since the country's independence in 1946.
A dearth of natural resources and declining tourism in Jordan is putting a terrible strain on the economy, while external political challenges keep the population on edge.
Today's complexities seem to leave yesterday's in the dust. A dearth of natural resources and declining tourism in Jordan is putting a terrible strain on the economy, while external political challenges keep the population on edge. Jordan confronts reality nobly. But how long can that last?
A surge of the arts and culture that came with middle-class Iraqis fleeing their homeland was initially welcomed in Amman. But the honeymoon was short; wealthy Iraqis began building neighborhoods and rental rates rose. Towns in northern Jordan already feel the impact of crowding and employment competition, as skilled Syrians work for less and children become beggars. They worry about the possibility of recruitment to extremist groups among discouraged, disenfranchised youth.
Addressing the Wrong Problem
But rather than support Jordan's immediate need to provide food, water and shelter to hundreds of thousands of refugees, Riyadh plans to step up its military involvement in the Syrian conflict. At a news conference late last year, Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the creation of an Islamic military coalition. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has said the deployment of ground troops to fight the Islamic State is still a possibility.
The United States, having provided Jordan with economic and military aid since 1951, to a total of approximately $15.83 billion, continues aid in both arenas. In a nonbinding three-year memorandum of understanding between Washington and Amman, the United States pledged $1 billion annually in assistance, subject to the approval of Congress. The act also authorizes the use of U.S. Department of Defense funding for security along Jordan's borders.
But not water for the people who are thirsty there.
At the Zaatari camp, each refugee family is allotted three to four loaves of bread per family member. Rice, oil, lentil, bulgur and other rations are distributed to each family every 15 days, along with 9 Jordanian dinars' worth of coupons per person to buy items not included in the camp's distribution list. For people accustomed to strolling the balmy streets of Damascus in the evening, enjoying the scent of wisteria and lilac, rations and tents are stark privation. Instead of striving for good grades at school, young refugees are faced with the task of scrounging up clean water for their families.
The Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees.
The Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees.
(KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images)
Emergency supplies will not be sustainable should conflict persist. What are Saudi, U.S., European and Jordanian plans for five to 10 years down the road? Certainly, improving conditions for displaced persons closer to home is preferable to seeing flotillas flounder across the Mediterranean. What about long-term considerations of economics, available water, permanent housing, jobs and goodwill in hostile conditions? What about returning to "life as normal"?
A delegation from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on a study tour in Turkey in January 2015 found that for Syrian refugees:
"The problem is that even though this is an international refugee crisis, the international community is only providing funding to meet 29 percent of the refugees' needs. With very little livelihood, refugees — especially those who recently arrived — struggle to secure adequate housing, food, and medical care. And many refugee children, instead of attending school, work at a quarter the minimum wage under poor working conditions to help support their families."
There are campaigns underway to stem the impact of trauma and the tide of recruitment to extremist groups, but I will save those for a future column. For now, I suggest only this: With vision and commitment, trauma recovery efforts may become instrumental in mitigating the anger and mistrust that leads people to terrible acts of terror against perceived enemies and against their neighbors. These are the areas that Saudi Arabia and its allies ought to invest their billions if they hope to interrupt the cycle of anger that feeds the emotional poverty of hate.
Moses did not lead his people across the desert for 40 years to find oil; he aimed to bring them to safety, prosperity and wholeness. It is time to revisit that purpose.
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Third post
June 2013
Summary
With Bashar al Assad's forces in Syria making gains against the Syrian rebels in recent weeks, Jordan's need to maintain a pliable foreign policy in relation to the Syrian civil war has become increasingly clear. Jordan's strategy thus far has been to play a diverse set of relationships off each other, and Jordanian actions will continue to be defined by realities as they develop on the ground in Syria.
Jordan's dependence on the United States and Gulf Cooperation Council countries for energy, aid and investment means it will continue to support those countries' efforts to aid Syrian rebel forces. But unlike the United States and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jordan does not necessarily have a strategic interest in seeing a complete collapse of the government in neighboring Syria — such a development could mean that jihadist fighters currently focused on Syria would turn next to Jordan. Instead, Jordan will do what it can to prevent the jihadists fighting in Syria from spilling across the border and will also take measures to stem the tide of refugees, who are overwhelming Jordan's ability to take them in. If the momentum of loyalist forces against the rebels continues, Jordan will continue to become less supportive of the rebel cause without fundamentally turning against it.
In the past month, there have been three notable developments that on the surface seem to suggest a shift is underway in Jordan's relationship with the Syrian rebels. First, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi traveled to Amman on May 7 for talks with King Abdullah II. In a joint news conference with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, Salehi said both Iran and Jordan agreed that dialogue was necessary between the Syrian government and the opposition and that jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra should be excluded from the talks. Judeh also downplayed the presence of international troops in the kingdom, despite the fact that the United States deployed approximately 100 soldiers to a regular army headquarters in Jordan in April. Iran is one of the al Assad regime's biggest supporters, and the public display of cooperation with Iran illustrated Amman's diplomatic flexibility when it comes to its role in the Syrian conflict.
Amman has also begun to take steps that indicate it can no longer handle the daily swell of refugees crossing into Jordan. On May 25, Jordan closed Jaber, one of its main border crossings with Syria, blaming fighting between Syrian troops and rebels for the closure. But Jaber and the rest of Jordan's border with Syria has remained closed since, the first time in the Syrian civil war that Jordan has denied access to Syrian refugees.
It is unclear how many refugees are currently living in Jordan; the United Nations estimates the number to be close to 450,000, but other reports cite significantly higher figures. A Jordanian official said May 29 that almost 60,000 of the refugees had returned to Syria, either to fight al Assad or because conditions in refugee camps were so deplorable. The refugees have strained Jordan, which struggles just to supply energy and water for its own population. Water scarcity issues have become particularly acute, with Jordan forced to buy water from private wells and to truck water to various villages. If Jordan's ability to supply water to its population continues to diminish, the rural poor could begin to migrate toward Jordanian cities in order to access water, which could result in instability.
Further complicating the situation, Jordan has been threatening to reduce costly subsidies on electricity to help address its budget deficit, and as recently as May 29, Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour said such a move was "imminent." But electricity is another resource strained by the refugees, and the potential for shortages during the upcoming hot summer months combined with higher prices for domestic consumers could encourage popular discontent with Jordan's government as it did in November 2012.
Map of Syria and Jordan
Finally, momentum in the conflict has shifted in recent weeks from the rebels to loyalist forces, particularly in al-Qusayr but also in the approaches to Damascus and in southern Syria, which borders Jordan and is an important area from which the rebels can advance toward Damascus. As early as January, Stratfor noted that weapons such as the M79 Osa rocket launcher and the RPG-22 were making their way to Syrian rebels via Jordan and that Jordanian cooperation on the ground had aided the rebels in Daraa and Sweida governorates. On April 26, loyalist forces captured the town of Otaiba, east of Damascus. In so doing the Syrian army effectively severed key rebel supply lines for staging attacks in Damascus. And while there is no concrete evidence that Jordan itself has lessened or stopped shipments of weapons to the rebels, the Syrian army made a successful push to capture the town of Khirbet Ghazaleh near the strategically important, rebel-controlled city of Daraa in early May. At the time, there were rumors that one of the reasons the rebels had failed to hold the town was that a Syrian opposition group reportedly supported by Jordan had failed to supply adequate weapons.
A Change in Policy?
Jordan's recent actions ultimately are about the current state of the conflict between loyalist and opposition forces in Syria. First, there are the significant gains that Syrian loyalists have made in recent weeks. This is in large part due to the considerable external support of Iran and Russia, both of which continue to deliver much-needed materiel to al Assad's forces. It is also due to the presence of foreign Shiite fighters such as those from Hezbollah, which has led the way as the loyalists have pushed to regain control of the city of al-Qusayr, a strategically important location in Homs governorate. (Without Homs, Damascus would be cut off from its main supply lines and from the Alawite-dominated coast.) The reality that the Syrian civil war will be a protracted conflict and that al Assad could endure for some time prevents Jordan from simply choosing to support one side over the other.
In addition, the Syrian rebels have shown themselves to be an incoherent entity at best. There has been significant dissension within Syria's main opposition National Coalition — in fact, on June 3 the Syrian Revolution General Commission actually withdrew from the coalition. Syria's jihadist fighters are also divided, as evidenced by Jabhat al-Nusra reportedly requesting that Salafist-jihadist groups in Jordan not send fighters into the fray without first consulting al-Nusra. It is particularly surprising that al-Nusra, which proclaimed in April that it was part of al Qaeda in Iraq's network, would potentially deny an important resource, able fighters, when loyalist forces are making gains. Al-Nusra also generally has less control in southern Syria on the border with Jordan and feels it is losing the ability to control the jihadist fighters operating under its umbrella, either because of differing ideology or because of infiltration by hostile sources posing as jihadists.
The presence of jihadists on its borders is of particular concern for Jordan because of the intellectual linkage between al Qaeda in Iraq and Jordan. Jordanian Salafist Abu Muhammed al-Maqdisi was the spiritual mentor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder and original leader of al Qaeda in Iraq. Not even Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Cooperation Council states, the strongest backers of the Syrian opposition and the countries that put pressure on Jordan to let them supply Syria's rebels, have an interest in empowering jihadists such as al-Nusra or al Qaeda in Iraq to the extent that they could assume regional influence. On the one hand, Jordan does not want to give these Salafist-jihadists reason to target the Jordanian regime; on the other, letting these forces gain experience in Syria could have negative ramifications in the future.
On a superficial level it would appear that there has been a shift in Jordan's Syria strategy, but in truth, Amman's greatest commitment throughout the duration of the conflict has been to its own security and not one particular outcome. In February and March, reports surfaced that Jordan had been increasingly active in supplying weapons and training to Syrian rebel fighters. At the time, the Syrian rebels were pressing their offensive against al Assad, and Jordan felt it necessary to increase its support of the rebels, in part because of pressure from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council states. However, while this was happening, Amman was reportedly still maintaining its political contacts with Syrian Alawites and other politically relevant actors in the country.
Now the loyalists have been able to develop some momentum on the battlefield. While some of Jordan's public policies appear to betray a newfound support for al Assad, Jordan is still operating in a middle ground to the extent it can and is putting its own security first. In fact, the United States announced June 4 that it might deploy a Patriot missile battery and an unspecified number of F-16s in Jordan following a regional military exercise — not exactly the behavior of a country that is turning its back on the Syrian rebels or supporting an Iranian view of the situation.
Ultimately, there are two things Jordan is most concerned with as it deals with the fallout of the Syrian conflict. Jordan wants to limit spillover into its territory, in particular from radical Salafist-jihadists who would foment unrest in the kingdom and from refugees, who are straining Jordan's already thin resources. At the same time, Amman wants to maintain its positive relationships with its regional neighbors and foreign patrons. That means supporting a political settlement that would keep al Assad in power while at the same time aiding U.S. and Gulf Cooperation Council efforts to depose al Assad. Syria's civil war will be a protracted conflict and momentum will shift back and forth between the combatants as it takes its course. Jordan's outward disposition will vary based on who has the advantage in the conflict. As long as the balance of forces is relatively equal, Amman will find itself in the tricky position of supporting both sides.
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Fourth post
Moving further back in time Feb 2013
As Syrian rebels try to close in on Damascus, increasing numbers of jihadists and militants are becoming active in southern Syria near the Jordanian border. Jordan is worried that the presence of these fighters could embolden its own Islamist opposition if Syrian President Bashar al Assad's regime collapses. However, Amman also has an interest in developing constructive relationships with the rebels that are fighting against the al Assad regime. In the service of these relationships, Amman has decided to allow weapons transferred from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies into Syria in exchange for much-needed economic aid from Gulf Cooperation Council states. There is evidence that significant weaponry has been flowing from Jordan into the southern Syrian governorates of Daraa and Sweida. Rebels fighting in southern Syria are using weapons like the M79 Osa rocket launcher, the RPG-22, the M60 recoilless rifle and the RBG-6 multiple grenade launcher. While the United Arab Emirates is the only Gulf Cooperation Council country that has delivered its share of the total promised $5 billion in aid to Jordan so far, Stratfor sources have indicated that Saudi Arabia will ensure that the rest is delivered. Riyadh has offered Amman an additional $500 million this year in return for allowing military support to cross the border into Syria. Jordan has been very cautious about allowing this, but Amman has little choice — the rebels will be present in the area for the foreseeable future, and it is better for Jordan to forge connections with them rather than become a target if al Assad eventually falls.
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/jordan-foils-is-plot-to-attack-israeli-businessmen-us-embassy/
https://clarionproject.org/u-s-embassy-attack-jordan-foiled/
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Jordan:
Protests over price hikes in Jordan continued into the weekend. The prime minister reshuffled his Cabinet to soothe public anger. None of this is outside the pale – this is the sixth government reshuffle since May 2016, and protests happen in Jordan occasionally. But the country has been unique in that it hasn’t been affected by the chaos around it. Is Jordan coming apart?
• Finding: The protests are a response to a growing government budget deficit and debt that has caused it to seek restructuring help and credit from the International Monetary Fund. As part of the restructuring plan, Jordan is being forced to cut subsidies to more than 150 staple goods and commodities including bread and to raise prices on several others. The government is trying to offset the rising prices with direct cash transfers to low-income citizens, but the problem is structural and isn’t going to disappear unless the country is able to fix its finances before popular discontent grows. There are no broad calls to overthrow the monarchy, but in interviews Jordanians are expressing their frustration that the royal family is continuing to live prosperously while the average citizen is being forced to suffer cost increases to bring the budget in line.
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https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/petra-jordan-home/index.html
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By Kamran Bokhari
Given that the Islamic State is increasingly losing territory, the world’s focus is on the efforts to dislodge the jihadist regime from its capital in Raqqa. Most observers tend to view the anti-IS campaign as a linear process that over time will lead to the destruction of the jihadist entity. But it is dangerous to assume that IS will simply go quietly into the night. Jordan is one place where IS could strike in order to draw in the Israelis and thus complicate and widen the conflict.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on March 8 that Israel’s ambassador to Jordan, Einat Schlein, is deeply concerned about Jordan’s stability. Israel’s envoy to Amman gave a pessimistic assessment of Jordan in a briefing to Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot in October. The two officials discussed the situation in Israel’s eastern neighbor, which has seen several hundred thousand Syrian refugees cross its border. Eisenkot reportedly told colleagues that he was disturbed by what he learned from Schlein about Jordan, which shares Israel’s longest border.
JORDAN-IRAQ-SYRIA-CONFLICT-IS-DEMO
Jordanian students shout slogans and wave national flags on Feb. 5, 2015 in the capital Amman during a rally against the Islamic state and in reaction to the death of Jordanian pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh (on the placards) by the group’s militants. KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images
These developments are important for two reasons. First, Jordan already faces a number of threats. In December, we highlighted why we thought Jordan might destabilize. Sandwiched between the West Bank, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria, the small country is vulnerable to multiple geopolitical pressures. Jordan could face threats from IS on two of its borders, and its vulnerability to this threat is compounded by its weakening political economy and large presence of Islamist forces.
Second, Jordan is Israel’s only neighbor that thus far has remained stable. Hezbollah in Lebanon has long threatened Israel’s northern frontier, and in the last several years the civil war in Syria has given rise to IS, al-Qaida and many other jihadist groups that pose a danger to Israel. On its southern flank, Israel has to worry about Hamas and since 2011 the instability in Egypt. With Jordan also in the process of destabilizing, Israel has a lot to worry about, especially given that a majority of Jordanians are of Palestinian origin.
Israel has a special security relationship with Jordan that goes back decades, even though formally the two had hostile relations until the 1994 peace agreement that established formal diplomatic relations. Israeli-Jordanian security cooperation, however, has been predicated on the fact that Jordan took on much of the responsibility of containing potential threats. That Israeli officials are worried about Jordan’s future stability is an indication of how precarious the current situation is.
It is unclear what has caused this concern among the Israelis. However, it is not simply the burden of taking in 657,000 Syrian refugees (this is the official figure, though the actual number is likely higher). It is rather astounding that the number of refugees Amman has absorbed equals 10 percent of its population, yet the country has not faltered. Jordan has been in an unsettled position for a while and geopolitically there’s plenty of reason to suspect it already has been considerably weakened. But to understand the nature of the threat that Amman now faces, one has to place Jordan within the context of the war to defeat the Islamic State.
IS is under a great deal of pressure in both Iraq and Syria. It has lost considerable territory in recent months. However, the jihadist entity is not without resources and has been preparing for an assault from the international coalition. IS is a formidable political entity and is not going to disappear overnight.
It has demonstrated that it has formidable organizational capabilities and is shrewd when it comes to strategic planning. Many expect IS will be pushed out of Mosul and then lose Raqqa. However, IS likely is planning for these challenges and has a strategy to deal with these threats. It would be naïve for the coalition trying to defeat IS to believe otherwise. IS has shown that when it is attacked by superior forces it will shift the battle to a time and place more advantageous to its position.
For this reason, it must strike where it is least expected. At the same time, such a place must be vulnerable to instability and within IS’ reach, and it should provide potentially significant dividends. Jordan is one possible target. In recent weeks, Jordan has seen unusual IS activity on its borders with Syria and Iraq. On Feb. 24, IS forces attacked checkpoints on the Iraqi side of the Jordanian border, and on Feb. 20, an IS-affiliated group called the Khalid Ibn al-Walid Army took control of territory in southern Syria along the Jordanian border.
These incidents alone are not enough to create chaos in Jordan. They are, however, indicative of IS’ strategy. It is going to try to attack a weak spot and attempt to use the regional distrust of Israel to its advantage. There is no better way to get the Israelis involved than to launch attacks in Jordan. IS knows that Israel cannot ignore a serious destabilization of the status quo in Jordan.
It is not clear that such a situation will necessarily arise. However, this scenario is not beyond the pale if we factor in Israeli imperatives vis-à-vis Jordan, Amman’s internal and external circumstances and IS’ need to defend its caliphate. These factors as well as the recent indicators mentioned above suggest IS may be turning its sights on Jordan.
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second post
FTA with Turkey to resume ‘under certain conditions'
By Mohammad Ghazal - Apr 02,2018 - Last updated at Apr 02,2018
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AMMAN — Jordan is willing to reactivate the free trade agreement with Turkey, which was suspended last month, if Turkey agrees to meet certain conditions, the government said on Sunday.
Officials have recently held a meeting with a Turkish government delegation to look into solutions following the suspension decision, Minister of Industry, Trade and Supply Yarub Qudah told The Jordan Times on Sunday.
The terms, he said, include the Turkish side’s consent to protection measures Jordan will design to protect local industries, increasing Turkish technical assistance to Jordan as stipulated by the FTA and reconsidering the "strict" rules of origin specifications applied by Turkey.
Jordan wants Ankara to adopt the same relaxed rules of origin Jordan enjoys under a deal signed with the EU, the minister said.
“We believe that these measures can ensure justice for both sides and will help protect our industries and make it easier for Jordanian products to enter the Turkish market,” Qudah said.
“The deal was suspended after it was thoroughly re-assessed and proved to have a significant negative impact on the local industries, tilting the trade balance significantly in favour of Turkey,” he continued.
Qudah said the government has no objections against the reactivation of the deal with Turkey if the latter meets the conditions set in this regard.
“We put no obstacles at all and we are open to suggestions to help achieve national interests,” the minister stressed.
Last month’s decision to suspend the bilateral deal was welcomed by industrialists but slammed by traders.
At the time, government officials said that Turkey did not transfer know-how to improve national industries as agreed upon in the deal, adding that Turkey’s exports to Jordan sharply rocketed after the deal went into effect.
Before 2011, Turkey’s annual exports to Jordan, excluding oil, reached $23 million, with customs fees being collected; after the deal went into effect, Turkish exports to Jordan, excluding oil, reached around $135 million annually, with nothing being disbursed in customs fees to the Treasury, according to the Amman Chamber of Commerce.
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http://www.jordantimes.com/news/region
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Syrian Refugees and Social Cohesion in Jordan
A Syrian refugee family sit in a home in Jordan where a Norwegian nongovernmental organization has arranged for them to stay.
(KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images)
Partner Perspectives are a collection of high-quality analyses and commentary produced by organizations around the world. Though Stratfor does not necessarily endorse the views expressed here — and may even disagree with them — we respect the rigorous and innovative thought that their unique points of view inspire.
By Dorsey Lockhart and Katrina Barker for the WANA Institute
Social cohesion is a commonly used term in immigration and conflict prevention circles. International organisations, governments, and civil society actors worry about social cohesion where there are large influxes of refugee or other migrant populations. As the Syrian civil war approaches its eighth year, in Jordan — where there are approximately 516,000 registered Syrians refugees living outside of the camps — observers are increasingly concerned with the relationship between these populations and host communities.
Several organisations have sought to measure social cohesion in the Jordanian context. In 2015, the Jordanian NGO Generations for Peace conducted focus groups amongst Jordanian and Syrian parents who had developed perceptions of one another based on contact through their children's schooling. The discussions revealed mixed results with some Jordanian participants expressing resentment towards Syrians as a result of the strain they are perceived to have imposed on the Jordanian state. Others asserted that Syrians should be welcomed in Jordan. Additional sources of tension between the two communities that were noted include increases in rental prices, competition for income generating activities, and overcrowding of public services. [1]
Social cohesion may be conceptualised as a crosscutting issue alongside several welfare indicators such as education, welfare, water, employment and livelihoods, and access to municipal services. The NGO REACH defines social cohesion not only as a function of community relations and individual perceptions but also as a product of access to resources and state services. Between August and September 2014, they conducted focus groups of Syrian refugees across governorates in the North of Jordan. The results of this study suggested mounting tensions on the part of the Jordanian host population, where many workshop participants noted that Syrian refugees were replacing Jordanian and Egyptian workers who had worked in seasonal agriculture jobs. Others suggested that employers prefer Syrians as a result of their willingness to work for lower wages. Thirty-nine per cent of Jordanians surveyed reported having a negative view of Syrian Refugees in their host community, and many Jordanians expressed the belief that Syrian Refugees were benefitting disproportionately from international support while the poorest Jordanians went unnoticed. [2]
Jordan's February 2016 decision to provide limited worker rights to Syrian refugees has drawnwidespread attention from refugee policy-makers and civil society advocates, not only for its provision of access to livelihoods but also for the reason that worker integration has the potential to reduce tensions between employed Syrians and their Jordanian counterparts. While there have been multiple efforts to assess Syrian refugees' intentions to enter the formal labour market, little has been done to gauge how Jordanian workers perceive the policy. In order to gain a cursory understanding of this, in September 2017, the WANA Institute conducted Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) across factories in Amman, Irbid and Mafraq. Participants were Jordanian factory workers — a population that could, in both the present and future — be in direct competition with Syrian workers for factory jobs.
The Syrian Labour Integration Policy's Impact on Social Cohesion: Conclusions from Focus Group Discussions
The FGDs were carried out at factories in Amman, Irbid and Mafraq. Each discussion group included an average total of eight male and female Jordanian workers. Participants were asked to discuss their attitudes towards potential Syrian colleagues, their feelings regarding the rights and assistance that has been afforded to Syrian refugees, and their views regarding Syrian business people and investors' contributions to Jordanian society.
Jordanian Worker Views of Syrian Counterparts
Discussions suggest a range of attitudes towards and perceptions of Syrian workers amongst Jordanian manufacturing workers. Several Jordanian workers described Syrians as easy to work with, emphasizing the cultural similarities between the two groups. Others underscored Syrians' unique skill
sets, particularly with regard to craft occupations such as sewing. Still, others faulted Syrians as 'less reliable' than Jordanian workers, characterizing them as more likely to prioritize their 'rights' above their 'duties.' Jordanian
Worker Views of Labour Integration Policy
These discussions suggested that Jordanian workers demonstrate varying degrees of awareness of Jordan's decision to provide limited working rights to Syrians. When probed on the question of which sectors had been opened to Syrians, some participants highlighted construction and manufacturing, while others claimed that Syrians enjoyed access to all sectors and occupations, without exception.
In a similar vein, Jordanian workers appear to have mixed views regarding the opening of additional sectors and occupations to Syrian workers. While some workers supported further integration, others were strongly of the view that Syrians already benefit from generous assistance packages — sometimes in the area of JOD700 per month (it should be noted that this assumption is false) — which allow them to accept lower salaries and be 'uncommitted to the workplace.'
Recurrent Concerns
Amongst almost all of the Jordanian workers surveyed, there was the consistent belief that Syrian workers appeal to employers because they are willing to work for lower wages. Some participants attributed Syrians' ability to accept low wages to the 'generous' assistance they receive from international organisations. Overall, the perception that Syrian workers are replacing Jordanian workers and exacerbating Jordan's unemployment rate also appears to be widespread.
Workers who have some experience with Syrian business owners or investors appear to be more likely to believe that Syrians have had a positive influence on Jordanian society than workers whose contact has been limited. In general, workers who have not had direct contact with Syrian businesses believe that Syrian investments have created few opportunities; this belief is based on the assumption that 'Syrian companies only hire Syrians.' Workers also appear convinced that Syrian investors will not maintain investments in Jordan when the war ends.
Other Emerging Trends
Focus group participants in Mafraq expressed a more negative view of Syrian workers than focus group participants in Amman and Irbid and presented a darker picture of the impact that the presence of Syrians has had on living conditions. Some workers noted deteriorating working conditions — a change they attributed to the large influx of Syrian refugees. Others suggested that lower wages and worsening labour conditions were putting pressure on Jordanian family structures. Mafraq-based Jordanian workers who participated in the discussions characterized Syrian workers as 'unreliable;' most seemed to associate this with the assistance provided by international organisations and NGOs. The majority consistently rejected the prospect of additional sectors or occupations being opened to Syrians.
Comment and Tentative Conclusions
Research conducted by a range of institutions, including UNHCR, the World Bank, the WANA Institute and various NGOs, has highlighted the low wages and extreme poverty conditions faced by Syrian refugees in Jordan. The widespread resentment of the assistance programmes that are designed to offset this situation is cause for worry; any effort to debunk the misperceptions around these programmes will require thoughtfulness and creativity.
The limited cases in which Jordanian workers have had exposure to Syrian investors suggest that increased exposure to and awareness of Syrian business ventures in Jordan could go a long way towards improving perceptions.
Finally and unsurprisingly, as demonstrated by the FGDs carried out in Mafraq — where Syrian refugees account for approximately 29 per cent of the population [3] — location may be a key determinant in social cohesion: in cities and governorates where the population of Syrian refugees is more dense, host populations may be more prone to negative views and tensions may be greater.
[1] Seeley, Maira; 'Jordanian Hosts and Syrian Refugees: Comparing Perceptions of Social Conflict and Cohesion in Three Host Communities,' Generations for Peace Institute, December 2015, https://www.generationsforpeace.org/wpcontent/uploads/2016/11/OX-2015-MS-Report-02.pdf
[2] REACH, "Understanding Social Cohesion & Resilience in Jordanian Host Communities-April 2014," (Amman: June 2014); https://reliefweb.int/report/jordan/understanding-social-cohesion-and-resilience-jordanian-host-communities-assessment
[3] This figure is based on the February 2018 UNHCR number of registered Syrian refugees residing in Mafraq (157,951) divided by the total population in Mafraq (549,948), as defined by the 2015 GoJ Census.
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Iran, Jordan: On May 18, the heads of state of Iran and Jordan met for the first time in 15 years. What was this meeting about? Why is it happening now?
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What Instability in Jordan Means for the Middle East
Jun 5, 2018
By Allison Fedirka
For years, Jordan has been a fairly stable country in an unstable region. But this weekend in Jordan was uncharacteristically tense, as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to protest government austerity measures. Within days of the outbreak of the protests, Prime Minister Hani al-Mulki resigned and King Abdullah II ordered Education Minister Omar al-Razzaz to form a new government. How much does it really matter that a small country like Jordan is experiencing the sort of social unrest that is normal in its chaotic region? Potentially quite a bit.
Jordan has seen far worse macroeconomic conditions before, but the latest protests stem from economic problems that reach far deeper, to the lives and livelihoods of average Jordanians. Jordan is a small country with limited natural resources. It can do little to control the price of imported goods and depends heavily on external financing for economic development and stability. As it has done in the past, the Jordanian government turned to the International Monetary Fund in 2016 for credit to deal with a growing budget deficit and debt. As part of the IMF’s restructuring plan, the government implemented austerity measures that included cutting subsidies on over 150 goods and commodities. Particularly harmful was the removal of subsidies on staple food items and the introduction of a 10 percent tax on agricultural goods that were previously exempt from taxes. Public protests against rising bread prices started six months ago with a handful of unemployed people in isolated locations and evolved into organized demonstrations involving multiple groups and thousands of protesters. The government has tried to alleviate some of the pain related to rising prices with direct cash transfers to low-income individuals, but the issues were structural – and those types of issues don’t go away overnight.
Jordan occupies a strategic location in the Middle East, wedged between Israel and Saudi Arabia, two of the region’s leading powers. To its north and northeast lie Syria and Iraq – the region’s main hot spots that have drawn in regional and global powers like Iran, Turkey, Russia and the United States. Jordan initially was concerned about the crises in Syria and Iraq because of the fear that the Islamic State would spread into Jordan or that the waves of refugees fleeing these countries might reach its borders. Indeed, Jordan is now home to 660,000 Syrian refugees, nearly 7 percent of its total population. But the threat of IS expansion in the Middle East has largely subsided, with the group now relegated to sleeper cells and isolated pockets of territory. Nevertheless, Syria and Iraq still present a host of challenges for countries in the region, and if those countries took a turn for the worse, Jordan would likely be among the first to suffer. For this reason, Jordan’s relative stability matters greatly in the Middle East and beyond.
(click to enlarge)
Israel, for example, will undoubtedly keep a close eye on developments in Jordan. It shares its longest border with Jordan, and a majority of Jordanians are of Palestinian origin. Jordan relies heavily on Israel for its national security, and Jordan helps Israel contain potential threats. But Israel is vulnerable at the moment – Israel Defense Forces are on alert due to escalating instability in the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights, Sinai Peninsula and Lebanon. Israel becomes increasingly exposed as stability in the region deteriorates and Iranian proxy groups become more active. Israel doesn’t need another conflict erupting along its borders. It will do what it can to keep Jordan stable and prevent a power vacuum from developing there.
The United States also has a strong interest in Jordan, which has long been a reliable military partner for Washington. In the fight against IS, the country served as a critical logistics hub. Its Muwaffaq Salti air base, located near the Syrian and Iraqi borders, was essential in fighter-bomber missions targeting IS territory. The U.S. has about 2,800 troops in Jordan to help train local forces and reportedly has Patriot missiles stationed there as well. It has also invested billions of dollars to secure this relationship, including $3.75 billion in loan guarantees since 2013. In terms of defense, the U.S. co-developed the Jordanian military’s five-year procurement plan, and U.S. law allows for expedited review and an increased value threshold for arms sales to Jordan. In February, the two countries signed their third memorandum of understanding, a deal that will provide Jordan more than $1.27 billion in foreign assistance per year over five years, a 27 percent increase from the previous agreement. Though the pace of operations against the Islamic State has slowed and the U.S. is trying to reduce its military presence in the Middle East, Jordan remains a valuable partner for the U.S., and anything that might compromise this relationship is a threat to U.S. interests. The protests do not rise to this level right now, but Washington will remain vigilant nonetheless.
Then there’s Iran, which has a vested interest in weakening Israel. Tehran has forces in both Syria and Iraq and is trying to expand its influence in the region, particularly through proxy groups. According to Al-Jazeera, this weekend’s protests in Jordan were led in part by a youth movement called Hirak Shababi, which Israeli intelligence accused in 2016 of being directed and funded by Hezbollah, Iran’s longtime proxy in Lebanon. The Israeli Defense Ministry promptly outlawed the group, which it considered a Palestinian umbrella organization. Though Iran has not been directly linked to the group’s operations in Jordan, the possibility must be raised given how it would help further Iranian interests in the region.
The Jordanian monarchy has thus far managed to keep the social unrest in check. It has found ways to make modest changes to the government to show that it is responding to the public backlash. (From May 2016 to March 2018, the Cabinet was reshuffled six times.) Attempts to prepare the public for the subsidy cuts through media campaigns appear to have failed. For now, the social unrest in Jordan has not threatened its core security relationships, but there is no guarantee that this will remain the case. The country still needs a way to address its underlying economic problems in the long term, and Iran’s potential role in fueling the unrest complicates the situation even further. But one thing is certain: Major instability in Jordan would have consequences for the entire Middle East.
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Jordan: Jordan is trying to secure an $800 million credit line from Japan, pending certification from the International Monetary Fund, to begin extending tranches of the line. This comes just after Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait pledged a $2.5 billion aid package to be paid over the next five years. How long has this line been under consideration? What does IMF certification entail? What are Japan’s interests in Jordan?
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https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270440/riots-jordan-put-gulf-states-edge-ari-lieberman
The oil-rich Gulf States - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates - are not known for easily parting with their petro-dollars. But this miserly instinct dissipates when the Sheikhdoms perceive a direct threat to the stability of their respective governments. On Sunday, the three nations led by Riyadh pledged to provide Jordan with a cash infusion of $2.5 billion to help the arid kingdom prop up its free-falling economy. Separately, the European Union announced that it would provide Jordan with $23.5 million. The hefty Gulf State bailout is testament to how seriously they view the problem.
Jordan has recently experienced a spasm of popular unrest and widespread demonstrations, sparked by tax increases and painful austerity measures implemented by King Abdullah II’s prime minister, Hani Mulki, to deal with growing debt. In 2016, cash-strapped Jordan secured a $723-million loan from the International Monetary Fund. The economic reforms instituted by PM Mulki were tied to this loan but proved to be widely unpopular.
Jordanians watched as subsidies on basic food items were eliminated and standards of living declined while taxes increased. Paychecks got smaller while everything became more expensive. This was enough to push Jordanians over the edge. As the riots spread to every province and major town, Abdullah moved quickly to quell the unrest by firing his prime minister and reversing previously implemented tax hikes and austerity measures.
The move has ameliorated tensions and demonstrations have tapered off for now but the underlying problems highlighting the monarchy’s fragility remain. Jordan is a poor, mostly desert country that produces nothing and relies principally on handouts for its existence. Unemployment hovers at a staggering 18 percent and the national debt continues to rise.
More ominous for the kingdom is the fact that some 70 percent of the population considers itself to be “Palestinian.” Unlike the indigenous Jordanian Bedouin, most of the Palestinians are either disloyal or noncommittal to Abdullah. In addition, the monarchy has to contend with a small but growing Salafist extremist movement, which has challenged the government’s legitimacy. Adding to the kingdom’s problems is the presence of some 650,000 Syrian refugees, which are both politically and economically burdensome.
Jordan borders two failed states; Syria to the north and Iraq to the east. Both Damascus and Baghdad receive their marching orders from the mullahs of the Islamic Republic. Teheran would want nothing more than to sow further discord in the Sunni world and harm its chief Muslim nemesis, Saudi Arabia, so it would not be surprising if the Iranians were found to be engaged in some form of behind-the-scenes mischief-making in Jordan.
Like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and much of the Arab world, Jordan is not immune to civil war. In September 1970, friction between Jordan’s Hashemite Kingdom and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which had encamped itself in Jordan along with 15,000 fighters, came to an explosive climax when Jordan’s King Hussein (Abdullah II’s father) unleashed his Bedouin army on the PLO.
In what has since been referred to by the Palestinians as “Black September,” The PLO fought back tenaciously while Syrian armored forces, in an effort to help the PLO, invaded Jordan from the north. Jordan was teetering and it looked as though there was a real possibility that the monarchy would fall. At the request of the United States, the Israelis intervened on behalf of Hussein and flew a number of reconnaissance flights over the Syrian positions making it clear to the Syrians that Israel would not stand idly by in the face of Syrian aggression against Jordan. The Syrians got the message and promptly withdrew allowing Hussein’s Bedouin army to concentrate its efforts on the Palestinians. The Jordanians accomplished their goals with ruthless efficiency, killing thousands of Palestinians, civilians as well as combatants.
There are those who believe that Israel’s intervention on behalf of Jordan was a colossal mistake. The fall of King Hussein, they argue, would have resulted in the creation of a Palestinian state in eastern Palestine thereby solving the “Palestinian question.” Regardless, the Black September clashes proved that the monarchy was vulnerable.
The so-called Arab Spring, which began in 2010 and raged through the Arab world like wildfire, sparked regime change and internecine conflict throughout the Mideast. Governments in Tunisia and Egypt were overthrown while Libya, Syria and Yemen were plunged into civil war (Iraq’s internecine conflict preceded the Arab Spring).
Though Jordan was largely spared the chaos which gripped its neighbors, the Arab Spring exposed vulnerabilities inherent in Arab societies, which made the kingdom equally prone to instability. This includes lack of democratic institutions, rampant corruption and venality and crucially, a tendency to revert to religious extremism, ethnic hatred and tribalism.
Jordan may have dodged the proverbial bullet for now but inherent flaws in its system of government coupled with ongoing economic woes, a large and largely disloyal Palestinian population, strains imposed by Syrian refugees along with a tendency to revert to religious fundamentalism, mean that the monarchy’s years may be numbered. The Gulf States are cognizant of this, hence their willingness to dig deep into their coffers to sustain a fellow Sunni ally.
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"Jordan is a poor, mostly desert country that produces nothing and relies principally on handouts for its existence."
- What could possibly go wrong.
"Jordan borders two failed states; Syria to the north and Iraq to the east."
- There are forces that try to sow discord but hard for a rational citizen of Jordan to envy the destruction of their neighbors.
We have been quite lucky to have Jordan relatively stable and helpful or at least neutral in recent times.
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Three perspectives on the same event
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/06/israeli-pm-netanyahu-meets-jordan-king-abdullah-ii-amman-180618192849369.html
https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Netanyahu-and-King-Abdullah-II-of-Jordan-meet-in-Amman-560278
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-met-king-abdullah-in-jordan-for-talks-about-peace-1.6192417
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https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/jordan/.premium-iran-out-of-syria-jordan-s-king-and-israel-share-a-strategy-1.6177047
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Analysis
The Jordanian King’s Roller-coaster Ride
Into Syria to Stop Iran
The demonstrations in Amman have calmed down, but now King Abdullah must prevent
ill-meaning Iranian forces from approaching Jordan via Syria
A short video published online by the Fayez family of Jordan reveals the fragile web of
relationships King Abdullah must balance to keep his throne. It shows young members of
the family blocking the main road from the town of Madaba to Amman.
The filming was done at night, and it’s hard to identify the participants, but the family left
no room for doubt. “If Fares Fayez isn’t released from jail, we’ll block the highway to the
airport, and that won’t be the last step,” the family threatened on social media.
Fares Fayez is a famous opposition activist known for cursing Queen Rania and calling for
the king’s ouster. During last week’s demonstrations against a new tax law , he published
insulting posts against the king and his family and urged Abdullah to resign, charging that
he is “chiefly responsible for all the corruption in the kingdom.”
Fayez was arrested about a week ago. Now the police will be in conflict not just with his
family but with members of the large and influential Bani Sakhr tribe. If not contained,
this conflict could drag Jordan into many other internecine battles.
The demonstration that resulted in Fayez’s jailing forced Abdullah to raise more money
from his neighbors to finance the government’s operations, fund its $40 billion debt and,
above all, substitute for the revenue the tax law was supposed to raise. Thanks to the
demonstrations, this law is now in the deep freeze. “The previous government didn’t
properly examine the law before approving it,” said the new prime minister, Omar Razzaz.
This is an uphill battle because Abdullah has once again discovered that aid from the Gulf
states, and especially Saudi Arabia, comes with a diplomatic price tag that Jordan isn’t
eager to pay. This price tag contributed significantly to the economic crisis that led to the
tax law and the ensuing demonstrations.
When the protests began, the only country that expressed a willingness to help Jordan was
Kuwait. It sent a special envoy to Amman to offer $1 billion in aid, half in grants and half
in low-interest loans. The next to volunteer was Qatar, which is being boycotted by Saudi
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt.
But accepting Qatari aid was problematic because it would put Jordan under obligation to
Qatar and increase Qatari influence in the kingdom at the expense of Saudi Arabia and the
UAE. Thus Abdullah was in an impossible situation.
Riyadh didn’t rush to offer financial help, sufficing with supportive statements. Qatar
came with a check that Jordan couldn’t accept until it knew what the Gulf states
boycotting Qatar would offer. Meanwhile, the streets were seething and the people were
threatening not to make do with Prime Minister Hani Mulki’s dismissal and appointment
of a new government under Razzaz.
Mainly due to the “danger” that Qatar would become Jordan’s benefactor, Riyadh
eventually woke up. It convened a summit with the UAE and Kuwait.
Meager aid
But the results were disappointing. The Gulf states offered only $2.5 billion, including the
$1 billion Kuwait had already pledged. Saudi Arabia and the UAE were offering only $750
million each over five years – some in the form of a deposit Jordan could draw on, some as
loans and some as guarantees that would help Jordan obtain loans from international
institutions.
Jordan had hoped for $5 billion. But even that wouldn’t have been enough to stabilize the
economy without painful reforms.
After receiving this offer, Abdullah told Qatar he would happily accept the $500 million it
offered, which was accompanied by a pledge to employ tens of thousands more
Jordanians in Qatar. The Qatari loan will arrive all at once, in cash, which will be
extremely useful. In exchange, Jordan agreed to accept a new Qatari ambassador in
Amman, after having downgraded relations about 18 months earlier under Saudi and UAE
pressure, as part of their boycott of Qatar.
Razzaz, the new prime minister, couldn’t hide his disappointment with the Gulf states.
Speaking in Jordan while Abdullah was in Kuwait, he said Jordan was under heavy
diplomatic pressure, “but we won’t let anyone extort us.”
The newly appointed Jordanian Prime Minister Omar al-Razzaz (C) meets with
member of Union leaders in Amman, on June 7, 2018. AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP
The extortion in question relates first of all to Jordan’s refusal to accept Donald Trump’s
“deal of the century” as long as Jerusalem, as Trump himself has said, is off the table.
Amman also rejects Riyadh’s plan to deprive Jordan of its special status at Jerusalem’s
holy sites as stipulated in the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty. Finally, Jordan isn’t willing
to take part in the Saudi war in Yemen. In the past, it also refused Saudi demands that it
either attack Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces or let an Arab coalition attack from
Jordan.
It remains to be seen how Saudi Arabia and the UAE will respond to Jordan’s renewed
friendship with Qatar. But this isn’t the only front where Jordan faces problems. The
agreements Russia is making with Iran, Turkey and Syria about Syria’s future also worry
Amman, mainly because of the proximity to the Jordanian border of Iranian and
pro-Iranian forces.
Earlier this month, Jordan was supposed to host a conference of senior American, Russian
and Jordanian officials to discuss arrangements for supervising the de-escalation zone in
southern Syria. Under the earlier agreement that established this zone, Iranian forces are
supposed to withdraw to a distance of 25 to 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Jordanian
border, with Syrian army troops replacing them.
Israeli-Jordanian interests
But the meeting was canceled, apparently at Jordan’s request. This is mainly because
Jordan (like Israel) opposes letting the Syrian army deploy in southern Syria , for fear that
pro-Iranian forces will enter the area disguised as Syrian soldiers. Jordan wants
guarantees that only Syrian soldiers, and no foreign forces, will control this zone. On this
issue Jordan is aligned with Israel .
UN forces overlooking the Israeli-Syrian border, this month BAZ RATNER/Reuters
Jerusalem seeks a deeper withdrawal of Iranian forces , to a distance of 50 to 75 kilometers
from the Israeli-Syrian border. Both Israel and Jordan are now apparently waiting to see
what the other achieves before finalizing its own position.
Russia would like Iranian forces to leave all of Syria – not just because Israel demands it,
but to further its own plans. It has even said so publicly. But Iran refuses, as does
Hezbollah, whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, recently declared that Russia can’t force Iran
(much less Hezbollah) to withdraw.
>> Syria signals willingness to pull Hezbollah back from border with Israel,
report says <<
In a media interview earlier this week, Assad said Iranian and Hezbollah troops would
leave Syria only when they decided that the war on terror – that is, against the Syrian
rebels – had ended. He said Iran, Hezbollah and Russia were all in Syria legitimately,
having arrived at his invitation.
Russia doesn’t accept Assad’s view and is trying to pressure Iran and Hezbollah to at least
quit certain areas if they won’t leave entirely. It has sent blunt military signals. For
instance, Russian forces entered the Al-Qusayr region and other sites in the Qalamoun
Mountains , near the Syrian-Lebanese border, without coordinating with Hezbollah, which
controls these areas. Hezbollah harshly denounced the Russian move.
Admittedly, the Russian troops withdrew less than a day later, but the message was clear:
If Russia decides that Hezbollah is in its way, it won’t hesitate to take military action
against it.
This conflict recalls Russia’s actions during the evacuation of rebel forces from Aleppo: It
created facts on the ground without consulting Iran. Only after Iranian and Hezbollah
forces refused to let the buses full of evacuees pass did Russia include Iran in the
discussions.
Though Jordan and Israel expect Russia to use its leverage against Iran, Moscow has
moved delicately so as not to upset Iran. But now Russia may have a new and unexpected
source of leverage.
The United States’ withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, the new sanctions it has
already imposed and the additional ones it may impose, together with Europe’s hesitant
response to these sanctions, will increase Iran’s dependence on China and Russia. But
whereas China doesn’t demand anything for its extensive economic ties with Iran, Russia
has already proved that it knows how to exact a diplomatic price – sometimes a high one –
from countries dependent on it.
Granted, Russia denounced Trump for withdrawing from the nuclear deal. But it isn’t
blind to the benefits it might reap from this decision.
Still, just as in the story of Jordan’s relations with Qatar and Saudi Arabia in which
Jordan’s economic dependence didn’t produce political capitulation, it would be
unrealistic, at least for now, to think Vladimir Putin can just pull a string and Iranian
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will nod like a puppet.
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Not much mention yet of the Jews, but Jordan does have diplomatic relations with Israel, not a small trick for a country with a huge Palestinian population , , ,
https://aleteia.org/2018/06/27/king-abdullah-to-receive-templeton-prize/
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/king-abdullah-ii-of-jordan-awarded-2018-templeton-prize-300671672.html
https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=37514
https://religionnews.com/2018/06/27/templeton-prize/
I would note that I posted here previously about the "The Amman Message"
http://ammanmessage.com/
Also see
https://www.acommonword.com/
http://worldinterfaithharmonyweek.com/
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second post
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/king-continues-meetings-us-congress
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https://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2016/10/21/is-jordan-israels-new-best-friend/
Is Jordan Israel’s new best friend?
Jordan is boosting its strategic ties with Israel based on their mutual economic interests, while Palestinians sound the alarm against normalization of relations with their enemy.
al-monitor.com
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https://gellerreport.com/2018/06/sharia-jordan-jewish-convert.html/
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB8NfJKLNKQ
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Third post
JY1 was an enigma. When a radio ham from Nottingham put out a general call during a radio festival in the early 1970s, a man calling himself Hussein, with the call sign JY1, responded. That he claimed to be Jordanian was clear enough from the first two letters. But who, from a nation that used two or three digits as its call signs, would be audacious enough to list themselves as number one? The radio ham was confused. 'He thought that nobody has a call sign of just one digit, so he thought it was a pirate,' explains Henry Balen, of Beeston in Nottinghamshire, whose friend (who has since died) had put out the call. 'He told whoever it was claiming to be JY1 to get off the air in language that I couldn't repeat.' But the amateur radio fanatic, whom Balen's friend had sent off with such profanity, was none other than his majesty King Hussein bin Talal of Jordan, the most famous amateur radio enthusiast in the world.
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'King Hussein was a proper gentleman and explained to him why his call sign was just number one. Because, as the King, he was number one in his country, and the gentleman was very embarrassed.' When he wasn't making war, brokering peace or running his own country for almost half a century, the late King Hussein was often scanning the airwaves for friends, as if he were in broad- casting's earlier version of an Internet chat room.
King Hussein was in prestigious company. During his lifetime he could have hooked up with fellow enthusiasts KY2 (his wife, Queen Noor), EA0JC (King Juan Carlos of Spain) and LU1SM (Argentinian president Carlos Menem). And Priscilla Presley is among the other unlikely, though less stately, celebrities who enjoy communic-ating with the world this way. While in death, the King joins the late VU2RG (Rajiv Ghandi) and K7UGA (Senator Barry Goldwater).
But among them Hussein reigned supreme. In 1970, the radio society of Great Britain made him an honorary member. When he came to Britain in 1993 he found time to give an interview to the society's official magazine, Radiocom.
The King made contact with the first radio amateur in space - W5LFL (Owen Garriott aboard the space shuttle Columbia): 'We managed to arrange a schedule with him on his 92nd orbit,' Hussein was reported as saying. 'It was an excellent contact, something like three or four minutes horizon to horizon.' The King operated not only from Jordan but from the United States, Spain, Austria and Canada when he was on the road. He had his own station in Britain, although it was put out of action for some time when the antennae was damaged.
In a letter to the Daily Telegraph yesterday, one reader recalled making contact with a 28-year-old JY1 in 1964. A small group of US Navy personnel on the Aleutian islands were having trouble getting through to the outside world following an earthquake in Alaska. As they searched the radio waves for operators who could establish a link with their families, they came across JY1 in Amman.
'We passed on several messages to JY1,' wrote Marty Baker, 'who duly phoned the families concerned through the normal links. He must have been considerably out of pocket as a result. What a King!' By his own admission, the King was something of a radio addict.
'I try to operate whenever and wherever I can,' he told Radcom. 'I have constructed equipment, but not as much as I would like to.' The former Harrow student, who became a member of the the school's radio society after he was given a Hallicrafters radio, was a regular on the airwaves even in his later years.
'In times of crisis and difficulty, it was a way to keep in touch with friends throughout the world who were able to help relay messages and to secure humanitarian help as well,' he said.
Earlier this week, one retired teacher in Ireland said he was in regular contact with King Hussein. From Beara, a remote area in West Cork on the west coast of Ireland, Bernie O'Sullivan would talk to the King as he sat on his yacht in the Red Sea.
'We were good friends. He used to look for me and I looked for him,' says Sullivan. 'Sometimes we would make contact three or four times, other times it might be once. The contact lasted for about five years, then it sort of fizzled out. The last time I spoke to him was 10 years ago. I think he eventually became too busy for the radio. I was very sad to see him after the chemotherapy - he was a broken man. The two great loves in his life were amateur radio and flying.' Bernie came across the King by accident when he was switching through radio bands in April 1970.
'I heard him speaking to Americans one day on the one of the bands,' Sullivan said. 'His call sign fascinated me because it was very short, just JY1. The letter stood for Jordan and the number one stood for himself. After hearing the broadcast, myself and a load of other European stations called him up.
'He asked to have a word with the Irish station. He knew that because my call sign started as EI. He used to just give his name as Hussein. There are no titles with radio hams. That's the beauty of our radio - there is no class distinction. It was just Hussein and Bernie.'
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https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/54d3a7b2ecad04240d59275e-750-751.jpg
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http://www.jordantimes.com/opinion/osama-al-sharif/trump-putin-summit-could-deliver-syria-deal
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U.S. Muslim Leaders Mourn Jordanian MB Leader
by John Rossomando • Jul 12, 2018 at 2:41 pm
https://www.investigativeproject.org/7526/us-muslim-leaders-mourn-jordanian-mb-leader
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https://israelunwired.com/israel-pulls-off-huge-evacuation-saving-800-syrian-aid-workers-trapped-in-war-zone/
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http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/safadi-lavrov-discuss-return-refugees
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TTT
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http://www.jordantimes.com/opinion/hassan-barari/kings-birds-eye-view-jordan-region
Other editorials:
http://www.jordantimes.com/opinion/editorial/absence-mediation
http://www.jordantimes.com/opinion/christopher-r-hill/putin-overplays-his-hand
http://www.jordantimes.com/opinion/jim-oneill/turkish-emerging-market-time-bomb
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https://israelunwired.com/former-jordanian-prime-minister-drops-bombshell-about-peace-with-israel/
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http://www.jordantimes.com/news/region/clashes-between-kurds-and-syrian-army-troops-leave-18-dead
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/region/us-envoy-sees-israel-keeping-golan-heights-forever
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/region/syria-rescue-centre-idlib-forced-shut-after-air-strikes
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/region/hundreds-flee-syria-russia-hit-rebel-stronghold-idlib
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I'm unfamiliar with this source, but it was forwarded to me by someone of high reliability.
https://limacharlienews.com/mena/welcome-to-jordan-a-den-of-spies-and-fajitas-for-dinner/
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https://israelunwired.com/jordania-palestinian-bashes-european-parliament-for-their-policies-on-israel/
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http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/%E2%80%98water-deals-israel-not-affected-baqoura-and-ghumar-annexes%E2%80%99
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second post
This sheds light on the prior post:
The happy ending of Baqoura and Ghumar episode: Is that it?
Oct 24,2018 - Last updated at Oct 24,2018
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Jordanians were overjoyed by His Majesty King Abdullah’s decision to terminate annexes in the 1994 peace treaty with Israel, thus ending a "lease" of Jordanian lands in Baqoura and Ghumar to Israelis under a "special regime".
The move was another triumph in a series of diplomatic wins Jordan has recorded in its soft showdown with Israel, including a relieving end to the crisis that saw two Jordanians shot dead by an Israeli embassy guard in Amman in July 2017. Israel, after reluctance and an act of foolishness, had to apologise and pay millions in compensation to the families of the two men, along with a Jordanian judge shot by Israeli soldiers on the King Hussein Bridge as he was heading to visit relatives in the West Bank in 2014.
Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Monday that Amman had not received any request by the Israeli side for negotiations over the termination, but we know that this is coming. After all, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not be willing to compromise the interests, and voter support, of settlers who have been using the fertile lands (around 7,000 dunums in total) for almost a quarter of a century.
To say that Jordanians were happy with the termination of the annexes does not tell the whole story. Many have been shocked to know the facts about the two areas, including that Baqoura has been literally owned by Jews for almost a century and there has been no "lease", but a special regime that ensured the Israeli farmers ownership rights in the area under Jordanian sovereignty.
President of the Professional Associations Council Ibrahim Tarawneh said in remarks to The Jordan Times this week that Jordanians had been "fooled into thinking it was a lease to be terminated after 25 years, but now we know that there is no lease, and that we were actually under what qualifies as Israeli occupation and exploitation all this time”.
It was not until former premier and the peace treaty architect, Abdul Salam Majali, said in a recent TV interview that Jordan may have to buy back the land from its owners that proud citizens came face to face with a bitter reality.
Jordanians also took pride in the fact that His Majesty responded to people's demands when he took the decision. But even that did not stand after a prominent columnist known to be the "leaks man" published an op-ed with inside information, claiming that the King took the decision in May and ordered a thorough legal study of the decision, long before a grassroots campaign picked up momentum, supported by a parliamentary motion, demanding an end to the Baqoura and Ghumar deals. This is good, and expected, but there is no shame in saying that His Majesty responded to the pulse of the street. That is what he does all the time.
Looking ahead, the least the public expects from officials is transparency over the consultations they will enter with the Israeli side. A couple of leaks to the media would do, whether good or bad news.
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https://israelunwired.com/israel-helps-jordanian-rescue-effort-from-flash-floods-that-kill-21-children/
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https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2018/10/29/caroline-glick-jordans-king-abdullah-weak-untrustworthy-and-irreplaceable/?fbclid=IwAR1fFYISj57OzWKxHLWTVVImtXuVki3rb9LIMrTzWws5xahNbKOtkVESvhQ
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Jordan's King Walks a Fine Line Between Domestic and International Demands
By Ryan Bohl
Middle East and North Africa Analyst, Stratfor
Ryan Bohl
Ryan Bohl
Middle East and North Africa Analyst, Stratfor
Jordan's King Abdullah II attends the opening of the country's parliament in 2016 in Amman, Jordan. As the economy founders, Jordan is facing the increasing influence of various protesters.
(JORDAN PIX/ Getty Images)
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Highlights
Jordan's economic and nationalist protest movements are both gaining strength, demanding changes to Amman's policies that will create potential clashes with the country's international donors.
Jordan's key contributors — including the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — will want the kingdom to pursue policies that are unpopular with its citizens.
The divide between international and domestic desires could create a crisis for Jordan's monarchy if the country's sponsors attempt to push Amman too far.
A rising tide of protests in Jordan has proved itself capable of exerting power over government policy. Jordan's social contract has long been held together by a combination of the monarchy's opaque placations and substantial foreign aid. But as its economy founders, the country is facing the increasing influence of various protesters. On one hand are the nationalists, who are ideologically opposed to King Abdullah II adopting policies that they believe are in the interest of key donors but not of Jordan itself. On the other hand are economically aggrieved protesters who are increasingly struggling to survive as Jordan implements economic structural reforms, especially those related to new taxes.
Meanwhile, Jordan continues to rely on its foreign aid, meaning its key donors — The United States, Europe and the Arab Gulf states — have substantial sway over the monarchy's decisions. As the demands of these foreign powers clash with the desires of Jordan's growing protest movements, the king will be unable to please everyone, meaning Jordan will likely experience continued unrest and could potentially see internal crisis.
The Big Picture
Jordan's stability is a product of international help rather than its own economic or political strengths. But that help comes with strings attached that the country's people are increasingly starting to reject. If the country's benefactors attempt to push the kingdom into policies that its growing protest movements will oppose, the result could be a crisis.
See Broken Contracts in the Middle East
Small But Significant Policy Changes
Jordan's monarchy has increasingly been caving to the domestic pressures of its protest movements. Most recently, nationalists succeeded in pushing Abdullah to announce that Jordan would pull out of a portion of its 1994 peace treaty with Israel that is due for renegotiation in 2019. In that section of the treaty, Jordan agreed to allow Israel the extraterritorial use of two small farms in the Jordan River valley in Baqura and Ghamr — as both a confidence-building measure and a means for Jordan to avoid paying for a handful of development projects.
The king's adherence to the peace treaty itself remains firm, so his decision did not produce a diplomatic crisis with Israel or a rush to salvage the treaty. But the move exemplifies the king's increasing attempts to appease domestic groups that oppose some of the Jordanian government's actions. Indeed, the nationalist victory came shortly after economically aggrieved protesters succeeded in forcing the cancellation of a deeply unpopular income tax bill in June. This summer's unrest in Jordan represented the largest protests in the country since the 2011 Arab Spring events that resulted in a completely new government.
That diverse street protests have propelled two notable policy shifts in Jordan points to the government's strong desire to please its citizens and avoid unrest. But this stance also risks causing a confrontation between the Jordanian monarchy and the international allies who want it to survive but also act in their interests.
For Coin and Country
During the Arab Spring, demonstrations from Jordan's nationalists and its economically aggrieved protesters aligned and combined to create a combustible environment in the kingdom. More recently, however, the two sides have focused on specific issues with little overlap. Nationalist protests forced Amman to expel the Israeli ambassador after an Israeli Embassy guard killed two Jordanian men in July 2017, and economic protests briefly shut down the country's economy in June, forcing the monarchy to cancel the unpopular income tax bill and put off austerity-driven measures for another day.
The two protest currents are issues-based and poorly organized for now, but the range of issues that animate them are multiplying as Jordan's economy continues its decline and its monarchy embarks on increasingly serious and dramatic efforts to maintain stability, including reaching out to the International Monetary Fund. And the more that relevant issues crop up, the more opportunities the protesters will have to organize. In the near future, a partially approved new tax bill and a U.S. plan for Palestinian peace will provide further opportunities for the protesters to organize against the monarchy in an effort to exert influence over policy.
Charts demonstrating Jordan's rising debt, unemployment and inflation.
Charts demonstrating Jordan's rising debt, unemployment and inflation.
Unfortunately for Jordan, recent policy victories and current demands of nationalists and economically struggling Jordanians have caused dismay for the country's foreign sponsors, who are necessary to keep the country stable. And Jordan's key donors have shown they are willing to play politics with the support Amman desperately needs.
Risking Aid
Given Jordan's demographic challenges and poor resource base, its stability is an oddity in the Middle East and North Africa. But that stability is largely because key powers — including Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Europe — see value in maintaining the kingdom's economy and filling in the gaps of its social contract. This dynamic was on display in June 2018, when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar offered up a combined $1.25 billion in loans and aid to help the strained Jordanian government make it through the year. Even more recently, Israel's muted reaction to the king's decision regarding the 1994 peace treaty demonstrated Israel's continued interest in maintaining stability there.
But as Jordan's protesters continue to sway their king, the question now is what impact they will have on the actions of the international community. Nationalist politics have, in the past, pushed Jordan into policies that damaged its security. King Abdullah I was assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist in 1951 for contemplating a peace treaty with Israel. His successor, King Hussein, then fought and lost the 1967 war with Israel that cost Jordan its productive West Bank territories. Moreover, Hussein's desire to placate his country's Palestinian population made him one of the only Arab leaders to support Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. This brought Jordanian relations with the Gulf states to an all-time low, compelling Jordan to move closer to the United States by signing the 1994 treaty with Israel, America's key ally.
Jordan's protest movements and its need for foreign aid are pulling its leader in different directions and forcing the king to navigate a shrinking middle ground.
Today, nationalists threaten to challenge Abdullah over an impending U.S. peace plan for Palestine (despite its low chance of success). Few solid details are available about the plan, which is already deeply unpopular with Palestine's Fatah faction, but rumors suggest it will not assuage fears that the Palestinian people will be permanently displaced, nor will it grant them the deeply-desired right to return to Israel. The United States' decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem reinforced Palestinian fears, and recent moves to treat Gaza and the West Bank as separate entities indicate that Washington is willing to cut Fatah out of the peace process entirely.
Nationalist pressure will encourage Jordan to oppose the United States' plan, which has the support of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a quieter backing from Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. But Jordan's backers have demonstrated their willingness to withhold aid for political reasons, such as when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates delayed renewing an aid package that expired in 2017 to push Abdullah closer to their own policy positions. They only eventually stepped in to assist Jordan once the major protests of June 2018 reached a crisis point.
Friendly Fire
Jordan's protest movements and its need for foreign aid are pulling its leader in different directions and forcing the king to navigate a shrinking middle ground. With few good options available, Abdullah will become increasingly dependent on thoughtful policy from foreign countries, which is a difficult place to be. Saudi Arabia, for example, has had erratic policies toward its allies — from its dispute with Canada to abducting Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri — and even briefly detained Jordan's wealthiest billionaire in an attempt to exert influence. A miscalculation from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or both could expose Abdullah to more major protests in his country.
The United States, moreover, could use the promise of aid to push Amman toward supporting the Palestinian peace plan, which will almost certainly be deeply unpopular in Jordan. U.S. security aid is critical for Jordan's armed forces and Amman's security partnership is key to Washington, so a true break is deeply unlikely. But the United States could choose to introduce uncertainty over its support for the king through statements, threats or even tweets, thereby exposing Abdullah to a more assertive nationalist protest movement. Israel, too, could inflame nationalist sentiments in Jordan. Another war in Gaza, Israeli support for the U.S.-led Palestinian peace plan, or even another incident similar to the embassy shooting will worsen Abdullah's position at home.
None of Jordan's allies want to dramatically destabilize the kingdom or undermine its ruler, but they have shown they could behave in ways that open the door to unrest if Jordan's monarchy diverges from their interests in order to appease protest groups. Jordanians at home are increasingly unhappy with their country's economy and its relationship with Israel, and their growing protests have increased their influence over government policy. But that assertiveness will create clashes with the interests of the outside donors Jordan relies on, since it doesn't have the resources to go it alone.
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Pasting this here as well as on the Israel thread
https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2019/02/06/caroline-glick-the-limits-of-arab-israeli-cooperation/?fbclid=IwAR0lMd_nKr5o8D7QR7sBz35iR-MCo62qVDAVEutVNveTqxCwbXTntdLbEBI
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https://israelunwired.com/the-once-modernized-jordan-has-turned-into-this/
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http://orthochristian.com/121080.html?fbclid=IwAR0DYjX4ae23LAICyO3q3YQtWqx6TT8mZsl7iLzq568FWe4qxwai9WjQO14
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAfCv1ZuCF8&fbclid=IwAR1kgoqj1nTzD27k4az3GVPsuFLQdrmo27Scz7JdD6XF1TbnjUCPBTkWHb8
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmut6FJ1d4M&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1X-M7Tgh7IzwyInW3-XzgIFCaRrATxsC-MT80-vdvXFnmzNcR25dw4GW8
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Trump Peace Effort Traps Jordan Between U.S. and Palestinians
Jordanian minister presses Washington to heed Palestinian position, warning of consequences of failure
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, shown in April, cautioned the Trump administration against sending a message that Palestinians have nothing to hope for. Photo: khalil mazraawi/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
By Felicia Schwartz and
Suha Ma’ayeh
July 5, 2019 10:17 am ET
AMMAN, Jordan—As the Trump administration lays the groundwork for an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, neighboring Jordan has been thrust into the awkward position of opposing many of Washington’s policies while depending on its support.
Jordan sees an independent Palestinian state next to Israel as vital to its interests. More than 50% of Jordan’s 10 million people are of Palestinian descent, including 2.2 million refugees registered with the United Nations.
But Jordan has watched with increasing worry as the Trump administration made moves that the Palestinians say show the U.S. is siding with Israel, such as cutting aid to the West Bank and Gaza and recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Officials here say a plan that doesn’t satisfy Palestinians’ national aspirations could result in a security crisis for Jordan. The monarchy, which already faces protests over economic issues and political rights, could also have to contend with an influx of Palestinians and unrest across the border in the West Bank, officials said.
“Everything that happens in the region has an impact on us,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said in an interview. “We’re on the receiving end of every crisis in this part of the world.”
Jordan is currently home to millions of refugees, including 2.2 million Palestinians registered with the United Nations. Above, a camp in Amman. Photo: andre pain/epa-efe/rex/Shutterstock
Washington hasn’t revealed its political solution to the Mideast conflict, promoting only its economic blueprint. That approach won some praise in Israel but was rejected by Palestinians who say aid isn’t welcome if it comes at the expense of a Palestinian state. Gulf Arab states offered cautious backing.
Jordan, in an echo of the Palestinian position, won’t accept a peace plan that doesn’t create an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and is based on borders before the 1967 Six Day War, Mr. Safadi said.
Weighed DownLow growth and high debt plague Jordan'seconomy.Jordan's gross domestic product, changefrom a year earlier
%
2000’05’10’150246810
Government debt as a share of GDPSource: International Monetary FundNote: 2018-19 data are estimates
%
2000’05’10’15020406080100120
Mr. Trump’s chief Middle East peace adviser, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, has said the U.S. plan would fall in between the Arab Peace Initiative, which dictates those terms, and the Israeli position, which currently calls for Jerusalem as its undivided capital and for Israel to maintain security control over most of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he won’t evacuate residents from settlements that are considered illegal by much of the international community.
Mr. Safadi cautioned the Trump administration against sending what he called a very dangerous message—that Palestinians have nothing to hope for.
Jordan, however, relies on U.S. aid to stave off economic collapse and political instability. Washington contributes $1.2 billion annually in economic and security aid to Jordan, whose economy has been strained by its absorption of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011 as well as the conflict’s disruptions to trade routes. Jordan and the U.S. are in constant contact and relations remain strong, Mr. Safadi said.
Resentment is already running high here over consumer-goods price increases and the introduction of new taxes, part of austerity measures under a program with the International Monetary Fund. Jordanians last year protested against tax reform bills that led to the downfall of the prime minister.
The U.S. describes Jordan as a vital ally and considers its support critical to the success of the peace plan. A U.S. official said Washington wasn’t threatening to cut aid to Jordan—but that it was an option depending on Jordan’s reaction to the political segment of the Trump plan. The administration said it would release the plan after Israeli elections, which are in September.
Jordan also relies on aid from Arab Gulf states—who have supported U.S. peace efforts. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait last year pledged a $2.5 billion aid package to Jordan after a proposed income tax increase sparked large protests.
The Trump administration has said that the U.S. decision to move the embassy was aimed at serving U.S. interests and that Jerusalem’s final borders will be part of final status negotiations. And President Trump said the U.S. would resume aid to the Palestinians if they agree to the administration’s peace plan.
The political portion of the plan would be meant to settle the most contentious issues, including borders, security, refugees and the status of Jerusalem. The Trump administration kicked off its peacemaking efforts last week with a two-day conference in Bahrain that set aside those issues and focused instead on the potential for economic development if peace is achieved.
Jordan sent a small, low-profile delegation to Bahrain. The conference received almost no coverage in the tightly regulated Jordanian press.
The Trump administration used the conference to garner support for $50 billion in investment, including $7.4 billion for Jordan over 10 years.
But Mr. Safadi said the gathering didn’t increase hope for a resolution because it failed to address political issues. “Hope is very short in supply, and despair is prevailing,” he said.
Officials here said they worry that the Trump plan could ask Jordan to absorb Palestinians or that Jordan would become a de facto homeland for them if the plan fails to create a Palestinian state. Both outcomes would upset the country’s delicate demographic balance.
“We are very clear we’re not going to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at the expense of Jordan,” Mr. Safadi said.
The Trump administration has said Jordan wouldn’t become a Palestinian homeland. But in a move that could raise concern in Jordan, Mr. Kushner in a media briefing Wednesday on the Bahrain conference hinted that he backs Israel’s view that Palestinian refugees should be absorbed into the Arab countries they ended up in after the 1948 war that followed Israel’s establishment.
He said that while Jews who fled Arab countries after the 1948 war were resettled in Israel, Palestinians refugees from that war were moved into camps in neighboring countries, often lacking full rights even today.
“What’s happened to the Israeli—to the Jewish—refugees, is that they’ve been absorbed by different places whereas the Arab world has not absorbed a lot of these refugees over time,” Mr. Kushner said, adding that his team’s plan would be “pragmatic, achievable and viable.”
—Dov Lieber in Tel Aviv contributed to this article.
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What Happened: Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has met his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, to discuss aligning their stances on the future of Israel-Palestinian relations and their commitment to fund the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, Reuters reported July 23. Both officials also discussed other regional conflicts, including the Gulf Cooperation Council blockade against Qatar, the political situation in Libya, as well as the Syrian civil war.
Why It Matters: Jordan appears to be gradually improving ties with regional powers that are not closely aligned with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, having already reestablished some relations with Qatar in recent weeks. At the same time, Jordan and Turkey could ultimately revive and renegotiate a recently terminated free trade deal.
Background: Jordan's dependence on foreign aid has long required the country to seek alliances with stronger regional powers despite political disagreements.
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" .'As long as Pakistan cooperates and pushes the Afghan Taliban to cooperate, Islamabad's ties with Washington will improve."
John Batchelor had a guest on who is educated in this area but I didn't get his name as I did not hear the beginning.
In short he made it quite clear that absolutely nothing has changed with the antagonism of the Taliban and indeed Al Quiada is at least as strong if not more so , than even during 911.
So this strategy is a total bust.
In this regard the military's supermodel Tulsi Gabbard is correct.
I don't agree with her we should pull out of afghanistan as the situation might be worse but we may have otherwise made no headway or progress in the other direction.
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Last two posts are in the wrong thread. Please correct and then delete here.
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Last two posts are in the wrong thread. Please correct and then delete here.
Oops sorry, clicked on wrong link.
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No worries.
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https://www.foxnews.com/world/jordan-israel-jerusalem-holy-site-status-quo?fbclid=IwAR0MokAZxjSDZThwZ3VgW-9zowEUSYrVCOYZ0OUx-28u2Io6JnR6IS5Ziqo
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https://www.meforum.org/58683/end-syrian-civil-war-jordan
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https://www.judicialwatch.org/corruption-chronicles/u-s-spends-millions-to-train-bomb-sniffing-dogs-gifted-to-arab-countries-that-abuse-them/?utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tipsheet&utm_term=members&utm_content=20190916230748
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Just went to the front page of the Jordan Times to get the Jordanian take on events in Syria. NOT ONE WORD.
This though about the Yazidis being helped by Russian money , , ,
http://jordantimes.com/news/region/long-persecuted-yazidis-welcome-new-%E2%80%98sanctuary%E2%80%99-temple
This from the editorial page:
http://jordantimes.com/opinion/james-j-zogby/wake-trumps-broken-promises-need-arab-strategy
Days out of date there is this:
http://jordantimes.com/news/region/turkey-outlines-safe-zone-plan-ahead-key-deadline
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https://lauraloomer.us/2019/10/22/jordans-king-abdullah-rejects-pelosi-and-schiff-by-endorsing-trump-withdrawal-from-syria/?fbclid=IwAR1JkefZwGvO5vXO2YhGPFzMahjaLqu4sXpw1mXTWt-m8MGc-9DzxE_GIHE#.Xa_62a97lqM
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http://jordantimes.com/news/local/king-tells-us-president-killing-daesh-leader-important-step-war-terrorism
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https://israelunwired.com/modern-jordanian-tv-host-calls-to-gouge-out-the-eyes-of-zionists/
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https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/12/jordan-conducts-military-exercise-simulating-war-with-israel
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In response to my asking for his assessment of this, an Isreali friend of left-center orientation and serious IDF intel experience comments:
"Relationship between the two countries as at an all time low (since the peace agreement).
"We recently had to give back 2 small areas which were rented to us for a limited time. While agreed upon in the peace agreement, people in Israel were quite angry about this.
"Considering Bibi's legal situation, and the very real thought that he would start a war, any war, to protect his seat, I can see the concern in Jordan. The two plots of land could potentially be used as excuse. It's also important to mention that Bibi did nothing to prevent this, even though he could have negotiated the issue before hand with the king. As always, Bibi creates conflict that he then claims he is the only one who could solve. This just might be a drawer plan for such times.
This is the extreme, yet every possible scenario. The other option is historical. They might have been doing this exercise every year and never bothered to rename it.
"But considering our volatile situation, I would look past my first option.
"In all honesty, things are very complicated around here at the moment, even for very politically aware people like myself. I am afraid to say that the very existence of Israel as a democracy is at stake right now."
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http://carolineglick.com/preserving-the-peace-with-jordan/
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Trump's Pro-Israel Peace Plan Risks Pushing Jordan Away
Ryan Bohl
Ryan Bohl
Middle East and North Africa Analyst, Stratfor
8 MINS READ
Jan 30, 2020 | 11:00 GMT
An image of the Jordanian flag. Jordan's dependence on U.S. aid will constrain its ability to respond to Israeli actions in the West Bank. But it's only a matter of time until Washington's regional strategy forces Jordan to diversify its foreign ties.
(Shutterstock)
HIGHLIGHTS
The U.S. Middle East peace plan has emboldened Israel's nationalist push to expand its control of the West Bank, which includes annexing the Jordan River Valley.
Jordan will take symbolic acts of retaliation against Israeli annexations to appease the kingdom's own growing nationalist demands for an independent Palestinian state.
Such provocations against Israel will tempt the United States to use its considerable economic and military leverage to force Jordan to support its peace plan.
But in the long term, Jordan's increasingly divergent views on Washington's regional strategy will drive the kingdom to seek out new ties with other nations, such as the United Kingdom and Russia.
By placing Israel's strategic goals first, the United States has placed its other ally Jordan in a tight spot. Washington's newly unveiled Middle East peace plan strongly indicates that the Palestinian state envisioned by many Jordanians will not come to fruition. Fears of backlash at home will compel Jordan to rebuke Israeli annexations in the West Bank. Though in doing so, Jordan will have to tread lightly, given the United States' track record of strong-arming allies to support its foreign policy goals.
With billions of dollars worth of U.S. exports, financial aid and military support on the line, Jordan's actions against Israel will likely remain more symbolic. But even if Jordan is able to evade U.S. retaliation, the new peace plan has made it clear that empowering Israel as much as possible is now one of Washington's major priorities. And this reality will ultimately drive Jordan to follow the footsteps of other U.S. allies, such as Turkey and Qatar, who have begun diversifying their foreign ties to break free of a U.S. regional policy they feel no longer prioritizes their concerns.
The Big Picture
The United States and Jordan are close regional allies, but Washington's unilateralism in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is drawing criticism from Jordan. As Jordan considers its own counters to imminent further Israeli annexations in the West Bank, its most potent response will be to embark on a search for new allies that can help offset the country’s dependence on the United States.
See Rebalancing Power in the Middle East
Nationalist Movements at Odds
As outlined by the two countries' landmark 1994 peace treaty, the Jordan-Israeli relationship is underpinned by a mutual desire to avoid conflict, maintain friendly ties with the United States and build trade ties between one another. But Jordan and Israel's relations have been slowly declining in recent years under the weight of contradictory political forces in each country. In Israel, a growing nationalist movement has pushed for expanded control of the West Bank, including the annexation of the Jordan River Valley. These nationalists are increasingly a swing vote, which has made their interests heavily courted by Israel's top contenders for power in the country's recurrent elections. Indeed, both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main political rival, Benny Gantz, have now promised to annex the Jordan River Valley to strengthen their hand ahead of Israel’s third national election in less than a year on March 2.
A map showing the White House peace plan's proposed Israeli-Palestinian territories.
Israeli control of the valley, however, would make any future Palestinian state entirely dependent on Israel for trade and border security, undercutting its sovereignty. Further annexations of territory within the West Bank would also complicate the free movement of goods and people throughout a Palestinian state and make it virtually indefensible from Israeli incursions.
And in Jordan, this prospect is deeply unpopular among ordinary citizens — and in particular, the country's strong Palestinian and Arab nationalist political base, which wants to see the West Bank eventually turned into an independent state. These nationalists are hostile to Israeli policies that make these aspirations less likely, and typically expect the country's monarchy to champion their cause. And with Jordan’s economy undergoing a challenging transition, the support of these nationalists has become all the more important for the monarchy's legitimacy than in previous years.
Jordan's Political Plight
The potential annexation of the Jordan Valley — combined with the promise of the new U.S. peace plan — has, in turn, placed Jordan's leaders in a difficult position. On one hand, the kingdom wants to maintain ties with Israel for pragmatic security, economic and diplomatic reasons. But at the same time, it must also ensure Arab nationalist pushback inside Jordan does not reach a level where it could threaten the stability or legitimacy of the monarchy. Within this context, Jordan will likely pursue a calculated Israel policy designed to show its displeasure with Israeli annexation, while still remaining far away from upending the two countries' 1994 peace treaty.
Specifically, Jordan may choose to further downgrade its relations with Israel through an array of symbolic diplomatic and economic maneuvers. This could include expelling the Israeli ambassador (Jordan already withdrew its ambassador to Israel over the arrest of two Jordanians in 2019); lodging further diplomatic protests with the Arab League and United Nations on behalf of the Palestinians; tightening border crossings to slow trade and interfere with tourism (a key consideration for Israel, which prizes access to Christian holy sites controlled by Jordan as part of its tourism industry); escalating its anti-Israel rhetoric in public; or renewing public displays of hostility to Israel (such as running war games that are implicitly aimed at the country). But any action Jordan decides to take will come up against a very close U.S.-Israeli alliance — one in which both President Donald Trump and Netanyahu see strong domestic political value in defending many of each other's policies.
Facing Washington's Wrath
Should Jordan take action to downgrade its ties with Israel, the United States will consider its own response, raising the risk that U.S. officials decide to take a stronger stance than Jordan is prepared or able to withstand. The United States has already established a consistent pattern of leveraging its substantial economic and aid to bring allies in line with U.S. goals. The Palestinian Authority, for one, has recently seen its roughly $4 billion of U.S. foreign aid frozen in a bid to force its support of Washington's new peace plan (though so far unsuccessfully). And late last year, the United States also froze security aid to Lebanon, as well as imposed unprecedented sanctions on some Lebanese banks, as it debated how to pressure Iranian-allied Hezbollah forces in the country.
For now, Jordan's dependence on U.S. aid will constrain its ability to retaliate against Israeli annexations in the West Bank. But it's only a matter of time until the kingdom is forced to find new friends.
When it comes to Jordan, the United States has multiple economic levers at its disposal to retaliate against Amman's provocations against Israel. In 2017, the United States sent some $1.3 billion in bilateral assistance to Jordan, as well as another $1.1 billion to help Jordan manage the economic onus of its large Syrian refugee population. This aid could be suspended, delayed or even canceled to pressure Amman to change its position. The United States has also helped Jordan gain access to loans as recently as 2013-14. And as Jordan restructures its own economy to improve employment and cut down on state spending to reduce its economic risks, such aid may be needed again, giving the United States an opening where it could again pinch Jordan’s economy.
Jordan's crucial trade ties with the United States may also be at stake, should the White House decide to ramp up pressure. Washington could slap Jordan with higher U.S. tariffs, or may even threaten to pull out of the two countries' free trade agreement signed in 2000. Such trade salvos would hit Jordanian exports hard, as the United States accounts for some 22 percent of the country's goods. Being iced out from the massive U.S. clothing market would take a considerable toll on Jordan's large textile industry, in particular.
In addition to economic threats, the United States could also weaponize Jordan's reliance on many different aspects of U.S. military support. Specifically, Washington can interrupt or change Jordan's military aid, which has totaled about $1 billion since 2015 (accounting for roughly 40 percent of Jordan's 2015 military budget). It could also delay, deny or change the military training, weapons and defense equipment support Jordan's armed forces receive under the U.S. Foreign Military Financing program. Jordan is also a key intelligence and military partner and hosts a number of U.S. forces as part of the counterterrorism fight against the Islamic State. But such cooperation may also be at risk if the United States decides it needs to get Jordan in line with its Israel policy.
The Hunt for a Plan B
The United States remains interested in keeping Jordan as a strong regional partner. But domestic political considerations — especially with a presidential election in November — will tempt the White House to retaliate, should Jordan's actions against Israel appear too strong. But even if Jordan's actions against Israel don't prompt U.S. retaliation, the predicament in which Jordan has been placed has nonetheless illuminated just how dependent Jordan is on Washington for so much of both its economic and physical security. In the long term, this reality will spur Amman to consider diversifying its defense and economic ties to ensure it's less vulnerable to such U.S. pressure tactics in the future.
The former British territory will look to its former mandate holder, the United Kingdom, as well as Russia and the Gulf Arab states, to find back-ups to U.S. aid in case Washington decides Jordanian stability is not as paramount as it was in the past. Such reinforcements will not replace Jordan's massive levels of U.S. support anytime soon. It will, however, compel Amman to join Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on the growing list of U.S. regional allies who are searching for new economic and military partners to build up their independence.
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https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-most-immediate-unexpected-threat-of-trumps-middle-east-peace-plan?source=EDT_NYR_EDIT_NEWSLETTER_0_imagenewsletter_Daily_ZZ&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_021120&utm_medium=email&bxid=5be9d3fa3f92a40469e2d85c&cndid=50142053&esrc=&mbid=&utm_term=TNY_Daily
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The blonde seems really stupid to me (what does she think would happen to Israel if the Palestinian population were to take power?!?) but the larger question about the Hashemites on top of a majority Palestinian state remains:
https://israelunwired.com/jordan-is-the-real-palestinian-state/
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https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/king-abdullahs-empty-threats/
King Abdullah's empty threats
Abdullah will not cancel his kingdom's peace deal with Israel because the peace treaty guarantees the survival of his regime.
By Caroline B. Glick Published on 05-19-2020 09:27 Last modified: 05-19-2020 09:27
Should Jordan's King Abdullah have veto power over Israel's plan to apply its sovereign laws to its cities, towns and villages in Judea and Samaria and to the Jordan Valley, in accordance with the Trump peace plan? Monday morning, senior leaders of the Blue and White party began making noises to that effect.
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In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel last Friday, King Abdullah threatened, "If Israel really annexes the West Bank in July, it would lead to a massive conflict with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan."
News updates Monday morning reported that "senior officials" from Blue and White were working to condition Israel's implementation of the sovereignty plan on securing prior approval from Jordan.
Later Monday morning, during the ceremony at the Foreign Ministry marking the arrival of incoming Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazy, Ashkenazy said that Israel will implement the Trump peace plan "in dialogue with our neighbors, [and while] preserving of the peace treaties and the State of Israel's strategic interests."
Taken together with the morning news updates, Ashkenazy's remarks raised the prospect that he and his partner, Defense Minister and alternative prime minister Benny Gantz see Abdullah's threat as a justification for abandoning their support for the sovereignty plan. It bears recalling that during the negotiations leading up to the formation of the unity government between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud and Gantz and Blue and White, Netanyahu made Blue and White's support for the sovereignty plan his only substantive condition for signing the deal.
Abdullah, of course, will never approve the sovereignty plan. So giving him a veto means shelving the plan. This raises the question of whether there is any reason to give the head of the Hashemite clan that sort of power? Can he cause Israel harm so grave that it should abandon the sovereignty plan to appease him?
The Der Spiegel reporters asked Abdullah if he would suspend Jordan's peace treaty with Israel in retaliation for an Israeli decision to apply its sovereignty to the areas.
He responded, "I don't want to make threats and create a loggerheads atmosphere, but we are considering all options."
In plain English, that means that he is absolutely not considering suspending the peace deal. He's bloviating. And he has good reason to both keep the peace deal and to bloviate.
Abdullah will not cancel his kingdom's peace deal with Israel because the peace treaty guarantees the survival of his regime. Israel provides Jordan with an economic lifeline by supplying Jordan with water and gas. The US, for its part, protects and sustains Abdullah and his kingdom by stationing US forces in the kingdom and by providing Jordan with $1.8 billion in economic assistance annually.
If Jordan abrogated the peace deal, Israeli water and gas transfers would obviously cease. And since Israel's sovereignty plan will be undertaken in the framework of the US peace plan, it is hard to imagine that US support for the kingdom would be unchanged in the event that Jordan abrogated its peace deal in retaliation for Israel's move.
All this is not to say that Israel's relations with Jordan are stable. Anti-Semitism is almost universal in Jordan. And support for the peace with Israel is non-existent. The Hashemite monarchy itself is deeply unpopular.
It is possible that one day, with his back to the wall, Abdullah will abrogate the treaty. It is equally possible that one day he will be overthrown and that the successor regime will abrogate the peace treaty with Israel.
Facing this state of affairs, Israel's proper response is not to set aside the sovereignty plan, which among other things, secures Israel's long border with Jordan by applying Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley. The proper response to Jordan's enormous hostility – a state of affairs that existed long before the sovereignty plan and the Trump plan were conceived – is to draw up detailed contingency plans for the day after the Hashemites are overthrown or the peace treaty is abrogated.
In his remarks at the Foreign Ministry, Ashkenazy rightly praised US-Israel relations. "The United States is Israel's closest ally and the State of Israel's most important friend," he said.
During his visit with President Donald Trump in the White House in January, according to a senior American official, Gantz committed himself to implementing the Trump peace plan, including the sovereignty plan.
To preserve US-Israel relations, Ashkenazy and Gantz need to uphold that commitment. Failure to do so is liable to undermine Israel's credibility as a stable ally among administration leaders and other friends of Israel in Washington.
Ashkenazy acknowledged that through his peace plan, President Trump, "presents us with a historic opportunity to shape Israel's future and its borders."
Israel mustn't permit King Abdullah, and his empty threats stand in its way to seizing that opportunity now.
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https://israelunwired.com/jordans-pretend-king-wants-to-fight-israel-over-annexation/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=B1wXZgR7aDw&feature=emb_logo
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https://www.meforum.org/61140/jerusalem-jordan-and-the-jews?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=5c0a239949-MEF_pipes_2020_06_23_03_45&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-5c0a239949-33691909&goal=0_086cfd423c-5c0a239949-33691909&mc_cid=5c0a239949
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More Countries Ban Muslim Brotherhood
by Hany Ghoraba
Special to IPT News
July 21, 2020
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8483/more-countries-ban-muslim-brotherhood
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https://www.meforum.org/61315/how-victory-works?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=7e62162c80-MEF_Dromi_2020_07_26_04_55&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-7e62162c80-33691909&goal=0_086cfd423c-7e62162c80-33691909&mc_cid=7e62162c80
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In Jordan, a Government Crackdown on Civil Dissent Risks Backfiring
4 MINS READ
Aug 4, 2020 | 10:00 GMT
The arrests of teachers union leaders in Jordan risks fueling unrest in the typically politically stable country against a government the United States relies on for its regional counterterrorism efforts. On July 25, Jordanian security forces arrested over a dozen key members of the Jordanian Teachers Syndicate and charged them with corruption, incitement, financial irregularities and criminal activities. Forces also raided the union’s offices and shut them down for two years. Nasser Nawasreh, acting head of the Teachers Syndicate, was charged with incitement specifically over a speech he gave on July 22 that sharply criticized Prime Minister Omar Razzaz’s government. A government spokesman said that the arrests were conducted to prevent the union from staging planned sit-ins and demonstrations that risked harming “the state’s essential services and their functioning.” On July 29, some teachers protested the arrests and office closures in downtown Amman, prompting another crackdown by security forces. Small demonstrations are also likely to continue to pop up in Jordanian cities.
The boldness of the powerful teachers union will test the Jordanian government’s established strategy of proactively quelching unrest by containing powerful political opposition groups. The crackdown by security forces could itself be a trigger for social unrest, given the union's size and popularity. The Jordanian government’s forced closure of the union’s offices is intended to serve as a message that Razzaz’s government has the power to force the union, as well as any other opposition group perceived to be a threat to political stability, in line with the government.
Jordan’s government has previously shut down political offices of movements it deems threatening by being able to potentially extract costly political or economic concessions. In July, Amman forced a full dissolution of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood after shuttering the transnational Islamist movement’s office in 2016.
With over 100,000 members, the Jordanian Teachers Syndicate is a key civil society group that has proven capable of starting disruptive unrest. The union also has alliances with the most vocal political opposition groups in Jordan, including the Islamic Action Front, and has led some of the largest protests in the country since the Arab Spring.
The arrests of teachers union leaders in Jordan could eventually jeopardize U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the region, should it fuel unrest that successfully prompts political change.
Jordan's poor economic situation, however, will not only drive further teacher demonstrations but challenge the government’s ability to crack down on them. Pandemic-related austerity measures enacted in recent months have exacerbated simmering tensions between the union and Amman, as public sector workers (including teachers) did not receive promised bonuses
According to the International Monetary Fund, Jordan’s economy is expected to contract this year for the first time in decades due to pandemic-related losses in tourism and services revenue.
The Teachers Syndicate claims Amman has not honored a deal it negotiated in October for a 50 percent pay raise. Without such a pay raise, the union has argued that the cost of living in Jordan has become too high for teachers — a trend that will only worsen amid the country’s deepening economic crisis.
While unlikely to snowball into unmanageable levels of unrest, such protests have the potential to immediately disrupt U.S. regional policy should it successfully prompt political change.
Jordan is an established, critical counterterrorism partner to the United States, as well as a major recipient of U.S. economic and security aid. Washington also uses its strong bilateral relationship with Razzaz’s current administration and the monarchy to conduct intelligence operations across the region.
The Teachers Syndicate, however, has increasingly voiced its dissatisfaction with Omar Razzaz’s government, arguing it has prioritized the needs of the United States and its other external allies over the needs of Jordanians.
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COVID-19 Tests Jordan’s Stability
4 MINS READ
Sep 24, 2020 | 19:59 GMT
Jordan’s deteriorating social and economic conditions due to COVID-19 are driving support to Islamist parties, raising the risk of a government crackdown that could fan the flames of radicalism. Despite recording fewer than 5,000 COVID-19 cases since March, Jordan has taken a strict lockdown approach, with tight border controls and restricted incoming arrivals for tourist locations. The impact on business activity, and in particular tourism revenue (which accounts for nearly 20 percent of Jordan’s GDP), has in turn taken a steep toll country’s economy, with unemployment now expected to hit an all-time high of 25 percent by the end of this year.
Jordan was already struggling with a high unemployment rate of 19.1 percent prior to the onset of the COVID-19 crisis in March. In the years leading up to the pandemic, Amman was also in the midst of imposing spending restructuring plans, which included unpopular income taxes, per the advisement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
For decades, extremist groups such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State have leveraged the country’s historically high levels of youth unemployment to recruit younger Jordanians, particularly men, shut out from the country’s formal economy.
In the 2000s, Jordan faced a serious al Qaeda insurgency that attacked Western interests and threatened its tourism trade. This time saw young Jordanians and Palestinian refugees willing to carry out attacks, driven by transnational jihadist ideologies. These threats still linger: In 2016, gunmen shot and killed 14 in an attack on the popular Karak Crusader Castle.
Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood branch, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), will likely find greater support among the country’s lockdown-weary population ahead of November parliamentary elections. The IAF currently holds 10 of 130 seats in the lower house of Jordan’s parliament. Another five are held by a splinter group that typically aligns with the IAF, with the rest held by independent members of parliament loyal to King Abdullah II. The Islamist party does not hold any seats in the upper house of parliament, which is fully appointed by the king. But while the IAF is unlikely to gain a majority, its campaign rhetoric focusing on improved governance and social conditions may win it additional seats in the lower house of the country’s legislature.
The IAF derives its support base from rural, tribal and conservative areas of Jordan. These areas are also home to the bulk of the native Jordanian population, distinct from the country’s large Palestinian population who fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war. This makes the IAF competitive with the Bedouin political base, which is critical to the monarchy’s stability.
The IAF will also be able to gain votes from the Palestinian urban classes, many of whom have chafed at the COVID-19 restrictions and do not necessarily like the direction of the country’s economy under the IMF program, and want to signal their discontent to the monarchy by supporting the only realistic opposition force in the country.
The IAF’s boosted political status will enable it to better organize protests against public policies and lobby the monarchy to shift Jordan’s direction. Despite being unable to command parliament, with increased support from urban voters, the IAF will likely still have an expanded ability to organize strikes and protests after the election. Such protest activity has a demonstrated ability to change the direction of Jordanian policy, as they did when mass protests brought down Prime Minister Hani Mulki in June 2018 because of an unpopular income tax proposal.
Jordan's COVID-19 crisis is driving support to Islamist parties, raising the risk of a government crackdown that fans the flames of radicalism.
Jordan’s monarchy, meanwhile, will come under international pressure, in particular from close allies such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, to limit the IAF’s gains. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are key donors to Jordan, with both pledging $2.5 billion in aid to prop up the country’s economy during mass protests in 2018. But Riyadh and Abu Dhabi also oppose the Muslim Brotherhood, and want to limit its influence in fellow Arab monarchies for fear that the Islamist group will undermine those systems.
An aggressive crackdown by Amman that either blocks the IAF from participating in the upcoming election or undercuts its competitiveness, however, would risk only further radicalizing Jordanians.
Restrictions on Jordanian political activity have helped radicalize Jordanians in the past, supplying insurgents with new recruits. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, for example — Jordanian who helped found al Qaeda in Iraq — began building some of his radical networks from a Jordanian prison in the 1990s.
Amman has already cracked down on several civil society groups, including a teachers’ union, that have pushed back against its reform push. This tightening of control, however, has not yet resulted in formal bans on particular organizations.
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https://www.dailysabah.com/world/mid-east/jordanian-israeli-senior-officials-discuss-palestinian-issue-in-rare-meeting
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Brief: New US Defense Agreement With Jordan
The deal permits U.S. aircraft and ships to freely traverse Jordanian territory.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Background: The United States’ balancing strategy in the Middle East hinges on partnerships with key states like Israel. Another important U.S. partner is Jordan, which has received billions of dollars in economic and military aid for decades. In Jordan, the U.S. has a trusted Arab partner that provides a platform for regional engagement, especially on the Palestinian issue.
What Happened: On Sunday, Jordan publicized its most recent defense agreement with the United States. Signed in January, the deal permits U.S. aircraft and ships to freely traverse Jordanian territory, and U.S. forces can store equipment and personnel in the kingdom. U.S. forces are also permitted to carry weapons within the country while on duty, but the agreement stops short of allowing them to carry out combat actions within Jordan.
Amman reached the agreement without seeking the approval of its parliament. One lawmaker said the deal violates Jordanian sovereignty, a charge the country’s foreign minister dismissed.
Bottom Line: The U.S. does not want to depend too heavily on any one country for the success of its strategy in the Middle East. Given the shaky state of U.S.-Israeli relations, Washington is perhaps demonstrating that it has a firm presence in the region independent of its ties with Israel – and it’s doing so only a day ahead of Israeli elections. Having such a relationship could open the way for the U.S. to engage with the Arab members of the budding Israeli-Sunni Arab alliance without having to accommodate Israel at every turn.
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/jordan-publicizes-defense-deal-that-allows-us-forces-free-entry-into-kingdom/
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http://jordantimes.com/news/local/prince-hamzeh-inner-cliques-attempts-undermine-security-stability-foiled-%E2%80%94-deputy-pm
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In Jordan, Private Royal Grievances Go Public
In Jordan, the arrest of a former crown prince reveals a kingdom uncertain of how to address its pandemic-induced economic crisis, which could harm Jordan’s reputation for stability if the monarchy fails to deter further high-profile displays of dissent from its own family members, as well as the general public. On April 3, Jordanian authorities arrested 20 people for an alleged plot to overthrow the government deemed to be a “threat to the country’s stability.”
The most high-profile of the arrests include the former crown prince and half-brother of Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Hamzah bin Hussein, and his mother, who were both reportedly under house arrest as authorities conduct an investigation. Prince Hamzah released a video late on April 3 to the BBC claiming he was being silenced because he spoke out about corruption in Jordan and the “incompetence that has been prevalent in our governing structure for the last 15 to 20 years,” likely referring to King Abdullah II’s reign.
It’s unclear what corruption Prince Hamzah was specifically alluding to. But he’s linked to the kingdom’s economically impoverished Bedouin tribal communities, who have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on tourism, which many tribes rely on for employment. As of April 6, Prince Hamzah had signed a pledge of allegiance to King Abdullah II, signaling a tentative official end to the royal family dustup.
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http://jordantimes.com/news/local/gag-order-issued-prince-hamzeh-issue
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http://jordantimes.com/news/local/saudi-fm-arrives-jordan-deliver-king-salmans-letter-support
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http://jordantimes.com/news/local/qatari-newspapers-voice-solidarity-jordan
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Did you have a chance to meet or work with any of these people?
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My read of a friend's message to me is that the official line is that everything has been worked out and no big deal. Could be , , , The following is prior to my friend's message. Surprising amount of apparent serious work from CNN!
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https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/05/middleeast/jordan-arrests-royal-family-explainer-intl/index.html
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Jordan’s Existential Dilemma
The king's options for dealing with his half brother are limited.
By: Hilal Khashan
Jordan will celebrate its centennial anniversary on April 11. The milestone coincides with a rift within the Hashemite monarchy that the government unexpectedly brought to the public's attention. The monarchy survived the assassination of King Abdullah I in 1951, the attempted Arab nationalist coup in 1957, the demise of its Hashemite cousins in Iraq in 1958, the loss of the West Bank in 1967 and the 2011 Arab uprisings. This time is different in that it exposes the Hashemites’ political decay; mounting domestic demands for democratization, administrative transparency and economic reforms; and regional pressure to accept the deal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It suggests a feud between two Hashemite royals, King Abdullah II and his half brother Prince Hamzah. It is not about stopping a foreign conspiracy, as argued by the former, or fighting corruption, embezzlement and restricting political freedoms, as argued by the latter. It’s about a rivalry over political dominance and enjoying the economic spoils of power.
On Hashemite Unity
Historically, Jordan’s monarchs owe much to the support of the country’s tribes. They joined Hussein bin Ali in his rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in 1916. In 1957, Bedouin units of the Jordanian military defeated the coup attempted by the Palestinian units of the military and secured Hussein’s rule. To this day, the Hashemites are still suspicious of pan-Arab Palestinians, who account for roughly 70 percent of Jordan’s population, and so depend heavily on tribal support. (Small groups of Chechen and Circassian minorities control the intelligence apparatus and palace guards.)
Jordan
(click to enlarge)
Abdullah II’s predecessors did not centralize state authority because they knew the tribes would buck. Instead, they bought their loyalty, allowing them to apply their tribal codes in civil and criminal matters. This arrangement worked until Abdullah II began to rely more heavily on the armed forces to maintain law and order.
For their part, the Hashemites have consistently shown strong solidarity, usually presenting themselves to the Jordanian people as a cohesive ruling family. Just before he died in 1999, King Hussein removed the crown prince title from his brother Hassan, who had held it for 34 years, and gave it to his son Abdullah II. Abdullah appointed Hamzah as crown prince but revoked the title five years later and gave it to his son Hussein. Neither Hassan nor Hamzah publicly criticized their ouster, choosing instead to put the family first.
This makes the current rift all the more curious. On Saturday, the government detained more than a dozen people – allegedly led by Hamzah – for planning a foreign-backed coup. The detentions were reportedly the result of an extensive investigation carried out by the intelligence apparatus and internal security forces. Hamzah, who is now under house arrest, has denied any wrongdoing and has criticized the government’s inability to govern, its corruption and incompetence. Hamzah's U.S.-born mother, Queen Noor, dismissed the charges as unfounded allegations. This is nothing less than an existential crisis for the royal family.
There have long been tensions between Abdullah and Hamzah. Hamzah certainly doesn’t trust the king, who violated his promise to keep him next in line for the throne, but the differences between them are more fundamental. The secular-minded Abdullah, who was born to a British mother and whose native language is English, depends on his articulate Palestinian wife in public appearances. On the other hand, Hamzah is fluent in Arabic, has a Transjordanian wife, understands Bedouin culture, and presents himself as a pious man. He is approachable and evinces a charismatic demeanor that endears him to the tribal heads and security establishments whose rank and file are predominantly Bedouin. Hamzah could never dethrone Abdullah, of course, because he does not influence the army or the powerful intelligence apparatus.
Even so, the rise of such a towering opposition figure is a threat to Abdullah. In a country where the royal family members are above public criticism, the local media could not avoid noting Hamzah's continuous spate of public appearances and timidly commending him on his enthusiasm and altruism without judging his intentions. Hamzah’s vociferous criticism of Jordan's crackdowns on freedom of expression, its rampant corruption, and the squandering of public funds made him the suspect of conspiracy and collaboration with foreign countries – a thinly veiled allusion to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. (Apart from the perfunctory expression of solidarity with the Jordanian king, the Saudi foreign minister’s visit to Amman immediately after the break-up between Abdullah and Hamzah attests to the regional dimension of the Hashemite crisis.)
More Than Palace Intrigue
There are real-world implications to the palace intrigue. Jordan's economic situation is dire. The average per capita income in 2019 was about $4,400, with an unemployment rate exceeding 30 percent. The COVID-19 pandemic has added to the suffering of a people who are already heavily taxed. Extravagant royal spending contrasts starkly with Jordan's population, the majority of whom live under the poverty line or just above it. Queen Rania, for example, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on her wardrobe. Her claim that her dresses are gifts or bought on discount is unconvincing to most of her subjects. A former personnel member in the royal court financial affairs department says the queen spends $2 million every year on shoes, bags and briefcases. He adds that the king earns more than $2 billion every year from his investments in the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom, in addition to his alleged illicit revenues in Jordan.
Hamzah has naturally focused on this aspect of his family’s extravagance. He has meanwhile begun to talk more with leading tribes that predominate in the security apparatus, without whose loyalty the king cannot secure his regime. It was his half brother's suspicious behavior that drove Abdullah to act preemptively. He has since stepped back somewhat. He commissioned his uncle, Prince Hassan, to defuse the family crisis. He banned public discussion of the matter, pledging to resolve it internally. Hamzah supposedly signed a letter pledging loyalty and support for the king and crown prince, including a phrase about working in the best interests of the Jordanian people. But it demonstrates that the crisis is far from over – next to his signature, Hamzah inserted a note that he is at his uncle's residence, suggesting that he will not abide by the king's decision to put him under house arrest.
There is no easy way to fight corruption in Jordan, especially among the Bedouins, who constitute Hamzah’s support base. They are somewhat insulated from reproach because many officials share blood relations and marriage with them. Hamzah champions the fight against corruption with the full knowledge that doing so lies beyond his competence and charisma. Jordan never legislated, let alone implemented, anti-corruption and democratization measures. If anything, corruption has been rising thanks to constitutional clauses that give the prime minister and Cabinet members immunity from prosecution. The law also allows members of parliament to engage in business as commercial partners. Jordan's political institutions function more like a business than agencies of public well-being.
Jordan does not foster real political processes even though it recognizes 30 political parties, because its absolute monarchy does not tolerate dissent and opposition. The kingdom is held together by the army and the intelligence apparatus. During most of King Hussein's reign (1952-1999), the Muslim Brotherhood fully supported the Hashemites, and commentators often labeled it as the loyal opposition. Repression increased with the surge of the Arab uprisings, and the government arrested many activists and silenced demands to transition the kingdom into a constitutional monarchy.
It is therefore unlikely that Hamzah’s ideals are the driving force behind his opposition to Abdullah. He understands the workings of Jordanian society and knows how polarized the country is. And though he may well be sincere in his calls for reforms, there’s little doubt that he wants recognition and direct political involvement in Jordan's politics.
Abdullah's options for dealing with him are limited because he opposes the so-called deal of the century forged under the Trump administration. After all, it would ruin the Hashemite monarchy and transform it into a Palestinian state. Working with Hamzah could avert this eventuality. The Saudis, keen on completing the deal, took advantage of Jordan's flagging economy and low military pay to buy some Jordanian soldiers. The survival of Jordan is at stake, and the key to preserving it is royal cohesion. The ball is in Abdullah’s court.
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President Biden called up Jordan's King Abdullah Wednesday, the monarch whose half-brother made headlines over the weekend for what the king alleged was "sedition" that's now been "nipped in the bud," CNN reports off a statement released by authorities in Amman on Wednesday.
Context: "Jordan is mired in economic problems amid a growing outcry against alleged government corruption and mismanagement," according to CNN. "Anger has been building among its youth — who account for most of the population — over the state of a deteriorating economy made worse by the pandemic" as "Unemployment and poverty rates have reached record highs."
About that Biden-Abdullah chat: "Together they discussed the strong bilateral ties between Jordan and the United States, Jordan's important role in the region, and strengthening bilateral cooperation on multiple political, economic, and security issues," the White House said in its own statement Wednesday.
Biden also told the king "the United States supports a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," which follows a U.S. decision to release $150 million in development funds to the Palestinians that had been held up under POTUS45. That aid package also "includes $75 million in economic and development assistance in the West Bank and Gaza, $10 million for peacebuilding programs through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and $40 million in security assistance," the Times of Israel reported Wednesday. More here.
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https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/20/report-kamala-harris-calls-jordans-king-abdullah-ii-to-discuss-israels-escalations-and-aggression/
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No idea how to solve the total lack of formatting so in the interest of legibility I will make a few guesses. Regardless, this is one seriously interesting read!
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Opinion: Inside the palace intrigue in Jordan and a thwarted ‘deal of the century’
by David Ignatius
June 11 at 11:08 MT
President Donald Trump had a dizzying dream for a diplomatic “deal of the century” for Arab-Israeli peace that would unite his allies Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
It never happened, in large part because Jordan’s King Abdullah II would not bend to pressure and make concessions on the status of Jerusalem and other issues affecting the Palestinians.
His resistance came at a price: Abdullah’s kingdom has been shaken by tremors over the past several years, encouraged by the squeeze from top political leaders in the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Abdullah’s troubles erupted into public view in early April, when the king’s security forces detained three prominent Jordanians he suspected of plotting to destabilize his regime: Prince Hamzah, the former crown prince groomed by his American-born mother for the throne; Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a relative of the king and a powerful tribal leader; and Bassem Awadallah, a former Jordanian minister who had become a confidant of the Saudi crown prince, who’s often known by his initials, MBS.
A Jordanian prosecutor referred charges against bin Zaid and Awadallah to the State Security Court on June 2, but the details weren’t disclosed publicly. A Jordanian investigative report on the case, shared with me by a knowledgeable former Western intelligence official, claims that the alleged plotters’ actions “do not amount to a coup in the legal and political sense, but they were an attempt to threaten Jordan’s stability and incite sedition.”
Hamzah wasn’t charged. The investigative report says he and his family “are at their home under His Majesty’s [Abdullah’s] care.” The report argues that Hamzah had “never accepted” his 2004 removal as crown prince and sought to “present himself as an alternative” to his half brother, the king.
The Jordanian report continues: “Awadallah was working to promote the ‘deal of the century’ and weaken Jordan’s position and the King’s position on Palestine and the Hashemite Custodianship of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.”
Hamzah, bin Zaid and Awadallah couldn’t be reached for comment, and efforts to contact attorneys who speak publicly on their behalf weren’t successful.
The Jordanian turmoil surprised observers, some of whom suspected that Abdullah was overreacting to family politics. But a careful reconstruction of the story, gathered from U.S., British, Saudi, Israeli and Jordanian sources, shows that the pressure on the king was real and had been building since Trump began pushing for his mega-peace plan, with Netanyahu and MBS as key allies.
In retrospect, this was a plot hiding in plain sight.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and chief adviser on the negotiations, embraced Netanyahu and MBS — but grew increasingly antagonistic toward the Jordanian king. “It became a belief of Trump that the king was a hindrance to the peace process,” says one former senior CIA official.
While Trump, Netanyahu and MBS don’t appear to have been working to overthrow the king, their actions clearly weakened him and encouraged his enemies.
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner stands among Saudi officials as President Donald Trump talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in March 2018. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Trump’s campaign for normalization of Arab relations with Israel was laudable. It yielded the so-called Abraham Accords that forged new links between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. But the prize Trump and Kushner wanted most was Saudi Arabia — and to clear the way, they tried to muscle Jordan, for decades one of the United States’ closest Arab allies.
Now the winds have shifted: Trump has left office, and Netanyahu appears to be on his way out. Jordan is back in favor, and Abdullah’s advisers say he will visit the White House this summer, the first Arab leader to meet personally with President Biden. MBS is in limbo with the Biden administration and still awaiting a presidential phone call or invitation.
This account of the palace intrigue is drawn from discussions with 10 current or former officials with detailed knowledge of events there. They requested anonymity to describe sensitive intelligence information about one of the least visible but potentially most destabilizing power plays in the Middle East in recent years.
This photo from the Royal Court Twitter account shows Jordan's King Abdullah II, center, Prince Hamzah, second from left, and others during a visit to the tomb of the late King Hussein, in Amman in April. (AP)
At the center of this story is Jerusalem, Israel’s political capital and a religious treasure for Christians and Muslims, as well as Jews. The Hashemite monarchy in Jordan owes much of its legitimacy to its role as custodian of the al-Aqsa Mosque there. Abdullah has described protection of the Muslim holy shrine as a “red line” for Jordan. Over the past three years, Abdullah felt that Trump, Netanyahu and MBS were all trying to displace him from that role, according to an American who knows the king well.
Until Trump’s last day in the White House in January, Kushner kept pushing for a breakthrough that would allow a hesitant MBS and Saudi Arabia to embrace normalization, according to several knowledgeable officials. By that time, the Jordanians had gathered a dossier of intercepted messages from the alleged plotters that, the Jordanian document contends, showed “incitement against the political regime” and “actions that would … create sedition.” The deal of the century was a distant memory.
The pressure on Abdullah began with his coronation in 1999, following the death of his father, the charismatic and cunning King Hussein. For all Hussein’s courtly charm, he had reigned on a perpetual hot seat, surviving multiple coup plots, assassination attempts and power plays from his neighbors. A 1994 peace treaty with Israel gave the kingdom Israeli in addition to U.S. protection. But Abdullah inherited the same delicate balancing act that had led Hussein to title his memoirs “Uneasy Lies the Head” [that wears the crown].
Abdullah soon became a darling of the West. With his stylish and freethinking wife, Queen Rania, he was a symbol of young, modernizing, pro-Western leadership in the Arab world. He met each summer with the United States’ business and political elite at a gathering sponsored by Allen & Co. in Sun Valley, Idaho. He embodied U.S. and Israeli hopes for peace and moderate Islam in the Middle East.
Jordan's King Abdullah II laughs with his half brother Prince Hamzah, right, shortly before the monarch embarked on a tour of the United States in 2001. (Yousef Allan/AP)
Abdullah’s relations with Saudi Arabia were more complicated. The Hashemite dynasty had once ruled Mecca and Medina, but now, transplanted to resource-poor Jordan, it needed regular cash infusions from the House of Saud and other Persian Gulf monarchies to survive. Saudi King Abdullah, who reigned from 2005 to 2015, was generous. Riyadh’s interest in Amman was “stability, stability, stability,” recalls a Saudi intelligence source.
The Jordanian monarch’s status as the United States’ best friend in the Arab world began to change with the rise of MBS, after his father, King Salman, took the Saudi throne in 2015. MBS was an instant celebrity in the United States, with his Vision 2030 plan for modernizing his kingdom, his moves to curtail the Saudi religious establishment, and his brash charm.
The MBS bandwagon accelerated when Trump became president in 2017 and made Riyadh his first stop overseas. MBS was touted as a reformer, even as he was suppressing the rights of dissidents and female activists. His power grab became more ruthless in 2017, when he purged a rival as crown prince and jailed more than a hundred prominent Saudis at the Ritz-Carlton hotel until they swore allegiance and turned over some of their cash. Then came the gruesome murder of a dissident journalist, Post Global Opinions contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, in October 2018, a mission the CIA says was approved by MBS.
Joining the MBS entourage was Awadallah, a Jordanian who had served as minister of planning and chief of the royal court. He had become a controversial figure in Jordan, as critics argued that he had benefited financially from his closeness to the king. King Abdullah encouraged him to move to Riyadh, where he made a new start advising MBS on privatization and modernization plans. Awadallah helped preside at Davos-like gatherings, such as the 2018 Future Investment Initiative forum, held just three weeks after Khashoggi’s murder.
According to a Saudi source who spoke with a friend of Awadallah, the Jordanian told the Saudi friend that MBS exclaimed after their first meeting: “Why haven’t I met you before?” The implicit message, argues the Saudi source, was: Now, you’re mine.
By 2018, the Jordanian monarch had become concerned that MBS’s new prominence was coming at Jordan’s expense. During a February 2018 visit to Amman, I heard that worry from senior Jordanian officials. They feared that Jordan, after so many years as a loyal partner, was being displaced because of Trump’s infatuation with MBS and the Saudis — and his eagerness for the “ultimate deal” on the Israeli-Palestinian problem, despite Jordanian misgivings.
Trump in May 2018 officially moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, over King Abdullah’s strong objections. That move, coupled with Jordan’s perennial economic woes, led to street protests in June 2018. A worried Saudi King Salman joined other Gulf leaders in pledging up to $2.5 billion in emergency aid. But the Jordanians say most of that money was never delivered.
Jordanian protesters wave their national flag as they are confronted by riot police in the capital, Amman, in December 2018 during a demonstration against the government's decision to raise the income tax.. (Khalil Mazraawi/AFP via Getty Images)
Kushner, a real estate tycoon, hoped that economic incentives could persuade the Palestinians (and Jordanians) to support Trump’s peace bid. Kushner unveiled his economic proposals at a conference dubbed “Peace to Prosperity” in Bahrain on June 25 and 26, 2019. His hope was that the Palestinians would eventually accept a limited form of sovereignty, and a different formula for control of Jerusalem, in return for financial largesse.
King Abdullah traveled to Washington in March 2019 for a briefing on the plan. That same month, he made sharp public statements in opposition. In remarks captured in a March 21, 2019, YouTube video, translated by The Post from Arabic, Abdullah said: “I will never change my position on Jerusalem … regardless of what other people say. We have a historical duty toward Jerusalem and the holy sites. … Is there pressure on me from abroad? There is pressure on me from abroad. But, to me, this is a red line.”
Abdullah was even more emphatic in an interview captured in a YouTube video dated March 26, 2019, and translated by The Post. “I, as a Hashemite, how could I backtrack or let go of Jerusalem? Impossible. ... People talk about the ‘deal of the century,’ or an alternative homeland. How? Do we not get a voice?”
Kushner’s dream was that Saudi and other Arab support for his plan would overwhelm Jordanian and Palestinian opposition. That hope might have been bolstered by an op-ed in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on July 3, 2019, soon after the Bahrain conference, by Malik Dahlan, a Saudi lawyer in London who is a close confidant of Prince Hamzah.
Dahlan argued that “the costs may be severe” if the Kushner plan collapsed. “If it does fail, it is likely to bring down the [Saudi-sponsored] Arab Peace Initiative with it and end all newfound regional momentum towards peace. That would be a catastrophe.”
The Saudi lawyer then outlined a compromise formula that would begin “with an agreement on the governance of Jerusalem. ... This Jerusalem-first approach would involve the idea of ‘integrative internationalization,’ which, incidentally, I also prescribe for [Mecca] and Medina.” Dahlan said in a telephone interview Thursday that the “integrative internationalization” approach was meant to draw in other Islamic and Western countries but wasn’t intended to displace Jordanian or Hashemite custodianship of al-Aqsa.
As pressure increased on the Jordanian monarch at home and abroad, his security services began investigating possible threats to his regime. The evidence they gathered hasn’t yet been tested in Jordanian courts or international forums, so it’s hard to make final judgments. But the quick moves by the United States and other Western nations to embrace Abdullah after reports of the alleged plot surfaced in April suggest they took the king’s worries seriously.
The investigation began two years ago, according to the Jordanian investigative report I reviewed, which states: “In mid-2019, intel indicated Sharif Hassan bin Zaid … met with two officials from a foreign embassy to inquire about their country’s position on supporting Prince Hamzah as an alternative to the King, and Sharif Hassan continued to communicate with the embassy afterwards.”
The former Western intelligence official who provided the report says he believes the embassy in question was probably that of the United States.
The Jordanian report continues: “During 2020, a number of tribal figures reached out to security agencies and brought their attention to attempts by Prince Hamzah’s aides to solicit support from them and members of their families.” By later 2020, the report notes, “intel obtained by security agencies indicated intensified communication between Prince Hamzah, Sharif Hassan and Bassem Awadallah.”
Kushner accelerated his push for Trump’s peace deal in 2020. He released the political details for a Palestinian settlement in January, but because of Palestinian resistance it was dead on arrival. More hopeful developments came in August, with the announcement of a normalization agreement between Israel and the UAE, and in September, with a similar agreement between Israel and Bahrain.
But the Jordanian monarch remained a problem. Awadallah complained to an American former intelligence officer about MBS’s frustration. “A sticking point for us is al-Aqsa. The king [Abdullah] uses that to browbeat us and keep his role in the Middle East,” Awadallah said, according to the American former official. At another point, the former official says, Awadallah had stated: “MBS is upset because he can’t get a deal because he can’t handle the reactions of Palestinians if the king holds his position on Jerusalem."
Benny Gantz, a retired chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces who was serving as Netanyahu’s defense minister, became so concerned about the deterioration in Netanyahu’s relationship with King Abdullah that he made a secret visit to Amman to reassure the king in early 2021, according to an article in All Israel News.
Gantz said later in a Zoom call with supporters: “I think Jordan is a great asset to Israel. ... Unfortunately, Netanyahu is an unwanted figure in Jordan and his presence harms the advancement of relations.” That was a sign of the Israeli security establishment’s worry about possible destabilization in Jordan.
The pace of the alleged plot accelerated in 2021, the Jordanian investigative report claims. It says that security agencies intercepted WhatsApp messages between the three alleged plotters “encouraging Prince Hamzah to ‘make a move’ and also indicated — via coded references — the involvement of other individuals and parties.”
Awadallah was said to be referred to in the intercepted WhatsApp messages as “No Lube” because he doesn’t drink, according to the former Western intelligence official. In one intercepted message, the report asserts, Awadallah said the contacts with Hamzah and the tribal leaders have support from “my boss,” presumably meaning MBS, the former official says. The report accuses Awadallah of “conspiring with foreign agendas” and seeking to “weaken” Jordan’s role as custodian of the Muslim religious sites in Jerusalem.
As Jordan struggled with the covid-19 pandemic, Hamzah increased his outreach to tribal elders and other Jordanian groups, holding more than 30 such meetings in early 2021, according to the investigative report. When Awadallah suddenly moved up a planned departure to Saudi Arabia by a week, to April 4, the authorities decided it was time to move.
Awadallah and bin Zaid were arrested April 3, along with at least a dozen others, and Hamzah was placed under what amounted to house arrest.
Prince Hassan, brother of the late King Hussein and once in line for the throne himself, brokered a family peace deal. Dahlan sent the Associated Press a statement saying that Hamzah had accepted the mediation and “I expect a resolution shortly.” He added: “Prince Hamzah has a lot to offer the Kingdom and the Arab World.”
Representatives of Israel’s intelligence and security services, Mossad and Shin Bet, sent private messages to the Jordanian monarch, disavowing any role in the alleged plot. The theme, according to a former U.S. intelligence official who has read the messages, was: “This is not us. It’s coming from in front of us” — presumably meaning Netanyahu.
King Abdullah’s advisers expect him to arrive in the United States in late June. His visit to the White House will illustrate once again a truth about members of the Hashemite dynasty: Amid the endless turmoil of Middle East politics, they are survivors
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ASSESSMENTS
What to Make of Jordan, Egypt and Iraq’s New Alliance
undefined and Middle East and North Africa Analyst
Emily Hawthorne
Middle East and North Africa Analyst, Stratfor
6 MIN READJul 6, 2021 | 18:00 GMT
An emerging partnership between Jordan, Egypt and Iraq will yield security and commercial gains for each country, as well as provide an alternative Arab voice in the wider region. On June 27, the leaders of Iraq, Jordan and Egypt met in Baghdad for high-level talks on commercial, strategic and security matters. These three Arab middle powers’ dependence on external support will constrain the rapid formation of their new tripartite alliance. But shared economic and political interests will still fuel the pact's incremental creation, especially if the threat of Turkish and Iranian regional influence grows.
The talks followed months of preparations and a meeting between the countries’ foreign ministers in Baghdad in March, and also marked a historic return of an Egyptian head of state to Iraq after 30 years.
Iraq’s prime minister, the host of the June 27 meeting, specifically cited the existence of a “critical historic turning point” in both the global fight against COVID-19, as well as in the regional fight against terrorism, in allowing the creation of a new regional alliance, which seeks to achieve stronger ties in three areas: economic partnership, political cooperation, and security and intelligence coordination.
Iraq, for its part, is trying to broker better relationships with other Arab majority countries to bolster its ability to withstand growing pressure from Iran and, to a lesser extent, Turkey. Iraq’s government was the primary instigator in forming the new Arab alliance. Fortifying relations with other Arab nations is part of an effort by Sunni politicians to reduce Iraq’s heavy economic and energy dependence on Iran, which can be a liability due to sanctions and Western opposition to Tehran. The United States, for example, has repeatedly demanded that Iraq weaken its ties with neighboring Iran. Iraq is also dependent on Turkey for some of its water supply, as well as trade — especially in resource-rich northern Iraq, where the Kurdistan Regional Government works closely with Ankara to export oil.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi invited Jordan and Egypt’s leaders to the June 27 meeting.
Iraq is dependent on Iran for roughly a third of its energy and electricity supply, which has led to both disruptions in electricity service and tensions between Baghdad and Washington.
Less cooperation against common enemies like the Islamic State could enable Turkey and Iran to gain greater influence in the region, which some Arab states will view as a threat. The chaos of the 2011 Arab Spring and the militancy that reared its head in the following years brought a number of regional rivals together, including Iran and Turkey, as well as Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. The Islamic State threat also led to a deeper U.S. military presence in the region. While the global jihadist group is far from defeated, the Islamic State has lost its ability to rapidly grow and gain territory as Iraqi security forces and other regional military forces have better developed their counterterrorism abilities.
Egyptian, Jordanian and Iraqi leaders have all recently acknowledged a strong desire to reduce their focus on the Islamic State and the militancy that sprung from events like the Syrian civil war, which have characterized the last decade following the Arab Spring with instability.
Turkey and Iran’s governments, meanwhile, are both seeking to deepen their Middle Eastern partnerships. Closer Turkish and Iranian ties could work in Egypt, Jordan and Iraq’s economic favor, but at the risk of eroding broader Arab regional influence.
The United States has been clear about its desire to draw down some of the military presence in the region that increased due to the Islamic State threat, and is currently negotiating a withdrawal timeline with the Iraqi government.
Jordan, Egypt and Iraq’s dependence on external powers for some of their economic and security interests will not only slow the formation of their alliance, but limit its ultimate scope. These three Arab states are all reliant on foreign aid in some way and cannot afford to burn bridges with their wealthier patrons. For this reason, their new alliance is aimed at only diversifying their tie while still maintaining their existing aid and commercial relationships. Egypt and Jordan are just behind Israel in terms of receiving the most security aid from the United States, and there is no indication that that will change even as Washington tries to draw down its military presence in the region. Egypt, Jordan and Iraq share concerns about the regional dominance of Arab Gulf powers like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia seeking to cajole the Arab world to support their politics and priorities. But Cairo, Amman and Baghdad are also unlikely to turn down Arab Gulf investment money, giving Riyadh and Abu Dhabi some political influence in their respective governments. Oil-dependent and debt-ridden Iraq, in particular, is in no position to turn down foreign funding, as the country faces a deepening financial crisis.
An emerging middle-power alliance between the less wealthy Arab Gulf states will provide some pushback against the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, who have channeled their wealth into efforts to become leaders of the broader Arab world. Abu Dhabi and Riyadh will likely try to co-opt or at the least draw some benefit from any growing ties from some of their key Arab partners in the region, regardless of whether or not they are in control of the burgeoning relationships.
Better coordination between Jordan, Egypt and Iraq’s intelligence services could help circumvent the development of another transnational threat in the region like that once posed by the Islamic State. All three countries have capable intelligence and security forces that have undergone a significant amount of Western and U.S. training. Stronger ties between three of the United States’ closest security and diplomatic partners will also reassure Washington that a further withdrawal of U.S. forces in the future won’t greatly disrupt regional stability in line with U.S. goals.
There are some potential untapped commercial benefits in terms of energy and trade ties that could be mutually beneficial for all three countries as well. Jordan is eager to restore trade to neighboring Iraq that evaporated during the Islamic State fight. Egypt is also hoping to broker deeper ties between Egyptian energy companies and their Iraqi counterparts — especially with Egypt on the cusp of developing more Mediterranean oil and gas reserves, and Iraq eager to court regional investors into its own oil and gas assets.
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https://dailycaller.com/2021/07/20/biden-admin-fbi-terror-most-wanted-jordan/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2360&tpcc%3D=newsletter&pnespid=k_dguf5FAQaNZm_bqX9P7o67GHRsT2Vv4P9RKAiq
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Not wild about some of the shadings in what follows, but a worthy read nonetheless.
Jordan-Israel Rapprochement Will Hinge on West Bank Tensions
Jordan and Israel are taking active steps to improve their bilateral relationship, but Amman’s deep roots in the West Bank mean the durability of the rapprochement will hinge on Israeli policy in the Palestinian territories. In early July, officials from Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s new government held their first meeting with their Jordanian counterparts since taking office. During that meeting, Israel agreed to increase the amount of water it annually shares with Jordan to 50 million cubic meters — nearly double the 30 million cubic meters Israel usually provides. If this larger transfer actually happens, it would mark the first time that Israel has followed through on the water-sharing component of its peace agreement with Jordan since it was signed in 1994. In a further indication of warming ties between the two countries, Bennett also secretly met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Amman earlier this month.
During the July meeting, Jordan and Israel agreed to raise the cap on the former’s exports to the West Bank as well.
As one of the driest countries in the world, Jordan and has long depended on water from Israel for both agricultural and household consumption.
The appointment of a new Israeli government for the first time in 12 years has provided an opening for calmer relations with Jordan. The aforementioned steps toward normalizing the two countries’ strained ties only occurred in the weeks after Bennett’s government was sworn in. This indicates that the new Israeli government is trying to start with a clean slate with its eastern neighbor, whose relationship with Israel has been stormy in recent years. Given intensifying global scrutiny around Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories following the bloody May 2021 Gaza war, bolstering ties with an Arab neighbor could also provide the Israeli government with a much-needed reputational boost. Moreover, Israel needs Amman’s cooperation to ensure stability in restive Jerusalem, given Jordan’s partial stewardship of the Al Aqsa Mosque and the surrounding Temple Mount area.
The previous Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu took some actions that Jordan’s government viewed as offensive, including refusing to let Jordan’s crown prince visit the Al Aqsa Mosque, welcoming the White House’s decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in December 2017, and dramatically expanding settlements in West Bank territory. Bennett’s new government, however, has yet to signal it plans to reverse course on these issues.
Jordan became custodian of some of Jerusalem’s holy sites nearly a hundred years ago. After losing those rights in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Jordan then regained the custodianship claim in 1994 as part of its peace agreement with Israel.
How Jordan approaches its budding ties with Israel will depend heavily on Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories — and in particular, in the neighboring West Bank. Many Jordanians are of Palestinian descent and resent any public display of closeness between their kingdom and Israel. To ensure domestic stability, Amman will thus be compelled to create some diplomatic distance with Israel when there are upticks in the conflict with Palestinian militants, or when Israel expands settlements in the West Bank. Preventing dissatisfaction with the royal court from becoming a source of active anti-government unrest is all the more important amid Jordan’s sluggish economic recovery from COVID-19 and a foiled coup plot in April.
Compared with the Gaza Strip, Jordan is more likely to react strongly to upticks in Israeli-Palestinian tensions in the West Bank given its proximity to the region, as well as Jordan’s historical ties to the Palestinian communities living there. Amman also has close relationships with West Bank political groups like Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, which it conversely lacks with those in Gaza — namely, Hamas.
On April 3, Jordanian authorities arrested the former crown prince and half-brother of Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Hamzah bin Hussein, and his mother, for an alleged plot to overthrow the government. The rare royal family dustup has since blown over, but there remains a residual need to reassure Jordanian partners, including Israel, that King Abdullah II is still in control and that his preferred succession line also remains in place.
A closer diplomatic relationship between Israel and Jordan could offer both countries key economic and security benefits. For one, more functional and pragmatic ties at the top level of both governments will enable even deeper cooperation between Israel and Jordan’s intelligence and security agencies. Jordan can also advocate for more regional visitors to the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, which could boost its regional standing and help display Amman’s care for the Palestinian cause. More Israeli water for parched Jordan is especially important for the stability of the kingdom’s agricultural sector as well, with Jordan’s environment ministry warning in May that severe droughts in the country will only worsen in the coming years due to climate change.
Jordan needs a functional relationship with Israel for its own security and economic well-being. Jordan was the second Arab state, after Egypt, to sign a peace agreement with Israel. The 1994 agreement grants Jordan some access to Israeli economic and agricultural aid, as well as water and energy resources. The agreement has also enabled intelligence sharing between Jordanian and Israeli agencies, which has likely helped contribute to some of the relative calm Jordan has experienced in the militant-ridden Levant region.
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second post:
As usual GPF goes deeper than Stratfor:
July 22, 2021
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Jordan’s Perennial Quest for Survival
The deployment of U.S. troops to Jordan won’t help solve the country’s myriad problems.
By: Hilal Khashan
U.S. officials described the Defense Cooperation Agreement signed between the United States and Jordan earlier this year as a reflection of Jordan’s strategic importance to the Middle East. The deal calls for building a vast U.S. military base in the country to accommodate the relocation of military assets from Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey. Jordanian officials say that the agreement is the culmination of decades of cooperation between the two countries and a means of bringing more stability to the region. Jordan has long been concerned about its weak strategic position compared to neighboring Israel and the possibility of another wave of Palestinian refugees coming across its border. But King Abdullah II seems to be ignoring the reality that a U.S. military presence in Jordan won’t solve the country’s myriad problems.
A Turbulent Beginning
The British established the Emirate of Transjordan in 1921 after detaching it from Palestine. The Hashemites, descendants of the Umayyads, who ruled the first Muslim caliphate from Damascus between 661 and 750, wanted to resurrect the caliphate. The British goal was to prevent Prince Abdullah, the eldest son of Sharif Hussein bin Ali, the king of Hejaz, from seizing Damascus and claiming it as the seat of his Arab kingdom. The prince’s capture of Damascus would have violated the terms of the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, which promised French control over Syria and Lebanon.
In 1923, the British established the Arab Legion to maintain law and order and patrol the border with Syria to prevent the tribes from intruding into the French-administered zone. Britain granted Transjordan independence in 1946 with the signing of the Treaty of Alliance, a deal that echoes the recent Defense Cooperation Agreement with the U.S. In 1949, King Abdullah I renamed the country the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan after annexing the West Bank. In 1956, King Hussein expelled British army officers from the country and Arabized Jordan’s military to appease the pan-Arab Palestinian majority.
Jordan
(click to enlarge)
Love-Hate Relationship With Israel
Throughout its history, Jordan has had a turbulent relationship with Israel. King Abdullah I initiated direct but covert contacts with Palestine’s Zionist movement leaders in the mid-1930s. In 1948, the Arab Legion went to war with Israel to seize a part of Palestine that Abdullah had agreed would join Transjordan during a meeting in Amman with Golda Meir, then head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency. King Hussein, who took the throne in 1953 after Abdullah was assassinated in 1951, had little contact with Israeli leaders until 1963 when Israeli intelligence launched Operation Lift.
But Hussein and the Israeli leadership failed to make peace. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin rejected outright the principle of Palestinian statehood and proposed that Jordan become the Palestinian substitute homeland. In 1997, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the assassination of Khaled Mishaal, the head of Hamas’ Politburo, in Amman. Hussein then threatened to abrogate the Wadi Araba peace accord, compelling U.S. President Bill Clinton to intervene and insist that Netanyahu provide an antidote that saved Mishaal’s life. But despite Hussein’s tense relationship with Begin and Netanyahu, the two countries have cooperated on some key points. Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency warned Hussein several times about threats to his life by operatives acting on behalf of Egyptian intelligence. And on the eve of the 1973 October War, Hussein informed then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that Egypt and Syria were planning a simultaneous attack on Israeli troops in Sinai and the Golan Heights.
Today, relations between Israel and Jordan are still rocky. King Abdullah II rejected the Abraham Accords, a Middle East peace plan proposed by the Trump administration, seeing it as an existential threat to Jordan’s survival as a Hashemite kingdom. He believed the plan would undercut Jordan’s custodianship over Jerusalem’s holy shrines and unleash a new wave of Palestinian refugees that would completely alter Jordan’s precarious demography. His resistance to the deal led to his isolation during the Trump presidency. Joe Biden’s election as president gave Abdullah hope that Jordan’s isolation could be reversed. Abdullah doesn’t trust the ability of the new government of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to resolve the Palestinian question and doesn’t believe it will last.
Royal Family Feud
Chief among Jordan’s current challenges is the dissension within the royal family itself. Last April, the government said it uncovered a plot led by King Abdullah II’s half-brother Prince Hamzah. Authorities revealed few details about the conspiracy, saying only that it amounted to sedition, a punishable crime according to Islamic theology. The plot also allegedly involved another obscure royal family member, a former Cabinet minister and a dozen tribal affiliates. Only the royal family member and Cabinet minister were tried in court, while Hamzah and the tribal accomplices were spared.
Arab media outlets outside Jordan linked the purported conspiracy to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who allegedly sought to topple Abdullah and install Hamzah as king of Jordan. It’s believed that the crown prince favored Hamzah because, unlike Abdullah, Hamzah would have been open to signing the Abraham Accords, which would have set the stage for Riyadh to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Such a treaty was important because the success of Saudi Arabia’s Neom megaproject near the Jordanian border relies on Israeli cooperation – which would require normalization of relations between the Saudis and Israelis.
The incident points to an unprecedented struggle between the royal Hashemites and the Transjordanian Bedouins, who are the backbone of support for the monarchy. Jordan’s deep-seated economic crisis, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, created a schism between the royal family and a segment of the Transjordanian Bedouins. The latter felt that the government did not redress their economic grievances, and Prince Hamzah presented himself as a defender of their lost privileges. Abdullah believes he is losing their support, without which the monarchy would crumble.
Elusive Alliances and Hollow Reforms
Arab rulers tend not to take political reform seriously, and King Abdullah II is no exception. He is aware that the Biden administration wants him to launch comprehensive political reforms. Last month, he set up a royal committee to look into political, bureaucratic and economic changes. In presenting the committee, the king bragged about what he called a continuous reform process that began at the time of Jordan’s founding a century ago. Judging by what previous committees have achieved during Abdullah’s 22-year rule, there is little hope that the new committee will make any progress.
The plan to permanently deploy a significant contingent of U.S. troops to control Jordan’s borders with Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia seems to have assured Abdullah that his regime is secure. Biden’s welcoming of Abdullah and his young crown prince at the White House has given the king the impression that the U.S. is committed to including his son in a far-reaching and lasting strategic partnership.
But Biden’s foreign policy focus is not on the Middle East. His administration hasn’t defined how it will partner with Jordan beyond sending troops and storing military hardware. It’s interested in a limited set of goals in the region, including giving Israel security assurances by, for example, insulating Jordan from Iran’s sphere of influence. The United States’ redeployment to Jordan is part of this agenda. The king sees the Defense Cooperation Agreement with Washington as a way of securing his regime and the crown prince’s future. But a large and conspicuous U.S. military presence will only encourage Jordan’s fledgling civil society to assert its presence in the country’s politics.
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Jordan’s role in airstrikes. Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had confirmed that Israel was behind the Oct. 13 airstrikes near Palmyra, Syria. The airstrikes were launched from the area around al-Tanf, near the tri-border area with Jordan and Iraq, the ministry said. It is notable that Jordan is allowing Israel to conduct strikes from its airspace even though Amman is taking steps to normalize relations with the Assad regime. The airstrikes have increased tensions between Syria and Jordan.
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https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/normalized-uae-israeli-ties-yield-climate-focused-trade-deal-jordan?id=743c2bc617&e=de175618dc&uuid=1234e1ce-a438-446e-b349-31c830cb9a15&mc_cid=c76ac4c046&mc_eid=de175618dc
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Supporting Iraq. The Iraqi government approved construction of an oil pipeline connecting Basra to Aqaba, Jordan’s Red Sea port. The pipeline, which will require an investment of $7 billion to $9 billion, will be able to transfer up to 1 million barrels of oil per day to international markets. A day before the decision, Iraq’s foreign minister met with his Saudi counterpart, and the two agreed to hold joint military exercises, enhance intelligence cooperation and ease restrictions on business visas for both countries. The two developments are part of regional efforts to provide Baghdad with an alternative to Iranian support.
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Woof All:
Someone messaged me asking how I met King Abdullah of Jordan.
And so herewith, the story.
I begin with a bit of background context.
In a life in martial arts, one occasionally gets odd emails.
For example, in 2000 I received a cryptic email with an address I did not recognize asking if I taught knife. No salutation and no signature. In response I asked whomever it was who they were.
"A Syrian kickboxing club" came the answer.
A year later, after 911, I read of the American martial artist in Florida who turned out to have trained one of the 911 jihadis in knife (remember, they used boxcutters) and I thought of my email from Syria.
Some years later 2008? 2010? I received an extensive formal email from India, asking for a letter of invitation to a Dog Brother Gathering (r) so they could apply for visas to come participate. The email then listed some 30 names with their passport numbers and the dates of birth and the address of the writer of the email.
I thought it implausible that 30 people in India would have the money and purpose to fly to California for a weekend of stick fighting. Furthermore, every one of the names was Muslim and all were between the ages of 18 and 35. In the context of the War on Terror, and my previous experience with the Syrian Kick Boxing email, I decided to probe a bit further.
I learned that asking for a letter of invitation to facilitate getting a visa was a common scam that was going on.
A friend from India looked into the address and came back with the curious factoid that in Urdu the name meant "God's Fort".
Hmmmm.
In short, I did not respond to the request for a letter of invitation to our DB Gathering of the Pack (r) and forwarded the information (obviously a large and serious effort) to the appropriate authorities.
It is against this background that around 2016 or 2017 that I received a very politely written email in very good English inquiring on the behalf of her employer, who was from the Middle East, about training with me.
Intriguingly, there was an indirect cryptic reference to having trained with GM Myung Gyi in Bando back in the 1980s. Years ago, I trained for a time with GM Gyi-- though certainly not a secret, this is not something that someone who knew of me only through my Dog Brother/DBMA life would know.
A California phone number was provided along with her name.
So, I called. The woman had a VERY polished upper-class British accent. (Is "posh" the right name for this accent?) I asked who her employer was. At first, she hesitated, but when I explained that sometimes I work with the US military, and this was something I needed to know she answered
"It is King Abdullah of Jordan."
:shock: :shock: :shock:
The conversation continued and we made arrangements for his first training.
I mentioned this to my wife Cindy. She did not find this plausible haha. Perhaps in part this is because at the time our daughter was a young teenager and Cindy was showing her the potential dangers of social media by watching the TV show "Catfishing" with her. I watched the show with them a few times-- what a window on a very strange and seriously deceptive world! Very glad that our daughter had this guidance!
Meanwhile I asked friends with time in that part of the world some questions such as "Is this plausible? Is this something a good patriotic American would do?" etc. The answers were affirmative. I checked with some Israeli friends. There too the answers were good.
Meanwhile, one day a driver came with some beautifully wrapped and presented knives of the various models that his knife maker had made for his elite units-- two sizes of fixed blade, and one folder, all of a classic Arabic design.
Against this background the day came to drive to the King. Still convinced that this was all some sort of scam, because well, what would a Head of State want with me?-- Cindy's parting piece of advice was "Don't give him your credit card!"
As I arrived at his front gate armed guards met me and brought me to him and a colonel who was to serve as training partner. Our training area was a very large and pleasant garage.
"How shall I address you Sir?"
"My friends call me 'Ab'."
To my Jewish ears this made me think of the very Jewish diminutive for Abraham "Abbie" haha but at any rate I could not bring myself to do that, and I continued to call him Sir.
He seemed very pleased with the knife material I was showing him (my Chupacabra system) and in surprisingly short order asked if I would go to Jordan to train his Royal Bodyguards and his Special Mission Team. He and his training partner were intrigued by the early mock-ups of the design that became the Akita and the Shiba.
As our hours of training came to a conclusion, he noticed my drooling over two absolutely gorgeous BMW motorcycles of a design that I had never seen (Triples?)
"Do you ride? Bring your helmet next time!"
As I came the next time, the first thing he said to me was "Did you bring your helmet?"
As we began the lesson his training partner pulled out some aluminum trainers that they had of my design that they had made for the lesson and asked if I could have some made in the necessary volume for his people and that is the beginning of the Akitas and their offshoot for the Royal Bodyguard, the Shiba.
And then we trained.
When the training was over he brought me over to the BMWs and gave me my choice. After gracious parting he continued on with his day and the colonel gave directions to the guards to let me out and let me back in and so it was that I went for a truly glorious ride on a magnificent motorcycle on a perfect California day.
And that is the story of how I met King Abdullah of Jordan and came to ride his motorcycle.
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What a great experience!
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Here King Abdullah comes to review the men I trained (assisted by Guro Lonely Dog Benjamin Riittiner)
https://vimeo.com/675393764/a282a19d42?fbclid=IwAR1IsoiXexzFhDkl1bMQon9-cxT4U9WcO8aQUcfqilbrobJvEIrO-fv8lNs
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-61040359
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Abdullah in the middle
Why Jordan has not joined the Abraham Accords
By Clifford D. May
Some years ago, a colleague and I were in Israel at the home of a former member of the intelligence community who maintained his international connections. Before going into his kitchen to make coffee, he opened a fancy tin of dates that, he said, had been given to him the day before in Amman by King Abdullah II of Jordan. On the table next to the dates was a novel by Daniel Silva, who had written an inscription on the title page (which I took the liberty to read). The author’s wife, Jamie Gangel, is a television reporter with whom I happen to be acquainted, so I emailed her, mentioning the book and the dates.
“Whatever you do,” she replied, “don’t be the first to eat one.” I ate and survived (as you may have surmised), but the exchange served as a reminder that while Jordan and Israel peacefully coexist, just below the surface, tensions remain.
Jonathan Schanzer, my colleague at FDD, the author of four books and hundreds of articles on the Middle East, has produced a revealing new report on Jordanian-Israeli relations at what is now a critical juncture: “Neither Here Nor There: Jordan and the Abraham Accords.”
A major achievement of the Trump administration, the 2020 Abraham Accords formalized normal — even cordial — relations between Israel and two of its Arab/Muslim neighbors: the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Morocco joined three months later, followed by Sudan. Last year, Muslim-majority Kosovo established diplomatic relations with Israel as well.
The peace Jordan made with Israel in 1994 was once considered warm — relative to the peace with Egypt. But following the Abraham Accords, Jordan’s peace has chilled.
For years, foreign policy mandarins such as John Kerry insisted there could be “no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world” until and unless the long-standing conflict with the Palestinians was resolved.
While the Abraham Accord signatories sympathize with the Palestinians, they understand that those leading them are not prepared to negotiate a “two-state solution” or even begin a process of “normalization.”
Hamas, which rules Gaza, is openly committed to jihad and genocide. Once upon a time, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority that governs the West Bank, was seen as a peacemaker, but that turned out to be a fairy tale.
King Abdullah is savvy enough to get all that, too, but he faces unique challenges. Believed to be a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, he is a Hashemite, a member of the dynasty that for centuries ruled the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. When the Saudis came to power in Arabia, they decided the country wasn’t big enough for both royal families.
In 1921, with the backing of the British Empire, Abdullah I, the current monarch’s great-grandfather, founded the Emirate of Transjordan on three-quarters of Mandatory Palestine east of the Jordan River. That entity evolved into the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Millions of Jordanian citizens descend from families who lived in eastern Palestine when it was ruled by the British Empire or, before that, the Ottoman Empire. Others moved to Jordan, fleeing wars launched by Israel’s Arab neighbors — Jordan among them — in 1948 and 1967. In other words, millions of Jordanians identify as Palestinians.
“While Jordanian officials may not say so explicitly,” Mr. Schanzer writes, “the animosity harbored by Jordan’s Palestinian population toward Israel has a significant influence on the kingdom’s foreign policies.”
A chapter of history Israeli leaders seldom discuss publicly: When the first Arab-Israeli war came to a halt in 1949, Jordanian forces had conquered the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria (quickly renamed “the West Bank”) from which they expelled the Jewish population. Even Jews living in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem were driven out, and their homes and synagogues were destroyed.
Upon taking east Jerusalem in the defensive war of 1967, Israel’s then-defense minister, Moshe Dayan, decided to award a Jordanian waqf (a government-controlled religious entity) authority over the two important Muslim sites — Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock — that stand atop the Temple Mount, the holiest of all Jewish sites. This profound gesture of conciliation has never been fully appreciated, much less reciprocated.
Nor do Jordanians express gratitude for the essential goods Israel currently provides, for example: water (Israel is a world leader in desalination technology) and energy (40% of Jordan’s electricity comes from Israeli gas). Israel also cooperates closely with Jordan on “a wide range of security-related issues.”
Mr. Schanzer notes that King Abdullah, in a conversation with former U.S. national security adviser H.R. McMaster this past May, “voiced concerns that Iranian forces in Syria could soon destabilize his country. … Jordan also faces a threat from Iran-backed militias in Iraq to the north. Additional threats loom in the south, with Iranian assets reportedly operating in the Red Sea.”
Though the enemy of Jordan’s enemy should be Jordan’s friend, Mr. Schanzer expects relations with Israel to deteriorate further. He notes the king’s “unabashed distaste” for Benjamin Netanyahu, who is now forming a new government.
Mr. Netanyahu, meanwhile, is undoubtedly reading with distress “reports that Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has been spending more time in Jordan with the approval of the Hashemite Kingdom.”
The king of Jordan is a moderate, modern and savvy sovereign.
But without Israeli support, his future and that of his country will be precarious.
And if there is to be peace between Israelis and Palestinians, Jordan will need to join the pragmatic Arab states advocating a new regional order, one based on stability and prosperity.
For King Abdullah to explain all this to his subjects — penetrating the fog of Palestinian irredentism and rejectionism — will not be easy. But that is his job.
Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for De-fense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for The Washington Times
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Israel, Jordan: Israeli Police Arrest Jordanian Lawmaker for Weapons Smuggling
Apr 24, 2023 | 15:07 GMT
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen confirmed that Israeli police arrested Jordanian lawmaker Imad Al-Adwan on the Allenby Bridge as he attempted to smuggle firearms into Israel, The Times of Israel reported on April 24....
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Jordanian MP Lauded as "Hero" for Smuggling Weapons into Israel
by Bassam Tawil • May 4, 2023 at 5:00 am
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Why would a member of the Jordanian parliament who hates Israel with a passion and supports a terror group whose charter calls for the elimination of Israel try to smuggle weapons? To kill Jews.
That is precisely why Al-Adwan is seen by many Jordanians and Palestinians as a "hero" and a "brave man."
It is not difficult to imagine the public outcry had an Israeli MP been caught trying to smuggle weapons into Jordan or any other country.
Sadly, the campaign of solidarity with the Jordanian parliament member who was caught while trying to smuggle a large cache of weapons into Israel signals the hatred that Jordanians and Palestinians feel towards Israel and Jews.
This hate is the direct result of decades of indoctrination and brainwashing of Jordanians and Palestinians. Israel does not harbor any bad feelings towards Jordan. The opposite is true. Israel has always been supportive of the Jordanian monarchy and the stability of the Hashemite regime was and still is an important cornerstone of Israel's security.
As for the international community and the mainstream media in the West, they could learn from the failed smuggling attempt that Israel's security concerns are not unjustified and not exaggerated. This week, over 100 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, a country roughly the size of Victoria Island. What would the UK do if one rocket – let alone 100 – were fired into England? Or Germany, if rockets were fired at Munich? Or France, if rockets were fired at Nice or Cannes or St. Tropez?
Israel daily faces attempts by Hamas and other terror groups to carry out terrorist attacks to kill Jews. The next time people complain about "tough Israeli security measures," please remind them of that?
Imad Al-Adwan, a member of Jordan's parliament, is being praised as a "hero" by many Jordanians and Palestinians after he was reportedly caught trying to smuggle hundreds of guns into Israel. Pictured: The Israeli side of the Allenby Bridge crossing between Israel and Jordan. (Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images)
Imad Al-Adwan, a member of Jordan's parliament, is being praised as a "hero" by many Jordanians and Palestinians after he was reportedly caught trying to smuggle weapons into Israel.
On April 22, Israeli authorities arrested Al-Adwan, 35, when he tried to cross from Jordan into Israel through the Allenby Bridge border crossing. A video posted on social media showed the contents of three bags containing 100 kilograms of gold, 12 automatic rifles and 270 semi-automatic pistols discovered in his possession.
Al-Adwan is known for his staunch vocal support for the Iranian-backed Palestinian terror group, Hamas. In a video posted on social media, he said: "We send our greetings and respect to the Palestinian resistance groups, Hamas and the Arab symbol Abu Obaidah [spokesman of Hamas' military wing, Izaddin Al-Qassam].
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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/14/jordan-shoots-down-crystla-meth-laden-drone-from-syria
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Jordan's King Walks a Fine Line Between Domestic and International Demands
Dec 5, 2018 | 11:00 GMT
Jordan's King Abdullah II attends the opening of the country's parliament in 2016 in Amman, Jordan. As the economy founders, Jordan is facing the increasing influence of various protesters.
Jordan's King Abdullah II attends the opening of the country's parliament in 2016 in Amman, Jordan.
(JORDAN PIX/ Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
Jordan's economic and nationalist protest movements are both gaining strength, demanding changes to Amman's policies that will create potential clashes with the country's international donors.
Jordan's key contributors — including the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — will want the kingdom to pursue policies that are unpopular with its citizens.
The divide between international and domestic desires could create a crisis for Jordan's monarchy if the country's sponsors attempt to push Amman too far.
A rising tide of protests in Jordan has proved itself capable of exerting power over government policy. Jordan's social contract has long been held together by a combination of the monarchy's opaque placations and substantial foreign aid. But as its economy founders, the country is facing the increasing influence of various protesters. On one hand are the nationalists, who are ideologically opposed to King Abdullah II adopting policies that they believe are in the interest of key donors but not of Jordan itself. On the other hand are economically aggrieved protesters who are increasingly struggling to survive as Jordan implements economic structural reforms, especially those related to new taxes.
Meanwhile, Jordan continues to rely on its foreign aid, meaning its key donors — The United States, Europe and the Arab Gulf states — have substantial sway over the monarchy's decisions. As the demands of these foreign powers clash with the desires of Jordan's growing protest movements, the king will be unable to please everyone, meaning Jordan will likely experience continued unrest and could potentially see internal crisis.
The Big Picture
Jordan's stability is a product of international help rather than its own economic or political strengths. But that help comes with strings attached that the country's people are increasingly starting to reject. If the country's benefactors attempt to push the kingdom into policies that its growing protest movements will oppose, the result could be a crisis.
Small But Significant Policy Changes
Jordan's monarchy has increasingly been caving to the domestic pressures of its protest movements. Most recently, nationalists succeeded in pushing Abdullah to announce that Jordan would pull out of a portion of its 1994 peace treaty with Israel that is due for renegotiation in 2019. In that section of the treaty, Jordan agreed to allow Israel the extraterritorial use of two small farms in the Jordan River valley in Baqura and Ghamr — as both a confidence-building measure and a means for Jordan to avoid paying for a handful of development projects.
The king's adherence to the peace treaty itself remains firm, so his decision did not produce a diplomatic crisis with Israel or a rush to salvage the treaty. But the move exemplifies the king's increasing attempts to appease domestic groups that oppose some of the Jordanian government's actions. Indeed, the nationalist victory came shortly after economically aggrieved protesters succeeded in forcing the cancellation of a deeply unpopular income tax bill in June. This summer's unrest in Jordan represented the largest protests in the country since the 2011 Arab Spring events that resulted in a completely new government.
That diverse street protests have propelled two notable policy shifts in Jordan points to the government's strong desire to please its citizens and avoid unrest. But this stance also risks causing a confrontation between the Jordanian monarchy and the international allies who want it to survive but also act in their interests.
For Coin and Country
During the Arab Spring, demonstrations from Jordan's nationalists and its economically aggrieved protesters aligned and combined to create a combustible environment in the kingdom. More recently, however, the two sides have focused on specific issues with little overlap. Nationalist protests forced Amman to expel the Israeli ambassador after an Israeli Embassy guard killed two Jordanian men in July 2017, and economic protests briefly shut down the country's economy in June, forcing the monarchy to cancel the unpopular income tax bill and put off austerity-driven measures for another day.
The two protest currents are issues-based and poorly organized for now, but the range of issues that animate them are multiplying as Jordan's economy continues its decline and its monarchy embarks on increasingly serious and dramatic efforts to maintain stability, including reaching out to the International Monetary Fund. And the more that relevant issues crop up, the more opportunities the protesters will have to organize. In the near future, a partially approved new tax bill and a U.S. plan for Palestinian peace will provide further opportunities for the protesters to organize against the monarchy in an effort to exert influence over policy.
Charts demonstrating Jordan's rising debt, unemployment and inflation.
Unfortunately for Jordan, recent policy victories and current demands of nationalists and economically struggling Jordanians have caused dismay for the country's foreign sponsors, who are necessary to keep the country stable. And Jordan's key donors have shown they are willing to play politics with the support Amman desperately needs.
Risking Aid
Given Jordan's demographic challenges and poor resource base, its stability is an oddity in the Middle East and North Africa. But that stability is largely because key powers — including Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Europe — see value in maintaining the kingdom's economy and filling in the gaps of its social contract. This dynamic was on display in June 2018, when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar offered up a combined $1.25 billion in loans and aid to help the strained Jordanian government make it through the year. Even more recently, Israel's muted reaction to the king's decision regarding the 1994 peace treaty demonstrated Israel's continued interest in maintaining stability there.
But as Jordan's protesters continue to sway their king, the question now is what impact they will have on the actions of the international community. Nationalist politics have, in the past, pushed Jordan into policies that damaged its security. King Abdullah I was assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist in 1951 for contemplating a peace treaty with Israel. His successor, King Hussein, then fought and lost the 1967 war with Israel that cost Jordan its productive West Bank territories. Moreover, Hussein's desire to placate his country's Palestinian population made him one of the only Arab leaders to support Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. This brought Jordanian relations with the Gulf states to an all-time low, compelling Jordan to move closer to the United States by signing the 1994 treaty with Israel, America's key ally.
Jordan's protest movements and its need for foreign aid are pulling its leader in different directions and forcing the king to navigate a shrinking middle ground.
Today, nationalists threaten to challenge Abdullah over an impending U.S. peace plan for Palestine (despite its low chance of success). Few solid details are available about the plan, which is already deeply unpopular with Palestine's Fatah faction, but rumors suggest it will not assuage fears that the Palestinian people will be permanently displaced, nor will it grant them the deeply-desired right to return to Israel. The United States' decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem reinforced Palestinian fears, and recent moves to treat Gaza and the West Bank as separate entities indicate that Washington is willing to cut Fatah out of the peace process entirely.
Nationalist pressure will encourage Jordan to oppose the United States' plan, which has the support of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a quieter backing from Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. But Jordan's backers have demonstrated their willingness to withhold aid for political reasons, such as when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates delayed renewing an aid package that expired in 2017 to push Abdullah closer to their own policy positions. They only eventually stepped in to assist Jordan once the major protests of June 2018 reached a crisis point.
Friendly Fire
Jordan's protest movements and its need for foreign aid are pulling its leader in different directions and forcing the king to navigate a shrinking middle ground. With few good options available, Abdullah will become increasingly dependent on thoughtful policy from foreign countries, which is a difficult place to be. Saudi Arabia, for example, has had erratic policies toward its allies — from its dispute with Canada to abducting Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri — and even briefly detained Jordan's wealthiest billionaire in an attempt to exert influence. A miscalculation from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or both could expose Abdullah to more major protests in his country.
The United States, moreover, could use the promise of aid to push Amman toward supporting the Palestinian peace plan, which will almost certainly be deeply unpopular in Jordan. U.S. security aid is critical for Jordan's armed forces and Amman's security partnership is key to Washington, so a true break is deeply unlikely. But the United States could choose to introduce uncertainty over its support for the king through statements, threats or even tweets, thereby exposing Abdullah to a more assertive nationalist protest movement. Israel, too, could inflame nationalist sentiments in Jordan. Another war in Gaza, Israeli support for the U.S.-led Palestinian peace plan, or even another incident similar to the embassy shooting will worsen Abdullah's position at home.
None of Jordan's allies want to dramatically destabilize the kingdom or undermine its ruler, but they have shown they could behave in ways that open the door to unrest if Jordan's monarchy diverges from their interests in order to appease protest groups. Jordanians at home are increasingly unhappy with their country's economy and its relationship with Israel, and their growing protests have increased their influence over government policy. But that assertiveness will create clashes with the interests of the outside donors Jordan relies on, since it doesn't have the resources to go it alone.
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https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hj7aowumt
In coordination with Israel:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/jordanian-air-force-conducts-unprecedented-medical-supply-airdrop-over-gaza
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November 16, 2023
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The Gaza War Threatens Jordan
Fighting in the West Bank would be much harder to contain.
By: Kamran Bokhari
Unlike previous wars in Gaza, the current conflict has the potential to expand to the West Bank, where clashes involving Palestinians, Jewish settlers and Israeli security forces are on the rise. While the Israel Defense Forces are in the process of dismantling the Hamas regime in Gaza, the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has continued to break down. Should it lose control, Israel would face unprecedented chaos in both Palestinian territories, and it would not take long for unrest in the West Bank to spill over into neighboring and chronically fragile Jordan. Such a turn of events would provide an opening for Iran to expand its influence into the Hashemite monarchy from Syria and Iraq.
West Bank on Edge
On Nov. 14, Israeli forces killed at least eight Palestinians in the West Bank during a raid and clashes with suspected militants in the town of Tulkarem. The incident came after Hamas’ armed wing claimed responsibility for attacks in the northern West Bank city of Nablus. As many as 170 Palestinians have died in clashes with Israelis across the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in Gaza. Meanwhile, Jewish settlers are reportedly seizing more land in the West Bank.
The situation in the West Bank has been deteriorating since well before the Oct. 7 attack. Under the Netanyahu government, which is dominated by extreme far-right political factions, there had been an uptick in Jewish settlement construction as well as moves to annex significant parts of the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority, which since its founding in 1994 has had limited control over the territory, has been weakening – not only because of its inability to do much about the settlers’ encroachments but also due to its own corruption, a geriatric leadership and internal factionalization. Thus far, the Palestinian Authority has managed to contain popular dissatisfaction with its governance, resentment over the Israeli occupation and the growing assertiveness of Israeli settlers. But estimates of the number of Palestinians who have died already total 11,000. Should the rising death toll spark civil unrest in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority would struggle mightily to restore order, much less to assume control of postwar Gaza as the U.S. hopes.
Moreover, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is 88 years old, and various factions in the Fatah-dominated government body have been jockeying for position in anticipation of a leadership transition. These divisions likely extend to the ranks of the Palestinian security services, which are responsible for the West Bank’s Area A, where the Palestinian Authority has full control, and Area B, where it runs the civil administration under Israeli security oversight. The situation is ripe for exploitation by Hamas and other militants in the West Bank. An escalation of clashes between Palestinians and IDF troops and/or Israeli settlers could shatter discipline among the Palestinian security services and result in fighting between Palestinian security personnel and militant groups on one side and IDF troops and armed settlers on the other.
Forced Displacement of Palestinian Communities
(click to enlarge)
Risks for Jordan
In Gaza, the fighting is more easily contained because of the area’s small size and the fact that it can directly spread only to Sinai, where Egypt maintains a robust military presence. By contrast, the West Bank is much larger and more populous. A major Israeli military operation there could drive refugees into neighboring Jordan, where well over half the population has Palestinian origins.
It has happened before. Jordan ruled the West Bank from 1948 until Israel seized control in 1967 in the aftermath of the Six-Day War. Rather than give up the fight, Palestine Liberation Organization guerrillas sought sanctuary in Jordan. Israeli forces pursued them across the border in 1968, opening a rift between Amman and the PLO. Having failed in its struggle against Israel, the PLO sought to consolidate its position in Jordan. By 1970, the PLO had essentially established a state-type presence within the kingdom and began to call for the overthrow of the monarchy. Fearful of losing power, the monarch at the time, King Hussein, opted to fight back. The ensuing conflict culminated in the event known as Black September, when Jordanian forces, with the help of a Pakistani military task force, defeated the PLO and expelled it to Lebanon.
This experience is seared into the psyche of the Jordanian political elite. Jordan’s leaders have long been concerned that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially in the West Bank, represents a major threat to the stability of the Hashemite monarchy. In recent years, the collapse of the peace process, the growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the many wars in Gaza have amplified Amman’s fears, despite a 1994 Israel-Jordan peace agreement. This is why Jordan’s King Abdullah II has been more vocal than usual in his criticism of Israel since the Oct. 7 attack.
Jordan’s government is also attuned to the internal pressure on it to do more to alleviate the Palestinian situation. However, as a small, weak state, its options are limited. In the absence of an Israeli-Palestinian resolution, it has long hoped the conflict would at least remain confined to the Gaza Strip. It took comfort in the fact that the West Bank, despite its many problems, was still manageable. The wars in Gaza over the past 15 years did not threaten to destabilize the West Bank and, by extension, Jordan. But Israel’s pursuit of regime change in Gaza credibly threatens to break the fragile order in the West Bank. The last thing the Jordanians want – and a dream scenario for Hamas and Iran – is Gaza-like conditions in the West Bank.
Jordan has long feared Iran’s growing power. Tehran is well positioned on two of Jordan’s borders – in Iraq and Syria – to expand its influence into the West Bank. In 2004, King Abdullah II warned of the rise of a Shiite crescent stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea “that would be very destabilizing for the gulf countries and actually for the whole region.” Nearly 20 years later, that crescent is poised to threaten Jordan itself. While the world is bracing for Hezbollah to open a second front on Israel’s northern flank, another front to the east is in the making.
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Militant arrests. Jordanian authorities arrested nine people who crossed the Syrian border with smuggled goods, including weapons, the Saudi-based Al Arabiya news outlet reported. The individuals were apparently members of Iranian-linked groups. A spokesperson for the Jordanian government said Tehran had been told to stop transporting goods through its Syrian proxies. Meanwhile, the Jordanian army’s General Command said it’s tracking armed groups along the country’s northern border that are seeking to destabilize the country. Clashes between Jordanian forces and drug and weapons smugglers from Syria have broken out in recent days.
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Fallout. Egypt and Jordan could see a massive economic fallout from the attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on ships in the Red Sea, according to the Israel Hayom newspaper. Egypt, which earns $823 million monthly from tolls through the Suez Canal, will take a serious economic hit from the suspension of traffic through the waterway. Jordan, which has only one port bordering the sea, could have its access completely severed. The paper concluded that these costs could far exceed those incurred by Israel, though it too has seen prices rise and access to imports disrupted.
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Jordan in a delicate balancing act amid Israel-Gaza war
King Abdullah tours western capitals as Washington draws post-conflict scenarios
Read in The National: https://apple.news/ARJgRV7i1Tee8_g-ykwMVJw
Jordanians form human chain to block trucks into Israel in solidarity with Gaza
Jordanians form human chain to block trucks into Israel in solidarity with Gaza
Read in The New Arab: https://apple.news/A9bHu-F7WS-ebwNF0tP7XlA
Biden and king of Jordan discuss hostage release efforts at White House meeting
The meeting was the first between the two leaders since three U.S. soldiers were killed in a drone strike at a military base in Jordan late last month.
Read in NBC News: https://apple.news/AFgLEqGzuSsGYJK2nbKpheQ
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13191589/Jordans-Queen-Rania-says-Israel-one-October-7-Palestinians-156-calls-war-end.html
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20551/jordan-hamas-muslim-brotherhood
The Silky Hand of Qatar Targets Jordan
by Bassam Tawil
April 8, 2024 at 5:00 am
The Jordanian authorities have accused the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot, Hamas, of seeking to destabilize security inside the kingdom.
Behind both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, of course, is the terrorist-sponsoring emirate, Qatar, and its propagandizing television bullhorn, Al-Jazeera.
Jordan's leaders are doing exactly what many other Arab regimes and heads of state have long been doing: radicalizing their people and inciting them to violence against Israel as a means of distracting them from problems at home.
The Arab leaders want their people to be busy hating Israel. Otherwise, the people might demand democracy, transparency and accountability from the corrupt Arab rulers.
Their Jordanian majesties apparently seem to have forgotten that if Israel were not protecting them, their own Palestinian population would have overthrown them or assassinated them long ago, as they did to the king's grandfather, King Abdullah I.
[Queen Rania] has also apparently forgotten is that it is Hamas that is using its own citizens as human shields and stealing and hoarding the humanitarian aid in the hope that the blame will be assigned to Israel – as it all too often unfortunately is.
"It is no longer a secret that there are two parties that have interests in creating tension in the region and moving to a new front: the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran. They share the same agenda: destabilizing the Arab states. Since the beginning of the Gaza war, we have seen that the Hamas leadership is trying to mobilize the Jordanian street and is trying to drag the Jordanians into the war by any means." — Munif Al-Harbi, Saudi political analyst, aawsat.com, April 1, 2024.
If Jordan's King Abdullah and his wife want to avoid chaos in their kingdom, and a rather unpleasant outcome for themselves, they would do well to stop playing into the hands of the radical Islamists by inciting the Jordanian people to violence against Israel.
However, behind the incitement to violence that is empowering the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas -- and destabilizing the area -- lies the silky hand of Qatar.
Jordan's leaders are doing exactly what many other Arab regimes and heads of state have long been doing: radicalizing their people and inciting them to violence against Israel as a means of distracting them from problems at home. Pictured: Hamas supporters hold an anti-Israel protest in Amman, Jordan, on November 11, 2023. (Photo by Annie Sakkab / Middle East Images via AFP)
The Jordanian authorities have accused the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot, Hamas, of seeking to destabilize security inside the kingdom. The accusation came in the aftermath of recent demonstrations in the capital Amman and other parts of Jordan in support of Hamas and in condemnation of Israel. The demonstrators are demanding that Jordan shut down the Israeli embassy and cut all ties with Israel.
Behind both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, of course, is the terrorist-sponsoring emirate Qatar and its propagandizing television bullhorn, Al-Jazeera.
The Jordanian authorities and government officials, however, do not seem to understand that they are directly responsible for destabilizing their own security by continuously inciting against Israel. Since the beginning of the Hamas-Israel war in October 2023, Jordanian leaders and government representatives have ramped up their anti-Israel rhetoric, paving the way for an outbreak of protests against Israel, especially in Amman.
It is worth reminding critics of Israel that the war erupted after thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded Israeli communities on October 7, murdering 1,200 Israelis, wounding thousands more, and kidnapping more than 240 others, half of whom are still being held hostage inside the Gaza Strip. Some of the Israeli victims were beheaded, mutilated, burned alive and raped by the Hamas terrorists. US President Joe Biden declared the attack equivalent to "fifteen 9/11s"
Jordan's leaders have yet to condemn Hamas for launching the war and committing grotesque crimes against women, men, children and the elderly. Instead, King Abdullah, his wife Queen Rania, and Jordanian government officials are busy denouncing Israel for daring to go to war to defend its citizens against the terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
Jordan's leaders are doing exactly what many other Arab regimes and heads of state have long been doing: radicalizing their people and inciting them to violence against Israel as a means of distracting them from problems at home.
The Arab leaders want their people to be busy hating Israel. Otherwise, the people might demand democracy, transparency and accountability from the corrupt Arab rulers. That is why many Arab leaders and their governments continue to unleash campaigns of blood libels and incitement to violence against Israel by accusing it of "genocide" and "war crimes."
It is this precisely this anti-Israel rhetoric that drives Arabs and Muslims into the arms of Muslim terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic State (ISIS). It is also this type of rhetoric that prompts thousands of Jordanians to take to the streets to chant slogans in support of Hamas and repeat the same libels and falsehoods against Israel.
Jordanian officials have no right to complain that Islamist terrorist groups are seeking to undermine security and stability in the kingdom. The demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy in Amman and the slogans in support of Hamas are the direct result of the anti-Israel campaign of incitement to violence by Jordanian leaders.
The pro-Hamas and anti-Israel protesters who are demonstrating on the streets of Amman have undoubtedly been listening to the statements made by their leaders since the beginning of the war. The message the demonstrators are sending to Jordan's leaders: "You have been telling us that Israel is so evil. How can you justify not severing Jordan's diplomatic relations with Israel?"
Instead of holding Hamas responsible for initiating the war, Queen Rania has been serving as an apologist for the terrorist group, engaging in vitriolic verbal attacks on Israel. Their Jordanian majesties apparently seem to have forgotten that if Israel were not protecting them, their own Palestinian population would have overthrown them or assassinated them long ago, as they did to the king's grandfather, King Abdullah I.
In a series of interviews over the past few weeks, Queen Rania, born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents, claimed that the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip was "deliberately" caused by Israel. She has also apparently forgotten is that it is Hamas that is using its own citizens as human shields and stealing and hoarding the humanitarian aid in the hope that the blame will be assigned to Israel – as it all too often unfortunately is. She even went as far as equating Hamas's October 7 atrocities to Israel's counterterrorism measures:
"I would say that as devastating and as traumatic as October 7 was, it doesn't give Israel license to commit atrocity after atrocity. Israel experienced one October 7. Since then, the Palestinians have experienced 156 October 7s."
King Abdullah, has also been engaging in anti-Israel rhetoric since October 7. He and his foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, have accused Israel of "war crimes" and the "starvation" of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, when it has actually been Hamas doing those things.
Their majesties have further been fanning the flames by accusing Jews who peacefully visit the Temple Mount in Jerusalem of "storming" the al-Aqsa Mosque. It is important to note that Jewish visitors do not set foot inside the mosque during their approved, routine visits to the outdoor Temple Mount compound. This, however, has not stopped Jordan's leaders from continuing to level false charges against Israel, including the claim that Jews are violently invading the mosque.
It is no wonder, then, that thousands of people in Jordan take to the streets to chant slogans in support of Hamas and to try to storm the Israeli embassy in Amman. What are Jordanians supposed to do when they hear their leaders demonize Israel and make false accusations against it? Sit at home and do nothing? Of course not. That is why they have been taking to the streets day after day, to praise Hamas and call for rescinding the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan.
Jordanian sources who spoke to the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat accused the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas leaders of working together "to involve the Jordanian street in the battle of Gaza and push the Jordanian street towards escalation against the [Jordanian] government."
Referring to clashes between demonstrators and the security forces, the newspaper quoted unnamed "observers" as warning:
"The escalation of chaos and violence that Jordan is witnessing these days constitutes a prelude to a conspiracy led by the Muslim Brotherhood with clear Iranian goals to recreate chaos in the region.
"The Muslim Brotherhood and Iran are exploiting the issue of the war in the Gaza Strip to mobilize the street against the king, the army, and the government."
Saudi political analyst Munif Al-Harbi remarked:
"It is no longer a secret that there are two parties that have interests in creating tension in the region and moving to a new front: the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran. They share the same agenda: destabilizing the Arab states. Since the beginning of the Gaza war, we have seen that the Hamas leadership is trying to mobilize the Jordanian street and is trying to drag the Jordanians into the war by any means."
The Jordanian monarch needs to be reminded how his late father, King Hussein, cracked down on the Palestinian terrorist organizations in the early 1970s. Then, King Hussein's security forces killed thousands of Palestinians after they tried to create a state-within-a-state inside the kingdom, in an armed conflict between the Jordanian army and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that is known as Black September. If King Abdullah II does not stop appeasing Palestinian terrorists, it is only a matter of time before they erupt against him and try to end his reign. Even Israel will not be able to save him.
It is time for the Arab leaders to realize that by endlessly disgorging anti-Israel rhetoric, they are shooting themselves in both feet. The pro-Hamas demonstrators on the streets of Jordan not only want to eliminate Israel and kill Jews, they also want to see the king and his family removed from power. The demonstrators consider the king and queen traitors for maintaining a peace treaty with Israel. If Jordan's King Abdullah and his wife want to avoid chaos in their kingdom, and a rather unpleasant outcome for themselves, they would do well to stop playing into the hands of the radical Islamists by inciting the Jordanian people to violence against Israel.
However, behind the incitement to violence that is empowering the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas -- and destabilizing the area -- lies the silky hand of Qatar.
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. The work of Bassam Tawil is made possible through the generous donation of a donor who wished to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.
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Jordan's Alignment With Israel Will Put It in Iran's Crosshairs
7 MIN READApr 17, 2024 | 18:47 GMT
The Jordanian Flag.
(Getty Images)
Jordan will remain aligned with the United States and Israel, which will result in a heightened risk of attacks by Iranian-backed proxies and growing risks of radicalization at home. On April 13, the Royal Jordanian Air Force intercepted dozens of drones that entered Jordanian airspace during the Iranian attack on Israel, during which Tehran launched more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. On April 14, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi summoned the Iranian ambassador after Iranian official media sources reportedly said that Jordan would be targeted if Jordan sided with Israel. That same day, King Abdullah II spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss the risk the war could spread regionally depending on the scale of Israeli retaliation.
Key Israeli allies including the United States, the United Kingdom and France took action to intercept drones en route to Israel during the attack.
Prior to the attack, Jordan closed its airspace as a precautionary measure. Amman has said it intercepted the drones in Jordan because they "posed a threat to [Jordanian] people and populated areas."
Throughout the Hamas-Israel War, Jordan has emphasized regional de-escalation amid concerns about spillover effects from the war and increasing domestic unrest from its pro-Palestinian population. Although Jordan, along with other Arab allies, has called for regional de-escalation since the beginning of the Hamas-Israel War and for Israeli restraint, Amman has juggled its cooperative relationship with Israel, particularly for water imports and border security, while trying to prevent domestic unrest. In recent weeks, pro-Palestinian protests have escalated outside of the Israeli Embassy in Amman as Jordanians, including Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Action Front supporters, have protested Israeli operations in Gaza and the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel. While Jordan has had some tolerance for pro-Palestinian protests, Jordanian security forces have arrested several protesters. Furthermore, amid criticism of what some Jordanians view as a weak stance on Israel, pro-Hamas sentiment has grown within Jordan, despite Hamas being prohibited in Jordan. While Jordan has made efforts to secure its borders, including from pro-Palestinian Jordanians attempting to enter the West Bank earlier in the war, it has been impacted by spillover violence. On Jan. 28, Iranian-backed militias attacked Tower 22 in Jordan, resulting in the deaths of three U.S. troops, an incident the U.S. retaliated for while Jordan did not.
Jordan and Israel have maintained a pragmatic relationship since they signed their 1994 peace treaty and have jointly collaborated on counterterrorism efforts, border security, and water-for-energy deals in which Jordan exports energy to Israel and receives potable water in return. Controlling its border with Israel improves Jordanian security, in contrast with its porous borders with Iraq and Syria.
About 60% of Jordanians are of Palestinian descent, and many of them are ardently pro-Palestinian. During the Hamas-Israel War, Amman has demonstrated solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza by facilitating humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, repeatedly calling for a cease-fire along with other Arab nations and criticizing Israeli military actions.
With the threat of Israeli retaliation and subsequent Iranian response, Jordan is very unlikely to shift from its U.S. alliance and will continue to intercept Iranian attacks aimed at Israel, but this could make Jordan a target itself. Although Jordan will pressure Israel directly and via Washington to take a restrained approach and avoid escalation and a second Iranian attack, Jordan will continue to intercept Iranian drones regardless of Israel's decision. If Iran does carry out another attack against Israel, Amman will be compelled to intercept drones again due to its strong alliance with the United States. Iranian-backed proxies in Syria and Iraq may target Jordan in any second strike to distract Jordanian air defenses from a barrage of drones and missiles and to inflict some damage due to Jordan's perceived support for Israel and its alliance with the West. In a less likely but high-impact scenario, Iran may directly launch missiles toward Jordan during a second attack to distract air defenses and inflict some damage as a signal to other regional actors, including Gulf Cooperation Council countries, that support for Israel and the West may result in their being targeted. This, however, would likely force a response from Jordan, which could involve striking Iranian proxy groups in Syria and Iraq. That would widen the conflict in a way that regional stakeholders, including Jordan and Iran, do not want. The increased risk to Jordan means Amman will likely leverage its relationship with the United States as well as its proven ability to intercept Iranian drones to request additional military aid such as the Patriot missile system to advance its air defense capabilities. While the United States might not be able to deploy it to Jordan due to high demand for the system, it will likely increase military aid to Jordan to bolster regional security.
Jordan is a key non-NATO ally of the United States, and the United States is Jordan's largest provider of bilateral assistance, with $1.45 billion in annual assistance since fiscal year 2023. Jordan hosts about 3,000 American military personnel, and U.S. military aid to Jordan accounts for at least 20% of Jordan's military defense budget. The United States uses Muwaffaq al-Salti air base to conduct operations in Syria and Iraq.
After the April 13 attack, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that Jordan would have intercepted an Israeli attack on Iran if Israel had sought to use Jordanian airspace. The United States, a key Israeli ally, might pressure Jordan not to do so in the event of an actual Israeli attack on Iran traversing Jordanian airspace.
Jordan and Iran have a tense relationship in part due to Iran's support for Hamas, a militant Islamist organization banned in Jordan, and to Iranian backing for smugglers and militias in neighboring Syria and Iraq who destabilize the region through the drug trade and attacks on U.S. troops.
In late October 2023, Jordan requested the deployment of the Patriot missile defense system to bolster its border defenses.
Jordan's defense of Israel and its U.S. alliance will increase anti-Western sentiment against the regime, intensify recurrent protests, and risk militancy and emboldened terror cells within Jordan. Many pro-Palestinian Jordanians will likely view Jordan's drone interceptions as defending Israel, and will resent Jordan's alignment with the West despite Amman's anti-Israel rhetoric. Jordanians will become increasingly critical of the government's actions and of the United States, and may protest near the U.S. Embassy in Amman, though security forces would likely strongly disperse those protests. Furthermore, protests and online forums with swelling anti-government rhetoric will likely result in a tougher crackdown by Amman, which will use its August 2023 Cybercrime Law to quell criticism of the government and monarchy online. As Jordanians become increasingly frustrated with the government's actions, pro-Hamas sentiment will likely increase as Hamas is seen as taking action to support Palestinians in Gaza. Furthermore, with Iranian-backed proxy networks in Syria and Iraq, Jordan will likely face increased smuggling activities of arms and illegal drugs like fenethylline (commonly known as Captagon), which will cause Jordan to increase border security. Illegal arms entering Jordan would broadly increase the threat of terrorism since some would likely reach Islamic State cells in Jordan, making attacks likelier. While smuggling will increase the potential for violence, Jordanian security forces will likely be able to mitigate the risks. Jordan will likely increase security deployments in border areas to prevent smuggling, and perhaps even to target Iranian-backed smugglers in Syria as Jordan did in early 2024.
Jordan has arrested more than 1,500 individuals since the Hamas-Israel War began, with more than a third being arrested since March 2024. Jordanian security forces used tear gas and batons to disperse protests in March.
In early April, Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Iraqi militant group, threatened to arm 12,000 Jordanian fighters in a move that would undermine Amman and put pressure on Jordan's border with the West Bank and Israel. In such a scenario, Jordan would inevitably increase its security presence along the border, increasing the potential for clashes between Jordanian security and armed protesters.
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this piece misstated the name of the Jordanian foreign minister.