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Jordan

Jordan, one of America’s most important allies in the Middle East, was hit in late January 2011 by the waves of unrest that spread across the Arab world in the wake of the revolution in Tunisia.

When the Arab Spring began, Jordan initially appeared vulnerable to the protests that were roiling other nations and toppling their long-serving dictators. With none of the resources of its wealthy neighbors on the Persian Gulf, Jordan struggles with rising energy costs, a water shortage, social strains and an official unemployment rate of around 12 percent — with unofficial estimates of at least double that.

But Jordan is also small, with only about 6.5 million people, and its leader, King Abdullah II, has managed to avoid the kind of turmoil that has upended other Arab countries by granting modest concessions like dismissing government ministers and preserving popular subsidies and by employing security forces. Those forces have proved efficient in suppressing domestic and external challenges, and human rights groups have accused them of restricting freedoms of expression and assembly.

The king also has tried to appease public anger over corruption. In February 2012, Jordan’s official news agency Petra announced that the authorities had detained a former chief of the intelligence service in connection with a continuing graft investigation. Other prominent officials and businessmen also were facing investigation.

Analysts say that several factors unique to Jordan have contributed to its stability, including the king’s promises of democratic reforms, which have led some critics to wait to see if King Abdullah will actually deliver. In a speech in February 2012, the king outlined the goals of what he described as “self-transformation and progressive reform”: fair parliamentary elections, a law guaranteeing the broadest representation, a Parliament based on political parties and governments drawn from that Parliament.

Still, there is growing discontent with King Abdullah and his wife, Queen Rania.

‘Between Iraq and a Hard Place’

With Iraq’s Sunni-Shiite tension to its east and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the western border, Jordan is situated precariously — or, as King Abdullah likes to say, “Between Iraq and a hard place.” There are also tensions between East Bankers, the country’s original residents, who take their name from the nation’s location along the River Jordan, and the millions of Palestinians who have arrived in successive waves and are now a majority of the population.


Fear is also one of the main reasons that Jordan has remained calm, analysts said. The bloodshed in Syria dominates the television coverage here, where many families share tribal bonds with Syrians.

“It doesn’t suit any party in Jordan — East Bankers, West Bankers, right-wingers, left-wingers, anybody — to have the regime fall,” said one analyst. “Especially with what we have seen in our neighborhood as a result of the chaos that started with the Iraq war and that continued with the Arab Spring.”

There is another factor unique to Jordan: the deep-seated fear among both East Bankers and Jordanian Palestinians that if Jordan disintegrates outsiders may try to turn it into a Palestinian state.

Maintaining the delicate balance between the East Bankers and those Palestinians is a matter of utmost importance to many Jordanians, and anything perceived to be a threat to that balance draws strong reaction across the political spectrum.

2011: A Country On Edge

Buffeted by the forces at play across the region — rising prices, a bulging underemployed youth population, the rapid spread of information and resentment, an unaccountable autocracy — Jordan has been a country on edge. What was most striking was that the very system of the monarchy seemed open to question.

In January 2011, thousands took to the streets in the capital, Amman, as well as several other cities, in demonstrations that were the first serious challenge to the rule of King Abdullah. Because direct criticism of the king is banned, the focus was on his government. Demonstrators protested against economic hardship, a common refrain across the region, with banners decrying high food and fuel prices. They attacked corruption, restrictions on freedom of political expression and reductions in government subsidies; they also demanded the right to elect the prime minister, who is currently appointed by the king. The protests were led by the Islamic Action Front, but included leftists and trade unions.

In a bid to tamp down some of the frustration, the king announced $125 million in subsidies for basic goods and fuel and an increase in civil servant pay.

In early February, King Abdullah dismissed his cabinet and prime minister in a surprise move meant to calm street protests that had been fueled by the country’s worst economic crisis in years.

Demonstrations remained peaceful until March 24, when at least one man died when government supporters attacked a tent camp that pro-democracy protesters had set up in the center of Amman, the Jordanian capital, in conscious imitation of Tahrir Square in Cairo. The violence stopped when security forces intervened, and a week later a new round of demonstrations went off peacefully.

In June 2011, King Abdullah announced that the government would in the future be elected, not appointed, responding to a demand of protesters calling for democratic change. But the statement failed to specify any timetable for the change.

In October 2011, under growing pressure to accelerate political reform and anticorruption measures, King Abdullah fired his government again. Changing cabinets was not new for King Abdullah. In his 12 years on the throne, he has done so eight times.

Jordan’s new prime minister is Awn Khasawneh, who was a judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague since 2000. He was also a former chief of the royal court and a legal adviser to Jordan when it negotiated its peace treaty with Israel in 1994.

2012: Protests Appear in Tribal Areas

King Abdullah has long faced critics among urban liberals and Islamist fundamentalists who have called for change in the country’s political and economic systems. But public protests have been occurring outside of cities in tribal areas, which are part of the monarchy’s most supportive base.

In late January, a crowd of 150 protesters unfurled banners and began chanting protests against the country’s leadership in its palaces and government offices far below the precipices of the ancient fortress town of Karak.

“We want social justice,” the crowd chanted after Friday prayers, reading from a handwritten list of political, economic and social grievances. “Real elections,” they shouted. “I’m a citizen, not a beggar.”

Such public criticism of Jordan’s nearly century-old monarchy would have been unthinkable just a year previously among these tribesmen of the heartland.

But the protest in Karak was not intended to topple the monarchy. Unlike in Cairo or Tunis, the demonstrators called for overhauling the system, not bringing it down. No one appeared scared, or deterred, as the secret police recorded the protesters, who belonged to the same families from which the nation’s security officers have long been recruited.

“Until this moment, we believe all the authority in the country is with the king and the people have no will,” said a former member of Parliament who was in the crowd. “Our main purpose is to return authority to the people and to have a monarchy similar to that in Britain, a constitutional monarchy.”

Attempting to Revive Peace Talks

In early January 2012, Jordan was host to Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, who were meeting for the first time in more than a year in an effort to revive moribund peace talks. However, none of the sides involved suggested any reason to view the meeting as a sign of significant progress. Palestinian officials reported little or no progress in the meetings and, on Jan. 25, Mr. Abbas said that discussions had ended.

King Abdullah had been taking an unusually active role in the Israeli-Palestinian issue in the months leading up to the talks. In November 2011, he made a rare visit to the West Bank city of Ramallah to see Mr. Abbas. A week later, he invited President Shimon Peres of Israel to Amman for a meeting.

The higher profile was partly an effort to fill a vacuum left by the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Mr. Mubarak, who was a central backer of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and had good relations with Israel, often acted as a mediator to spur the two sides to improve their relations.

The king has an interest in a moderate Palestinian state being established in the West Bank and Gaza. He has tensions with Islamists in his own country and he does not want to encourage any thoughts of a Palestinian state being established in Jordan instead, as some on the Israeli right advocate.

Background

Though highly literate and largely stable, with well-developed security and intelligence operations, Jordan has a fundamental vulnerability in the large number of Palestinians living there. Refugees arrived in large numbers from the West Bank and Jerusalem after the war in 1967, and more arrived from Kuwait after Saddam Hussein invaded that country in 1990. They and their descendants make up nearly half the country’s population of 6.5 million.

Jordan’s main constituencies are the so-called East Bankers or tribes, and the Palestinians who constitute a majority of the nation’s six million people. East Bankers, the country’s original inhabitants, dominate the civil service, especially the security forces, while the Palestinians rule in the private sector. Economic reform to bring Jordan in line with the global marketplace has tended to benefit the Palestinians, while the East Bankers — the core of the monarchy’s support — rely on the government payroll.

Before ascending to the throne in 1999, Prince Abdullah had a reputation as a bit of a lightweight, a Prince Hal with a vaguely Falstaffian cast of friends who drove fast cars and enjoyed the company of women.

His ascension to the throne came as a surprise. His father, King Hussein — who ruled Jordan for 46 years and enjoyed near adoration of his people — named Abdullah as his successor only two weeks before his death. The next king was supposed to be Crown Prince Hassan, the youngest brother of King Hussein.

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Jordan Chronology
Feb. 10, 2012

King Abdullah II of Jordan has long faced critics among liberals in the cities calling for changes in the country's political and economic systems, but is presented with new challenge as tribesmen in the heartland begin protests; he is seeking to appease public frustration over government corruption and avoid turmoil that has upended other Arab countries.MORE »
Jan. 30, 2012

Hamas leader Khaled Meshal makes rare visit to Jordan, days after Hamas officials signal that he had effectively abandoned the group's base in Damascus, Syria's capital city; visit is first official one by a Hamas leader since 1999, when the Jordanian government shut down Hamas headquarters, forcing group to relocate to Damascus.MORE »
Jan. 18, 2012

European Court of Human Rights rules that Abu Qatada, whose real name is Omar Mahmoud Mohammed Othman, cannot be deported from Britain to his native Jordan because his trial there would be tainted by evidence obtained by torture; Qatada is a radical Islamic preacher that is regarded as one of Al Qaeda's main inspirational leaders in Europe.MORE »
Jan. 4, 2012

Talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Jordan are taking place in a region in which political Islam is emerging as a potentially transformative force; it is first encounter between the parties in more than a year.MORE »
Dec. 14, 2011

Dozens of Jewish settlers, prompted by a rumor that several of their outposts would be dismantled, attack an Israeli Army base in the West Bank; the attack occurs hours after another group of settlers occupied a border post with Jordan, in protest of Jordan's efforts to intervene in Israel's closure of a footbridge leading to a holy compound in Jerusalem.MORE »