By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI – While publicly reiterating the demand for an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza, where Israel’s brutal aggression is continuing unabated, Jordan’s King Abdullah II is facing political challenges on the domestic front, as he has been forced to indulge in a balancing act while trying to navigate a dangerous regional environment. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is the custodian of Al-Aqsa Masjid in Jerusalem, which is the third holiest site in Islam.
The Jordanian public has been demanding that the country open a front against Israel and abrogate the 1994 peace treaty. Jordan is officially a supporter of the two-state solution and advocates for a Palestinian state. It previously controlled the West Bank until Israel seized it in the 1967 war, and is home to lakhs of Palestinians, many of them refugees forced from their homes by Israel.
Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, and is a close ally of the U.S., which is Israel’s most important backer. The kingdom also fought a bloody conflict with Palestinian militants in 1970, and is cautious about Hamas and other groups from dragging it into a war. This has proved to be a delicate balancing act for King Abdullah II.
Jordan’s Waqf Department has exclusive authority over the holy sites of Al-Aqsa Masjid and Haram-al-Sharif under international law, while the government’s crackdown on pro-Palestine protesters has been questioned by the activists. King Abdullah II has also called for uninterrupted delivery of adequate aid in the war-ravaged Gaza.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has praised Jordan’s role in supporting Palestinians and their human rights, highlighting Jordan’s unwavering support to stop the war on Gaza, while also rejecting the displacement of Palestinians, and safeguarding Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem under the Hashemite Custodianship.
The citizens in Jordan have been increasingly vocal in their criticism of the country’s ties with Israel, on social media and at protests near the Israeli Embassy and a few other sites in capital city, Amman, where authorities have permitted demonstrations. The government in Ammanhas sought to counter attempts by Hamas to mobilise support from Palestinians.
Since the last week of March, thousands of people have gathered every day to demand that Jordan open a front against Israel and abrogate the 1994 peace treaty. At least twice, security forces have dispersed the protesters, to prevent them coming too close to the Israeli Embassy.
Several leaders in the Islamic Action Front, the Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, have been arrested at the demonstrations. Hamas is supported by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned in most Arab countries, but not Jordan. Some Hamas leaders and their backers in Tehran reportedly want to portray the Jordanian government as resisting the will of the street.
The daily protesters are mostly young men from working class backgrounds. Members of leftist movements and a group of retired military personnel who oppose the kingdom’s ties with Israel have also been attending the protests, joined by some students at private universities and high schools.
The core, however, are Muslim Brotherhood members and their sympathisers.
The King has also secured an apparent U.S. support on the need to contain Israeli actions in the West Bank, with the main aim of preventing another wave of refugees to Jordan. The kingdom absorbed refugees in 1948 and 1967, resulting in a large proportion of Jordan’s 1-crore people having Palestinian origin.The vast majority of them have Jordanian citizenship.
Palestinians and their descendants play important roles in the private sector, while members of the tribes who were in the area before what was known as Transjordan, founded as a British protectorate, are mostly in the security forces and the bureaucracy. The political legitimacy of the King among both groups is boosted by the traditional Hashemite role as custodian of Al-Aqsa Masjid.
However, King Abdullah II has made it clear that Jordan cannot accept another wave of refugees.
In meetings with Arab andwesternofficials, the King has not hidden his frustration that Jordan’s push for a Gaza truce before Ramzan failed to find a breakthrough. Israel’s attacks on Iranian targets have also raised tensions across the region.
At an Iftar dinner with a Palestinian delegation of religious and civil leaders at the Royal Palace in Amman recently, King Abdullah II said Jordan would always support the cause of Palestine, while expressing a worry that Israel’s attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, just across the border from Jordan, had the potential to widen the conflict.
Among those present were Sheikh Azzam Al-Khatib Al-Tamimi, head of the Jordanian-run Jerusalem Religious Affairs Department, which is in charge of the daily administration and upkeep of Al-Aqsa Masjid; the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein; and Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
The Palestinian delegation reportedly spoke of the historic role which Jordan’s Hashemite dynasty has played in advocating for Palestinian rights in Jerusalem. The Iftar was the latest display of official solidarity with the Palestinians in Jordan, but six months of war in Gaza have posed a difficult domestic policy challenge for the country.
More than two dozen prominent Jordanian human rights activists have signed a letter demanding that the government respect the right to free expression and assembly after a spate of arrests of pro-Palestine protesters in recent weeks. The letter said that peaceful demonstration and legitimate gatherings was a right of Jordanians that should not be prevented, restricted or demonised as being against the Jordanian state.
Protesters broke into the Israeli Embassy compound on March 24 and have since held daily demonstrations against the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza. Authorities have arrested hundreds of protesters, including some journalists and activists, charging them with unrelated crimes such as assaulting an officer or insulting official bodies. Those arrested are frequently held in administrative detention and only released after paying bail and pledging not to protest again.
The letter condemned the arrest campaign and called for the immediate release of all those detained in connection with the pro-Palestine protests. “The West is seeing massive protests, and they have not arrested a single person. Why is Jordan arresting people? This is a right guaranteed in the Jordanian Constitution,” Salah Armouti, a member of the Jordanian Parliament and signatory to the letter, said.
On the other hand, Jordan’s Public Security Directorate said it had arrested rioters and was doing its work professionally in a way that protects citizens’ freedom of expression. Rights bodies have said that the Jordanian government has harassed and arrested hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters since October, before the current round of protests.
The Jordanian government has, in recent years, cracked down on civic space and relied on administrative detentions, which are extra-judicial arrests, to quash protests. In the recent days, Jordanian officials have said that the ongoing pro-Palestine protests are being exploited by individuals and groups which aim to destabilise the kingdom.
Meanwhile, King Abdullah II has approved a general amnesty law for the prisoners, presented to him by the Parliament. The Parliament’s two chambers approved the draft general amnesty law earlier and after the King’s approval, the law will be announced in the official gazette to become enforceable.
The draft covers felonies, misdemeanours, violations and criminal acts before March 19, 2024 and allows for all criminal charges and original or subsidiary penalties related to those crimes to be dropped, in addition to exempting defendants from fines and fees. The draft excludes 38 crimes, most notably those related to state security, public authority, destruction of records, terrorism, weapons, ammunition, explosives and drugs.
A previous amnesty was issued in 2019, covering around 8,000 prisoners convicted of defamation, insults, contempt and violations of foreigners’ residence and labour laws, as well as fines for violating income tax, general sales tax and customs laws. The first amnesty to be issued during King Abdullah’s reign was in 1999 and was followed by another in 2011.
