Jordanians came out in their tens of thousands to hail their king as a hero. On February 13th state television broadcast their cheers for King Abdullah on his return from Washington, where he defied American and Israeli pressure to accept waves of Gazan refugees. “Jordan is Jordan, not Palestine,” rang out their cry.
Yet the government-sponsored buses idling by the roadside belied official claims that the rally was spontaneous. And the press conference that Donald Trump, America’s president, sprang on King Abdullah during his visit saw Jordan’s monarch in nervous form. He twitched when Mr Trump publicly pressed him to welcome displaced Gazans. “It was a disaster,” says a Jordanian commentator. “He was mocked across social media.”
In recent months Lebanon and Syria have undergone political earthquakes. Jordanians are wondering whether their country will be next. The kingdom is already bracing for the fallout from the latest advance of Israeli tanks into the occupied West Bank. Around 40,000 Palestinians have fled their homes in the territory in the past month. Jordanians fear that chaos there will trigger an exodus. Hundreds of thousands of the West Bank’s 3m Palestinians hold Jordanian passports. Their purchase of homes (“just in case”) keeps the kingdom’s construction industry afloat. Jordan’s native “East Bankers”, who are a minority, worry the incomers will at last turn their kingdom into Palestine.
Even if Palestinians in the West Bank stay put, 17 months of war in Gaza are reshaping the kingdom’s politics. Hamas has been smashed in Gaza, but still holds sway on Jordan’s streets. The Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned Hamas, surprised many by trouncing pro-government parties in the election last September. It has not flexed its power of late. Diplomats say arrests of rabble-rousers keep it at bay. But others suspect it is merely biding its time.
Regime change next door is stiffening the Islamists’ resolve. After a decade on the margins, the ousting of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, has brought Sunni Islamists back to power in the Arab world. Jordanians remember that when Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s new president, was an al-Qaeda leader, his ranks consisted largely of foreign fighters, many from Jordan. Some Jordanian jihadists are still on the scene, including the newly appointed head of the presidential guard. “Islamists across Jordan are asking, ‘If they can take over, why not us?’” says Hassan Abu Haniyeh, a Jordan-based expert on the kingdom’s Islamists. Mr Sharaa’s visit on February 26th was kept deliberately low-key.
Jordan could once have looked abroad for support. But over the past 25 years King Abdullah has lost most of his regional friends. Unlike previous Israeli prime ministers, Binyamin Netanyahu treats him with contempt. Smuggling of weapons, drugs and fighters across Jordan’s border with Israel has ticked up. Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, has stolen the king’s thunder as a regional leader. When America’s new secretary of state visited the Middle East this month, he skipped Jordan.
The regional winds of change would have been easier to weather had Jordan’s economy been stronger. Since the Arab spring in 2011, income per person has stubbornly stagnated. Many Jordanians, like their country, are struggling with debt.
Syria’s reconstruction may yet bolster demand for Jordan’s excess cement, or even reopen its trade route to Europe. And regional peace may yield dividends, including the supply of desalinated water from Israel, tourists and an elusive Middle Eastern railway line linking the Gulf to the Mediterranean. But pessimists worry that if Mr Trump’s demands are rejected, America will cut off the direct budget and military aid on which the king depends.
In the past he would address his subjects’ grievances by blaming prime ministers or security chiefs, dismissing the former and locking up the latter. But that no longer seems sufficient. The confluence of so many challenges is unusual. And rarely have so many Jordanians openly asked whether their rulers are up to the job. ■
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