Publications

In recent months, Jordan has been unwillingly drawn into the conflict between Israel and its enemies ongoing since October 7. It even participated in the regional and international efforts to thwart Iran’s missile and drone attack on Israel on April 13. Missiles and UAVs that penetrated Jordanian airspace were successfully thwarted, putting the kingdom in a clash with Iran, and possibly with segments of its own population that supported the attack.

Jordan’s stance required unwavering courage. According to a report by a news agency close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iran had threatened Jordan before the attack that it would become a target if it cooperated with Israel. In response, the Jordan Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian chargé d’affaires in the kingdom for a reprimand, after which the Iranian embassy in Amman backed down from the threat. An editorial in the official Jordanian newspaper, Al-Rai, stated that Jordan would not be used as an executioner or a chessboard for regional conflicts. Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman al-Safadi, emphasized that Jordan would also behave the same way toward Israel if it used Jordanian skies to attack Iran. He warned Iran not to harm Jordan as part of its war against Israel, noting previous smuggling of weapons and drugs from Syria to Jordan and cyberattacks by pro-Iranian militias on Jordanian state institutions.

These statements were made against the backdrop of an attempt by Iran and its proxies to intensify efforts over the past few months to undermine Jordan’s sovereignty and transform its airspace and territory into an active front in the struggle against Israel. In November 2023, an attempt to smuggle $6 million worth of weapons was uncovered at the Israel–Jordan border. At the beginning of March 2024, Israel expressed concern about the infiltration of terrorist cells from Jordan, followed by skirmishes and clashes at the border. Additionally, pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Yemen repeatedly used Jordan’s airspace during the war by launching drone attacks on Israel. In early April, Iraqi Hezbollah declared its intention to train 12,000 Jordanians to fight against Israel.

Equally concerning is the Muslim Brotherhood’s attempts to leverage the Gaza conflict, which they present as a religious war, to regain their status in the Arab world in general, and particularly in Jordan, after a decade of decline. Although Hamas offices in Jordan were closed in 1999 and the Muslim Brotherhood was banned in 2016, Islamists in the kingdom are still capable of mobilizing the Jordanian public. Surveys conducted in the past year show that while nearly half of the Jordanian public views Iran as a competitor and enemy of Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood is perceived favorably by two-thirds or more of the kingdom’s citizens.

Indeed, since late March, protests led by the “National Forum for Supporting Resistance,” headed by the Islamic Action Front—the Muslim Brotherhood’s affiliated party in the Jordanian parliament—alongside other parties, have been gaining momentum. Until recently, the Jordanian regime tolerated these protests, which express genuine support for Hamas among the Jordanian public, as long as they remained small in size and did not challenge the monarchy. Furthermore, the protests allowed the redirection of public criticism toward an “external enemy” during a severe economic crisis. Since the beginning of the war, Jordan has experienced a significant decline in tourism; the Houthi attacks on the Red Sea have affected Jordan’s imports and exports through the port of Aqaba; trade with the Palestinian Authority and Gaza has been reduced; and it has faced difficulties attracting investments.

While the kingdom has not acquiesced to the protesters’ demands to cancel the peace agreement and sever all cooperation with Israel, it has attempted to align itself with public sentiment. In November 2023, Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations and announced the suspension of the “Prosperity” project to supply water in exchange for electricity, which the two countries were supposed to sign under the auspices of the UAE. In parallel, the Jordanian foreign minister accused Israel of genocide, while Queen Rania described Israel’s conduct in the war as “one of the greatest historical injustices,” and King Abdullah personally participated in dropping humanitarian aid into Gaza from a Jordanian transport helicopter.

The kingdom took these and other steps to help navigate between the public pressure to show solidarity with the Palestinians and its own strategic interest in maintaining relations with Israel. Thanks to the peace agreement, Amman enjoys $1.45 billion in annual American aid, buys water and natural gas from Israel at attractive prices, and maintains extensive security ties. Additionally, a “land bridge” between the UAE and Israel, which passes through Jordan and serves as an alternative trade route to the Suez Canal, was established during the war. Despite public criticism of the bridge, Jordanian policy de facto states that “the demonstrators protest, but the caravan goes on.”

Nevertheless, the wave of demonstrations has changed the equation for the Jordanian regime. The authorities have been concerned by the frequency and scale of the protests. There have also been public disturbances and physical and verbal violence toward the security forces by the protesters who attempted to breach the security ring around the Israeli embassy in Amman. In some cases, calls for rebellion against the king have been heard as well. Encouraged by senior Hamas leaders exiled in Qatar and linked to Iran, the protesters began to demand that Jordan join the violent resistance against Israel, causing the kingdom to perceive these protests as shifting from expressing solidarity with the Palestinians—to which the regime is no stranger—to challenging the state’s monopoly on the use of force.

In response to the growing threat to stability and order, Jordanian security forces forcefully dispersed some of the demonstrations and arrested hundreds of protesters, including prominent activists from the Islamic Action Front. Spokespersons for the kingdom accused Hamas, local Islamist groups, and Iran of undermining Jordan’s public order, security, and its societal fabric. Trans-Jordanian tribes rallied around the kingdom and issued statements praising the monarch’s support of Gaza and condemning “those who trade in the blood of the Palestinian people” to advance political agendas aimed at undermining the Jordanian nation-state. In response, Hamas clarified that it had no intention of undermining Jordan’s security and stability or interfering in its internal affairs, distanced itself from the Muslim Brotherhood, and commended the king’s stance in the war.

Jordan’s regional allies also supported it in response to the declared aspirations of Jordanian Islamists to use the protests, which had already begun to spread to Cairo, Rabat, and Baghdad, as an inspiring model for others in the region. Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 and is currently being pressured by Islamists to take a more hardened stance against Israel, visited Amman on April 1 to express support for King Abdullah in his struggle against threats to the stability of his country. An article in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Dustur noted that Egypt supports any measures Jordan takes to “protect its security and sovereignty and confront any external or internal force seeking to seize the country, exert pressure on it, or influence its decisions.”

Similar expressions of support have been heard from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, the Palestinian Authority, and Saudi Arabia. The latter, which borders Jordan, sees Iranian-Islamist subversion as a direct threat to its national security. Saudi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called the Jordanian king to express his support, despite tensions between the two leaders in recent years. The chairman of the Gulf Research Center (GRC), Abdulaziz Sager, clarified that “any threat to Jordan’s stability or security is a red line” and further stated that “Riyadh will not tolerate any attempt to turn Jordan into a theater for exporting tensions or creating chaos and instability in the Arab world, in the guise of supporting resistance in Gaza.”

Significance and Recommendations

Jordan’s positive role during the Iranian attack on Israel is a reminder of Israel’s interest in peace with the kingdom and the need to consider its concerns and assist it in dealing with external and internal challenges that threaten its stability and sovereignty. While Iran relies on its proxies to use the Jordanian arena against Israel, Jordanian Islamist forces supported by Hamas, Qatar, and Iran seek to strengthen themselves under the cover of the Gaza war and undermine the Israel–Jordan peace agreement. A test of their strength is expected in Jordan’s parliamentary elections scheduled for September 2024, in which the Islamic Action Front will try to increase its power and give renewed impetus to the Islamist project both within and beyond the kingdom.

Israel and Jordan need to continue fostering their military dialogue in light of the terrorist threats emerging in the Jordanian arena. Additionally, Israel needs to consider the effects of its actions in the war and its aftermath on Jordan, which is alarmed by the possible outbreak of a regional war and rise of domestic unrest. From Amman’s perspective, the most explosive issues are further escalation between Israel and Iran, changes to the status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem, displacement of Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan, and Israel’s unilateral annexation of Palestinian territories.

The United States also has an interest in supporting its Jordanian ally in the face of the challenges of war. It can demand that Qatar, through its coverage on Al Jazeera, the most-watched television channel in the kingdom, refrain from encouraging protests in Jordan. The United States can also encourage Jordan to prevent Jordanian official media outlets from engaging in hostile discourse toward Israel. The recent wave of protests has shown that such discourse does not shield the monarchy from criticism but rather legitimizes Islamist demands to undermine relations with Israel.

Ultimately, on the day after the war, Israel, the United States, and Saudi Arabia are advised to further integrate Jordan into regional normalization processes in a way that promotes its prosperity and stability, for instance, by fostering multilateral economic cooperation and increasing foreign investments in Jordan. In addition, the three countries should coordinate with Jordan on future Muslim–Jewish arrangements in East Jerusalem, given the special status granted to the kingdom in holy sites under the Israeli–Jordanian peace treaty, and due to its well proven ability to serve as a regional moderating and stabilizing actor.