Strategic Assessment

In 2014, the Jordanian Ministry of Education removed a number of Jordanian study units that encouraged the ethos of struggle against Israel. In an unprecedented step, it also distributed a study guide for teachers and educational booklets that include a map explicitly displaying Israel by name, and it banned the introduction into schools of a book condemning the peace agreement with Jews. This article contends that these measures reflect the long term objective of the Jordanian regime to lessen the focus on the conflict with Israel in the Jordanian curriculum, based on its understanding of the conflict as a ready hothouse that undermines the stability of the regime and breeds subversion of the Hashemite royal house by religious extremism. On the other hand, the public protests aroused by these new educational measures highlight the tension between the Jordanian regime’s strategic interests and the degree to which it is subject to the restraints of public opinion.