The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan represents one of the most important actors in the Middle East, as well as one of the least known. The relative political stability of the state, which protected it from the most harmful consequences of the region issues, has diverted the attention of analysts from the country. However, there are several elements of instability that can threaten Jordan (and the entire Middle East). After a brief historical introduction, the research continues by illustrating the main factors that can destabilize the Kingdom: economic dynamics, domestic politics, the issue of refugees, the problem of terrorism and the awkward role of the Hashemite leadership in the Palestinian issue.
Although his role is often underestimated, the Royal Family of Jordan is one of the most important actors in the Middle East. The claimed direct descent with the Prophet Muhammad and the traditional role of sheriffs of the Holy Places of Mecca and Medina before, and Jerusalem later, make the Hashemites a prestigious interlocutor for both the powers of the region and for those of the world. To strengthen this role is also the delicate geographical position of the Kingdom, set between rather unstable regions such as the West Bank, Syria, and Iraq and between increasingly established powers such as Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was officially born in 1946 as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. Great Britain played a decisive role for the new state, which guaranteed its independence after more than twenty years of mandate. Although the Jordanian state is a rather recent reality, the Hashemite dynasty boasts millennial origins that intertwine, as it is often the case with royal families, with the historical and religious heritage of the region. The same members of the dynasty, in fact, trace among their ancestors the great-grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad. Link confirmed by several historians is the special one with the cities of Mecca and Medina, of which the Hashemites were sheriffs (or custodians) between the tenth and twentieth centuries [1]. In the 19th century, the Saud, the rising star of the Arabian Peninsula and the current ruling house of Saudi Arabia, began a campaign of hostility towards the Hashemites that ended in the 1920s with the final conquest of the Holy Cities. The Hashemites had no choice but to expand to the north with the consent of the mandatory powers. Their members obtained the crowns of Syria and Iraq (the first for only one year, 1920, the second from 1921 to the coup d'état of 1958) and the emirate of Transjordan (1921), which later became the Kingdom of Jordan (from 1946 to today). The territorial contiguity with Palestine made King Abdullah I (1882-1951) one of the main interlocutors of the Zionist leaders, who learned of the expiry of the British mandate on Palestine in May 1948. They engaged in negotiations with the Arab powers of the region to avert war. Of all the Arab leaders, Abdullah proved to be the most pragmatic and compromise-minded, which led him to go to war reluctantly. This reluctance was rewarded by Israel’s tacit consent to the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the aftermath of the end of hostilities. The new geopolitical structure allowed the Hashemites to obtain the custody of the Esplanade of the Mosques, the third most holy place of Islam. For the family, which had lost Mecca and Medina almost thirty years earlier, this was undoubtedly an important result. The annexation of the West Bank also strengthened the link between the royal family and the territories along the banks of the Jordan River, which has always been the center of a network of commercial relations and relations that united the populations of the eastern regions of the Mediterranean. In 1967, the Six-Day War also ended the rule over Jerusalem and the West Bank, conquered and unified to the western part of the city in the first case and conquered, but never formally annexed, in the second. For Jordan it was a trauma that led to serious problems of political stability: on King Hussein, succeeded Abdullah in 1952 after a short interregnum, the hopes of a population facing with both the delicate problem of Palestinian refugees and the aftermath of a war that had suddenly separated many families were poured out. Considered unable to provide a solution to the problem, in 1970 Hussein was the subject of attempted coup d'état by Palestinian formations that in the refugee camps had replaced the royal authority. The events of 1970, known as "Black September", marked a turning point in relations with Israel. Implicitly accepted the existence of the Jewish State as a fact, the Hashemite leadership now shared with it an enemy, the Palestinian armed formations. The line chosen by Hussein, concerned about the internal stability of the kingdom and at the same time intent not to arouse the wrath of the Arab allies, was marked by pragmatism. In September 1973, he went to Tel Aviv to warn the Israeli government of the impending attack known as the Yom Kippur War. In 1988, he formally renounced West Bank territory, which paved the way for the 1994 peace treaty with Israel. This move was aimed at strengthening internal security through cooperation in anti-terroristic terms with Israel and at accrediting Hashemites as main partners of the US. Furthermore, the dynasty gained Israeli recognition of their role as guardians of the Holy Places in Jerusalem, managed since then in collaboration with Israel.
Knowing the history of the Hashemite dynasty is the key to fully understand the role of Jordan on the Middle East chessboard. The relative political stability that has marked the Kingdom in recent years has made it an important partner for many actors. This stability, however appreciable, is nevertheless very fragile: there are many challenges that the royal family has faced in recent decades, as well as many are the ones that await it. The pragmatic policy undertaken by the royals has so far borne fruit: since the birth of the state the reins of power have always remained firmly in the hands of the Hashemite family, a fact more unique than rare given the turbulent events of neighboring states. Despite that, the balance of power is threatened by at least five issues: economic dynamics, domestic politics, refugees, terrorism and the Palestinian question.
Economics
Jordan’s relative scarcity of resources means that its economy is largely dependent on imports. This lack obviously has different effects on the domestic and foreign policy of the country. The predominantly desert nature of its territory makes the water supply a thorny issue for Jordan. The main source of water is the Jordan River and its tributary, the Yarmuk River. Since both rivers pass through Israel before arriving in Jordan, the exploitation of their waters has always been an important voice in relations between the two states both before and after the peace agreement [2]. Hydrocarbons are another scarce resource, with important consequences on both domestic and foreign policy. In the first case, the lack of income from their sale prevented the Hashemite dynasty from using the strategy of the "social contract" typical of the Gulf monarchies. This doctrine is based on an implicit pact between the Crown and its subjects according to which the former guarantees a certain degree of well-being thanks to the revenues of the oil industry in exchange for a certain degree of consensus on the part of the latter. In the second case, the Kingdom’s dependence on the hydrocarbons of the Gulf States led Jordan to maintain a low-profile policy during the various regional crises in order to avoid diplomatic backlash and possible increases or cuts in supplies. Gulf monarchies are also important for another voice of the economy: remittances. The importance of remittances for the Jordanian economy is evidenced by at least two data: the per capita inflow of remittances calculated by the World Bank, which sees Jordan in second place after Lebanon, and the incidence of remittances on national GDP, which according to the Central Bank of Jordan was around 8% in 2017[3]. A final important element of fragility in the Kingdom’s economy is its dependence on foreign aid, largely American. The relative stability in domestic politics and pragmatism in foreign policy have guaranteed Amman a special partnership with the United States. In 2000, Jordan was the first Arab country to sign a free trade agreement with Washington[4]. Friendship with the US is also rewarded with substantial liquidity transfers (Jordan is the largest recipient of such aid to the US), loans and investments under the USAID program[5].
Domestic policy
Although considered a bulwark of political stability in a turbulent region and certainly not poor in failed states, the Jordanian leadership often has to deal with delicate domestic policy issues. The three main dynamics that can affect public order are three: poverty and unemployment, lack of democratization and feuds within the royal family. During the last decade the protests against the poor living conditions of the population and the lack of democratization of the state have come to merge, as during the Arab Spring and again in the years between 2016 and 2020[6]. Poverty and unemployment are absolutely the most important emergency. According to UNICEF data, the absolute poverty rate in Jordan is increasing, having risen from 14.4% in 2010 to 15.7% in 2018. Equally worrying are the data on youth unemployment, especially in a context where the average age is 23.8 years[7]. The World Bank claims that in 2019 the unemployment rate of the population aged 15 to 24 was 37.28%, the highest figure since 1994[8]. Complicating an already rather delicate situation was the COVID-19 pandemic which, according to some data, would have brought the overall unemployment rate to around 25% and youth unemployment to around 50%[9]. As already mentioned, in recent years Jordanian citizens have also taken to the streets to ask for political reforms. Although in theory Jordan is a constitutional monarchy, power remains firmly in the hands of the king, who appoints the Prime Minister and controls the parliament. Freedom of expression and association are rather limited[10]. In June 2021, King Abdullah II announced the creation of a commission of 92 members with the aim of reforming the political system of the Kingdom and transforming it in a decade into a complete democracy, but the news was received with skepticism by the most critical voices[11]. Ultimately, disputes within the Hashemite clan, though often tacit, are a factor to be kept under control. The most notorious episode is the one concerning the arrest, in April 2021, of Prince Hamza bin Hussein accused of plotting against the king. The resentments between the two date back to the death of King Hussein, which occurred in 1999. Although at the time the crown prince designated to become king was bin Hussein, the choice fell at the last minute on Abdullah given the young age of his half-brother. The two princes are the sons of two different wives, respectively Princess Muna (from whom the king had divorced in 1972) in the case of Abdullah and the powerful Queen Noor in the case of Hamza. As if that were not enough, although the title of Crown Prince remained in Hamza probably to respect the original will of King Hussein, Abdullah took it from him in 2004 to give it to his son Hussein, creating further resentment among clan members close to Queen Noor[12]. Although the dynamics of the events in April are not entirely clear, they show that the Hashemite family is far from united and that any further coups in the future are not to be excluded.
Refugees
One of the most dramatic consequences of the events that have taken place in neighboring countries is the huge number of refugees living in Jordan today. Although the United Nations has set up registers to quantify this segment of the population, the exact numbers are unknown because hundreds of thousands of refugees are not registered. What is certain, however, is that Jordan is at the top of the world in the number of refugees. The largest community is the Palestinian one, which has arrived several times since 1948 and today has about 2.2 million units registered at UNRWA[13]. The Syrians, who have arrived since the start of the 2011 civil war, are officially about 658,000, but numerous estimates suggest that they are actually 1.3 million because a large proportion of this population is not officially registered[14]. These are huge numbers if you consider that the country’s population is about 11 million people[15]. Other important refugee communities are Iraqi, Yemeni and Lebanese. The historical ties with Palestine and the fact that about half of the Jordanian population has Palestinian origins meant that a large part of the refugees in this community have been naturalized. To date, it is estimated that 18% of Palestinians live in 10 refugee camps set up by the United Nations[16]. Much more complicated is the situation of the Syrians, who have not received Jordanian citizenship and who have not been given sufficient work permits. What makes the picture even more dramatic is the fact that half of this population is composed of children and about the same percentage of women[17], vulnerable categories frequently subject to sexual and gender violence, early marriage and forced prostitution[18]. Finally, two chronic problems are the difficulty of feeding all the refugees, which often causes the death of the most fragile, and the maintenance of security in the refugee camps, an onerous task entrusted to the Jordanian police. Almost needless to say, the refugee issue involves considerable economic and security issues for the state, whose eventual collapse would lead to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. For this reason, in the aftermath of the disastrous withdrawal of Washington and its allies from Afghanistan, the Hashemite leadership has declared that it will not grant refugee status to any refugees from Central Asia, granting only the right of transit to 2,500 persons bound for the United States[19].
Terrorism
Jordan is one of the states most affected by the problem of terrorism despite the relatively low number of attacks on its territory. The phenomenon has its roots in the years of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, when groups of Muslim foreign fighters supported by the United States poured into the country to fight jihad against the Red Army. Among these was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian citizen who later became famous for being one of the most ruthless exponents of al-Qaeda in Iraq[20]. When the fighters returned home, they brought with them an enormous amount of knowledge in the field of guerrilla warfare and a vision of Islam strongly hostile to all non-Muslims. The underestimation of this phenomenon by governments allowed them to lay the foundations of terrorist organizations whose most mature fruits are today al-Qaeda and ISIS[21]. Fundamentalist doctrines in fact have found fertile ground among young people of the poorest sections of the population and among refugees, the latter community, also exposed to the phenomenon of terrorist infiltrations. There are copious al-Qaeda and ISIS cells in the country. As already mentioned, Jordanian was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, active in Iraq until his killing in 2006. About ten years later several foreign fighters went to fight for ISIS in Syria and Iraq. According to a study, Jordan is the fifth state in the world for the origin of foreign fighters with 2,000 official cases and about 2,500 unofficial. If instead the number of fighters per million inhabitants is counted, the country rises to the third place (303 foreign fighters)[22]. To counter the phenomenon, the Hashemite family has joined the US-led coalition in the fight against terrorism from the very first hour. Jordan’s contributions to the coalition concern primarily the intelligence sphere but also the military sphere. As far as the first case is concerned, it is known that there are close contacts between the Secret Service, Mukhabarat, and the CIA. On several occasions, the Jordanians have provided the Allies with important information which has led to the capture or killing of important terrorists such as al-Zarqawi himself[23]. Jordan has also long been an important hub for extraordinary rendition operations. These operations included the arrest of terrorists or suspected terrorists and the forced transfer to prisons in countries such as the Hashemite Kingdom where they would be subjected to interrogations under torture[24]. As for the military, Jordan contributed to counter-terrorism operations in Syria and Iraq by conducting air strikes in territories controlled by terrorist organizations and provided the air base "Prince Hassan" Coalition military aircraft engaged at the front[25].
Palestinian question
For the Hashemite dynasty, Palestine is both a burden and an important diplomatic asset. The fact that at least half of the country’s population is of Palestinian origin requires the House to be constantly involved in matters beyond the Jordan. Despite the loss of the West Bank in 1967 and the official renunciation in 1988, many people think that this link is impossible to dissolve. In the aftermath of the Six-Day War, Israeli General Yigal Allon proposed a partial restitution of the West Bank territories (to be excluded would be primarily East Jerusalem and several areas considered strategically important) in exchange for a peace agreement[26]. In the early 2000s, Israeli Tourism Minister Binyamin Elon acted as spokesman for an initiative whereby Israel would annex the West Bank and absorb Jordan, with special funds guaranteed by the international community, the Palestinians in the region in a process that would have led it to change the name of the state in Palestine. A few years after the Plan Allon even King Hussein himself had drawn up his own initiative based on the exchange of land in the function of a peace with Israel[27]. The initiative, however, was immediately rejected by the Head of Government Golda Meir as it provided for the Israeli surrender of East Jerusalem, which would become the capital of the West Bank district of the new state Hashemite, the "United Arab Kingdom"[28]. The initiative was also boycotted by the Palestinian factions, which wanted the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Although this option is still being considered in Amman[29], over time the interests of the Hashemite house have focused on other dynamics, leading it to embrace the two-state solution. The issue of refugees is increasingly weighing on the coffers of the Kingdom, and the birth of an independent state beyond the Jordan River is seen as a possibility of getting rid of a large part of the Palestinian refugees. Israel is also an essential partner in at least two areas: water and the fight against terrorism. For these reasons, the Jordanian diplomatic efforts have focused on safeguarding the two-state solution and maintaining good relations with Israel. The link with the West Bank, however, is also an important asset in the hands of the Hashemites. It gives them a leading role in any initiative to tackle the Palestinian issue. This role has guaranteed the return to the management, even if combined with Israel, of the Esplanade of the Mosques, a reason of great prestige for the Crown especially after losing the custody of Mecca and Medina.
Speaking in an Aristotelian way, the factors listed above make Jordan a country unstable in power. The ability of the Hashemite family to juggle internal and external challenges, however, has effectively ensured a degree of stability. As can be easily inferred, this balance requires a constant effort to be able to function as it does not rest on solid foundations. This balance also owes much to the efforts of foreign powers, and especially to the United States. For this reason, it will be interesting to understand what role Washington wants to give Jordan in the framework of its disengagement from the region.
[1] Clifford Edmund Bosworth, “The New Islamic Dynasties: A chronological and genealogical manual”, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1996, pp. 210-212 (online version).
[2] Climate-diplomacy.org, “Jordan and Israel: Tensions and Water Cooperation in the Middle-East”, (https://climate-diplomacy.org/case-studies/jordan-and-israel-tensions-and-water-cooperation-middle-east, ultima consultazione 01/11/2021).
[3] Jordan Strategy Forum, “Jordanian Expatriates in the Gulf. Who Remits, How much & Why?”, July 2018, p. 8.
[4] U.S. Department of State, “U.S. Relation with Jordan”, 30 December 2020.
[5] Congressional Research Service, “Jordan: Background and U.S. Relations”, 15 July 2021, pp. 14-16.
[6] Yasmina Abouzzohour, “Heavy lies the crown: The survival of Arab monarchies, 10 years after the Arab Spring”, Brookings, 9 March 2021.
[7] Worldometers.info “Population of Jordan (2020 and historical)”, (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/jordan-population/#:~:text=Jordan%202020%20population%20is%20estimated,298%20people%20per%20mi2), ultima consultazione 01/11/2021).
[8] The World Bank, “Unemployment, youth total (% of labor force ages 15-24) – Jordan”, 15 June 2021.
[9] World Food Program, “Jordan – Country Brief”, August 2021.
[10] Human Rights Watch, “Jordan – Events of 2019”, 2019-2020.
[11] Osama al Sharif, “King appoints new commission for political reform in Jordan”, Al-Monitor, 17 June 2021.
[12] BBC News, “Jordan’s royal rift: A family feud erupts – but who’s actually involved?”, 7 April 2021.
[13] UNRWA, “Protection in Jordan”, March 2018.
[14] Acaps.org, “Jordan Syrian Refugees”, (https://www.acaps.org/country/jordan/crisis/syrian-refugees, ultima consultazione 01/11/2021).
[15] Jordan Department of Statistics Website (http://dosweb.dos.gov.jo/ar/, ultima consultazione 01/11/2021).
[16] UNRWA, “Where we work – Jordan”(https://www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/jordan, ultima consultazione 01/11/2021).
[17] World Food Program USA, “10 facts About the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Jordan”, 29 October 2021.
[18] The Sexual and Gender Based Violence Sub Working Group in Jordan, “Sexual and Gender Based Violence – Refugees in Jordan”, June 2015.
[19] Raed Omari, “Jordan will only be transit point for Afghan evacuees on their way to US”, Arab News, 25 August 2021.
[20] Mary Anne Weaver, “The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi”, The Atlantic, July/August 2006.
[21] Amber Atteridge, “Foreign Fighters Post Conflict: Assessing the Impact of Arab Afghans and Syrian-Iraqi Foreign Fighters on Global Security”, IDC Herzliya – International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Spring 2016, pp. 9-18.
[22] Efraim Benmelech, Esteban K. Flor, “What Explains the Flow of Foreign Fighters to ISIS?”, Terrorism and Political Violence 32 (7), May 2017, pp. 23, 26.
[23] Shane Harris, “The Mouse that Roars”, Foreign Policy, 12 September 2014.
[24] The Guardian, “Extraordinary rendition: a backstory”, 31 August 2011.
[25] Kathleen J. McInnis, “Coalition Contributions to Countering the Islamic State”, Congressional Research Service, 24 August 2016, p. 9.
[26] Laura Canali, “Il Piano Allon e la restituzione del Sinai”, Limes 9/14, 6 ottobre 2014.
[27] “King Hussein’s Plan for a Federation – 15 March 1972”, via Economic Cooperation Foundation (https://ecf.org.il/media_items/976, ultima consultazione 01/11/2021).
[28] “Statement to the Knesset by Prime Minister Meir - 16 March 1972” via Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (https://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/mfadocuments/yearbook1/pages/37%20statement%20to%20the%20knesset%20by%20prime%20minister%20meir.aspx, ultima consultazione 01/11/2021).
[29] Hasan Ismaik, “Unite Jordan and Palestine – Again”, Foreign Policy, 15 October 2021.