Could Jordan’s royal appeasement of Islamic extremism lead to the fall of the Hashemites?

By Jonathan Feldstein

September continues to go down as a bad month for peace in the Middle East, particularly relating to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Israel, and Palestinian Arab terrorists.

This week we mark the anniversary of the failed Oslo Accords, which was supposed to accept Israel’s legitimacy and right to exist, end Palestinian Arab terror, and usher in peace. The Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. Oslo became a foothold for Yasser Arafat, the PLO, and Hamas, to bring their genocidal terror closer to and within Israel’s borders.  Thousands have been killed and injured since and as a result. 

This week, a Jordanian national opened fire at the Allenby Bridge (King Hussein) border crossing between Israel and Jordan, killing three Israelis.

This week, throngs of Jordanian civilians marched in solidarity with the terrorist at his funeral, celebrating the murder of three Israeli civilians.

This week, Jordan held elections resulting in the Muslim Brotherhood Islamist Action Front (IAF) winning 31 out of 138 seats in Jordan’s parliament, tripling its representation. While the total voter turnout was a mere 32%, Israel’s war against Hamas was a motivating domestic issue drawing more voters to the Islamist party. The election result is a direct result of rabid public statements by King Abdullah II, and especially his wife, Queen Rania, brazenly fomenting broad public anger for and disdain at Israel, emboldening the Islamists domestically, and other Iranian terrorist proxies.

Last week of course we remembered the mother of all Islamic terrorist attacks on September 11, the ideology behind which is still alive and “well”, threatening all of us in Israel, the US, and around the world.

While quietly King Abdullah cooperates with Israel, the US, and others to preserve his monarchy, and participate in a coalition to prevent Iran from attacking Israel, by making vile anti-Israel statements, he emboldens the Islamists domestically, in Iran, and elsewhere, who would overthrow him in an instant. By supporting anti-Israel sentiments and actions in Jordan, he is enabling his own downfall.

Iran’s influence has played out through increased smuggling of weapons, cash, and terrorists across the 192-mile Jordanian-Israeli border, with a growing number of Jordanians as willing partners. It’s no secret that Iran has set its crosshairs on the Hashemite Kingdom, and will use King Abdullah’s own weakness against him, turning it into the Islamic Republic of Jordan at the earliest opportunity.  In addition to the increased Iranian influence threatening King Abdullah and his monarchy, it also threatens Israel and the entire Middle East which is why it has such willing partners among Jordan’s growing extremist Islamists. 

Underscoring Jordan’s increased radicalism, in addition to the IAF Islamist victory this week, the celebrated Jordanian terrorist Maher Dhiab Hussein al-Jazi who murdered three Israelis was a Bedouin from the southern Jordanian region of Husseiniya, and member of the prominent Huitat tribe. Bedouin are not Palestinian Arabs who make up the majority of Jordan, and considered to be loyal to the King. Maybe not so much anymore, and maybe they now represent an additional internal threat.

Fifty-four years ago, in September 1970, King Abdullah’s father, King Hussein, dealt with a different domestic threat very differently. Black September was a bloody conflict fought between the King’s loyal Jordanian Armed Forces and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorist group. From September 16-27, 1970, King Hussein’s army crushed an armed insurgency featuring PLO hijacking of civilian planes to Jordan, and threatening his legitimacy.  Rather than giving an inch to the PLO terrorists, King Hussein obliterated them, killing tens of thousands, and expelling the PLO presence that had entrenched itself in Jordan. (It’s worth noting that nobody protested Jordan’s slaughtering of so many Palestinian Arabs.)

Why is the threat against Jordan, the King, and the Hashemite monarchy still so real? Jordan is a state that was simply made up in 1921, after Britian lobbed off some 80 percent of the territory of what was referred to as “Palestine” to reward its Hashemite allies. Initially it had the imaginative and geographically correct name, Transjordan, reflecting that it was the eastern part of the British Mandate for Palestine, the other side of the Jordan River, with no previous unique history. The Hashemite monarchy was founded as the Emirate of Transjordan after Britian imported the Hashemite clan that was indigenous to Arabia, to create two new states – Transjordan and Iraq, under King Abdullah I and his cousin King Feisal, respectively. 

Neither Fesial nor Transjordan lasted long.  Feisel was overthrown and murdered in 1958, ending two decades of Hashemite rule. Transjordan achieved independence in 1946, and rebranded its name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1949.  Abdullah I became Jordan’s first king in a territory that was mostly ethnically Palestinian Arab, with a small minority of Hashemites ruling. He was assassinated by a Palestinian Arab in 1951, and succeeded by Hussein.

Jordan and the Hashemites had largely been a moderating force since before Israel declared independence. King Abdullah I was known to have met with Israeli leaders in secret, to prevent what became the War of Independence which Jordan, in concert with other Arab armies, lost. King Hussein maintained contact with Israeli leaders that could have prevented Jordan entering, and losing in the Six Day War. After a Jordanian soldier killed several Israeli school girls, the King made an unprecedented gesture, visiting the mourning families and apologizing.

I wish it would remain this way, but it seems that in order to preserve his reign today, King Abdullah II is saying, doing, and enabling things that are hostile to Israel, embolden the extremists, and which ultimately will threaten him and the 78-year-old kingdom. The last thing he would do would to be to apologize for, much less visit the three families that are mourning, the murder this week at the hands of a Jordanian truck driver.

Rather than maintaining the “legacy” of September being a bloody month that empowers terrorists, King Abdullah should start today, to build warm public relations with Israel, in his own interest, that of his monarchy, of Israel, and the Middle East on the whole.  Rather than appeasing Islamists, especially this month, Abdullah would do well to learn from his father’s precedent, and prevent the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan from becoming the Islamic Republic of Jordan.

About the writer:

Jonathan Feldstein ­­­­- President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians – is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Jornal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.

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