What’s the deal with the anti-Israel protests in Jordan?

Over the past few weeks, Jordan has witnessed anti-Israel protests — a little below 3,000 protesters at best, chanting Islamic slogans and support for the Palestinian terror group Hamas.  In this article, I will prove that the protests are staged by Jordan’s regime.

Abdullah II, the king of Jordan, known by Jordanians as “Ali Baba,” is fully allied with the Muslim Brotherhood.  He inherited this defiled marriage from his late father, so it is nothing new.  The Brotherhood is the Hashemite regime’s party just as much as the Baath party is Assad’s.  Abdullah has already acknowledged this in more than one interview with Western media — for example, with The Atlantic, to whom he said, “The Muslim Brotherhood is part of the system.”  The king’s shameless support of the Muslim Brotherhood is not a secret even to the English-speaking reader.  One does not need to look beyond the American Thinker to see the abundant evidence.

In a police state like Abdullah’s kingdom, the demonstrations in front of the Israeli embassy in Amman could never take place without permission from the king’s intelligence.  The anti-Israeli rhetoric and calls for “knocking down” the Israeli embassy are promoted by the king-controlled media.  The protests are led on the ground by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, who would never do this without coordinating with Abdullah’s security forces.

The police have even opened roads for the demonstrators to reach the Israeli embassy.  Considering that they had previously closed off the entire area, why open those roads now?

Some of the king’s officials have sounded off complaints against the protests, claiming they are “compromising Jordan’s stability,” just to be shut down on April 3, 2023 by an official Jordanian statement: “The protesters’ stance is identical to the Jordanian state’s.”  Nonetheless, some American media outlets and American Middle East “experts” have picked up the rhetoric that Jordan’s king’s position “was being threatened by the Muslim Brotherhood.”

This fiasco is the oldest trick in the book.  What Abdullah is doing is simply crying wolf and intimidating the West by claiming that “there is no alternative to him to rule Jordan, as everyone else is crazy” and that he is “Israel’s only option to protect her borders.”

What Abdullah is failing to recognize here is that the world has changed since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks, in which more than 1,400 Israeli civilians perished.  Neither the Israelis nor the Americans bit this time; they are not buying the king’s shenanigans, and they now acknowledge the king’s public ties to Hamas.  An example of this is Hamas leader Khaled Meshal’s statement in Turkey in 2016: “We coordinate with our brothers in the Jordanian government daily,” as Hamas officially remains “the Palestine Chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.”

These narrischkeit (that is, foolish) moves, directed by Jordan’s king and his ruling partner, Queen Rania, are no longer getting ticket-buyers from the Jordanian people.  Most of the protesters are known Muslim Brotherhood members, agents of Jordan’s king’s intelligence desk, and officers from the Preventive Security Bureau — Jordan’s copy of the Stasi.  In fact, the demonstrators, knowing that they are protected by the kinglet and his wife, have even threatened police officers (those wearing uniforms, not the intelligence agents) with retaliation from “Queen” Rania.  This has been documented with videos.  One female protester can be seen yelling at police officers: “By God, if only our mistress Rania knew, you would all be roughed up.”

The king’s behavior should not come as a surprise to anyone.  He is used to getting away with such scare tactics, and they have worked for him thus far.  But he is also acting mindlessly, because now he is in trouble: the last fig leaf has fell off the Hashemite regime when a Jordanian parliament member was caught red-handed smuggling weapons to terrorists in Israel.  That member was too close to the king and his son Hussein.

I can authoritatively confirm that there is an abundance of evidence of the king’s involvement with Hamas, from both before and after the October 7 terrorist attacks, with evidence about this matter shared among Washington, D.C.; London; and Jerusalem.  The king’s and his wife’s smoke-and-mirror tactics are no longer working.

Simply put, Abdullah has been causing chaos and unrest in his country — a risky gamble, which we, Jordanians, Palestinians, and Israelis are most likely to end up paying for.  At the same time, Abdullah and his wife have been leading a hate campaign against Israel.  An example of this is his demonization of Israel right from the White House podium.  This man has become a threat to both Israelis and Arabs.

At the same time, nobody has a plan B “for the day after” aside from the Jordanian Opposition, which we have been preparing for a decade.  We look for the coming decisive moment as we seek a republic whose identity will be Islamic and whose constitution will be secular.  Our relationship with Israel will be a true partnership based on securing rights and fairness for all.  Having Israel as our staunchest partner is way better than the humiliation, extortion, and arrogance the Jordanian people have suffered at the hands of the Hashemites and other Arab regimes for so long.

Yes, the hearts of our people are mostly in the wrong place now when it comes to peace, but this could be changed through the decisive will of peace-seeking leadership.  Right now, Jordan does not have this.

Image: Patrik Neckman via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.