Jordan’s Reaction to the Gaza War: Caught Between the Public and the ‘Big Bad World’

Amman has made no secret of its aims vis-à-vis the current Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. As stated by official government spokesman and Minis­ter of Government Communications Muhannad al-Mubaidin, Jordan set three goals in light of the current crisis: stopping the war, providing aid to the population in Gaza, and renewing the political process towards a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. This policy is driven by the Hashem­ite Kingdom’s fear that Israel will attempt to nega­tively alter the status of the Palestinian territories and/or the Holy Places in Jerusalem, for example through their internationalization.

But beyond this general outline, what consider­ations guide the Jordanian position, and what prac­tical steps does Amman take to promote its inter­ests as the war rages on? The Hashemite Kingdom is forced to balance three different considerations: local politics, international politics, and a potential refugee problem. To account for all three, Jordan has adopted a controlled pro-Palestinian stance, that expresses solidarity with the Palestinian cause without overly endangering its foreign relations and demographic composition.

Balancing Three Considerations

Starting with the national consideration: the Gaza conflict has unleashed a wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations across Jordan, occurring daily or weekly all across the country and bringing together thousands of people of both Palestinian and East Bank origin. The protesters adopted a militant stance in support of Hamas and against Israel and the United States. Among their slogans were "Wadi Araba [The Jordanian-Israeli peace agree­ment] is not peace, but surrender", "They say Hamas is terrorist, all of Jordan is Hamas", "Go, go Hamas", "Resistance is our choice", and "America is the head of the snake". Their demands from the regime have included shutting down the Israeli and American embassies; adopting a more proactive stance against Israel’s policy in Gaza; and revok­ing all Jordanian-Israeli agreements, including the 1994 peace treaty. Apart from the protests, other powerful manifestations of the pro-Palestinian sentiments in Jordan were the 11 December 2023 private-sector strike in solidarity with Gaza and a popular boycott of Israeli goods. This bottom-up outcry also found parliamentary backing: Islamist MPs threatened to resign unless Amman assumed a more active stance against Israel, and the House of Representatives unanimously agreed to instruct its Legal Committee to review all agreements with Israel, attaching the recommendation to condi­tion their validity with a ceasefire in Gaza. Even if this decision is mainly symbolic without tangible backing from the King, Government, or Senate, it certainly serves to add to the pressure on political leaders to take action.

The overwhelming solidarity with Palestine is hardly surprising in Jordan, where most of the citizens are of at least part-Palestinian descent and surveys reveal that anti-Israeli sentiments are commonplace. However, many observers were surprised at the extent of the public dissent and the open challenge it posed to Amman’s official pol­icy. The Jordanian leadership, still bruised with the 2021 upheavals that peaked with Prince Hamzeh’s alleged attempt to overthrow King Abdullah II, is forced to adopt some pro-Palestinian stance, lest the popular rage will be turned against it and lead to a loss of Crown/government legitimacy, or even to riots and open violence.

On the other hand, the Kingdom cannot afford to fully take the Palestinian side due to international considerations, which encourage it to assume a more pro-Israeli and anti-Islamist stance. First, while Amman generally aims to support the Pal­estinians, its particular relations with Hamas are strained. Since 1999 the Islamist faction is banned in Jordan for illegitimate activity against the King­dom, and arrest warrants were issued against senior Hamas officials. Even during the current conflict the King saw fit to remind that only Fatah could serve as the Palestinian representative in a two-state solution with Israel, and Foreign Minis­ter Ayman al-Safadi emphasized that Jordan advo­cates Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, as opposed to Hamas’s armed struggle approach.

Amman also has unfriendly relations with Hamas’s umbrella organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, and its Jordanian branch. The Kingdom cracked down on the Brotherhood in recent years, a pro­cess that culminated in the official dissolution of the Brotherhood in 2020 by the Jordanian Court of Cessation, under the charge of illegal conduct. Nev­ertheless, some parts of the Brotherhood continue to operate legally in the country, including in the parliamentary sphere through the Islamic Action Party. It has played a key role in organizing the pro-Palestinian protests, in the hope to outflank the regime on Palestine and garner support at its expense. This behavior prompted Prime Minister Bisher al-Khasawneh to hint that Brotherhood sup­porters in Jordan were a "fifth column".

Jordan also cannot afford to excessively compro­mise its relations with Israel, with which it still has important security cooperation and on which it is dependent for water and especially for natural gas. Too strong an action against Israel might also endanger the Kingdom’s relations with the United States, which at least initially offered the Israelis military and diplomatic support for their Gaza operation and provides much-needed economic and military aid to Jordan. Security collabora­tion with Israel and the United States is especially important in a time when Iran and Syria report­edly attempt to exploit the Gaza war to destabi­lize Jordan, deepen their local influence, and turn the Kingdom into a smuggling hub of drugs and weapons. This tension even culminated in Jorda­nian airstrikes in Syria in January. These threats are among the reasons that prompted Amman to make its 2024 security budget the biggest one yet.

The refugee consideration is Amman’s fear that waves of displaced Palestinians would make their way into the Hashemite Kingdom. Al-Safadi warned that an Israeli uprooting of Palestinians in the West Bank would be considered a declaration of war against Jordan; other high-ranking officials, includ­ing the King, also repeatedly warned against ban­ishment of Palestinians. Furthermore the King initially stated that his country would not receive refugees from Gaza and that this was a "red line", although his stance later moderated, announcing that Jordan would accept Palestinians if neces­sary but still preferred to help them within their territories.

Amman fears that an influx of refugees could bur­den it with additional economic strain, while it is still recovering from the financial ramifications of Covid and is already grappling with a large group of Syrian refugees in its territory. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Ref­ugees (UNHCR), as of 30 November 2023 there were approximately 730,000 registered refugees in Jordan, which made the Kingdom the country hosting the second-highest number of refugees per capita worldwide. Amman complained in the past that it was not helped enough in handling the Syrians, and again finds itself dependent on Amer­ican aid, in the form of large contributions through UNHCR. Apart from the economic consideration, a mass entry of Palestinians to Jordan might pres­ent an opportunity for hostile elements like Hamas or Iran to further infiltrate the country, and/or inflame the already-delicate demographic equilib­rium between Palestinians and East Bankers. The fear of a refugee spillover means that, despite its sympathy to the Palestinian plight, Amman is reluc­tant to host Palestinians in Jordan itself.

The Policy: A Controlled Pro-Palestinian Stance

In response to these considerations, Amman for­mulated a strategy in which the Jordanian state unequivocally expresses its support for the Pal­estinians but does so through relatively mild and consensual steps that do not overly destabilize its foreign relations or demography.

The first pillar of this policy is diplomatic and declar­ative steps, designed to condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza and express Amman’s dedication to the Palestinians. This began with the Jordanian state­ment released after the Hamas terror offensive on 7 October: the Kingdom’s announcement refrained from addressing Hamas’s actions and even accused Israel of escalating the situation through "Israeli attacks and violations on the Palestinian people and the Muslim and Christian Holy Places" in the West Bank, as well as by "depriving the Palestin­ian people of their rights". The statement called to "stop all provocative measures that perpetuate the [Israeli] occupation, violate the rights of the Palestinian people, and push toward escalation". Al-Safadi would later insist that this statement did contain a censure of Hamas’s onslaught, because "We condemned the killing of all civilians from both sides".

As Israel prolonged and deepened its war in Gaza, Amman responded with a flurry of diplomatic maneuvers. The Jordanian ambassador to Israel was recalled, and the Israeli ambassador who was outside the Kingdom at the time was asked not to return. Amman also promoted United Nations resolutions to enforce a ceasefire as well as to reit­erate the sovereignty of the Palestinian territories. Additionally, it offered to back the South African file accusing Israel of a genocide in the International Court of Justice, emphasizing here too that the ille­gal Israeli occupation of Palestine must end. The Kingdom cancelled an American-Jordanian-Egyp­tian-Palestinian summit with American President Joe Biden on his way from Israel due on late Octo­ber 2023. It further retracted an earlier agreement to sign a new energy-for-water agreement with its neighbor, brokered by the United Arab Emirates as part of the Israeli-UAE Abraham Accords.

Apart from formal diplomatic actions, Jordanian officials harshly condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza. To give a few examples, King Abdullah described them as a "collective punishment" and a "war crime"; Queen Rania questioned the reported scale of the 7 October terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas and said that Israel was administering a land-occupying apartheid regime and a "slow-mo­tion mass murder of children"; and al-Safadi accused Israel of a genocide, called for a Western arms embargo against it, and claimed that it was violating the peace agreement by failing to prog­ress into a two-state solution with the Palestin­ians and thus "the [Jordanian-Israeli] peace deal will have to remain on the back burner gathering dust for now".

Despite the institutional censure of Israel, Jordan by no means gave a carte blanche for anti-Israeli activity in the Kingdom. In fact, while sounding the "right opinion", Amman also works to suppress what it considers to be overly extreme anti-Is­raeli sentiments. For example, when protest­ers attempted to gather at the Israeli border or storm the Israeli embassy they were blocked and removed by the security forces. The Jordanian Public Security Directorate announced it would not allow any kind of protest around the border, and emphasized the prohibition on "all gathering at any site or places that could disrupt aspects of life or endanger citizens". Human rights organizations claim that at least 1,000 pro-Palestine activists have been arrested or harassed for criticizing the Jordanian agreements with Israel or for support­ing strikes and protests. On other occasions, the government’s response was not force, but discour­agement. For example, after the general strike in solidarity with Palestine, al-Mubaidin said that while the cause was appreciated, the means cho­sen were harmful to the Jordanian economy and therefore proposed to redirect this energy to more fruitful endeavors, like donating profits to Gaza. As of early April 2024, Amman still has not revoked or suspended any of its existing agreements with Israel, despite the public and parliamentary pres­sure to do so.

A second pillar of the controlled pro-Palestinian approach is humanitarian aid, which was identified as an avenue to appease pro-Palestinians with­out antagonizing others. Amman was engaged in relief efforts in Gaza before the current conflict, and after war broke out, the Kingdom immedi­ately deemed the shipment of additional aid nec­essary. King Abdullah hosted various local and international meetings that focused on providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza. Additionally, the Jordanian Army and the Hashemite Charity Organization shipped various types of equipment and provisions to the Strip. The King participated in the delivery of one airdrop; his daughter Prin­cess Salma personally delivered another. The Kingdom also established new field hospitals to service Gazans both in Gaza and the West Bank (the former was visited by Crown Prince Hussein), and a tent city was set up east of Amman in case refugees did end up in Jordan.

The third pillar is international partnerships with other countries that share Jordan’s above-men­tioned concerns. Chief among these is Egypt, a country equally worried about the prospect of a Palestinian exodus into its territory. King Abdul­lah was quoted saying "I think I can speak here on behalf of Jordan … but also our friends in Egypt: This is a red line … no refugees to Jordan and also no refugees to Egypt…". The two leaderships met several times and published joint statements call­ing against the displacement of Palestinians and in favor of a prompt ceasefire. The linkage between the cessation of hostilities and the displacement is simple: a swift end to the war would prevent a further deterioration in the Palestinian territo­ries, meaning that the Palestinians could stay put and be helped within the confines of their terri­tory. Amman and Cairo seek together the support of other powers, chief among them is Washing­ton, which – despite its early support of the Israeli operation in Gaza – now seems increasingly will­ing to pressure the Israelis to enter ceasefire and avoid further harm to Palestinian civilians. In Jan­uary-February 2024 Biden and King Abdullah held a summit and Washington gave its blessing to a political program proposed by Jordan, Egypt, and the Gulf States for the restoration of Gaza. This plan entailed Saudi recognition of Israel as well as Arab aid for the reconstruction of the Strip, in exchange for an Israeli road-map toward Pales­tinian statehood. However, the plan fell through, probably due to Israeli resistance. In late March, the United States refused to veto a Security Coun­cil resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza despite pro­tecting the Israeli offensive in this forum until late February; this American change of heart might be at least partly due to Israel’s rejection of the Arab Gaza plan.

Conclusion: Pushed to the Brink?

It seems that Amman landed its most powerful diplomatic blows on Israel during the first weeks of the Gaza war, and later mostly confined itself to hardline rhetoric against the Israelis, coupled with humanitarian aid for the Palestinians. In December 2023 it was reported that the Brotherhood decided to curb its pro-Palestinian activity, fearing govern­ment retaliation. Nevertheless, as protests still occur,42 and Israeli officials warn that the war will last several more months, public pressure on Amman might still rise and force Jordan to make difficult choices between internal stability and for­eign interests.