If a person cannot choose where they are born and who their parents are, the same thing happens to a country, nation or State with its cultural, geographical and geopolitical DNA. Some are consolidated over centuries of history, others have their identity denied or questioned, some are drawn on the map (in Churchill's words) somewhat randomly, by bored officials on a random winter afternoon. Like Sykes and Picot, who were in charge of dividing the old Ottoman empire between France and England after the end of World War I.
Jordan is a small (eleven million inhabitants) and vulnerable country, with limited resources (tourism, potassium and phosphate deposits, some agriculture, some industry), with 22% unemployment and in an explosive location. It has complicated neighbors such as Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and it is the one that shares the largest border with Israel, an enemy in four wars, and which after the Six Days took away an important piece (the West Bank), causing a huge diaspora of refugees. Palestinians. Following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait more than thirty years ago, Iraqi Scud missiles passed through its airspace on their way to Jerusalem. Eight days ago the Iranian drones did it. He can never breathe in peace.
Its demographics and foreign policy are a bomb, which in situations like the current one (Gaza war, exchange of attacks between Iran and Israel) seems like it could explode at any moment. It welcomes around three million Palestinian refugees (more than the Gazan population), arriving in various waves from 1948 until now, with different rights depending on their origin, some with Jordanian nationality and others not. They are spread across a dozen camps that are actually suburbs of Amman, neighborhoods or cities in themselves, scattered like those of the Middle East, with their shops, barbershops, restaurants, schools and hospitals.
But apart from the refugees, a couple of million more Jordanians (rich and poor) are of Palestinian origin and create a bloc that represents half of the population of a country that since 1994 has recognized and is at peace with Israel, and is an ally. from Washington, which gives him a billion dollars annually in economic and military aid.
All this forces King Abdullah (whose grandfather of the same name was assassinated in 1951 in the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem by a Palestinian furious at his supposed agreement with Israel for the division of the territory) to do difficult juggling so that the balance does not jump. in the air. On the one hand, he harshly criticizes the war in Gaza, denounces genocide, calls for a ceasefire and a solution based on two states, and has announced the cancellation of a controversial energy-for-water exchange agreement with Israel. On the other hand, it allows US military enclaves (such as the so-called Tower 22 in the northeast of the country) and participated in the downing of Iranian drones (much to the satisfaction of Tel Aviv), even if it was saying that it would have done so regardless of their origin, because it was not about helping anyone but about defending the territory and national sovereignty (in neighborhoods of Amman like Marj al Haman, the holes left by the missiles in the asphalt have already been filled in).
Navigating these swampy waters is proving very difficult for the regime, which has liberalized the economy but is the subject of criticism for issues of nepotism and governance. As everywhere, the population complains of poor services, very high prices and taxes. For months, hundreds of people have been demonstrating after Friday prayers in front of the embassies of Israel and the United States with cries such as “Death to America”, “Open the borders” or “We stand with Gaza”. The riot police do not mess around, they fire tear gas and have made more than a thousand arrests.
Behind the demonstrations, the regime – in need of the loyalty of the army and the intelligence services – sees the hand of the Muslim Brotherhood, who are the main opposition and are capitalizing on the distaste for what many consider a too condescending attitude towards Israel, after the downing of the Iranian drones (it is the only Arab country that participated in the operation, along with the US, France and England), and the unceremonious ban on protests in the border area with the West Bank. Also due to the impact of the conflict on tourism (attractions like Petra and Gerasa are half empty) and the lack of work for young people. The prices are not cheap.
King Hussein was a conjurer who spent 46 years on the throne, whom the West considered his friend and the Palestinians respected. His son Abdullah faces a similar challenge. There are countries like Jordan that seem born from the dream of that drunken god from Heine's poem, who escapes from the divine banquet to sleep his night off on a solitary star, without knowing that he creates everything when he dreams... Or from colonial empires that behave like gods
