25 October 2024

Iran is Gaining Ground in Jordan

Ahmad Sharawi

Jordanians marched in the capital of Amman last week, holding aloft portraits of the late secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. The streets echoed with chants of “Labayk ya Nasrallah” (“We are here, oh Nasrallah”), a Shia chorus of devotion rarely heard in Jordan, which is almost entirely Sunni. Since October 7, it is not just support for Hamas that is rising, but also for other groups within the so-called “axis of resistance” led by Tehran. This trend only adds to the troubles of Jordan’s king, Abdullah II, who finds it ever harder to justify his alignment with Washington to subjects resentful of both economic stagnation and American support for Israel.

More than half of Jordan’s population—perhaps as much as 65 percent—is of Palestinian descent. The country’s unemployment rate is now 21 percent. The people’s sympathy for the Palestinians has always been evident, but increasingly, it takes the form of support for Hamas. At protests on the Palestinians’ behalf, the marchers chant, “Put the bullet in the chamber…We are your men, [Yahya] Sinwar” and “Our army is the army of the free…We are your soldiers, oh Sinwar.” In one instance, demonstrators held a mock funeral for Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader slain by an Israeli bomb in Tehran.

The Islamic Action Front (IAF), which won the most seats in last month’s parliamentary election, has worked to radicalize the population. The IAF is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization from which Hamas also sprang. Iran’s role has been more subtle. Khaled Meshal, the senior Hamas official, helped rouse the population to “take the responsibility” in dealing with Israel during a visit of the Hamas political bureau to Tehran.

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