AMMAN — Jordan’s government increasingly finds itself forced to confront an emboldened Islamist movement, which has begun to publicly demonstrate its ability to mobilize popular opinion against the regime.
This came amid security concerns about the presence of what one Jordanian political and security source called “Hamas sleeper cells within the Muslim Brotherhood,” that are loyal to Iran and are waiting for the right opportunity to strike in order to destabilize the regime.”
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The new government and the regime’s “deep state” establishment were reportedly shocked by the mobilization rallied by the Islamist movement last Friday, after it welcomed, with unprecedented boldness, the ultimately unsuccessful infiltration operation into Israel from the south of the Dead Sea.
The operation was carried out by two young men affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Israeli forces killed both men. The Islamic Action Front — the longstanding political party of the Muslim Brotherhood — hailed the operation as “heroic,” which some Jordanian officials viewed as a claim of responsibility.
A step back
The initial Friday statement was followed by a call to join what they called “the wedding of the two martyrs, Hesab Abu Ghazaleh and Amer Al-Qawas.”
But in the evening another statement was released, this time from the Muslim Brotherhood itself. Using diplomatic language, the group said the operation was “heroic, but an individual act,” and that it “came as a reaction from Jordanian youth, to avenge the ongoing Israeli crimes against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Islamic holy sites. ”
The operation was not individual at all.
The Brotherhood’s general supervisor Murad al-Adaylah told Daraj that the group issued the statement to end the confusion that resulted from the Action Front’s initial reaction: “Praising is not claiming responsibility. We praise every act of resistance against the Israeli occupation, because it is permissible in international law and divine laws.”
A Jordanian politician, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the details of the operation indicate that “the Brotherhood has people who carry out military operations using Jordanian territory, and in coordination with the Qassam Brigades (Hamas’ military wing), without the knowledge of the Jordanian authorities … The operation was not individual at all.”
Different scenarios
Jordanian security and governmental agencies have been deliberating options to respond to the operation based on several proposed scenarios, including bringing charges against the leaders of the Islamic Action Front party for destabilizing the country. Other have suggested implementing the Court of Cassation’s four-year-old decision to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan altogether.
The timing of the response is unclear, but it’s expected that the escalation will begin after the government gains confidence from the new Parliament. The Brotherhood’s Action Front party earned nearly one-third of the nation’s vote in recent parliamentary elections.
Al-Adaylah, for his part, cast doubt on these scenarios.
“The relationship between the group and the state is a rare model in the region that must be preserved,” he said. “The state knows who the Brotherhood is. And I believe that it will not resort to options that allow matters to escalate domestically.”
Nevertheless, the public and political debate, online and off, has not let up. Some writers and journalists close to the government have demanded the Islamic movement to clarify its position toward the operation.
Accountability and embarrassment
Jordan’s newly appointed Prime Minister Jaafar Hassan on Saturday gave a veiled message that could explain the incoming response. He said the state “will not allow the country to become an arena for strife or to replicate the models of devastation and destruction around us.”
Sources talked about “strong messages” threatening to “hold the group accountable,” and “not allow it to disregard the state and manipulate the feelings of the tense street.”
Israeli officials have repeatedly accused Jordan of helping smuggle weapons into our country.
“The leadership of the Brotherhood, which we are accustomed to rising to provide its ability to mobilize the street, quickly retreats whenever it senses danger,” said a senior government official, adding that they began to take a step back after understanding the extent and dimensions of hailing the operation.
Israeli officials have repeatedly accused Jordan of “helping smuggle weapons into our country.” They called for the Jordanian government to bear its responsibility. Jordan denied the Israeli accusations.
Martyrs’ wedding
Another Jordanian official told Daraj that the government will resort to other means in dealing with the Brotherhood, but others warn that the organization should re-evaluate its method of operation. “Jordan is the only country that has not yet banned its activities,” despite the fact that Amman is under strong pressure from the United Arab Emirates, the only Gulf state that helps the Jordanian treasury, to ban the Brotherhood.
The images of the thousands who took part in the “martyrs’ wedding” after the evening prayer in a suburb of the capital remain fresh in the minds of many. Qawas’ father was carried on shoulders, and chants of support for Hamas and its political and military leaders were heard.
I am writing my will
Hours earlier, before the Israeli army announced their death, the assailants could be seen on social media posts shared by Jordanians, in which they declared themselves “martyrs of Gaza.”
Abu Ghazaleh declared that he chose his fate “while seeing Islam being slaughtered and so many slit throats, and our brothers in Gaza have been suffering pain and tasting the bitterness of betrayal for more than a year.”
For his part, Qawas said he was “writing my will … after a year of our brothers being killed and displaced in Gaza by the usurping occupation, and after the unjust silence and complete betrayal of our people in Gaza by the world.”
Netanyahu’s hammer
With each passing day, Israel’s aggressive behavior in the West Bank and Gaza has begun to threaten Jordan’s security and stability, amid stifling economic and living pressures.
The Kingdom has become trapped between the hammer of Netanyahu’s right-wing expansionist government policies, and the anvil of the growing influence of the discourse of the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance in the region.
There are real concerns among some government officials that Jordan could become a regional flashpoint as a result of the Gaza war, because it hosts an American military base, and shares the longest border with the occupied territories, as well as with Syria and Iraq, where Armed factions and militias supported by Iran are active, adopting a political line hostile to Amman.
