Whilst the imperialist-backed zionist genocide against the oppressed Palestinian people continues unabated in the besieged Gaza Strip, little attention has been paid to the increasingly volatile situation in neighbouring Jordan.
Culturally speaking, Jordan is arguably the closest Arab state to Palestine, with a majority of Jordanians being of Palestinian descent. To this day, the occupied West Bank is still referred to in Romance languages as ‘Cis-Jordan’, as compared with ‘Transjordan’ (the colonial-era name for the territory).
Indeed, the zionists point to this shared cultural heritage between the two nations to argue that there is no need for a Palestinian state because one supposedly already exists in Jordan – an argument which naturally ignores the fact that the state of Israel remains an illegitimate settler-colonial entity, with no right to an inch of historic Palestine, regardless of whether we consider modern Jordan to be a ‘Palestinian state’ or not.
Unfortunately, the British-installed Hashemite monarchy that has ruled Jordan since its formal independence from Britain has proven to be more politically cunning than its sister monarchies in Egypt and Iraq, which were toppled by progressive nationalist military officers in the 1950s. As a result, Jordan remains firmly controlled by a pro-western comprador clique much as in the Gulf autocracies, albeit with a thin facade of a ‘democratically elected’ parliament.
Jordan recognised and established diplomatic relations with the zionist state in 1994, the second Arab state to do so after Egypt. Jordan’s commitment to this treaty has gone as far as to actively intercept Iranian missiles flying over its territory towards Israel (leading to the deaths of several of its own citizens under the falling debris).
The Jordanian people, on the other hand, have made it very clear through their continuous and militant mass demonstrations that they stand with the oppressed Palestinian people. Unlike protests in European countries, with their ‘respectable’ liberal leadership always at pains to stress its opposition to any form of ‘antisemitism’ (read – support for the armed Palestinian resistance), Jordanian pro-Palestine protests are explicitly supportive of the resistance, and its leading al-Qassam Brigades, routinely chanting slogans that would quickly earn you a violent arrest and a lengthy jail term in most freedom-loving European countries.
Owing to Jordan’s key geographical position directly bordering the occupied West Bank, pro-Palestine protests in Jordan pose a much more serious potential threat to the zionist state than do protests elsewhere around the globe.
Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon and Egypt are all either in relatively remote regions or too heavily guarded for spontaneous mass action to be feasible. By contrast, the official Israel-Jordan border crossing is only a few kilometres away from the Jordanian capital Amman. Protesters gathered at the crossing could in theory quite easily blockade or storm the crossing to prevent weapons and goods from entering occupied Palestine.
Pressure building steadily
The Jordanian regime is well aware of this threat to its western masters’ interests and has actively persecuted and detained hundreds of peaceful protesters. However, those who are prepared to sacrifice everything for the Palestinian cause have still found ways to make their mark, as was recently demonstrated by the actions of truck driver Maher Dhiab Hussein al-Jazi.
One of many drivers tasked with delivering supplies to the besieged colony overland (Israel’s ports having been effectively closed thanks to the actions of the heroic Yemenis), Mr al-Jazi got out of his truck at the al-Karamah bridge border crossing on 8 September and opened fire at Israeli forces, killing three border security guards before being shot dead himself.
According to Middle East Eye, Jazi had a family history of anti-zionist resistance, since he hailed from a Bedouin tribe in “the southern Jordanian town of Udrah in Maan governorate, a town that supplied troops to fight in the 1948 Battle of Jerusalem.
“Jazi is a descendant of Maher al-Jazi, the commander of the Jordanian army in the 1968 ‘Karameh’ battle between Israeli forces and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Jordanian armed forces.” (Allenby bridge shooter identified as Jordanian national, 8 September 2024)
Al-Jazi has been widely celebrated as a hero throughout Jordan and the rest of the Arab world – and his action has only served to underline the wide and growing gulf between the outrage of the masses and the complicity of their ruling elite, whose position is becoming more precarious by the day.
Meanwhile, the Israelis, in panic, have all-but closed the land border with Jordan, thus shutting themselves off from this vital supply lifeline and thereby deepening their own economic and social crisis.
Just days before the border shooting, the electoral success of the outspokenly pro-Palestinian Islamic Action Front (the Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood), whose representation in the toothless parliament rose from five to 31 seats, was another sign that public anger is beginning to boil over.
Although Jordan’s parliament is essentially powerless, and remains overwhelmingly dominated by pro-government ‘independents’, the regime will undoubtedly be under greater pressure than ever over its criminal collaboration with the zionist entity and its de facto facilitation of the Palestinian genocide.
The more the Hashemite monarchists try to keep a lid on popular protest in Jordan and to retain the country’s pivotal role in support of the zionist entity, the more likely it is that the entire regime will be swept away as the Axis of Resistance continues to advance and the people of the region continue to rise.
