Royal Feud in Jordan

American Thinker.com ^ | April 16, 2021 | Michael Curtis

[Kaslin]

The Middle East, as the historian Fouad Ajami once wrote, is a chronicle of illusions, despair, and politics repeatedly degenerating into bloodletting. Certainly the area has exhibited political instability, regional fragmentation, violence and kleptocracy. Uneasy lies the head of whoever wears the crown or is in the line of succession. Leaders have suffered the fate of execution or political ouster: Faisal II of Iraq in 1958, King Farouk in 1952 and Hosni Mubarak in 2011 in Egypt; King Idris in 1969 and Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 in Libya, the Shah in Iran in 1978, Habib Bourguiba in Tunisia in 1987.

The fate of King Abdullah II of Jordan, challenged in a royal feud and possible plot to oust him in April 2021, is uncertain. Jordan is technically a constitutional monarchy, with two legislative houses, one appointed by the king and the other elected by proportional representation, and a hereditary king who has wide executive and legislative powers. The present ruling group, the Hashemites, who claim to be descendants of the Prophet Muhammad and who ruled Mecca for over 700 years until 1925, led the liberation of Arab lands from the Ottoman Turks.

The Hashemite Kingdom has had its share of political differences, of disagreements among the numerous members of the royal Hashemite family, and has always been troubled by intrigue over the line of succession to the throne.

Most of the disagreements have not become public, but the current inner feud has now been revealed. On April 3, 2021 a video was published released revealing the feud between King Abdullah II and his half-brother and former heir apparent to the throne, Prince Hamzah. The prince and some 20 others had been detained on charges of plotting against the monarchy and were placed under house arrest.

[Steven Tyler]

Mooselimb brotherhood stirring up problems to gain power

[Gen.Blather]

“More Bedouins moved into the area from Syria. The initial problem in Transjordan and now Jordan is whether family, clan, and tribal allegiance is more important than national loyalty and all other political allegiances, and indeed whether there has recently been a decline in the impact of that tribal affiliation on individual behavior. “

The problem with the Muslim world is, in one word and vastly simplifying, “tribalism.” Yes, that’s a broad statement and has a number of flaws, but it is sometimes helpful to take the hundred-thousand foot view. If your loyalty is to the tribe and the tribe is spread across several nations, then where does your loyalty lie?

For much of Europe’s early history, it was tribal. To keep the power in the tribe the men married cousins. Then, the Catholic church, with many changes over the centuries, essentially banned cousin marriage. Thus, the focus of loyalty changed over time from the tribe to the family. As the nineteenth century ended a wave of patriotism for country swept the Western world. Doubtless, the death of the extended clan had a lot to do with this. Probably the best thing Islam could do to eliminate terrorism is to ban cousin marriages. It would still take several hundred years to eliminate the clan structure, but doing so would probably lead to greater peace and prosperity than letting Islamic civilization continue as if this was 1345.

I am loath to cite Wiki but the several articles I found were all over the place as far as data and this article seems to cover the whole subject pretty well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage

[Red Badger]

[Wuli]

Some good Jordanian history; worthy of bookmarking in my browser. Thanks.

I think Jordan’s internal problems are much larger than the issue of the royal family’s disputes.

Here is why, in part:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Jordan#Refugees

“Jordan is a home to 2,175,491 registered Palestine refugees. Out of those 2,175,491 refugees, 634,182 have not been given Jordanian citizenship. Jordan also hosts around 1.4 million Syrian refugees who fled to the country due to the Syrian Civil War since 2011. About 31,163 Yemenis and 22,700 Libyan refugees live in Jordan as of January 2015. There are thousands of Lebanese refugees who came to Jordan when civil strife and war and the 2006 war broke out in their native country. Up to 1 million Iraqis came to Jordan following the Iraq War in 2003. In 2015, their number was 130,911. About 2,500 Iraqi Mandaean refugees have been resettled in Jordan.

That is nearly 3.7 million “refugees” among an official population of about 10 million. For Americans who keep lying about the affect of excessive immigration on low wages and unemployment, just look at Jordan for an example of that lie. During the last bulge in refugees begun in the last decade the unemployment rate for Jordanian youth went from a more than decade low of 25% in 2014 to a new high 35% lately. At the same time regular unemployment rate went from 12% in 2014 to about 15% lately.

Jordan - big internal political and tribal differences, growing economic and unemployment issues, a refugee population equal to nearly 40% of the official registered population, and now “royal” disputes surfacing. Add to that the surrounding Arab states are making new deals with Israel that undermine the “Palestinian state” cause, and what that must be signaling to the nearly 3 million “Palestinians” in Jordan.

I think Jordan could explode if it’s many social issues have bled equally into the rank and file of the Jordanian military (making it an unreliable defender of the status quo), and with so many interests active in that explosion I think the results would be unpredictable as to what coalition of forces would rise to the top.

Add to that the continuing internal disputes in Lebanon and recognize that Lebanon is hosting 1.5 million Syrian refugees (with a formal population of about 7 million). If Jordan would explode as a “revolution”, it could generate some similar kind of moves in Lebanon as well, like totally reopening its never ending civil war. Jordan and Lebanon both disintegrating would pose security issues for Israel as well.

Let’s watch Jordan carefully.