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An Analysis of King Abdullah II's Attitude Towards Palestinian FRIEND OR FOE? AN ANALYSIS OF KING ABDULLAH II’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS PALESTINIAN JORDANIANS, 1999-2019 AN HONORS THESIS SUBMITTED ON THE TWENTY-THIRD DAY OF APRIL, 2020 TO THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IM PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE HONORS PROGRAM OF NEWCOMB TULANE COLLEGE TULANE UNIVERSITY FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS WITH HONORS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE BY ___________________________ Isabel Morford-Cheibub APPROVED: __________ Mark Gasiorowski_________________ Mark Gasiorowski Director of Thesis ___________________________ Geoff Dancy Second Reader ___________________________ Brian Horowitz Third Reader Abstract This thesis examines the relationship between Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Jordanian citizens of Palestinian descent during the first twenty years of his reign. By analyzing the impact of social and political campaigns, popular protests, regional events (e.g., the Second Intifada), and official decisions made by the king, this work seeks to demonstrate that Abdullah’s attitude towards Palestinian Jordanians has changed since he assumed power. Historical divides between East Bank and West Bank Jordanians have persisted throughout his reign, but the threat of a Palestinian uprising has diminished over the past 20 years. This thesis argues that while the Palestinian community in Jordan has become less concerning for the king, he still fears the impact that an influx of more Palestinians could have on his claim to power. Furthermore, he faces new sources of popular dissent, particularly from young East Bank Jordanians. ii Table of Contents Introduction ……………………………………………………………...………………1 Chapter 1: Hashemite-Palestinian Relations in the 20th Century ..………………………7 a. King Abdullah I and the Early Palestinian Jordanians……………………………8 b. A New King and the Growing Palestinian Liberation Movement ………………11 c. King Hussein Rules Post-Black September ……….……………………………16 d. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………19 Chapter 2: Defining a New Royal Attitude Towards Palestinian Jordanians …………21 a. The Priorities of the New King ………………………………………………… 21 b. Abdullah’s Crackdown on Hamas in Jordan …………………………………… 23 c. The Second Intifada Sparks Public Unrest in Jordan ……………………………25 d. A Call for Political and Social Change through the Jordan First Campaign …… 29 e. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………… 32 Chapter 3: Attempts to Minimize the Palestinian Majority …………………………… 33 a. Revoking Citizenship from Palestinians ……………………………………… 34 b. Continued Social and Political Marginalization …………………………………40 c. The Arab Spring in Jordan ……………………………………………………… 43 d. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………… 48 Chapter 4: Navigating New Domestic and Regional Politics After the Arab Spring … 49 a. The Impact of the Syrian Civil War on Jordan ………………………………… 50 b. Balancing Relationships with Other Leaders ……………………………………53 i. Israel …………………………………………………………………… 53 ii. The United States ……………………………………………………… 57 iii. The Gulf Cooperation Council Countries ……………………………… 61 c. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………… 63 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………… 65 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………… 72 Introduction The Middle East is notorious for being a region rife with conflict. For decades, there have been frequent civil wars, invasions, coups d’état, and other crises that have caused millions to be displaced. Despite lying in the center of the region, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has managed to keep its level of conflict low compared to its neighboring countries, largely thanks to the carefully considered decisions made by King Hussein and King Abdullah II. Jordan is considered one of the most strategic countries in the Middle East due to its history of stability, commitment to negotiating regional peace, and willingness to work with traditionally more powerful countries, such as the United States. Due to its location, Jordan hosts more Palestinians than any other country in the world. Some are registered as refugees with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, while others hold Jordanian citizenship. The Palestinian community has had a great impact on Jordan’s society, economy, and politics. While the impact has benefited the kingdom at times, there is no doubt that the Palestinian presence has created countless challenges for the monarchy to address and continues to threaten Jordan’s stability to this day. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, there have been four major waves of Palestinians emigrating into Jordan. The majority fled to Jordan in the first two waves that resulted from the Arab-Israeli wars in 1948 and 1967, while the remaining two waves were smaller and followed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011. Today there is widespread disagreement about how to determine who is a Palestinian living in Jordan, making it difficult to find official statistics reporting the percentage of the Jordanian population that is Palestinian. 1 However, estimates range from 40 percent to 70 percent, depending on the source, and most agree that they form the majority of the population. Those Palestinians who have Jordanian citizenship are often called West Bankers because of their origin on the western side of the Jordan River. Meanwhile, Jordanian citizens who trace their ancestry to the Bedouin tribes that inhabited the land before Jordan’s founding are referred to as East Bankers because of their history on the eastern side of the river. Unlike many European monarchies, the Jordanian king is the supreme leader of the country. In general, the monarchy has expressed support for Palestinian liberation from Israeli occupation and has advocated for the Palestinians’ right to a sovereign state. However, each king of Jordan has had a unique relationship with the Palestinians and their descendants in Jordan, due to the historic and continued volatility of their presence in the country. Jordan’s first king, Abdullah I, struggled to balance his nation-building agenda with the outbreak of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He was eventually assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist in 1951, and it is believed that the principal motivation was the secret peace negotiation he had conducted with Israel.1 His grandson, Hussein, survived the attack and assumed the throne in 1952. During his reign, Hussein faced two more assassination attempts during the 1970 Black September conflict, when the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) tried to kill him and overthrow the monarchy. His general attitude towards Palestinian Jordanians is best described as wary and strained, although relations between the two parties began to warm in the last decade of his life. While the current Jordanian king, Abdullah II, has not yet faced assassination attempts, his reign is influenced by the turbulent history and 1 Avi Shlaim. Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement and the Partition of Palestine. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989. 2 tense present of the Palestinian presence in Jordan. However, unlike his predecessors, the current king no longer sees Palestinian Jordanians as his primary existential threat, and in fact views potential in improving his relationship with them. This potential stems from the role that Palestinian Jordanians play in the Jordanian economy. Following Black September, West Bank Jordanians were barred from most public sector jobs. As a result, they flooded the private sector of the economy. By the end of the 1990s they owned 60 percent of the top 500 private companies and 92 percent of the banks in Jordan, and they continue to dominate it today.2 Since 1989 the monarchy has been moving towards a neoliberal framework as an attempt to strengthen the precarious economy. One of the unexpected results has been an increase in West Bankers’ economic power. As such, they are often considered a political minority whose affluence poses a threat to the kingdom’s stability by potentially enabling them to wield power over the poorer East Bankers. Their dominant role in the economy also makes it impossible for the king to ignore their demands, thus exacerbating power inequality between the two groups. East Bank Jordanians have been distrustful of West Bankers since the first wave of Palestinian refugees arrived in Jordan and threatened the social harmony of the country, and the economic reforms only aggravated preexisting tensions. Not only do the two groups compete for limited resources and job opportunities, each side also perceives the other as a threat to its own national identity. East Bankers are considered the monarchy’s most important supporters, and their dominance of important governmental positions scares some West Bankers, who fear their interests will be neglected. However, 2 Yitzhak Reiter. “The Palestinian-Transjordanian Rift: Economic Might and Political Power in Jordan.” The Middle East Journal 58, no. 1 (2004): 72–92. 3 the West Bankers’ economic power and uneasy political history worry some East Bankers, who fear the same neglect. This thesis will examine how the current Jordanian king, Abdullah II, has juggled these political, economic, and social concerns regarding the presence of Palestinians in Jordan and how he has dealt with them over the past 20 years. His approach to the Palestinian Jordanian community has not diverged far from that of his father in the 1990s. However, he has had more success in reducing the threat that West Bankers pose to Hashemite rule. This is largely because of changing external and internal factors weighing on domestic and regional
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