Iran Wants Jordan
Iran is stirring up anti-government sentiment in Jordan, with the goal of toppling King Abdullah II and replacing his regime with one led by Hamas.
An Islamist government in the Arab kingdom would create a security nightmare for Israel, whose eastern border with Jordan stretches for nearly 500 kilometers (300 miles), from the Golan Heights in the north to the Gulf of Aqaba in the south.
Iran analyst Ayelet Savyon warned that Iran’s activities are part of a “grand plan” that involves “bringing down the regime in Jordan, attacking Israel from the east while Israel is kept busy by Iran-backed resistance forces in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza.” The political aim, she said, is “to thwart the Saudi-American project of normalization with Israel.”
Middle East expert Yoni Ben Menachem said this Iran-led axis “seeks to undermine Jordan’s peace agreement with Israel and disrupt its gas deal with Israel, potentially transforming the Jordan-Israel border into a new battleground.”
Jordan has long faced challenges from radical groups, including Black September, a militant Palestinian organization that kidnapped and killed Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, and the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group recently banned by King Abdullah after operating legally in the country for 75 years.
Since Hamas’s October 7 massacre of Israelis, Jordan—home to around 3 million Palestinians and another 300,000 Gazans—has been rocked by massive pro-Hamas protests. A recent poll by the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan in Amman found that 66% of Jordanians supported Hamas’s bloodbath. Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida sought to exploit that sentiment by calling on Jordanians to “escalate all forms of protest.” Indeed, an oft-repeated protest slogan claims, “All of Jordan is Hamas.”
Popular anger against the Jordanian monarchy intensified after April 13, when Jordan helped Israel after Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles at the Jewish state. Jordan opened its airspace to American and Israeli warplanes, and its air force intercepted dozens of Iranian drones and missiles heading toward Israel.
Since then, anti-Jordanian invective on social media has surged. Counterterrorism expert Faran Jeffery warned that the propaganda against the king of Jordan and his government “is incredible in scope and widespread on Islamist social media & Telegram, across continents and in multiple languages.” He added, “I hope Israel and the US are ready to defend Jordan when Iran makes the push.”
Jeffery warned governments in other Muslim countries to take seriously anti-Jordan propaganda in their public sphere. “It should be strongly discouraged.
Understand this: Destabilization of Jordan will be a disaster for the region.”
Jordan, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, has tried to appease pro-Hamas protesters by stepping up its criticism of the Jewish state. Jordan’s Queen Rania, a Palestinian, accused Israel of committing “atrocity after atrocity” in Gaza and downplayed the role of Hamas’s October 7 attack. Meanwhile, Jordanian official Ayman Al-Safadi accused Israel of “genocide” and vowed that the Jewish state will never eliminate Hamas. “Hamas is an idea,” he said, “and ideas do not die.”
Far from placating the pro-Hamas elements, Jordan’s appeasement of Islamic terrorism exposed its vulnerability. Writing for The Jerusalem Post, commentator Neville Teller warned that Jordan’s royal family is “struggling to keep the lid on a bubbling cauldron of anti-government sentiment that is fanatically determined to identify with Hamas and to sever all formal ties with Israel.”
