Facing the failure of the United Nations Security Council to halt Israel’s war on Gaza, Jordan has requested a meeting on Thursday of the General Assembly and circulated a draft resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. This has been vetoed in the council by the US. Speaking on behalf of 22 Arab states, Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of “razing Gaza to the ground”.
While UN assembly resolutions are recommendations rather than mandatory like measures adopted by the council, a vote by the UN’s 193 members could show where the world stands on Israel’s Gaza offensive.
As Gazan fatalities approached 7,000, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave, Jordan’s Queen Rania, who is of Palestinian descent, stated: “For the past two weeks, we have seen the indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza: entire families wiped out, residential neighbourhoods flattened to the ground, the targeting of hospitals, schools, churches, mosques, medical workers, journalists, UN aid workers – how is that self defence?” The queen added: “Many in the Arab world are looking at the western world as not just tolerating this, but as aiding and abetting it.”
These are harsh words coming from Amman, Washington’s closest Arab ally, which depends on $1.6 billion in annual US financial aid and hosts 3,000 US troops at different military locations. Having survived the 2003 UN war on Iraq, the 2011 Arab Spring, and spillover from the Syrian conflict, King Abdullah II faces the kingdom’s gravest challenge since his 1999 enthronement. This existential test of his capabilities coincides with a five-year long economic crisis and charges of governmental mismanagement and corruption.
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Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in response to the killing by Hamas fighters of 1,400 people in southern Israel, Jordanians have staged countrywide demonstrations demanding the expulsion of Israeli diplomats and abrogation of Jordan’s 1994 peace deal with Israel. This would constitute a serious blow to Israel and its allies. Jordan and Egypt are the only Arab countries to have made peace with Israel. Protesters have been prevented from marching to the Jordan-Israel border, where some have threatened to cross into Israel.
Israel’s Gaza war has united Jordan’s Palestinians, local communities and tribesmen, who have been the mainstay of the monarchy since its installation by Britain in 1921. King Abdullah has been accused of ignoring and alienating the tribes and the military, which relies on tribal recruits. In April 2021, influential tribal leaders backed a failed coup mounted by the king’s half-brother, Prince Hamzah.
Israel’s onslaught on Gaza and harsh crackdown on the West Bank – where 100 Palestinians have been killed since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th – has raised fears in Amman and Cairo that Israel intends to expel Palestinians into Jordan and Egypt. King Abdullah has responded by stating: “No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt.”
Since Israel’s 1948 war of establishment and 1967 conquest of Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Jordan has received millions of Palestinian refugees who now comprise about half of the kingdom’s population of 11.3 million. They have close ties to families in the beleaguered West Bank and Gaza. Two million live in poverty in 10 UN refugee camps, which have been starved of funds.