The Middle Child: Jordan Teeters in Regional Upheaval

Jordan has long been the middle child in the Middle East, mostly peaceful, overlooked, and struggling to find its place in the family. But with recent and massive political upheaval and turmoil in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, many now wonder if the country’s role as a regional stabilizer is at risk.

Analysts believe it is.

“Jordan remains on the precipice,” wrote Lancaster University professor Simon Mabon in the Conversation. “Bringing peace to Gaza is a necessary step in reducing tensions in the Hashemite kingdom, but it alone will probably be insufficient.”

Last fall, the pro-Hamas Islamic Action Front, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, scored big in the Hashemite kingdom’s elections, winning 31 out of 138 seats in parliament. It was the highest tally of any party and also the party’s own biggest gains in 35 years. A big reason for its support, say analysts, was the war next door between Israel and Hamas.

Five months later, Jordan’s King Abdullah II was backed into a corner by the US to accept millions of Palestinians who US President Donald Trump wants to displace from Gaza.

King Abdullah said no. He had no choice, say analysts – such a move would be an “existential threat” to the country.

Even though the king’s refusal risks $1.72 billion in US aid Jordan receives from the US annually, it did much to dispel the public anger in Jordan, where many have accused the king and the government of being lackeys of Israel and failing to provide enough aid to Gaza.

But even as Jordan worries about Gaza, the real “existential threat” to Jordan is likely to come from the West Bank, say analysts.

Since the war broke out between Israel and Hamas in 2023, the West Bank has been growing increasingly violent. In February, around 40,000 Palestinians fled their homes due to Israel military operations there, the largest displacement in decades.

Jordanians believe many more will flee, likely headed to Jordan. Many of those already hold Jordanian passports valid as travel documents because they are stateless.

That worries Jordanians, who are a minority in their country, which has seen tensions between Jordanians and the Palestinians it has accepted into the country since 1948: Then, most of the 750,000 displaced Palestinians went to Jordan after being expelled by Israel. That exodus tripled the country’s population and fundamentally altered the country’s identity, analysts say.

Over the years, more Palestinians emigrated to Jordan. As a result, about half to two-thirds of Jordan’s population of 11 million people are of Palestinian origin.

Meanwhile, over the past few decades, Jordan has accepted Iraqis fleeing the various Gulf wars and Syrians fleeing civil war after 2011: Jordan hosts more than 650,000 registered Syrian refugees, but some believe there are another 750,000 unregistered Syrian nationals in the country.

That’s a lot for Jordan, an aid-dependent country with a weak economy, to handle, wrote the Arab Center Washington DC think tank.

For Jordan to take in millions more would not only deeply affect the demographics of the country and its national identity, but could also threaten it politically and economically, analysts say.

It would likely fuel extremism and turn Jordan into launchpads for Palestinian attacks on Israel, which would likely mean war with Israel and possibly a regional war, analysts said.

And it would be the end of the kingdom, analysts say.

“A large-scale displacement of Gazans to Jordan is going to be the death knell for the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan,” Andreas Krieg, assistant professor at King’s College in London told Middle East Eye. “This could lead to large-scale protests and an Arab Spring-type revolt against the government and the monarchy.”

Analysts say the worst-case scenario is a push by Israeli hardliners to annex the West Bank, expel Palestinians, and turn Jordan into Palestine. The US has expressed openness to this possibility, which would be the end of the 1994 treaty establishing relations between Jordan and Israel, which includes a clause banning the mass transfer of populations.

“It is no longer simply rhetoric and a fringe idea in Israeli politics,” wrote Chatham House, a United Kingdom-based think tank. But “annexation and the population transfer that follows would pose a direct security threat to Jordan – one that the kingdom has characterized as an Israeli declaration of war.”

Some worry that as a result, Jordan is already growing more unstable, especially with the growing power of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is moving to capitalize on the situation, especially in light of the Islamist takeover in Syria after the ousting of the country’s longtime dictator Bashar Assad with the help of Jordanian fighters.

As Hassan Abu Haniyeh, a Jordan-based expert on the kingdom’s Islamists, told the Economist: “Islamists across Jordan are asking, ‘If they can take over, why not us?’.”