Jordan v Hamas

The Jordanian government has canceled a planned visit by Palestinian Foreign Minister Mohammed Zahar after claiming that "'rocket launchers, explosives and automatic weapons' had been seized recently by Jordanian security forces from a Hamas arms cache they discovered on Jordanian soil."  The government went beyond claiming that Hamas was using Jordanian territory as a staging ground for attacks on Israel:  "the government spokesman also suggested that Hamas activists had planned sabotage on Jordanian soil, saying its members had been undertaking "surveillance activities for several vital targets in Amman and other cities"." Hamas denies it all, saying that they have never targeted Jordan and didn't start now.   The Jordanian Parlimament issued a strong statement, taking the controversial position that they were against any threat to national security.  Some columnists and editorial boards have sounded the appropriate outrage and support for the government's position.  And no doubt this will be taken as another bit of evidence of the malevolent intentions of the new Hamas-led government.

But... the whole thing is very, very odd.  Both al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya report skeptically on the official claims, highlighting both Hamas's denial and popular doubts amongh both Jordanians and Palestinians.   It seems very unlikely that a beleaguered Hamas-led government, desperate to secure Arab and Muslim funding and eager to reassure suspicious Arab governments, would take this moment to plan attacks against Jordanian targets. 

It's much more likely that this has to do with two things: relations with America and the government's unease with the potential power of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Action Front.  Snubbing Hamas's foreign minister and presenting evidence of its malevolence obviously serves King Abdullah's relationship with his primary constituency - the one in Washington.  He's always careful to cultivate that as a principle concern, and you don't have to be especially cynical to see the government's dramatic announcement as a way to wave some more "war on terror" credentials while finding an excuse to satisfy Washington's desire to isolate the Hamas government.  Fear of Islamist success is a useful way to blunt any American pressures which exist to open up the political arena - a time honored strategy of Arab leaders which is back in style.

Domestically, Hamas's victory, along with the Muslim Brotherhood's showing in Egypt, has upset the long-standing balancing act between Jordan's regime and Islamists.  Harassment has been ramping up for a while, especially since the 'war on takfiri thought' declared by the King after the November terrorist attacks in Amman.   Earlier this year, according to Curtis Ryan in a recent Arab Reform Bulletin piece, "the government charged IAF leader Jamil Abu Bakr with “harming the dignity of the state.” The charges stemmed from articles on the IAF website that criticized the government tendency to appoint officials due mainly to connections rather than expertise or parliamentary consultations. The charges were dropped the following month, but the sense of harassment remained." 

Hazem al-Amin, one of the top journalists at al-Hayat, points out in the first of a two part article today argues that there has been a growing "Hamasist" trend inside the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood.   Amin claims that this "Hamasist" trend is growing alongside the traditional "doves, hawks, and centrists", fundamentally reshaping the internal politics of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood.   He reads the victory of Zaki Saad in internal MB elections, along with the results of elections at various levels of the MB, as indicators of this rising Hamasist trend.  I'm not sure if I agree with his whole analysis, but it's a fascinating and richly reported piece which deserves attention. 

The Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections poses a unique new threat to Jordan's identity politics, Amin argues - correctly, I think.  Amin argues that the identity consensus which has dominated Jordanian discourse since the early 1990s (which I've written about frequently) could be breaking down in the face of this rising Hamasism in the MB and the Jordan First trend in the government.  I've seen more and more of this kind of talk as well - just the other day, Jamil al-Nimri wrote a piece in al-Ghad defending the legitimacy of public discussion of the future of the relationship between Jordan and the West Bank... something which has not really been a legitimate topic of discussion for a long time.

Going after Hamas carries risks, of course, since Jordan's Islamists are popular and powerful, and support for Hamas is extremely widespread (according to the most recent published survey by the Center for Strategic Studies, shortly after the Amman terror attacks, 73.5% of all Jordanians and 84% of opinion leaders saw Hamas as a legitimate resistance movement).   Trying to tar Hamas with the 'terror inside Jordan' brush looks like a fairly crude attempt to harness the outburst of patriotism and revulsion against Zarqawi which the government enjoyed after the November hotel bombings.  Maybe it will work, maybe it won't.

Anyway, that's how I read the government's allegations about Hamas: little to do with any actual evidence of Hamas planning terrorism inside of Jordan, a lot to do with pleasing the US and attacking the Muslim Brotherhood's domestic position. 

UPDATE:  this Petra press release, cited by the usually excellent Jordanian blogger Khalaf, as evidence of Hamas admitting responsibility for the terrorist plot, seems to me anything but.  The Hamas spokesman said that they would look in to the Jordanian allegations but forcefully denied any official involvement and reaffirmed the Palestinian interest in close ties with Jordan. 

Comments

[Khalaf]

AA: It is not anything but. First, the tone is apologetic. Second, there is no denial that the events took place, only that they don't know about it. Third, the possibility that renegades were responsibe is raised. This is clearly a face-saving tactic.

Your premise is that the Jordanian government made up this story to please the US administration (which is a similar charge made by Hamas earlier, before being confronted with evidence). Now they are clearly backpeddling. I think it is about time you did the same.

[Batir Wardam]

Logical analysis based on circumstantial evidence, but still I think we have to wait and see. My own explanation is that such an act, if really did happen may have been organized and implemneted by a Hamas-affiliated network or cells with logistic linkages with Syria and not necessarily a decision taken by Hamas leadership in Palestine. My only concern as a Jordanian is that if this weak story is fabricated it would harm the government's credibility in its fight with Jordan's real enemy: Al Qaeda. Many people may no longer believe the official statements about Al Qaeda terrorist attempts against Jordan.

[the aardvark]

Batir's reading makes sense: particularly given the splintering and fragmentation of Hamas (and Fatah) the last few years, the possibility of an independent cell doing something like this is always a real one. If that were the case, it would be very different from the initial claims about this being an official Hamas operation (which justified the canceling of the FM's visit).

As to who is backing off, Jordan or Hamas: the Jordanian govt seems to be the one backing down its original stance; while the Hamas position seems to be that they are accepting the Jordanian backing down and offering to check out the evidence of an independent operation. I just don't get the interpretation that Hamas saying that they don't know anything about but will check it out amounts to a Hamas backpedaling - maybe it does, but I don't see how. Who knows, evidence might come out of a real operation, but nothing publicly released that I've seen really supports it yet.

[the aardvark]

By the way, I actually think that the domestic concerns - about the Jordanian MB - are at least as significant as the Washington connection. The two run together, it isn't just pleasing the US here.

[Khalaf]

AA: Well, the issue of plausible deniability is also a possibility as well. Clearly, Jordan caught Hamas members doing their thing. So, what you call the backing off of the Jordanian government can be interpreted as a face saving measure. Until this announcement, Hamas was clearly winning the PR war (at least in the blogosphere). Their "accepting the Jordanian backing down" is really a loss, because a) they conceded that there was a planned terror operation which might have Hamas members implicated and b) The backed away from a winning media confrontation. The only reason they would do that is because it became clear that the evidence the Jordanian government had was compelling.

[The Informer]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, if someone wanted to divide the kingdom, this is a pretty good way to see where the loyalties lie. The old chestnut, "Jordan did this because it's the pawn of the USA" just doesn't fly, as the awareness of the population percentages is no secret. To inflame has never been in the kingdom's interest; it's always sought to keep a damper on the fire.

Hamas or its agents or the "Hamasist" trend in the IAF could have done this for the very reasons mentioned, to split the kingdom, as Bani Irsheid and the IAF have always wanted. "Bani Irsheid said Jordan's move against Hamas would only boost the Islamist group's appeal in a country at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict where many ordinary Jordanians, a majority of whom are Palestinians, are hostile towards Israel.

"Once it is exposed that this story has no credibility it will have the reverse effect the government intended...and will only increase the popularity of Hamas among people," he said.

Jordan has always been a country of two minds: one wanted normalization, one did not. One wanted to move forward and develop a modern nation capable of suriving without supoort, free of the rock and hard place in which it finds itself. The other wanted to continually drag conflicts across the border, be they from east, or west. If Hamas wanted to hurt Jordan, this situation, their denial and the gauntlet thrown down by the IAF is a pretty bloody good way to do that, isn't it.

[The Informer]

BTW Khalaf your post some while back was dead on and speaks a great deal to the reality of this situation. On Feb 11 Khalf wrote: "Interference of Hamas in Jordanian politics was a sore spot that eventually led to the clash and expulsion from Jordan. The links between the Moslem Brotherhood and Hamas are well known, and some even believe that they are fundamentally the same organization. Given the reach of the MB into Jordanian politics and society, this should be a question of extreme concern." http://ajloun.blogspot.com/2006/02/hamas-and-jordan-take-care_11.html

That's exactly the reality today.

[Nur al-Cubicle]

Now the news is that the alleged Hamas arms cache is filled with Syrian weapons. But lo! Zahar is on a visit to Damascus!

From AFP: "A source closse to Jordanian Security says that the most distrubing aspect of the affair is that Jordan has arrested Hamas members on charges of surveiling unidentified "vital installations". Some Jordanian observers believe that the reality behind the government claims is that Amman, a close ally of Washington and partner of Israel, is seeking a pretext to break relations with Hamas.

[خضر كنعان]

Thanks for the supurb analysis. I do whether Hamas did it on not is an issue here. It is obvious from your analysis the priorties of the Jordanian monarchy. There has been no evidence provided other than the pics we saw in the news paper..! why? as per the government: because the investigation is still going on. So why then cance the visit? back to your analysis.
Why the Jordanian government waite to the last minute? I believe bacuse they were waiting for an Egyptian cover..