Hamas has no chance of finding a new home in Jordan

The visit by King Abdullah of Jordan to Ramallah this week is a rare event. This is only the second time he has travelled to the Palestinian Authority, following a courtesy visit to Yasser Arafat soon after succeeding his father.

For much of his reign he has prioritised improving his country’s economy and maintaining delicate domestic and regional balances. 

But speculation that the Hamas leadership may be leaving its base in Damascus, a possible unity deal between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah, and recent comments by Jordanian prime minister Awn Khasawneh that expelling Hamas from Jordan in 1999 was ‘a political and legal mistake’ have led to fevered speculation that a high-level visit to Amman planned for Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal is a sign that Jordan is re-opening the door for Hamas.

There are two reasons why a rapprochement between the Hashemite Monarchy in Jordan and the Islamists of Hamas is not going to happen – the economics and the politics.

On accession in 1999, King Abdullah inherited a realm few would envy. Between Israel, the Palestinians, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Jordan is surrounded by powerful and politically volatile neighbours.

The population is far from homogeneous, with the Transjordanian East Bank elites outnumbered by Jordanians of Palestinian origin, tribal Bedouin and a growing migrant workforce, mostly from the Arab world.

Literacy is low, and GDP puts Jordan in the bottom quarter of world economies. It is the Hashemite monarchy – a remarkably durable product of British colonial policy and still strong and popular after nearly a century – that holds Jordan together.

King Abdullah initially prioritised economic progress as a way of advancing Jordan’s national interests. An aggressive programme of liberalisation saw sustained growth of around 7 percent over the last decade. Six special economic zones (SEZ) were established to promote new sectors of the economy, with tourism a national priority. Jordan’s sparse natural resources - it imports 95 percent of its energy needs – were to be supplemented by nuclear power generation. 

Yet the economy remains weak, and regional disorder and falling foreign investment led to a slow-down in growth, rising food prices and ballooning unemployment early in the year.

Rumbling political unrest, which had seen a decade of economic reform hobbled by endemic corruption, erupted in the spring of 2011. Whilst never a direct threat to the regime, the protests were met with a $650m emergency package to roll back some of the recent price rises by subsidising basic foodstuffs. This gave an immediate answer to the protestors but is not a long-term solution.

King Abdullah’s challenge is to find that long-term solution. So, he appointed Khasawneh as prime minister in October and changed course, stating "political reform characterizes the current phase in the journey of our beloved Jordan."

Constitutional reforms will likely fall short of a fundamental redrawing of his country’s political system, but could lead to a greater measure of democracy. The most significant will move power away from the royally-appointed government, establish a Constitutional Court, independent oversight of elections, and limit royal powers to dismiss parliament. Crucially, the government loses its power to legislate in the absence of a parliament, which has been the case for extended periods of Jordan’s history.

Yet meaningful political reform seems distant. The monarch retains the power to form the government – a power already exercised twice this year to appoint a new prime minister.

Those demanding more radical reform, of whom the Islamic Action Front (IAF) are the most vocal, argue that real democracy means a government formed by a parliamentary majority.  Neither this, nor changes to the electoral system, tilted to advantage of the East Bank elites at the expense of Palestinian and tribal factions, are likely.

Jordan is also seeking solutions to its problems in the economic sphere with a turn to the east.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states see Sunni Jordan as a natural ally in their sharpening tension with Shi’ite Iran and its allies, as a point of stability in an otherwise turbulent region, and as a source of military power should things get even rockier.

For Jordan, the invitation to join the Gulf Cooperation Council brought much needed breathing-room in the form of an immediate $400m subvention from Saudi Arabia, along with a pledge of $2bn per year for the next five years.

GCC membership would help Jordanians to work in the Gulf, providing much-needed remittance income. No longer a grouping of oil-rich Gulf states, the widened GCC, with Morocco joining as well, would be re-cast as a coalition of moderate, albeit authoritarian, states with a broadly pro-Western orientation. 

Palestine is the answer

But if Jordan is not about to ally with Hamas neither can it afford to proceed with anything but extreme caution in the Israeli-Palestinian arena.

Hence the synchronised visits to Fatah and Hamas. Jordanians have a lingering feeling that neither political nor economic reform will resolve the country’s fundamental vulnerabilities for as one analyst in Amman remarked, Jordan has been ‘a country on hold since 1949’, its future dependent on the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Jordanians of Palestinian origin are a majority of the population of six million. Close to one-third of the population are registered refugees. Only the establishment of an independent Palestinian state would provide separate national frameworks for Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians.

From the perspective of Amman, no other long-term solution is conceivable, and delay risks vulnerability.  However, progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is grindingly slow, and the right of refugee return is amongst the most intractable of issues.

Palestinians are not prepared to forgo the principle that all refugees should have the right to return to their homes, and Israel will not accept the principle of return, even if the exercise of that right is severely restricted.

The forces ranged against a Jordanian deal with Hamas are many. For the Palestinian Authority, a resurgent Hamas on the east bank of the Jordan could mean trouble for its grip on power on its west bank.

For the Transjordanian elites, any strengthening of the Palestinian factions in the country is a threat to their continued rule.

Israel staunchly opposes any strengthening of Hamas, putting its current cooperation with the PA under threat if the proposed Fatah-Hamas unity deal progresses any further. Even the Jordanian Islamists, the IAF, are wary that Hamas would disrupt their delicate entry into mainstream Jordanian politics.

King Abdullah’s mission is to reassure Abu Mazen that Meshal’s visit is largely a gesture to Qatar, whose Emir is a strong supporter of Hamas but who is also a leading member of the GCC. It is highly unlikely that Jordan will substantively change its policy; Hamas is not going find a new home in Amman.

In return, he is likely to hear that whilst Abu Mazen and Meshaal will indeed meet in Cairo later in the week to discuss Palestinian unity, it is far from clear that they will come to an agreement.

And whilst neither of them will be addressing Israel directly, both will hope that their message will carry the short distance from Ramallah to Jerusalem.

Jonathan Cummings is the Director of the Israel Office of the Britain Israel Research and Communications Centre (BICOM). He writes in a personal capacity.