Jordan’s Balancing Act - Seeking Stability Amid Regional Turmoil

In February, King Abdullah II of Jordan rebuffed US President Donald Trump’s proposal for his country to absorb Palestinians living in Gaza — part of the now infamous “Riviera” plan. When dealing with the Trump administration, the Jordanian king is certainly caught in a bind between rejecting Palestinian displacement and restoring the flow of foreign assistance from Washington. An aid-reliant economy notwithstanding, Amman has longstanding identity issues arising from citizens of Palestinian origins, tracing back to the aftermath of the 1948 war which saw Jordan’s population triple with the addition of Palestinian refugees and inhabitants of the West Bank. Domestically, Jordan’s recent parliamentary elections held last September produced a strong Islamist showing, with the Islamic Action Front (IAF) — the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood — emerging as the largest bloc in the legislative body. Amman also had to navigate the succession crisis in 2021 involving Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, whose house arrest and subsequent public reconciliation with King Abdullah II revealed underlying tensions within the Hashemite royal family. The Middle East Institute hosted Steve L. Monroe and Nicolai Due-Gundersen, two newly-minted authors and experts on Jordan, to address the above issues and more.