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Hamas Victory Buoys Jordan's Islamists
(Boston Globe) Thanassis Cambanis - In the lobby of an Islamic school in Amman, a map shows a green wave washing over the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa. ''The Muslims Are Coming!" declares a banner above the map. The victory of the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas, just across the Jordan River in the West Bank, has invigorated Jordan's steadily growing Islamist movement and reinforced its conviction that democratic elections will pave the way to an Islamic republic in Jordan. The school and the Islamic Action Front in parliament are both wings of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that has followed the same blueprint as Hamas. Now politicians in the Islamic Action Front are boldly breaking with the gentlemen's rules of Jordanian politics, under which opposition parties never directly criticize the monarchy, nor point out government corruption, or call for major democratic reforms. In recent weeks, Islamist politicians have declared that without the monarchy's repressive control over parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brotherhood would win 40-50% of the vote.