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Jordan Dismantles the Muslim Brotherhood

(Center for Global Policy) Sami Moubayed - Jordan's top court decided on July 15 to officially dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood after it operated legally in the kingdom for 75 years. The Brotherhood, based in the Qatari capital of Doha, has thrived in Jordan. The group is popular at a grassroots level and is capable of triggering public unrest. Before the court decision, the Muslim Brotherhood had been eyeing Amman as an alternative base of operations. The Brotherhood stood by King Hussein when army generals tried to stage a coup against him in 1957, and then again during his 1970 showdown with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. When members of the Syrian and Egyptian Brotherhood fled their countries in the 1960s and 1980s, many were given asylum in Amman. Jordanian members of the group secured the speakership of parliament in the 1990s. Relations began to deteriorate with the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011. In January 2013, their leader, Hammam Said, described Jordan as a "state in the Muslim caliphate." That raised the ire of King Abdullah, who three months later described the Muslim Brotherhood as "wolves in sheep's clothing." In November 2014, Jordanian intelligence broke up a secret cell of the Brotherhood that had been smuggling arms to the West Bank. Jordan, which is firmly allied with Saudi Arabia and the UAE and has relied on them to settle its bills, could simply not afford to continue tolerating the Brotherhood's activities in Jordan. The writer is a Syrian analyst and historian.
2020-09-03 00:00:00
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