Jordan

Ismail Al-Wahwah, leader of the Australia chapter of the Hizb Ut-Tahrir international pan-Islamist organization, who was arrested in Jordan in July 2018,[1] was moved in November 2018 to Jordan's maximum security Al Muwaqqar II prison. The prison also houses Al-Qaeda terrorists.[...

In a December 6, 2018 article in the London-based daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Saleh Al-Qallab, a former Jordanian minister and currently a columnist for the government daily Al-Rai, contested the claim that Hamas is a Palestinian national liberation movement.[1] Qallab wrote that Ha...

U.S. President Donald Trump's official recognition of Venezuelan National Assembly President and opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's president, in place of Nicolas Maduro, evoked harsh criticism in Jordan and the Palestinian Authority (PA), from both officials and column...

A photo published December 27, 2018 showed Jordanian Information Minister and government spokeswoman Jumana Ghunaimat stepping on an Israeli flag painted on the floor of the entrance to the Trade Unions Complex in Amman. The trade unions are known for their hostility to Israel an...

In response to the recent spate of terror attacks in the West Bank and the marking of the anniversary of the First Intifada, which began in 1987, columnists in the Jordanian Al-Dustour daily praised the armed resistance of the Palestinian people. They stated that this resistance ...

Introduction In recent months, King 'Abdallah II of Jordan has been facing growing criticism within the country and calls to limit his powers, from both popular elements and political circles. On October 6, 2018, the "National Follow-Up Committee," a group of 143 politicians ...

On November 14, 2018, following the latest round of fighting between Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza, during which over 450 rockets and mortars were fired from Gaza into Israel, Jordanian journalist 'Abd Al-Hadi Raji Al-Majali glorified these rocket attacks in his col...

In an article titled "The Inquisition or the Holocaust," Jordanian journalist Tahsin Al-Tal, who writes for the Jerash city news site, compared the torture of Muslims at the hands of the 15th century Spanish Inquisition to the Jewish Holocaust during World War II. He wrote that t...

Former Jordanian Prime Minister Abdelsalam Al-Majali defended the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, saying: "My mentality is a mentality of peace," and talking about the fundamental issues that Jordan had achieved through the treaty. Jordan, he said, had got its land and water back...

In an article he published in the Al-Hayat daily, Jordanian journalist Muhammad Barhouma claimed that, from the dawn of history until the present day, Arab countries have been afflicted by three diseases – tyranny, corruption, and religious extremism. He writes that these il...

In an article titled "An Alternative Deal" in the Jordanian government daily Al-Rai, Salah Jarrar, Jordan's former minister of culture and former vice-president of the University of Jordan, came out against the Middle East peace plan that the Trump administration is promoting, kn...

The Nasib border crossing between Syria and Jordan (also known as the Jaber-Nasib crossing) fell to Syrian opposition factions in 2015. Since then, the crossing has been closed, partly due to Jordanian concerns regarding the presence of terrorist organizations in southern Syria. ...

Calling the current Palestinian leadership "juvenile," Jordanian MP Muhammad Al-Zahrawi said that "according to the constitution, the West Bank belongs to Jordan" and that "all Jordanian lands must come under the Hashemite banner." His remarks came on July 18, 2018, during a spec...

Jordanian MP Huda Etoom said that her late octogenarian mother had had a single unfulfilled desire: "to don an explosives belt and blow herself up among the Zionist Jews." MP Etoom, who represents Jerash, made the comment during a special session of the parliamentary House of Rep...

Following a series of low-magnitude earthquakes felt in Israel and neighboring countries in early July, Kamal Zakarneh, a columnist for the Jordanian daily Al-Dustour, wrote that the quakes may have been caused by the underground testing of nuclear or other weapons that Israel is...

Against the backdrop of the U.S. administration's efforts to advance its Middle East peace plan, known as "the Deal of the Century," whose terms have not yet been publicized, Salem Falahat, a Jordanian politician and former head of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Jordan, slammed t...

On June 14, 2018, the Jordanian king swore in a new government after the previous government resigned due to extensive protests over its economic policy.[1] A notable appointment was that of Jumana Ghunaimat, formerly the editor-in-chief of Jordan's Al-Ghad daily, as state m...

"Fire kites" and "fire balloons" launched from Gaza into Israel in the past few months have caused multiple fires on a daily basis in the region bordering the Gaza Strip. Since April 2018, hundreds of these kites and balloons, which carry a burning rag or an explosive device, hav...

Introduction In recent years, Jordan has been experiencing a grave and ongoing economic crisis that is steadily worsening due to the influx of Syrian refugees to the country and the diminishing of foreign aid. Jordanian King 'Abdallah addressed this in a June 4, 2018 meeting w...

After 65 years of enmity between North and South Korea and of severe North Korea-U.S. tension, both conflicts appear to be moving towards resolution. At the historic April 27, 2018 summit between North Korean President Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the two l...

On May 27, 2018, in his column in the Jordanian government daily Al-Rai, 'Abd Al-Hadi Raji Al-Majali wrote in love and praise of Palestinian terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who led the bus hijacking attack on Israel's coastal road on March 11, 1978, in which 35 Israeli citizens were ki...

Jordanian journalist, writer, and educator Zuleikha Abu Risha, who is known for her fierce opposition to religious extremism in Jordan and who has received death threats because of her views,[1] again drew fire recently for her condemnation of the naming of a prayer hall at the S...