During his quarter-of-a-century rule of Jordan, King Abdullah had few working visits that were more intense than this week's trip to Washington.

Sitting nervously next to Donald Trump on Tuesday, the monarch mostly watched on in silence as reporters shouted questions about the president's plan to "take over" Gaza or what has been called an "ethnic-cleansing" plan by human rights bodies, political leaders and critics worldwide.

Trump has insisted for several weeks that Jordan, as well as Egypt, will take expelled Palestinians as part of his plan to "own Gaza". 

While Abdullah didn't give away much in the presence of an erratic president, his position is well documented. It's a non-starter. 

“A large-scale displacement of Gazans to Jordan is going to be the death knell for the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan,” Andreas Krieg, assistant professor at King's College in London's defence studies department, told Middle East Eye.

Trump’s plan, if implemented, would significantly alter the demographic makeup of Jordan. 

Around half of Jordan’s 11.5 million population is of Palestinian origin, most of whose families were displaced during the 1948 Nakba, or catastrophe in Arabic, when the state of Israel was created, and the 1967 war. 

“Israel's efforts to expel Palestinians into Jordan go back at least to 1948 when Israel displaced approximately 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland,” Annelle Sheline, a former US State Department official who resigned over the Gaza war, told MEE. 

“At the time, this tripled Jordan's population, fundamentally altering the country's identity.”

Sean Yom, an expert on Jordanian politics, said that the relationship between Transjordanian tribes, sometimes described as East Bankers, and Palestinian Jordanians “remains delicate and still prone to being inflamed by identity politics on either side”.

“There has not been any overt communal violence between the two for a half-century, but fundamental questions about who belongs in Jordan, who is an ‘authentic’ Jordanian, and where political loyalties reside still hang over this relationship,” he told MEE.

The most brutal chapter of civil strife came in 1970, in what came to be known as Black September, when the Hashemite rulers crushed Palestinian factions it feared were attempting to take over the state. 

'Demographic aggression'

The idea of forcing Palestinians into Jordan has been floated by Israeli officials for decades. 

The slogan “Jordan is Palestine” was adopted by right-wing Israelis in the 1980s, wrongfully claiming that a Palestinian state existed along the east bank of the Jordan River and, therefore, another one in the occupied West Bank was not needed. 

The conspiracy theory still persists today - far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders shared the phrase in November in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

Jordan stopped giving citizenship to West Bankers in 1988 so as not to facilitate the idea of the kingdom as an alternative homeland for Palestinians. 

In fact, the 1994 Wadi Araba Treaty, which established diplomatic, tourism and trade relations between Israel and Jordan, included an article prohibiting the mass transfer of populations. 

“This article was inserted to protect Jordan from the threat of what was called ‘demographic aggression’ - the flooding of Jordan with Palestinians from the West Bank,” Avi Shlaim, a British-Israeli historian who has written extensively about the Hashemites in Jordan, told MEE. 

“The Palestinians are already the majority in Jordan. The arrival in Jordan of a large number of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip would tilt the balance ever further against the East Bankers and destabilise the kingdom.” 

Shlaim said that proponents of the “Jordan is Palestine” myth favour expelling Palestinians as part of plans to transform the Hashemite Kingdom into “the Republic of Palestine” and incorporate the occupied West Bank into a "greater Israel". 

“This is the greatest fear of the Jordanian regime,” the historian said. 

Trump has said that if Egypt and Jordan don’t play ball with his plan, he could withhold US aid, though in the presence of the Jordanian king, he said he likely would not need to stoop to that level.

Jordan receives at least $1.45bn a year from the US, which plays a crucial role in funding development programmes. But officials in Amman have told MEE the kingdom is willing to go without the aid if it's tied to Palestinian displacement. 

“The Jordanians realise that while they need to retain their American support, it cannot come at the cost of sacrificing… Palestinian self-determination,” said Yom. “They are willing to end the normalisation treaty with Israel to prevent this - that's how much of an existential threat this poses.”

Jordan was also the first Arab country to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with the US, which went into effect in 2001. The two countries hit $6.4bn in traded goods and services in 2022, which is significant considering Jordan's GDP hovers around the $50bn mark. The US made up 23 percent of Jordan's exports and five percent of its imports.

Jordan's FTA has not been mentioned yet, but any standoff with the US could threaten the agreement, as Trump has used FTAs in the past as a bargaining chip in previous disputes with its trading partners.

Yom added that Trump's takeover plan was a rare issue that united tribal communities, Palestinian refugees and the monarchy. 

“They disagree and protest on virtually everything else - unemployment, corruption, repression - but they all stand with a united voice in rejecting this plan.”

Threat of armed resistance 

Since the war on Gaza began sixteen months ago, Jordan’s rulers have been under immense pressure to do more to confront Israel. 

Huge protests have taken place in the capital, including several outside the Israeli embassy. Jordanian authorities have clamped down on the rallies and even accused Hamas of fomenting chaos in the country.

Domestic criticism reached a head when Jordan shot down Iranian long-range missiles targeting Israel in April and October. The kingdom said that it wasn’t protecting Israel but rather its own borders. 

“The monarchy has largely been viewed as being complicit in defending Israel against Iranian aggression while providing insufficient humanitarian aid to Gazans,” said Krieg. 

Amid that backdrop, he added, taking in large numbers of forcibly ejected Palestinians would be seen as a “complete sell-out and capitulation” to Israel. 

“This could lead to large-scale protests and an Arab Spring-type revolt against the government and the monarchy.”

In September, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), won the most votes in Jordan’s parliamentary elections, driven by its stance on Palestine. 

The IAF has called on Jordan to withdraw from the 1994 treaty with Israel. 

“If Israel were to force hundreds of thousands or even millions of Palestinians into Jordan, King Abdullah would be forced to respond militarily (which would be suicidal against Israel and the US) or face the likelihood of being overthrown,” said Sheline. 

“Whether it would be the Muslim Brotherhood or another political group that took power in Jordan, it is likely that Jordanian popular support for Palestine would manifest in armed resistance to Israeli aggression.”

Sheline said that it could lead to an open war or transborder attacks “not unlike Israel and Hezbollah’s habit of shooting rockets at each other”. 

It has already spilt over into violence on three occasions in recent months. 

A Jordanian killed three Israelis at the Allenby crossing near the West Bank border in September. A month later, Israeli soldiers were wounded by gunmen who entered from Jordan in the south Dead Sea area. Then, in November, security forces shot and killed a gunman who wounded Jordanian officers near the heavily fortified Israeli embassy in Amman. 

Krieg noted that the arrival of Palestinians from Gaza could create a new layer of an existing diaspora community in Jordan “that often lives as second-class citizens”. 

“Grievances would lead to radicalisation and Gazan resistance forces being created. They would use Jordan as a hub for operations against Israel,” he said. 

“Like in many times throughout Israel's history, Jordan would become the frontline of resistance.”

(Source: Middle East Eye)