The criticism started almost right away after Iran fired over three hundred projectiles toward Israel on Sunday morning. It is possible that Jordan, a neighbor, shot down Iranian rockets as it helped to repel the invasion.
One highly circulated message on X, the previous Twitter, stated, “The Jordanian king dropped missiles on his citizens to protect Israel.” In the Jordanian city of Karak, which is not too distant from the Israeli border, the words were written next to an image of drone wreckage. Later, the Arabic post was modified to be less critical of Jordan’s regime, which is notorious for suppressing dissent.
One pundit remarked, “Jordan following the money as usual.” On the internet, a great deal of fake material about Jordan also surfaced. Posts erroneously claimed that the king of Jordan and his pilot daughter were personally involved. Some others indicated that the Jordanians perished as a result of falling fiery debris onto them. Even though there was debris, the Jordanian authorities stated that no one was hurt, and certain footage purportedly showed debris, but it proved out to be from oil tankers that had caught fire weeks previously.
There were even claims that the United States and Israel had inked a covert agreement with the Jordanian administration to grant them access to Jordanian airspace.
Despite the fabrications, they cited the seeming inconsistency of their own administration and those of other Muslim countries that have denounced Israeli military operation in Gaza, demanded a cease-fire, and declared their sympathy for the Palestinian cause. However, as their detractors noted, they also assisted in defending Israel from Iran. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan have been the main targets of popular ire.
In Jordan, one in five individuals—including the queen—had Palestinian ancestry, and many people have strong feelings for the cause. The military collaboration with Jordan is viewed by many as a betrayal.
According to Tuqa Nusairat, a specialist on US politics in the Middle East, this confrontation is “bringing vulnerable US allies like Jordan to a most unwelcome position between a rock and a hard place.”
In a statement, the Jordanian authorities claimed that it had intercepted items that had crossed its airspace “because they posed a threat to our people and populated areas”. According to Mahmoud Ridasat, a former commander and military specialist stationed in Amman, Jordan, what transpired over the past few days could never be presented as protecting Israel, instead as preserving Jordanian sovereignty and airspace.
According to Tahani Mustafa, senior researcher for Palestine at the Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group, opinions on this matter are very split in Jordanian society. She said, “And you can understand why,” to DW. “People don’t really know much about the details of Jordan’s economic, diplomatic and security relationships with the US and Israel because that sort of thing is not often reported here.”
Few people may realize how close the two nations are. Mustafa surmised that the hidden agreement some Jordanians were discussing was a reference to the US-Jordan defense cooperation agreement of 2021, which protestors denounced for eschewing parliamentary clearances.
