Talk Elections

Jordan has long been both one of the most stable and one of the most politically moderate countries in the region.  How long will it remain so before the extremism and chaos of the Mideast negatively affects Jordan?

There are reasons to doubt that Jordan will remain insulated from the problems of the Mideast much longer.  The US-based human rights group Freedom House, which had before rated Jordan as "partly free" (freer than most Arab nations) has recently rated Jordan as "not free".  Perhaps the Jordanian government feels that less democracy is necessary for stability.

Thoughts?

Of all the countries adjac**nt to the Iraq-Syria clusterf***, Jordan is most vulnerable. Not by direct invasion - ISIS won't get ten metres past the border, but returning radicals causing terror.

The king isn't popular, the economy is sluggish and (resentfully for the Hashemites) the whole affair is propped up by the GCC.

It's certainly worrisome.  It has the potential to go off the rails, lets hope it doesn't.  I'd expect the other stable powers in the region would assist, but that could possibly throw gasoline on the powder kegs.

The large Palestinian population causes problems.

If it fell into chaos, would the King...
1. grab power and crack down hard on protests/riots
2. be overwhelmed and defeated relatively quickly
3. flee to safety
?

He seems like a good guy, but he's still a king in the Middle East, so I'm not sure.

Would his response be "proportional"? ;)

What's the non refugee Palestinian population? Is there a non-refugee Palestinian population at all? Or would such people just be called Jordanians?

They are "ethnically Palestinian" Jordanians and virtually all of them live in Amman and in a couple of towns in the eastern part of the country - mainly in Zarqa.

When Jordan was in control of the West Bank (which was sometimes called Cisjordan) from 1948 to 1967, Palestinians who were originally from the West Bank (as opposed to those who fled/were driven out of Israel proper) were given Jordanian citizenship. My dad's family acquired Jordanian citizenship in this manner. After 1967, a sizable number of those Palestinian-Jordanians relocated to Jordan proper. The Jordanian government didn't like this so they started revoking the citizenship of people from the West Bank, which is why many people experienced the phenomenon of going from being a Jordanian citizen living in the West Bank to being a stateless refugee living in Jordan.

The "native" Jordanians (those who never lived or had family ancestry west of the Jordan River) are almost exclusively rural. They live in the western part of the country and in smaller cities like Irbid.

Perhaps you can answer this other question for me as well. I've been meaning to ask it for a while and this seems as good a place as any. How do historians generally feel about Heshemite claims of descent from Mohammed? How do other Muslims feel about these claims? If these claims are serious, why have they never tried to set themselves up as Caliphs?

Option 1. Despite the image they project in the West, the Hashemites haven't held on this long by being soft or stupid.

No idea. My family is Greek Orthodox so I know about as much about Islam as you do.

Well I'm neither Muslim nor Jordanian, but I can tell you this, there are somewhat above 100 000 people whose claim to be descendent of Muhammed are general accepted by Muslims, so while it's both likely true and it have some symbolic meaning, I doubt it really have that much political effect.

An interesting myth I have heard, are because of the effect of dynastic marriage in Europe, and one of Muhammed descendents married a Christian prince, is that all royals in Europe are in fact descendent of Muhammed.