Jordan Introduction - 2024

Background

Following World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the League of Nations awarded Britain the mandate to govern much of the Middle East. Britain demarcated a semi-autonomous region of Transjordan from Palestine in 1921 and recognized ABDALLAH I from the Hashemite family as the country's first leader. The Hashemites also controlled the Hijaz, or the western coastal area of modern-day Saudi Arabia until 1925, when they were pushed out by IBN SAUD and Wahhabi tribes. The country gained its independence in 1946 and thereafter became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The country has had four kings. Jordan's long-time ruler, King HUSSEIN (r. 1953-99), successfully navigated competing pressures from the major powers (US, USSR, and UK), various Arab states, Israel, and Palestinian militants, the latter of which led to a brief civil war in 1970 referred to as "Black September" and ended in King HUSSEIN's ouster of the militants from Jordan.

Jordan's borders also have changed since it gained independence. In 1948, Jordan took control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the first Arab-Israeli War, eventually annexing those territories in 1950 and granting its new Palestinian residents with Jordanian citizenship. In 1967, Jordan lost the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Israel in the Six-Day War but retained administrative claims to the West Bank until 1988 when King HUSSEIN permanently relinquished Jordanian claims to the West Bank in favor of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). King HUSSEIN signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, after Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Jordanian kings continue to claim custodianship of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem by virtue of their Hashemite heritage as descendants of the Prophet Mohammad and agreements with Israel and Jerusalem-based religious and Palestinian leaders. After Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 War, it authorized the Jordanian-controlled Islamic Trust, or Waqf, to continue administering affairs at the Al Haram ash Sharif/Temple Mount holy compound, and the Jordan-Israel peace treaty reaffirmed Jordan's "special role" in administering the Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem. Jordanian kings claim custodianship of the Christian sites in Jerusalem on the basis of the 7th-century Pact of Omar, when the Muslim leader, after conquering Jerusalem, agreed to permit Christian worship.

King HUSSEIN died in 1999 and was succeeded by his eldest son, ABDALLAH II, who remains the current king. In 2009, King ABDALLAH II designated his son HUSSEIN as the Crown Prince. During his reign, ABDALLAH II has contended with a series of challenges, including the Arab Spring influx of refugees from neighboring states, the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of the war in Ukraine, a perennially weak economy, and the Israel-HAMAS conflict that began in October 2023.