The Economist July 17th 2021 Middle East & Africa 45JordanCourting trouble
F
orkingabdullahitislikeoldtimes.
On July 19th he will be back in the White
House, the first Arab leader to meet the
new president. Gone are the cast of old ant
agonists, Donald Trump and his chum,
Binyamin Netanyahu. President Joe Biden
has ditched Mr Trump’s “dealofthecen
tury” for ArabIsraeli peace, which had
sidelined Jordan and its king. Naftali Ben
nett made Amman, Jordan’s capital, his
first foreign destination as Israel’s new
prime minister. Without Mr Trump’s sup
port, Saudi Arabia has backed off from try
ing to supplant Jordan as the custodian of
Jerusalem’s holy sites. Confident of this
geopolitical realignment in Jordan’s fa
vour, Abdullah and his queen, Rania, have
taken a threeweek jaunt around America.
Back home, though, Jordan is seething.
Bedouin tribes, historically the regime’s
bedrock, openly challenge the king, who
has reigned for 22 years. “I’ve never seen
such dissent,” says a former official. “It’s
seeping into the heart of the system itself.”
On July 12th Jordan’s State Security
Court sentenced two of the king’s former
confidants, Bassem Awadallah and Sharif
Hassan bin Zeid, to 15 years in prison for
plotting against the monarch. The trial was
quick, closed and devoid of key witnesses.
No army officers were charged, casting
doubt on the prosecution’s claim that a
coup was being planned. Lawyers for the
accused could not call as a witness the al
leged chief protagonist, Prince Hamzah,the king’s halfbrother, because he is under
house arrest.
Instead of uniting Jordan behind the
king, the case has inflamed tensions. Sev
eral Bedouin tribes, a minority who fear
losing their dominance to the descendants
of Palestinians, have pledged their alle
giance to the prince. One of their parlia
mentarians led protests waving a sword.
(He was subsequently jailed for threaten
ing to shoot the king.) Protesters praise
Hamzah’s fluent Arabic, deep tribal con
nections and facial resemblance to their
beloved former king, Hussein, and deride
Abdullah’s Western upbringing and ties by
marriage to Jordan’s Palestinian majority.
They call him an American lackey and
chant in English—“so he’ll understand”.
In the past the king (pictured below)
has bought off the tribes by offering them
jobs in the security forces. But the coun
try’s economic woes are stoking anger. Co
vid19 has hit the mainstays of tourism and
remittances. Oilrich Gulf states have been
cutting aid and investment. Debt is set to
reach 118% of gdpthis year. Almost two
thirds of young Jordanians are jobless.
With no vision for recovery, the king
rarely addresses his nation. America alrea
dy gives $1.5bn annually (making the coun
try America’s secondlargest recipient of
aid). Israel has direct flights to the Gulf and
no longer needs Jordan as a stepping stone
to the Arab world and beyond. For appear
ances ahead of his visit to America, the
king has appointed a commission stacked
with toadies to consider political reform.
But he prefers to stifle dissent than listen
to it. He closes trade unions and curbs civil
liberties. This year Freedom House, a
thinktank in Washington, downgraded
Jordan’s ranking from “Partly Free” to “Not
Free”. The king’s meetingwith Mr Biden
may offer him a photo opportunity. It will
not cure his country’s ills.nA trial in Jordan has exposed the
fissures in King Abdullah’s ruleMy crown I amIsraelandChinaThe enemy of
my friend
T
headvisoryCommitteetoInspectNa
tional Security Aspects of Foreign In
vestments is the dull title for one of the
more secret and sensitive bodies in the Is
raeli government. Its membership is un
known and meetings are held under a
blanket of opacity. It is essentially a com
mittee to assess deals with China. It was set
up in 2020 after pressure from America,
which was concerned that China could be
getting Israeli weapons technology. The
committee’s chilling effect on trade and
ties with China is already being felt.
Although there is no official policy or
written directive banning Chinese invest
ments in key areas of the economy, there
has been a marked slowdown in new deals.
“The Americans made it clear to us that
they would not accept any Chinese in
volvement in critical infrastructure and Is
rael belatedly got the message,” says a for
mer Israeli minister in the government
that left office on June 13th.
In May 2020, for instance, Israel reject
ed a bid by Hutchison Water, a Chinese
firm, to build a desalination plant. Chinese
firms are still involved in previously
signed infrastructure projects, including
the new Tel Aviv lightrail network. But Is
rael, under American pressure, is discreet
ly trying to replace the Shanghai Inter
national Port Group, which is set to man
age a new container terminal in Haifa Port,
with an Emirati company.
“In the past we got a lot less guidance
from the government on how to do busi
ness with China,” says one Israeli executive
who has spent over a decade working on
Chinese investment. “Now things are a lot
clearer. They can invest in fields like food
tech and fintech, but not in anything
cyberor securityrelated and not in infra
structure.” Chinese investment in Israeli
tech companies has fallen from 72 deals in
2018 to 45 in 2020. This can be explained
partly by the pandemic and new regula
tions within China on foreigncurrency
transfers, but also by what one Israeli dip
lomat calls the “recalibration of relations”.
“Under Netanyahu, Israel felt that it
could have its cake and eat it—do business
with the Chinese without the Americans
being angry with us,” says Doron Ella, an
expert on IsraelChina relations at the In
stitute for National Security Studies, a
thinktank in Tel Aviv. “IttookIsrael time
to realise the extent to whichthe usnow
sees China as its chief rival.”nJ ERUSALEM
Israel must choose between an alliance
with America and trade with China