Jordan's King Fears Gaza Conflict May Further Complicate His Struggle For Survival
Source: HAARETZ
Last Wednesday it seemed as though Jordan would have its own "martyr of the revolution" whose fate would ignite passions in the kingdom, like Tunisia's Mohamed Bouazizi or Egypt's Khaled Said. Qais al Omari was shot and killed by security forces while demonstrating in the northern Jordanian city of Irbid; protesters were trying to force their way into a police station.
But the young man's death was engulfed in the tsunami of demonstrations that swept through Jordan late last week. They threatened to bring the Arab Spring to the Hashemite Kingdom after a two-year period of near calm.
On Friday none of Jordan's larger cities escaped demonstration calling not only for the ouster of the government but also the removal of the king. Throughout the country, from the Ma'an Governate to Irbid, Salt and Jerash, including, of course, Amman, the capital, security forces confronted thousands of demonstrators who focused their rage on the government's decision to raise fuel prices in order to reduce Jordan's $3.5 billion budget deficit.
These were not the first such demonstrations in Jordan. Widespread protests erupted in January, after the exposure of several major corruption scandals. In an open letter to King Abdullah II, the former Jordanian MP Khalid Attiyah (who burned an Israeli flag in the parliament building in 2008 ) wrote at the time that the events went beyond an ordinary governmental crisis: "In terms of finding solutions, we are at a dead end," Attiyah wrote.
Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/jordan-s-king-fears-gaza-conflict-may-further-complicate-his-struggle-for-survival.premium-1.479399
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