The Boston Globe reports that Jordanian Islamists are emboldened by Hamas to push for more clout. And they’re making inroads much the same way Hamas did in Gaza and the West Bank:
Now politicians in the Islamic Action Front are boldly breaking with the gentlemen’s rules of Jordanian politics, under which opposition parties never directly criticize the monarchy, nor point out government corruption, or call for major democratic reforms, in exchange for a modicum of free debate over such issues as education. In recent weeks, Islamist politicians have declared that without the monarchy’s repressive control over parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brotherhood would win 40 percent to 50 percent of the vote.
Jordan’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood — the same international confederation that includes Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and the Iraqi Islamic Party — is cementing its control over a vast network of religious schools, hospitals, and charities that are giving it unprecedented influence and new confidence….
In Jordan, the Brotherhood elected a new, more moderate-sounding chairman in February, in part to assuage government fears provoked by Hamas’s victory. But the group’s actual leaders — its board of directors, who set policy, and the charity board, which dispenses millions of dollars a year to a network of hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and Islamist causes, including Palestinian militant factions — remain the same, hard-liners committed to twin causes anathema to Jordan’s rulers: Islamic rule and the Palestinian armed struggle against Israel.
Click here for further background reading on Hamas’ relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood.
