Jordanian protesters demand ending normalization with Israel, despite arrests

“I would sacrifice my blood for you, Palestine!”

The chants resound from thousands of demonstrators taking to the streets of Amman, Jordan, for the third week in a row. 

Since March 24, an average of 6,000 to 10,000 people have gathered every night in front of the Israeli embassy to protest the genocide in Gaza and call for a halt to normalization with Israel. The Israeli ambassador to Jordan left the country in October, and the embassy no longer has a diplomatic mission. 

Khaled al-Natour, a political and youth activist, is a founding member of the Jordanian Youth Gathering to Support the Palestinian Resistance. This umbrella group was formed after October 7 and consists of fourteen groups with different orientations, including leftist, nationalist, and Islamic factions. 

They are responsible for the demonstrations outside the embassy, alongside other Jordanian youth and political groups. They have been engaging in activism through peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins, and human chains.

“The beginning of the round of protests on March 24 was called for under the title ‘Activities of the Israeli Occupation Embassy Siege: The Jordanian Wave of Anger,’” al-Natour told Mondoweiss. “Our demands are specific and divided into several parts. One demand is for an economic boycott of Israel, which goes in line with the statements of Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.”

Additionally, the protests demanded canceling all agreements with “the Zionist enemy” and stopping the export of vegetables, as well as the “land bridge” to the Zionists in order to break the siege on Gaza, al-Natour said. “They also want the end of criminalizing Palestinian resistance movements in Jordan and encourage Arabs to show their solidarity by protesting in the streets,” he added.

The Jordanian wave of anger 

Amira, a Jordanian citizen in her twenties, told Mondoweiss that the reasons for the protests are many. Her real name will not be published due to security reasons. She says that in the first weeks after October 7, the protests were a way of expressing people’s anger at Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza. 

“Through protesting and putting pressure on the government, we want them to stop the genocide and to end the agreements between Jordan and the occupation,” Amira said. 

This latest round of demonstrations was ignited by Israel’s atrocities at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. At least 1,500 people who were at the hospital were either killed, injured, reported missing, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which described it as “one of the largest massacres in Palestinian history.” 

“We see it as a duty to support Gaza,” al-Natour told Mondoweiss. 

One of the protesters’ demands is that the defense agreement between Jordan and the U.S., signed in 2021, be canceled.

“Our goals are not only related to the war on Gaza but also to the danger of the occupation for Jordan,” al-Natour explains. “There is ongoing talk from the Israeli side about annexing the Jordan Valley to the borders of the occupying state.” 

Al-Natour here refers to the plan of Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who drew up a map of “Israel” which includes Jordanian territories. 

“The Zionist project poses a direct threat to the Jordanian people and the state, also shown through the aggression against the occupied West Bank, which increases the possibility of immigration to Jordan,” he said. 

The ongoing genocide and the discussion of opening “safe passages” to Egypt has sparked fear within the Jordanian government that Israel could forcibly push Palestinians from the occupied West Bank into Jordan. 

One of the protesters’ central demands is to challenge the longstanding normalization agreements between Israel and Jordan. Some of the most prominent chants during demonstrations are “End the normalization!” and “Wadi Araba is a betrayal!” Normalization agreements were formalized between Jordan and Israel in the Wadi Araba Treaty in 1994, which demonstrators are calling to be effectively abrogated.

“We reject Wadi Araba and demand its cancellation because it does not represent the popular opinion in Jordan,” Amira told Mondoweiss. “We also refuse normalization with the Israeli occupation and do not believe in peace with them.” 

She added that the Israeli occupation posed a national threat to Jordan and the Arab region as a whole.

Between March 24 and April 5, about 200 people were arrested during the protests, among them journalists, politicians, and union figures. 

During the initial period of demonstrations, protesters used to stay outside the embassy all night, but the last few weeks have witnessed tighter restrictions by the police, who started shutting down demonstrations by 11:30 p.m. every night and chasing away demonstrators, sometimes with the violent use of batons and shields. 

 This has not stopped Amira and thousands of others from continuing to go out on the streets of Amman.

“As time passed and the demonstrators were subjected to more harassment and oppression, and some got arrested, it motivated me more to continue protesting,” she said. 

Return to the homeland

“We are going back to our land, Palestine” is one of the chants that the protesters scream, as there are over two million Palestinians in Jordan. 

Amira says that the demands of the demonstrators are divided into two parts: one part demands an immediate halt to the genocide in the Gaza Strip, and the other calls for doubling Jordan’s effort to alleviate the suffering. 

She said that the demands are related to her as a Jordanian citizen and to defending Jordanian national security. 

“Jordan is being threatened by treaties and agreements, such as the water, gas, and electricity agreements,” Amira explained. “Which are in the hands of a brutal occupier.” 

Amira also added that she is demonstrating for her own conscience, knowing that through “this very simple act,” her voice is reaching the besieged Gaza Strip. 

Despite the arrests and increasing restrictions, she is determined to continue protesting. 

“I have been going out to protest almost daily for the past six months,” she said. “And I will continue to do so as long as the genocide continues — unless I am arrested or somehow restricted from participating.”

Synne Furnes Bjerkestrand
Synne Furnes Bjerkestrand is an independent journalist based in Amman, Jordan. She has written for Norwegian media, Al Jazeera, and Middle East Eye, and is currently finishing her masters degree in journalism with a focus on the framing of the genocide in Gaza in western media.

Bayan Abu Ta’ema
Bayan Abu Ta’ema is an independent Palestinian storyteller and filmmaker based in Jordan. She produces audible and visual journalism and documentary films, often related to human rights.