The tradition of co-existence between the Muslim Brothers and the Jordanian regime seems close to breaking point, writes Sana Abdallah from Amman A potential confrontation between the Jordanian government and the powerful Muslim Brotherhood movement was defused this week after the authorities cracked down on the movement's clerics in an unprecedented move -- the first of its kind since the Islamic movement's establishment in Transjordan in 1945. But how much longer now can the historic tolerance of their activities last? On the night of 8 September, the Jordanian authorities launched raids on the homes of several clerics of the Muslim Brotherhood, arresting nine of them on charges of preaching in mosques without obtaining official licenses. The interior ministry said it had issued 11 arrest warrants, while the movement insisted there were 39 arrest warrants out for its mosque imams and clerics. Former Minister and MP Ibrahim Zaid Al- Kilani, together with another former legislator, Ahmed Kofahi, both prominent elderly clerics, were taken ill when the security forces raided their homes after midnight, and had to be hospitalised. Seven of those arrested were released shortly after signing a pledge not to give sermons without prior approval from the authorities. Two other prominent Brotherhood members, Ahmed Kafaween and Ahmed Zarqan, remained in custody for three days because they refused to sign the same pledge. In the meantime, the Muslim Brotherhood, along with its political arm, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), condemned the crackdown as both illegal and politically-motivated, aimed at weakening and subjugating the organisation "ahead of expected adverse developments in Iraq and Palestine". The Islamist leaders insisted the government was acting upon American instructions to curb them from speaking out against the US occupation of Iraq, saying the crackdown was part of government plans to stifle their calls for jihad, their opposition to normalisation with Israel and their calls against Jordan's providing assistance for US forces in Iraq in the form of soldiers, weapons and goods. They interpreted the crackdown against their organisation as a prelude to the stifling of opposition in general. The organisation's accusations that the government has been stifling its scholars from speaking out in public is not unfounded. Interior ministry officials recently said that the government would not tolerate sermons that "incite violence against Western targets and inflame anti-US feelings". The official press, meanwhile, supported the government move by criticising the Islamic movement's reaction to the crackdown, accusing it of "violating Jordanian principles and threatening national security". Al-Rai daily, which is part-owned by the government, went further in an editorial in which it urged the government to take a "firm line" with the movement and its leaders. It blasted comments by the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, Abdul-Majeed Thneibat, that the government's harassment of its leaders could eventually lead it to go underground to continue its work, saying such a statement was tantamount to inciting youth to rebel against the government. However, Thneibat's warning, though it may have frightened the government's editorialists, was only an objective reading of the likely repercussions of such a crackdown on a movement that has peacefully co-existed with the Jordanian regime for more than five decades. His assessment is shared by many local and Arab secular commentators, analysts and activists, who had given Jordan credit for succeeding in taming its Islamic opposition by allowing it to work openly and freely, albeit with a de facto understanding that it would not touch the Hashemite regime. Unlike countries such as Egypt and Algeria, where the state's decision to repress Islamist movements eventually led those movements to resort to violence, Jordan, under the reign of the late King Hussein, had allowed the Brotherhood to work openly from the mid- 1950s until the first free parliamentary elections in 1989, even as the regime was cracking down on leftist and pan-Arab nationalist parties. The Jordanian Islamist movement has historically taken care to avoid open confrontation with the state, no matter what crisis might arise. And there have been a series of crises, especially since Jordan signed its unpopular 1994 peace treaty with Israel. The IAF boycotted the parliamentary elections in 1997 to protest the provisional elections law which they saw as guaranteeing seats for pro- establishment and tribal candidates, while marginalising both themselves and other opposition groups. The crisis with the government escalated after King Hussein's death when his eldest son, Abdullah II, acceded to the throne. Abdullah II steered the regime closer to the US and gave more power to the security services. From 1999 until the delayed parliamentary elections of 2003, when the Islamists lifted their boycott, winning 16 seats in the 110- member legislature, IAF and Brotherhood members were harassed, and their religious and political activities curbed. Yet the movement, despite its considerable grassroots influence, still maintained its policy of non- confrontation. But last week's crackdown might have finally ignited a showdown, if Prime Minister Faisal Al-Fayez had not reached an agreement with the Islamists. During a lengthy meeting with the movement's leaders on 12 September, the prime minister agreed to release the detained scholars, which he did, retract the arrest warrants, and gradually allow the return of the clerics to the mosques, in return for the group's "commitment to the preaching and guidance law" that regulates preaching and teaching in the mosques. This agreement has defused the crisis for the time being. Yet, the crackdown was a clear message that the government would no longer tolerate activities which it sees as instigating violence or hatred against the US in the mosques. If the movement's clerics actually manage to obtain prior official permission to speak in the future, they are unlikely to be content in the role of a mouthpiece for government policy, and will probably continue to speak out against the US and Israel, in line with their convictions. In which case, the government seems certain to launch another crackdown. Next time, however, the crisis may not be so easily defused. The decades-old mutual tolerance between the state and the Islamist movement may have survived this test, but its days now look as though they may be numbered.
