SUMMARY
[Note to reader: this Country page primarily contains brief information about state-based violence during the period 1946-1974, and to some extent 1975-1988. For more detailed information on organized violence after 1989, please consult the specific Conflict and Dyad pages available on the left-hand side of this page. These pages contain more detailed information regarding all three categories of organized violence in this country from 1989 and onwards (when applicable), as well as detailed information about state-based violence 1975-1988. The left-hand side menu also contains links to Actor pages for all groups involved in organized violence since 1989 in this country, as well as actors involved in state-based violence 1975-1988.]
Jordan, officially named the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, became an independent state in its modern form in 1946 when the British mandate over the territory was annulled. The territory that was to become Jordan came under British rule as a League of Nations mandate after World War I, being carved from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire and also included Palestine. The British relinquished a certain amount of self-rule to the lands east of the Jordan River to the Hashemite dynasty of kings in 1921, with this territory being called the ‘Transjordan’. Full control of this area, which became known as Jordan in 1949, was given to the Hashemites in 1946, after the United Kingdom asked the UN Security Council to terminate the mandate over this territory. Full executive power then fell to King Abdullah I whose successors continue to be the leading force in Jordanian politics despite a multi-party system also being in place.
Jordan has engaged in a series of conflicts with its neighboring country Israel. Together with its Arab allies -Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt- Jordan participated in the attack on the newly created state of Israel in 1948. This interstate conflict was the result of Jordan’s and its allies’ disapproval of the creation of Israel from what was seen as being Arab/Palestinian land. Jordan and its allies were however defeated. Following on this conflict Jordan unilaterally annexed the West Bank territories and eastern Jerusalem in 1950, which it had de facto-control over since the 1948 armistice and the end of the conflict in 1949.
Close ties with Egypt, Iraq and Syria meant that Jordan also participated in the 1967 interstate conflict with Israel (commonly referred to as the Six Day War). The Arab coalition was defeated again, and Israel occupied the West Bank territories and the parts of Jerusalem that had been annexed by Jordan. In the conflict that followed in 1973 Jordan did not actively participate in attacks against Israel.
The 1948 and 1967 conflicts with Israel led to massive Palestinian refugee flows to Jordan and also to the influx of many Palestinian fighters. These fighters became a center for power on their own, and after fighting with the government of Jordan in 1970-71 these groups of fighters were expelled from Jordan. These bouts of fighting are however not coded as an armed conflict by the UCDP due to the lack of an incompatibility. Despite these events, Jordan in 1974 recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and relinquished claims on the West Bank territories in 1988.
Giving up the claims to the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem allowed Jordan to enter into peace negotiations with Israel during the Israeli-Palestinian peace process of the 1990s. Jordan and Israel signed a peace agreement in 1994, ending their territorial disputes.
In 2005 Jordan was struck by a wave of one-sided violence, carried out by militants Islamists of the TQJBR (Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn; The Organization of Jihads Base in the Country of the Two Rivers) group. This group targeted hotels in a series of coordinated bomb attacks against what appears to have been perceived as ‘Western’ targets. See the one-sided violence category in Iraq, IS-civilians, for more information about these attacks (TQJBR changed name to ISI – Islamic State in Iraq, in 2006, and to Islamic State in 2014).
In terms of secondary warring support Jordan has assisted the USA in its intrastate conflict with al-Qaida (beginning in 2001), has given warring support to the coalition that unseated the Taleban regime in Afghanistan in 2001 and sent troops to ISAF to aid the government of Afghanistan in the conflict against the Taliban that begun in 2003.
Since 1946 Jordan has experienced the interstate and one-sided categories of UCDP organised violence.
