12-11-14 Dispatch from Jerusalem - right now, dramatic events in the Kingdom of Jordan, blacked out by media?

Jerusalem, November 14 - for the first time in memory, international tourists report that they are unable to travel from Amman to Jerusalem for security reasons, under social unrest in the Kingdom of Jordan.  The matter was briefly covered in late night new analysis from an Israeli newscaster, with short video clips of the unrest.  However, given other dramatic events in the region, the matter did not seem to register...  

Otherwise, the issue appears to be blacked out by media.  Below are the relevant search results on "Jordan", "social unrest" on Google.

Joseph Zernik

Jordan

Muhammad Hamed/Reuters

Updated: Oct. 19, 2012

Jordan, one of America’s most important allies in the Middle East, was hit in late January 2011 by the waves of unrest that spread across the Arab world in the wake of the revolution in Tunisia. Protests were led by the Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, but included leftists and trade unions. Demonstrators protested economic hardship and demanded the right to elect the prime minister, who is currently appointed by King Abdullah II. 

On Feb. 1, the king dismissed his cabinet and prime minister in a surprise effort to calm street protests that had also been fueled by the country’s worst economic crisis in years. In June, he announced that the government would in the future be elected, not appointed, responding to a demand of protesters calling for democratic change. That fall, the king fired his government yet again.

For most of 2011, demonstrations subsided. The increasingly violent rebellion in neighboring Syria and the brutal suppression by the government of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, appeared to have dampened the enthusiasm of some activists in Jordan, who fear the prospect of a slide into chaos. King Abdullah in November 2011 had become the first of Syria’s Arab neighbors to call for a change in government there.

But in September 2012, angry protests erupted over a planned 10 percent increase in gas prices, part of an effort to reduce the subsidy burden on the state budget. King Abdullah quickly cancelled the increase after a weekend of demonstrations and after 89 of Parliament’s 120 members signed a statement of no confidence in the prime minister over the hikes.

In October, King Abdullah dissolved Parliament, a constitutional move to pave the way for elections expected early in 2013.

Background

Though highly literate and largely stable, with well-developed security and intelligence operations, Jordan has a fundamental vulnerability in the large number of Palestinians living there. Refugees arrived in large numbers from the West Bank and Jerusalem after the war in 1967, and more arrived from Kuwait after Saddam Hussein invaded that country in 1990. They and their descendants make up nearly half the country’s population of 6.5 million.  

Jordan’s main constituencies are the so-called East Bankers or tribes, and the Palestinians who constitute a majority of the nation’s population. East Bankers, the country’s original inhabitants, dominate the civil service, especially the security forces, while the Palestinians rule in the private sector. Economic reform to bring Jordan in line with the global marketplace has tended to benefit the Palestinians, while the East Bankers — the core of the monarchy’s support — rely on the government payroll.

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Jordan Chronology

1. NOV. 1, 2012

   Zaatari, Jordan, is site of makeshift marketplaces, selling everything from fruits and vegetables to perfume, that have sprung up in refugee camps housing Syrians who have fled the war at home; inhabitants come to terms with fact that they may be stuck in camps for months.MORE »

2. OCT. 23, 2012

   Lebanon and Jordan move aggressively to squelch spread of violence from Syria's dead-locked civil war, most significant register yet of alarm over strife spilling over Syrian borders.MORE »
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3. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/jordan/index.html
   
   

   Spotlight

   Why Syria May Be The Catalyst For Jordan’s “Arab Spring”

   November 02, 2012

   

   Syrian spillover increasingly poses a serious risk of broader instability in Jordan. Jordan's closed political environment coupled with significant economic challenges and increased security-related threats constitute a precarious situation for the kingdom. In particular, King Abdullah's refusal to implement meaningful reforms while stifling deepening social unrest puts Jordan on an unsteady equilibrium. Injecting the dynamic factor of the Syrian crisis could tip Jordan into a full popular uprising.

    Jordan's more recent political unrest stems from its slow paced democratic reform which has achieved little since launched  more than a decade ago. Palace-led reform efforts have yielded little more than a controversial election law and several changes in government. Until now, the King has been able to pacify public unrest and popular reform demands by deflecting most of the criticism toward government ministers rather than the monarchy. Some credit the King's staying power to the legitimacy held by Islamic monarchs or more broadly the social contract between monarchs and their people, but neither of these approaches takes into account the impact -both direct and indirect- that the Syrian crisis may have on the reform process or the new dimensions it adds to Jordan's growing instability.

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   http://www.stimson.org/spotlight/why-syria-may-be-the-catalyst-for-jordans-arab-spring/