"STREET" EXULTS OVER HIZBALLAH "VICTORY"

C O N F I D E N T I A L AMMAN 006335 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/17/2021 TAGS: PGOV KPAL IS LE SY JO SUBJECT: "STREET" EXULTS OVER HIZBALLAH "VICTORY" REF: AMMAN 6179 AND PREVIOUS Classified By: Ambassador David Hale for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Many Jordanians who were once resigned to the view that armed resistance to Israel was no longer an option for the Arab world have changed their minds as a result of the supposed Hizballah "victory" over Israel's army. The Embassy's friends in the establishment tell us this with worry, while those not so friendly to the U.S. (including a few former friends) boast of it in the media, from the floor of parliament, and in street demonstrations. The newly militant strain of public opinion received with relish the recent televised speeches of Hassan Nasrallah and Bashar Al-Asad. This development has focused the King on the need to encourage diplomatic efforts to promote Palestinian-Israeli peace as essential to countering extremists and to preserving the position of moderate leaders such as himself. End summary. ¶2. (SBU) For the moment, at least, Jordan's "street" is exultant over the supposed "victory" of Hizballah against an Israeli military once viewed as invincible. ¶3. (C) Former Prime Minister Taher Al-Masri told poloff most ordinary Jordanians believed Hizballah prevailed, and welcomed this outcome. While uncomfortable with Shi'ism, they would side with Iran before Israel. "Meanwhile Arab regimes will be further isolated from the people." ¶4. (C) Sheikh Barjes Al-Hadid, a pro-government member of parliament and leader of the 20,000-strong Al-Hadid tribe, complained to polcouns that most of his tribe believed Nasrallah had given the Arabs their first victory over Israel in decades. Referring to media reports that the USG had expedited deliveries of bunker-buster bombs to Israel during the conflict, he said no one "could any longer take seriously" talk of evenhanded U.S. mediation between Arabs and Israelis. ¶5. (C) Muhammad Kheir Mustafa, a political science professor at the University of Jordan and a pro-peace treaty liberal, told polcouns that students - and faculty - were excited by the Hizballah "victory." For decades, Arab parents "have taught their children that Arabs are a defeated people" and engagement with Israel was thus the only option. Now Hizballah had strengthened the "radical alternative" to this view. Following perceived American/Israeli onslaughts against the Hamas government and now against the government of Lebanon, skepticism over the American "democracy project," he worried, was now almost universal. The King's credibility had taken a particular hit: the many who now admire Hizballah's courage remember that in early July their King derided Nasrallah's action as "an adventure." Media -------------- ¶6. (U) The Islamic Action Front's newsweekly, As-Sabeel, was predictably dominated by news and commentary about the so-called Hizballah "victory" and, like Bashar Al-Asad, mocked the Secretary's statement about a new Middle East. The populist secular press has taken a similar line. Higher-end media, such as the liberal Al-Ghad daily, have given prominent news coverage to the "victory," while their opinion pieces on the Nasrallah and Asad speeches have been evenly divided between admiring columns, and articles mocking Iran and the SARG for fighting "to the last Lebanese." ¶7. (C) Post assumes the GOJ's mechanisms for guiding editorials have had much to do with the latter strain of opinion. The public affairs section's recent contacts with Jordan's opinion-shaping elite suggest that many editors and columnists privately share the street's elation, even if their columns suggest otherwise. Effect on Domestic Politics -------------- ¶8. (U) The militant mood over Arab-Israeli issues may bleed over into previously unrelated domestic controversies. On the opening day of parliament's summer session, Azzam Huneidi, leader of the Islamic Action Front's parliamentary bloc, ignored rules restricting debate to the government's legislative agenda, and denounced from the floor of parliament the government's jailing of two Front MPs for visiting the family condolence tent of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. The Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Action Front are reportedly deliberating this week over how to respond to the MPs' jailing (septel). Hotheads will no doubt urge that the movement emulate Hizballah's "steadfastness." Palace Concern -------------- ¶9. (C) The King and his office director, Bassem Awadallah, separately in the past two days told the Ambassador of their concerns with the public mood. Irrational jihadist sentiment is growing among common Jordanians, they said, and Jordan's strategy of stability through a peace agreement with Israel and strategic alignment with the U.S. was under assault. Unless moderate Arab leaders could point soon to the benefit of that strategy on a regional level - particularly in promoting Palestinian-Israeli peace - their position would continue to erode and the Iranian/Syrian/Hizballah/Hamas axis would prevail. Their fear is of a public that increasingly looks to the extremists for leadership. Comment -------------- ¶10. (C) The impact of the prolonged Israel-Hizballah fighting for U.S. priorities in Jordan has been negative across the board. The standing of a supportive King has suffered, popular attitudes toward democratization and Arab-Israeli engagement have moved in the wrong direction, and radical forces may have been strengthened. Time, and visible peacemaking in the region, may repair some of the damage. Visit Amman's Classified Web Site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman/ Hale