"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