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Saturday, May 15, 2021

What happened to the royal family of Jordan? (2)

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May, 2021

 

3. Crown prince had been replaced twice

 

In 1999, King Hussein (then) had been admitted to a hospital in US for cancer treatment. King realized that he had no life expectancy. He took a surprising action. He returned home by a special flight while lying on his bed. King persuaded his younger brother, then Crown Prince Hassan, to hand over the title of the crown prince to King’s eldest son, Abdullah II, of 38 years old. King Hussein flew back to the United States immediately and he died shortly.

 

It was Prince Hamza, a half-brother, who became the crown prince in 1999 under the new King Abdullah II. At that time, Abdullah II had a son named Hussein with the Palestinian Queen, Rania. But Hussein was only five years old. So, King Abdullah II made his half-brother Hamza the Crown Prince. During the reign of King Abdullah II, there were the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the Iraq War in 2003. The Middle East continued to be unrest. The king and crown prince of half-brothers cooperated each other to keep small Jordan in safe.


 

However, in 2004, the same problem took place about the replacement of crown prince. The King declared that he would replace Hamza with his son, Hussein, as the crown prince. It was a repetition of the same as the time of former King Hussein. The difference was that in last time the king and the crown prince were full-brothers and this time they were half-brothers respectively.

 

The replacement of crown prince was done peacefully without any inner battle. The reason of peaceful succession would be that Jordan, a small and fragile country, could not afford to waste time on the trouble of the inner circle within the royal family. Both the king and the crown prince fully acknowledged the situation. Hamza gave up the position of the crown prince. King Abdullah II picked up the symptom of future family struggles by adopting the inheritance rule that the king’s son should be the next king.

 

Generally speaking, the succession issue is not so simple even if the person concerned (in this case, Abdullah II and Hamza) agreed each other. There are many people in both sides looking for sweet fruits. They might lose their sweet fruits if their boss lost his position. They, therefore, try to persuade or allure the boss to keep the status quo. In this case, it could be possible to think that the entourage of Prince Hamza tried to attempt coup d'etat. Furthermore, Hamza's wife, Princess Basmah, might be involved in the plot. Basmah was a first female pilot in Jordan. She was born in Canada and her father was a businessman. Her mother-in-law, Queen Noor was a Syrian-American.

 

Remember the kinship of the current King Abdullah II. The King's mother, Princess Muna, was an English woman. King’s wife, Queen Rania was born in Kuwait to a Palestinian refugee doctor. Then Crown Prince Abdullah fell in love with Rania when she was working as a journalist in Jordan after graduating from college in Kuwait. Rania became the Crown Princess and later the Queen. She was a Cinderella girl.

 

Commenting in the style of a gossip magazine, Princess Basmah is a genuine Jordanian and her mother-in-law was a Syrian Arab. On the other hand, Basmah’s brother-in-law, King Abdullah II is a half between Arab and British, and his wife Rania is a Palestinian refugee.

 

Basmah might think that which is more suitable, her husband or King’s son as the successor of the noble Hashemite Family which is the descendent of Prophet Muhammad? It was reported that Princess Basmah contacted a certain country in search of asylum after the incident was disclosed[1]. It can guess that Hashemite house turmoil was based on the complicated kinship.

 

This is a gossip-style commentary on the case. There is no difference between the royal family or the merchant family in both the East and West regarding domestic struggle.

 

(Cont’d)

 

By Areha Kazuya

E-mail: Arehakazuya1@gmail.com



[1] Prince Hamzeh, inner clique’s attempts to undermine security, stability foiled — deputy PM

http://jordantimes.com/news/local/prince-hamzeh-inner-cliques-attempts-undermine-security-stability-foiled-%E2%80%94-deputy-pm

2021/4/5 The Jordan Times

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