Muslim Brotherhood faces rift in Jordan

Balance of power in play as Hamas tries to increase its clout within the organisation, while moderates want to end the overlap.

Jordanians and Palestinians chant slogans and wave Muslim Brotherhood flags during a demonstration in Amman against Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip in March 2008.

AMMAN // Internal rifts have deepened within the Muslim Brotherhood's ranks in recent weeks as the movement attempts to define the balance of power between hardliners affiliated to Hamas and moderates who believe the movement's priorities should be Jordanian.

The divisions are mostly related to the movement's relationship with Hamas - an offshoot of the Jordanian Brotherhood that was founded in Gaza in 1987. The moderates, mostly pro-Jordanian Islamists, want Jordanian members of Palestinian origin working in its regional administrative offices in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and elsewhere in the region, to end their duplicate membership in both the Hamas Shura Council and the Jordananian Muslim Brotherhood Shura Council. They hope such a move will help end the Brotherhood's ties with Hamas.

The administrative offices were formed as part of Jordan's Brotherhood in 1978 when it was merged with the Palestinian branch of the movement under what was called the Levant Organisation, or Bilad Al Sham organisation. Since Hamas became independent from the Jordanian movement three years ago, the number of seats these expatriates claimed in the 51- member Shura Council fell from 12 to four. Now, however, the hardliners in the movement, led by Hamam Saeed, the Brotherhood's leader of Palestinian origin, want their seats back to 12 because they do not want Hamas to lose its clout within the Brotherhood.

They want the Brotherhood to be under Hamas' control because they believe that Hamas represents Palestinians in the diaspora, including Jordanians of Palestinian origin. During last month's Shura Council meeting, Jordananian Muslim Brotherhood members had trouble containing their differences over the duplicate membership. The moderates managed to delay voting on the matter until the next Shura Council convenes. No date has been set.

"If the hardliners manage to increase their seats, there will be further imbalances in the movement which will serve the current of the hardliners," said Mohammad Abu Rumman, an analyst with the daily newspaper Alghad who specialises in Islamic movements. The Brotherhood was also disturbed by a report by its political bureau that was leaked to a Jordanian news website last month that accused Jordan of being involved in a US-Israeli project to resolve the Palestinian conflict according to Israeli terms, where Jordan would settle its Palestinian refugees permanently and give up their right of return.

The report embarrassed the Brotherhood, and senior members explained that it was only a draft and did not represent the views of the movement as a whole. But Brotherhood members traded blame on who leaked the report. Subsequently, three senior ranking dovish figures submitted their resignations from the Brotherhood's executive bureau, which runs the day to day affairs of the movement. Divisions are not new to the group, which is banned in many countries in the region but tolerated here.

However, Mr Saeed, the Brotherhood's hardline leader, dismissed internal divisions, saying that the movement had faced problems before and emerged resilient. "I assure you that the movement has the tools of love, unity, dialogue and decision making thanks to God," he said during an iftar meal with Brotherhood members last week. "To attest to that, our long mission went through downturns and emerged with all its power and unity."

The Jordanian government, which became wary of Hamas after its 2006 election victory in Gaza, has not made any statements in the media regarding the turmoil, but having a Shura Council where the overwhelming majority are affiliated to Hamas is something it would find troubling. The Islamists are popular in Jordan, a country where at least half of the nearly six million population is of Palestinian origin, the majority of whom are against the country's 1994 peace treaty with Israel.

Pro-government analysts attack the brotherhood movement in their columns. "It is totally unacceptable for a citizen from Gaza - which is Hamas' state and run by a Hamas government - who does not hold Jordanian citizenship to be a member of the Jordanian Muslim Brothers' Shura Council to decide on Jordanian matters such as the parliamentary elections, or issue a report that accused Jordan of being part of an 'American-Zionist project to liquidate the Palestinian cause'," Saleh Qallab, a commentator with Al Rai, Jordan's pro-government daily, wrote last week.

"With Hamas insisting that its administrative offices in the Gulf states be represented in its own Shura Council and the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood at the same time, this means that Hamas sees Jordan as another Palestinian land, just like Gaza and the West Bank. What confirms this is that the Hamas current within the movement insists on rejecting the disengagement agreement of 1988," he explained, in reference to a Jordanian decision that severed legal and administrative ties with the West Bank to allow the Palestinian Liberation Organisation to act as the sole representative of the Palestinians.

The brotherhood movement was an ally to the Hashemite regime in the 1950s against the communist and nationalist movements, but their ties with the government deteriorated in the imid-1980s when the state became wary of the movement's growing influence. The local media has been rife with analyses of the struggle within the movement and the role of Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas, in easing tensions or whether he is part of the problem.

Analysts said that Mr Meshaal, who attended his father's funeral in Amman earlier this month in his first visit to the country in a decade, was closely watching the Brotherhood's struggle and was in contact with the movement's leaders. "It is within Hamas' interest that there be a financially and administratively independent Jordanian Islamist movement," wrote Fahed Kheitan, a columnist with Arab Alywam, an independent daily.

"If this independence is achieved, it will legitimise the relationship between both Islamist movements that may create a Jordanian-Palestinian alliance to face Zionist plans that target both countries." [e-mail]