'It's our country too!': Palestinian identity and the Islamic claim to human rights in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

The 1990 Gulf War disrupted the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan's secular nationalist trend. To the extent that Palestinian in Jordan, who constitute the majority, saw Saddam Hussein as a force willing to challenge Israeli regional hegemony, his defeat not only represented another Arab loss, but also brought an abrupt halt to cash remittances Palestinians relied on from their Gulf relatives. This coupled with rapid economic and social liberalization in Jordan permitted a public dialogue for the first time, and Islam has increasingly seeped into the social fissures created by regional and domestic turbulence.;Since the 1990 Gulf War, few regional issues have been resolved, the Oslo peace process collapsed in 2000, and Islam has increasingly eclipsed politics and become an important vehicle for public discourse in Jordan. The Iraq War beginning in 2003 pushed an estimated 750,000 Iraqi refugees into Jordan (IRIN 2007a), a further burden this country devoid of resources can ill afford. Once again Jordan residents are trying to understand what it means to be a refugee, a Muslim, and a citizen in Jordan amid a crumbling economy. Individual response among refugee populations has included increased religiosity, and the Kingdom views this as a potential threat, for their legitimacy stems from their Hashemite roots more than their Muslim background.;Perhaps unexpectedly, Jordan works to contain this potential domestic threat by engaging in a religious dialogue with Palestinians. The invention and exacerbation of Sunni/Shia' sectarian issues by the King represents a nation-state's initiation of dialogue with Palestinians, a group too long ignored by states. The so-called Shia' Crescent, inclusive of Syria, Iran, and Iraq, represents a religious threat that knows no borders, according to King Abdullah II. Religious Palestinians, concerned with the threat they perceive directed at their families, are returning to state concerns, and expressing an interest in fighting in the Jordanian military against Shia' infiltrators. The King's political risk has rewarded him with the attention of an otherwise disinterested population.;Thus, Palestinians are at a cross-roads. On one hand, they are finally being engaged in dialogue with the head of a nation-state. Contrarily, intense focus on sectarian issues within the Kingdom limits focus on domestic issues that require attention, notably the sharp increasing in food and fuel prices.;I base this dissertation on fieldwork conducted between the Summer of 2006 and the Summer of 2007. I conducted qualitative interviews with eight families living in three of Amman's Palestinian refugee camps, and in southern and eastern Amman. I also conducted quantitative interviews with Jordanians and Palestinians around Amman.