Al-Rawabdeh stops receiving tribes backing government acts against Hamas

The Jordanian government on Sunday decided to stop receiving tribal delegations that back measures taken against the Hamas resistance movement following large-scale protests from Jordanian party and trade union activists, who have accused the government of perpetuating "tribal divisions and rising the hatred of the Jordanian people against the Islamic movements which oppose peace with Israel."

In statements quoted on Sunday by the official Jordanian news agency, Petra, the Jordanian Prime Minister Abdul Raouf al-Rawabdeh announced that he is "stopping, the receiving of the delegations representing the honoring tribes, with our utmost appreciation for their noble feelings, so as to dedicate efforts to working at the directives of King Abdullah II Bin al-Hussein."

For one week, al-Rawabdeh has been, on a daily basis, receiving sheikhs of the Bedouins tribes which had announced their backing for the measures taken by the government against Hamas. The Jordanian authorities on November 21 expelled four Hamas political leaders to Qatar, after the organization's offices were closed in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in August.

Well-informed sources in Amman said, "The tribes were motivated to this stand (of backing the measures against Hamas) at pressures by the government, which tries to invest the public opinion for the interests of its measures against Hamas," after the Jordanian government underwent large-scale criticism from the party forces, especially the Muslim Brothers group, vocational trade unionists and other activists who called for the resignation of the government.

The Jordanian independent paper al-Arab al-Youm said on Sunday that the administrative governor of al-Balqaa province pressured the municipality heads to compose a tribal delegation to visit the Cabinet and stand with the governmental measures against Hamas.

Meanwhile, political observers say the "attempt of the prime minister to show off the backing of the Jordanian street to his policy was not built on coordination with the Jordanian King. They built their assumption on that the tribes, whose sheikhs receive monthly salaries from the Royal Palace, did not announce, previously, their loyalty except for the king who ordered to stop receiving tribal delegations."