Jordan: Is the US sponsoring a 'palace coup'?

[NYTimes] "... Now, 13 years after King Hussein’s death and King Abdullah’s ascension, the fantasy of a handover to Hamzah, 32, has captured the imagination of a resurgent protest movement that poses the biggest threat in decades to the stability of Jordan, a pivotal American ally. This dream of a transition to a new king within the same dynasty, critics say, is an apt reflection of the ambiguous character of the protests, animated by the democratic spirit of the Arab Spring uprisings but also by nostalgia.“There is a popular outcry for Hamzah,” said an organizer in the two-year-old secular opposition network Hirak, which began raising demands for political reform and local development after the start of the Arab Spring revolts. (Its name comes from the Arabic word for movement.)....
The political tremors are disconcerting for American policy makers because of the role Jordan has played as a dependable ally and a stabilizing buffer zone in a volatile region. Jordan is the only Arab country besides Egypt to sign a peace treaty with Israel,...
Supporters of King Abdullah argue that the attention paid to Prince Hamzah is evidence that, in contrast to the other Arab Spring movements, the protests here are essentially conservative....
The opposition movement has directed special hatred toward King Abdullah’s glamorous Palestinian wife, Queen Rania, whose influence the organizers have cited as one of their top complaints. Tensions between East Bank natives and Palestinian immigrants, who make up about half of Jordan’s population, are the major fissure in Jordanian politics. And while East Bank natives have dominated the public sector, Palestinians have flourished in the private sector and stand to gain from liberalization.
The king views Hirak as advocating “the status quo,” one diplomat who has talked to him said.
But many of the demonstrators who turned out for four days of protests in Amman and other cities last week said that economic grievances were beginning to translate into new demands for democratic political change, toward the adoption of a constitutional monarchy like Britain’s.....

Demonstrators in Amman and other places around Jordan blamed official corruption for the country’s poverty, and they pinned the corruption on a lack of accountability for King Abdullah. At rallies, protesters held hands to perform what they called “the corruption dance,” chanting that King Abdullah was Ali Baba, the legendary thief. “The corruption is woven into the fabric, and everything is connected to it, even the unemployment,” said Gassem Gharaibeh, 40, a Hirak activist in Irbid. But the protesters also had more specific complaints about King Abdullah’s authenticity. Educated abroad while his father groomed his brother for the throne, King Abdullah is sometimes derided for being more fluent in English than in Arabic. “We are speaking Arabic, clear Arabic, leave!” demonstrators chanted in Amman.

They accuse Queen Rania of building a lifestyle of extreme luxury while her family grows rich on its connections.... “Rania and Abdullah stole Jordan!” goes another popular chant.

But there is still much love for King Hussein, and many appear to extend that nostalgic glow to Prince Hamzah. East Bank Jordanians say that Prince Hamzah was often sent to move among them, to polish his Arabic and to work on the common touch that his father had.

“Hamzah would be better, because King Hussein trained him to be a king,” said Sahel Majali, 54, a businessman in traditional dress sitting on a stoop with a grandson in Amman. “King Abdullah should apologize to the Jordanian people, because his bad decisions have gotten us into this terrible place.”....

Prince Hamzah has stayed silent, far from the public eye. But three organizers with Hirak said its 70-member steering committee, which meets in the headquarters of an Amman labor union, was leaning toward an embrace of Prince Hamzah, too....."