On October 18, 2024, board members of the U.S. thinktank Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) rushed to justify an attack carried out by two Jordanian citizens in Israel near the Dead Sea, in which two Israeli soldiers were wounded.
DAWN director Sarah Leah Whitson appeared to applaud the “popular armed resistance to Israel’s war in Gaza” that “has now spread from Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen to Jordan.” Whitson describes the attackers as “two ordinary Jordanians” and blames Israel’s “genocidal” military campaign as the cause of this “escalation.”
Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Moath al-Khawaldeh revealed that the attackers were “members of the group and always participated in events in solidarity with Gaza and in support of the resistance.” And indeed, the terror attack was praised by the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm in Jordan and the spearhead of pro-Hamas protests in the kingdom.
DAWN appears to have acted as IAF’s English distribution arm, including a full translation of the IAF’s endorsement of the October attack alongside its own press release. The DAWN statement uncritically places particular emphasis on IAF’s praise of the attack as a “heroic operation… in response to the massacres committed by the occupation against the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank.”
The Washington D.C. based thinktank claims to promote “democracy, the rule of law, and human rights for all of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa.” Critics refer to the organization as an “unofficial agent for Qatari interests in the United States,” noting its policy positions “primarily criticize the enemies of Qatar,” in collaboration with Western Muslim Brotherhood activists.
IAF is a powerful Jordanian Islamist organization. Over the past year, its activism in Jordan has featured chants such as “All of Jordan is Hamas” and slogans in support of the architects of the group’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel. In a public protest held in Amman in June 2023, IAF chairman Murad Al-Adaileh, who appears to have had close ties with the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, praised Hamas’s “resistance” and lauded Mohammed Deif, the (possibly deceased) leader of Hamas’s military wing Al-Qassam Brigades.
DAWN’s Focus on Jordan
DAWN has placed particular emphasis on Jordan in recent years. In late 2023, in the wake of the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians, DAWN called on Arab states, including Jordan, to withdraw from treaties made with the world’s only Jewish state. This same demand is a long-standing policy of the IAF, recently reiterated by the group after parliamentary elections in September.
Meanwhile, in a report published in October 2024, DAWN described the U.S. military presence in Jordan as “dangerous” and “hazardous” for Jordanian civilians and called on the Biden administration to “design a reasonable timetable to end the American military presence in Jordan.” DAWN’s advocacy director, Raed Jarrar, claimed that the U.S. military presence is “dragging Jordan into Israel’s conflict and endangering everyone in the country.” Similarly, DAWN’s Whitson argued that the Jordanian government “has a responsibility to protect its citizens and avoid engulfing the country in a broader regional war” by urging U.S. forces to leave. DAWN’s press release denounced the Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA), signed in 2021 by Washington and Amman, as a violation of the Jordanian Constitution.
DAWN’s statement mirrors the Muslim Brotherhood’s stance. In August 2022, the IAF condemned the 2021 agreement as “a flagrant violation of Jordan’s sovereignty,” deeming it “a new form of colonialism.” The IAF described the agreement as “legally and constitutionally invalid” and called on the parliament to “suspend and cancel this notorious agreement.” Meanwhile, IAF’s Islamist lawmaker, Saleh Al-Armouti, recently nominated as the speaker of the Jordanian parliament, criticized the lack of parliamentary oversight and urged the government to scrap the accord, citing violations of the constitution and Jordan’s sovereignty.
DAWN has consistently expressed support for pro-Hamas protests in Jordan over the past year, avoiding mention of protestors’ Islamist affiliations. In a March 2024 statement, the D.C. group urged the Jordanian authorities to “end arrests, expulsions, harassment, and intimidation of university students for their peaceful activism for Palestinian rights.” DAWN’s Jordanian senior advisor, Jamal Al-Tahat argued that “students’ right to free expression should be an inalienable right,” accusing the Jordanian king of “not allowing Jordanians the same right to express their own views.”
Less than a month later, DAWN renewed its call on the Jordanian authorities to “end their violent crackdown, harassment, arrests, and ongoing detention of peaceful demonstrators protesting Israel’s assault on Gaza,” arguing that suspending diplomatic ties and intelligence cooperation with Tel Aviv would “minimize further civil strife.” Criticizing the government’s approach to the demonstrations, DAWN’s Al-Tahat said that “the regime’s unwisely harsh policies could turn Jordan’s stability into the second casualty of the Gaza War.”
DAWN’s stance echoed the activism and rhetoric of the IAF, which has helped organize protests and successfully cited protestors’ anger over Gaza in its pursuit of electoral victory in Jordan’s September parliamentary election. The IAF was successful, securing a historic 31 of 138 seats. During the campaign, IAF employed the Islamist slogan, “With Islam, we protect the homeland and build the ummah [Islamic nation],” while IAF candidates displayed signs with Hamas-affiliated symbols.
DAWN has monitored Jordanian politics closely. In June 2024, the Qatar-aligned group criticized Jordan’s Independent Elections Commission (IEC) for dissolving several Islamist-oriented political parties, accusing the Jordanian government of resorting to “harassment and intimidation of political party members, and censorship of their media outlets.”
In its political success, the IAF also benefited from its leverage over the 140,000-strong Jordan Teachers’ Syndicate, a union closed by authorities in 2020 over its close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and involvement in a series of education protests. Once again, DAWN got involved. Both the IAF and DAWN lobbied for the re-opening of the union, calling on the U.S. to end its military and economic aid to Jordan. DAWN’s Al-Tahat said, “The persistent retaliation against members of the teachers’ union ... is a vicious display of the government’s weaponization of its authority to quash the rights of the Jordanian people.”
There has been increasing suspicion, within Jordan, of malign foreign influence. On March 29, 2024, the London-based, Saudi-affiliated, Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper quoted an official Jordanian source as saying that there were “foreign links and calls pushing Jordanians to escalate against their government,” stating that the IAF was behind the protest calls. According to the sources, the protests were coordinated by leaders of the Islamic movement in Jordan and Hamas leaders abroad to “drag Jordanians into the Gaza battle.”
DAWN, it seems, has worked to encourage this unrest, all the while employed as a credible source and platform for U.S. human rights reports.
IAF’s Man in D.C
Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood is well-established. And, in recent years, Jordanian officials have denounced Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood operatives safely ensconced in Doha for “inciting” unrest in Jordan “with the help of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.”
As an accused proxy for Doha and various Muslim Brotherhood interests, it follows that DAWN would thus also focus on the Hashemite kingdom. But DAWN’s willingness to circulate IAF’s violent rhetoric may have more to do with the Washington group’s “senior advisor” Jamal Al-Tahat.
Al-Tahat is a prominent Jordanian Islamist activist, who has called for the ousting of Jordanian King Abdullah II, arguing that for Jordanians to reclaim their country they need first to rid it from “the claws of Israeli hegemony, represented in the corrupt and tyrant and his family.”
Jordanian state-affiliated media has accused Al-Tahat of financial arrangements with the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, places Al-Tahat alongside IAF delegations, and has published photos of Al-Tahat meeting with senior Islamist figures in Jordan. While allegations in state media cannot necessarily be trusted, there is still little doubt that Al-Tahat is closely involved with the Brotherhood in Jordan, with Brotherhood officials publicly noting close collaboration.
In the United States, DAWN works to shame lobbyists of the U.S. government by creating what it called “the lobbyist hall of shame.” Meanwhile, it offers few disclosures about its own foreign agendas. DAWN selectively focuses on countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Jordan, while avoiding criticisms of Qatar and Turkey – regimes to which its own board members are connected.
DAWN’s explicit support for Islamism, for violence against Israel and in opposition to United States policy cannot be dismissed as the regular activity of a thinktank. Rather, DAWN should be recognized for what it truly is: a lobbyist for Doha’s Islamists, from Cairo to Amman.