Abdullah II of Jordan

• 1. Introduction

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  In 1996, a man who would become King Abdullah II of Jordan appeared on screen in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager titled Investigations. At the time he was a prince commanding his country's Special Forces, and his part had no lines. He was simply a fan of the series. Three years later he held a throne he had never expected to inherit.

  Abdullah is now the longest-serving current Arab leader. He rules a small, semi-arid kingdom with little oil or water, bordered by Iraq, Syria, Israel and the West Bank. How did a soldier prince come to rule? How much power does a monarch of this kind actually hold? And how does a country with so few resources keep going while wars erupt along its frontiers?

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• 2. Soldier Before King

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  Palestine Hospital in Al Abdali, Amman, was where Abdullah was born on the 30th of January 1962. His father was King Hussein. His mother, Princess Muna, was British-born and had been named Toni Avril Gardiner. The boy took the name of his paternal great-grandfather, Abdullah I, who founded modern Jordan.

  The Hashemite family ruled Mecca for over 700 years, from the 10th century until the House of Saud conquered the city in 1925. They have governed Jordan since 1921 and are the oldest ruling dynasty in the Muslim world. Family tradition counts Abdullah as a 41st-generation descendant of the prophet Muhammad's daughter Fatimah and her husband Ali, the fourth Rashidun caliph.

  Under the 1952 constitution, being the king's eldest son made him heir apparent. That changed in 1965, when political instability led Hussein to appoint an adult heir instead, Abdullah's uncle Prince Hassan. Abdullah began school in 1966 at the Islamic Educational College in Amman. He went on to St Edmund's School in England, Eaglebrook School for middle school and Deerfield Academy for high school in the United States.

  Deerfield left a lasting mark. He gave the commencement speech to its class of 2000. In 2007 he founded King's Academy near Madaba, the Middle East's first boarding school, in appreciation of his own education. He hired Deerfield's headmaster, Eric Widmer, to oversee it, and its students come from across the region.

  The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England launched his military career in 1980. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the British Army. He then spent a year in Britain and West Germany as a troop commander in the 13th/18th Royal Hussars, now the Light Dragoons. In 1982 he entered Pembroke College, Oxford, for a one-year special-studies course in Middle Eastern affairs.

  Back in Jordan he joined the Royal Jordanian Army, serving in the 40th Armored Brigade as a first lieutenant, then platoon commander and assistant company commander. He took a free-fall parachuting course. In 1985 he completed the Armored Officer's Advanced Course at Fort Knox. As a captain he commanded a tank company in the 91st Armored Brigade. He also trained to fly Cobra attack helicopters with the air force's anti-tank helicopter wing.

  In 1987 he studied international affairs at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C. Two years later he returned home as assistant commander of the 17th Royal Tank Battalion and was promoted to major. A staff course at the British Staff College followed in 1990. He commanded a battalion in the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in 1992 and, as a colonel, led the 40th Brigade the next year.

  In 1994 Abdullah took command of Jordan's Special Forces and other elite units as a brigadier general. Two years later he restructured them into the Joint Special Operations Command. In 1998, by then a major general, he commanded an elite special-forces manhunt for outlaws. The operation reportedly ended successfully, with his name chanted on the streets of Amman.

  A dinner in January 1993, organized by his sister Princess Aisha, introduced Abdullah to Rania Al-Yassin, who worked in marketing for Apple Inc. in Amman. They became engaged two months later. They married on the 10th of June 1993 at Zahran Palace. They now have four children: Crown Prince Hussein, Princess Iman, Princess Salma and Prince Hashem.

  Skydiving, motorcycling, water sports and collecting ancient weapons appear on his list of pastimes. He also enjoys stand-up comedy. When Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Peters and other comedians visited a 2009 comedy festival in Jordan, the king invited them to dinner. Amateur videos of him have gone viral twice. In 2013 he helped push a car stuck in snow in Amman, and in 2017 he helped put out a fire in a wood near the royal palace while wearing pyjamas.

  One pastime ended with the crown. On the program Jordan: The Royal Tour, where he guided Discovery Channel travel host Peter Greenberg, Abdullah said he is no longer permitted to skydive.

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• 3. Sudden Succession

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  In 1987, Abdullah led his father's delegation to Moscow for talks. He often visited the Pentagon in Washington to lobby for more military aid to Jordan. He joined King Hussein on trips to see Hafez al-Assad in Damascus and Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, before the 1990 Gulf War. In 1998 he was sent to hand-deliver a message to Muammar Gaddafi. Regent duties in the 1990s mostly fell to Hussein's younger brother, Crown Prince Hassan.

  Cancer was diagnosed in King Hussein in 1992, and he frequently traveled to the United States for treatment afterward. In late 1998 he returned from a six-month medical absence and criticized Hassan in a public letter. He accused his brother of abusing his constitutional powers as regent.

  On the 24th of January 1999, two weeks before his death, Hussein replaced Hassan with his son as heir apparent. The decision surprised everyone, including Abdullah, who had thought he would spend his life in the military.

  On the 7th of February 1999, Hussein died of complications of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. His 47-year reign had spanned four turbulent decades of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Cold War. Several hours after the announcement, Abdullah appeared at an emergency session of parliament, with Hussein's brothers Hassan and Mohammed walking ahead of him. In Arabic he swore the oath his father had taken almost fifty years earlier: "I swear by Almighty God to uphold the constitution and to be faithful to the nation". Senate speaker Zaid Al-Rifai opened the session with Al-Fatiha, the opening chapter of the Quran, his voice cracking with emotion.

  Abdullah's investiture took place on the 9th of June 1999. A motorcade through Amman carried the 37-year-old king and his 29-year-old wife, Rania, then the youngest queen in the world. A reception at Raghadan Palace followed, attended by 800 dignitaries.

  Abdullah was Jordan's fourth king, and observers doubted he could handle the economic crisis left over from the 1990 Gulf War. He kept his father's moderate, pro-Western policy, including support for the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. After the transition, the United States and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf increased their aid.

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• 4. Powers Of The Crown

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  According to Freedom House, most seats in Jordan's elected House of Representatives are held by pro-palace independents. The reason lies in the king's reach. Abdullah holds wider executive and legislative authority than most constitutional monarchs, and he is one of the few monarchs who both rule and reign. He is head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He appoints the prime minister and the directors of the security agencies, while the prime minister chooses the cabinet. Parliament has two chambers, an appointed Senate and the elected House. Freedom House judges it extremely difficult for a party to win power through the ballot box alone.

  In the early years of his reign, Jordan had a population of 4.5 million, and Abdullah reportedly went undercover to see its problems firsthand. Of his incognito visits to government institutions, he said in 2000, "The bureaucrats are terrified. It's great."

  The 2003 election was the first parliamentary vote of Abdullah's reign. It should have taken place in 2001, but the constitution lets a monarch postpone an election for up to two years, and he did so, citing regional instability. The Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, accused him of impeding democracy. He had also inherited the single non-transferable vote system his father introduced in 1991, after Islamic parties won 22 of 80 seats in the 1989 elections. Before the 2003 vote, a royal decree gave women a six-seat quota in Parliament.

  In February 2005, a committee was formed to draft a blueprint for political reform over the coming decade. The resulting National Agenda was finalized about nine months later. It proposed proportional representation, a stronger judiciary, respect for human rights, and action on jobs, welfare, education and infrastructure. It was reportedly never implemented because of conservative opposition. Critics had already faulted Abdullah's early years for putting economic reform ahead of political change.

  Constitutional amendments in 2014 and 2016 gave the king sole authority to appoint his crown prince and his deputy. They also covered the head and members of the constitutional court, the heads of the military and paramilitary forces, and the General Intelligence Director. Senators and representatives approved them overwhelmingly. Supporters said the changes strengthened the separation of powers, while critics called them unconstitutional. In January 2022, parliament passed an amendment to Article 40 that lets the king appoint or dismiss the chief justice, the Grand Mufti, the chief of the Royal Court and his own advisers.

  On the 28th of November 2004, Abdullah stripped the title of crown prince from his half-brother Hamzah, whom he had named to it on the 7th of February 1999 on their father's advice. In a letter read on state television, he wrote: "Your holding this symbolic position has restrained your freedom and hindered our entrusting you with certain responsibilities that you are fully qualified to undertake." Abdullah's own son Hussein received the title on the 2nd of July 2009.

  In April 2021, Abdullah ordered the arrest of Hamzah and twenty other courtiers over what was called sedition. Those held included Bassem Awadallah, the former Royal Court chief. Speaking on the 7th of April, the king said the matter was buried and that Hamzah was now "in his palace under my protection." He added that the crisis began when the military chief of staff visited Hamzah and warned him to stop attending meetings with critics of the government.

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• 5. Reform Under Pressure

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  On the 1st of February 2011, Abdullah sacked the government of Samir Rifai and pledged to follow a democratic path. Unrest had spread through the Arab world after the Tunisian Revolution in December 2010, and Egyptians had overthrown Hosni Mubarak by January. In Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood, leftists and retired army generals all joined protests.

  Soaring prices, widespread unemployment and a low standard of living drove the 2011-12 protests. Some demonstrators called for an end to the monarchy. Most of the anger, though, targeted politicians seen as undemocratic, corrupt and unaccountable. Protesters wanted the parliament dissolved, since it had been elected in November 2010 with a majority of pro-regime figures. Jordan's monarchy was the first Arab regime to offer political concessions.

  Marouf Bakhit became prime minister, but protests continued through the summer because he was seen as a conservative unlikely to push for reform. Abdullah sacked his government and appointed Awn Khasawneh. Khasawneh abruptly resigned in April 2012, and Fayez Tarawneh took over as interim prime minister. It was the third government reshuffle in 18 months.

  In November 2012, the government cut fuel subsidies and prices rose. Large protests spread across the country, and the decision was later revoked. The regime calmed the unrest by amending about one-third of the constitution and establishing a Constitutional Court and the Independent Election Commission. Abdullah called an early election and appointed Abdullah Ensour to form a cabinet. In the January 2013 vote, pro-regime figures won while opposition groups kept up a boycott. Since December 2012, the king has published seven discussion papers outlining his vision of democracy and reform.

  An interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic in March 2013 caused controversy when the king criticized figures at home and abroad. He called the Muslim Brotherhood a "Masonic cult" and "wolves in sheep's clothing". He said ousted Egyptian president Mohammad Morsi had "no depth" and that Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan saw democracy as "a bus ride". A second Atlantic article that year pointed to "a growing perception that the degeneracy reaches the palace". Members of 36 Jordanian tribes also denounced Queen Rania's "publicized and extravagant" 43rd birthday party.

  The November 2016 election was the first since 1989 to rely primarily on proportional representation. The Islamic Action Front, which had boycotted the 2010 and 2013 votes, took part. Independent international observers considered the election fair and transparent. Freedom House upgraded Jordan from "not free" to "partly free" in its Freedom in the World 2017 report, citing "electoral law changes that led to somewhat fairer parliamentary elections." Proportional representation is seen as a first step toward governments chosen by parliamentary blocs rather than the king, but weak political parties have slowed that goal. Critics view the reforms as cosmetic, since power remains centralized.

  In September 2016, Abdullah formed a royal committee on the judiciary, and its February 2017 report stressed judicial independence and better criminal justice. Parliament approved its recommendations, including more protection for women against violence. Human Rights Watch praised the reforms. On the 4th of June 2018, Prime Minister Hani Al-Mulki resigned after large protests over corruption, austerity and tax increases. Abdullah moved Omar Razzaz into the post and ordered a review of the tax system.

  In June 2021, Abdullah announced a 92-member committee chaired by former prime minister Samir Rifai to modernize the political system. In October 2021 it proposed draft laws on parties and elections, plus 22 constitutional amendments on parliamentary work and the empowerment of women and youth. A December 2021 parliamentary debate over women's rights ended in a fistfight between members. On the 6th of January 2022, parliament approved constitutional reforms by 104-8. They included stronger women's rights, a minimum age of 25 for elected deputies, and a prime minister chosen by the assembly's largest party.

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• 6. Wars Next Door

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  In November 1999, after pleas from the United States, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Abdullah cracked down on Hamas in Jordan. He exiled four Hamas officials to Qatar, closed the group's offices in Amman and barred it from political activity. In September 2000, the peace talks collapsed into the Second Intifada. Tourism, an economic cornerstone for a country with few natural resources, dwindled.

  On the 23rd of June 2000, Abdullah was vacationing in the Greek Islands when the director of the Mukhabarat, the country's Intelligence Directorate, phoned with a warning. Al-Qaeda planned to attack him and his family's rented yacht with explosives. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Abdullah condemned them fiercely. Jordan answered American requests for help with counterterrorism legislation and constant vigilance. The Mukhabarat foiled similar plots the following year against Western targets, including the American and British embassies in Lebanon.

  During Vice President Dick Cheney's 2002 visit to the Middle East, Abdullah warned: "A strike on Iraq will be disastrous for Iraq and the region as a whole and will threaten the security and stability of the Middle East". In March 2003, he met George W. Bush at the White House and tried to talk him out of invading. Failing, he broke with domestic opposition. He allowed American Patriot batteries in the Jordanian desert along the Iraqi border but refused to let coalition troops launch an invasion from Jordan. The stakes were high. Subsidized oil from Saddam Hussein's Iraq saved Jordan about $500 million per year, equal to American aid at the time. His father's wariness of war in 1990 had been read as siding with Saddam, and foreign aid and investment had been suspended.

  In 2004, Abdullah coined the term "Shia Crescent" for a Shia-dominated region stretching from Damascus to Tehran and bypassing Baghdad. The warning drew international attention, and he clarified that he meant a shift in political, not sectarian, alignment. The rise of the Shia leader Nouri Al-Maliki in Iraq in 2006 was later taken to validate his observation.

  On the 9th of November 2005, suicide bombers struck three hotels in Amman, one of which was hosting a wedding. The attack killed 60 people and injured 115, making it the deadliest in Jordan's history. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, founder of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility. He had threatened beforehand: "What is coming is more vicious and bitter". Al-Zarqawi was killed in an airstrike in 2006 with the aid of Jordanian intelligence agents. Jordan tightened security, and no major terrorist attacks have been reported there since. Islamic extremists view Abdullah and Jordan with contempt over the peace treaty with Israel and ties to the West.

  In April 2014, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIL, posted an online video threatening to invade the kingdom and kill Abdullah. A fighter destroyed a Jordanian passport and said: "I have a message to the tyrant of Jordan: we are coming to you with death and explosive belts". Jordan had begun building barriers along its 175 km border with Iraq and 379 km border with Syria. Hundreds of infiltration attempts have since been foiled. In August 2014, thousands of Iraqi Christians fled ISIL and sought shelter in Jordanian churches. In mid-September 2014, Jordan joined the international coalition against ISIL.

  In late December 2014, a Jordanian F-16 crashed near Raqqa, Syria, and the pilot, Muath Al-Kasasbeh, was captured. Jordan negotiated for his release throughout January. A video posted on the 3rd of February 2015 showed his killing. The group had reportedly demanded the release of Sajida al-Rishawi, a suicide bomber whose belt failed to detonate in the 2005 Amman bombings. Abdullah was on a state visit to the United States. Before returning, he ratified death sentences for al-Rishawi and another imprisoned Iraqi jihadist, Ziad Al-Karbouly, and both were executed before dawn the next day. That evening, cheering crowds lined the airport road in Amman to welcome him.

  As commander-in-chief, Abdullah launched Operation Martyr Muath, a week of airstrikes on weapons caches, training camps and oil-extraction facilities. Online he was dubbed "The Warrior King". Rumors said he personally led the sorties, but the government officially denied it.

  About 3,000 Syrian refugees a day crossed into Jordan in the early stages of the Syrian Civil War, which began in March 2011. By Jordan's own count, more than a million Syrians had sought refuge there by January 2016, about 20 percent of a population of 9.5 million. In a BBC interview that month, Abdullah said Jordan was at the "boiling point" and warned, "Sooner or later, I think, the dam is going to burst". Jordan had welcomed Palestinians in 1948 and 1967 and Iraqis during the American invasion. Of the Syrians, he said: "For the first time, we can't do it any more."

  To help refugees find work, the International Labour Organization began programs in Jordan between 2013 and 2015, and Jordan signed the Jordan Compact in 2016. On the 8th of October 2016, Germany's Peace of Westphalia Prize recognized the response. German president Joachim Gauck said Abdullah and the Jordanians set "standards for humanity".

  In a BBC interview in November 2011, Abdullah said he would resign if he were in Bashar al-Assad's shoes. "Whenever you exert violence on your own people, it's never going to end well," he said, adding that predicting the end date was almost impossible. On the 3rd of October 2021, after Amman fully opened borders with Syria, he spoke by phone with Assad, their first contact since the war began. On the 26th of February 2025, he met Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Amman and condemned Israeli attacks on Syria.

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• 7. Economy And Energy

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  Jordanian exports to the United States rose from $63 million in 2000 to over $1.4 billion in 2015 under a free-trade agreement Abdullah negotiated. It was the third such agreement for the US and its first with an Arab country. Jordan launched an aggressive economic liberalization program when he was crowned. He set up special economic zones in Irbid, Ajloun, Mafraq, Ma'an and the Dead Sea.

  Jordan's foreign debt fell from more than 210 percent of GDP in 1990 to 83 percent by the end of 2005. The International Monetary Fund called the drop an "extraordinary achievement". A 2014 study by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty ranked Jordan the freest Arab economy and the ninth-freest in the world. Abdullah also launched housing initiatives for teachers and soldiers, created excellence awards, and set up the National Vocational Training Council to fight unemployment.

  Since 2011, ISIL's Sinai affiliates have attacked the Arab Gas Pipeline in Egypt over 30 times, and it effectively closed in 2014. Jordan had begun importing Egyptian gas in 2009, after the 2003 American invasion of Iraq halted its Iraqi oil supply. The pipeline losses reached $6 billion. Tourist arrivals have fallen by over 66 percent since 2011, though they began to recover in 2017. Growth averaged 2.8 percent a year between 2010 and 2016, down from about 8 percent in earlier years.

  Foreign debt stood at $22 billion in 2012, or 72 percent of GDP. By 2016 it had reached $35.1 billion, or 95 percent. The increase was attributed to weaker tourism and investment, higher military spending, pipeline attacks, collapsed trade with Iraq and Syria, the cost of hosting Syrian refugees and accumulated interest. The World Bank estimated that refugees cost Jordan more than $2.5 billion a year, six percent of GDP and 25 percent of government revenue. Jordan bears 63 percent of that cost. An austerity program aimed to cut debt to 77 percent of GDP by 2021.

  In 2007, Abdullah said Jordan intended to build nuclear reactors to benefit from its large uranium reserves. He inaugurated the country's first nuclear facility in 2016. The Jordan Research and Training Reactor sits at the Jordan University of Science and Technology near Ar Ramtha and trains nuclear-engineering students. After the pipeline attacks, he urged the government to draw up a 10-year plan for 2015-2025 to diversify energy sources.

  Jordan has 330 days of sunshine per year, and wind speeds exceed 7 m/s in mountainous areas. Abdullah inaugurated the 117 MW Tafila Wind Farm and the 53 MW Shams Ma'an Power Plant. By May 2017, more than 200 MW of solar projects were complete. The government first aimed for 10 percent renewable energy by 2020 and announced in 2018 that it sought 20 percent. In 2015, Abdullah opened a liquefied natural gas port in Aqaba, which saves Jordan about $1 million a day.

  A 2014 declaration of intent between Jordan's national electrical company and Noble Energy proposed importing gas from Israel's offshore Leviathan field. The 15-year deal was estimated at $10 billion and signed in September 2016, effective in 2019. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement was outraged, arguing it favored Israel and ignored renewable options.

  The Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts opened in Aqaba on the 20th of September 2006, in partnership with the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. It grew out of Abdullah's interest in film. When the producers of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen chose to shoot in Jordan, he called on military helicopters to carry equipment into Petra. In 2016 he honored the cast of Theeb, the first Jordanian film nominated for an Oscar.

  The Pandora Papers in 2021 revealed that Abdullah secretly owned international real estate valued above $100 million, held through offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands. It included three contiguous oceanfront estates in the Point Dume area of Malibu, plus properties in Washington, D.C., London and Ascot. His lawyers denied any misuse of public funds or tax evasion and said the offshore structure served security and privacy.

  A 2022 Credit Suisse leak showed six secret accounts, one with a balance above $224 million. The Royal Court said the money came from selling an Airbus A340 that had belonged to the late King Hussein for $212 million. A smaller, cheaper Gulfstream aircraft replaced it.

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• 8. Faith And Palestine

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  In November 2004, Abdullah issued the Amman Message in response to Islamophobic rhetoric after the September 11 attacks. It urged Muslim scholars of all sects to denounce terrorism, practice religious tolerance and represent the true nature of Islam. A conference he hosted in Amman in 2005 adopted it unanimously, with 200 leading Islamic scholars taking part. It stressed three points: the validity of all eight schools of Islam, the forbidding of takfir, and standards for issuing fatwas. The resulting consensus was unprecedented in contemporary times.

  In 2010, Abdullah presented the message to the United Nations General Assembly and proposed a World Interfaith Harmony Week. The assembly adopted it, and it is celebrated each year during the first week of February. He also established an interfaith dialogue award based on the initiative.

  Hashemite custodianship of the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem dates to 1924, when the Supreme Muslim Council accepted Abdullah's great-great-grandfather Sharif Hussein bin Ali as its custodian. Jordan ruled the compound from 1948 to 1967. Abdullah I is said to have personally taken charge of efforts to put out a fire at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1949. The Hashemites restored Jami' Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock four times during the 20th century.

  In 2013, Abdullah and the Palestinian Authority signed an agreement replacing the decades-old verbal arrangement. In 2014, Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel after tensions at Al-Aqsa Mosque. The ambassador returned once Israeli authorities eased restrictions and revoked a decision that had barred men of all ages from praying there. An independent report estimates that the Hashemites have spent over $1 billion on Jami' Al Aqsa since 1924. On the 2nd of August 2017, Abdullah donated $1.4 million to the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf.

  A letter dated the 10th of April 2016 informed Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem that Abdullah would fund restoration of the Tomb of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The tomb had been untouched since 1947, when the British installed steel support beams for a restoration that never happened. It reopened on the 22nd of March 2017. In 2014, Pope Francis visited Jordan, the third papal visit of Abdullah's reign. The king and Queen Rania accompanied him to Al-Maghtas, the site of Jesus' baptism.

  On the 1st of March 2018, leaders of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre wrote to Abdullah after Israel shelved a bill proposing new tax measures on churches. They called his defence of religious freedom "crucial" to protecting the Christian presence in Jerusalem. On the 27th of June 2018, he won the Templeton Prize. The award statement said he "has done more to seek religious harmony within Islam and between Islam and other religions than any other living political leader." The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center placed him first on its 2016 list of the 500 most influential Muslims and third in 2018.

  In December 2012, Abdullah became the first head of state to visit the West Bank after a United Nations General Assembly vote upgraded the Palestinian Authority to a nonmember observer state. Jordan ruled the West Bank after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and lost it in the 1967 Six-Day War. In 1988 it ceded its claim. Jordan treats an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders as part of the two-state solution and of supreme national interest.

  Donald Trump took office on the 20th of January 2017, and Abdullah soon traveled to Washington, worried about the new administration's stance on Israeli settlements. He met Trump briefly at the National Prayer Breakfast on the 2nd of February. Two days later, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said settlement expansion may not help achieve peace. Senator Bob Corker said: "We call him the Henry Kissinger of that part of the world and we do always love to listen to his view of the region." Abdullah later criticized the American decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

  In August 2018, after the Trump administration announced it would end all US funding for UNRWA, Abdullah sought to replace the money. He convened meetings of the Arab League and Western countries. In an interview with Der Spiegel in May 2020, he said: "The two-state solution is the only way for us to be able to move forward". After Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Abdullah was the first Arab leader to congratulate him. On the 19th of July 2021, he became the first Middle Eastern leader received by Biden at the White House.

  In October 2023, Abdullah condemned Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip and the "collective punishment" of Palestinians during the Gaza war. In February 2024, he called for an immediate ceasefire and urged the United States to restore UNRWA funding. He warned that the proposed Rafah offensive would "produce another humanitarian catastrophe". Jordan and several other nations arranged aid airdrops over Gaza, and a video by the Jordanian station Al-Mamlaka showed Abdullah taking part in one, delivering food and medical supplies.

  When Donald Trump proposed that Jordan absorb Palestinians living in Gaza, King Abdullah rejected the idea.

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