May 15, 2024
Students at Universities Across Jordan Are Protesting for Gaza
By Finn Cooley
For months, thousands have flooded the country’s streets in protest. But students say that the surge of encampments in America helped increase actions at Jordanian universities.
In Amman, Jordan, about an hour away from the West Bank, the Palestinian cause hits close to home. For months, thousands of people have flooded the streets every Friday in protest near the Israeli embassy and the King Hussein Mosque at the center of the capital city.
Recently, however, there has been a marked shift. On April 30, dozens of Jordanian students gathered in protest, waving Palestinian flags and donning keffiyehs, at university campuses across the country—Hussein bin Talal University in Ma’an, Mu’tah University in Mu’tah, Yarmouk University in Irbid, and Al-Zaytoonah University in Amman. And on May 1, students staged protests at the Hashemite University in Zarqa and the University of Applied Sciences in Amman.
“We have relatives who lived through the Nakba or the war in 1967 or other wars,” said Tereza, who goes by a pseudonym due to likely retaliation from her university. Tereza is a third-year engineering student and a leading organizer within the Student Forum for Supporting the Resistance—the nationwide coalition of student groups calling for such protests. “We see the struggle that the Palestinians go through. Being a Jordanian, I think it’s special to us,” she said. “It’s a part of who you are to fight for the liberation of Palestine.”
