Jordan's King Faces Rising Tensions

Time.com reports:

Spare a thought for Jordan's King Abdullah as he visits Washington this week, complaining of the dire consequences of the failure of his Israeli neighbor to make peace with the Palestinians: it's not easy being a monarch in a Middle East buffeted by the democratic winds of the Arab Spring, and even less so when your country is wracked with rising tensions between its indigenous Bedouins and Palestinians who comprise as much as half of the population. When the King visited the southern tribal area of Tafila on Monday, a rare skirmish between the gathered crowd and security officers hinted at the powder keg atop which Abdullah sits.

The authorities quickly dismissed rumors that the incident had been a direct attack on Abdullah's vehicle. "After the King and his convoy left, some citizens were trying to reach the monarch to hand him letters with demands or to greet him, but they were stopped by the police forces," government spokesman Taher Adwan said Monday. "It is untrue that the motorcade was stoned." But the scuffle was a rare incident of unrest in the King's presence that came after the leaders of the country's 36 largest Bedouin tribes signed an open letter to Abdullah on Feb. 5, accusing his glamorous wife, Rania — who is of Palestinian parentage — of corruption.