Biographie
He was the eldest son of the Jordanian royal couple: King Ibn Talal Hussein (1935-1999) came to the throne in 1952 and was married to the British Toni Gardiner for the second time until 1971. Thanks to his British mother, Abdullah was able to attend school in England and then college in the USA. After school, he trained at US and British military academies. In this context, he also stayed temporarily with the British occupying troops in the Federal Republic. He dropped out of a political science course that Abdullah was pursuing at the universities of Oxford and Georgetown without graduating. After returning home, Abdullah pursued a career in the Jordanian military.
In 1994 he was promoted to major general. Although Abdullah's uncle, Hassan Ibn Talal, had previously been appointed crown prince, the cancer-stricken king named his eldest son as heir to the throne in January 1999. When his father succumbed to his illness on February 7, 1999, the crown prince was proclaimed King of Jordan as Abdullah II on the same day. A month later, the new head of state expressed his desire for renewal by appointing a new government. As a result, Abdullah II demonstrated unusual assertiveness on the issue of the Palestinians, from whom at least 60% of the population comes: the new king banned the controversial "Hamas" movement, deported its leaders and arrested many members.
After Jordan had supported neighboring dictator Saddam Hussein during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in the early 1990s, the country now sought to adopt a self-confident attitude towards Iraq and to move closer to the Western world as well as to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Internally, however, Abdullah II was unable to initiate the urgently needed economic and administrative reforms. A democratic opening and revitalization of the country's political culture was neglected. Immediately after the terrorist attack on the USA on September 11, 2001, controlled by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah II represented to the West in February 2002 the demand for comprehensive economic aid for the Arab-Muslim countries.
In contrast, Jordan remains subject to police-state conditions in the political sphere, which foreign media also feel: In the summer of 2002, the station of the TV channel "Al Jasira" was closed because of critical reporting on the Israel policy of Abdullah II's predecessors to the throne and the journalists expelled. Abdullah II has been married to Rania Al-Jassin, a native of Palestine, since 1993, with whom they have four children: Prince Hussein (1994), Princess Iman (1996), Princess Salma (2000) and Prince Hashim (2005).
