Like most countries around the world, Jordan has been gripped with World Cup fever. Since their national team was not in the tournament, Jordanians rallied around perennial favorites Brazil, Italy, Argentina and Germany. They advertised their loyalties with flags draped over windows, balconies, cars and shoulders, and traded half-joking taunts with partisans of other teams. But, as the Cup progressed, and the favored squads fell, another more serious battle over loyalty and identity was being waged barely below the surface of Jordanian politics: the struggle between “East Bank” Jordanians, whose roots lie east of the Jordan river, and Palestinian Jordanians, whose origins are west of the Jordan in historic Palestine. These tensions over belonging in the country and ownership of the state are not new, but they have a newly sharp edge. 

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