Conspiracy theorists and prominent Arab voices alike have sought to blame Israel for last week’s attack on a Greek Orthodox church in Jordan’s Karak governorate and Monday’s Jordanian strikes on Syria, alleging either that Israel orchestrated a “false flag attack” or that Amman was the target of Israeli disinformation intended to sow discord between the two countries.
Jordan carried out airstrikes in southern Syria on Monday evening, saying it had targeted hideouts linked to Friday’s deadly attack and claiming the strikes were coordinated with Damascus, which denied any such coordination.
Five civilians, including women and children, were killed as a result of the Jordanian strikes, a health official told state news agency SANA.
Palestinian journalist suggests Israeli intelligence used in Jordanian strikes
Palestinian journalist Maher Chawich, who has primarily written for Qatari media and is the former editor-in-chief of the Palestinian Al-Awda magazine, questioned on X/Twitter if Amman had relied on Israeli intelligence to carry out the strikes on Syria, and whether Israel had attempted to “exploit Jordan’s security concerns to push Amman toward a confrontation with Damascus.”
“Are we facing a security escalation imposed by real circumstances, or a regional trap that recalls what happened in Sweida, aimed at creating tension between Damascus and Amman? The danger of the repercussions calls for clarification of the sources of information, the nature of the targeted objectives, and the extent of their verification before carrying out the operation,” he wrote. “For the question is not only who was targeted in southern Syria, but also who provided the information on which the targeting decision was based, and who benefits from straining relations between the two countries?”
Jordan strikes not new development
Despite presenting the Jordanian strikes as a new development, Amman has repeatedly struck southern Syria, alleging in May that it had targeted weapons depots and drug manufacturing facilities in the Druze-majority Syrian province of Sweida.
@DiplomaticQatar, an account just short of 120,000 followers, also shared the claim that Israeli misinformation had been behind Jordan’s attack.
“Every incident that occurred from the Jordanian military airstrike on the Syrian border of Daraa and the killing of women and children... is in favor of Israel,” he wrote in a post that has been viewed over 10,000 times. “I wonder who provided the false intelligence information about this location. Is it Israeli intelligence information that wants to strike the Jordanian-Syrian relations?”
Ahmad Alhmidan, a Qatar-based media producer and founder of the Ghiras digital youth initiative, claimed both that Amman’s attacks had been the result of misinformation and that the terror attack in Jordan was “carried out by an entity linked to [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and to Israeli agents inside Jordan, with an Arab state behind the operation, while Iran was directly involved as the principal contractor.”
“Netanyahu wants to sabotage the trilateral security framework, which focuses on restoring the Syrian state’s control over Sweida, returning Syrian territory, and preventing the Great Storm Project.”
“Any successful Jordanian-Syrian understanding in the south narrows the space in which Israel can operate under the pretexts of protecting the Druze, securing the border, or preventing threats. Any confrontation between Damascus and Amman therefore serves to weaken this framework before it is completed,” he wrote. “Iran’s interests run parallel to this: igniting southern Syria, obstructing any stable security arrangements, and recreating the chaos that allows it to remain an indispensable player. At the same time, this incident serves Netanyahu’s interests, creating an overlap between the two sides’ interests even if they do not have a direct alliance. Iran benefits by diverting the threat of war away from itself and shifting tensions to another arena, while Netanyahu benefits from disrupting arrangements that restrict Israel’s room for maneuver in southern Syria.”
Anonymous accounts, with substantially fewer followers than @DiplomaticQatar, have pushed that the attack in Karak was a “false flag” operation and that the attack on Syria had been a Jordanian gift to Israel, allowing Jerusalem to validate “its occupation of southern Syria and getting Syrians and Jordanians to fight each other.”