Jordan has proven to be the best place in the modern Arab world for native non-Muslim minorities living in their ancestral homelands under Muslim rule.* That is very much to the credit of the country, its leadership, and the way they govern. Let’s be honest, though: this is not the product of any uniquely tolerant features of Jordanian society that set the country apart from the rest of the region. The considerable degree of acceptance and coexistence there is a consequence of the nature of Hashemite rule, and it is conditional on its persistence. Otherwise, a significant share of Jordan’s population has Islamist leanings, and the Muslim Brotherhood has traditionally been one of the country’s largest organized opposition movements. If Hashemite rule were ever to end, or the monarchy were reduced to a largely ceremonial role, it is the Islamists waiting in the wings, people like Dr. Eyad, who would be best positioned to take power. They would not necessarily persecute Christians, to be sure, and nothing in his statement suggests that they would. Yet, they would call them by the classical Islamic term Nasara, which many Christians find demeaning (much as Black Americans would not appreciate being called the N-word). And they would treat them not as equal citizens, but as belonging to a subordinate category of protected subjects. Dr. Eyad calls them musta’minin (مستأمنين), though the term more familiar to Western audiences is dhimmis. Jordanian Christians do not say this openly, but this is precisely why they do not put all their eggs in the Jordanian basket. Many send their children abroad for education and work, while those with the means often seek and secure foreign citizenship. (@DalrympleWill wrote about a similar practice among Syrian Christians in the 1990s in From the Holy Mountain.) (*Lebanon is, in fact, the best place in the Arab world for native non-Muslims, but it has a unique history and political model. It was established with a Christian majority and a political order that granted each community internal autonomy and a share in the sovereignty of the state. No single community, therefore, lives under the mercy or rule of another.)