While Jordan is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, it is also true that a large swath of its population opposes its government’s involvement in America’s war against ISIS. A high proportion of Jordanians doesn't consider ISIS a terrorist organization (62 percent of respondents to a recent poll in the country said it was); still fewer (44 percent) consider al-Qaeda a terrorist group. Jordanian Salafists have begun to join ISIS in Syria. Islamists across the country are torn about whether or not to support Jordan’s participation in U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. The Muslim Brotherhood has openly declared that the fight against ISIS is “not Jordan’s war,” while some of Jordan's Islamic religious leaders have voiced tentative support for airstrikes. There is a growing disparity between what many of Jordan's conservatives feel, and what their government is doing to keep up Jordan’s image as a beacon of moderate Islam and foe of terrorists in the Middle East.

But what does Halloween have to do with it?

“This seems like a convenient easy concession, like a bone to throw the Islamists, when the government is struggling a little with its Islamic credentials,” said my friend Alex Simon, a Jordan-based Fulbright scholar who studies the regional impact of Syria’s civil war. “It falls within a broader process of Jordan trying to maintain a tricky balance between in theory being a moderate Islamic country, but still with a relatively conservative population.”

Zeyad Tuffaha, another friend of mine who lives in Amman, told me in an email that the political situation there "got officially bad" with Jordan's announcement it had joined the international coalition fighting ISIS. “The central intelligence, the military and the police have their hands full,” he wrote.

Jordan, and its American-educated king, have been portrayed in Western media as relatively liberal for the region. But the ban on Halloween illustrates the tension between the government's outward assertions of its backing for Western-led anti-terrorism efforts and its attempts to maintain the support of conservative constituents who oppose that campaign. Zeyad called the ban "more of the same" of the "growing wave of intolerance" he had experienced in Jordan.

And its effects may be felt long after October 31. “Regardless of what the larger agenda is, simply relenting to conservative forces means this country goes nowhere but in one direction – and it’s a direction I would personally deem to be ... unfavorable, to say the least,” Tarawnah concluded on his blog. “There’s a need for a clash between these two opposing forces – the kind that yields a critical discussion or even a great debate.”

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