Jordan in the Middle East, 1948-1988: The Making of Pivotal State [1 ed.] 0714634549, 9780714634548

A collection of articles assessing Jordan's position in the region in light of its quest for legitimacy as a state

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Jordan in the Middle East, 1948-1988: The Making of Pivotal State [1 ed.]
 0714634549, 9780714634548

Table of contents :
Cover
Jordan in the Middle East
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Maps
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I Jordan on the Eve of the 1990s
1 The Hashemite Monarchy 1948-88: The Constant and the Changing-An Integration
2 Jordan Facing the 1990s: Location, Metropolis, Water
3 Jordan's Economy, 1970-90: The Primacy of Exogenous Factors
4 Jordan between Hashemite and Palestinian Identity
Part II The Regional System
5 Jordan in Asad's Greater Syria Strategy
6 Jordan and Saudi Arabia: The Last Royalists
7 No New Fertile Crescent: Iraqi-Jordanian Relations, 1968-92
8 The State and the Tribe: Egypt and Jordan,1948-88
9 Jordan and Inter-Arab Relations: An Overview
Part III Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians
10 Jordan, the PLO and the Palestine Question
11 Jordanian-Israeli Peace Negotiations after the Six Day War, 1967-69: The View from Jerusalem
12 Jordan's 'Israeli Option'
Part IV The International Scene
13 Jordan in World Politics
Notes on Contributors

Citation preview

JORDAN IN THE MIDDLE EAST

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JORDAN IN THE MIDDLE EAST The Making of a Pivotal State

1948-1988

Edited by

Joseph Nevo and Ilan Pappe University of Haifa

First published in 1994 by FRANK CASS & CO. LTD This edition published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint ofthe Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Frank Cass & Co. 1994 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Jordan in the Middle East: Making of a Pivotal State, 1948-1988 I. Nevo, Joseph II. Pappe, Han 956.95 ISBN 0-7146-3454-9

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Jordan in the Middle East: the making of a pivotal state, 1948-1988/ edited by Joseph Nevo and Han Pappe. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-7146-3454-9 1. Jordan-Politics and government. I. Nevo, Joseph. II. Pappe, Han. DS154.55.J67 1994 94-4617 956.9504'4-dc20 CIP

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

In memory of Professor Uriel Dann, a teacher, a colleague and a friend

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Contents

List of Maps Acknowledgements Introduction Part I

IX Xl

Joseph Neva and Ilan Pappe

1

Jordan on the Eve of the 1990s

1 The Hashemite Monarchy 1948-88: The Constant and the ChangingAn Integration

Uriel Dann

15

Arnon Soffer

26

Gil Feiler

45

Ilan Pappe

61

5 Jordan in Asad's Greater Syria Strategy

Moshe Ma'oz

95

6 Jordan and Saudi Arabia: The Last Royalists

Joseph Neva

103

7 No New Fertile Crescent: Iraqi-Jordanian· Relations, 1968-92 Amatzia Baram

119

8 The State and the Tribe: Egypt and Jordan, 1948-88

161

2 Jordan Facing the 1990s: Location, Metropolis, Water 3 jordan's Economy, 1970-90: The Primacy of Exogenous Factors 4 Jordan between Hashemite and Palestinian Identity Part II

The Regional System

Ilan Pappe

Jordan in the Middle East

Vlll

9 Jordan and Inter-Arab Relations: An Overview Part III

Gabriel Ben-Dor

189

Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians

10 Jordan, the PLO and the Palestine Question

Asher Susser 211

11 Jordanian-Israeli Peace Negotiations afterthe Six Day War, 1967-69: The View from Jerusalem

Yair Hirschfeld

229

12 jordan's 'Israeli Option'

Dan Schueftan

254

Part IV

The International Scene

13 Jordan in World Politics Notes on Contributors

Adam Garfinkle 285

303

List of Maps

Jordan as a crossroads during the Nabatean era

29

Jordan as an international crossroads

33

The built-up area of Metropolitan Amman

37

Jordan's water map

40

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Acknowledgements

The editors are grateful to the Jewish-Arab Center at the University of Haifa, whose material and moral support facilitated the publication of this volume. We are particularly indebted to the Director of the Center, Professor Joseph Ginat, and to its previous Directors, Professor George Kanazi and Professor Stanley Waterman, and to Mrs Sarah Tamir, its Executive Secretary. Professor Kanazi and Mrs Tamir accompanied the project from the outset and encouraged us throughout its various stages. We also wish to thank Mr Itzchak Weismann, our editorial assistant, for his useful comments.

J.N.

LP.

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Introduction Joseph Nevo and Han Pappe The idea for this book originated in a one-day symposium held in early 1988 by the Arab-Jewish Center at the University of Haifa. The common denominator of the delivered papers was the endeavor to assess jordan's changing position in the region in light of its continual quest for legitimacy - both as a nation-state and as a Hashemite dynastic monarchy. When the symposium took place, the Intifada was nascent and King Hussein's announcement of his country's disengagement from the West Bank was still many months ahead. Yet the two main inter-related conclusions of the day's discussions could be summed up as follows: first, Jordan was gradually shifting its central interest from the Israeli-Palestinian arena (albeit not entirely abandoning it) to the inter-Arab theater; second, by doing so Jordan had consolidated, whether intentionally or not, additional aspects of its pivotal position in the region. The events of 1988-91, which are surveyed in this introduction, seem to have substantiated the assumptions manifested in the symposium talks, and hence in this volume. The articles are arranged under several headings, each article reflecting certain aspects of the crystallization of jordan's position as a pivotal state. In the period under review, this position was gained mainly because of the unique role that the kingdom played in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Unlike any other Arab state in the region, in Jordan the Arab-Israeli conflict is both a domestic and a foreign policy issue at the same time.! The importance of the conflict is reflected by the relatively large number of articles devoted to it in this volume. jordan's pivotal position was also enhanced by the fragmentation and competition within the inter-Arab system. Its economic limitations and its modest military potency posed no threat to those

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who vied for Arab leadership. Yet these 'assets' together with its geographic location, made Jordan a rather popular junior partner in the eyes of its larger and stronger neighbors: Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The contribution of extra-regional influences to Jordan's regional position is discussed in the last part. Thus, most of the articles in this book deal with all or part of the 40 years between the congress of Jericho in December 1948 and Hussein's speech in Amman in July 1988. These two events marked the beginning and the end of the period of Greater Jordan. (Indeed 'Greater Jordan' as an entity had for all practical purposes come to an end in June 1967; but as a concept, it prevailed until July 1988.) With the death of that idea it was easy to trace a process by which Jordan moved from focusing on the Palestinian question, on the conflict with Israel, and on its self-identity as a front-line state to gradually concentrating on the regional arena and emphasizing its Arab and inter-Arab affinity. Early indications of Jordan's shifting orientation can be traced back to the latter part of that period. Events since 1967, particularly those of the last decade, somewhat debilitated earlier tendencies among certain elements in the Arab world, such as the Syrian Ba'th, to question Jordan's legitimacy. Simultaneously, jordan's position in the inter-Arab system kept Improvmg. This process culminated in King Hussein's secession speech. The king probably realized that his claim to the West Bank and his connection to the Palestine question (that is, jordan's enduring conflict with the PLO over the issue of the representation of the Palestinians) placed obstacles in the way of his country's attempt to integrate properly within the regional system. The commitment to the Palestinians was an unwanted wart on jordan's Arab option; removing it meant withdrawing any claim to the West Bank. Simultaneously, King Hussein began to comprehend the inevitability of such a step after his talks with Yasir Arafat (in February 1985) and with Shimon Peres (in April 1987) each proved futile. He then realized that even if the Israelis withdrew from the West Bank, his own prospects of regaining any foothold there were quite unlikely. Nevertheless, the Jordanian disengagement from the Palestinian issue was not only an ideological shift and the abandonment of a 40-year-old policy. jordan's control of- and after 1967 its claim to - the West Bank had been introduced by the Hashemite regime to

Introduction

3

promote its own legitimacy. The 'salvation' of a section of Palestine and its Arab population by King Abdallah in 1948 was construed by his grandson, King Hussein, as part of the raison d'etre of jordan's existence as a sovereign state. Protecting the Palestinians of the West Bank and integrating them into both the Jordanian state and Jordanian society was an essential component of the Hashemite ideology. Concession of this element after July 1988 indicated that the Hashemite-controlled entity that had emerged in the East Bank and that consisted of Jordanians as well as of Palestinians, was ideologically and politically sturdy and its legitimacy uncontested. For the first time it felt sufficiently mature to make crucial decisions regarding its future position in the Middle East, with total disregard of the Palestinian factor outside the East Bank. Since the articles in this book were concluded well before the 1991 Gulf War, the unique role played by Jordan during that crisis was not originally addressed. Subsequently, several contributors amended their articles. Other contributors, however, felt that the processes they had described were still going on even after the Gulf War, and therefore saw no need for revising their analysis and conclusions. Nevertheless, we decided to add here a post-factum analysis of the events from 1988 to 1991, an analysis that seems to substantiate most of the evaluations made in this volume, notable among them the continued shift in Jordan's orientation toward the Arab world. This process had weakened external pressures to such an extent that it would be safe to say that in the early 1990s, the struggle for survival has replaced the struggle for legitimacy so much stressed in this volume. In this later time-frame, Hashemite rule was contested by three major factors: the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, economic decline, and, to a lesser extent, the Palestinian challenge. All three were familiar terrain to the king and the government; they constituted potent problems throughout the period covered in this book. Although the fundamentalist threat was substantial most of the time and there were always economic difficulties, the Palestinian question and external threats seemed to overshadow the other issues in the past. It was not until 1988 that economic problems and fundamentalism moved to the forefront as the major threat to the survival of the state. What seemed to be so distinctive about the two latter threats was that they also attracted nonPalestinians, namely Bedouins, into the anti-Hashemite camp. By anti-Hashemite, we do not necessarily mean those who absolutely

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deny the right of the dynasty to rule the country, but rather persons or groups who demand revision of policies and a greater share in governing Jordan. The emergence of a strong fundamentalist movement, as in other Arab countries, was closely associated with economic hardship and social - and at times political - discontent. Unlike the Egyptian or Syrian leadership, the Hashemite dynasty was not accused of 'secularism' or 'infidelity'; after all, the family claimed legitimacy on the basis of its religious standing, as descendants of the prophet Muhammad. Traditionally, the Islamic establishment was both an ally and a protege of the regime, and even the maverick Muslim Brotherhood enjoyed quasi-official recognition while all other political organizations were banned. As in similar traditional countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, any compromise with modernization and the Western mode of behavior came under strong attack from the fundamentalists. The Islamic movements in these monarchies and sheikhdoms demanded strict public observance of Islamic law and codes and strove to reunite 'church' and 'state' in Muslim society. So far, only the Saudis have found a way to cope with this demand, by offering the fundamentalists a share in the government. In a way, it is a division of power: domestic and legal affairs are entirely in the hands of the religious establishment while foreign and defense policies are the exclusive domain of the House of Saud. It is still too early to conclude whether Hussein has adopted the Saudi formula. In spite of the overwhelming achievements ofIslamic activist candidates in the November 1989 elections in Jordan (they won 34 of the 80 contested seats), the king seemed reluctant to propose any power-sharing. 2 During the Gulf crisis, when Muslim Brotherhood-inspired mass demonstrations dominated the streets of Amman, the king did offer the Brotherhood five domestic portfolios. However, it was suggested that this was designed not only to appease the fundamentalists but perhaps also to divide their ranks. Indeed, Hussein took advantage of the formation of a new government under Tahir aI-Masri in June 1991 to deprive the Muslim Brotherhood of their ministerial positions. The king seemed to believe that the anti-climax of the end of the Gulf War in February had reduced the fundamentalists (temporarily at least) from being powerful manipulators and instigators of a nation-wide menace to the regime to being a manageable opposition group. The Muslim Brotherhood has not yet challenged the king's right

Introduction

5

to rule Jordan. It has concentrated on demands for the implementation of the shari'a as the country's law, on the basis of Article 2 of the Jordanian constitution, which states that Jordan is a Muslim state. Brotherhood activities consist mainly of attacking breweries, arak factories, cafes, restaurants, and, of course, liquor stores. When they were part of the cabinet, Muslim Brotherhood ministers tried to segregate schools and even government employees. So far, fundamentalists do not seem to be perturbed by their denial of ministerial authority. Nevertheless, they strive to increase their influence in a variety of non-governmental local nuclei of power, such as trade unions, professional associations and chambers of commerce. They also seem to be behind the opposition to Hussein's moderate policy towards Israel. The Brotherhood is not only unequivocally opposed to negotiations with Israel; it also categorically denies the Jewish state's right to exist. The fundamentalists, are therefore likely to remain a key domestic factor which the regime will eventually have either to accommodate or to confront. The economic background that encouraged the rise of fundamentalism is very similar to that which prevailed in other Arab states. A relative boom in jordan's economy in the 1970s was followed by a recession caused by an unwise policy of investment and savings. The main problem was a growing deficit, which led to cuts in government outlays, unemployment, devaluation, and a considerable reduction in subsidies. Unlike Egypt and Israel, Jordan did not join the exclusive club of those entitled to generous American grants and low-interest loans. 3 The Jordanian government tried to cope with its problems by introducing a series of economic reforms, which included higher luxury taxes, higher fees for foreign workers' permits, and a ban on the import of cars and appliances. Then the dinar was devalued; its value against the dollar was reported to be two-thirds of what it had been in 1987. When all this failed, the government tried to alternate the dinar's exchange rate against the dollar and the European currency basket, but in vain, notwithstanding the fact that in comparison with other Arab countries, Jordan fared better in IMF reports as a 'cooperative state', that is, one that accepts the fund's recommendations. This 'good' behavior almost ended in the overthrow of the regime. It had begun implementing some of the IMF's recommendations in April 1989 by cancelling subsidies on basic foodstuffs and including a sharp price rise for petrol. On 19 April, five people in Ma'an were killed in

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rioting that had broken out the preceding day over these price increases. Disturbance spread to Karak, Salt, Madaba and the capital, Amman. In Amman, very soon, students of the University of Jordan took the lead. The rioters attacked stores, banks and medical centers. After three days of unrest, the military took control of the main cities: martial law was imposed in many areas. At the time, the king was out of the country. Observers would later comment that had he been present, the unrest would have been quelled earlier. One can question this assumption, however, as it seems that the outburst took everyone by surprise. It started not in refugee camps but in the south of Jordan, a Palestinian-free area that was traditionally considered very loyal to the regime. In any case, even before Hussein returned home, Crown Prince Hasan had already found the culprits - he blamed the government's economic policies (and subsequently dismissed the Prime Minister, Zayd alRifa'i); nevertheless, he refused to comply with the demands made by the demonstrators to revoke the price increases. Hasan also pointed to the role played by the fundamentalists in the violence. Undoubtedly, as elsewhere in the Arab world, unpopular economic policies, and especially those advocated by the West, cause unrest in the streets that is skillfully exploited by the Muslim organizations. Good examples of this are the riots in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria in the 1980s. One of the direct consequences of the April disturbances in Jordan was the beginning of a democratization process, highlighted in the November elections (the most free and democratic ever), which resulted in a strong Muslim fundamentalist parliamentary bloc. The most surprising aspect of this 'mini Intifada' was the low profile taken by the Palestinians. There is no better explanation for their inaction than the one provided by most scholars and experts: the Palestinian leadership did not wish to attract regional and world attention away from the Intifada. The king was thus spared more serious confrontation. (There was, though, some participation; for example, Black September took responsibility for bombs that exploded in Amman.) Although some of the unpopular economic steps were revoked, nothing has changed significantly to ensure that such an outburst would be impossible in the future. The Jordanians must have felt disappointed at the way they were rewarded for their economic efforts. They had received only $80 million from the IMF towards economic reconstruction, hardly a sum that could help the government cope with its liquidity problems. In 1989, Jordan was

Introduction

7

forced to sell a third of its gold reserves because of this situation. More substantial aid, though, came from other Arab countries. There are conflicting reports about how much was given by the Saudis in the two years under review. Some sources quote a Saudi consent to deposit an interest-free loan of one billion dollars in the Jordanian Central Bank to shore up the dinar, which in 1989 had lost close to 78 per cent of its value, and agreed to extend two hundred million dollars in financial aid to Jordan. The Jordanian finance minister denied the figures but admitted that large sums of money had been delivered by both the Saudis and the UAE. If indeed the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia were Jordan's main benefactors, it is easy to appreciate the implications of economic punitive measures meted out by Riyadh in the wake of Hussein's support for Saddam in August 1990. Another possible solution for jordan's financial plight was the formation, with some of the Arab countries, of an economic unit modelled upon the EEC. Thus in February 1989, Jordan joined forces with Egypt, Iraq and North Yemen to form the Arab Cooperation Council (ACC). The establishment of this body, which aroused many hopes in the kingdom, occasioned a day of celebration on which all administrative detainees were released. These hopes soon withered away as the coveted EEC of the Middle East failed to materialize. Still, the founding of the ACC should also be seen as manifestation of Jordan's new Arab orientation. As noted earlier, the economic crisis and the rise of fundamentalism momentarily pushed the Palestinian problem aside. However, it was always the most important challenge to the Hashemite identity of the country. Notwithstanding the minor role played by the Palestinians in all these developments, their attitudes and ambitions were still very high on the national agenda. After the relative calm in Jordan's relationship with the PLO between 1984 and 1987, Palestinians in Jordan itself renewed their activity in the wake of the Intifada. The camp-dwellers have commemorated each anniversary of the uprising ever since, and responded to every development in the territories or in Israel itself with demonstrations. The first anniversary was particularly violent: several people were killed and many others wounded as the government had to impose martial law and forcefully disperse Palestinian demonstrators. Eight months of Intifada on the West Bank and its apparent repercussions on the East Bank were enough to persuade King

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Hussein to publicly dissociate himself from the former. It was a move that conservative hard-liners on the East Bank had been advocating as early as 1974. Some practical steps were taken to prove the king's serious intent to implement his decision, as speculation was widespread that Hussein was not genuine in his cession speech of July 1988. In August 1988, the Prime Minister abolished the Ministry for the Occupied Territories Affairs and transferred all its responsibilities to the Palestine Affairs Department in the Foreign Office. One could, of course, claim that this department should have been abolished, too, if a total separation were desired. Yet, it is clear that such a drastic act was impossible even if Hussein were genuinely cutting himself off from the affairs of the West Bank; after all, most of his subjects were still of Palestinian origin. It would be safer for the king to continue an ambiguous relationship with the Palestinians in general, and with the West Bankers in particular. This ambiguity was evident in the months following the king's speech. In August, Hussein met Yasir Arafat in a ceremony in Amman that marked the reopening of the Palestinian National Fund offices. In fact, not only was the Fath now welcomed in Amman: in March 1990, a PFLP delegation was officially received for the first time by the Jordanian Prime Minister, Mudar Badran. Although these challenges did not turn Jordan into a significantly more liberal or open-minded society, a process of democratization has undoubtedly begun. At first it seemed as if the reforms were merely a political gimmick on the part of the king. In 1988 and 1989 the regime reacted to the country's economic, social and political crises by force. The main victim was the press: the government intermittently banned it, imposed government control or had its members arrested or expelled. In 1990 and 1991, however, a significant change is evident. The press has been allowed to voice the opinions of differing political groups, and an outsider does not have to rely solely on the official Jordanian News Agency for information on internal developments in the country. Similarly, it does seem that Hussein has loosened his hold whenever possible and reversed previous decisions concerning government control over press, the postponement of elections, and the like. In the period under review in this introduction, martial law was alternately imposed and lifted. A turning point came with the elections of 1989. During the campaign the king promised to conduct a referendum on a new political charter that would regulate the inter-relationship of the cabinet, parliament and the

Introduction

9

monarchy. The outbreak of the Gulf War postponed action on such a charter, but eventually (in the summer of 1991) it was implemented. The same is true with regard to Hussein's pledge to legalize political parties and relax martial law. The process culminated in June 1991 with the adoption of a new national charter, a sort of social contract based on the constitution and on national agreement and designed to institutionalize the promised political pluralism. That month, a new cabinet was formed. The conservative Mudar Badran was replaced by the Palestinian liberal, Tahir aI-Masri. By forming this cabinet, the king hoped to convey a new image both inwardly and outwardly: a more liberal, Westernized Jordan, one that could fit into the new geopolitical reality of the post-Gulf War and could contribute to the peace process. Projecting the image of an open society was one of the conditions stipulated by the Americans for increasing aid to Jordan, especially if it were accompanied by a positive role in American efforts to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. At the end of the Lebanon War (1985), Jordan began to endorse the renewed American interest in the process that was displayed by both the Reagan and Bush administrations. Since his rise to the throne, King Hussein had always shown a keen interest in participating in the peace efforts in the area, and his policies greatly resembled those of his grandfather in the 1940s. Apart from his stumble in 1967, the king was usually successful in this respect. Although he rejected the Israeli initiative of February 1989 to hold elections in the occupied territories for a Palestinian delegation to talks, Washington still considered him as contributing to the process, at times probably even more than the Israelis. Two years later, when the preparations for a peace conference would be intensified, the Americans would favor the formation of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, a concept much more acceptable to Hussein than to Israel. Even earlier, however, Hussein was regarded by the Americans as instrumental in bringing the PLO - indirectly, so that it would not arouse Israeli objectionsinto the peace process. Hussein and Husni Mubarak devised the new strategy at the Ismai'liya summit in March 1989, when they met Arafat and together responded to the Israeli peace proposals by demanding an international conference. The active Jordanian diplomacy bore fruit in arms deals struck with the Americans. The new atmosphere in international relations also enabled Jordan to purchase arms from the Soviet Union; and if this was not enough, it also received a gift of substantial amounts of captured Iranian

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weapons from Saddam Husayn, as a symbol of his gratitude for jordan's backing in the Iran-Iraq War. Thus, in a way, it is possible to argue that since 1988, Jordan has fared quite well in both its external and regional relations. Once the Iran-Iraq War was over it succeeded in maintaining a neutral position in the inter-Arab arena. In fact, Hussein played the role of mediator between Hafiz al-Asad and Saddam Husayn, and even if his efforts were not successful, they certainly improved Amman's relations with Syria. However, all these achievements seemed to vanish once Saddam Husayn invaded Kuwait. It is too early to reach any final conclusions about the policy adopted by King Hussein during the Gulf War. What seems to be quite obvious is that in this case - as in the crisis of 1956 - the public gave the lead and the king followed. The vast majority of the Jordanian population readily embraced Saddam with the announcement of the invasion of Kuwait. As a matter of fact, Saddam became the uncontested idol and hero of the Jordanian masses when a few months before the invasion he threatened to set half of Israel ablaze with his unconventional weapons. Analysts explained this reaction as a yearning for a strong Arab leader, one willing and able to stand up to the West and to Israel, as well as a desire to see a redistribution of the wealth of the rich oil resources. This yearning was manifested in the Jordanian newspapers that applauded Saddam as the new Salah aI-Din. The most vociferous element was the Muslim Brotherhood. It must be noted that it did not sanction the invasion - on the contrary, the Brotherhood condemned it - nor did it forget to mention Saddam's past antiIslamic attitude. Yet once the call for a jihad was heard from Baghdad, the Brotherhood immediately imbibed it and led the camp of Saddam's supporters in Jordan. Other organizations were also active in arousing public opinion in Saddam's favor, with charitable societies and labor unions in the forefront. It was, indeed, an emotional rather than a political reaction: 'The emotional outpouring provided a catharsis for the desperation generated by the setback faced by Palestinians and Jordanians.'4 The palace was more cautious in its reaction. King Hussein expressed his sympathy for Saddam at the Arab summit convened in Cairo. He told participants that 'the Arab nation was indebted to Iraq after the latter spent eight years in war defending it against Iran'.5 The king, then, neither condemned the invasion in strong

Introduction

11

terms nor justified it. As Amatzia Baram clearly shows in his chapter in this book, Hussein had very little choice, given his economic and military dependence on Iraq.6 His best hopes were to try to prevent a confrontation, and indeed he did all he could to find what he called an Arab solution to the crisis. Such a solution meant that the Arab League or an Arab summit would work toward an agreement that would serve as a face-saving device for Saddam to withdraw with grace; that is, in accordance with at least part of the Iraqi leader's conditions. There was more to this than just gratitude to Iraq. Hussein was annoyed with what he perceived to be Kuwait's unwillingness to help Jordan overcome its economic crisis. Three months before the crisis erupted - at the Baghdad summit of May 1990 - Hussein had begged the Gulf states to assist him: 'We have exhausted all our material capabilities', he complained, directing this appeal to the UAE and Kuwait in particular/ The Jordanian government was caught between two opposing pressures: one from Iraq and one from Israel, each in a way threatening to turn the kingdom into a battlefield should a war break out. The Israelis warned that they would not intervene to help Hussein if his throne were endangered by the unrest in the wake of the invasion of Kuwait. 8 These external pressures meant that Jordan, more than any other country in the area, wished for a peaceful solution to the crisis, and hence King Hussein's dominant role as negotiator and de-escalator - a role that was strongly condemned in the West, in particular by Britain and the US. The war, of course, was not fought on Jordanian soil, and in hindsight, the king may have regretted some of his moves. In the meanwhile, stability and calm have returned to jordan's cities. Hussein made an immediate U-turn, trying to win America's forgiveness and to re-enter the peace process. Despite pessimistic predictions by some, he seemed to succeed in regaining his pre-crisis position. Once the American initiative to convene an international conference was launched in May 1991, Jordan's positive image in the eyes of American policy-makers was revived. This introduction was written shortly after the opening of the Madrid peace conference. What seems beyond doubt is Hussein's eagerness to participate in the process and his determination to do his utmost for its success. He has everything to lose from its failure and so much to gain from its success. He can ill afford continued tension in the area because of the three enormous problems facing him on the domestic front: the economic crisis, the

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rise of fundamentalism and the Palestinian challenge. It is indeed the domestic front that still remains the central battleground in the king's struggle for survival. NOTES 1. K. S. Abu Jaber and S. H. Fathi, 'The 1989 Jordanian Parliamentary Elections', Orient Vol.3, No.1 (1990), p. 68. 2. Monte Carlo Radio, 14 Aug. 1989. 3. Thus, for instance, the American administration in January 1990 announced the allocation of $34.9 million in economic aid to Jordan, whereas Israel received $1. 79 billion in military aid and $1.19 billion in economic aid and Egypt, $1.29 billion in military aid and $811.5 million in economic aid. 4. A. M. Lesch, 'Contrasting Reactions to the Persian Gulf Crisis: Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians', ME], Vol. 45, No.1 (Winter 1991), p. 44. 5. Ibid. 6. See Baram's chapter in this book. 7. Lesch, op. cit., p. 33. 8. Ha'aretz, 28 Aug. 1990.

Part I

Jordan on the Eve of the 1990s

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1

The Hashemite Monarchy 1948-88: The Constant and the Changing An Integration Uriel Dann

The starting date in the title of this chapter contains an element of arbitrariness. The date might have been 1921, when the British government, or rather its Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill, appointed the Hashemite prince Abdallah, second son of King Hussein of the Hijaz, to the administration of Trans-Jordan. It might have been 1928, when Amir Abdallah achieved juridical recognition by means of an official agreement with the British government, which recognized him as hereditary ruler of TransJordan - though still within a British Mandate and accountable to the British High Commissioner in Jerusalem. Or 1946, when that mandate was abolished, and Amir, soon King, Abdallah became 'sovereign'. Or 1953, when Abdallah's grandson, Hussein, assumed his constitutional duties as head of state, thus supplying the most conspicuous facet of 'constancy' in the kingdom up to this very day. Or 1967, when the kingdom lost the territories west of the Jordan River that had been acquired as a result of the Palestine war of 1948-49. Instead, 1948 was chosen, for from then on, the Hashemite monarchy had to cope with a sector of Palestinians among its population, whose inclusion in the monarchy was an event of cataclysmic character to start with and who, through their number, qualities and the force of circumstances may reasonably be considered the most significant single factor among the various pressures on the Jordanian entity. If this starting point is accepted, then there is here, by definition, both constancy and change. First, though, the other constants will be examined; then the changes will be addressed. The first constant is expressed in the title of this chapter, and indeed that of the state:

16

Jordan in the Middle East

the Hashemite Kingdom is still the Hashemite Kingdom. The Hashemite king still reigns and rules; in this respect, the succession of Abdallah by T alaI, and of T alaI by Hussein made no difference. His rule is authoritarian, but not totalitarian (more on this below). He stresses his adherence to Islam and Islamic values, as befits a linear descendant of the Prophet's daughter in the male line. Western constitutional precepts have existed ever since the Hashemite monarchy took shape. The present constitution was promulgated in 1952 and, though changes have been introduced since, they are not radical; the constitution of 1947 and the 'organic law' of 1928 are recognizably its forerunners. Although emergencies necessitating royal strong-arm measures are well provided for by the constitution, they are part of the constitution. The civil service is 'royal' today as it has always been - in spirit, discipline and training. The army remains the prop of the regime: overwhelmingly professional, recruited among the Transjordanian tribes as much, and among the Palestinians as little, as feasible. The economy - and the state budget - have remained wildly unbalanced; somehow the stability and working order of the kingdom have been unaffected, until now. In its foreign relations, Jordan is still aligned with the West in global, and to 'moderate' countries in regional, affairs. Occasional aberrations from this rule merely underline this pragmatism - opportunism, if you will- which has always characterized the Hashemite rulers. Last but not least, the territory of the kingdom is, as it was on 15 May 1948, - the land east of the Jordan River, its frontiers definitively fixed by the early 1930s. 1 The constants enumerated above will now be examined for elements of change over the last 40 years, and conclusions will be drawn - separately and together. The Hashemite blood will be preserved in its peculiar purity by the next bearer of the crown, barring any mishaps. The Hashemites have always preferably married within their extended family. Hussein himself is the son of cousins and so, of course, is his brother, Crown Prince Hasan, born in 1947. 2 The basic traits of the Hashemite rule - conservatism, authoritarianism - must on examination be regarded as constants sans phrase, though the march of time has not been propitious. In his last years Abdallah retreated from positions it may have been genuinely impossible to hold after the Palestine war; moreover, he was conscious of his rapid aging. Even so, it cannot be said that by the time of his death he was less authoritarian (and certainly not less conservative) than at any other time - though he found it much

The Hashemite Monarchy 1948-88

17

harder to get his own way. Abdallah's son Talal, during his brief reign, passed the constitution that Abdallah had promised. It reserved for the king the prerogatives needed to captain the state effectively. Talal's rule was too short to allow speculation as to how he would have used those prerogatives, but the tale, then widespread, of his democratic inclinations may be discounted. Hussein undertook his duties at the age of seventeen and a half (eighteen according to the Muslim calendar). Naturally he was naive and easily influenced, but in terms of self-confidence and resolution he was king from the first. During one period, in 195657, he experimented with parliamentary rule; during another, between 1968 and 1970, he came near to sharing his power with consistent enemies of his rule, the Palestinian organizations then gathering momentum in the aftermath of the Six Day War. Each episode brought him to the brink of doom; in both cases, however, he reasserted himself- at the very last moment, it would appear. He certainly never intended to divest himself of the ultimate authority in the state, which according to his faith is his alone. So far he has succeeded, by applying that see-saw policy of tolerance and toughness that he masters so well. Thus, the ban on political parties, imposed in April 19 57, has never been lifted, but it has also not been imposed at all times with the same degree of severity; apart from trade unions - legal in principle, but no better liked for that political organizations proper have occasionally been tolerated, more or less in the open. Obviously, quasi-toleration has excluded groups that are fanatically hostile to the regime, such as the 'rejectionist' groups within the PLO, like Habash's Popular Front and Hawatmeh's Popular Democratic Front. It did not exclude the Communist Party, which, since 1967, has surfaced from time to time /:overed with fig leaves and playing down its fundamental rejection of the Hashemite regime (which earned it unrelenting persecution under Abdallah and Hussein until 1967). (The Muslim Brotherhood organization, though fitting into this pattern, is part of an important phenomenon, which is discussed separately, below.) As for parliamentary representation, much has changed in the written, and curiously little in the unwritten - and hence more important - rules of the game ever since the West Bank became represented in 1950. On the initiative of the regime the membership of Jordan's senate and chamber has greatly increased. After the Six Day War, it seemed as if the regime had decided to keep the entire parliamentary system in suspended animation. Since 1984,

18

Jordan in the Middle East

however, parliamentary life has been officially restored, much on the terms that obtained from 1957 to 1967. A batch of by-elections was even held in 1986 - also largely on the lines that can be described as 'influence' and corruption, modified by pragmatism and an aversion to the grosser forms of arm-twisting, and hence offering no watertight guarantee for ideal results from the government's viewpoint. By and large, however, the results served to keep the system in working order (with the exception of the October 1956 elections, which were a lesson Hussein never forgot). As to foreign alignments, the basics have been preserved for over 40 years. Although some elaboration is indicated, nothing need be said that would have seemed intrinsically absurd during Abdallah's last years. Within the Arab world, the dynastic considerations, antipathies more than sympathies, that still colored much of Abdallah's thinking disappeared during the first years of Hussein's reign. The last vestiges vanished when the Qassim coup of 1958 destroyed the 'Arab Federation' between Jordan and Iraq, significantly known as the 'Hashemite Federation' and which had been the cause of some wariness in Saudi Arabia. Hashemite Jordan has always been a subject of suspicion and dislike to much of the Arab world (with the Six Day War, when Jordan sacrificed more than any other Arab state, as an uncharacteristic break); the particular sets have been changeable. As a rule it can be said that Jordan has been on poor terms with the 'radical' regimes, terms that improve when such regimes acquire the image of moderation, in whatever circumstances. Abd al-Nasser's OAR after 1967 and Saddam Husayn's Iraq during the war with Iran are telling instances. Relations with Israel have remained true to the pattern first set up between the Zionist organization and the Hashemites in the Weizmann-Faysal talks of 1918: contacts in a friendly spirit; search for far-reaching cooperation based on the common ground presumed to exist between the parties; no consummation. It seems of late that common Arab resentment of this traditional Hashemite stance has become more muted, though it has certainly not vanished. On the other hand, Israeli attitudes, denying that the Hashemite entity east of the Jordan River does Israel any good, with drastic inferences expressed in drastic terms, show a tendency of becoming more articulate - although these attitudes, too, go back to the very beginning of the confrontation and still do not dominate the Israeli scene. As to the Western world outside the region, Jordan is still with the West. A certain softening process derived from both global

The Hashemite Monarchy 1948-88

19

and Jordanian developments, interconnected, has of course been going on for decades. The former Soviet Union with its allies and followers is today far from being the bugbear it genuinely was to Abdallah in the last, and to Hussein in the first, years of their reigns, whether regarding official relations, cultural contacts or propaganda. Basically the aversion remains and, whether in matters of considered policy or in emergencies, the first call will generally go out to the United States, as once it did to Britain. Equally, both powers will still designate Hashemite Jordan 'an ally', by gut reaction as well as by rational analysis, whatever the momentary annoyances and disappointments. In its economy, Jordan of 1988 resembles Jordan of 1948 in the basics. The country is still poor so far as known mineral wealth is concerned (by contrast, compare Abu Dhabi then and now). The Palestinian complex has constituted an abnormal burden on national finance since 1948, abnormal in kind as well as in proportion of national resources. The balance of trade is grotesquely lopsided, with imports vastly exceeding exports. Jordan, then as now and ever between, looks for relief to rich friends: chiefly Britain until 1957/ chiefly the United States until the early 1970s, chiefly Saudi Arabia and Kuwait until 1990. Jordan regarded this relief as assistance to a friend, well-balanced by what it had to offer politically and strategically. It is undoubtedly a healthy attitude, so long as it works. This is not, however, the whole story. First of all, the nature of the Palestinian factor in the Jordanian economy basically changed with the Six Day War through the ambiguities of Jordan'S position vis-a-vis the West Bank; this is discussed further below. Second, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Jordan experienced an economic boom of untold magnitude: the Lebanese civil war for some years shifted business to the comparative haven of Amman; the oil prosperity, measured in billions rather than in millions, put its primary beneficiaries into a generous mood (and also enabled many thousands of Jordanian employees in the Gulf states to send their savings home). Iraq, during the first two years of its war with Iran, was an insatiable user of Jordanian services - and still able to pay in cash. These times passed, and the sharp fall in subsidies from the Gulf states, the return of expatriate workers, the virtual bankruptcy of Iraq have thrown Jordan into a state of despondency that is in itself inimical to recovery. Unemployment has been rampant for years and is worsening: that old

20

Jordan in the Middle East

ailment of Arab higher education - the scarcity of economically and socially productive jobs for graduates - is more poignant than ever, and probably of greater danger politically than mere unemployment. And worst, it is hard for human beings to go without the comforts that they have become accustomed to through years of a rapidly rising standard of living accompanied by expectations that rise faster still. Inured to poverty as Jordan is, this is a peculiar condition to which it is not inured. The changes and constancies probed so far, important as they are, skirt three existential questions relevant to the Hashemite monarchy today and each with its historical roots: How do Palestinians fit into the state? What is the Islamic-activist problem in Jordan today?4 And last, Is there a Jordanian nation in the making; and if so, how does it accord with the Hashemite monarchy? Since the Hashemite Kingdom first accepted Palestinians as a major section of its population in 1948/ three stages may be distinguished for the purpose of this essay: up to the Six Day War; up to the 'Bloody September' of 1970; and since. After a settling-down phase, which may be said to have terminated with the law of April 1950 incorporating the West Bank into the kingdom, the first stage is dominated by the coexistence of the two banks and the problems thereby created. The kingdom was conceived as strictly unitary, with a single citizenship embracing all its inhabitants - including half a million refugees from what had become Israel. At the same time, the East Bank, the former Emirate of Trans-Jordan, remained the center of gravity, with Amman the capital in name as well as in essence, and with a native-born population, the staatsvolk, as far as this term might be applied to so raw a nation-state. The faith of the regime rested in the Transjordanians. Its resources - material and spiritual- were diverted to their interests first and last, though this preference was not officially admitted. The Palestinians, on their part, were as a whole both frustrated and embittered by their recent misfortunes, but also conscious of the advantage they had as the more modernized part of the population in terms of education and administrative experience. Despite these inherent tensions, the regime maintained control with fewer hitches than might have been expected. The determination of Abdallah and Hussein in this respect was significant (Talal's reign was too short to allow judgment, but there are no indications that he would have broken the trend, for all his crown-prince popularity among 'nationalists'). A combination of government

The Hashemite Monarchy 1948-88

21

routine well established on strictly authoritarian lines, a skillful application of the stick and the carrot, and efficient 'security' applied as ruthlessly as the occasion demanded - but rarely more than that - played an essential role. And, last but not least, the Palestinian population was not revolutionarily disposed. The Hashemite rule was Muslim, conservative and, though domineering, neither despotic nor unbearably rapacious. With occasional breaks, signified by riots and their bloody repression, the unequal marriage jogged along. The Palestine Liberation Organization, which made its appearance in 1964 and was chaired by Ahmad Shuqairi, could be assimilated into the system with some jars but few mishaps. The second stage lasted from 1967 to 1971: the West Bank was gone and the PLO assuming a new identity, split and re-split indeed into rival groups, with only the loosest allegiance to the common chairmanship (headed, since 1969, by the Fath leader Yasir Arafat), but most of them genuinely independent of the patronage of any Arab state and driven by a passionate belief in their revolutionary mission. An early attempt in the summer of 1967 to implant a guerrilla movement in the conquered West Bank under the aegis of the PLO failed dismally, and the center of the movement was transferred to the East Bank, which was perceived as 'Palestinian' by a not too forced ideology. However, the East Bank, was also the Hashemite patrimony. Moreover, it was the homeland of the Transjordanians, who now recognized a 'Palestinian danger' that they had not seen, or only seen dimly, when there was a Palestinian homeland firmly ruled from Amman. A deadly struggle evolved, the details of which do not concern us here. It is enough to say that after years of maneuvering and attempts at compromise, Hussein at last held them at bay in 'Bloody September' 1970 and, in a further nine months of fighting - no less bloody for being intermittent smashed the Palestinian organizations. The issue had certainly been one of life or death for the Hashemite entity. The reason for Hussein's victory was, first of all, his ability to use the resources of an army that was well organized for just such an emergency - once he had made up his mind to do so. It is also true, and significant, that the armed struggle of 1970-71 was not really a 'civil war'. The mass of the Palestinian population in Jordan stood aloof once fighting started. The two decades since the obliteration of the Palestinians as a warring opposition in Jordan are in some respects most challenging

22

Jordan in the Middle East

to the analyst of jordan's 'Palestinian question', and not only because this period merges with our own. In this third stage, the basic feature of the Palestinian presence in the East Bank is their status as refugees, aliens; not the people of the land as they are, by definition, west of the river. (It seems that some Israelis and occasionally Hussein himself ignore the implications of this distinction for the stability of the Hashemite regime.) The absence after 1971 of an acknowledged threat to the regime from the PLO, on the one hand, and the unsolved problems - social, economic, psychological - posed by the Palestinians on the other hand, have constituted an 'abnormal situation' / to which the study of politics offers no ready solution. Hussein has moved with the times inasmuch as he no longer denies, or ignores, the existence of a Palestinian sector in the East Bank, as he did in the 1970s. He now recognizes 'Palestinians', thus called, in the East Bank although he maintains that they are full Jordanian citizens in every sense.7 At the same time, no 'Palestinian' associations and publications (with one insignificant exception) are licensed. A unit of the 'Palestine Liberation Army' stationed near Amman is under tight Jordanian control and, in any case, is a politically irrelevant anachronism. Still, the Palestinian presence makes itself felt in a multitude of ways that are often difficult to define. It is largely a matter of atmosphere, which at least in part accounts for the confident assertions long made by certain circles in Israel (and not in Israel alone) in discussing the Israeli-Arab problem, that 'Jordan' is, or ought to be, 'Palestine'. The bread-and-butter question of Palestinian participation in the running of Hashemite Jordan has altered over the years, but in proportion rather than in kind. Palestinians and their descendants still tend to cluster in the professions - and among the destitute or near-destitute. They are liberally represented in all echelons of government service, excepting the higher ranks of the security apparatus and the fighting cadres of the army, by their own choice perhaps as much as through official, though never officially admitted, policy. The spirit of Islamic activism has been conspicuous in Jordan ever since Jordan attained independence, and even before. As for TransJordan, an overwhelmingly Muslim society, tradition-bound and 'backward' by Western concepts, it could be expected to take unkindly to the Hashemites' Western proclivities - though Abdallah was certainly a devout Muslim and his grandson at least sets himself up to be. As for the West Bank, its recent traumatic

The Hashemite Monarchy 1948-88

23

experience could outweigh, and more than outweigh, what its greater modernist sophistication might detract from religious fervor. By and large, Islamic activism until 1967 was every bit as popular and as poignant in the West Bank as in the East Bank. Politically, however, Islamic activism was not as hostile to the regime as might be expected from the underlying spirit of the opposing forces; on the contrary, much of the time there was cooperation. Islamic activism found organizational expression in the Muslim Brotherhood, which took its orientation from their Egyptian leadership. As that leadership was offensive to the Egyptian regimes - to Abd aI-Nasser to the point of obsessive hatred - the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan had a political ally in the Hashemite state. The alliance was not of uniform vigor, and whenever relations between Hussein and Abd aI-Nasser were unusually tranquil, the Brothers in Jordan were apt to find themselves harassed. However, in Cairo-induced crises, such as those in 1957 and 1963, the Brothers served the Hashemite regime as an efficient counterweight to nationalist rioters in the streets. The Tahrir {'Liberation'} Party, equal at least to the Muslim Brotherhood in Islamic fervor, may not have been tainted by any opportunist inclinations in favor of the regime, but it was much weaker in numbers - though well known and respected; moreover, in the 1950s and 1960s it purported to shun violence as a means of achieving its objectives. The resurgence of Islamic activism in the late 1970s, culminating in the Iranian revolution, did not bypass Jordan. The strengthening of Islamic sentiments as expressed in the by-elections of 1984 and in organized student activities, particularly at Yarmouk University {Irbid not hitherto a center of Muslim activism}, is not as remarkable as the aggressive reaction of the regime. The demonstrative friendship of Jordan for Ba'thist Iraq since 1980 and for Ba'thist Syria since 1985 is part of this reaction, but not the most significant part. Since 1980, and with mounting vehemence, Hussein has pursued a policy of containing Islamic influences through bodily repression, underlined by verbal attacks not previously directed against Islamic targets. The Muslim Brotherhood is singled out, but the thrust is against the tendency as a whole - the first time that traditionalist representatives of Islam have been depicted as the chief menace to the Hashemite state. Is a Jordanian nation in the making? This question is the most difficult of all to answer with any pretense to finality. The starting

24

Jordan in the Middle East

and finishing points are too difficult to determine. Undoubtedly there was a growth of something like a Transjordanian self-image during the 20 years up to the eve of the first Palestine war. Undoubtedly, too, postulating the existence of a 'Jordanian nation' today, in the sense of an 'Egyptian nation', is impermissible. The Hashemite presence, the image and the authority of the Hashemite prince, is still the main fact of the polity, the key to its working, and many would say, to its justification. Still, the movement toward a nation state over the last 40 years is unmistakable. 8 For one, external impulses have played their role: the imposition on the core population of an essentially alien majority in 1948-50 - alien not by language, religion or even family connections, but by their recent lot and their unrighted wrongs. The loss of the West Bank in 1967 did something to restore homogeneity. The breaking of the Palestinian organizations - by no means the result of Hussein's personal will alone - must have added to T ransjordanian, that is, 'Jordanian' collective confidence. The dynastic state, still a presumption over much of the Middle East in 1948, is by no means a thing of the past, but it has lost much of its legitimacy and certainly is no longer taken as a fundamental fact of political life. This general development, 'historic' as it was, must have influenced Jordanian society. Finally, the interaction between an entrenched bureaucracy - complex, demanding, but not all-powerful - and an increasingly sophisticated population has created its own momentum. Today Jordanian society is organized in crisscross patterns professionally, culturally, economically and socially - to a degree that was unthinkable a generation ago. Just as important, it is generally conscious of its overall peculiarity. So far, it is not hostile to the concept of the Hashemite kingship. We have no means of assessing the extent to which this acquiescence rests on mere inertia (and respect for the Hashemite security apparatus), or whether a Jordanian nation has emerged that will one day accept the Hashemite kingship as a genuine member - a leading member, presumably - of the community. Or, lest we lose touch with present realities, whether the question will not become irrelevant through the action of outside forces. POSTSCRIPT This chapter is presented here as it was written in summer 1988. Is it still essentially true? This author believes it is. The challenge to this belief would come chiefly from the spectacular eruption of Muslim fundamentalists onto

The Hashemite Monarchy 1948-88

25

the public scene in Jordan, especially since the general elections of November 1989, and the no less spectacular deference shown to them by King Hussein. But the king still determines policy, and there is no indication that he contemplates abdicating this main hallmark of the Hashemite entity. As to Hussein's deference to socio-political forces inimical to what he stands for, he has twice in the past deferred for a considerable time to such forces, far beyond what then seemed the line of danger. Each time he turned about 'at the last moment' and, with cunning and brutality, smashed the forces he had so spectacularly deferred to until the day before. He may, or he may not, do so agam.

NOTES 1. The Jordanian-Saudi Arabian frontier was redrawn by treaty in 1965. Though of some strategic and political significance, the alterations do not bear on the theme of this chapter. 2. Here the thread breaks. Hussein and his brothers are all married to non-Hashemites. Hussein's first wife, the Sharifa Dinah, was a Hashemite; but the daughter of that marriage is not in line to reign as queen, to the regret of dynastic purists. 3. Chiefly, but not entirely. America, through Aramco, subsidized Abdallah as early as 1946. For details in the Hashemite context see U. Dann, The United States and the Recognition of Transjordan, 1946-1949', in Studies in the History of Transjordan, 1920--1948 (London: Westview, 1984), p. 105. 4. I agree with Robert B. Sadoff (Troubles on the East Bank (New York: Praeger, 1986)) that 'Islamic-activist' is preferable to 'Islamic-fundamentalist', in the Jordanian context, at any rate. 5. How large a section? It is sufficient to say here that until 1967, about two-thirds of the population were Palestinians (or their descendants), and that since, the figure has been about one-half. 6. The term is commonly applied to a specific constellation in the history of modern Iraq. 7. It is too early to say how Hussein's declaration on 31 July 1988 of a 'legal and administrative separation' from the West Bank will affect Palestinians in the East Bank. 8. Much has been written on this theme. I am especially impressed by the writings of Peter Gubser, Paul A. Jureidini, Robert B. Sadoff and Asher Susser. I should like to thank Dr. Susser for certain information mentioned in this chapter.

2

Jordan Facing the 1990s: Location, Metropolis, Water Arnon Soffer

The geographical background of Jordan points to limited resources for its future economic development. The kingdom lacks convenient exits to the sea. Aqaba has a coastline of 27 km but lies 334 km from the heart of the country. A genuine relationship with either Syria or Lebanon is wanting in light of the unstable political relationship between Syria and Jordan and the crumbling of Lebanon as a viable state since 1975. 1 Relations between Jordan and Saudi Arabia and Iraq have been good in recent years, but the overland distance between the core area of Jordan (Amman) and the core area of Iraq (Baghdad) and of Saudi Arabia (MeccaMedina, Riyadh-Persian Gulf) is measured in hundreds of kilometers of desert roads. The kingdom of Jordan is characterized by a serious shortage of water. The little surface water that is found has its source either in Syria, the waters of the Yarmuk, or in Israel, the waters of the Jordan River. If this situation is not enough, most of Jordan is actual desert, and the potential of good agricultural land is quite small, being concentrated in the Jordan Valley, adjoining the border with Israel, and on the Irbid Plateau. No oil has been found in the country to date; Jordan, with Israel and Lebanon are the only countries in the Fertile Crescent without this precious natural resource. In contrast, Jordan is rich in phosphates and is able to exploit the treasures of the Dead Sea, though these of course do not fill the national coffers in the way that oil would.

Jordan Facing the 19905

27

In these circumstances, the kingdom of Jordan must struggle to construct a better future for its inhabitants. This population is heterogeneous, including many of Bedouin origin, urban and rural populations in the northern region, and an immigrant population from western Palestine. This last group probably constitutes the majority at present (60 per cent, although the exact percentage of Palestinians in Jordan is not known). Until recently all three groups suffered from poor economic conditions and education; this makes it all the more difficult for the kingdom to cope with its problems. In addition, the small kingdom is surrounded by large, strong countries, which more than once have threatened to conspire against it and its leaders. Finally, Jordanian-Israeli relations have been hostile for a long time and there have been 'incidents' as well as wars. Since the energy crisis of 1973, a number of events have occurred in the Middle East, some one-time affairs and others of possibly long-term duration, that have placed Jordan in a new position. For a time, Jordan became a regional crossroads, helping to strenghthen its economy and to improve its political status. This situation, however, changed dramatically during the Gulf crisis of 1990-91, the kingdom's most difficult moment since the Six Day War of 1967. Furthermore, two other problems have emerged as prominent threats to the country; although they had existed for years, these difficulties became acute only recently. One is the constantly increasing shortage of water in relation to the needs of a growing population; the other is the unrestrained development of the city of Amman, which has become a large metropolis, an anomaly in the urban structure of the kingdom. Among other things, attention has been diverted from national, long-term government planning to find solutions to the urgent, local problems of Amman. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the processes involved in three aspects of jordan's situation: its location at a crossroads, urbanization, and water. Their inter-relationship will be discussed, and the question will be asked whether the crossroads position can continue to support the economy, enabling solutions to the two other problems. If not, then the kingdom's economic and social problems will only worsen.

28

Jordan in the Middle East JORDAN AS AN INTERNATIONAL CROSSROADS

The geographical location of Jordan did not, throughout most of its history, afford it centrality. The main axis of the Middle East (the Via Maris) passed from Egypt northward along the coast of Palestine, then eastward to Damascus and on to Mesopotamia. Only secondary roads crossed the J ordan Valley and proceeded north the King's Way-to Amman, Irbid, Dar'a and Damascus. This route served as an alternative for travelers from Damascus to Mecca and Medina. During the Nabatean era, Jordan did serve briefly as a crossroads, with roads fanning out from Petra to the north, west and south (to Egypt and to the Arabian peninsula, over which spices, perfumes and other goods were brought from the east; see Map 2.1). In the first decade of the twentieth century, the Hijaz railway was built (1900-8), and Jordan served as its principal transit area from Damascus toward Medina, an important junction having been set up at Dar'a, where the Haifa branch of the railroad arrived. Another junction was planned alongside Aqaba, but was never completed. The history of the Hijaz railway and the political vicissitudes that came in the wake of the First World War left the railroad without any serious use. The traffic artery from Jordan eastward (toward Iraq and Saudi Arabia) is relatively young (1927, 1946) and is related to preparations for the alignment of the Iraqi oil pipeline, which led to Haifa, and the 'Tapline' pipeline, which led to Sidon in Lebanon and came from Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia. 2 A number of roads following these pipelines were paved to Saudi Arabia, to Iraq, to Syria and to Lebanon. Jordan continues to serve as a passageway for pilgrims to Mecca coming from the north or crossing the Sinai by foot (the way of the Celebrants - Darb ai-Hajj, from Cairo to Mecca, and crossing Aqaba - which was used until 1948). During the Second World War, Jordan served as a bridge between western Palestine and Iraq, Iran and India and for military traffic to Syria. This activity, like that on the other roads that preceded it, had no great effect on the economy of the emirate. The establishment of the State of Israel was a hard blow to Jordan from a transportation point of view, as the kingdom was cut off from the Israeli coastline and all its economic ties were then diverted to ports in Syria and Lebanon. Such ties, however, were weak and subject to the political winds prevailing between the countries.

To Damascus

Amman TO ARABIA

Jerusalem

Gaza

Al Arish

PETRA

0

TO EGYPT

MAP 2.1

Eilat

20 Km.

TO ARABIA

JORDAN AS A CROSSROADS DURING THE NABATEAN ERA

30

Jordan in the Middle East

Only little of the kingdom's trade passed through the port of Aqaba, which until 1958 was still very primitive, served by difficult roads. The closure of the Suez Canal, first in 1956 but especially from 1967 to 1975, was another tough blow for the port, which found itself left without a foreland. 3 THE JORDANIAN CROSSROADS FROM THE 19705

Beginning in the mid-1970s, a number of events, which took place in sequence but without any relationship between them, changed the status of the kingdom. In 1975, the Suez Canal was reopened to traffic, returning activity to the port of Aqaba. That year, too, the port of Beirut ceased to fill its role due to the civil war in Lebanon. A large proportion of its activity shifted to Jordan; even some goods to Lebanon began to be shipped through the port of Aqaba. 4 The years 1973-81 saw the economic rise of the Persian Gulf with an increase in the price of oil. Gulf and Red Sea ports were unable to accommodate all the laden vessels that called, and long lines of ships waiting to unload formed, with some vessels waiting months for their turn at a berth in a port. s As an alternative, fleets of trucks began streaming through Turkey to the Persian Gulf and Iran. Following the reopening of the canal, ships called both at Mediterranean ports and at Aqaba, and from there the goods were transported to various destinations in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf.6 In 1980, the Iran-Iraq War broke out, changing the spatial map entirely. Iraq lost its outlet to the Persian Gulf, and its relations with Syria deteriorated because of the latter's support of Iran. In these circumstances, Iraq could not exploit the ports of Syria and Lebanon, .which were the nearest to Baghdad, with the existing transportation infrastructure. Thus the port of Aqaba became the home port of Iraq. After several years of organization and adjustment to the new situation the port attained a high point in the exploitation of its potential during the years 1984-87, when it handled some 16 to 20 million tons of cargo annually. More than half this amount was transshipment cargo for Iraq (see Table 2.1). The long haul from Aqaba to Baghdad was overland, passing through Amman to Mafraq and via the desert to the Iraqi capital. Toward the end of this period, plans called for a new highway from

Jordan Facing the 19905

31

TABLE 2.1: CARGO TRAFFIC IN THE PORT OF AQABA, 1976-1989 (THOUSAND TONS)

Year Total Exports

Phosphate Transit Total Local Transit Total Exports Imports Imports Imports Traffic Exports

1976 1,631.9 1,626.9 1978 2,108.2 2,095.0 1980 3,618.0 3,562.1 1982 3,835.3 3,562.3 1986 9,696.5 5,198.0 1987 11,271.0 5,540.0 1988 11,000.0 5,811.4 1989 9,986.0 6,410.0

5.0 1,368.6 13.2 1,550.9 55.9 3,024.1 273.2 7,837.3* 2,700.0 7,153.2 3,177.6 8,744.0 3,000.0 9,143.2 1,249.0 8,695.0

*In 1982, imports were as follows: Total Jordan Iraq Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, others

1,462.7 2,082.7 3,671.0 2,690.7 2,800.0 2,213.0 2,531.8

(%)

100.0 46.8 52.7 0.5

3,000.5 88.2 3,659.1 941.4 6,642.1 4,166.3 11,672.0 4,462.5 16,849.0 5,941.4 20,015.0 6,930.2 20,096.0 6,162.9 18,680.6 (000 Tons) 7.837 3.671 4.130 0.360

Source: Shipping and Aviation News, 1 Sept. 1988; 1 May 1988; Fiches du Monde Arabe, 18 Dec. 1985; Central Bank of Jordan, Twenty-Sixth Annual Report- for 1980-1990, 1989.

Aqaba that would bypass Amman to the east. Among other products, Iraq also exported its oil in tankers through the Jordanian port. In addition to Jordan's role as a transshipment route for Iraq, the kingdom exported various products that Iraq lacked during the war; the scope of this traffic reached $170-180 million annually between 1981 and 1984, except for a recessionary period in 1983. 7 During this time, Israeli-Jordanian relations achieved new heights of peaceful (but informal) coexistence. The Iranian threat to the Arab world as a whole and the need to maintain a secure AqabaBaghdad axis, due to the promixity of several sections within meters of the Israeli border, may have been among the factors that helped strengthen the de facto ties between Jordan and Israel. In any event, the two-way traffic of goods and passengers that developed over the bridges of the Jordan River was impressive in scope. 8 In contrast to Iraq, Jordan continued to maintain correct relations with Syria, and goods and people continued to flow between these two countries.

32

Jordan in the Middle East

For example, in 1979, some 375,000 travelers came to Jordan from Syria, and some 400,000 traveled in the opposite direction. In 1980-81, however, relations deteriorated to rock bottom; the two countries were on the verge of war. By 1984, as a result of their political relations, the number of travelers had dropped considerably: in that year, 60,000 came to Jordan and 100,000 traveled to Syria. 9 The economic high tide in the Middle East was accompanied by a rise in the power of Islam (including the rise in the standard of living of many Muslims, more roads to Mecca via Jordan and improved conditions within Saudi Arabia), which increased, among others, the number of pilgrims to Mecca through Jordan as well as the number of tourists in Jordan in general (not just from Syria, but also from Iran, Egypt and other countries). In all, some 1.9 million tourists visited Jordan in 1986; by comparison, 200,000 tourists had come in 1972 and 1.6 million in 1976. The last factor in the making of Jordan as an international crossroads in the full sense of the term was the opening of the ferry line between Nuweiba in the Sinai and Aqaba in 1984. This line created, for the first time since the establishment of the State of Israel, a semi-land route between Egypt and the other Middle Eastern countries, with Jordan serving as the bridge. The new route was an offspring of the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel and the latter's withdrawal from the Sinai, which allowed goods and travelers to cross overland from Egypt to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq, and in the opposite direction. lo In sum, Jordan maintained commercial relations with its neighboring states and beyond (Map 2.2). The main tie was with Iraq, but relations were also maintained with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, with Egypt, with SyriaLebanon and with Israel. jordan's emergence as an international crossroads had immediate implications for its economy. Aqaba became a modern port with impressive throughput (see Table 2.1).11 During this period, numerous industrial plants were set up in Aqaba as well as in Amman. Development of the port infrastructure and improvement of the traffic arteries between Aqaba and Amman and the north of the country enabled Jordan to increase its exports of phosphates. The kingdom became the world's third largest exporter of this commodity, after the United States and Morocco, and almost all was shipped through Aqaba (5.5 million tons in 1987, worth some $600 million). As a result of the intensified economic activity,

33

Jordan Facing the 1990s

T URKEY

City Route Boundary

SYRIA

Tartus

IRAN

Beirut

Baghdad

Damascus Haifa Gaza

IRAQ

Amman

Cairo Kuwait

Suez SAUDI

ARABIA

EGYPT 0

300 km. Riad

Medina

MAP 2.2

JORDAN AS AN INTERNATIONAL CROSSROADS

Jordan in the Middle East

34

TABLE 2.2: POPULATION OF AQABA, 1945-1990

Year

No. of Residents

1945 1953 1958 1967 1983 1990

400 2,835 8,000 13,500 40,000 60,000

Source: Estimates and Jordan population census data.

Aqaba grew considerably, its shores unable to contain all this port and tourist activity (Table 2.2). Without any connection to the development described above Jordan also served as an important crossroads for the supply of electricity to Syria, and plans called for it to supply Iraq, Egypt (by underground lines) and Saudi Arabia. 12 Can this important juncture continue to operate in the long run? So long as Iraq does not reconstruct its ports in the Persian Gulf and so long as its relations with Iran do not stabilize, the port of Aqaba will continue to serve Iraq. It was no wonder, therefore, that the volume of traffic passing through Aqaba between 1988, the end of the Iran-Iraq war, and the onset of the Gulf crisis, changed very little (see Table 2.1). Economic prosperity in the Persian Gulf came to an end in the mid-1980s following the dramatic decrease in oil prices on world markets; consequently, the scope of goods handled through the port of Aqaba and intended for these states greatly lessened. As a result of the crisis, the number of Jordanian workers in the Gulf and other countries was reduced. By 1986, they numbered 325,000, compared to a total workforce in Jordan itself of 592,000 workers. That year, however, 35,000 of these expatriate Jordanians returned home.13 The number of Egyptian workers in the Gulf was also reduced; therefore, the number of those needing to cross through Jordan to the Gulf area and back on leaves and holidays dropped. The declining income from the oil-producing states inevitably led to a cut-back in the total scope of economic activity in Jordan. In 1971, income received by Jordanian labor in the Gulf amounted to $509 million. By 1981, this figure had doubled (to a billion dollars). It remained the same in 1986, but in 1987, the income received declined to $743 million,14 and the figure has been dropping since

Jordan Facing the 1990s

35

then. With the combination of these events, the kingdom began experiencing a difficult economic crisis. In October 1988, the Jordanian dinar was devalued by 12 per cent (officially; unofficially the devaluation was 20 'per cent) and various cut-backs were announced. With the outbreak of the Intifada on the West Bank on 9 December 1987, jordan's relations with the occupied territories changed. In addition, the Intifada affected the extent of trade and traffic crossing between Israel and Jordan. The transformation of Jordan into a crossroads and its consequent prosperity changed in point of fact from a blessing to a curse. The greater the income, the greater the country's development plans, too; but these were essentially directed at greater Amman and the development of its urban and tourist infrastructure. The last fiveyear plan, for 1986-90, talked of $9.7 billion and employment solutions for 100,000 new workers. This pretentious plan did not recognize the signs of withdrawal and reduction in the dimensions of the crossroads. IS Therefore, the crisis that took hold in 1989-91 appears to have been inevitable. It was accompanied by high unemployment rates (as much as 20 per cent to 25 per cent, according to some reports) and bankruptcies in all sectors. Whereas Lebanese merchants previously moved to· Amman, as did various Arab economic enterprises and financial institutions, they are now, with the submerging of the crossroads, moving their business to Europe. The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq on 2 August 1990 was another severe blow to Jordan's position as a crossroads. The UN sanctions on trade with Iraq and the surcharges levied on insurance rates brought the port of Aqaba almost to a standstill (excluding, that is, the export of phosphate from the kingdom itself). In addition, Saudi Arabia cut off all economic relations with Jordan as a result of Jordan's support of Iraq during the Gulf crisis. The kingdom's role as an important regional crossroads appears, then, to have been a passing episode. Jordan will continue to be a secondary regional crossroads, a connecting link between Iraq and the world at large, at least as long as Iraqi relations with Iran and the Arab countries in the Gulf are unstable. Jordan will also continue to be a link between Egypt and the eastern countries of the region. Finally, jordan's relations with Israel and the territories will continue as in recent years.

Jordan in the Middle East

36

TABLE 2.3 : POPULATION OF THE KINGDOM OF JORDAN AND OF AMMAN,

1921-1990

Year

Amman

% Change

1921 1947 1952 1961 1967 1979 1990

3,000 33,100 108,000 342,500 462,000 1,000,000 1,500,000

38.5 45.2 24.0 5.8 9.7 4.5

Jordan 140,000 400,000 587,000 900,800 1,052,000 2,100,000 3,000,000

% Change

7.1 9.3 6.2 2.8 8.3 3.9

Source: Kliot and Soffer, 1986; current census data.

AMMAN - THE 'PRIMAT CITY' OF JORDAN

Greater Amman in 1991 numbered a population of 1.5 million residents, thus making it the largest Palestinian city in the world (about 70 per cent of the total population). This city, which currently incorporates Zarka, Rusayfa, and 15 other towns and villages, practically tripled in size between 1967 and 1990 (Map 2.3). This dimension of urban growth was related not only to natural population increase and to the sprawl of the city to adjoining villages and towns, which are typical of modern urbanization processes. Also attendant here was the large flow of migrants from other sections of the kingdom and the influx of immigrants from abroad (Table 2.3). The unprecedented development was also related to the period in which Amman served as an international center and crossroads. Between 1975 and 1984, some 30,000 to 50,000 Lebanese migrated to the city. They brought money with them and developed the trade of the developing city. The economic prosperity in the mid-1970s attracted many Palestinians to Amman from the West Bank. In addition, many thousands of Far Eastern cleaning women and hundreds and even thousands of hired workers came to Amman from Egypt and other countries to fill service and other jobs. 16 The city developed, but at the expense of the rest of the towns of the kingdom, creating a 'primat city' situation. Typical of the Third World and the developed world, as well, this is when one city's dimensions are out of all proportion to the other cities in the country (in the present case, Greater Amman contains 50 per cent of

Jordan Facing the 19905

37

The Built- up Area of Metropolitan Amman To Syria Road Center Built-up Area

Sukhna

To Syria Zarka

To

Iraq &

Persian Gulf

To Israel

Russifa

Sweileh

Amman Wadi-Es Seer

Sahab

To Israel

Naur

0

To Aqaba & Mecca

MAP 2.3 THE BUILT·UP AREA OF METROPOLITAN AMMAN

10 Km.

38

Jordan in the Middle East

the population of the entire kingdom). Furthermore, towns like Maan, Ajlun, and Karak have merely marked time while increasing numbers moved to the 'primat city', where most of the employment opportunities, as well as the most chances for making money and much of the hope for a better life, were found. Consequently, almost all of Jordan's industry - commerce, financial institutions, communications and tourism - became concentrated in Amman. 17 In turn, all the resources of the country were drained to this city in order to service and promote the unceasing stream of migrants. All this naturally necessitated the allocation of resources for sewerage, roads, housing construction, creating sources of employment and one more important matter: the supply of water for a city that is located in a semi-arid region 700 meters above sea level. It is no wonder that in the last two five-year plans a great deal of money was designated for the needs of Amman alone. IS Water was at first supplied from wells and springs in the upper section of the Zarka River. Recently, this river has been polluted by the city's sewage system; as a result, the water in one of the large reservoirs built to supply Amman with drinking water has been declared unfit. In recent years, drinking water has come to the city from springs and wells in the Syrian desert (northeast of Amman); since this is insufficient, drinking water has also been brought up to the city from the Jordan Valley since 1984. Nevertheless, the supply of drinking water is inadequate, and the city's neighborhoods receive water only two or three times a week, according to circumstances. THE KINGDOM'S WATER PROBLEM

One of the bottlenecks slowing the development of Jordan since its establishment has been the shortage of water. Jordan is a very dry country over 90 per cent of its area; its population has been steadily growing, and by 1991 amounted to 3.7 million inhabitants, each requiring an average of 180-200 cubic meters of water annually. In the past, water was used almost exclusively for drinking, for light agricultural irrigation and for watering the flocks of sheep and camels. Today, the increased population and the rise in the standard of living have multiplied the demand for water, which is unavailable. Underground water is intensively exploited, to the point of near exhaustion. The water of the eastern basin streams of the

Jordan Facing the 1990s

39

Jordan River is exploited through dams or canals, and damming operations are well underway. An important source for the future of the large Jordanian agriculture project in the Jordan Valley (Ghur) is the Yarmuk River. Jordan uses one-half billion cubic meters of water a year (Israel, with its 4.5 million inhabitants, consumes a quantity of 1. 7 billion cubic meters, or 378 cubic meters per person for a population that is mostly non-agricultural). This quantity does not supply the kingdom's minimal needs, which include a regular supply of drinking water for the city of Amman every day of the week and the irrigation of all potential Jordan Valley lands, which are not very extensive. A forecast of water and population growth for the year 2000 points to a disturbing fact: if per-capita water consumption (200 cubic meters at present) does not grow, a regular supply of 900 million cubic meters of water will be needed for the 4.3 million inhabitants that are expected by that year; in other words, an addition of 400 million cubic meters over the current situation. If the kingdom makes a supreme effort and introduces both the permanent and the flood waters of the Yarmuk into use, and if it also exhausts the country's ground table and flood waters, then it will obtain what it needs. To do all this, however, requires vast sums as well as maintenance of the proportionate status quo in the exploitation of Yarmuk waters by Jordan, Syria and Israel. On this matter, however, the kingdom has recently suffered some heavy blows. The Yarmuk annually carries a flow of some 350 million cubic meters of water from Syria, and 100 million cubic meters from Jordan. Until recently, Syria used 100-150 million cubic meters of this water, Israel 50-60 million cubic meters, and Jordan 130 million cubic meters. The rest of the water flowed to the Jordan River and from there to the Dead Sea: as long as a dam was not built over the Yarmuk to accommodate the flood waters, there was no way of preventing the wasteful flow of water to the Dead Sea. 19 Toward the end of the 1970s, Syria began work on developing the Yarmuk basin. On the basis of the number of sand dams that it is building, has built and is planning to build there, by the year 2000 it will be able to exploit 300-350 million cubic meters of Yarmuk water, leaving the channel with only 100-150 million cubic meters. 20 Israel will be able to continue to draw a meager quantity of 20-50 million cubic meters, while Jordan will be left with 100-125

40

Jordan

In

the Middle East

SYRIA

Soueida Dar'a Irbid

ISRAEL JORDAN Amman K asar A l

Azraq

Settlement Boundary Metropolitan Amman Dam Planned Dam River Basin Water Pipe Line; Canal Planned Water Pipe Line 0

25

MAP 2.4 JORDAN'S WATER MAP

50 Km

Jordan Facing the 1990s

41

million cubic meters, giving it a total quantity of 700 million cubic meters (provided that it makes an effort to extract as much of the rest of the water flowing through the kingdom as possible). Such a situation constitutes a tragedy for the kingdom of Jordan, which would be left with a shortage of 200-300 million cubic meters of water, at least in the 1990s. This means that Jordan must set aside water intended for irrigating the Jordan Valley and the Irbid Plateau (400 million cubic meters) and transfer it to ever-growing urban needs (currently 160 million cubic meters are allocated for this purpose). Such a transfer, although possible, necessitates changes in the Jordanian pumping and pipe system. Among other things, drawing the water from the Jordan Valley (200 meters below sea level) to the region of Amman (which sits at a height of 700-900 meters above sea level) involves the pumping of large quantities of water upward some 1,000 meters and for a considerable distance. Reducing the quantity of water for agriculture means cutting back the supply of fresh agricultural products for the large cities and more dependence on agricultural imports, which itself has negative implications for the economy of the kingdom. What options remain, then, for Jordan to free itself from this distressing water shortage? One possibility is to cooperate with Syria to erect the 'al-Wahda' dam on the Yarmuk, which would collect some 200 million cubic meters of water for Jordan, while Syria would receive the electricity.2! If Syria honors the agreement with Jordan, then jordan's water troubles will not be so serious, at least up to the year 2000. However, water will not remain in the dam if Syria realizes its plan to create a series of lakes throughout the Yarmuk basin. In any case, there will be a need for unconventional solutions for the intermediate term (after 2000) and perhaps even sooner. Another possibility is to import 120 million cubic meters of water from Iraq (from the Euphrates) via a 650-km long pipeline. 22 However, this may not be realistic, in light of the expected shortage of water in Iraq itself and the deterioration in the water quality of the Euphrates, as a result of the overuse of water by Turkey and Syria. Still another possibility is to cooperate with Israel in constructing a joint lake in the Kinneret region or in desalination of water from the Mediterranean Sea. Newspaper headlines and politicians' statements have mentioned a pipeline from Turkey that will send water to all the countries of the region. 23 Even if this plan materializes, however, it will take

42

Jordan in the Middle East

at least 10 to 15 years, and Jordan does not have the time to wait. In sum, Jordan lacks water, and the shortage is becoming more acute. The immediate source of water, the Yarmuk, is in danger of Syrian expropriation. All this is happening at a time when water consumption, especially in the cities, is growing, and the shortage in Amman is already serious. Solutions are both technically difficult and very expensive. Finally, the allocation of water intended for agriculture to domestic urban consumption weighs all the more heavily on the economic situation of the kingdom.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The kingdom of Jordan is not blessed with many geographic advantages that are able to enhance its development. In particular, the shortage of water that has always constituted an obstacle to the development of this strip of land has been growing more serious with the growth in the country's population. Moreover, Syria has begun to gnaw away at the only source of water left to the kingdom - the Yarmuk River. Since Syria is not dependent for its existence and economy on Jordan as a regional crossroads, it is not obligated to take account of jordan's special position. The forecast for 2000 points to an increasing shortage of water, even to the point of endangering Jordanian agriculture through a drastic reduction in the water supply to this sector and the need for very expensive pumps to carry drinking water to the large cities, Amman in particular. The city of Amman itself has undergone wild growth so that its development is almost uncontrollable. Because more than 50 per cent of the inhabitants of the kingdom are concentrated in this metropolis, jordan's few resources must be made available to this city in order to solve pressing problems of sewage, roads, housing, employment and a regular supply of water for a population of more than one and a half million persons who live in a semi-arid region high above sea level. These two problems are critical; in addition, the kingdom has suffered geopolitical problems and threats since 1948, such as fears of unrest among the Palestinians and threats from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Egypt. The great hope that has stirred Jordan for the

Jordan Facing the 1990s

43

past two decades has been its becoming, or trying to become, an international crossroads and, subsequently, an important geopolitical crossroads. In addition to the temporary rise in the kingdom's prestige for having served as the conduit for getting material to Iraq during its war with Iran, the Jordanian landbridge in the 1980s earned much money for the country's coffers and led to the development of the infrastructure for the port of Aqaba, to the improvement of the transportation system of the entire kingdom and to businesses and jobs in Aqaba and Amman. Jordan as a crossroads also aided Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states with these economic ties with the Mediterranean east coast countries and the West, and played an important role in bridging the population in the administered territories with the Arab world. The revenue derived from jordan's position as a crossroads was allocated first and foremost to the solution of pressing problems, in particular the shortage of water and the unrestrained growth of Amman. Can this crossroads status continue to play an important role as in the past two decades? Jordan's relations with Iraq certainly will continue, and Iraq will maintain the Aqaba option for some time to come, though not to the same extent as during the Iran-Iraq War and immediately afterward. Any Syrian renewal of relations with Iraq will also constitute a setback for the distant port of Aqaba. In the meantime, the Kingdom of Jordan has withdrawn from its involvement in the West Bank, and it is doubtful whether the two parts of Palestine will ever return to what they were in the past. On the other hand, there is no doubt that Jordan-West Bank relations must continue, if only because a large Palestinian population resides on either side of the Jordan River. In addition, the ports of Lebanon may not be rehabilitated in the near future. How much will Aqaba be affected by such a situation in light of the very expensive infrastructure that has been invested there? Syria always prefers its own ports. The semi-land artery between Egypt and Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, and Jordan via Nuweiba and Aqaba will continue to playa role, but less than before the Gulf War in 1991. What remains is mainly the Jordanian interior, which will depend on the port of Aqaba. In summing up, Jordan'S role as an important crossroads has weakened and may weaken further, although it will not be rendered completely inactive. In any case, in no way can it constitute a catalyst for a solution to the difficult, pressing problems of the

Jordan in the Middle East

44

kingdom. On the contrary, the development plans undertaken by Jordan to further its role as a crossroads have to some extent become a curse. The 1970s and 1980s created a special condition in the Middle East, by turning the Kingdom of Jordan into an especially important regional and international crossroads. This period has passed, however, and the kingdom once again has returned to its historic modest place in the region, sandwiched between Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Israel, pressed by Palestinization and Islam, and struggling with difficult economic problems. NOTES 1. Alasdair Drysdale, 'Political Conflict and Jordanian Access to the Sea', The Geographical Review, Vol. 77 (1987), pp. 86-102. 2. The Story of the Iraq-Mediterranean Pipe-Line (International Publishing Company, 1934). 3. Drysdale, op. cit. 4. Shipping and Aviation News, Haifa, 16 March 1984. 5. Middle East Economic Digest (MEED), 1 Nov. 1974; 15 April 1975; 19 Dec. 1975; 22 Oct. 1976; 29 April, 2 Sept. 1977. 6. Ibid. 7. The Middle East and North Africa (Europa Publications, 1988), p. 511. 8. Arnon Soffer, 'Reading Peace Signs as an Intelligence Dilemma: The Israeli Borders', War, Peace and Geography, Abstracts, The Second Haifa Political Geography Seminar (Haifa: University of Haifa, 1988). 9. Alasdair Drysdale, 'Political Conflict and Interaction in the Middle East', War, Peace and Geography, Abstracts, op. cit. 10. Arnon Soffer, 'Changes Around the Israeli Borders', Monthly Review, No.8 (1985), p.44. 11. Shipping and Aviation, 16 March 1984; 18 March 1986; 1 July, 1 Aug. 1988; Lloyd's List Special Report, 27 Jan. 1988. 12. MEED, 1 Sept. 1989. 13. Gil Feiler, 'The Number of Egyptian Workers in the Arab Oil Countries 1974-1983: A Critical Discussion', Occasional Papers, Tel Aviv University, 1986. 14. Gil Feiler, 'Arab Labor Mobility in the Middle East in a Period of Economic Recession', Middle East Contemporary Survey, Vol. XI (1987), pp. 298-317. 15. The Middle East and North Africa, op. cit., p. 506. 16. Feiler, 'The Number', p. 23. 17. Nurit Kliot and Arnon Soffer, 'The Emergence of a Metropolitan Core Area in a New State- The Case ofjordan', Asian and African Studies, Vol. 29, No.3 (1986), pp. 21732. 18. The Middle East and North Africa, op. cit., p. 509. 19. Nurit Kliot and Arnon Soffer, Regional Water Projects in the Middle East (University of Haifa, 1988). 20. Ibid., Map 4. Arnon Soffer, Rivers of Fire: The Conflict of Water in the Middle East (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1992), pp. 149, 153-6. 21. Ibid., pp. 148-50 22. Ibid., p. 129. 23. Ibid., pp. 213-18.

3

jordan's Economy, 1970-90: The Primacy of Exogenous Factors Gil Feiler

In the 1970s and early part of the 1980s, Jordan enjoyed rapid economic growth/ though it was not a commercial producer of crude oil. This growth mainly reflected the rising level of foreign aid, on which Jordan has heavily relied, ever since its birth/ workers' remittances and exports associated with the economic boom in the Arab Gulf oil-producing countries. The economic recession in the Gulf, however, led to a slowdown in external aid and remittances by the mid-1980s and contributed to a decline in the growth of jordan's exports. These developments caused a slowdown in domestic growth and a rise in unemployment, and exposed structural weaknesses in the budget and balance of payments. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is classified as a mediumsized lower-middle-income developing country, to use the World Bank's ranking of economies. 3 Jordan is situated on the eastern bank of the Jordan River, covering an area of 92,544 square kilometers 4 of predominantly desert and semi-arid terrain. S About two-thirds of the total area receives less than 50 mm of rain annually, and only 9 per cent receives more than 200 mm of rainfall and can be considered productive agricultural land. 6 Since the June 1967 war, the West Bank of the Jordan River, which Jordan annexed in 1948 and which contributed about 40 per cent of its GNP in 19667 has been under Israeli rule. Jordan is a country with limited natural resources and a traditional service and tradeoriented economy. Its few exploitable mineral resources include phosphate rock (the major Jordanian export), potash, some construction materials and possibly copper. Domestic energy sources

46

Jordan in the Middle East

are very scarce,8 and Jordan is totally dependent on imported crude oiU Migration and high birth rates have combined to double the population in less than 20 years. Over 50 per cent of the population is under age 15 and concentrated in the larger cities. The labor force remains predominantly male, and is significantly influenced by the emigration rate and the immigration of non-Jordanian workers. The population census of November 1979 reported that 2,132,997 people lived in the kingdom (not including the West Bank). Since the 1961 census, the annual growth rate has been 4.85 per cent. This high rate reflects, in part, a low and declining death rate combined with a very high birth rate,10 as well as, a net inflow of immigrants from the West Bank following the 1967 war and from Lebanon following the 1975 civil war, and of unskilled workers (Egyptians, Pakistanis) in the 1970s. Although accurate data are not available (the last complete population census was in 1979 and substantial out-migration has taken place since then),l1 the population was estimated by jordan's Department of Statistics to be 2.63 million in 1984, a 23.3 per cent increase over the 1979 census figure (or 4.46 per cent per annum).12 Population estimates in 1991 placed the number of inhabitants at 3 million, representing an increase of 3.7 per cent per annum. More than one million people live in the administrative district of Amman,13 and a further 0.5 million in the administrative district of Irbid. THE EARLY PHASE

The high annual rate of population growth, the limited size of the domestic market, the paucity of natural and capital resources and the dominance of an agricultural sector that relies heavily on rainfall comprise the major factors that reflect and, to some extent, explain jordan's state of economic underdevelopment. Since the early 1960s, the government has instituted several socio-economic plans to stimulate the economy, with the general goal of achieving a substantial increase in the annual rate of growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Jordan launched its first Five Year Plan in 1962, and this was revised into a Seven Year Plan in 1964. Historically, both political and economic developments in the Middle East have had an exceptionally strong impact on the Jordanian economy.14 Between 1952 and 1966, the Jordanian economy achieved substantial growth in spite of limited resources,

Jordan's Economy 1970-90

47

an increasing defense burden and the immigration of Palestinians (who generated serious problems with respect to employment opportunities and socio-economic services).15 During this period, too, jordan's reliance on external financing to meet investment and consumption expenditures became inevitable; nevertheless, its real GDP grew at an average rate of 6.9 per cent per annumY The years 1967-73 were characterized by economic recession resulting from regional political and security considerations. The loss of the West Bank following the June 1967 war and subsequent internal political instability ushered in an exceptionally difficult period that showed negative growth rates in real terms for all sectors, except services. The considerable earnings generated from agriculture and tourism on the West Bank were now lost to Jordan. One study claimed that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank brought about a loss of 40 per cent of jordan's farming income, 80 per cent of its tourism income and 20 per cent of its industrial production. 17 Simultaneously, the large influx of Palestinians that immigrated into the East Bank placed a further strain on an already damaged infrastructure and led to demographic imbalances. 18 Deteriorating security also led to a decline in investment expenditures by the public and private sectors. 19 In the immediate post-war period, large budget support payments under the Khartoum Agreement (1967) encouraged a rapid rise in military expenditures to meet essential defense requirements. 20 The following years were marked by severe fighting with Israel in the Jordan Valley. After the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, it took three years for the Jordanian economy to regain some of its momentum and sense of direction. In 1970-71, however, domestic hostilities between the government and the PLO were compounded by substantial withdrawal of Arab aid and by reduced trade with these countries. THE 19705

Following the period of political, social and economic turmoil in the late 1960s and early 1970s, favorable external developments helped Jordan achieve excellent economic performance. 21 Thus, 1973-80 saw unprecedented growth rates, which continued into the first two years of the 1980s. The Three Year Development Plan (1973-75) aimed at revitalizing economic activities by concentrating on increasing employment, high output growth, reduction of

48

Jordan in the Middle East

trade deficits and elimination of budget support in the long run; it also recognized the need for a better regional distribution of the benefits of growth. The plan was successful in restoring the pre-war growth momentum. Real GDP increased mainly because of an expansion in manufacturing industries and in phosphate production.21 Drought and frost conditions, however, resulted in a negative growth in agriculture. The real average GDP growth rate at factor cost during the period under plan was 5.9 per cent.23 The first Five Year Plan (1976-80) was drawn around a comprehensive investment program which was formulated in the light of a set of new factors, including a large increase in Arab aid as a result of the oil boom. The plan envisaged a gross annual growth rate of 12 per cent,I4 the distribution of development gains among the population in the various regions of the kingdom, augmenting the reliance of the government budget on domestic revenues, and a reduction in the trade deficit. 2s The 1973-74 oil-price boom boosted the economies of the neighboring oil-exporting countries and the effect spilled over to Jordan in several ways. From 1975, Jordan began to achieve a notable measure of economic stability and growth by any standards. The main targets of the 1976-80 plan were substantially realized. Economic performance during the plan period yielded an annual average GDP growth rate of 12.1 per cent at factor cost. 26 A report by the Jordanian authorities that evaluated Jordan's economic situation during these years noted that the volume of investments at current prices exceeded the plan's expectations in most sectors (843.7 million dinars at fixed prices compared with an anticipated 765 million dinars).27 This economic performance occurred in the context of the growing prosperity of Arab oil-producing countries and a successful increasing exchange with them in the form of an enormous rise in remittances after they had provided jobs for Jordanian workers,I8 increased official aid and stimulated an increase in domestic exports. The result was a rise in foreign currency reserves, an enhanced import capability to meet investment and consumption needs and a stimulation of domestic investment. Moreover, Lebanon's economic decline led during this period to an influx of Lebanese business activity and to Amman's emergence as an alternative regional financial center. 29 The Jordanian Minister of Trade and Industry expressed it correctly at the end of 1979, when he said that jordan's economic position was very sound. 30

jordan's Economy 1970-90

49

Partly as a result of the continuing migration of Jordanians to the Gulf countries (about 40 per cent of Jordan's active labor force was working abroad) and partly because of rapid economic growth, the country attained almost full employment. Unemployment disappeared, to the extent that pressures emerged on the demand side, and Jordan could count more than 100,000 immigrant workers, most of them unskilled. The overall balance of payments remained strong despite the increased investment, fast economic growth and high financial liquidity, which led to rapidly rising imports and widening trade deficits. The value of exports (FOB) rose from $34 million in 1970 to $104 million in 1975 and to $402 million in 1979. 31 Significant export growth was achieved as a result of high demand and prices for fruits and vegetables in neighboring countries, an increase in receipts from tourism and other non-factor services and expanding markets for manufactured goods. Arab Common Market preferences and bilateral agreements, together with good quality and location all helped Jordanian goods to compete successfully in Middle East markets; the low tariff markets in the oil-exporting countries also helped. Export earnings, however, were not sufficient to offset the increase in the value of imports (CIF), which rose from $185 million in 1970 to $731 million in 1975 and to $1.949 billion in 1979. 32 As a consequence, the external trade deficit increased significantly. Owing to large foreign inflows, the current account of the balance of payments has shown only moderate deficits since 1977. Encouraged by the financial stability and contributing to the boom in real estate, workers' remittances reached $541 million in 1979 ($167 million in 1975).33 Foreign aid exceeded $500 million in 1977 but declined to $350 million in 1978. Following the November 1978 Baghdad summit conference, which pledged assistance of about $1.2 billion per year for ten years/ 4 foreign aid rose to a record high of about $1 billion in 1979. The external outstanding public debt reached $1.52 billion at the end of 1979. Net foreign reserves, excluding gold, amounted to $1.17 billion the same year, and gold holdings added $418 million. 35 Jordan also made considerable progress in the social realm. 36 Overall indicators were favorable in most social sectors although they do not reveal how social services were distributed across income groups and across regions. The health infrastructure was adequate and the infant mortality rate was low (60.6 per thousand

Jordan in the Middle East

50

in 1979/7 one of the lowest for middle-income countries), though most doctors practiced in the urban centers. In education, the overall adult literacy rate in 1978 was 70 per cent (compared to 40 per cent for the region as a whole); in 1981,27 per cent of all those between the ages of 20 and 24 years were receiving higher education. 38 Housing remained a problem, mainly because housing costs far exceeded the means of the lower income groupS.39 The government's concern about these issues led to the establishment, in November 1979, of a new Ministry of Social Affairs whose task was to define a coherent social development program, improve the regional distribution of economic activities, and identify future problems arising from industrialization. THE 19805

A favorable regional environment combined with domestic political stability helped Jordan achieve excellent economic performance during the 1970s. In 1980 and 1981, the Iran-Iraq War provided a further external stimulus to the economy, from Iraqi expenditures on imports from Jordan and the use of its transit facilities. 40 From the start of the fighting, Jordan stood behind its neighbour. 41 As a result, it benefited from further Iraqi aid. The closure of Iraq's Gulf ports because of the fighting made it heavily dependent on imports off-loaded at the Red Sea port of Aqaba and then transported overland through Jordan. 42 Iraq was thus paying for some of the badly needed improvements being made to the long desert highway linking Aqaba with the Iraqi frontier. Indeed the transit trade through Jordan became so important that a special organizationthe Iraqi-Jordanian Overland Transport Company - was created to cater to this traffic. The economic achievements of the 1970s and up to the beginning of 1981 raised the expectations of the economic planners. A second Five Year Plan (1981-85), formulated in an atmosphere of optimism,43 was drawn up before the onset of the regional changes that took Jordan into recession. The plan assumed that Arab aid and investment would continue to respond favorably to jordan's needs, and put forth the following basic objectives: to realize an 11 per cent annual growth rate in GOP, to change the structure of the national economy in favor of commodity-producing sectors, to participate in the Arab Development Decade, to increase domestic revenues in the general budget, to reduce the trade deficit, and to

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51

expand basic social services to all regions of the kingdom and spread the benefits of development among regions and social groups.44 The 1981-85 plan looked quite ambitious from its very beginning, especially in light of the deterioration in external conditions in the region. Actual economic performance fell far below the plan's projections as a result of negative trends in the economies of the Gulf states, thus leading to a decline in domestic and external demand. Moreover, the wars in Lebanon and in the Gulf gave rise to a new set of conditions. The figures indicated that the real average growth was only 4.2 per cent, against the 11 per cent envisaged. 45 The greatest shortfall compared with plan projections came in the industrial sector. 46 The last year of some benefit to the economy of Jordan was 1982, when growth in real terms amounted to about six per cent (compared to around eight per cent in 1981).47 After 1982, Jordan became deeply affected by the regional recession, and economic growth slowed down considerably.48 It was only when oil prices crashed and brought about a sharp downturn in most of jordan's dollar receipts that the magnitude of the economy's vulnerability to exogenous market conditions was clearly felt. 49 Signs of economic recession soon appeared, hitting high-income oil exporters owing to diminishing oil returns,so and the negative impact of the IraqIran war was manifested on overall economic activity in the region. The new Development Plan (1986-90) assumed that the recession in the world oil markets would continue. 51 This plan, the aim of which was to develop economic independence,sz had as its main targets the realization of a GDP growth rate of five per cent per annum, creation of new employment opportunities, increasing the domestic revenues and rationalization of government expenditures. 53 The plan assumed that a reduction in the trade deficit could be achieved, but the gross annual growth rate of commodity exports reached only 6.8 per cent, against the 28 per cent envisaged by the plan. On the other hand, the actual annual growth rate of commodity imports amounted to 3.9 per cent, in contrast to 13.8 per cent projected in the plan, a shortfall attributed to economic recession. 54 Whereas the plan assumed that financial aid would amount to JD 244 million annually, actual receipts fell short of anticipated figures. In 1981, the foreign aid figure had beenJD 206.3 million; in 1982-JD 199.6 million; 1983 - JD 196.7 million; 1984-JD 106.1

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52

TABLE 3.1: EXTERNAL PUBLIC DEBT: GOVERNMENT DEBT (THOUSAND JD)

Year

Debt (at end of period)

1985 1986 1987 1988 1st half 1989

773,202 884,481 951,439 1,475,107 1,693,363

Source: Central Bank of Jordan, Monthly Statistical Bulletin, Vol. 26, No.5 (May 1990), p.46.

million, and in 1985 - JD 187 million. 55 The 1988 budget planned for total aid of JD 225 million, but Jordan received only JD 164 million. 56 Owing to the forced reductions in the supply of their oil and the more pressing priority of the Iran-Iraq War, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries not only stopped covering the unpaid contributions of Libya and Algeria to Jordan,57 as had been agreed at the 1978 Baghdad summit, they were also increasingly reluctant to pay even their own share. The shortfall in Arab aid in the 1980s, which was about half of the entire Baghdad allocation/ 8 increased Jordan's budget deficit. 59 The total outstanding debt of the central government (excluding external debt related to defense expenditure) increased fromJD 454 million in 1980 to JD 958 million in 1984, or at an annual rate of about 21 per cent. For 1985, jordan's budget was modest in order to energize the economy.60 The 1985 annual report of the Jordanian Central Bank revealed that the economic difficulties of the early 1980s were continuing. Between 1982 and 1984, the growth rates in exports, remittances and government spending fell substantially below their 1976-81 averages. No growth was recorded in the industrial sector, and foreign trade declined. The positive balance of payments of JD 37.74 million was attributed to increased foreign aid and increased income from tourism. 61 From the mid-1980s, the prolonged recession in the oil-producing countries resulting from the downturn in global oil prices led to reduced influx of both official aid and workers' remittances as well as to lower demand for jordan's exports. These developments contributed to a slowdown in domestic economic activity, raised unemployment/ 2 and brought to the surface the fundamental weak-

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53

nesses in the budget and the balance of payments, which had relied to a significant degree on external resources. In August 1986, a joint memorandum issued by jordan's Central Bank and the Ministries of Finance and Industry and Commerce outlined a monetary policy to encourage economic activity. Proposals included increasing the kingdom's reliance on domestic products and manpower, increasing government investments, turning financial companies into investment banks and attracting more foreign investors and capita1. 63 Finally, however, Jordan had to postpone development projects and cut capital spending while increasing its borrowing to soften the adverse political effects of the recession. The Jordanian authorities also borrowed from foreign and domestic banks, which, together with an easing of credit policy for the private sector, contributed to a faster growth in liquidity and a rapid rise in external debts. Another strategic response to the new economic realities was privatization; according to al-Quaryoty, however, this new emphasis cannot be considered an ideological shift, but a pragmatic adaptive response to the new realities facing the policy makers.64 Other government measures included expansion of fiscal policies; subsidies and price-support schemes for agriculture and manufacturing; tariff protection for local industry; and encouragement of foreign investment, particularly from Arab countries. 65 The cancellation of the West Bank Development Plan had the benefit of freeing Jordan from a substantial financial obligation at a time when the hoped-for end to the recession had not materialized. 66 In early November 1987, King Hussein was enjoying the credit for having organized a successful Arab League summit in Amman. He had arranged the first summit fully attended by heads of state for five years, an event that returned the king to center stage in regional politics. There were expectations that jordan's diplomatic success would be translated into a revival of Arab economic support, which had consistently fallen short of the annual $1.2 billion pledged at the Baghdad summit of 1978. Instead, economic fortunes were changing as rapidly as the political scene. There were some modest improvements in 1987; for instance, GDP at current factor cost increased by 3.3 per cent that year, compared with 0.8 per cent in 1986. 67 But the overall picture was bad. By the end of the 1980s, Jordan recorded its worst financial crisis for more than a decade. The annual value of remittances from expatriate workers was cut in half, from about US$1.2 billion in

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54

TABLE 3.2: JORDANIAN LABOR OVERSEAS (1988)

Country

Number

Middle East Saudi Arabia Kuwait Qatar UAE Bahrain Oman Libya Iraq Unregistered

160,000 81,000 8,300 4,000 3,000 6,000 3,000 2,000 7,700

Other Countries USA West Germany France Australia Canada UK Others

25,000 10,000 1,000 3,000 5,000 3,000 8,000

Source: South, 4 April 1989, p. 59.

1986 to just over US$600 million in 1989. 68 Total debt stock was 7,418 in 1989 compared with only 1,977 in 1980; and the debtexport ratio, which was 79.2 per cent in 1980, rose in 1989 to 254.4 per cent. 69 Reserves dropped sharply from the equivalent of over six months of imports in the late 1970s to a mere few weeks of imports in 1988. As a result, the dinar was floated and lost 30 per cent of its value against the dollar by 1989.7° Current GNP per capita, which was $1,640 in 1981, fell to $1,500 in 1988,71 and unemployment rocketed to 20 per cent.72 All these factors contributed to the riots in April 1989.73 The kingdom's problems would have grown worse were it not for a hurried injection of foreign, especially Arab aid.74 THE AUGUST 1990 GULF CRISIS

In November 1987 Dougherty wrote: 'Recovery [in Jordan] depends on peace in the Gulf.'75 A new war came on the scene, however, and made the economic situation of the country much more difficult. Given Jordan's strong links with the economies of the Gulf states

Jordan's Economy 1970-90

55

and its wide dependence on the regional environment, the economic impact of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 proved to be formidable, and the crisis seriously affected the Jordanian economy. Before the invasion, about 40 per cent of jordan's total domestic exports were directed to the Gulf states; about threequarters of the tourists who visited Jordan were from these states, and almost all the grants received by the kingdom came from the Gulf. Also, tens of thousands of expatriate workers returned to Jordan and the others stopped their work in Kuwait. On 6 August 1991 a trade embargo was imposed on Iraq by the UN Security Council, to try to force Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. Jordan has submitted a bill for losses caused by the embargo on Iraq, and requested $2.4 billion in grants and soft loans for the first year alone.7 6 In order to justify its requested compensation, Jordan tried to show that its economy was strengthening before the crisis. In December 1990, its Finance Minister claimed that Jordan's GNP was growing at an annual rate of at least 1.5 per cent, that the budget deficit had decreased, that domestic revenues had increased as had foreign currency reserves. The figure supplied by the EIU indicated losses of US$1 billion in 1990 and US$2.4 billion in 1991, equivalent to about 30 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively, of GDP.77 The financial costs of the crisis to Jordan were estimated by the IMF at about $1.2 billion for the last five months of 1990, according to the following division: export losses - $170 million; remittance losses - $200 million; tourism losses - $200 million; deferred cash debt repayments from Iraq - $60 million; and unfulfilled commitments of about $300 million in grants from the Arab countries. 78 A study by a UN-affiliated agency has estimated the losses at $8.3 billion over the first 12-month period after the invasion of Kuwait. 79 It is possible that the latter study included indirect losses, such as a rise in private consumption expenditures owing to the return of workers from the Gulf and a drop in private investment because of uncertainties; however, the $8.3 billion sum appears to be overestimated. SUMMAR Y AND CONCLUSIONS

The main weakness of Jordan's economy is its very dependence upon and sensitivity to economic and political developments outside its borders, with no control over what occurs. Ever since the

56

Jordan in the Middle East

state's formation in 1921, the country has had to rely on external aid for development. Moreover, Jordan is heavily dependent on food imports, which constitutes a real burden on its national economy,so and the pathologies in its political-administrative structure have negative effects on jordan's development and administrative effectiveness. 81 The exogenous factors were responsible both for the growth and for the decline in the country's economy. From 1967 to 1973, the geopolitical situation in the Middle East had an adverse impact on Jordan's economy; from 1973 to 1982, political and economic events in the region played a positive role for Jordan; and from 1983 to 1991, the recession in the region and the wars exerted very painful effects. jordan's economy has traditionally relied on three factors for support: remittances from its workers abroad, grants in aid, and exports to regional markets. This arrangement was more than sufficient to maintain growth in the 1970s and early 1980s. During the 1970s, Jordan experienced an impressive performance for a country situated on the edge of the Arabian desert without oil and with limited natural resources. These inflows of foreign exchange meant that despite a chronic deficit in its balance of trade, Jordan enjoyed an overall balance-of-payments surplus. That was in the latter part of the 1970s. The new external conditions after the regional recession that began as a result of lower oil and investment income in the Gulf in the mid-1980s, however, sharply reduced the inflows of both private and official transfers. The shortfall led to major structural problems and a severe deterioration in jordan's balance of payments, its external debt and its budgetary deficit. The crisis that began in August 1990 had further adverse effects on jordan's economic capacity. The Gulf War ended in late February 1991. As Jordan backed Iraq, however, it is not at all certain that the kingdom will enjoy the same aid from its neigbors as it did previously. If emergency financial assistance is not provided at a level that will substantially offset the financial losses emanating from the crisis, the country will have to reduce the scope of its imports even further. The government of Jordan requested assistance for responding to the needs of returning Jordanians as a result of the Gulf crisis and made intensive efforts to obtain external aid. Some donors did decide to support Jordan, but the amounts were modest. The question is whether its donors are likely to be as generous as Jordan would like. Total aid received or pledged to Jordan since the onset of the Gulf crisis was

Jordan's Economy 1970-90

57

(by March 1991) $1.15 billion. The European Community released $165 million, and Germany was to provide an aid package worth $100 million. 82 On the other hand, the US Senate adopted a resolution in March 1991 to cancel US$57 million in aid to Jordan for the 1991 fiscal year. 83 Jordan's continued and increasing dependence on external resources could threaten its developmental efforts in the future. Despite its limited resources, the kingdom is working to reduce dependence on external inflows. However, continuing threats to jordan's economy, including the very high population growth rate of slightly less than four per cent per annum, remain. In a study completed in March 1989, Kanovsky anticipated serious political unrest in Jordan as a consequence of its worsening economic state. 84 The current situation supports this forecast. Growth prospects for the economy remain bad. The sustained economic slowdown in Jordan may make its mark in the political arena, and the potential for trouble-making in the regime is great. The new economic and political situation, requiring sacrifices from the population, may increase calls for more direct popular participation in the making of decisions. The high level of education, literacy and politicization of both Jordanians and the country's Palestinians will give further impetus to this process.

NOTES 1. For a study of the changing nature of the process of the growth of jordan's economy see Siva Ram Vemuri, 'Patterns of Growth of the Jordanian Economy', CAHIER, No. 35 (1985), pp. 2-13. 2. The main sources of foreign aid used to be the United Kingdom and the United States. After the 1967 war, foreign aid mainly came from Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, although the US, the UK and West Germany also give substantial economic and military aid. For the magnitude and source of this foreign aid, see Khalil Hammad, 'The Role of Foreign Aid in the Jordanian Economy, 1959-1983', CAHIER, No. 35 (1985), pp. 14--40; Vel Pillali, 'External Economic Dependence and Fiscal Policy Imbalances in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Jordan', Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 19, No.1 (Oct. 1982), pp. 5-7; Stephen S. Kaplan, 'United States Aid and Regime Maintenance in Jordan, 1957-1973', Public Policy, Vol. 23, No.2 (Spring 1975), pp. 189-217. 3. See: World Bank, World Development Report 1989 (published for the World Bank by Oxford University Press, 1989). 4. About 6,000 square kilometers of this total lies on the West Bank ofthe Jordan River and has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 war. 5. For arid land in Jordan, see A. A. el-Sherbini, 'Problems of Arid Agriculture in West Asia,' World Development, Vol. 5 (May-July 1977), pp. 441-6. 6. Hassan A. K. Saleh, 'Water Resources and Food Production in Jordan', in Rodney

58 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

15.

16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

Jordan in the Middle East Wilson (ed.), Politics and the Economy in Jordan (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), pp. 20-21. Kamel S. Abu Jaber, 'The Economy of Jordan: A Current Assessment', American-Arab Affairs, No.9 (Summer 1984), p. 106. See R. Aburas, 'Energy Conservation Policies in Jordan', Energy Policy, Vol. 17 (Dec. 1989), pp. 591-8. During the 1970s, increases in the price of crude oil contributed heavily to the rise in the cost of imports. See, for example, 'Jordan: Imports and Exports', ARGUS of Arab Economics, Vol. 14 (1980), pp. 16-17. For the fertility rate, see John Bongaarts, 'The Proximate Determinants of Exceptionally High Fertility,' Population and Development Review, Vol. 13, No.1 (March 1987), pp. 133-9. For Jordan's impressive involvement with labor exports, see Charles B. Keely and Bassam Saket, 'Jordanian Migrant Workers in the Arab Region: A Case Study of the Consequences for Labor Supplying Countries', Middle East Journal, Vol. 38, No.4 (1984), pp. 685-98. For a recent study of Jordanian migration, see Allan M. Findlay, The Jordanian Migration System in Transition (Geneva: ILO Working Paper, March 1987). The Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Profile: Jordan 1986-87 (London: EIU, 1986), p. 7. For urbanization in Amman, see L. W. Jones, 'Rapid Population Growth in Baghdad and Amman', Middle East Journal, Vol. 23, No.2 (Spring 1969), pp. 209-15. For the history of economic conditions and policy see Mustafa B. Hamarneh, 'Social and Economic Transformation of Trans-Jordan, 1921-1946' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, 1985); A. Konikoff, Trans-Jordan: An Economic Survey Oerusalem: Jewish Agency, 1943); M. P. Mazur, Economic Growth and Development in Jordan (London: Croom Helm, 1979); Gad G. Gilbar, 'The Economics of Nablus and the Hashemites: The Early Years, 1949-5', Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 25, No.1 (1989), pp. 51-63. Mohammed Said Nabulsi, governor of the Jordanian Central Bank, said in April 1981: 'Jordan had to face enormous social and economic problems in the aftermath of the 1948 war and the resultant uprooting of people and dislocation of the economy.' See Nigel Ash, 'Focus on Jordan', 8 Days, 4 April 1981, p. 36. Five Year Plan, 1986-1990, Table 1, p. 3. Bichara Khader, 'jordan's Economy, 1952-1989',Journal of Arab Affairs, Vol. 9, No.2 (Fall 1990), p. 87. For an analysis of Jordanian vegetable exports after the 1967 war, see R. W. Ward, 'Decline and Recovery ofJordanian Vegetable Exports', European Review of Agricultural Economics (1980), pp. 453-65. M. Samha, 'Migration of Refugees and Non-Refugees to Amman 1948-1977', Population Bulletin of ECWA, No. 19 (1980), pp. 47-67. Five Year Plan, 1986-1990, p. 8. For Khartoum conference, see Middle East Record 1967. For a model explaining the structural changes in Jordan's economy during the 1970s, see W. M. Mikhail, 'A Standard Aggregative Model for the Jordanian Economy', International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 17 (1985), pp. 67-88. The price of phosphates rose gradually until the late 1970s. Five Year Plan, 1986-1990, p. 11. For growth rates of various economic sectors during the plan period, see Jordan, Five Year Plan for Economic and Social Development, 1976-1980 (Amman: National Planning Council, n.d.), Table 1, p. 70. Jordan, Five Year Plan for Economic and Social Development, 1976-1980, pp. 65-74. Five Year Plan, 1986-1990, p. 11. Al-Ra'y (Amman), 22 Feb. 1981, p. 5.

jordan's Economy 1970-90

59

28. For study on remittances, see Jamal Abu-Rashed, 'Technical Progress Brain Drain and the Impact of Remittances on Economic Development: The Case of Jordan' (Ph.D. Thesis, Southern Methodist University, 1988); M. A. J. Share, 'The Use of Jordanian Workers' Remittances', Cahier No. 35 (1985), pp. 57-74. 29. For the effects on Lebanon, see Elias Saba, 'Prospects for Lebanon's Economy', in Nadim Shehadi and Bridget Harney (eds.), Politics and Economy in Lebanon (Oxford: Centre for Lebanese Studies, 1989), p. 3. For the impact on Jordan, see John Roberts, 'jordan's Economic Growth in the 1970s: Policies for Responding to an External Stimulus', Development Policy Review, Vol. 2, No.2 (Nov. 1984), p. 154; EIU, OER of Syria, Jordan, Vol. 2 (1978), p. 15. 30. The Arab Economist (Nov. 1979), pp. 18-19. 31. World Bank, World Tables (1989-1990 edition), pp. 334-5. This was gained despite the fall in phosphate export prices after 1975. 32. World Bank, World Tables, pp. 334-5. 33. Ibid. 34. Philip Robins, 'The Fine Tuning of jordan's Economy', Middle East International, 22 Feb. 1985, p. 16. 35. World Bank, World Tables, p. 335. 36. See Ali S. Zaghal, 'Social Change in Jordan', Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 20, No.4 (1984), pp. 53-75. 37. World Bank, World Tables, p. 335. 38. Compared with 20 per cent in the UK and 26 per cent in France and Australia. See Middle East Economic Handbook (London: Euromonitor Publications Limited, 1986), p. 219. 39. On the housing situation in Jordan, see Rusen Keles and Hiromasa Kano (eds.), Housing and the Urban Poor in the Middle East (Tokyo: Institute of Developing Economies, 1987), pp. 178-232; Raymond J. Struyk, 'Understanding High Housing Vacancy Rates in a Developing Country: Jordan', Journal of Developing Areas, Vol. 22, No.3 (April 1988), pp. 373-80. 40. See Loic Salmon, 'Jordanie: Zone de transit en expansion', Industrie et Developpement International, No. 389 (1986), pp. 221-4. 41. Discussion concerning jordan's strengthened alliance with Iraq can be found in Asher Susser, 'Jordan', Middle East Contemporary Survey, Vol. 6 (1981-82), pp. 672-701. 42. See Aqaba, MEED, 3 Aug. 1984, pp. 6-7. 43. See the words of Crown Prince Hasan in the introduction to the Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development, 1981-1985 (Amman, n.d.). 44. Ibid., pp. 35-9. 45. Five Year Plan, 1986-1990, p. 26. 46. See The British Bank of the Middle East, Jordan (Business Profile Series, January 1986), p.6. 47. EIU, Quarterly Economic Review of Syria, Jordan, No.3 (1983), p. 19. 48. Mihailo V. Stevovic, 'Jordanian Concerns', Review of International Affairs, Vol. 36, No. 846-7 (1985), p. 26. 49. For economic development in 1983-85, see 'Les developpements economiques (19831985)', Syrie & Monde Arabe, No. 412 (1988), pp. 3-18. 50. World Bank Report, Gulf States Newsletter, No. 297 (6 Oct. 1986), pp. 12-14. 51. Five Year Plan, 1986-1990, p. 76. 52. See Pamela Dougherty, 'jordan's Quest for Economic Independence', MEED, 19 Aug. 1988, pp. 2, 4. 53. Five Year Plan, 1986-1990, pp. 80-81. 54. Ibid., p. 37. 55. Ibid., p. 46. 56. Khader, 1990, p. 102. 57. Both stopped the aid because of ideological differences with Jordan.

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58. In 1983, for example, Jordan received $558.4 million, which was 44.3 per cent of the entire Baghdad allocation. See EIU, QER of Syria, Jordan, No.4 (1983), p. 20. 59. For external aid receipts, see also Central Bank of Jordan, various Annual Reports. 60. For details, see MEED, 4 Jan. 1985, pp. 12-13. 61. MEN Economic Weekly (Cairo), Vol. 25, No. 48 (28 Nov. 1986), pp. 19-21. 62. See 'Jordan Staves off the Jobs Crisis', MEED, 30 Jan. 1988, pp. 4-5. 63. 'Jordan: Investment Plan for the Encouragement of Economic Activity', Al-Ahram alIqtisadi, No. 919 (25 Aug. 1986), pp. 48-9. 64. Mohammad Q. Ahmad al-Quaryoty, 'Prospects for Privatization in Jordan', Journal of Arab Affairs, Vol. 8, No.2 (Fall 1989), pp. 159-90. On the private sector, see also Zayd J. Sha'sha, 'The Role of the Private Sector in Jordan's Economy', in R. Wilson (ed.), op. cit., pp. 79-89, and the chapter on Jordan in Said el-Naggar (ed.), Privatization and Structural Adjustment in the Arab Countries. Papers presented at a seminar held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 5-7 Dec. 1988 (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 1989). 65. Tom Sams, 'Jordan Makes the Most of Limited Resources', Business America, Vol. 109, No. 10 (May 9, 1988), pp. 34-5. 66. For the political and economic attitude of Jordan towards the West Bank, see Arnold Hottinger, 'Jordan's Shifting Palestinian Policy', Swiss Review of World Affairs, Vol. 36, No.9 (1986), pp. 29-31. 67. Central Bank of Jordan, Twenty Fourth Annual Report 1987 (Department of Research and Studies, n.d. 1988?), p. 5. 68. IMF, International Financial Statistics, various issues. 69. World Bank, World Debt Tables 1990-1991 (Washington, DC: The World Bank), Vol. 2, pp. 178-81. 70. See Pamela Dougherty and Edmund O'Sullivan, 'Jordan's Hard Times', MEED, 24 Feb. 1989, pp. 2-3. 71. World Bank, World Tables, pp. 332-3. 72. MEED, 14 Sept. 1990, p. 5. 73. On the riots, see Middle East Contemporary Survey 1989 (Vol. 13). 74. MEED, 15 Dec. 1989, pp. 4-5. 75. MEED, 21 Nov. 1987, p. 75. 76. MEED, 7 Sept. 1990. 77. The Economist Intelligence Unit, Jordan: Country Report, No.1 (1991), p. 14. 78. IMF, Jordan, 1991. 79. EIU, Jordan, No.1 (1991), p. 15. 80. See Saleh, op. cit., pp. 40-55. 81. See Jamil E. Jreisat, 'Bureaucracy and Development in Jordan', Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. 24 (1989), pp. 94-105. 82. MEED, 1 March 1991, p. 23. 83. Radio Amman, 20 March 1991. 84. E. Kanovsky, jordan's Economy: From Prosperity to Crisis (Tel-Aviv: The Moshe Dayan Center, Occasional Papers, No. 106, May 1989), pp. 69-72.

4

Jordan Between Hashemite and Palestinian Identity Han Pappe

Ever since their appearance on the map of the Middle East as the rulers of a new political entity, the Hashemites in Trans-Jordan have affected, and been affected by, the Palestinian national movement. They could hardly escape this fate, as the land of TransJordan to which Abdallah entered toward the end of 1920 had been part of Mandatory Palestine. In fact, the amir was allowed to stay there because the British hoped he could help strengthen their grip over Palestine. His arrival in Trans-Jordan did not immediately arouse Palestinian antagonism, for there was a certain similarity between the Hashemite family, striving to present a pan-Arabist movement, and the leading political forces then active in Palestine during the first years of the Mandate. If anything, his presence in Trans-Jordan led to a schism in the Zionist movement, part of which regarded the secession of T rans-Jordan to the British protege as a betrayal of the Balfour Declaration. The Revisionist faction did not accept the leadership's decision to bow to realpolitik and to the supremacy of the British position in the area. It considered, and still does consider Trans-Jordan to be part of the land promised to the Jews by the Bible and by Lord Balfour. Between 1918 and 1936, while the Jews vigorously built their own entity west of the Jordan River, Abdallah gradually won British confidence in his loyalty to the Empire and his usefulness to London's strategic interests in the area. At the same time, the ostensible intra-communal strife in Palestine became what it had probably been from the very start, a national conflict. During this period, Abdallah was intermittently drawn into the conflict, mainly by Jewish overtures to secure an agreement, first on settling Jews in his territory in return for financial assistance and later, on Hashemite recognition of the right of the Jews to a homeland.! Such recognition had been granted, though not wholeheartedly, by his

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brother, Faysal, in January 1919, but was denied a few months later by the amir and his father. Until the death of Sharif Husayn of Mecca, the Palestinian leaders had pinned their hopes on the validity of the Husayn-Macmahon correspondence of 1916. They appealed for an interpretation of the correspondence, which included a British promise to give Palestine to the Arabs, as a binding agreement, and, more important, demanded that the Hashemites accept this interpretation and be prepared to struggle for it. Both hopes failed to materialize, and many of the Palestinian political activists adopted a hostile attitude toward the Hashemites, particularly Abdallah. The anti-Hashemite camp was led by the most important clan and dominant political group - the Husaynis. Abdallah succeeded in allying himself with groups opposed to the Husaynis, which were headed by the Nashashibi family, thereby maintaining a foothold in Palestinian politics and affairs. Abdallah's intensive interest and activity in Palestine began in 1936, with the onset of the Arab revolt. It was the first recorded attempt by Abdallah to persuade the British to allow him to annex parts of Palestine, ostensibly as the best solution to the conflict, but mainly in order to enhance his position in the Arab world as the sovereign ruler of Palestine. This demand, accepted by the Peel Commission but rejected by the parties, would develop into the Greater Syria plan, by which Abdallah coveted the whole area of 'Bilad aI-Sham', encompassing Trans-Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. It remained a plan on paper only, as no one in the Middle East took it seriously. Published twice, once as a political pamphlet and once integrated into Abdallah's memoirs, it was soon forgotten by all concerned. The parts of the Greater Syria plan concerning Palestine, however, remained an important feature of Abdallah's policy, particularly toward the end of the Palestine Mandate. This time, however, he did not seek Britain's recognition of his ambitions - this would come later, but now he was desirous of Zionist recognition. In 1946, Abdallah approached the Jewish Agency in Palestine with the offer of dividing post-Mandatory Palestine between the Jews and the Hashemites. Once Britain had referred the Palestine question to the UN and UNSCOP had proposed the division of Palestine into two states, an Arab and a Jewish one, the two sides became clearer about their positions. A tacit understanding was reached, by which Abdallah was entitled to most of the parts allocated to the

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Palestinians in the Partition Resolution. In return, Abdallah promised his recognition of the right of the Jews to a state of their own. Pressure from the Arab world to toe the general line of total rejection of the Partition Resolution along with his own hesitations led Abdallah to a double game in his relationship with the Jews. Thus, contrary to promises made to the Zionists in November 1947, he joined the other Arab armies in May 1948 and invaded Palestine. In accordance with his understanding with the Jews, on the other hand, he confined his military effort to the city and vicinity of Jerusalem, and thus managed not to encroach on the areas allocated to the Jews. As soon as the war ended, Abdallah strove to strengthen the understanding with the Jews about his and their rights to Palestine. 2 Abdallah reaped the fruits of his understanding with the Jews at the end of the war, when the area of the West Bank was annexed to Trans-Jordan. The area his army occupied covered 6,000 square kilometers, not so large in relation to Trans-Jordan, but sizeable compared to Mandatory Palestine. More important, it added 670,000 Palestinians, more than half of them refugees, to the 300,000 Transjordanians. Some of the Transjordanians themselves were of Palestinian origin, having come to Jordan before 1948, and had family ties with the West Bank. In the years to come, they would identify themselves as Jordanians but would be referred to by the Palestinians, as well as by many scholars, as East Bankers. The enlarged Kingdom of Jordan, Greater Trans-Jordan as it was then called by the British, thus became, demographically but not politically, a Palestinian state. Until 1967, the Palestinians would constitute 75 per cent of the country's population. 3 The first legionnaire entered this area in May 1948, and two years later it was officially integrated into the Hashemite Kingdom. In those two years, the Hashemites abolished all independent Palestinian institutions and all administrative barriers between the two banks of the Jordan River, and encouraged the movement of people and finance from the relatively developed, wealthy West Bank to the arid, underdeveloped eastern bank of the river.4 This process of annexation failed to gain proper international recognition although shortly before his assassination, the UN mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte did recommend the incorporation of the UN Arab Palestine into Trans-Jordan as the best solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict. Neither the Arab world nor the superpowers recognized the enlarged kingdom. The Arab League

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condemned Jordan in strong words but took no action against Abdallah. The League was still committed to its February 1948 decision instructing every Arab country in possession of a part of Palestine to keep it under temporary rule until the Palestinians could decide their own future. Egypt followed this rule when it imposed military control over the Gaza Strip. In his formal declaration of union in 1950, Abdallah also referred to this commitment, but hardly anyone else in the Arab world took it seriously. The Arab world and the Palestinian diaspora were particularly annoyed by the Amman and Jericho conferences, which preceded the formal union in April 1950; at these conferences, Abdallah ostensibly obtained legitimization as the ruler of Palestine, both from a gathering of refugees (in Amman), and from the permanent residents (in Jericho).5 On the other hand, both Britain and Israel approved of the new geopolitical development: in a way, this was more important for Abdallah than Arab or international acquiescence. In April 1949, Israel and Jordan signed an armistice agreement granting Israeli recognition of the annexation in return for the transfer of a small part of Samaria in the West Bank, an area called today the Little Triangle, to Israel. This further loss of territory to the Israelis, coupled with continued Israeli-Jordanian negotiations of a separate peace treaty, caused Palestinian resentment, ending in the assassination of King Abdallah in July 1951. WAS THE WEST BANK JORDANIZED?

From the very beginning of the annexation, the Hashemite court worked relentlessly to Jordanize the West Bankers and the Palestinian refugees. 6 Abdallah tried at first to placate the Palestinians by liberalizing his autocratic rule and allowing a modicum of democratization into the new political system. This move, however, produced exactly the opposite effect, as it revealed the amount of opposition to Abdallah's rule in the West Bank and ultimately led the king to dissolve the Palestinian-dominated parliament he had helped to establish. Abdallah and his grandson, Hussein, gave high priority to their struggle against the old Palestinian leadership in the West Bank. Abdallah abolished all bodies having past connections with the Arab Higher Committee or the al-Husayni family, and Hussein, trying to build a pro-Jordanian cadre instead, duly continued this policy. Grandfather and grandson alike would fluctuate between

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the stick and the carrot in their relations with the West Bankers. At times, however, Hussein resorted to the most brutal, coercive measures of oppression, notwithstanding long periods in which he relaxed his grip.? The success or failure of the two monarchs' efforts to Jordanize the West Bankers is debated to this day. In many ways, though, it is an academic issue, as the process of Jordanization was cut short by the June 1967 war. The scholarly verdict depends very much on the definition of Jordanization. Those who regard the process as an attempt to 'de-Palestinize' the West Bank, and thereby generate a new self-identity and allegiance, have concluded that the effort totally failed. If, however, J ordanization is defined as eliminating or at least weakening the Palestinian opposition to the regime, then the Jordanian balance sheet is more impressive. 8 As will be seen, the same problems of definition apply to an analysis of the JordanianPalestinian relationship in the post-1967 era. The best way to answer the question, it seems, is by analyzing the various Palestinian views of jordan's seizure of the West Bank. jordan's main accomplishment seems to have been the building of a pro-Hashemite cadre in the West Bank from 1948 to 1967. This cadre consisted of notable families who had shown pro-Hashemite affinities during the Mandatory period. 9 These families were generously rewarded with high administrative positions and financial favors and, until recently, saw their future as closely connected with that of the Hashemite dynasty. Apart from the notables, quite a few of the camp-dwellers in that period accepted Hashemite rule over the two banks of the Jordan, at least temporarily. None of these refugees were considered part of the leadership in the camps; individually - never as a group - they were lured to leave the camps and support the union. Most of them came from professional and business-like backgrounds and thus were more concerned with relief than with the political realities. IO This Hashemite success was attained by practical inducements, including travel papers, to make life easier. These refugees settled in the urban centers in the East Bank and forged what came to be known as the Jordanian urban middle class. l l In fact, the urban society of Jordan today is still a Palestinian one, built according to the perceptions, ambitions, and ideals of the Palestinians. Throughout the period under review in this book, they did not seem to desire any turmoil that could undermine their achievements. It is a consumption-orientated group, 'whose economic satisfaction is by

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far an important factor in their acceptance of Hashemite rule'. 12 jordan's hopes of homogenizing its society still hinge on this group. The majority of the refugees, indeed the majority of Palestinians, came from a rural background. There were attempts at settling some of them in agricultural farms, but very few yielded to government pressure. The camp-dwellers accepted jordan's rule because they neither had the power to oppose it nor could they return to Palestine. They were thus partially integrated, but in their mind, it was a temporary integration, pending a political solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict that would allow them to be repatriated. Hence, leaving the camps was out of the question, and all government efforts in this direction - and there were many in the early 195 Os - failed. No one in Amman was willing to embark on a forced evacuation of hundreds of thousands of refugees. The government singled out UNRWA as the main obstacle to a successful integration of the refugee population. Indeed, it was UNRWA's payrolls and subsidies that enabled the refugees to stay in the camps. The agency and the Jordanian government competed for the refugees' allegiance from 1948 until well into the early 1960s, the government attempting to portray itself as the refugees' defender and provider, while UNRWA actually fulfilled these functions. It should be remembered that Jordan was - and still is - a poor country, not selfsufficient and not always able to look after its indigenous population. Hence the refugees also constituted an economic burden to Jordan, and the government could not provide the necessary foodstuffs without UNRWA. Even when it did show goodwill, as in the supply of wheat to the refugee camps, it could meet only half of the refugee population's needs; the rest had to be brought into the camps, free of charge, by UNRWA. 13 In this struggle, the government went to the extreme of encouraging the refugees to demonstrate against UNRWA.14 A particularly fierce competition was waged over the schools. Although the government ran more schools in the camps than did UNRWA, most of the teachers were employees of the agency or of its sister agency, UNESCO; thus the school system was quasi-autonomous. The competition between the government and UNRWA benefited the camps, as it generated a rapid growth in the number of schools, although demand far exceeded supply. IS In the early 1960s, the Jordanian government gave up these efforts. Since then it has been content with maintaining a strict regime by keeping the camps under constant surveillance.

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Being left in the camps had a devastating effect on the standard of living of the refugee population, which had one of the highest birth rates in the area. It was impossible to meet the growth of population with adequate employment and housing possibilities within the perimeters of the camps. The refugees were limited to the original land allotments given to them and had to build more and more densely as the population increased. The camps were swollen by the arrival of new refugees in the wake of the June 1967 war. New camps were built during that period, but again the rate of population growth turned them into slums similar to the pre-1967 ones. The Baq'a camp provides a good example. It was built in 1968, following the Israeli occupation, for refugees, most of them previously from Jordan Valley camps in the West Bank. When it was established, five people lived in a unit of 100 square meters; by the 1980s, ten people had to manage in the same unitY In these conditions, visitors usually found people who were 'disgruntled, unsettled, despondent, militant or potentially so'.17 Indeed, in the years to come, the refugees would develop militant nationalism and political opposition. Living in the camps also had other socio-political effects. It helped to forge the Palestinian selfidentity. The camp-dwellers' unique way of life produced a common sense of belonging to the same national group, perceptions that were accentuated by the pattern of settlement in the camps themselves: a division according to family, village or neighborhood origin in pre-1948 Palestine. The pattern somewhat mitigated the hardship of life in the camps by imparting continuity of social cohesiveness and group solidarity. The Hashemite regime itself was quite undecided as to the degree to which it wanted to integrate the Palestinians in Jordan. This was clearly reflected in the matter of Palestinian recruitment to the army. Since 1948, this had been a central issue in Jordanian politics. Palestinians were first recruited for the frontier forces, or the national guard as it was called, and they responded in large number even though the pay was not very high. 18 Once it was clear, however, that they would not be allowed to infiltrate into Israel, their numbers decreased. In the 1950s, the Palestinians themselves wanted to join the Legion, where the pay was high and career prospects were good, but as long as Glubb was in command, this recruitment was limited. Later, more were recruited, as the army needed skills possessed by the Palestinians. In the 1960s, this number increased further, since

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other Arab governments began establishing Palestinian units within their armies and Jordan had to follow suit. Whether integrated or not, none of the Palestinian groups or classes in the 1950s adopted Palestinian nationalism as a vehicle against Hashemite ambitions to Jordanize them and their country. When they did challenge the regime, they did it in the name and in the framework of pan-Arabism. THE CHALLENGE OF PALESTINIAN PAN-ARABISM

In the few parliamentary elections that took place in the pre-1967 period, Palestinian nationalism was not an issue. None of the competing parties tackled watani (that is, local nationalist) topics; they all referred to qawmi (that is, pan-Arabist) ideologies, whether secular or religious. 19 Did this latter affinity imply a defeat for Palestinian nationalism and the success of 'Jordanization'? There are those who certainly think so; they believe that Jordan's military power and economic inducements resulted in failure of the Palestinians' struggle to keep their identity. It should also be noted that this was the heyday of pan-Arabism; very few in the Arab world expressed watani aspirations. The Palestinians thus had to de-Palestinize themselves, turning to the pan-Arabist parties - regarded as an admission of defeatand according to the regime a gradual, if conditional, legitimacy.2o They worked within the system and took part in political life, but not on a Palestinian basis. Palestinian nationalism was at most kept in the background. Yet, one can question this argument, since in the final analysis adherence to pan-Arabism is as much a challenge as Palestinian nationalism to the Hashemites' right to rule. The ferocity with which Palestinians opposed any attempt by the Hashemite government to join its sister state, Iraq, in a pro-Western alliance in 1955 is a good example of how Palestinians used pan-Arabism; between November 1955 and January 1956, tens of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets throughout the kingdom to protest the Baghdad Pact and the Templer Mission. 21 There is, moreover, a sense of continuity between the qawmi parties, such as Al-qawmiyun ai-Arab led by George Habash, and the watani PLO later in the 1960s. Palestinian pan-Arabism, however, was not well organized and did not constitute a real threat to the regime in the 1950s. The 1957 attempted coup against the Hashemites and their

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pro-British policies was carried out by East Bank officers in the Legion who had been influenced by Nasser - that is, Abu Nuwarand not by Palestinians. Pan-Arabism meant that the challenge to the Hashemites would come from without; and when it came, it was a significant one. In the 1960s, pan-Arabism under Nasser's influence produced the most serious, direct Palestinian nationalist challenge to the Hashemite regime: the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO was a potent force, since it won the allegiance of the camp-dwellers, whom the Jordanians had failed to integrate into the state. In historical perspective, it seems that until the emergence of the PLO, the camps provided the fertile soil that nourished the alternative identity of Jordan. Until the 1960s, however, the refugees' dismay did not translate into active political action: their participation in political parties, apart from the Muslim Brotherhood, was quite low. The Brotherhood's appeal, however, would also decline temporarily with the establishment of the PLO and the revival of Palestinian nationalism. In many ways, Nasser established the PLO as part of his campaign to delegitimize Hashemite rule in Jordan. The Egyptian leader was successful, at least to the extent of diminishing whatever progress the Hashemites had made in their Jordanization efforts. Although the PLO assured Hussein that the reference in its covenant to Mandatory Palestine as the state of the Palestinians was to the Mandate from 1922 onwards - that is, without Jordan Hussein has never trusted this interpretation. 22 Indeed the PLO was never clear about Jordan'S status, and many in the organization regarded the covenant as applying to Jordan, as well. 23 All this, however, was still not a pure Palestinian nationalist challenge to Hussein's rule. The chairman of the PLO, Ahmad al-Shuqayri was after all Nasser's protege, and no more than that. On the other hand, it was different from the political tendencies that had characterized Palestinian activity in the 1950s - this time, pan-Arabist discourse and action were directed against Israel. Nasserism in Jordan became a clear anti-Israeli pan-Arabism: the PLO demanded of Jordan a commitment to the struggle that Hussein had hitherto refused to give. The Jordanian king persisted in his noncommittal attitude even after the establishment of the PLO. Thus after bowing to Egyptian pressure and allowing the PLO to hold its inaugural conference in Jerusalem, Hussein hastened in the summer of 1966 to ban activities against Israel. However, this move failed to

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impress the Israelis, who retaliated in November that year with a large-scale operation in Samo'a. 24 Apprehensive of further retaliations, Hussein closed the PLO headquarters in Jerusalem in early 1967. At the same time, to balance the impression, he invited the former Mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, to the city. The king also wanted al-Husayni's presence in the city because of parliamentary elections that were due to take place that year. 25 The escalation on the Israeli-Syrian border and Nasser's moves in the Sinai and the Tiran Straits did not allow Hussein much room for meandering politics. He felt trapped, fearing accusations of not fulfilling his Arab duty and probably mesmerized by Nasser's rhetoric of success, yet concerned about Israeli and Syrian ambitions and possibly believing that a war could be averted at the last moment. Hussein thus pleaded with Nasser for a defense pact in May 1967, which would lead to his participation in the war. It also forced Hussein to be even more cordial toward the PLO; after signing the pact in Cairo, Nasser compelled the reluctant king to take al-Shuqayri with him as an honored guest on the royal plane to Amman. 26 Egypt's PLO was replaced in 1968 by an independent Palestinian PLO. This led to the re-emergence of Palestinian consciousness among many of the 1948 refugees in Jordan. The new organization would demand their allegiance and claim their achievements in Jordan as its own. The Hashemite regime not only found it difficult to 'Jordanize' the Palestinians, it itself now faced the risk of being 'Palestinized' . The real political challenge, however, came from more than the emergence of an independent PLO; it emanated from social developments within the Palestinian community after 1967. Palestinians, as well as outside experts, began equating the process of modernization - undergone by Jordan as a result of its annexation of the West Bank and the absorption of the 1948 refugees - with that of 'Palestinization'. Indeed in more than one way, the Palestinian presence in Jordan changed the character of the country. The relatively rich and diverse West Bank population modernized the tribal, sedentary economy of Trans-Jordan. The tourist capabilities alone of the flourishing urban center of Jerusalem accounted for almost one-third of the country's GNP.27 Palestinians could not effect political changes, but their financial investments in the East Bank played an important role in jordan's development. The instability of the West Bank in the aftermath of the Baghdad Pact

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induced many West Bankers to channel their investments to the East Bank, this capital forming the basis of the economic changes in Jordan up to 1967. The Palestinians also acted as a modernizing agent in the field of education. The 1948 war had brought a more sophisticated and educated group of people into the East Bank, raising the national level of education. When allowed, they operated the press and the communication networks in the country. One may argue that the narrowing of the gaps between the two banks generated a more homogenized society, but 19 years are certainly not enough to test this assumption. What is clear is that ultimately both the indigenous Transjordanians and the refugees became more educated but at the same time also more politicized - a development that posed a threat to the autocratic dynastic rule of the Hashemites. The crux of the matter was that Palestinian representation in the government, administration and army did not correspond to their contribution or to their share of the population, and this eventually led to the open confrontation of 1970. The Jordanian parliament, based on constituencies, was divided in such a way that it did not grant fair representation to the West Bankers. The situation was better in the government, where Palestinians held various portfolios, including those of foreign affairs and defense. Another source of aggravation was the Jordanian law restricting the vote to taxpayers and males over 21, and thus excluding a large number of Palestinians who were either under-age or refugees. With the monarchy belonging to the Hashemites and the army to the Bedouins, the Palestinian majority felt as though it was living under the rule of a dictatorial minority, as was the case in a number of Middle East countries. 28 THE CHALLENGE OF PALESTINIAN NATIONALISM, 1967-70

The emergence of the PLO as an independent factor was one of the main consequences of the June 1967 war, and in many ways the most dangerous development for the Hashemite dynasty. The transformation of the PLO was felt most acutely in the refugee camps, whose population rapidly grew in the aftermath of the war when about 300,000 Palestinians fled from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Most settled in emergency camps; others poured into Amman, Irbid and Salt. After 1968, a steady annual influx of a few thousand continued to arrive, although at times, such as 1981, as

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many as 20,000 arrived (in this case, to escape the harsh measures of Israeli Defense Minister, Ariel Sharon, in the West Bank).29 With the loss of the West Bank, on the one hand, and the new waves of refugees, on the other, jordan's Palestinian community was estimated to constitute 60 per cent of the overall population. Extracting exact figures is almost impossible, however, and demographers have resorted to calculations of birth and death rates as well as emigration and immigration figures in order to estimate the composition of the population, much as is done in studies of periods in the more distant past. There seems to be a consensus that the Palestinians were and still form the majority ethnic group.30 It was the Fath take-over of the PLO that brought about the only direct watani Palestinian challenge to the Hashemite identity of Jordan to date - the civil war of September 1970. The relatively independent Palestinian organizations chose Jordan as the main launching pad for guerrilla activities against Israel. Within a short time, the PLO succeeded in building a state within a state, with adequate medical, educational and administrative functions. Members of the various PLO organizations appeared in jordan's cities in full uniform and carrying arms wherever they went. The rhetoric of these fighters and their leaders did not imply that they intended to use this military force against Jordan or the Hashemite family - the only target was Israel. In March 1968, the PLO succeeded in repelling an Israeli retaliatory operation in the village of Karameh, a battle that enhanced the organization's prestige and established its credibility.3l One scholar claims that this success was so immense that it turned the PLO into the national Palestinian elite in Jordan. Although this may be debated with regard to the middle classes, it certainly was the outcome for the refugees. 32 However, the PLO's infiltration into Israel did serve to undermine Hashemite rule, simply because it generated a direct clash between the Legion and the IDF, with the towns in the north, particularly Salt, coming under heavy Israeli retaliatory fire. The guerrilla war launched by the PLO also had far-reaching economic implications: once the Jordan Valley turned into a war zone, the exchanges of fire prevented the development of many of the projects on which Jordan's agricultural production depended. 33 Finally, in 1968 and 1969, the anniversary of any meaningful day in Palestinian history, such as the Balfour Declaration, became a day of internal unrest, demonstrations, and stoning of foreign embassies, and the consequent arrest of PLO members. Fuel was thrown on the

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fire of tense relations by Palestinian National Council (PNC) declarations, such as: 'The Palestinian struggle is based on the belief that the people in the Palestinian-Jordanian theatre are one people'.34 The Popular Liberation Front for Palestine (PFLP), headed by George Habash, was the PLO organization that precipitated the civil war in Jordan by calling for the overthrow of the regime. However, there were enough members in the mainstream organization, the Fath, who were willing to risk a confrontation because of US Secretary of State William Rogers' success in inducing Nasser and Hussein to enter into peace negotiations with Israel. Although this peace initiative ultimately failed, at the time the PLO saw it as Nasser's betrayal of the Palestinian cause and a serious danger to the organization's existence. For a moment in the summer of 1970, it seemed as though a confrontation could be averted; indeed in September 1970 the two sides signed an agreement in Cairo that was very much in the organization's favor. An all-Arab conciliation commission persuaded the two sides to agree both on the withdrawal of PLO units from the cities and on their continued presence in Jordan for the sake of the struggle against Israel. The agreement was short-lived. A few weeks after it was signed, the PFLP hijacked and blew up two international aircraft in the Jordanian desert. Hussein reacted by appointing an all-military government and threatening the PLO with military action. From that moment onward, it was impossible to prevent a large-scale confrontation. The war between the PLO and the Hashemites broke out that same month, and the Legion found the PLO to be a potent opponent. The Palestinian guerrillas in the camps were deployed in cement and stone buildings that became small fortresses from which it was difficult to expel them except through carpet bombing by the Legion artillery. Only much later did the Legion resort to this tactic, which consequently killed thousands of refugees. The PLO was also successful in other areas of the country, particularly in the north, where it made impressive gains in the fighting; at one point it even declared the north a 'liberated area' and hoped to attain a de facto partition of the country. With the onset of the fighting on 17 September 1970, the PLO took over Irbid, the second largest city in Jordan. The proximity of the fighting to Syria created an opportunity for Damascus to try to influence the course of the confrontation. On 20 September, Syrian forces crossed the border near the

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town of Ramtah. They were joined by the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA), Palestinian units stationed in Syria which were not part of the PLO. The PLO might have been even more successful had the Syrian invasion of northern Jordan tipped the balance. When the first Syrian troops crossed the border, it did indeed seem that the Palestinians would gain the upper hand. This impression was reinforced when it transpired that the other Ba'th regime, in Baghdad, was willing to set aside its rivalry with Syria temporarily and allow Damascus a free hand in Jordan. The Iraqis withdrew their massive forces from the Syrian border and redeployed them in other parts of Iraq. It seemed destined to be a very effective invasion; however, several factors worked against it. For one thing, both Ba'th governments restricted their operations and assistance, to the great dismay of the PLO. Baghdad ordered its units in Jordan not to join the PLO in the fighting; and Damascus' Defense Minister, Hafiz al-Asad, was ordered not to send his air force to the campaign. 35 Above all, though, was an Israeli warning to Syria that the invasion was a casus belli; this forced Damascus to withdraw its forces, thus leaving the PLO alone in the war with the Legion. On other fronts, as well, the initial Palestinian success could not be followed up. The PLO relied on the Palestinians in the Legion to rebel and join it in the fighting, or at least to desert. Forty per cent of Jordanian army personnel during the events of September 1970 were Palestinian. Many did, indeed, leave, but hardly any rebelled. The desertion of about 5,000 men did not affect the performance of the Legion much, since these soldiers held only technical jobs and were not positioned in sensitive places. Most of the Palestinians in the army - 22,000 of them - stayed on and fought against their compatriots. Fearing a Pyrrhic victory that would further isolate him in the Arab world, Hussein decided to play the role of a generous conqueror. He assembled the captured PLO leaders, notable among them Abu Iyad and Faruq Qadumi, and reached an agreement on the PLO's withdrawal from the urban centers and the concentration of their forces in the Jordan Valley. In return, he would recognize the PLO as the only legitimate representative of the Palestinians. Colonel Numeiri of the Sudan was witness to the agreement. However, the PLO executive committee rejected the pact, claiming that Abu Iyad had signed under duress in captivity. Arafat, in hiding in Amman at the time, decided to try to salvage a cease-fire

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agreement and gave his approval for Abu Iyad's understanding with Hussein. This opened the way to another Cairo agreement, on 27 September 1970 under Nasser's supervision, which turned the PLO's relative defeat into a political victory. Hussein was forced to accept an all-Arab supervision, not his own, over the PLO's activity and presence in Jordan. A new actor now appeared on the scene - Wasfi al-Tal- who decided to ignore the Cairo agreement. AI-Tal, a close confidant of the king, was appointed Prime Minister early in October 1970. Since 1964, he had been calling for harsh measures against the PLO, a call that would eventually lead to his assassination. Hussein wanted ai-Tal to enforce the evacuation outlined in the Cairo agreement, without delay, and without waiting for the PLO's cooperation. Accordingly ai-Tal began mopping-up operations against the organization, even without apparent provocation. In the end, the PLO units were expelled from Jordan. 36

THE AMBIVALENT JORDANIAN-PALESTINIAN RELATIONSHIP, 1970-1988

The Loss of the West Bank After settling in southern Lebanon in 1970, the PLO escalated its verbal and diplomatic attacks against the Hashemite regime in Jordan, which culimnated in the declaration of the eighth PNC in April 1974 that Jordan was part ofPalestine. 37 Hussein tried to fend off these attacks by strengthening his grip over the Palestinians in Jordan and winning back the West Bank. These objectives were translated into the king's 'Arab Unity' plan of 1972, which proposed a federation between Jordan and a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with two capitals (in Amman and Jerusalem), two parliaments, but one government, one foreign policy and one army. 38 Hussein's plan was based on the assumption that the West Bankers were still part of the Jordanian society and would wish to be so in the future. One could agree that in the first years after the June 1967 war there was no reason for Amman to consider the West Bank as lost. The cadre of pro-Hashemite mayors and functionaries were still reigning with the blessing of the ruling Israeli Labor Party, which had declared its willingness to concede some of the area to

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Jordan in return for peace and which had preserved the Jordanian character of the West Bank as much as possible. Amman tried to maintain its control over the West Bank through its teachers in the education system and through the clergy who were employed by Amman in the Awqaf administration. 39 The same year that Hussein presented his plan, his supporters in the West Bank won the municipal elections for the last time; the tide turned against them and the king soon afterwards. Both the Israelis and the Jordanians were harboring illusions. The PLO, for its part, succeeded in gaining both regional and international notice, at least to the extent of reviving Palestinian nationalism in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, the population did not wish to return to the Legion's iron-fist rule and began to publicly endorse the PLO's leadership. With support now coming from the occupied territories and with its achievements in the regional and international arenas, the PLO could now safely reject Hussein's plan out of hand. The twelfth PNC adopted a considerable number of aggressive resolutions against Jordan that were tantamount to a call for a direct struggle against the regime. 40 The Palestinian movement managed to rally the Arab world behind the PLO and its claim to the exclusive right to negotiate over the West Bank and Gaza. At the Rabat Arab summit in October 1974, the PLO was recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian cause. In direct response to this summit, the West Bankers drifted further away from Amman. Under the PLO's leadership, none of the pro-Hashemite elements stood any chance in the struggle for public support. Nor was there anyone in the Arab world willing to challenge the PLO's right to negotiate the future of these areas. These developments generated within the Jordanian government a lobby favoring separation from the West Bank. The members of this group, senior army officers and government officials, contended that it would be possible to demand that Palestinians living in the East Bank forsake their 'conflicting identities' or 'dual identity' if they wished to remain full citizens. 41 There were two central figures leading this trend: Crown Prince Hasan and Prime Minister Mudar Badran. Although the former never made explicit references to the subject, the latter was quite clear. In 1976, Badran proposed measures that included removing the Jordanian government employees in the West Bank from its payroll. This measure would be adopted by Hussein 12 years later (at which time,

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incidentally, Badran was also the Prime Minister). Hussein would make his own decision of renunciation in 1988, only after being convinced that the West Bank was lost; the critical point was when he learned about the results of the municipal elections in the West Bank of 1976: most of the pro-Jordanian candidates lost their seats to pro-PLO men.42 It seems, though, that King Hussein was less troubled than his close advisers and his brother about the Rabat summit and its implications. His fortunes at the time had begun to improve in the literal sense, with the decline of Beirut and the rise of Amman as the financial and banking capital of the Levant. He could allow himself to be less vindictive and paranoid than his colleagues, and so he restored the status quo in the kingdom's relationship with the Palestinians. In February 1976, Parliament was reconvened, and the number of Palestinians from both banks returned to what it had been prior to the Rabat summit. Moreover, in direct defiance of the Rabat summit, Hussein entered into secret bilateral negotiations with Israel. These negotiations lasted from 1974 to 1977, but failed to bear any substantial fruit; they were cut off prematurely by the change of government in Israel and the end of the term in office of the principal matchmaker, Henry Kissinger. The Carter administration held different views about the tactics and goals of the ArabIsraeli peace process. It toiled to convene an international conference in Geneva of all those involved. As part of these preparations, President Carter approached the PLO delegation in the UN, thereby causing alarm both in Amman and in Jerusalem. En route, Carter used terms such as 'homeland' for the Palestinians, failed to mention any Jordanian linkage to the West Bank, and talked of the Palestinians' rights wherever they lived (that is implying those living in Jordan, too.) Fortunately from Amman's point of view, Sadat's initiative nipped the Geneva peace conference in the bud. Hussein was invited by Carter and Sadat to take part in the Camp David Accord talks; furthermore, the text of the agreement mentioned a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation as one of the possible solutions to the question of Palestinian representation in the future autonomy talks. Hussein, however, refused to follow Sadat's lead: the king could illafford isolation in the Arab world. He therefore made his participation in the process conditional upon Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and recognition of the Palestinians' right to self-determination. 43 These were, as he knew,

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conditions that would never be accepted by the Likud government in Israel. The position taken in 1978 paid off, and at the Baghdad summit in November 1978 the anti-Camp David states awarded Jordan with $1.25 billion for not joining the Camp David Accord (in the end, though, Jordan received only $1 billion). At that summit, Hussein was encouraged to embark on a new and bold - given his caution in the past - initiative: a rapprochement with the PLO. The Saudis, who proposed this new phase in inter-Arab relations, were impressed by Arafat's readiness to mend fences with the Hashemite regime. Sadat's peace initiative and the continued hostility shown by Asad toward the PLO chairman did not leave the latter many open venues in the Arab world. He was thus as ready as Hussein for rapprochement. A joint PLO-Jordanian committee was set up to help with the financing of Palestinian institutions in the West Bank and Gaza; of a promised budget of $200 million, only $60 million were actually received. Hussein probably relished this moment, four years after the Rabat summit: now Jordan was being asked by the Arab League to playa leading role in the affairs of the West Bank.

The Precarious Dialogue - Jordan and the PLO It seems that by 1974, Hussein had come to the realization that without some sort of Palestinian representation next to him, he would not be able to gain a legitimate seat at the negotiating table. In spite of his apprehension over a Geneva conference, the king was willing to consider a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to such a conference. The PLO, like other Arab states, preferred an all-Arab delegation in principle, but it did not rule out Hussein's proposal for a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation. The rapprochement with the PLO began in 1979 during the fourteenth PNC, at which meeting the Fath and its supporters, amid strong opposition from the left, declared their belief in the desirability of a dialogue with Jordan in order to prevent the Hashemite Kingdom from joining the Camp David Accord. 44 The moderates won the day, for the time being at least, and the PLO embarked on the dialogue. Hussein responded by publicly announcing his recognition of the Palestinians' right to self-determination and his opposition to the Camp David Accord, in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington. 45 This was followed in the spring of 1981 by a statement issued by Adnan Abu-Awdeh, jordan's Minister of

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Information, that 'King Hussein [had] said on numerous occasions that Jordan will not act as a substitute for the PLO, but rather as a source of support for it'.46 From that point, it is possible to trace a gradual improvement in the relationship, culminating in 1984, when the convention of the Palestine National Council was held in Amman. At the same time that Hussein was leading his country into a better relationship with the PLO, he also tried, but failed, to undermine the PLO's position in the West Bank. Had it been left to Crown Prince Hasan and Mudar Badran, Jordan would have pursued a policy of secession from the West Bank as early 1976, thus corresponding with the new chapter in the relationship with the PLO. However, Hussein, while publicly accepting the Rabat summit resolution, directly contradicted it by opening the Office of Occupied Territories (reporting directly to the Prime Minister) in 1976. The declared aims of the office were to help West Bankers with status affairs, look after Jordan's employees who had stayed in the area after the 1967 war, and administer small economic development schemes. Its function, and consequently its size, increased after the conclusion of the Camp David Accord, but this trend, had little if any effect on West Bankers' feeling towards Hussein. The establishment in 1979 of Lajnat al-Tawjih al-Watani (the national guidance committee), which comprised the leading pro-PLO personalities and acted as the leadership of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, meant in effect that jordan's guidance was no longer sought. 47 A desperate attempt by Jordan to include its supporters on the committee was totally rejected. It was only Sharon's harsh treatment of the area in 1980-81 that led some West Bank leaders to consider Hussein's rule the lesser of two evils. Hussein was indeed ambivalent in his attitude towards the West Bank - ambivalent to the point of total indecision. When Sadat, despairing of the PLO's and Israel's refusal to be the implementers of the Palestinian chapter at Camp David, invited Hussein to playa more central role in the autonomy talks, the king hesitated long enough to allow these talks to subside. (The Israeli government, it should be noted, did not wish to include Hussein in the talks.) As Hussein realized, the Israeli version of autonomy was tantamount to annexation, a situation that the king referred to more than once as very dangerous to Jordan. It would lead both to the transfer of Palestinians to the East Bank and to demands, like those made by Sharon since 1970, to turn Jordan into Palestine.

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These fears also contributed to the vascillation in the king's policies. This ambiguity was never so evident as in the first half of the 1980s, when on the one hand, he lured Arafat to an agreement promising a joint delegation and negotiations over a future Palestinian state, loosely connected to Jordan, in the West Bank and Gaza; on the other hand, he transmitted to the Israelis - that is, the Labor Party - and the Americans that he did not intend to give up hope of returning to the West Bank. He tried simultaneously to lead the anti-Camp David front and to seek an agreement with Israel. There are those who explain Hussein's dismay at the Camp David Accord not on the basis of principle, which was never a feature of his policies anyhow, but on sheer personal irritation at not being consulted in advance. This psychological dimension sometimes provides a better explanation of ambiguities than does any other historical interpretation. Hussein became more active in West Bank affairs after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 1982. His support of the PLO war effort in Lebanon was seen by many as a move aimed at catering to Palestinian radicals in his own country.48 The PLO's evacuation led the king to perceive the PLO as weakened in both the regional and the international arenas. Consequently Hussein was no longer content with mere cooperation with the PLO in assisting the West Bankers; he also tried to persuade Arafat to present a joint approach to the peace process. In fact, the king felt so secure in his relationship with the PLO that he offered to give sanctuary to a contingent of about 1,000 fighters who had been deported from Beirut, provided that they had held Jordanian citizenship in the past and that the PLO pledged that this group would not be used against Israel. 49 Just how much this relationship had altered can be seen when compared to September 1970. To all these explanations of Hussein's rapprochement with Arafat, one should add the introduction of the Reagan peace plan of September 1982. On the day that the last PLO fighter left Beirut, President Reagan revived the 'Jordanian option' by proposing selfgovernment for Gaza and the West Bank in federation with Jordan. As expected, Jordan reacted favorably, but it also demanded that the PLO give its consent. In Fez, Morocco, the member-states of the Arab League added their approval and encouraged Hussein to find a formula that would enable him and Arafat to operate jointly in the diplomatic arena. The beginning was promising. Hussein devoted the next five

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months to intensive negotiations, trying to persuade the PLO chairman to accept the principles embodied in the US President's proposal. A highlight of these talks was Arafat's visit to Amman in October 1982 to discuss the establishment of two committees: one supervising the PLO troops in Jordan, the other coordinating economic aid to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Arafat visited Amman several times more in the course of the negotiations, thereby giving the impression of complete normalization of relations between the two sides. Despite strong opposition among his closest confidants, Arafat acceded on 1 April 1983 to a joint draft committing the PLO to UN Resolutions 242 and 338 and acceptance of the Arab League's Fez plan; that is, a solution based on a Jordanian-Palestinian federation. The document, however, still had to be approved by the PLO executive committee as well as by Arafat's own Fath Central Committee. These two bodies met in Kuwait shortly after Arafat had signed the agreement with Hussein and rejected many of its points. They would accept neither the UN resolutions implying recognition of Israel nor the Fez plan implying recognition of jordan's right to the West Bank. A furious king told the world that he found this attitude totally unacceptable, and for the moment the dialogue seemed doomed. 50 Syria's Asad must have felt that there could not have been a more appropriate moment to try to topple Arafat. Under the influence of Damascus, a faction within the Fath led by Abu Musa rebelled against Arafat's leadership in Lebanon. Arafat, it should be noted, was never officially authorized by the PLO or Fath to carry out this dialogue with Jordan. During its meeting in Algeria in February 1983, the PNC declared that the PLO alone would negotiate the future of the territories. Faced with the Abu Musa revolt, Arafat's fate to many outside observers seemed sealed. In fact, however, Asad's siding with the Abu Musa faction had led to a closing of the ranks in the Fath behind Arafat. The PLO chairman was now given another chance to negotiate with Jordan. There seemed very little else that the PLO could do apart from participating in the diplomatic game. Moreover, because of the rift within the PLO, there was a danger that the Arab world would re-authorize, so to speak, Jordan's right to negotiate the future of the territories without the PLO. There is, though, little reason to doubt Arafat's genuine desire to cooperate with Jordan from the very start of the dialogue, if only out of his fear of losing his Palestinian constituency in the kingdom.

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The revolt in Fath and Syria's involvement had also turned Hussein into an eager partner. A weakened PLO was certainly a blessing, but not one controlled by Syria. The king felt he now could play all the cards in his favor. He mainly wanted to test whether it was possible, ten years after the Rabat summit, to reassert Jordan's commitment to the West Bank. Hussein restored constitutional ties between the two banks by convening, for the first time since 1973, a house of representatives consisting of delegates from both sides of the Jordan and even selecting new candidates from the West Bank to replace those who had died or resigned. The government in Amman maintained that this was only a by-election caused by the death of several members of the body. However, it was not seen as such by outside observers. 51 Certainly this parliamentary activity was not received well by the PLO; it strengthened the position of those factions that had opposed the dialogue from the beginning. Hussein hoped that Arafat would be able to weather the storm. The approach of the Israeli national elections in July 1984 increased optimism in Amman of the chances for a renewed IsraeliJordanian dialogue that would lead to a peace settlement favorable to Jordan's interests. Nor was this feeling immediately deflated by the formation of a national coalition government in Jerusaelm. Contrary to many of his past statements, King Hussein now put the Palestinian issue back on jordan's foreign affairs agenda: 'The Palestinian problem has been and will continue to be our main preoccupation. '52 The elections in Israel were also watched closely by Arafat, who even took an active part in making connections with some of Israel's Arab political parties. Aware of Jordan's overture to the Israel Labor Party, he now became the moving force for a more intensive dialogue with Jordan. This time, he succeeded in obtaining authorization from his organization to present a joint demarche, based not on the Reagan or Fez plans - both of which dealt with the end result of a peace process - but on the concept of an international conference, which was more concerned with questions of procedure. Hussein consented to this approach in return for Arafat's readiness to accept resolutions 242 and 338 in principle. At the time it even seemed that Shimon Peres, the head of the Israel Labor Party, accepted an international conference, but without the PLO. The international conference idea strained relations both within the Israeli government and between Jerusalem and Washington. In the lull, Hussein and Arafat could rest and present the world with a

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picture of harmony and cooperation, reflected in the PNC convention in Amman in November 1984. The convention in Amman suited both Hussein and Arafat. The latter's reputation was so diminished, due to Abu Musa's revolt and the PLO's expulsion from Lebanon, that it was a relief that any Arab capital was willing to receive him as the leader of the national Palestinian movement. Moreover, it was apparently difficult to find another venue, and Arafat badly needed a vote of confidence from the PNC. Hussein, as mentioned, perceived Arafat's weakness and dependence on him as a means of returning to the negotiating table in spite of the Rabat resolutions. Even if Arafat sensed the dangers in the new balance of power, he seemed determined to pursue this new chapter in his relationship with the Hashemite dynasty. He flew to Amman to participate in the PNC conference, where the king told the Palestinian delegates that they should unreservedly back the diplomatic efforts to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. Very few of the king's advisers believed that the PLO would do that, and the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship, Achille Lauro, by PLO men soon after only strengthened the pessimists among the Jordanian leadership. The new overtures were opposed by many East Bankers, the most prominent of them being Zayd Bin Shakir, the Chief of the Legion's General Staff, a prime minister in times of trouble and a close adviser of the king. Bin Shakir warned the king that the rapprochement would lead to a recurrence of Black September. The hijacking also led to second thoughts in Washington, which up to then had quietly supported and even encouraged the move. In February 1985, Hussein and Arafat nevertheless reconstructed their 1983 agreement, and Hussein told an American audience that 'the conclusion of the accord represents an important breakthrough in the Arab search for peace ... For the first time we in Jordan with our Palestinian brethren have structured an initiative representing the pursual of their goals of self-determination'. In his appearances in Washington, however, Hussein might have sown the seeds of discord again by presenting a very liberal interpretation of the agreement with Arafat; the king talked about a PLO recognition of the right of Israel to exist in return for Israel's withdrawal to the pre1967 borders. This was certainly an interpretation that no one in the PLO accepted. 53 In the end the dialogue ceased because of internal opposition within the PLO. For some of the PLO factions, reconciliation with

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Jordan was almost as difficult as accepting the Jewish state. At times, even these factions were caught up in the quick pace of events and were willing to think differently; in the final analysis, however, the mistrust was stronger than the will to change. 54 The left, former Ba'thists, and some factions of the Fath still regarded the Hashemite regime as an enemy. Their power base lay in the student communities and among the refugees in the crowded camps. It took some time before they made a real effort to undermine Arafat's policy. In the early stages of the dialogue their resentment was never translated into an open uprising of any sort. Even the PFLP, which for years regarded Jordan as part of the coveted Palestine- and may still do so today - compromised, at least temporarily. After years of trying to intervene radically in Jordanian affairs, this faction took a very low profile in the 1980s; perhaps it recognized that it could not oppose the military might of the Hashemite regime. There were, of course, the Syrian-backed Palestinian groups, which, like Damascus, feared that the 'honeymoon' with Hussein would exclude Syria from diplomatic activity in the area and weaken its strategic balance vis avis Israel. Damascus was not content with words alone and set out to assassinate central activists of the PLO. In particular, the murder of Fahed Qawasmeh in early 1985 added to the pressures on Arafat to retract his moderate policies. Elsewhere in the Arab world, however, Hussein's policy was greeted favorably. The Saudis, who played the role of midwife in the initial, difficult stages of the dialogue; Saddam Husayn, who reciprocated Hussein's support in Iraq's war against Iran; and Egypt, whose policy was based on the very same lines as Hussein's, all gave the Hashemite ruler reason to regard himself as a pivotal actor in the diplomatic affairs of the Arab world. With this general Arab backing, both Arafat and Hussein felt secure enough to finalize an agreement committing the PLO to UN resolutions 242 and 338, which could imply recognition of Israel. On Arafat's insistence, the draft treaty referred to the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. On the operative side, the partners agreed to form a joint delegation for any future international peace conference on the Palestinian question. Fath's and the PLO's executive committees decided in 1985 to reject the Arafat-Hussein accord. Highly disappointed, King Hussein told his parliament in February 1986: 'Jordan once again turned the matter over to the Palestinian fora in the occupied

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territories and in the diaspora' .55 Hussein was now willing to try a direct approach to the Israelis. The Foreign Minister of Israel's national unity government, Shimon Peres, offered him exclusive rights as the prime negotiator on the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Peres proposed a series of ceremonial steps, such as convening an international conference, that were to lead to a Jordanian-Israeli dialogue on the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Peres was hardly the chief policy-maker in the national unity government, however; he did not even succeed in recruiting the support of his party colleague, Yitzhak Rabin, for the new policy. Thus, in spite of an impressive ten-point agreement between Hussein and Peres signed in London in 1987, this chapter of IsraeliJordanian negotiations, like all the previous ones since 1948, was to no avail. Hussein's reactions were not confined to words and diplomatic gestures. In July 1986, he had closed down PLO offices in Amman, confiscated Arafat's residence in the city and ordered Abu Jihad to vacate his headquarters within 48 hours. In typical fashion, Hussein allowed the reopening of the PLO offices, including that of Abu Jihad, within a year. The outbreak of the Intifada in December 1987 hastened Hussein's decision to renounce his connection with the West Bank. Prime Minister Mudar Badran, Crown Prince Hasan and Zayd Bin Shakir had probably already made up their minds to do so in the mid-1970s. The inevitable speech came in July 1988, when Hussein relinquished any ostensible link with the West Bank. Only time would tell whether this was a dramatic shift in policy or just another fluctuation on the part of a very pragmatic politician. Temporarily dissociating himself from the explosiveness of the Intifada was, by all accounts, the most sensible move an autocrat such as Hussein could have taken. The Palestinians in the East Bank after Black September The repercussions of Black September were strongly felt by the Palestinians in Jordan. Throughout 1971, they were regarded en masse as a fifth column, and Palestinians lost their senior positions in the administration and in the army. But soon after, the storm subsided and their process of integration continued. They were hardly affected by the Rabat summit although that resolution did refer to them, as well. Still, one has to differentiate between the response of the

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Palestinians in the refugee camps and that of the middle class and the professionals. The sheer might of the Legion was enough to deter those in the refugee camps from trying again, as in 1970, to challenge the regime. 56 In their hearts, though, the adherence to a different identity, a Palestinian one, did not dwindle. In any case, as noted earlier, the government had considered them to be something of a lost cause even before 1967. The government's worry was focused on the possible ramifications for the behavior of the urban classes. It transpired that in the 1970s this group had made more of an effort than ever before to participate in the state system rather than to oppose it. Indeed many middle-class Palestinians were integrated into the governmental structure. 57 Since that time, they have yet to challenge Hashemite rule. Toward the end of the 1970s, many of them gained high-ranking positions in the government although they could not hope to attain the highest civilian or most sensitive military positions. 58 Their status was further improved by the economic boom in the Gulf states, which attracted many Palestinians who had found it difficult to obtain jobs in Jordan, and by the domestic prosperity, which came in the wake of the Lebanese civil war when Beirut lost its dominant financial position to Amman. The Palestinians played a most important role in all this economic flourishing, especially by working in the Gulf states and sending foreign currency back home, thus continuing to play the role of modernization agents as they had in the 1950s. 59 Moreover, their children attended state schools and hence were more exposed to indoctrination; what is probably more important, these children shared the same experience as indigenous East Bankers. On the whole, it seems that since 1974, the Palestinian middle class has established a modus vivendi with the regime; even more than that it has gradually, if cautiously, granted the dynasty the legitimacy the Hashemites so desired. This, then, supports the expectations that, as far as the urban classes are concerned, a more homogenized generation of Jordanians will emerge. For the present, however, it would be as wrong to talk about a Jordanized urban middle class of Palestinians as it would be to say that this group has Palestinized Jordan. Very much like the Arab Israelis, these are Palestinians who have their own way of manifesting their identity; it is, in fact, as complicated as the identity of the Palestinians in Israel. There are many layers, if we may borrow a schematic metaphor, to such an identity. The weakest layer is the Jordanian

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one: the Palestinians may not wish to abolish Jordan, nor even to move to an independent Palestine should such an entity come into being, but they may very well want a more pluralistic society perhaps not a monarchy, at most only a constitutional one. The majority of this group did not risk its material achievement for ideals - very few do in any society - but they have not forsaken them. In fact, again very much like Arab Israelis, they can draw on any layer of their identity - Jordanian, Palestinian or Arab - that suits them in a given situation. In the eventful years described in this chapter, very little evidence is found for fundamental changes in this posture. Most of the Palestinians in the East Bank viewed the end of the dialogue with the PLO as well as the outbreak of the Intifada as events that had little effect on their life and position in the Kingdom of Jordan. It is not that everyone in this community continued the political passivity so apparent since the 1970s. The more active urban Palestinians - the students - dared and challenged the regime. The non-camp refugees who came in 1967 played a prominent part in this political activity. Being more politicized and less committed to the state, on occasion they took to the street together with the students to demonstrate in support of the Intifada or to protest the social and economic policies of the government. On the other hand, they did so not on the basis of a Palestinian watani platform, but very much as in the 1950s: they found qawmi ideologies much more appealing and instrumental in opposing, if not the regime itself, at least its policies. Thus we may say that only in 1970 was the regime challenged on the basis of a watani policy. Adhering to secular or religious pan-Arabism had, and has, the advantage of attracting foreign support: conforming with secular pan-Arabism in the 1950s promised Palestinians the backing of Egypt and Nasser; adopting Islamic pan-Arabism can extract financial and political help from Saudi Arabia and Iran. Indeed, the phenomenon of the 1980s was the appeal that Islamic fundamentalism had on the Palestinians. Yet the roots of this relationship may be seen in the early 1950s. Since all political parties in Jordan, apart from the Muslim Brotherhood, have been outlawed since 1955, even the most secular of the Palestinians found it advantageous to cooperate with the fundamentalists for the sake of their own national interests. It certainly paid to be a member of the movement, as it was a very active party by all accounts: the Brotherhood did not shun parliamentary life in the 1950s nor does it today; on the contrary, it has made every possible

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effort not to be excluded from its share of power. It can do this because of the Hashemites' reliance on religion as the main source of its legitimacy and authority. Hence, Hussein never dared to confront the Brotherhood. Nor did he have any reason to regret this lenient attitude: the organization had been quite loyal to him in the past. With the appearance of more extreme fundamentalism under the influence of Khumayni and Egypt's militant Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood turned, in fact, into a mainstream force in Jordanian politics, serving as 'a safety valve for fervent Muslims'.60 In the 1950s, as well as in the 1980s, the Muslim Brotherhood provided extensive relief and assistance to the refugee camps. They found the camps susceptible to their influence, since, as elsewhere in the Arab world, poverty bred stronger religious observance and adherence to traditional ways of living. 61 Nonetheless, it does not replace UNRWA, nor does its activity - at least at the time of this writing - lead to mass support by the refugees. CONCLUSIONS

Judging by numbers alone, Jordan, whether Jordanized or not, is a country with a majority of Palestinians. Conservative accounts talk of 55 per cent; most scholars quote 60 per cent, 35 per cent of whom still live in refugee camps. The external image of Jordan as a country portrays it as having an even larger Palestinian majority. One of the reasons for this discrepancy between the actual number and the general impression is the intensive political activity and militant ideological attitude of the camp-dwellers in Jordan. In 1980, the official number of refugees in Jordan was 716,000, a third of them residing in the camps. The camp-dwellers thus constitute one-tenth of the population, but their significance as a challenge to the Hashemite regime by far exceeds their relatively small numbers.62 The refugee camps are a reminder of Jordan's alternative identity, unless their residents are either repatriated or integrated; the former seems quite unlikely, and jordan's rulers do not seem to want to change their attitude about the latter. To keep them from threatening the regime, the camp-dwellers are controlled by tight security measures. The existence of the camps is the best proof for the presence of two societies in Jordan, despite past attempts to Jordanize the Palestinians. The majority of the 1948 and 1967 refugees identify themselves

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as Palestinians and would clearly differentiate between themselves and the East Bankers. With the continued survival of the Hashemite regime, their Palestinian identity has became a complex, tangled self-image, which so far has led to political passivity. Yet, their presence promises that Jordan must continue to take a keen interest and playa role in the negotiations on the Palestinian question. This will be done, as in the past, not as a result of Palestinian desires, but because the US and Israel (that is the Israeli Labor Party) prefer Jordan to the PLO as a negotiating partner. Both the Americans and the Israelis would probably find King Hussein as eager as his grandfather to play a prominent role in the peace process, notwithstanding his West Bank secession speech and actionsY

NOTES 1. Anita Shapira, 'The Option on the Emir's Land at Ghur al-Kabd - The First Contacts between Emir Abdallah and the Zionist Executive', Zionism, No.3 (1973), pp. 295-345 (Hebrew). 2. See Avi Shlaim, Collusion Across the Jordan (Oxford, 1988), pp. 386-433; and I. Pappe, Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948-1951 (London, 1988), pp. 162-85. 3. Gad Gilbar, 'Trends in the Demographic Development of the Palestinians, 1870-1987', Dayan Center Papers (Tel Aviv, 1989), pp. 32-6 (Hebrew). 4. Ilan Pappe, 'Alec Kirkbride and the Making of Greater Transjordan', Asian and African Studies, Vol. 23, No.1 (1989), pp. 43-70. 5. Ibid. 6. In 1954, Jordan extended Jordanian citzenship to all Palestinians in the country. 7. Shaul Mishal discerns fluctuations in the relationship between Hussein and the West Bankers in the years 1948 to 1967. He earmarks the years 1951 to 1954 and 1957 to 1961 as years of 'legitimacy and crisis', that is, years of strict control, restrictions of freedoms and strong centralization - with strong resistance from the local population, which in turn brought more severe measures. On the other hand, the period of 1955-57 and 1961-62, times of 'legitimacy and concession', were characterized by more relaxation on the part of the government and hence more constitutional political activiry by the population. Shaul Mishal, West Bank/East Bank; The Palestinians in Jordan, 19491967 (Yale, 1978), Chs. 2-3. 8. Robert Day, East Bank/West Bank; Jordan and the Prospects for Peace (Washington, 1986), p. 24. Day was responsible for the Jordanian desk at the State Department in the 1970s. It is mainly Israeli scholars who attribute a greater degree of success to the Hashemite efforts. See the chapters by Uriel Dann, Gabriel Ben-Dor and Dan Schueftan in this volume; also, Mishal, op. cit. 9. The Nashashibi, Salahs and Nusseibah families in Jerusalem and the Tuqan, Jayrusi, alMasri and 'Abd al-Hadi families in Nablus and in Tul Karem. 10. Avi Plascov, The Palestinian Refugees in Jordan, 1948-1967 (London, 1981), Ch. 1. 11. Between 1948 and 1952, 124,000 West Bankers moved to the East Bank (Gil bar, op. cit., p.19). 12. Day, op. cit., p. 120. 13. Peter Gubser, Jordan: Crossroads of Middle Eastern Events (Boulder, 1982), p. 63. 14. Plascov, op. cit., Ch. 3.

90 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

Jordan

In

the Middle East

Gubser, op. cit., p. 41. Official UNRWA Report in Day, op. cit., p. 65. Gubser, op. cit., p. 17. Plascov, op. cit., Chs. 4-5. Benyamin Shwadran,Jordan: A State of Tension (New York, 1959), p. 341; Plascov, op. cit., p. 123 Mishal, op. cit., pp. 62-73. Uriel Dann, 'The Foreign Office, the Baghdad Pact and Jordan', Asian and African Studies, Vol. 21, No.3 (November 1989), pp. 246-8. M. Sicker, Between Hashemites and Zionists; the Struggle for Palestine, 1908-1988 (New York, 1989), p. 126. Ghanim Habiballah, The PLO Relationship with the Hashemite Regime (Acre, 1987), pp. 23-34 (Arabic). Gubser, op. cit., p. 98. Middle East Record, Vol. 3 (1967) (Tel-Aviv, Shiloah Center, 1971), p. 395. Peter Snow, Hussein (London, 1972), p. 176. Ibid. Samir A. Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War (Cambridge, 1987), p. 86. Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Abstract of Israel. Gad Gilbar asserts that the Jordanians distort the figures in such a way as to decrease the percentage of Palestinians in Jordan (Gil bar, op. cit., p. 18). The Jordanian Foreign Minister Taha ai-Masri told al-Maialah (6 Jan. 1986) that the Palestinians in Jordan make up about 65 per cent of the population and live mostly in Amman (where they constitute 80 per cent of the population) and in Irbid and Zarqa. He further estimated that there were 300,000 Palestinians in refugee camps, the largest of them Shneler in Amman. See Gubser, op. cit., p. 11. See also Day, op. cit., p. 57, who estimated the number of Palestinians as 55 per cent in 1983 (1.3 million of jordan's 2.5 million residents). Aaron D. Miller, The PLO and the Politics of Survival (New York, 1983), p. 25. Michael C. Hudson, 'Developments and Setbacks in the Palestinian Resistance Movement, 1967-1971', Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 1, No.3, p. 70. Hudson argues, rightly, that there was an effort by the PLO after Karameh 'to articulate its organization at all levels'. Gubser, op. cit., pp. 127-8. International Documents on Palestine, 1970 (Beirut, 1973), p. 795. Day, op. cit., p. 77. The attacks were so severe that many PLO fighters, preferring capture by the Israelis to being massacred by the Legion, crossed the Jordan River; see Habiballah, op. cit., pp. 65-75. International Documents on Palestine 1971 (Beirut, 1974), p. 398; Dan Schueftan traced declarations of this kind until 1974; see Dan Schueftan, A Jordanian Option (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1986), p. 292. G. M. Haddad, 'Arab Peace and Solution of the Arab-Israeli Problem', in Malcolm H. Kerr, Elusive Peace in the Middle East (Abonay, 1975), pp. 166-248. Ibrahim Dakkak, 'Back to Square One: A Study in the Re-emergence of the Palestinian Identity in the West Bank, 1967-1980', in A. Scholch (ed.), Palestinians over the Green Line (London, 1983), pp. 71-5. Shaul Mishal, The PLO under Arafat: Between Guns and Olive (New Haven, 1986), p. 140. Day, op. cit., p. 61; see also Gubser, op. cit., p. 110. For an analysis of the 1976 elections, see Ann Lesch, Political Perceptions of the People in the Occupied Territories (Washington, 1980); and Moshe Maoz, Palestinian Leader-

Between Hashemite and Palestinian Identity

43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

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ship on the West Bank: The Changing Role of the Arab Mayors under Jordan and Israel (London, 1984). Adam Garfinkle, 'Negotiating by Proxy; Jordan Foreign Policy and American Options in the Middle East', Orbis, Vol. 24, No.4 (1981), pp. 865-8. F. Jaber, 'The Arab-Palestinian Relationship', Shu'un Filastiniya, No. 134 (November 1983), pp. 140-3 (Arabic). Hussein Ibn Talal, speech at the National Press Club, 19 June 1980. 'Adnan Abu 'Awdeh, 'Jordan and the Middle East Crisis', AEI Foreign Policy and Defense Review, No.3 (1981), pp. 12-134. Emil F. Sahliyeh, The PLO after the Lebanon War (London, 1986), pp. 115-38. Ibid., p. 36. Al-Dustur and al-Ra'i, 8 Aug. 1982. Jordan Times, 10 and 11 April 1983; see Habash's position in his journal al-Thawra alMustammira, Oct. 1982, in which he claimed that a confederation with Jordan would destroy the PLO; whereas Hawatmeh, a Jordanian in origin, was more cautious and less hostile to the idea of the dialogue. Jordan Times, 25 Jan. 1984. Day, op. cit., p. 118. Hussein's speech at the annual convention of the National Association of Arab Americans on 4 May 1985. Menachem Klein, Antagonistic Collaboration: PLO-Jordanian Dialogue, 1985-1988 (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: David Institute Publication, September 1988), p. 85. On 19 Feb. 1988. Gubser, op. cit., p. 112. According to an interview with the director of a large camp in Day, op. cit., p. 49. Gubser, op. cit., p. 89. Ibid., p. 16. In the army in particular they do not attain senior positions; see Mary C. Wilson, 'Jordan's Predicament', in Current History, Feb. 1987, p. 85. Robert Sadoff, 'Troubles on the East Bank', The Washington Papers, June 1989. UNRWA Report of 1 July 1980, Table 4, p. 64. The mutual PLO-Israel recognition of September 1993 opens, of course, a new chapter, yet to be written, on the triangle Israel-PLO-Jordan.

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Part II

The Regional Systetn

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5

Jordan in Asad's Greater Syria Strategy Moshe Ma'oz

The region of Greater Syria has for centuries been an historicalgeographical term and, periodically, has also constituted a politicalterritorial unit. This was the case during the Muslim Arab Umayyad period (661-750) and the Muslim Mamluk Era (1260-1516). In the mid-1860s, the concept of a Syrian political entity was revived by a small group of Christian Lebanese intellectuals; a half-century later, during the short rule of Amir (later King) Faysal in Syria (1918-20), the establishment of a Greater Syrian state was demanded by the Arab nationalist movement in Syria and Palestine. In the 1930s, the idea of Greater Syria was advocated by Antun Sa'adah and his Syrian Nationalist Party (PPS), which was mostly composed of Lebanese and Syrian Christians; and in the early 1940s, Amir (later King) Abdallah of Jordan formulated a plan to unify Greater Syria under his rule. The notion of Great Syria, although rejected by the Ba'th Party, which advocated pan-Arab unity, was again resuscitated, though in a different guise, by Hafiz al-Asad. In a textbook for the Syrian school system published in the early 1980s, the term 'Bilad aI-Sham' (the Land of Syria) is cited as a geographical-historical term, a region 'linking the two parts of the Arab homeland'. According to this textbook, 'Bilad aI-Sham' was divided after the First World War into four 'mini-states' (duwaylat), namely Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine; and in 1967, it lost territory to Israel.! Similarly, the concept of Greater Syria was openly propagated over Damascus Radio and in the Ba'th daily, alThawra, for several months in 1976-77 by Shawqi Khayrallah, a leading figure of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP, formerly the PPS). The party's leader, Ihsan Mahayri stated in 1984 that Asad's regime was nationalist and that there were 'no contradictions between this regime and our ideology'.2 Kamal Junblatt,

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the Lebanese Druze leader who met Asad frequently during the mid-i970s and dubbed him 'the Lion of Greater Syria', remarked in his memoirs: The rulers of Damascus ... do not want the Palestinians to forget ... the days which preceded the division of the Middle East in 1919, when the Lebanese, Palestinians, Jordanians and Syrians were one people - the people of historic Syria in its natural boundaries ... President Asad clearly emphasized this in the ears of Yasir Arafat ... when he told him 'You do not represent Palestine more than we do. There is neither a Palestinian people, nor a Palestinian entity, there is only Syria, and you are an inseparable part of the Syrian people and Palestine is an inseparable part of Syria'.3 Regarding the notion that Palestine is an integral part of Syria, Asad said in a speech in March 1974: 'Palestine is not only a part of the Arab homeland, but constitutes the major part of southern Syria'.4 (Asad's statement was made in reaction to the declaration by Israel's Prime Minister Golda Meir that the Golan Heights was part of Israel.) Other Syrian leaders also stated on various occasions that Palestine was part of Syria. By the same token, Asad said in 1973: 'There are special relations between Lebanon and Syria and no regime in Syria or Lebanon can overlook these ... historicaleternal relations.'5 Despite these statements, it is conceivable that Asad, a realist and ever the cautious politician, has been aware of the enormous difficulties involved in unifying under his leadership the countries that would comprise Greater Syria. It is more likely that his strategic goal was - and still is - to achieve a framework of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinians under his leadership. Since Syria would be the largest and strongest party in such a framework, Damascus could maneuvre among her partners and take the predominant role in shaping the political and military strategy of this region. Indeed, it would seem that Asad's more concrete aim is to establish a political-military structure for Greater Syria in order to create a new regional power center, or sphere of influence, which could make its impact in Middle Eastern politics vis-a-vis the two strong Arab powers, Egypt and Iraq, as well as Israel.

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ASAD'S BID TO INFLUENCE JORDAN

As it happenes, this strategic aim has been very difficult to achieve, even though Asad has employed to that end his remarkable skills as a strong leader and manipulator. Of the three potential partners for the Greater Syria alliance, Jordan has perhaps been the most important component, but also the hardest to tackle. Having the longest border with Israel among the Arab 'confrontation states' and the best-trained Arab army, Jordan constitutes an essential party in any eastern front military alliance. In particular, the Jordanian army would have an important function in blocking an Israeli flanking movement toward Damascus via northern Jordan. In addition, the pro-Western Hashemite Kingdom could be useful in bringing US diplomatic pressure to bear on Israel to give up the West Bank, so rendering the Jewish state more vulnerable. As far as Jordan's King Hussein is concerned, an alliance with Asad's Syria could provide important assets: in addition to the economic benefits stemming from having a Syrian outlet to the Mediterranean Sea, Jordan is keen to avoid belligerent relations with its powerful Syrian neighbor. Further, Jordan could be in a position to require Syrian military assistance in the event of a possible attack by Israel. Likewise, Hussein would benefit politically from Asad's backing for jordan's long-standing claim on the West Bank against the PLO's demand for the same territory. Yet the liabilities arising from Syrian patronage seem to outweigh these assets. Notwithstanding the different, even contradictory, regimes in and the political orientations of the two countries, Hussein has reason to fear that a political-military alliance with Syria might drastically diminish his maneuverability among the other major Arab states, and eventually even turn Jordan into a Syrian protectorate. Hussein might also be concerned that Asad would, in due course, prefer an alliance with the PLO or support its efforts to topple the Hashemite regime. Alternatively, Hussein might be greatly worried that his cooperation with Asad would precipitate an Israeli military attack or force the king to go to war with Israel; the outcome of either scenario could be the Israeli occupation of Jordan. Fully aware of Hussein's strategic interests, which include peaceful relations with Israel, Asad nevertheless has tried to integrate Jordan into his regional strategy, but the results have proved rather poor. On the eve of his ascent to power in Damascus, Asad, as

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Syria's Defense Minister and air force commander, denied air cover to Syrian troops dispatched in September 1970 to help the PLO rebels in Jordan. He took this unusual step because he feared, inter alia, that Syrian military intervention would severely alienate Hussein. Three years later, in preparation for the October war against Israel, Asad renewed diplomatic relations with Jordan (which he had severed in July 1971 following Hussein's further suppression of the PLO). Before the war erupted, Asad urged Hussein to open a 'third front' (along the Jordan River) against Israel, and added: 'The road to Jerusalem is open, why are you waiting? ... You could rush to Jerusalem and liberate it, and thereby win a splendid, grand victory'. Asad did not succeed in convincing the Jordanians: 'I regret to say that Cairo pressured Jordan forcibly and emphatically not to participate in the war, being concerned over the fate of the East Bank ... but ... the king [nevertheless] ... chose to send his forces [two brigades] to the Golan'. 6 This modest Jordanian gesture helped to improve relations between Asad and Hussein following the October war, despite certain mutual acts of defiance: jordan's participation in the postwar Geneva conference (December 1973) and Asad's support at both the first Algiers Arab summit (November 1973) and the Rabat summit (October 1974) for the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Asad assured Hussein that Syria did not fully share the PLO position vis-a-vis Jordan and would work to achieve a compromise between the two rivals. Accordingly, the Syrian leader refrained from putting the entire blame on Hussein for the king's suppression of PLO guerrillas in Jordan in September 1970: I said at the Rabat conference ... that the responsibility concerning the September 1970 events was shared by King Hussein, the Palestinian resistance and other Arab countries ... But even if we assume that it was the responsibility of one party, must Arab history stop at that September? ... Our interests and the rules of life require us to overcome this complex and to act to materialize the essential interests of our nation.7

While refraining, too, from either openly rejecting Jordan's claim on the West Bank or questioning her sovereignty on the East Bank, Asad suggested the establishment of a Syrian-JordanianPalestinian federation or at least the coordination of his actions with both Jordan and the PLO.8 Such a tripartite agreement was not feasible at that juncture, however, because of the fierce animosity between Hussein and Arafat. Asad then directed his efforts toward

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creating two parallel military-political alliances, one with Jordan and one with the PLO, but putting his main thrust on the former alliance. Thus while offering (although he did not insist) in March 1975 to set up a joint military political command with the PLO, Asad endeavored that year (or even earlier, perhaps, since mid1974) to generate a Syrian-Jordanian union. The timing of such an initiative was ideal. Jordan had been isolated in the Arab world following the decisions taken at the Rabat summit, and Hussein was deeply disappointed at Sadat's attitude towards him. (At their meeting in Alexandria in July 1974, Sadat and Hussein publicly agreed that the PLO represented all the Palestinians, except those who were under jordan's control. At the Rabat conference, though, Sadat withdrew from this pro-Jordanian formula in favor of the pro-PLO decisions. Then in September 1974, Sadat signed the Sinai agreement with Israel without linking it to an Israeli withdrawal from the Jordan River as Hussein had expected.) Asad took advantage of jordan's predicament and suggested to Hussein in Damascus in April 1975 the establishment of a Joint Supreme Leadership Council (made up of Asad and Hussein). Subsequently in July 1975, Asad and Hussein agreed to establish a Higher Jordanian-Syrian Joint Committee to prepare the integration (takamul) of the two countries in the political, military, economic, cultural and educational fields. 9 Earlier, on 11 June 1975, Asad had made a state visit to Amman (it was the first visit to the kingdom in 18 years by a Syrian head of state), during which he was hailed as 'Asad Tishrin' (the 'Lion of October' [the 1973 war)). In his talks with Hussein, Asad referred to Syria and Jordan as 'one people - one country' or as 'one country - one people - one army' .10 (Asad was careful not to say 'one people - one state', and thereby dispute the sovereignty of Jordan.) Although a series of practical measures was taken to integrate the economic and educational spheres of the two countries, Asad persistently worked to promote military coordination and political cooperation with Hussein with the aim of achieving 'one day a form of union or federation'.l1 Such a day did not come, but the integration as well as the military coordination and cooperation between the two countries worked well for the next two years. 12 Furthermore, Asad was able to secure Hussein's unstinting support for Syria's intervention in Lebanon in 1976 and beyond. Asad's success in incorporating Jordan into his strategic plan as well as his initial achievements in Lebanon led him in 1977 to reveal his long-term design: the creation of a federation,

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under his leadership, composed of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the West Bank.13 (Even before he made such statements, however, Asad's achievements in Jordan and Lebanon had provoked harsh criticism from various Arab quarters. Egyptian and Palestinian newspapers, for example, argued that Asad was creating Greater Syria at the expense of the Palestinians, while Libyan leaders warned Asad against such intentions. 14 At that juncture, late in 1977, against the background of Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem, Asad's relations with Hussein began to show signs of strain. Although Hussein rejected Sadat's initiative, he also refused, together with Saudi Arabia, to join the newly formed Tripoli bloc initiated in December 1977 by Asad, and joined by Libya, Algeria, PDRY (South Yemen) and the PLO, in order to coordinate an all-Arab - excluding Egypt - political and military campaign against Israel. Concerned lest Hussein join the EgyptianIsraeli negotiations, Asad exerted pressure on Jordan, including the dispatch in mid-1978 of PLO commandos into Jordanian territory in order to carry out operations against Israel. Late in 1978, Asad also concluded a (short-lived) union with Iraq that represented a serious potential threat to Jordan. As a result of these pressures, and following the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty (March 1979), relations between Asad and Hussein were reinforced, but not for long. During 1979, the king allowed the Muslim Brotherhood, the most dangerous internal opposition to Asad, to operate in Jordanian territory, possibly as a potentially useful instrument against Asad's continued pressures on the kingdom. As a further counterbalance to Asad's pervasive influence, Jordan became in 1980 the first Arab country to side explicitly with Iraq in its war against Iran, thus securing Iraqi amity but irritating Syria. These acts of defiance against Asad were taken by Hussein just as Syria was experiencing more and more difficulties: it had serious domestic problems (the Muslim Brotherhood's opposition); it was increasingly isolated in the Arab world (the Tripoli bloc was ineffective); and its continued involvement in Lebanon was becoming a grave liability. The close cooperation that had developed between Syria and the PLO following the Camp David Accord, and Jordan's alleged activities against the PLO in coordination with Israel, together with the other developments, led by late 1980 to a serious rift between Syria and JordanY In an attempt to bring Hussein back under Damascus' influence, Asad demonstrated his muscle and resorted to subversion. In December 1980, he deployed his troops along the Jordanian

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border; then early in 1981, the Jordanian military attache in Beirut was kidnapped, and a plot to assassinate Jordan's Prime Minister was uncovered. Jordan accused Rif'at, Asad's brother, of initiating and organizing the murder attempt, and dispatched troops to the border to counter the Syrian military build-up.16 Hussein, a courageous and shrewd leader, thus showed that he would not be intimidated by Asad's threats. He put an end to Asad's systematic, painstaking efforts, which had been carried out for some seven years, to bring Jordan into his sphere of influence, and thereby seriously undermined Asad's strategy of a military-political alliance within the framework of a Greater Syria. SYRIAN-JORDANIAN RELATIONS DURING THE 19805: AN OVERVIEW

Asad's prospects of realizing his Greater Syria strategy vis-a-vis Jordan further diminished during the 1980s against the background of both the 1982-83 Lebanon War and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War and their repercussions. Israel's 1982 Lebanon War damaged not only Asad's strategic posture and personal prestige, but also his post-1978 'strategic alliance' with the PLO. With its military infrastructure and political headquarters in Lebanon eliminated by Israel, its ranks split and its leadership ousted from Lebanon by Syria in 1983, the PLO was further pushed into adopting the political option. Indeed, possibly with American encouragement namely the September 1982 Reagan peace initiative - in March 1983 Arafat started a series of negotiations with King Hussein that culminated in February 1985 in a Jordanian-Palestinian agreement. Asad made intense efforts to thwart the Jordanian-PLO dialogue. In addition to promoting Abu Musa's Fath faction and deporting Arafat from Lebanon in 1983, Asad put strong pressure on Hussein. Amongst other activities, a series of assass!nation attempts against Jordanian diplomats in various foreign countries were made, apparently by Syrian agents, in 1983 and 1984. All these pressures indeed contributed to subverting the JordanianPLO agreement and having it replaced by several Syrian-Jordanian cooperation agreements in late 1985 and early 1986.17 Yet these agreements by no means placed Jordan under Syrian influence, let alone Syrian tutelage. Indeed, in order to counterbalance Asad's actions, King Hussein, inter alia, strengthened Jordan's ties with the

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Iraqi regime, the bitter enemy of Asad, and sided with Iraq in its long war against Iran, an ally of Syria, from 1980 to 1988. NOTES 1. The Geography of the Arab Homeland (in Arabic) (Damascus: Ministry of Education, 1980-81), pp. 58-9, 104, 107. 2. Elizabeth Picard, 'The Recent Evolution of the SSNP', Maghreb-Machrek, No. 78 (1977), pp. 74-6. 3. Kamal Junblatt, This Is My Legacy (in Arabic) (Paris, 1978), p. 105. 4. Damascus Radio, 8 March 1974. 5. Jaysh al-Sha'b (journal), Damascus, 28 Aug. 1973. 6. Asad's interviews in al-Sayyad (Lebanon), 7 March 1974, and with al-Ra'y (Kuwait), 18 Oct. 1975. 7. Asad's interview with al-Hawadith (Lebanon), 26 June 1975. 8. Damascus Radio, 30 July 1975; Asad's interview with the BBC, 5 Sept. 1975. 9. Amman Radio, 28 July 1975; Jaysh al-Sha'b, 22 July 1975. 10. Los Angeles Times, 11 June 1975. 11. New York Times, 8 Dec. 1976. 12. Tishrin (Syria), 21 Jan. 1977. 13. 1. Rabinovich in Skira Hodshit (IDF monthly in Hebrew), Feb. 1978, p. 27. 14. Akhir Sa'ah (Egypt), 10 March 1976; al-Ahram (Egypt), 9 June 1975; al-Quds (Jerusalem), 21 June 1976. 15. AI-Hadaf (PLLP), 1 March 1980; al-Bayra (Lebanon), 14 May 1980; al-Ba'th (Syria), 24-25 Nov. 1980. 16. J. Nevo, 'Syria and Jordan: The Politics of Subversion', in M. Ma'oz and A. Yaniv (eds.), Syria under Asad (London, 1986), p. 145. 17. International Herald Tribune, 18 Sept. 1985; New York Times, 6 May 1986.

6

Jordan and Saudi Arabia: The Last Royalists Joseph Nevo

Relations between Jordan and Saudi Arabia originated in a deeprooted conflict between two ruling Arab houses. The two dynasties, whose countries bear their respective family names, are the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In recent decades, relations between the two have come full circle. At the outset, in the 1920s and the 1930s, their relationship was characterized by mutual suspicion, hostility, competition and conflict. Their common denominators - both were pro-Western dynasties, non-radical, conservative and vulnerable entities - led, however, to a gradual rapprochement beginning in the late 1950s, and to greater cooperation and coordination in the light of increasingly similar interests. Thereafter and until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 - Jordan's unequivocal support of Iraq throughout the crisis had a quite negative impact - formal and practical relations remained very good. The leaders of the two countries maintained constant connections and no Arab head of state arrived more frequently in Riyadh than did King Hussein. Nevertheless, undercurrents of distrust never entirely waned and some mutual antipathy lingered on. The Saudis, as William Quandt notes, regard Hussein as a fellow monarch, albeit from a rival clan.! HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Political rivalry between the sherifs of Mecca and the Saudi amirs of Najd can be traced back as early as the late eighteenth century. Its modern manifestation, however, is incarnated in the personalities of Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd aI-Rahman (commonly known as Ibn Saud), King of Saudi Arabia, and of King Hussein of the Hijaz and his son

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Abdallah, ruler of Trans-Jordan. Abdallah, as the self-imposed senior scion of his house, never forgave the Saudis for expelling his family from Mecca. Abd al-Aziz, on his part, suspected that the Hashemites never gave up the ambition to recapture their ancestors' realm. Even though Abdallah supported Hijaz dissidents and instigated a (futile) rebellion against the Saudi rule there in the early 1930s/ his efforts were somewhat pathetic and did not pose a serious threat to Abd al-Aziz's authority. Rightly or wrongly, Abd al-Aziz regarded every Jordanian or Iraqi design, such as the Greater Syria scheme or the Fertile Crescent Unity program, as a Hashemite conspiracy against his regime. 3 It was small wonder, therefore, that during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Hashemite bloc within the inter-Arab system confronted a Saudi-Egyptian coalition. Yet the turbulent 1950s, with their frequent coups d'etat and the rise of radical Arab nationalism from the school of Jamal Abd aI-Nasser, which struggled in word and deed against 'imperialist and reactionary forces', gradually eroded the historical hostility between Jordan and Saudi Arabia, making it look somewhat anachronistic. The pan-Arabic fervor that flowed from Cairo underlined some of the common denominators of the two kingdoms: as proWestern conservative monarchies, both Saudi Arabia and Jordan constituted common targets for Arab radicals. The two also found themselves facing the same political and ideological isolation. Nevertheless their detente was a slow process, with many trials and tribulations. The death of both Abdallah and Abd al-Aziz, in the space of less than two and a half years in the early 1950s, removed the element of personal animosity from the bilateral relations of the two countries and paved the way for future cooperation. 4 Still, Saudi apprehension over the Hashemites did not entirely disappear with the demise of Abd al-Aziz. His son, Saud, while on the throne, joined with the Egyptians and others in supporting fedayeen activities intended to undermine Hussein's regime. Saud was also partner to the painstaking efforts to foil Hussein's attempts to join the Baghdad Pact. s In the mid-1950s, Abd aI-Nasser had managed to put both Hussein and Saud under his aegis, tying up each of them in a defense alliance with Egypt. 6 They both realized quite soon that their own interests sometimes necessitated cooperation against Abd al-Nasser's designs. In 1957, Saud placed the Saudi troops in Jordan (stationed there since late 1956) under Hussein's command in order to support

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his effort to quell the Egyptian-backed attempt to topple the Jordanian regime. That event marked the beginning of a new friendship, inaugurated in a common endeavor by the two kings to free themselves from Abd al-Nasser's embrace. Saud not only helped Hussein financially, he also publicly expressed his support. The Saudi move was rather impressive since it came at a time when, as Uriel Dann has remarked, 'the world had not as yet grown accustomed to see the two royal houses in harmony'.? On the eve of the nascent Iraqi-Jordanian union in early 1958, King Hussein was thinking of a wider unity framework in which King Saud would not only participate, but would also assume a leading role. Saud was reluctant to do so, but adopted a neutral position vis-a-vis both the (Hashemite) Arab Federation and the (Egyptian-Syrian) UAR; for this, Hussein was grateful. The Jordanian king reciprocated by publicly identifying with Saud when the latter's intention to assassinate Abd aI-Nasser was exposed in March 1958. 8 However, Saud's amicable attitude towards Jordan was not shared by his brother and rival, Crown Prince Faysal. When Faysal, taking advantage of the embarrassment caused by Saud's 'contract' on Abd aI-Nasser, became the regime's strong man, he was inclined to improve relations with Egypt at the expense of Jordan. In this (eventually unsuccessful) attempt, he went as far as to prohibit - after the July 1958 coup d'etat in Iraq - American transport planes loaded with desperately needed oil for Jordan, from crossing Saudi air space en route from the Persian GulU In the early 1960s, however, Faysal came to recognize what his brother had understood three years earlier: that the Saudis should fear Abd aI-Nasser more than the Hashemites. In August 1962, Jordan and Saudi Arabia concluded a comprehensive treaty of alliance that was depicted as a semi-union. \0 Egypt's massive military intervention in Yemen following the 1962 revolution and civil war in that country, and the endorsement of the Egyptian action by most Arab states, estranged both Saudi Arabia and Jordan from the mainstream of Arab politics. It accelerated their rapprochement and practically pushed each into the other's arms. Although Abd al-Nasser's hostility drove Hussein and Faysal closer together/ 1 the Six Day War in June 1967 and the withdrawal of the Egyptian army from Yemen led the Saudis to adopt a more balanced attitude toward the inter-Arab system. Both events improved the Saudi position vis-a-vis Egypt. Abd aI-Nasser was

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compelled to swallow his pride and to recognize his dependence on Saudi resources. As for Jordan, having allied itself with Egypt on the eve of the Six Day War, it became a beneficiary of the SaudiEgyptian cooperation, which in turn precipitated Jordan's own ties with Egypt. Relations between the latter two improved even further following Abd al-Nasser's death and Sadat's rise to power. The process that had started at the beginning of the 1960s prevailed in the decades that followed: the basic Saudi-Jordanian friendship, with occasional ups and downs, could be seen as tactical rather than substantial. The relatively scarce periods of tension were temporary, usually reflecting regional Arab affairs rather than bilateral issues. 12 Of all the factors that have shaped these bilateral relations, there are five that seem to have had decisive influence on the pattern of ties between Jordan and Saudi Arabia over the past 30 years: the nature of the respective regimes and societies; their weight in the inter-Arab system; the asymmetry of these relations; the influence of Egypt, and the impact of both the Palestinian question and Israeli-Arab relations. THE NATURE OF THE REGIME AND THE SOCIETY

Both states are considered pro-Western monarchies; this is the key reason for their vulnerability. Their political and geographical milieu is the Arab world, in which republics play the leading role. These republics are sometimes extremely anti-royalist, and some of them adhere to an anti-Western orientation. Nevertheless, the vulnerability of both Jordan and Saudi Arabia has stemmed not only from the radical environment. In the case of Saudi Arabia, it emanated from the combination of a huge territory, a meager population and difficulty in effectively defending its long borders and strategic points. Jordan's vulnerability originated in its having potent neighbors with impressively strong armies, in addition to the challenge to the legitimacy of the regime and ever-present threats from within. Both ruling houses have struggled for survival against external and internal potential dangers. Unlike many other cases of bilateral relations in the Arab world, however, the respective struggles of Saudi Arabia and Jordan are not against or at the expense of the other party. Moreover, each monarchy is aware that the collapse of the neighboring regime might make its own position even more precarious, encouraging local opposition or foreign opponents to

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make their bid. The stability of the other regime is therefore of mutual interest. The common border provides this interest with a practical dimension: it enables a prompt dispatch of military or other assistance. Since 1957, the Saudis have sent military units to Jordanian territory on several occasions in order to protect the Hashemite regime. Their treaty of alliance in August 1962 authorized the forces of each country to automatically enter the other's territory in order to assist its government in case of internal unrest.13 Shortly afterwards, during the civil war in Yemen, Jordan transferred a considerable part of its air power to Saudi Arabia. This move was designated to support the latter against the potential threat of the massive Egyptian military deployment in Yemen. In November 1979, Jordanian special forces were reported as having participated in quelling the uprising in the great mosque in Mecca. 14 During the severe disturbances in the south ofJordan in April 1989, King Fahad, reiterating on several occasions his full support of King Hussein, promised his backing in any measure that the Jordanian monarch might find necessary to suppress the riots. IS In both states, the struggle for survival has so far been successful. Both regimes have enjoyed a lengthy period of stability. Hussein was crowned when Abd al-Aziz was still in power in Saudi Arabia, and since then has outlived four Saudi kings. The change of rulers in Saudi Arabia has not shaken the stability of the country. Despite differences in style and temperament, all four successors of Abd alAziz were his sons, thus representing the same family and the same interests. Even the transfer of power - once because of a dethroning, and another time because of a regicide - was smoothly carried out. 16 The two political systems also share certain similar views. Two prominent traits characterizing the regime and the public in Saudi Arabia, anti-communism and religious fervor, also exist, though to a lesser extent, in Jordan, where they were particularly salient in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. Hussein's autobiography (of 1962) reveals the king's blunt, uncompromising attitude towards communism, regarded as the sworn enemy of religion, the motherland and Arab nationalism. Stigmatizing communism as a major threat to the Arabs - equal in this respect only to Zionism - is one of the main themes of his book. I? The conservative nature of the Jordanian regime has evinced more than a touch of religiosity. The Hashemites' direct lineage to the prophet Muhammad has constituted a leading component of their legitimacy. Support for religious institutions, encouragement

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of construction of new mosques (frequently with Saudi funding) and maintaining cordial relations with the ulama comprise integral parts of Hussein's domestic policy. Jordanian society has been exposed for a long time to the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has enjoyed the tacit acquiescence (if not the support) of the regime and has been allowed to function legally while political parties were banned. IS The Palestinian journalist Raymonda Tawil has very skillfully presented the religious aspect of Jordanian society of the late 1950s, which she depicts as a conservative Arab society dominated by traditional Islamic prohibitions. 19 Three decades later this society still remains conservative, traditionalist and far from permissive, as reflected in the large number of deputies representing various religious groups who entered the Jordanian Chamber of Deputies following the November 1989 elections. 20 The enhancement of Islamic solidarity was a major cornerstone in building the Saudi-Jordanian bilateral relationship, particularly in the mid-1960s, when the Jordanians were the strongest proponents of Faysal's idea of a Muslim League. 21 The two countries also demonstrated a certain resemblance in some socio-political and demographic trends. In both, the Bedouin tribes were considered one of the mainstays of the regime, and both governments made painstaking efforts to satisfy them and to win their support. The tribes held key positions in the armed forces and the security services and enjoyed an influence and authority that exceeded their numerical power. In the last decade, however, the influence of the Bedouin tribes has gradually declined in both countries, giving way to other domestic forces. 22 Another similarity is that between the Hijazi-Najdi relations in Saudi Arabia and the West Bank-East Bank ties that existed in Jordan in the 1950s and the 1960s. Both the Hijaz and the West Bank were annexed after the initial cohesion of the annexing body had been achieved. Each area was more densely populated than the original nucleus of the respective kingdoms, and its inhabitants were more educated, more open-minded and more exposed to Western values than were the residents of Najd or Transjordan; hence, each was more oppositional and critical of the regime. In both cases, the government encouraged the integration of the new territory into the kingdom but in a way that would secure the hegemony of the small, less-developed element over the more qualified majority. In both places, the only possible way of implementing such a policy was through an imposed, controlled

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integration, thus perpetuating the discrimination against the moredeveloped elements and depriving them of some positions of power and authority. WEIGHT AND POLICY IN THE INTER-ARAB SYSTEM

The basic vulnerability of the two states is clearly reflected in the nature of their inter-Arab activities. Despite differences in their respective weight and influence, both usually seek understanding rather than confrontation and prefer consensus to polarization. Both are therefore promoters of Arab solidarity, which they see as a barrier against the shocks and conflicts that are liable to compel a weak Jordan - or Saudi Arabia - to take a stand in the face of stronger, more radical forces, thereby jeopardizing the very existence of the regime. 23 Since the source of Saudi political power is economic, it attempts to fashion inter-Arab relations in such a pattern that its might and influence can be optimally exercised. That explains why the Saudis advocate political mediation, conciliation,prevention of conflicts, appeasement and the quest for consensus. Saudi Arabia is better off in situations in which money and diplomacy, rather than military might, are advantageous and can be more effectively employed. Saudi Arabia uses its money to make the inter-Arab court suitable for the game it can play best. In pursuing a consensus policy and during mediation endeavors, Saudi Arabia has sometimes bought the cooperation and 'goodwill' of various parties. (The ability to conduct such a policy was considerably increased after 1974, when Saudi financial reserves seemed unlimited.) The bait of financial aid or the threat of its suspension are the most favored tactics of Saudi diplomacy, including in its relations with Jordan. The main goal of the Saudis has been to pacify the inter-Arab system by defusing bilateral conflicts. Nevertheless, they have feared too cordial relations between two or more Arab countries, lest these connections might threaten either the consensus or themselves. For example, the Saudis made a considerable effort to ease tension between Jordan and Syria in 1980-81 and in 1985. Yet when they felt that the ties between these two countries were becoming too close, they did not hesitate to put economic pressure on Jordan to slow down that process. 24 jordan's fundamental aims in the inter-Arab arena are not basically different from those of the Saudis. Even though Jordan lacks

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Saudi Arabia's assets, it still possesses certain advantages for a central actor in the regional theater: strategic location, its position as a front-line state and its military capability. Moreover, most of jordan's activities within the Arab circle (up to 1990) have been backed or at least agreed to by Saudi Arabia. King Hussein has skillfully used these assets and gradually cemented his country's position in the Arab world. The fruit of his efforts was the Amman summit conference of November 1987, during which he managed to stage several 'historical' scenes of meetings and ostensible conciliations between presidents Hafiz alAsad and Saddam Husayn, and paved the way for the 'returning of Egypt to the fold of the Arab world'. In principle, these moves served Saudi interests, as well. King Hussein thus recently has joined the Saudis in the 'classic' role of the chief mediators of the Arab world. 25 The Saudis' quest for security through consensus (which most of the time, as historical experience shows, means closing ranks with the radical line), has led them on several occasions into tactical alliances with radical parties, even at the price of a temporary estrangement from Jordan. Such was the case at the Baghdad conferences in late 1978 (following the Camp David Accord) and in 1984, when the Saudis had reservations about Jordan's unilateral decision to resume diplomatic relations with Egypt. 26 On the other hand, such events as the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran and the Iran-Iraq War enhanced a commonality of interest. jordan's resolution at the outset of the war to categorically back the Iraqis not only matched the Saudis' interest; it also enabled Saudi Arabia to use Jordan as a channel for supporting the Iraqis without publicly taking sides. (In the initial phase of the war, the other Persian Gulf states preferred to sit on the fence and not commit themselves to either of the warring parties.) On the face of it, it seems that while the Saudis have attributed greater importance to the Arab consensus than to bilateral relations, Jordan has considered its substantial connections with Saudi Arabia - and with other leading Arab states - no less essential than the all-Arab agreement. 27 Jordan has worked since the mid-1980s against the paralyzing attempts to obtain an Arab consensus. King Hussein suggested that summit conference resolutions should not have to be accepted unanimously but only by regular majority, in order to neutralize the veto power of the radical minority (such as Syria).28

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The 1988 shift in Jordan's policy towards the Palestinian problem precipitated the kingdom's Arab orientation and regional involvement. The impact of that change on relations with Saudi Arabia will be discussed later. It need only be mentioned here that the decreased influence of the Palestinian issue on Saudi-Jordanian relations underlined the inter-Arab dimension of these ties. Being more preoccupied with inter-Arab affairs, Jordan evolved interests in this arena that do not always correspond to those of the Saudis. Jordan was a driving force behind the establishment of the Arab Cooperation Council in February 1989 together with Egypt, Iraq and North Yemen. Saudi Arabia was definitely ill at ease with the Council. Not only was it physically surrounded by its members, but their citizens constituted the overwhelming majority of the Arab guest workers in Saudi Arabia. 29 Hussein had apparently managed to convince King Fahad that the Council posed neither an economic nor a political threat to Saudi interests. Jordan'S intensive activity within that Council, however, was a source of potential disagreements with Saudi Arabia. 30 THE ASYMMETRY IN RELATIONS

It is obvious from the above discussion that relations between the two countries are not balanced. The major reason is their economic asymmetry, the implications of which extend beyond the multifaceted financial aid to Jordan. As far as the mutual economic ties between the two countries are concerned, one can actually speak of Jordan's dependence on Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is on top of the list of jordan's foreign trade partners (usually ranking between the first and the third places of its suppliers and a little lower on the list of those to whom Jordan exports). On the other hand, Jordan occupies a rather low place on the equivalent Saudi lists (for example, in the late 1970s it was only twenty-seventh among the Saudi export recipients and twentyfourth among those from which the Saudis imported)Y The economic dependence was exacerbated by the 250,000 to 300,000 Jordanian workers in Saudi Arabia (though their number has recently decreased, even before the 1990 Gulf crisis). Saudi economic aid to Jordan constituted - until 1990 - the most conspicuous factor dominating their bilateral relativnship over the past decade.32

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The economic asymmetry has contributed to a lack of proportion in the political field as well: Saudi Arabia is the dominant party, sometimes even endeavoring to develop patron-client ties with its northern neighbor. 33 It is Jordan that usually seeks amity with the Saudis. The number of visits by King Hussein to Saudi Arabia in the last 35 years is over three times that of Saudi kings to Jordan in the same period. Visits made by Jordanian cabinet ministers and other senior officials to Saudi Arabia have also greatly outnumbered those of their Saudi counterparts to Jordan. 34 This imbalance in mutual visits is a conspicuous indication that relations with Saudi Arabia are much more important to the Jordanians than vice versa. Saudi Arabia has actively mediated several times between Jordan and other Arab parties, such as Syria and the PLO. The Jordanians, except for an unsuccessful bid to conciliate between King Faysal and Jamal Abd aI-Nasser (during the civil war in Yemen), have hardly been involved in any accommodation attempts between Saudi Arabia and a third party. Nominally, Hussein's reign in Jordan has overlapped five different rulers in Saudi Arabia. Considering the continuous power struggle between Saud and Faysal, the actual number of Saudi transfers of authority has been even higher. The changes of government were occasionally followed by changes of attitude toward Jordan. Sometimes the new attitude affected jordan's position in the inter-Arab arena. It has already been pointed out how the limitation of King Saud's authority by (then) Crown Prince Faysal in early 1958 marked a genuine shift in Saudi policy towards Jordan. The shaping of a 'Jordanian' policy did not always reflect a consensus within the Saudi royal family, with various groups among the sons of Abd al-Aziz sometimes differing on this issue. 35 In Jordan, on the other hand, the official attitude toward Saudi Arabia has always been decided by a single person. EGYPT'S ROLE IN THE RELATIONSHIP

An analysis of inter-Arab relations in general, and of Jordanian and Saudi Arabian regional policies in particular, demonstrates that both states have recognized the centrality of Egypt in the Arab world. (Even though the Saudis, particularly King Faysal, have occasionally challenged Egypt's position, they have never ignored it.) The deeds and misdeeds of Egypt, therefore, have influenced Saudi-Jordanian relations more than have the policies of any

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other Arab third party. Yet the impact has not always been the same. Fear of Egypt provided the incentive for Saudi support of Jordan in 1957; it precipitated the rapprochement between them. Later, improving relations between Riyadh and Cairo had a positive impact on Jordan's relations with Egypt (as in the early 1970s). Deterioration of Saudi-Egyptian relations (in 1966, for example) had a negative impact on Jordan's ties with Egypt. The precedent of the late 1950s, when the fear of Egypt drove both states to various degrees of cooperation, also repeated itself on later occasions, such as during the civil war in Yemen. In other cases, one party was willing to sacrifice the other for the sake of rapprochement with Egypt (King Faysal did this, for example, in 1958, and King Hussein in 1964-65). In 1964, Hussein tried to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and twenty years later he somewhat alienated himself from the Saudis by unilaterally resuming diplomatic relations with Egypt. In 1989-90, Saudi Arabia once again witnessed cordial Jordanian-Egyptian relations, within the Arab Cooperation Council. Earlier, in 1984, Saudi criticism of the Jordanian move emanated from the former's concern for the Arab consensus. More recent Jordanian-Egyptian working relations within a broader regional framework might take a course that could be construed by the Saudis as threatening to their interests. 36 IMPACT OF THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT AND THE PALESTINIAN QUESTION

According to its guiding principles, Saudi policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict contains an inherent contradiction. On the one hand, the Saudis' basic interest in preventing agitations has advocated favoring a political solution to the conflict. Moreover, as American 'clients', the Saudis were sometimes advised to demonstrate - at least externally - a certain degree of moderation. On the other hand, the quest for an Arab consensus and the desire to avoid friction have necessitated closing ranks with the rejectionist forces in the Arab world, who have publicly adhered to the military option as the only way to conclude the conflict. The Saudis' attitude to various peace initiatives, therefore, has moved between their desire to enjoy the advantages of a political settlement for their long-term interests and their unwillingness to pay the price of supporting such a notion and thereby expose

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themselves to the possible reaction of opponents of the political option. Whenever the space between the two poles has left the Saudis some freedom to maneuver, they have taken advantage of the situation. In other cases they have joined the majority. Saudi Arabia's comments on the Sadat initiative and even on the Camp David Accord were ambivalent and somewhat ambiguous, yet it followed the extreme line of the Baghdad meeting after the conclusion of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. Saudi Arabia reluctantly gave up formal ties with Egypt in order to avoid the hostility of Syria, Libya and those with similar views. In practice, however, good working relations continued between Saudi Arabia and Egypt even in the absence of diplomatic representatives. The Saudi attitude towards the PLO has reflected the same dilemma. Hussein's victory over the Palestinian organizations in 1970-71 served conspicuous Saudi interests (King Faysal indicated his satisfaction by not joining Libya and Kuwait in suspending financial aid to Jordan following 'Black September'). When, however, the Rabat summit meeting of 1974 recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia - to Hussein's chagrinplayed a leading role in the endorsement of the resolution. 37 For Jordan, being a front-line state that - until 1988 -laid claim to the West Bank, issues such as reaching a settlement with Israel or Jordanian relations with the PLO were indeed crucial, not merely questions concerning foreign policy. Nevertheless, the nature of jordan's ties with Saudi Arabia made it more considerate of the latter's views, even at the expense of sometimes reversing its own original intentions regarding Israel or the PLO. Until the summer of 1988, King Hussein was ready to make greater concessions for the sake of a political settlement than were the Saudis, since it was more essential for him. He needed the Saudis' backing, however, which they were reluctant to provide. To a certain extent, Hussein was forced to adjust the pace of his progress in keeping with the Saudis' view of the matter. Their ambivalence towards Sadat's initiative is probably one of the explanations why King Hussein did not join it. Attributing prime concern to 'Arab solidarity', the Saudis expected King Hussein to follow suit and not to break the Arab consensus by going his own way. As early as 1971, the Saudis made painstaking efforts to mediate between King Hussein and the Palestinian organizations, to have them end their conflict. Later, they advised the king to obtain the PLO's blessing before entering into any political negotiations. The Saudis encouraged the dialogue

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between Hussein and Arafat but did not press the PLO to meet the Jordanians half-way, nor did they give Hussein sufficient backing. On the contrary, they probably put pressure on him not to endorse the Reagan plan. 38 They supported the PLO's view regarding future ties between the West and East Banks, that the possibility of a federal union could be discussed only after the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. When Saudi Crown Prince (later King) Fahad issued his 'eight-point [peace] plan' in August 1981, Hussein was disappointed to find that it specifically referred to an independent state for the Palestinians instead of using phrases more acceptable to him, such as 'federation' or 'autonomy'. Hussein has made no secret of his occasional dissatisfaction with Saudi attitudes. Yet because of the asymmetric bilateral relations and his dependence on their support, the king's criticism has obviously been restrained. 39 The withdrawal of Jordan's claim to the West Bank in 1988 did not change the Saudis' basic attitude toward either Hussein or the PLO, since that attitude was dictated by a principle whose validity was not affected by Hussein's decision: namely, the quest for Arab consensus. The new policy, therefore, was not unwelcomed by the Saudis, who construed it as a Jordanian gesture of support for the PLO and as an enhancement of the recognition of its legitimacy.4o Since Jordanian-Palestinian relations have been a source of a number of disagreements between Riyadh and Amman, the shift in jordan's policy toward the West Bank has diminished the place of the Palestinian factor in these bilateral relations and - by and largehas contributed toward the reduction of tension between the two kingdoms. CONCLUSION

For the past 30~odd years, basic stability has prevailed in SaudiJordanian relations. The ups and downs that manifested themselves were more tactical in character and, for the most part, hardly influenced the general friendly pattern of those relations. The role of each party in the bilateral setting is clear and overt, while the interest for continuous cordial relations has been mutual. Good relations with Saudi Arabia were much more important for Jordan, however, than good relations with Jordan were for the Saudis. Saudi Arabia has been the senior partner both economically and politically. Its attitude toward Jordan has been dictated by regional

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aspects: a quest for consensus, the drive to pacify the inter-Arab system and its conflict-defusing and threat-prevention policy. Jordan, in its relations with Saudi Arabia, has sought specific Saudi components, primarily political and financial backing. The factors that have shaped these relations include constant elements (the nature of both regimes and both societies, the asymmetrical ties) and some changing ones (the inter-Arab System, the role of Egypt and the Arab-Israeli conflict). The basic interests and the constant factors have molded relations between the two states in such a decisive, overwhelming way that even the changing factors have developed certain 'features' that have regulated the bilateral relations in a constant pattern, despite all their dynamics and fluctuations. The changing factors contain the potential for a possible alteration of those relations. However, as has been the case until now, any such changes are most likely to be merely tactical. 41 Only a change in one of the constant factors (such as the fall of either regime, a coup d'etat or a revolution) might change the basic pattern that has crystallized over the past three decades. NOTES 1. William B. Quandt, Saudi Arabia in the 1980s. Foreign Policy, Security and Oil (Washington; The Brookings Institution, 1981), pp. 24-32. 2. Mary C. Wilson, King Abdallah, Britain and the Making ofJordan (Cambridge, 1987), p. 101. 3. As late as 1950, the American ambassador to Saudi Arabia recorded: 'There is not slightest doubt in my mind [that the1King [is1genuinely concerned re what he considers to be his extremely vulnerable position vis a vis the Hashemites, particularly Jordan.' Childs to the Secretary of State, 3 Jan. 1950, in Ibrahim ai-Rashid (ed.), Documents on the History of Arabia, vol. VIII, The Struggle Between the Two Princes. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Final Days of Ibn Saud (Chapel Hill, NC: Documentary Publications, 1985), p. 1. On the personal dimension of Abd al-Aziz's hostility to Abdallah, there is a report of a British diplomat according to which the Saudi king was always susceptible to two sorts of gossip: rumors of new aphrodisiacs and dirt about Abdallah. Robert Lacy, The Kingdom (London, 1981), p. 290. 4. King Hussein indirectly admitted his grandfather's share in the responsibility for the bad blood between the two dynasties in his memoirs, in which he indicated that his father, Talal, had contributed to improving relations with Saudi Arabia. King Hussein, Uneasy Lies the Head (London, 1962), pp. 18,22; see also, Asher Goren, The Arab League (in Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv, 1954), p. 111. 5. Benjamin Shwadran, Jordan: A State of Tension (New York, 1959), pp. 325-6; Peter Snow, Hussein (London, 1972), p. 54; Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia, The Ceaseless Quest for Security (Cambridge, MA, 1985), p. 79. 6. Shwadran, op cit., pp. 336, 342.

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7. Ibid., p. 351; Uriel Dann, King Hussein and the Challenge of Arab Radicalism: jordan, 1955-1967 (New York and Oxford, 1989), pp. 62, 65. 8. Ibid, p. 82. 9. Ibid., p. 92; Snow, op. cit., pp. 124-5; Safran, op. cit., pp. 88-9; James Lunt, Hussein of jordan (New York, 1989), p. 50. 10. Safran, op. cit., p. 93; Asher Susser, Between jordan and Palestine: A Political Biography ofWasfi al-Tall (in Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv, 1983), p. 54 (published in English by Frank Cass, London, 1994). 11. In 1964 King Saud was deposed, to be succeeded by Faysal. 12. For example: Hussein attempted to take advantage of the 1964 Arab summit to substantiate his legitimacy and to improve relations with Egypt (in order to do so, he recognized the Republican government in the Yemen, thus leaving Saudi Arabia as the only state to recognize the Royalists); in 1969 the Saudis opposed the convention of another Arab summit whereas Hussein favored the idea; in 1975-76, the Saudis were not very pleased with the growing friendship between Jordan and Syria. 13. Safran, op. cit., p. 93. 14. Middle East Contemporary Survey (MECS), Vol. IV (1979-80), pp. 583-4; Valerie Yorke, Domestic Politics and Regional Security: jordan, Syria and Israel (Aldershot, 1988), p. 59. 15. Radio Amman, 21, 25 April 1989; Bilad, Ukaz, 25 April 1989. 16. On this issue, consult Alexander Bligh, From Prince to King, Royal Succession in the House of Saud in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1984). 17. Hussein, op. cit., pp. 83-4, 93, 101, 107, 155, 157,210,288; see also Snow, op. cit., p. 103. Indeed, jordan's attitude to the Soviet Union became noticeably less hostile in the second half of the 1980s, yet there were also some changes in the Saudis' attirude to the Eastern bloc. 18. On religious concepts as a key to understanding much of Hussein's thinking see Dann, op. cit., p. 91; see also Area Handbook for the Hashemite Kingdom of jordan (Washington, DC, 1969), pp. 138-9; Peter Gubser, jordan: Crossroads of Middle Eastern Events (Boulder, 1983), pp. 39-40; Robert B. Sadoff, Troubles in the East Bank, Challenges to the Domestic Stability of jordan (Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 1986), p. 37. 19. Raymonda Hawa Tawil, My Home My Prison (New York, 1980), pp. 50f£. 20. The 'return of Islam' in Jordan is somewhat different from the recent fundamentalist wave in other Arab and Muslim countries, where it has been entirely an opposition, antiestablishment force. In Jordan, as indicated, it was at least pardy a result of government encouragement. See also Sadoff, op. cit., p. 37; Gubser, op. cit., pp. 39-40. 21. Mohamed Zayyan al-Jazairi, Saudi Arabia: A Diplomatic History, 1924-1964 (Ann Arbor: University Microfilm, 1971), pp. 116,213; The Middle East Record (MER), Vol.III (1967), p. 114. 22. Paul A. Jureidini and R.D. McLaurin,jordan: The Impact of Social Change on the Role of the Tribes (Washington Papers 108, Vol. XII, Washington, DC, 1984), pp. 51-3, 6671; Financial Times, 28 March 1977, Special Survey, p. 26; Sadoff, op. cit. pp. 61-2. 23. AI-Maiala, 14 June 1980; al-Dustur (London), 11 Aug. 1980. 24. MECS, Vol. I (1976-7), p. 486, Vol. V (1980--81), p. 238, Vol. X (1985-86), p. 560; Patrick Seale, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East (London, 1988), p. 294. 25. The first meeting between presidents Saddam Husayn and Asad, earlier that year, was prepared by joint Saudi-Jordanian mediation. MECS, Vol. XI (1987) pp. 121, 130--1, 600. 26. MECS, Vol. VIII (1983-84), pp. 139,630; al-Mustaqbal, 1 December 1984; Yorke, op. cit., p. 308. 27. The only exception in the Saudi policy came during the war in Yemen. When its national interests were at stake, Saudi Arabia - for the first and possibly the only time - defied the Arab consensus (which supported Egypt's intervention).

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28. MECS, Vol. IX (1984-85), p. 518, Vol. X (1985-86), p. 560, Vol. XI (1987), p. 506. 29. The union between North and South Yemen, which was announced in May 1990, considerably enlarged both the circle around Saudi Arabia and the number of Arab workers there coming from the Arab Cooperation Council member states. However, following the Kuwait crisis of 1990--91, the ACC virtually ceased to exist. 30. The Middle East International, 17 Feb. 1989, p. 8, 17 March 1989, pp. 16-7. 31. Middle East Economic Digest Special Report, Saudi Arabia, June 1979; Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Jordan Country Report No.4 (1989); EIU, 1987-88 Country Profile: Jordan Guly 1987), pp. 26-7. 32. The Middle East, February 1988, p. 28. Also MECS, Vol. I (1976-77), p. 486, Vol. III (1978-79), p. 634, Vol. VII (1982-83), p. 645. See also James P. Piscatory, 'Islamic Values and Interest: The Foreign Policy of Saudi Arabia' in Adeed Dawisha (ed.), Islam in Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 1983), p. 47. 33. Quandt, op. cit., p. 24. 34. For an occasional example of mutual visits in 1976-77, see MECS, Vol. I (1976-77), p. 158. 35. Saudi regional policy was not based on elaborate strategic thinking; 'rather it [was) based on a series of intricate interlocking relationships between leading members of the Saudi royal family with neighbouring ruling families and leaders' (Financial Times Special Survey, 21 March 1977, p. 12). 36. For a detailed discussion of Egyptian-Jordanian relations see Han Pappe's chapter 8 in this collection, 'The State and the Tribe: Egypt and Jordan, 1948-88'. 37. Yorke, op. cit., pp. 58-9; Seale, op cit., p. 254; Snow, op. cit., p. 241; Safran, op. cit., p. 176; Moshe Shemesh, The Palestinian Entity 1959-1974: Arab Politics and the PLO (London, 1988), p. 313. 38. Ibid., pp. 148, 192; MECS, Vol. VII (1982-83), pp. 645, 756, and Vol. X (1985-86), p. 457; Jordan Times, 7 Feb. 1985; Yorke, op. cit., p. 308. 39. Christian Science Monitor, 24 March 1983; see also MECS, Vol. VII (1982-83), p. 645. 40. Ukaz, 30 July 1988; Bilad, 2 Aug. 1988; Madina, 5 Aug. 1988; Radio Riyadh, 1 Aug. 1988. 41. This chapter was written before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. It is true that Jordan's unequivocal support for Saddam Husayn enraged the Saudis. None the less, they were eventually convinced, like Egypt, Israel and the United States (albeit to a lesser degree), that King Hussein did not have much choice when he sided with Iraq, which served the survival of the Hashemite regime better than any other alternative. By the second half of 1991 there were several indications of a Saudi detente, although a reserved and cautious one, with Jordan.

7

No New Fertile Crescent: Iraqi-Jordanian Relations,

1968-92

Amatzia Baram The past animosity [between Iraq and Jordan] did not stem from Iraqi interests. Rather, it stemmed from complications caused by the circumstances of 1970 ... We did not propose unification to Jordan ... [however], there will be nothing odd about it if circumstances would arise in which we would propose it to them, or they to us.! Saddam Husayn, January 1981

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the early morning hours of 2 August 1990 threw a bright light on a long, complex relationship between two neighboring countries connected by a common history that can be matched by few other Arab countries. Between 1921 and 1958 Iraq and Jordan were ruled by separate branches of the same Sharifi Hashemite dynasty of the Hijaz. Despite inter-family rivalry, relations between the two were close. They reached their zenith when, to confront the common Nasserite danger, the two Hashemite monarchies established on 14 February 1958 the Arab Federation, significantly under the leadership of King Faysal II of Iraq. This federation proved short-lived, however, expiring on 14 July 1958, when General Abd aI-Karim Qasim destroyed the monarchy in Iraq. From then until the Ba'th takeover in Baghdad in July 1968, Iraqi-Jordanian relations oscillated between open hostility and uneasy political cease-fire. By its own admission, the Ba'th Party was unpopular in Iraq when it came to power largely as a result of the June 1967 ArabIsraeli war. It had hoped it could gain public support by implementing 'the most revolutionary, radical and sweeping slogans and programs' on the Palestine issue. 2 And indeed, the Ba'th regime gave meaningful support to the Palestinian Fida'i organizations, and vowed to spark the (Ba'th-style) Arab revolution in every Arab country, particularly in the monarchies. 3 The decade that followed

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was marked by unmitigated hostility and Ba'th efforts to unseat the Hashemite regime. Largely under the influence of Saddam Husayn, the party, when confronted with the need to choose between commitment to Ba'th ideology, which preached for the downfall of the monarchy, and state interests, chose a pragmatic middle course. This policy, which since 1976-79 turned into straightforward Iraqi courtship of King Hussein and his regime, constitutes one of the two subjects discussed in this chapter. The second topic to be illuminated is Jordan's unfolding dilemma in its relations with Iraq. The kingdom's growing economic cooperation with and dependence upon Baghdad will be analyzed, as will its need for support in the face of real or perceived encroachment by other regional powers as well as by domestic opposition. Not surprisingly, some of this opposition will be seen to be generated by Baghdad itself. The discussion will also show the everincreasing price that the king has been forced to pay for his close alignment with Saddam Husayn. The increasing tension between armed Palestinian organizations and the Jordanian authorities in the summer and fall of 1970 placed Baghdad in a quandary. Senior Iraqi spokesmen pledged that in the event of any (Jordanian) attack on the Palestinian organizations, the 25,000-strong Iraqi expeditionary force in Jordan, branded the Salah aI-Din Forces, would be placed under the command of the Palestinian resistance. 4 Yet, the Iraqi military commanders were aware of the danger to their troops should they be involved in a war with the Jordanian army, and possibly with the Israeli army, too, without air cover and with very long supply lines. 5 On the other hand, in the case of a Hashemite collapse, Iraq feared an active front with Israel, one thousand kilometers from home and with most of the Iraqi army tied down at the Iranian border. Iraq's solution to this impossible situation was to try to mediate between the Palestinians and the king, and thus prevent an all-out clash with Jordan. 6 When the showdown came, Baghdad ducked its obligations.7 The decision against intervention, taken only after a bitter controversy between radicals and pragmatists in party ranks,8 severely damaged Ba'th prestige throughout the Arab world. 9 In its frustration and fury, the Ba'th regime turned its well-oiled propaganda machine against King Hussein. It depicted him as a bloody murderer of innocent Palestinian women and children and as an American and Zionist agent, and coined the expression: 'The road to victory and [the] liberation [of Palestine] passes through Amman.'IO jordan's

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reaction was to demand the evacuation of the Iraqi expeditionary force, and Iraq obliged. II Bilateral relations seemed to have reached rock bottom, when between 1975 and 1978 Jordan buried the hatchet with Syria, Iraq's worst enemy.12 A particularly nasty event that signaled a very low ebb in bilateral relations occurred in November 1976, when the Amman Intercontinental Hotel was attacked by four of Abu Nidal's Iraq-based terrorists. In exchange for the hostages they took, the terrorists demanded Jordanian political concessions to Iraq. Jordan reacted by going even further than before in its support of Syria. 13 FROM HOSTILITY TO AMBIGUITY

Despite Iraqi-Jordanian hostility, it seems that someone in Baghdad was working at cross-purposes. In October 1970, the refugee camps in Jordan still lay under a pall of smoke from the September battles; yet that same month, Iraq gave the Amman municipality a loan of $420,000. One month later an Iraqi delegation came to Amman to discuss various aspects of economic cooperation. 14 In January 1971, the two countries concluded an amazing agreement for unification of their educational curricula, cultural exchanges and technological cooperation in order to pave the way to a spiritual and mental rapprochement. IS These and other agreements were the responsibility of Saddam and his circle of civilian party officials, who had become the de facto rulers of Iraq in the early 1970s.1 6 In late 1976, the Bureau of Palestinian Affairs and Armed Struggle of the Baghdad-based pan-Arab leadership of the Ba'th Party sent Abu Nidal's men to terrorize Amman. At the same time, Saddam Husayn, then deputy chairman of the all-powerful Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), started to deliver very large sums of money to King Hussein personally and apparently without President Bakr's knowledge and approval. l ? That year, IraqiJordanian trade nearly doubled, whereas Iraqi-Syrian trade took a nosedive. It would be a gross mistake, despite these actions, to regard Saddam as a representative of a generally moderate trend within the Iraqi leadership. In late 1970, he was put in charge of all internal security and undercover operations, and no terrorist operations could take place without his consent or even guidance. Indeed, many such operations were Saddam's own brain-children. Thus, Saddam Husayn was sending King Hussein a mixed message: the

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latter could choose marauders or alignment. Indeed, the pragmatic circle within Iraq's Ba'th Party faced a dilemma in its attitude toward Jordan. Even had it been possible to topple the king, there was no certainty that he could be replaced with a pro-Iraqi substitute. The chances of jordan's coming under the influence of Syria were far greater, since Syria had more influence on the Palestinian organizations; besides, less than 200 kilometers of good road separated Damascus and Amman, compared with over 900 kilometers of bad desert road between Baghdad and Amman. This Syrian proximity was coupled with close economic and family ties between southern Syria and northern Jordan, which had developed mainly since the early days of the Hashemite monarchy. When the Palestinians in Jordan were defeated and the regime of the king remained in full control, it soon dawned upon the pragmatic circle in Baghdad that every hostile act on Baghdad's part drove Amman further into the Syrian fold, thereby extending the ring of hostility around Iraq instead of limiting it to Syria alone. Seen from a more limited logistical viewpoint, Iraq had lost its connection to the Mediterranean because of a growing estrangement with Syria (in December 1976 Syria cut off all land and air routes to Iraq), and was jeopardizing its access to an alternative route namely, the Red Sea port of Aqaba. Aqaba had become doubly attractive after the Suez Canal, closed since June 1967, was reopened early in June 1975, a result of the Israeli-Egyptian interim agreement of January 1974. 18 The sea route from Europe or the east coast of the US and Canada to Aqaba was now scarcely longer than that to Lataqiyya, Tripoli, or Beirut (formerly, cargoes had to be sent overland from Alexandria to Suez, then by sea again to Aqaba or around the Cape of Good Hope). Thus, the interim agreements between Egypt and Israel, to which Iraq vehemently objected, in fact facilitated an Iraqi-Jordanian rapprochement. As in all such cases in Saddam's Iraq, here, too, Iraq the ideological party gave way to Iraq the pragmatic state. From the Jordanian viewpoint, a connection with Iraq promised to be very lucrative; unlike Syria, Iraq was a major oil producer. Jordan could expect to benefit from a large volume of transit trade and from Iraqi loans and grants targeted at improving jordan's infrastructure, especially the port of Aqaba and the kingdom's roads. Jordan could also expect a privileged status in its trade with Iraq. As for Jordanian-Syrian relations, President Asad, the man

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responsible for Syria's invasion of Jordan in September 1970,19 could not be trusted. Furthermore, when seen in a more general historical perspective, the Syrian-Jordanian honeymoon of the mid-1970s was an aberration, the result of Jordan's short-term disillusionment with Egypt and Saudi Arabia (which in the Rabat summit of October 1974 betrayed King Hussein by recognizing the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people). Since 1946, when both Syria and Jordan won their independence, their bilateral relations had oscillated between hostility and cool alienation. 20 Similarly, since King Hussein's accession to the throne in May 1953, most of his opponents inside Jordan had come from the northern regions of the country, which had particularly close economic, family and political ties with Syria. 21 By drawing too close to Syria, moreover, the king also risked being sucked into the next Israeli-Syrian confrontation (which actually occurred in 1982, but which had been a very real possibility since late 1979), a danger that he barely managed to avoid in October 1973.22 Forging an alliance with Iraq thus seemed politically safe; King Hussein could hope by this action to deter Israel from any offensive moves (indeed, in late 1980 he characterized Iraq as jordan's strategic depth: see below). At the same time, as long as no Iraqi troops entered Jordan and excessive military cooperation was avoided, the king could refrain from unnecessarily provoking Israel, which did not feel immediately threatened; after all, Israel had no common border with Iraq, and Iraq then had no medium-range missiles. In addition, Saddam Husayn's policy of befriending the Shah and the conservative Arabs and his attempts, of which little is known, at confidence-building with the king combined to convince the Jordanian monarch that he would be not only better off economically with a pragmatic Iraq, but also safer than with an unpredictable and too-close-for-comfort Syria. An additional incentive to distance King Hussein from Asad was Saudi Arabia's condition that further economic aid to Jordan would be extended upon a Jordanian-Syrian disengagement.23 Finally, following the Camp David Accords in September 1978, the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement of 1979, and Egypt's complete isolation in the Arab world, it became clear to Jordan that an alignment with Egypt was impossible, at least for a while. In its search for a strong ally to replace Syria, a pragmatic Iraq was a natural candidate. Furthermore, in view of Iraq's deepening conflict with both Iran and Syria since the summer of 1979, the king could

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realistically hope to mediate between Iraq and Egypt. An IraqiEgyptian rapprochement would help Iraq in its conflict with its two hostile neighbors; in return, Iraq would help relegitimize the Egyptian regime, and thus contribute indirectly toward an Americansponsored peace process. As the Reagan plan of 1982 proved, such a process was jordan's best chance to become the main Arab player in any Arab-Israeli negotiations over the West Bank and Gaza. 24 The king was also cognizant that Asad would never agree to renewed Jordanian rule over or supremacy in Jerusalem because of Syria's own interests in the West Bank. Iraq, for all its revolutionary rhetoric, had no similar clash of interests with Jordan. Saddam Husayn had already demonstrated, since September 1970, that when vital Iraqi interests were at stake, party doctrine gave way. The tension between Baghdad and the PLO between 1979 and 1981182 because of the latter's backing of the Islamic Revolution in Tehran further fanned the king's hope that he could win at least qualified Iraqi support of his quest to represent the Palestinian cause. Since June 1967, a return to Jerusalem has in fact been a notion very dear to the king's heart. Estrangement from Syria, however, carried a price tag. Trade between Syria and Jordan was still fairly extensive and could suffer. More important, on a number of previous occasions Syria had stopped all flights to and from Jordan that were routed through Syrian air space, thus causing Jordan severe hardship. In the same way, Syria could (as indeed it did) use its control of the higher reaches of the Yarmuk River to deprive Jordan of much-needed water. Jordan also had to take into consideration subversive activity by Syria. Finally, the movement of people between the two countries was massive, far greater than that between Jordan and Iraq, and any travel limitations could aggravate a substantial constituency in the northern regions of the kingdom. 2s FROM ABIGUITY TO ALIGNMENT

Early in 1980, Iraq launched a major drive to win Jordan over. That year, Jordan received Iraqi government loans worth $189.2 million and grants valued at $58.3 million, much of this money for expanding facilities at Aqaba and improving the highway from Aqaba to the Iraqi border. It was also agreed that within two years, one-third of Iraq's imports from the industrialized countries would be shipped via Aqaba, and a joint trucking firm was established to

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transport goods between the Red Sea port and Iraq.26 Jordan lent Iraq indirect help in its running battle with Syria, when from the mid-1980s, the king started to support the Muslim Brotherhood's opposition to the Ba'th regime in Damascus through military training and the supply of arms. This King Hussein did for his own reasons: to deflect criticism from the pro-Khumayni Ikhwan religious opposition in Jordan for his support of the Shah of Iran, and to demonstrate to Syria his nuisance value in retaliation for similar Syrian-inspired anti-Jordanian activities. The net result, however, was to burn his bridges with Syria and to further cement the alignment with Iraq, the only country from which the king could hope for support against his powerful northern neighbor. When Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980, Jordan proved a reliable ally, standing out among the Arab countries (and, in fact, in the international community as a whole) in offering the clearest possible support for Iraq. On the day of the Iraqi invasion, King Hussein phoned Saddam Husayn to congratulate the Iraqi army for 'courageously ... defending the homeland'. Two days later, the king called upon the Arabs to unite behind Iraq. In early October the king visited Baghdad and spoke of Iraq as Jordan's strategic depth, apparently in its confrontation with Israel. Later that month, the two countries announced the establishment of a unified military command. 2? In January 1982, King Hussein again outdid any other Arab ruler when he announced the formation of the al-Yarmuk contingent of Jordanian volunteers to fight alongside the Iraqi army and called for the Arabization of the war against the idolatrous Persians. 28 During the war, the king was in daily contact with Saddam Husayn; he also visited Baghdad once every two or three months, more than any other head of state. The king's initial reasons for giving Saddam such staunch support (and, apparently, even encouraging him to launch his offensive) were based on rational calculation. Despite his support of the Muslim Brotherhood's sabotage activities in Syria, the king felt that the possibility of any Islamic upsurge in Jordan inspired by Khumayni's revolution had to be contained. 29 In addition, the king followed Saddam Husayn in confidently basing himself on conventional military calculations that Iraq would win the war and that he was backing the winning side. Most important, it seems that by late 1980 the king had already decided that Iraq, under the pragmatist Sad dam, provided the most effective shield against his domestic and regional enemies - Palestinians, Islamic fundamentalists, Israelis

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and Syrians - and offered the best long-term guarantee for Jordan's economic well-being. The intimate cooperation between the two leaders over the eight-year war, however, generated a momentum of its own; by 1988, personal relations between Hussein and Husayn were closer than those between any two other Arab leaders. When the fighting forced the closure of the ports of Basra and Umm Qasr, Iraq's dependence on Aqaba grew, intensifying further with the closure of the Iraqi-Syrian border and of the crude oil pipeline from Kirkuk to Banias-Syria in April 1982. During the war, Jordan's contribution to Iraq's logistical effort was enormous; but Jordan also greatly benefited from the surging cooperation. For example, between 1979 and 1988, imported cargoes in transit through the port of Aqaba increased from 161,000 tons to 6,930,000 tons per annum, almost all the increase destined for Iraq. Transit exports through Aqaba, also almost entirely coming from Iraq, increased from 98,000 tons in 1981 to nearly 3,000,000 tons in 1988. No less illuminating is the movement of passenger and cargo traffic through the port of Aqaba. In 1979, total passenger arrivals and departures amounted to just over 7,000; by 1988, the figure totaled more than 823,000, almost all of it consisting of Egyptian workers heading to or coming from Iraq. In 1978, transit exports through Aqaba comprised only one-third of one per cent of all exports handled by this port; in 1988, they comprised no less than 27 per cent (of some 11,000,000 tons), almost all the increase coming from Iraq. Transit imports passing through Aqaba for all destinations comprised 5.6 per cent of all imports in 1978. By 1981, Iraqi cargo imports passing through Aqaba exceeded the amount of imported cargo destined for Jordan itself. By 1988, transit cargo to all destinations represented 75.7 per cent of the total (of some 9,150,000 tons) imports off-loaded at Aqaba. Almost all these imported transit cargoes were Iraq-bound. 3D As reported by the world and Arab press, Aqaba became a major port for Iraq's imports of military supplies, from Chinese-made tanks, artillery, and warplanes to Spanish air-bombs to Egyptian ammunition and spare parts. 3! With the growth of arms deliveries from Egypt, Aqaba became by far the most important cargo link between Egypt and Iraq. In 1983, a ferry line connecting Egypt's Nuweiba, on the Red Sea, with Aqaba was put into service; in 1987, a joint Iraqi-Jordanian-Egyptian transportation company, al-Jisr ai-Arabi (the Arab Bridge) began operations, serving passengers

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and delivering Iraqi cement to Egypt and Egyptian military hardware to Iraq via Aqaba. 32 In the same way, the Jordanian national airline served as the main air link between Cairo and Baghdad because direct air connection between Iraq and Egypt had been severed in 1979, following the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. Transportation constituted but one area of Iraqi-Jordanian cooperation. From May 1980, energy, industry, agriculture and oil search were other areas in which reciprocity was substantially and progressively enhanced. 33 The intensification of Iraqi-Jordanian relations can be demonstrated graphically by a survey of their trade ties. Iraq's imports from Jordan amounted to $8-10 million annually in 1977-78; in the following years the figures leapt dramatically: to $47 million in 1979; $104 million in 1980; $214 million in 1981, and $209 million in 1982. Before 1984, Iraqi exports to Jordan had been negligible; in 1985 and 1986, they rocketed to $173 million and $168 million respectively. 34 Seen from the perspective of jordan's small economy, these figures look much more impressive. In the mid-1970s, Iraq's share in jordan's total foreign trade was almost non-existent; by 1988, this share reached some 14 per cent, exceeding by far that of any other single state in the world. 35 This impressive expansion of economic ties was supported by a strong pro-Iraqi business lobby in Amman. In 1989, this lobby, headed by Amin Shuqayr, a prominent pharmaceutical industrialist, consisted of no fewer than 160 Jordanian commercial and industrial firms. Indeed, by early 1990, close to three-quarters of jordan's industry was working primarily for export to Iraq.36 Iraq also paid very large sums of money as special grants to various institutions and personalities in Jordan to win their support. This was especially the case with newspapers and newspapermen. 37 These economic ties were not without their setbacks. Throughout the war Jordan was very keen to export more to Iraq; from 1983, Iraq made this transaction conditional upon receiving more credit. Partly in expectation of Saudi support and partly because of Iraqi and Jordanian mismanagement, the Jordanian side extended very generous credits. The Iraqi side, however, was slow to repay. In the fall of 1989, the Jordanian press reported that Iraq owed Jordan the huge sum of $835 million, almost twice the amount of jordan's foreign reserves. 38 This debt, when coupled with a sheer decline in Saudi aid, from $1.25 billion in 1981 to $400 million in 1989, and with the

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withdrawal of over $250 million by Palestinians from Jordanian banks in 1988 and 1989/9 played a major role in jordan's subsequent economic crisis.40 Paradoxically, however, this huge Iraqi debt tied Jordan to Iraq more forcefully than ever. On the political level, Jordan was very active during the Iran-Iraq War in mediating between Egypt and Iraq. Until the moment when King Hussein announced his disengagement from the West Bank on 31 July 1988, his commitment to an American-sponsored peace process necessitated a complete Iraqi-Egyptian rapprochement that would help re-introduce Egypt into the mainstream of Arab politics. Jordan itself resumed diplomatic relations with Egypt as early as September 1984. In the early 1980s, Jordan began making great efforts to convince Iraq to sign the agreement with Bechtel for the construction of an Iraqi oil pipeline to Aqaba; this was to be linked to an Egyptian pipeline crossing the Sinai Peninsula to Suez. 41 While jordan's relations with Iraq improved, the kingdom's ties with Syria deteriorated. November 1980 saw these bilateral relations at their nadir, as up to 50,000 Syrian troops were deployed on Jordan's northern border and threatened a rerun of the September 1970 invasion. In February 1981, both countries recalled their ambassadors. 42 A few months later Asad accused the Hashemite family of the historical crime of 'dismembering the Syrian body' when it established Jordan in 1921. The Syrian President claimed the lost part in no vague terms. 43 jordan's relations with Syria remained at rock bottom for five years. Then in November 1985, Jordan new Prime Minister, Zayd al-Rifa'i, met with his Syrian counterpart. 44 Jordan had two major interests in a rapprochement: to hang a Damascus Sword above Arafat's head and to stop the vicious, Syrian-sponsored antiJordanian campaign of murder and sabotage. Iraq, for its part, feared that the rapprochement would come at its expense. 45 Still, Jordan maintained its staunch political and strategic support for Iraq in the war. To further prove its loyalty to Baghdad, Jordan tried to mediate between Baghdad and Damascus between the spring of 1986 and early 1988. The intention was to drive a wedge between Syria and Iran; thus, Jordan was mainly serving Baghdad's, not Damascus', interests. The ultimate fruitlessness of this mediation could hardly be ascribed to any lack of Jordanian enthusiasm for matchmaking. 46 Jordan rendered Iraq diplomatic support in additional areas; it delivered Iraqi messages to friendly Arab states with which Iraq had

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differences,47 and urged support for Iraq at all meetings of the Arab League, which did, indeed, produce many pro-Iraqi resolutions, rammed through over Syrian objections. 48 Finally, during and after the war, Jordan served as a front for Iraqi arms deals in cases in which Iraq itself was barred from purchasing such arms directly. This unique service gave Iraq access to some of the West's most advanced military equipment, notably in the realm of artillery.49 FROM THE END OF THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR TO THE INVASION OF KUWAIT

From the Iranian Menace to the Israeli Threat A short while before and immediately following the end of the Gulf War, a major shift occurred in Jordan's regional policy. The Intifada that broke out in December 1987, with its ominous antiJordanian undertones, forced the king to announce his disengagement from the West Bank. Jordan had to shift its political attention elsewhere, at least for a while, and in the summer of 1988, immediately after the king's disengagement announcement, it turned east and southwest in its quest for an Arab political alignment. This materialized in February 1989, when the Arab Cooperation Council, consisting of Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and North Yemen, came into being. The ACC was intended to cement Jordan's role as the link between the two much larger economies of Iraq and Egypt; to increase jordan's political weight when an international conference on the occupied territories convened and a test of strength with the PLO was unavoidable; and to provide Jordan with a wide Arab guarantee against feared Israeli aggression. With the Iranian war machine wrecked, and Khumayni dead, Iran no longer posed a meaningful threat. As Jordanian politicians saw it, the danger zone moved from the Iranian-Iraqi border in the east to the Jordanian-Israeli border in the west; and from Khumayni's religious-political instigation to economic difficulties as a source of domestic religious and nationalist radicalism. In addition to being presented as a direct military threat, intent on conquering Jordan,so Israel was also, and more credibly, seen as a threat to Jordan's social and political equilibrium because of the ramifications of the Intifada and Israeli efforts to suppress it. The situation created a state of permanent unrest among the large

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Palestinian population of the East Bank, with occasional violent eruptions. Thus, for example, the murder by a young Israeli reservist of Arab workers in the Israeli town of Rishon Le-Zion in May 1990 triggered off wild riots in Palestinian refugee camps, and Jordanian tanks had to be deployed in several places in Amman. 51 The influx of a restive element of thousands of Palestinian youngsters who had left the West Bank and Gaza for Jordan in search of jobs had helped destabilize the political system and was cause for grave concern in official circles in Amman. These circles were wary of the theory enunciated by Israel's ruling right-wing party that Jordan is Palestine. The combination of the Intifada, the wave of immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel that began in 1989, and a major economic crisis brought Jordanian fears to a head. 52 The economic crisis of 1988-89 poured fuel on an already combustible situation in that it turned even the king's most faithful subjects, the Bedouin of the south, against the regime. The south suffered in particular from the repercussions of the end of the Iran-Iraq War: many southerners who worked as drivers or as help in the convoys that delivered cargoes from Aqaba to Baghdad became unemployed when the volume of those cargoes decreased. (In January 1990 Jordan reported 48,000 persons unemployed, 15 to 18 per cent of its total work force.)53 When, in April 1989, the government introduced IMF-prescribed economic austerity measures to stop the fall of the dinar, massive anti-government food riots erupted in the south and from there they spread to all parts of Jordan. This deteriorating situation forced the king to introduce a far-reaching democratization program (to which, incidentally, Saddam Husayn objected), which included free elections in November 1989. These elections brought between 20 and 22 Muslim Brothers and 10 to 14 more independent Islamic activists to the 80-seat Parliament. 54 Thus, between 1988 and 1990, not only did the king have to curb his ambitions to playa leading role in peace negotiations over the West Bank and Gaza, he also had to go on the defensive against mounting popular unrest in his own East Bank. The Islamic influence worried the regime to such an extent that the crown prince warned of the danger of religious revolutions and wars in the Middle East. 55 The king could not expect Iraq to assist directly in his struggle against Islamic fundamentalists at home, but Iraq could and, indeed, was expected to provide Jordan with long-term economic support that would have a stabilizing effect. 56 Even though Iraq itself was experiencing great economic

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difficulties, it had enough clout in the Arab world to force others to help their ally. In the Baghdad Arab summit of May 1990, King Hussein, fully aware that only Saddam could help him, eulogized Iraq in a subservient style, and called upon the Arabs to prevent economic disaster in Jordan and to help it face the Israeli threat. This call was vigorously supported by the conference host, Saddam Husayn,s7 whose backing played a major role in moving the summit to endorse the allocation of substantial economic aid to Jordan. 58 On the military level, the end of the Gulf War brought in its wake a deep change not only in the position of Jordan regarding the purported Israeli threat but also in that of Iraq. Beginning in early 1989, Iraqi politicians, retired army officers and reporters started to accuse Israel of planning raids on Iraqi installations and warned against such moves. Iraq now needed Jordan's electronic surveillance to provide early warning and detailed information on potential Israeli targets. Jordan obliged readily. Early in 1990, Israeli military sources reported that Jordan was allowing Iraqi fighters to patrol the JordanianIsraeli border. These flights were stopped after Israel warned its neighbor, but other, less ostentatious and more effective cooperation in intelligence-gathering continued. Military cooperation also extended to the establishment of a joint Jordanian-Iraqi air squadron, to visits by Iraqi officers to the Jordanian-Israeli front, and to all aspects of air and ground coordination necessary for the deployment of a large Iraqi force on Jordanian soil. All this met with the expressed concern of the Israeli military.59 Nor did Jordan react when Iraq built on its border medium-range missile positions aimed toward Israel. 60 Jordan, in fact, was interested in resting on a wider Arab military shoulder and called for the integration of all the Arab air forces and ground-to-air defenses, starting with the countries of the ACe. 61 No such integration ever materialized. Saddam Husayn, although not trying to use military threat to force Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians and thus stop the Intifada, did go on record promising that in the case of the annexation of the occupied territories and mass deportations, aggression must occur and war would be unavoidable. Iraq also made it clear that it would respond militarily if Israel attacked any Arab state; in Jordanian eyes this meant, primarily, Jordan and Libya. 62 Relying on Iraq's military power, the king and the crown prince

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also threatened that the water dispute with Israel could result in war. The Iraqi muscle equally held some promise vis-a-vis Syria in that respect. 63 Iraq, Jordan's Legitimacy and the PLO: A Precarious Balance From the beginning of the Jordanian-Iraqi rapprochement in 1979-80, Jordan expected Iraqi support in its contest with the PLO over the West Bank. 64 Here, however, Iraq's situation was far more complex than in other fields; and although Iraq carefully tried to balance its position between the two protagonists, the scales had clearly been tipped in favor of the PLO since 1982, when Iraqi-PLO relations greatly improved. Baghdad never forgot Arafat's neutrality between Iraq and Iran during the first two years of the war nor his vociferous support of the Islamic revolution before the war. 65 Yet, engaged in a war of their own choice that had gone sour, and under attack by Syria, Libya and the radical Palestinians for exhausting Arab energies against Khumayni instead of directing them towards Palestine, the Ba'th leaders regarded Arafat's support of their war as an important propaganda asset at home and in the Arab world. Iraq became trapped between an important strategic ally and an equally important propaganda asset and terrorist arm. It endeavored at least to avoid the worst; that is, the necessity of a clear-cut choice between the two. Thus, since January 1983, Iraq has given support alternatingly overt and covert - to the notion of a joint JordanianPalestinian delegation to peace talks. 66 At the same time, however, it has insisted on complete Jordanian-Palestinian equality in the negotiation process. Following King Hussein's declaration renouncing Jordan's claim to the West Bank and Arafat's proclamation of a Palestinian state before the PNC in Algiers in November 1988, Iraq was quick to announce its full recognition of the fraternal Palestinian state. It went on to recognize Arafat as the President of the State of Palestine and accorded him the full ceremonial honors of a head of state. 67 The Iraqi side, however, was not oblivious of King Hussein's fears of the dangers that a hostile, independent Palestinian state would present for Jordan, the majority of whose citizens are of Palestinian extraction. On a few occasions, therefore, Saddam Husayn called upon the Palestinians to respect jordan's sovereignty.68 The Iraqi President also occasionally implied the desirability of a Jordanian-Palestinian federation after an independent Palestinian

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state was established. 69 In this way, he signaled to the king and the PLO alike - without breaking ranks with the latter - that the continued existence of the Hashemite monarchy was an Iraqi interest/o Under the circumstances of Palestinian unrest inside Jordan and the PLO's great dependence on Iraq, such an Iraqi stance was useful to the king, even if it was not fully satisfactory. The most striking manifestation of Iraq's support of the legitimacy of the Hashemite regime was exposed during King Hussein's visit to Baghdad in July 1988 to congratulate Iraq on its recent victories. In a unique gesture of historical reconciliation, the king was taken to Baghdad's royal cemetery, where prayers were read for the souls of King Faysal I, King Hussein's great-uncle (d. 1933) and King Ghazi, Faysal's son (d. 1939).71 Soon after this visit, the Iraqi Ministry of Religions Endowment (Waqf) spent $3.2 million to renovate the royal cemetery in advance of the re-internment of the remains of King Faysal II, whom revolutionaries murdered in July 1958 and buried at a secret site. On 1 July 1989, some 30 years after the military's overthrow of the monarchy, the ministry declared that the public would be permitted to visit the cemetery to read a Koranic verse for the dead. At the same time, the Iraqi press announced that the bronze equestrian statue of King Faysal I (erected in 1930 and torn down by angry crowds on 14 July 1958) would be re-erected at its original site - a square ironically bearing the name of Jamal Abd al-Nasser.72 Finally, with the end of the Gulf War, Iraqi politicians spared no effort in stressing their country's new approach in harmony with the spirit of the age, whereby interference in the internal affairs of others does not make one a pan-ArabisC3

Jordan's Dilemmas Impressive manifestations of friendship and cooperation notwithstanding, Iraq's policies since the cease-fire have presented Jordan with difficult choices. To start with, allowing Iraq to deliver heavy military equipment to General Awn in Lebanon (including Frog SS missiles, shipment of which was stopped at sea by the Syrian navy) caused severe damage to Jordanian-Syrian relations/ 4 Jordan had already paid dearly for its staunch support of Iraq when the kingdom was the target of a Syrian-sponsored campaign of murder and sabotage from 1980 to 1985. Worse still- and largely because of its close ties with Baghdad - Amman was unable to reach a satisfactory agreement with Damascus over Jordan's share of the

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waters of the Yarmuk River and its tributaries. This impasse badly damaged Jordan's long-term interests. 75 As for Israel, since the time Iraq became a regional superpower and the proud owner of medium-range missiles, the king's resort to an Iraqi military umbrella threatened to trigger off precisely the kind of Israeli military offensive that it was meant to prevent. Indeed, while the king was trying to make use of Iraqi might to intimidate Israel, he also implied on a number of occasions that Iraq's irresponsible modus operandi might suck him into an IsraeliIraqi armed conflict. Thus, in the old Hashemite tradition, King Hussein set out to counterbalance his close military ties with Iraq by allaying Israel's worst fears. First, Iraqi fighters were withdrawn from Jordan following Israeli warnings; the king also made sure that the joint MiG squadron would remain on the Iraqi side of the common border. In response to Israel's warnings that it could not allow the presence of Iraqi troops in Jordan, the king made it amply clear that Jordan sought Arab economic, not military, help. This, he argued, would enable it to build its own military strength so that it could absorb the first (Israeli) blow. Only this way, when Jordan had a strong army of its own, he said, could our brothers in the depth of the great (Arab) homeland reach (embattled) Jordan before it was too late.76 But the king could not control Saddam, and following escalating Iraqi threats beginning in April 1990, Israel's concern grew at a steady pace. jordan's close ties with and total support of Iraq in the international arena have not been without a price. Its contribution to Iraq's arsenal, overlooked during the Iran-Iraq War, gained publicity following the cease-fire.77 Jordan strained its relations with Britain when the king gave his unreserved support for the execution of the British-based Observer reporter Farzad Bazoft, whom Iraq accused of spying. Saying that he had full confidence in the Iraqi judicial system,78 the king charged that those who criticized the execution intended to hurt Iraq. Jordan was also reluctant to dissociate itself openly from Iraq's anti-American rhetoric when, at the ACC summit in Amman in February 1990, Saddam Husayn implied that the US should evacuate its navy from the Gulf.7 9 A few months later, at the Baghdad Arab summit of May 1990, the king crossed the Rubicon, and joined the radical anti-American camp. In order to justify his urgent demand for Arab economic aid to Jordan as a confrontation state, but also to impress his own restive and frustrated population, he presented a greatly

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exaggerated description of the Israeli military expansionist threat to the whole Arab world; he accused the Israeli government of planning the aforementioned Rishon Le-Zion murder, and he criticized the US in all but name for supporting Israel. King Hussein's speech came after Saddam's demand that the Arabs threaten US imperialism with economic sanctions if they continued to support Israeli aggression, and it helped set the tone of the radical camp. According to the well-informed al-Muharrir, Jordan, together with the PLO, Libya, Algeria and Yemen, in fact toed the Iraqi line throughout the conference, and thus sabotaged Egypt's efforts to formulate moderate resolutions. 80 Indeed, the Baghdad summit marked a major political watershed: it witnessed the beginning of a growing estrangement between Jordan and the moderate Arab states, chiefly Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as between the kingdom and the US. Another dilemma was hidden in the PLO's growing dependence on Baghdad - the Palestinian organization could be unleashed against the king at will. Worse still, according to PLO sources, Saddam Husayn began in mid-1990 to dispense millions of dollars and large quantities of arms in an attempt to lure radical Palestinian organizations from Syria, Lebanon and Libya to Baghdad. This was seen by Arafat's people as an attempt to apply pressure on the PLO to toe the Iraqi line or face the consequences. 81 And if the PLO saw it that way, then certainly the king should have been doubly apprehensive. In his speech at the Amman ACC summit in February 1990 and, more clearly, in his speech at the Baghdad summit in May, Saddam Husayn talked of the liberation of Palestine in a way that implied a return to the old Ba'thist commitment to destroy Israel in a war of liberation. The latter speech was echoed by Arafat, who in a closed session demanded that the Arabs withdraw their recognition of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and embark on the military option. 82 These winds of war blowing from Baghdad were anathema to the king, who must have been aware that, this time, any Israeli-Arab war could spell the end of the Hashemite monarchy. Indeed, following these speeches and following Saddam Husayn's threat on 2 April to burn half of Israel, the king on a number of occasions expressed fears that if the US did not do more to advance the peace process, extremists on both sides would manage to destroy any chance of peace in the area. 83 There may be little doubt that, when relating to the Arab side, the king was referring to the President of Iraq.

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DURING THE KUWAIT CRISIS: A DE FACTO FEDERATION

On the eve of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, then, the king was already helplessly adrift in the gushing Iraqi current. All he could, or would do, was to signal that he was indeed adrift and heading towards a catastrophe; that he had no control over his own and his country's destiny; and that the West should save him from his own radicals at home, from Israel, and from Iraq by promptly resolving the ArabIsraeli conflict. Indeed, owing to his policy since 1979, by 1990 the king was already hopelessly dependent, both economically and politically, on Saddam's good will. On the economic level, this addictive dependence rested essentially on three legs: the port of Aqaba, industrial exports, and oil imports. By mid-1990, some 70 per cent of all imports and some 25 per cent of the exports passing through Aqaba were transit trade, most of it going to Iraq. Indeed, Aqaba's dependence on Iraqi transit trade was then so heavy that a well-informed Jordanian source defined the port's closure to Iraqi goods as dictated by the stipulations of the UN embargo as 'suicide'. 84 By mid-1990 Iraq was jordan's single largest trading partner. During the first seven months of 1990 exports to Iraq represented 23.2 per cent of jordan's total exports, and imports from Iraq during the same period represented 14.6 per cent of Jordan's total imports. 85 Furthermore, some 75 per cent of jordan's industrial establishments were producing primarily for the Iraqi market. 86 It was no wonder, then, that Jordan made the termination of its sales of industrial products to Iraq in compliance with the UN-declared embargo conditional on finding new markets for the kingdom. 87 Finally, by mid-1990 Jordan depended on Iraq for 80 to 90 per cent of its oil needs. The oil was supplied in repayment of the huge Iraqi debt, and Jordan could not hope to obtain the same amount of oil free of charge from the Gulf Arabs. 88 In such circumstances, there were certainly grounds for Crown Prince Hasan's exasperated remark after he emerged from tense meetings in New York with the US Secretary of State and the Soviet Foreign Minister, that full compliance by his country with the UN embargo on Iraq was tantamount to committing 'economic hara-kiri'.89 The strongest force binding the king to Saddam during the Kuwait crisis was, perhaps, a political, not an economic one. Saddam's ideological cocktail of Iraqi imperial pan-Arabism, newly discovered pan-Islam, and vitriolic anti-Americanism; his

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Robin Hood-style pledge to redistribute Arab wealth, and his return to the vow to liberate Palestine, backed by his one-millionstrong army and an impressive array of missiles and chemical weapons, proved unexpectedly strong medicine for many in the region. This nostrum ignited the imagination of and united Arabs in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians and Bedouin in Jordan, and even hard-line Jordanian Muslim Brothers. As put by an enthusiastic Brother during a pro-Iraqi rally in Zarqa: 'Arabism is the raw material of Islam and the establishment of the Caliphate!'90 A secular Palestinian leader defined Saddam as an Arab Garibaldi who would unite the Arab world (apparently, as did the latter, by the sword);91 and more and more Jordanian Muslim activists were talking about the need to undo the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, that is, to demolish the borders of the Arab East as established by the British and the French in the wake of the First World War. Pro-Iraqi, anti-American demonstrations and rallies started in Jordan on the first day of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and continued throughout the American military build-up in Saudi Arabia. Excluding cases of violence, they were tolerated, and occasionally backed by the regime, and many demonstrations won full coverage on Jordan TV. The most impressive manifestation of Muslim power was a mammoth Muslim Brotherhood pro-Saddam demonstration of some 70,000 in Amman to protest the arrival of the unpopular UN Secretary General to the Jordanian capital.92 The Jordanian press also exploited the regime's more liberal approach that had prevailed since the spring of 1989, by giving vent to extreme antiAmerican and pro-Iraqi views. To appease public opinion, the king went so far as to invite to Jordan a Congress of Popular Forces, including his arch-enemies, George Habash and Naif Hawatmeh, with whom he had private sessions. Habash took advantage of the occasion and called for the overthrow of the Gulf sultans and promised to attack American interests if war broke out. 93 On 1 January 1991, the regime was pushed further in its effort to placate the radicalizing public opinion, when it incorporated five members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the new government, including a minister of education. 94 Clearly, in the king's view, drifting with domestic public sentiment was the safest course of action. The result, paradoxically, was that the king had never before enjoyed such wide popularity in his own country. For Hussein, such popularity during such difficult

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times was worth its heavy price: a deep crisis in jordan's relations with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Gulf states, the US and Britain. Such a price was far less dangerous than arousing the public against him or incurring Saddam's wrath. As the king saw it, after the crisis, the Western powers, Arab moderates and conservatives, and even Israel could be expected to prefer Hashemite order, even if imperfect, to Palestinian or Muslim Brotherhood rule, or both, in Jordan. After 2 August 1990, the king was the first Arab head of state to visit Baghdad. This he did in an effort to secure Iraqi commitment to withdraw and, according to his account, such commitment was, indeed, secured. The king and his most senior cabinet ministers constantly met with Saddam Husayn and his senior leadership, both in Baghdad and in Amman. 95 All the king's diplomatic skills on the international level were employed to try to prevent hostilities in the Gulf at all costs. His position was that the crisis should be settled within the framework of the Arab world. As the king declared a few days after the invasion and upon the annexation of Kuwait: I have been working on the idea of getting the Arab world to resolve Arab problems, and in particular this recent one. I have been involved since the very beginning in attempting to obtain this objective ... to resolve this problem within the Arab family ... [any other solution] could lead us to the verge of disaster. 96

This he did for three mutually enforcing reasons. In the first place, it was Saddam's wish. Saddam preferred to achieve strategic and political gains in Kuwait and the Middle East in general through negotiations with the US, rather than through war against the Western superpowers. Second, in the event of war, Jordan's popular forces could endanger the Hashemite monarchy. And third, Jordan might have been squeezed between two warring regional superpowers, Iraq and Israel. Such a prospect became very real once the Iraqi side threatened to hit Israel if attacked by the Allied forces, and once the Israelis promised to retaliate in kind. The king was very central in a great number of diplomatic initiatives designed to prevent war.97 Probably the most conspicuous of his initiatives was a mini-Arab summit in Rabat, which also included King Hasan II of Morocco and President Shadhli Bin Jadid of Algeria on 19-29 September 1990. The summit produced a pro-Iraqi peace plan that was leaked to the Jordanian daily alDustur. 98 This tripartite peace plan included very significant Kuwaiti territorial concessions to Iraq (the two strategic islands of Warba and Bubyan and the Kuwaiti side of the Rumayla oil field); a

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proposal that Iraqi-Kuwaiti relations should be somewhat similar to those between Syria and Lebanon (namely: de (acto Iraqi domination of Kuwait); the withdrawal of Western troops from the Gulf zone, followed by the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait while maintaining the special arrangement between Iraq and Kuwait (namely, retaining some troops to secure Iraqi control, similar to the presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon); securing Iraqi navigation rights in Kuwait's territorial waters; barring the Kuwaiti ruling family from ever returning to Kuwait and, finally, moving quickly to solve the Palestinian problem. In short: Kuwait was to remain an Iraqi protectorate in all but name, and Saddam was to appear as the leader who, out of the void, created the momentum necessary for Israel's withdrawal from the territories occupied in June 1967. The Jordanian newspaper also reported that King Hussein was in charge of contacts with western Europe and the UN Security Council, designed to persuade them to adopt this Arab plan. Whatever the truth behind the report (it may be that the plan was somewhat less pro-Iraqi than reported), it is unthinkable that such a report could appear in Amman without official approval. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that it was leaked by an official source who took it upon himself to build the king's image at home as a staunch defender of Iraqi rights. This possibility is enhanced by the failure of Amman to deny the report. When relaying the summit proposals to the international community, however, Jordanian sources mentioned only a demand that Iraq agree to the principle of troop withdrawal,99 This double talk was apparently the reason for Iraq's initial rejection of the proposals. 100 In hindsight, however, Iraq's Foreign Minister expressed deep frustration that the US 'killed' the tripartite summit's initiative. lol Complementing these pro-Iraqi moves were occasional direct attacks against Saudi Arabia in the Jordanian media, and even an anti-Saudi diatribe coming at least from one cabinet minister. In December, Minister of Religious Endowments Dr Ali al-Faqir (a hard-line Islamic activist) denounced a world Islamic conference at Mecca as a convention of [anti-Iraqi] 'mercenaries'. The minister further advised Jordanians not to go on pilgrimage to Mecca because 'the holy places are being desecrated by the foreign forces'. The Saudi press rejected these allegations, stressing that the holy places 'are chaste, they are under the protection of faithful hands that were entrusted by almighty God [a claim that no Hashemite spokesman could possibly accept] ... And the sisterly, friendly

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forces are 1,500 km away from the holy places'. The Jordanian minister, the Saudi newspaper accused, instead of supporting those who believe in God and his Messenger, supports 'apostate Saddam', who says: 'I believe in Ba'th as God who has no partners and in Arabism as the only religion' .102 At the same time, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, angrily rejected the Jordanian explanation of the Iraqi invasion in terms of a historical claim based on the Turkish Ottoman legacy. This, he pointed out, was an extremely dangerous argument to be used by Jordanian politicians. 103 After all, President Asad still lays claim to the whole of Jordan precisely in the name of that same legacy. Indeed, Kuwaiti, Saudi and other Gulf Arabs did not take kindly to this Jordanian stance. Saudi Arabia, which supplied Jordan with some 10 per cent of its total oil consumption before the crisis, ceased its supplies in September 1990. 104 In early September the Jordanian ambassador in Riyadh returned to Amman (though diplomatic relations were not severed).105 In October 1990 exports from and transit through Jordan to the Gulf states started to decline. On 14 January, Saudi Arabia banned all Jordanian trucks from crossing its territory.106 In turn, this further enhanced jordan's dependence on Iraq. From October 1990 Jordan received all its oil from Iraq (some 50,000 bid usual consumption, plus some extra 10,000 bid to fill its reserve storage), and it received it at a significant discount, paying $16.60 per barrel, some $4 per barrel below market price. While not considered a breach of the embargo, because it was considered as debt repayment (and thus no money changed hands),107 it all the same helped Saddam: it enabled him to demonstrate that even in his difficult hour, he could provide his friends with more than a little help. When, on 17 January, the Allied forces launched their first air strikes against Iraq, the Jordanian reaction was twofold: denunciation and attempts to impose a cease-fire. Thus, for example, on 17 January Jordan's cabinet issued a proclamation that 'Jordan, its leadership, government and people condemn what took place in the early hours of this morning as a brutal attack on an Arab Muslim country and people'. 108 A day later the Jordanian Parliament met to discuss the war, and issued a vitriolic attack against the West, and the US in particular. Borrowing on the Iraqi vernacular, they were defined as 'the imperialistic-Atlantic-Zionist enemy', and 'the forces of evil'. They were accused of blatant aggression against the 'Arab and Islamic nations' and charged with responsibility for every

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drop of blood that would be spilled. The Parliament congratulated the Iraqi people and its 'brave leadership' for their steadfastness, and called upon the Arab and Islamic nations to strike at the interests of the US and its allies everywhere and continue the battle until victory is achieved. 109 The king, for his part, stalled for a while, but on 6 February he, too, joined the fray, thus turning his back on a pro-Western tradition as long-standing as his rule in Jordan. In a speech to the 'Arab and Islamic nation', the king spoke in a language that shocked even his oldest and staunchest admirers in the West: I choose this difficult moment to speak to you, when Arab honor and religious duty require me to address you today, on the eve of the fourth week of this all-out ferocious war imposed on fraternal Iraq. This war aims at Iraq's existence ... as well as ... right to a dignified and free life, and its eagerness to pursue its historic, cultural and human role, which evolved in Babylon, Baghdad and Basra as mankind became civilized ... Oh Arabs and Muslims! Iraq is now paying the toll for its affiliation with its [Arab-Islamic] nation in pure and chaste blood ... Among the places hit in Iraq were mosques and churches, schools and museums, hospitals and a baby milk factory, residential areas and Bedouin tents, as well as power plants and water networks ... The course of the fighting suggests a war that aims at erasing the accomplishments of Iraq and throwing it back to primitive life ... The first victims of such a war are the values of right, justice and peace. Other victims are the hopes and aspirations entertained by mankind since the end of WWII. For it was then hoped that this would be the end of human tragedy ... Our hopes and dreams as a people and the hopes and dreams of the entire human race have been genuinely frustrated as the land of Iraq has been turned into a battlefield for a third world war ... If this is an example for the UN role in the new world order, what a grim future awaits all nations. What international legitimacy will act as sanctuary for those who the stronger seek to oppress, humiliate, kill and deprive of all their right ... [this is an American attempt] for imposing hegemony on the United Nations to prevent it from assuming its role ... The talk about a new world order whose features are the destruction of Iraq and its capabilities ... make us wonder about the nature of this order ... This war is a war against all the Arabs and the Muslims, not against Iraq alone. When the Arab and Islamic territory [in Saudi Arabia] is presented as a base for the armies of the Allies to destroy the Iraq of Arabism and Islam, and when Arab money is used to finance this war with all this generosity that ... we and our brothers the Palestinians ... had not experienced, I say ... [that] any Arab or Muslim can imagine the size of the crime committed against his religion and nation ... Right will triumph, God willing, the people will triumph, for their triumph will be

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the triumph of the human race against its enemies, of life against death, and of amity against the desire to spread and exchange hatred ... As for our people in Iraq, what words can match the peak of their bravery, loftiness, resolve and their unique power and ability to face ... 28 armies? ... To those kinsfolk we extend all love and pride while they are defending us all and raising high the [Iraqi national flag, the] banner saying 'God Is Great', the banner of Arabism and Islam. Greetings to Iraq, its heroic army and ... courageous people. llo

On the day of the Prophet's Night Journey and Ascendancy to Heaven (laylat al-isra' wal-mi' raj), Jordan's new Minister of Religious Endowments, Dr Ibrahim Zayd al-Kaylani, made a highly publicized speech at the central religious ceremony at King Abdallah's Mosque in Amman. The ceremony was conducted under the king's auspices; thus every word had the highest official approval and, strangely, it echoed faith in an Iraqi victory: The Islamic nation is living ... the great battle between the forces of despotism, oppression and evil, and the forces of truth, goodness and devotion to the Message and the Messenger ... the battle of the Qur'an against the falsified Bible and the Talmud, the battle of the Messenger of God against the ... murderers of the prophets ... who wish to build their new world order on the corpses of the nations, on the blood of the oppressed, on the flesh of children, the old and women ... [AI-Aqsa] Mosque is prisoner, and the imam and preacher and the caller to prayer ... and people [in Jerusalem] are in chains, but [now] the voice of the Caller to Prayer in Baghdad is rising, bringing good tidings, announcing to Jerusalem and its people that the day of deliverance [from Jewish rule] is close. lll

Throughout the fighting (16 January-28 February 1991) the Jordanian media was wholly supportive of Iraq and viciously antiAmerican. In fact, it served to amplify the crippled Iraqi broadcasting system in that it always presented the Iraqi version of the progression of the war first, thus creating the impression that that version was the correct one, and that the battle was being decided in favor of the Iraqi side. The Muslim Brotherhood, for their part, published an advertisement in jordan's newspapers according to which it was the duty of every Muslim to attack US interests everywhere. 112 On the diplomatic level, from the first days of the war Jordan did its utmost to achieve a cease-fire. These efforts were focused mainly on Arab and Third World countries, as well as on France, and the king was personally involved very deeply.ll3 This does not mean that the king had no reservations vis-it-vis Iraq. Indeed, on a few

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occasions during the unfolding crisis he implied mild criticism. In hindsight he would say in frustration: We feel that we neither succeeded in getting the Iraqis to move, in terms of their leadership, in a manner that might have been advisable and might have reversed the events peacefully ... or even ... [prevented their invading] action in the first place; nor were we able to convince others to try another way [rather than war]. 114

In practice, however, Jordan's media and diplomacy alike docilely served Iraq's purpose. On the strategic level there were reports that Jordan was violating the international embargo by delivering contraband goods to Iraq.115 More clearly, Jordan violated the air-travel blockade imposed on Iraq in September 1990, and flights stopped only during the actual fighting. 116 To sum up, its objection in principle to the occupation and annexation of Kuwait notwithstanding, the Jordanian regime's political support for Iraq's main tactical goals (an 'Arab solution' and the prevention of war, and after it started: stopping it before it was lost) was unswerving. Had the international community adopted the Jordanian line, there is little doubt that Kuwait would have become a de facto (if not fully fledged) Iraqi colony, and the king must have known it. The support of jordan's media for Iraq was even more impressive. All this was despite the significant economic and human damage the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the ensuing war inflicted on Jordan. In addition to the decline in the volume of cargoes going through Aqaba and Amman airport and the decline in exports to the Gulf, it also included the huge number of Kuwaiti, Palestinian, Arab and Asian refugees who flocked to Jordan (it is estimated that Palestinian Jordanians alone who arrived from Kuwait numbered no fewer than 250,000, increasing jordan's population from 3.3 million to 3.6 million in six months); the unemployment that ensued, despite some European aid and the influx of the refugees' assets of some $600 million (unemployment exceeded 20 per cent); 117 and the loss of income from Palestinian and Jordanian workers in the Gulf zone. According to an official Jordanian source, the total loss incurred as a result of the Kuwait crisis was to be expected to come up to $2 billion - some 50 per cent of Jordan's GDP - by the end of the first year. 118 Even if this assessment is inflated - as it probably is - jordan's losses were still substantial. But the media blamed the West, and the Gulf Arabs, not Saddam, for all the hardship.

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As soon as the guns fell silent by the end of February 1991, and the Iraqi defeat became apparent, jordan's policy started to shift gradually back towards a middle course between Iraq on the one side and the West and its Arab allies on the other. The reaction of the Arab opponents of Iraq was not favorable, though. The Gulf states, and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in particular, were unwilling to forgive and forget. Thus, for example, the Kuwaiti Heir Apparent and Prime Minister, Sheikh Sa'd al-'Abd AlIa aI-Salim alSabbah, announced that 'there can be no return to "let bygones be bygones'" in relation to Jordan. 'The Kuwaiti people are wounded and there is a real rift which the crisis caused and which the Kuwaiti people cannot forget.'119 GCC Secretary General 'Abd AlIa Bishara, a Kuwaiti, was quoted as having said on 30 March 1991, in reference to future aid to Jordan: 'How can you justify a continuing of aid to a country that turned its back on you? There is no forgiveness for this. It is not a romance where lovers quarrel. The crime is too big to forgive.'120 The Emirates signaled their displeasure by terminating the contracts of hundreds of Jordanians and Palestinians, sending them to unemployment in Jordan, to the consternation of the Jordanian press. 121 The Saudis, for their part, attacked the king where it must have hurt no less than in his pocket. One day after he announced that he had allotted $8.279 million for the restoration of al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, King Fahad announced that he had decided to contribute all the necessary sums for the reconstruction of al-Aqsa, the Dome of the Rock and, as befitting the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques (in Mecca and Medina), and one of the richest people on earth, he also pledged to finance 'the building and maintenance of the houses of the imams, the preachers, those who make the call for the prayer and their attendants', namely, all the clergy connected with the two Jerusalem shrines. The Saudi king announced that he had won total Egyptian support for this venture, thus effectively isolating King Hussein. 122 This, no doubt, was a belated Saudi response to King Hussein's adoption of the new title of 'sharif' on the eve of the Kuwait crisis. As the suspicious Saudis saw it, the new title, identical to that of King Hussein's great-grandfather, who ruled over the Hijaz until 1924, implied a claim to Mecca and Medina. This time, however, the tables were turned.

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Relations with Egypt seemed to have developed in a slightly more promising manner, but the atmosphere was heavily charged. Thus, in August 1991 the Jordanian government issued a White Paper that claimed that, in early August 1990, Egypt and Saudi Arabia sabotaged a mini-summit in Jidda that could have solved the whole Kuwait crisis peacefully within an Arab framework. 123 The Egyptian press reacted ferociously, accusing the king of treachery and falsification and demanding an apology. 124 The Western countries and Israel, however, were far more forthcoming. The most important indication that Jordan was hitting a new balance was its readiness to join the American-sponsored peace process. 12S This Jordan (and, indeed, the PLO) did in the face of strong Iraqi opposition. Saddam Husayn and his regime regarded the American success in convening the Madrid peace conference as a major blow to Arab interests, and to those of the Palestinians in particular. Indeed, the Iraqi media unleashed vitriolic attacks against those Arabs who made this conference possible. Yet, it carefully refrained from burning the bridges between Iraq and Jordan (as well as between Iraq and the PLO). The two latter participants, while occasionally criticized, were never mentioned by name. Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, however, were explicitly denounced as traitors to the Arab cause for going to Madrid. 126 Jordan reciprocated in kind. While remaining committed to the peace process, it simultaneously campaigned vigorously on the international level for the lifting of the UN embargo against Iraq.127 More important, throughout 1991 Jordan served as Iraq's almost exclusive link with the outside world. Passengers would make their way between Baghdad and Amman on land and then use the latter for flights. The Joint Iraqi-Jordanian Land Transport Company, using its fleet of 396 trucks, would deliver massive cargoes in both directions (some 3,000 tons going to Iraq every day):128 Iraq was importing food, medicines and, as occasionally reported by wellinformed American and other Western sources, contraband goods, and exporting heavy equipment which it no longer needed. Most revealing in this respect is a series of interviews with American administration officials, the results of which appeared in the New York Times by the end of 1991. Here the officials reported that Jordan was illegally delivering communication equipment, spare parts for oil refineries, water treatment plants and electrical power generation to Iraq. The New York Times also reported travelers'

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accounts regarding newsprint, tractors, tires and unidentified machinery. According to the American Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jordan may have also been exporting Iraqi sulphur and refined oil products and delivering steel to Iraq. The officials defined all this as 'relatively insignificant leakage', but at the same time, they implied that the quantities were sufficiently large that if effectively blocked they could jeopardize jordan's frail economy. Indeed, Senator Clayborne Pell and a few other members of the Foreign Relations Committee felt that the reports of these infringements were serious enough to justify putting a hold on $45 million of military assistance to Jordan until the issue was cleared. 129 Most important: on 10 April 1991, Iraq resumed its oil deliveries to Jordan, using the existing fleet of tanker trucks. (During the fighting Jordan bought oil from Syria and Yemen, paying an extra cost of some $25 million a month.)I3O These deliveries of between 50,000 and 70,000 barrels of oil a day were allowed again by the UN because they were considered debt repayment. By the spring of 1992, however, the Iraqi debt to Jordan was repaid in full, yet the oil deliveries were continued. According to a usually reliable source, out of the 55,000 bid Jordan needs for its own consumption, Iraq provided 33,000 bid free of charge, and the rest for a reduced price of $16 per barrel, in return for which Jordan exported goods to Iraq.13I Unless all the oil was a gift, however, these oil shipments were in themselves in violation of the embargo even if all goods delivered in exchange were in compliance with it: under the embargo regulations Iraq was not supposed to sell (or exchange) any oil, unless done according to UN Security Council Resolutions 706 and 712 of 1991, which Iraq had rejected. Indeed, as implied (and occasionally explicitly expressed) by Iraqi and Jordanian officials, Jordan and Iraq were somehow violating the rules of the embargo. Thus, for example, in an interview to an Iraqi daily, when relating to jordan's compliance with the UN embargo, the king said: 'We are applying the [UN Security Council's] resolutions in accordance with our ability, while taking into account the circumstances and the close ties between Jordan and Iraq'.132 Finally, Iraqi politicians promised the Jordanian public that in the future, too, Iraq would keep using Jordan as its main trade link with the outside world.133 To manage this huge volume of trade between the two countries, Jordanian and Iraqi officials were keeping constantly in close touch. Iraq would send government ministers to Amman, and Jordan, while making sure at first that no ministers would be sent to

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Baghdad, sent a constant stream of deputy ministers and middleand lower-rank officials.13 4 On the semi and unofficial levels, in addition to numerous letters of support from various Jordanian organizations, Baghdad also became a focus for their pilgrimage: Jordanian leaders and delegations of students', professors', teachers', lawyers', peasants', dentists' and workers' unions, and Jordanian writers, artists and other intellectuals, all would travel to Baghdad to express their support for the Iraqi people and leadership in their struggle against 'Western imperialism', and would receive extensive coverage in the Iraqi press. 13S Incumbent Parliament members as well as ex-cabinet ministers were also frequent guests in Saddam's Baghdad. 136 Not surprisingly, the indefatigable exBa'thist Amin Shuqayr, the pharmaceutical manufacturer and head of the Popular Jordanian Committee for the Support of Iraq, was the single most prominent private Jordanian to frequent Iraq after the war.137 Jordanian politicians expressed staunch support for Iraq and its leadership,138 and the king and Saddam exchanged warm letters of congratulations on various state occasions. Saddam even showed his personal attachment to the king by sending his favorite children's choir, 'The Leader's Beloved Ones' (Ahbab al-Qa'id), to Amman to sing for the king on his birthday.139 In exchange, a Jordanian musical team participated in the Festival of the Mother of All Battles, to mark the first anniversary of the Gulf War, where it played a new concerto, 'The Dawn of Iraq'.14o In late June 1992 Jordan imposed more strict rules on transit trade to Iraq through Aqaba. 141 This increased pressure on the already overburdened system of foodstuffs prices in Iraq. Indeed, since mid-1991 there were reports in the Iraqi press of price rises and violent oscillations in the prices of basic commodities that the government found impossible to control. 142 The regime's response was to launch vicious attacks on the black marketeers, and even on some corrupt government officials who enabled them to hoard goods. 143 In late July 1992, the Iraqi security forces arrested 42 people who were accused of profiteering and summarily executed them. Some of the dead were leading merchants who had had very close ties with the Jordanian trading community since the early 1980s. The haste and arbitrary nature of these executions were demonstrated by the discovery that two of those executed were not even merchants: they were picked up in a shop and executed together with the owner of that shop.144 The Iraqi press did not admit the executions, though in

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hindsight it called for 'beheading those who show ingratitude and steal the people's food'. Profiteering was defined as 'high treason, a crime punishable by death'.145 The Jordanian press, however, was much more explicit, and the diplomatic community in Amman was fully informed about the incident by Iraqis and Jordanians who came from Baghdad. 146 The result was some 70 per cent drop in the volume of goods shipped from Jordan to Iraq, from 6,000 tons to less than 2,000 tons per day. The reason for the drop was twofold. In the first place, Jordanian merchants rarely sold or bought inside Iraq. Owing to the fluctuations in the value of the Iraqi dinar, and to their strong misgivings regarding the arbitrary pricing rules in Iraq, they preferred to finalize their deals with their Iraqi counterparts in the free zone in the port of Aqaba, or, at any rate, before the trucks crossed the border. Now the Iraqi link was missing, because Iraqi merchants panicked as they no longer understood the rules of the game at home. Those Jordanian merchants who did business inside Iraq were deterred by the steep inflation in terms of the dinar-dollar ratio. There are indications that the king became extremely annoyed by the executions (see below). It may be assumed that he, too, stepped on the brakes. The Iraqi response was to send the Minister of Trade, Muhammad Mahdi Salih, to Amman to speak with the Jordanian mercantile community and to try and convince them to resume normal commercial ties, with a special emphasis on foodstuffs. As reported by the Jordanian press, however, there was no enthusiasm in Jordan to go back to business as usual. 147 In August King Hussein underwent surgery in Washington, DC. Upon leaving the hospital, when asked about the situation in Iraq, the king implied strong reservations in regard to Saddam Husayn: 'some rulers give precedence to their own interests over the interests of their homelands and peoples', he retorted. Early in August the king sent a very unusual personal message of condolence to a Shi'ite opposition group upon the death of Grand Ayat Allah 'Abu AIQasim al-Kho'i, who died in Kufa on 8 August 1992 at the age of 93 and was given a state funeral. The king defined Kho'i (who was known for his passive opposition to Saddam) as his cousin, and refrained from sending the usual letter of condolences to Saddam Husayn. The reason for this unusual behavior may be twofold. The king was very upset about the executions in Baghdad, but he was also very bitter because Saddam had not responded to his request to allow Kho'i to come to Amman for medical treatment and, later, to

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allow a few members of the king's family to participate in the funeral in Iraq.148 On his way back from Washington, DC to Amman, the king stopped over in London, where he met with Kho'i's son as well as with the Kurdish opposition leader Jalal Talabani. On the same occasion he also met with the anti-Ba'thist Iraqi banker Ahmad Chelebi, whom he had accused of large-scale bank fraud when operating in Jordan a few years back.149 In November 1992 the king made a few more remarks that could only be understood as criticism of Saddam Husayn and a demand that he abdicate. 150 The last incident between the two countries occurred on 7 December 1992, when Iraqi agents in Amman assassinated an Iraqi nuclear scientist, Hasan al-Janabi, for trying to escape from Iraq. According to a London-based Arabic newspaper known for its reliable sources, altogether six people were arrested in connection with the assassination. Four of them carried Iraqi diplomatic passports. 151 While Jordanian-Iraqi relations clearly cooled off during the second half of 1992, both sides refrained from a decisive break.152 The king must have been aware of the great sympathy that large segments of the Jordanian political community still held for Saddam, as well as of his continued dependence on trade with Iraq, as limited as it was, and on Iraqi oil. In the summer of 1992 there were some faint signs of a Jordanian-Saudi rapprochement. 153 This process, however, was very uncertain. Indeed, in November 1992 the king, apparently dissatisfied with the Gulf states' response, criticized them. This prompted a renewed avalanche of antiJordanian articles in the Gulf press and angry responses in the Jordanian press,tS4 and Jordan could ill afford a complete break with Iraq. Saddam, for his part, was dependent on the Jordanian link not only in terms of commerce but also in those of contacts with the outside world, diplomatic and otherwise: all his envoys would come and go through Amman, and many middle class Iraqis would go to Amman to spend some time there for recreation or to sell family gold. 155 CONCLUSION

By early 1992 Saddam demonstrated his pragmatic approach to Jordan by allowing the king to join the peace process and improve his relations with the West, in return for Jordanian strategic

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cooperation and diplomatic support in his campaign to lift the embargo. The king, for his part, was carefully striking a middle course between Iraq and the rest of the world. While cautiously distancing himself personally from his former ally, he allowed lower-level ties to flourish. This way he won on both fronts. He managed to substantially reduce the tension with Israel that had mounted during the war; to regain his position as a persona grata in Washington, London and Paris; and to receive international economic aid. At the same time, however, by allowing high-profile pro-Iraqi public activity and by demonstrating his strategic and diplomatic support for Saddam, he averted public disorder and Iraqi-sponsored terrorist activities. In addition, in return for his cooperation he received from Iraq all the oil Jordan needed; as long as the Gulf Arabs were unwilling to replace the Iraqi oil supplies, the king had little choice in this matter. Iraq also remained the main market for Jordan's food-processing and pharmaceutical industry. It would seem, then, that even the Kuwait crisis and its aftermath did not undo the de facto Iraqi-Jordanian federation. No wonder, then, that the Iraqi First Vice-President, Taha Yasin Ramadan, went so far as to define bilateral relations as those of integration. 156 Under the Ba'th, between 1968 and the aftermath of the Kuwait crisis, Iraq came full circle in its relations with Jordan. It started with ambivalence verging on hostility, which turned into unmitigated hostility following the events of Black September. Motivated, however, by Baghdad's traditional quest for outlets to the sea and for Arab strategic support in its rivalry with Syria, then Iran, and finally also the Gulf Arab states, the Ba'th leadership reverted to ever-growing cooperation with Jordan. Seen in historical perspective, Saddam Husayn's reading of Iraq's geo-strategic interests took him in the same direction that had been adopted by Faysal I and Nuri al-Sa'id between 1928 and 1958, when they tried to forge a Fertile Crescent federation. However, owing to his obsession with total control, and his inability to dislodge President Hafiz ai-As ad from his seat of power in Damascus, Saddam had to settle for a truncated Fertile Crescent scheme, including just Iraq and Jordan. From Saddam's viewpoint, this direction proved to be an unmitigated success. From King Hussein's point of view, however, things looked very different. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait exposed what had been concealed by the outward appearance of Jordanian sovereignty and independence: that a de facto Iraqi-Jordanian federation had been

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forged by the late 1980s, but that this was not a federation between equals. The king, the prisoner of his own policy since 1979, was no longer at liberty to withdraw from it even if he wanted to, and there is no certainty that he did want to. In the first place, Jordan could no longer detach itself from the mammoth Iraqi economy. This dependence dictated such a pro-Iraqi line that it alienated jordan's conservative former allies in the Gulf. In turn, this alienation drove the king ever deeper into Saddam's waiting arms. Second, the king could no longer risk an open breach with Baghdad because of Saddam Husayn's omnipresent, massive influence in the internal Jordanian political arena. This influence subsided somewhat after Saddam was beaten on the battlefield, which allowed the king to join the American-sponsored peace process. But it is doubtful whether he would have joined that process had Saddam been less flexible about it: all the existing evidence indicates that, even after his military defeat, the Iraqi President still enjoys widespread popular support in Jordan/ 57 and it may be assumed that this support will remain as long as Saddam rules Iraq.

NOTES This article is an expanded and updated version from 2 August 1990 - April 1992, of an article that appeared in Middle East journal, Vol. 45, No.1 (Winter 1991). I would like to thank my assistants Noga Efrati and Ronen Zeidel for their help in collecting the updated material, and Mr Irving Young of London for sponsoring this research. 1. Saddam Husayn, al-Siyasa [Kuwait), 17 Jan. 1981. 2. Thawrat 17 tammuz, al-tajriba wal afaq (The 17 July Revolution, Practice and Horizons, the Resolutions of the Eighth Regional-Iraqi Congress, of the Party) (Baghdad, Jan. 1974), pp. 167-72; and Fi daw' al-taqrir al-siyasi Ii/-mu'tamar al-qutri al-thamin (In the Light of the Political Resolutions of the Eighth Regional Congress) (Baghdad, 1974). 3. See, for example, President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr, Masirat al-thawra fi khutab wa tasrihat al-ra'is (Baghdad, 1971), pp. 57-8; and Political Report, Tenth National Congress (Baghdad, 1970), p. 82. For examples of anti-Saudi and anti-conservative diatribe, see al-jumhuriyya (fum), 4, 5 Nov. 1968; Saddam Husayn, jum, 5,13 May 1970; al-Thawra (Th), 10 Dec. 1968; Thawrat 17 tammuz, op. cit., p. 180; al-Khalij alArabi, Vol. 1, No.1, 1973, pp. 7-12. For attacks on Abd ai-Nasser, see, for example, Bakr, Masirat al-Thawra, pp. 38-44. 60-5;jum, 6 June 1970; 27 Sept. 1970; Husayn, jum, 13 May 1970. For attacks against the twin Ba'th regime in Damascus see, for example, Th, jum, 23 Feb. 1969 and 23 Feb. 1970. 4. President Bakr on 19 July 1970, Masirat al-thawra, pp. 49-51, 254-5; and the Iraqi Commander of the Eastern Front, jum, 2 Sept. 1970; the pan-Arab leadership of the party, Th, jum, 11 Sept. 1970. Interior Minister General Salih Mahdi Ammash, declaring that Iraq had already placed its army 'under the command' of the Palestinian

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organizations, fum, 3 Jan. 1970, front page. On the eve of the Palestinian confrontations with Jordan, Arafat had been convinced that Iraq was actually going to support him; see Jubran Shamiya (ed.), Silsilat Sijill al-ara Hawla al-waqa'i' al-siyasiyya fi albilad al-'arabiyya (Sijill al-Ara) (a monthly collection of articles in the Arab press and news agencies reports) (Beirut), July-Sept. 1970, pp. 172-3. 5. Communique of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), fum, 27 Sept. 1970. 6. fum, 10, 11 June 1970; Middle East News Agency (MENA) (Cairo), 12 Sept. 1970, in Sijill al-Ara, July-Sept. 1970, p. 385. 7. Reuters, 15 Oct. 1970; Iraqi News Agency (INA), 20 Nov. 1970, in Sijill al-Ara, Oct.Dec. 1970, pp. 193-4; Jordan's confidence that as long as the battle with Syria was not decided Iraq would stay aloof was so great that it left the massive Iraqi force practically uncovered (interview, Europe, 1990). 8. Thawrat 17 tammuz, op. cit., p. 172. 9. Thawrat 17 tammuz, op. cit., pp. 163-6, 169, 172-3. There was harsh criticism of Iraq's behavior in Black September in the usually friendly magazine of Hawatmeh's Popular Democratic Front, al-Huriyya (Beirut), 5, 21 April 1971. When Iraq's inaction and the defeat of the Palestinian organizations became apparent, and the Iraqi and radical Arab public reacted with indignation, this controversy led to severe infighting in Baghdad. See, for example, Arab Report and Record, 16-30 June 1974, pp. 249-50; Majid Khadduri, Socialist Iraq (Washington, DC, 1978), p. 59; Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton, 1978), pp. 10967; FBIS-Daily Report (FBIS-DR), 16 Oct. 1970; al-Hawadith, 12 Feb. 1971; for more details, see A. Baram, Iraq of the Ba'th, 1968-1994 (forthcoming). 10. For example, fum, 21 Oct. 1970, p. 4; Michel Aflaq, Nuqtat al-bidaya (Beirut, 1971), p. 174; RCC declaration, fum, 27 Sept. 1970; editorials, fum, 17, 18 March 1972. And compare to Ahmad Shuqayri's reference to Jordan in 1966, Asher Susser, Between fordan and Palestine (Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv, 1984), p. 95. 11. News agency reports as reproduced in Sijill al-Ara, Oct.-Dec. 1970, p. 752. President Bakr to al-Nahar, 9 April 1971; Bakr to Th, 18 Nov. 1971; Associated Press (AP) report, 23 Oct. 1970, as reproduced in Sijill al-Ara, Oct.-Dec. 1970, p. 168; Reuters, 6 Jan. 1971;AP,21Jan. 1971,inSijillal-Ara,Jan.-March 1971,pp.I72,802;al-Ahram, 18,19 Jan. 1971. Staunch support was given by the Eighth Regional Congress in Jan. 1974, which was fully controlled by Saddam Husayn anc his circle (Taha Yasin Ramadan, Izzat al-Duri and others), for this withdrawal and its severe criticism of those party leaders who advocated intervention, Thawrat 17 tammuz, pp. 170-74. In 1971, the air space and borders between the two countries were closed. Alasdair Drysdale, 'Political Conflict and Jordanian Access to the Sea', The Geographical Review, Vol. 77, No.1 (Jan. 1987), p. 95. 12. See, for example, Keesings Contemporary Archives (Keesings) (London), 1975, p. 27235; 1976,p. 27755. 13. Radio Amman, 18 Nov. 1976, FBIS-DR, 19 Nov. 1976, pp. F1, F2; Middle East Contemporary Survey (Tel-Aviv University), 1976-77, p. 478. 14. Sijill al-Ara, Oct.-Dec. 1970, p. 168. Ibid., p. 367, for funeral ceremonies of ALF people who died when fighting against the king's troops. 15. Law 27 of 1971, Weekly Gazette (WG) 13 of 1973. 16. For details, see Amatzia Baram, 'The Ruling Political Elite in Ba'thi Iraq, 1968-1986: The Changing Features of a Collective Profile', International fournal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 21, No.4 (Nov. 1989), pp. 450-57. 17. Based on an interview in Europe in Sept. 1980. This policy of buying submission, or cooperation through huge personal gifts to political leaders was repeated many times by Saddam Husayn between 1974 and 1990. The latest example was a gift of $25 million and expensive cars given to President Mubarak and cars for his ministers in the hope that this gift would convince them to toe the Iraqi line after the invasion of Kuwait. See

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18. 19.

20. 21.

22.

23.

24.

25. 26. 27.

28. 29.

30. 31. 32. 33.

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Mubarak's report to Senator Frank Laughtenberg, Yediot Ahronot, 29 Aug. 1990. Jordanian politicians were reportedly treated in the same way. Keesings, 1975, p. 26167. Sijill al-Ara, March 1969 pp. 51-5, 169-70. See Joseph Nevo, 'Syria and Jordan: the Politics of Subversion', in Moshe Ma'oz and Avner Yaniv, Syria Under Assad (London, 1986), pp. 140-54. See Uriel Dann, 'Regime and Opposition in Jordan', in Menahem Milson (ed.), Society and Political Structure in the Arab World (New York, 1973), pp. 151-81; Eliezer Beeri, The Officer Class in Politics and Society of the Arab East (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1966), pp.160-4. In the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the king was under great pressure from his army commanders to open a Jordanian front with Israel. The king's response was to send an armored brigade to the Syrian front under the command of some of the most troublesome officers. Asher Susser, 'Jordan', in Colin Legum and Haim Shaked (eds.), Middle East Contemporary Survey, Vol. 1, 1976-77 (New York and London: The Shiloah Center, Tel-Aviv University), p. 486; Patrick Seale, Asad, The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988), p. 294. The Reagan plan ascribed a very central role to Jordan in the peace negotiations. In 1985, the Iraqi President called for 'a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation' to discuss the Palestinian issue with the US, thus giving direct support for an American-sponsored, pro-Jordanian peace process. See Th, 24 Nov. 1987. See Central Bank of Jordan, Monthly Statistical Bulletin, July 1989, p. 66. A. Drysdale, op. cit., p. 99; Keesings, 1981, p. 31009. Radio Amman, 22 Sept. 1980, FBIS-DR, 23 Sept. 1980, p. Fl; Keesings, 1981, pp. 31009-11. This command resulted in extensive military cooperation, excluding the positioning of a significant portion of the Jordanian army on the Iranian front. On the king's own admission that there was strong opposition in Jordan to the Iraqi invasion of Iran 'because Iran is an Islamic country', see al-Hawadith in FBIS-DR, 7 Nov. 1980, quoted in Robert Sadoff, Islamic Activism in Jordan (Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1986), p. 5. On Asad's accusation that Jordan supported the Ikhwan, see Khutab wa tasrihat al-ra'is Hafiz al-Asad (Damascus, 1982), pp. 88-96; on the king's belated admission that his people engaged in training and arming the Ikhwan, see Patrick Seale, op. cit., p. 35-6. Keesings, 1982, p. 31523. A few days after Khumayni's victorious return to Tehran in February 1979, the northern city of Salt was the scene of several pro-Khumayni demonstrations, and in October of the same year, several mosque preachers were arrested in Jordan for championing Iran's Islamic Republic in their Friday sermons. Robert B. Sadoff, op. cit., pp. 4-5. As reported to the author by a well-informed Western official, the king actively encouraged the Iraqi President to launch a military offensive against Khumayni's Iran (an interview, London, 18 Jan. 1990. This information is based on an Omani report to Western diplomats. The Omanis also reported that the king had asked them to provide bases, from which Iraq could attack Iran's southern ports). IMF International Statistics Yearbook - International Financial Statistics, 1987, p. 433; Annual Abstract of Statistics, Baghdad, 1987, p. 157; Central Bank of Jordan, Monthly Statistical Bulletin, July 1989, p. 47. For example, DerSpiegel, 9 Aug. 1987; EI Pais (Spain), 27 May 1987; al-Sha'b (Cairo), 30 Sept. 1986. Al-Siyasa, 26 April 1986; MENA, 27-28 Nov. 1985; Jordan'S minister of transportation to Amman Radio, 31 Oct. 1985; Jum (Cairo), 5 July 1985; Nidal al-Sha'b (Cyprus), 19 Dec. 1987; al-Dustur, 1 Nov. 1985. On cooperation between the ministries of Waqf, see Amman Radio, 13 June 1987; alRa'y, 4, 18 Sept. 1987; on other areas, al-Ra'y, 20 Jan. 1985; 25 July 1985; 23 Aug.

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1985; 28 Feb. 1986; 28 Jan. 1987; Amman Radio, 13 April 1985; INA, 14 Dec. 1987; Reuters from Amman, 6 Dec. 1986; al-Dustur, 3 Feb. 1986. 34. IMF, Direction of Trade Annual, 1984, p. 214; 1987, p. 231. Jordanian exports to Iraq were mainly pharmaceutical goods, detergents and soap, household durables, canned food and vegetables. Some of the vegetables came from the West Bank. See, Rodney Wilson, 'Jordan's Trade', IJMES, Vol. 20, No.3 (Aug. 1988), p. 337; and interviews with Israeli officials in the West Bank during 1988. 35. Monthly Statistical Bulletin, July 1989, p. 54. The US came second, and Saudi Arabia third. 36. Reuters from Amman, 2July 1988. See also,Jordan Times, 3 May 1988; The Jerusalem Post, 17 Aug. 1990; and an Arab banker who is well-acquainted with Jordan's economy (interview, London, 10 March 1990). 37. An interview with a well-informed Jordanian source, London, 30 Nov. 1989. 38. Jordan Times, 28 Sept. 1989, FBIS-DR, 5 Oct. 1989; for Jordan's reserves, see also Central Bank ofJordan, Monthly Statistical Bulletin, July 1989, p. 14. jordan's foreign reserves were estimated by MEED at $250 million in late Aug. 1988 (24 Feb. 1989, pp. 2-3). Reserves in mid-1990 reportedly declined to $40 million. See Haaretz, 18 May 1990. 39. MEED, 24 Feb. 1990; Crown Prince Hasan, Jordan Times, 23 June 1990. 40. Ibid. MEED, 24 Feb. 1989, pp. 2-3; 9 Feb. 1990,p. 9. In late 1989 and early 1990, Iraq paid back some of its debt but according to an Arab banker close to jordan's financial system in March 1990, Iraq still owed Jordan's Central Bank between $450 million and $600 million. In addition, it owed private Jordanian citizens at least a further $0.4 billion (interview, London, 10 March 1990). For details on a letters-of-credit scandal in which Jordan's Central Bank had to bailout more than 100 Jordanian firms that delivered goods to Iraq worth $100 to $300 million in excess of the bilateral trade agreement, see Jordan Times, 3,11 May 1988; 14 June 1988; Financial Times, 11, 17 May 1988; and an interview with a diplomatic source, London, 15 Jan. 1990. The Iraqi Jordanian trade agreement for 1988 stipulated Jordanian exports to Iraq at $185 million. Some of the goods sold to Iraq were, in fact, Jordanian imports. 41. An interview with a well-informed Jordanian, London, 30 Nov. 1989. For calls to bring Egypt back to the Arab fold see, for example, al-Ra'y, 10, 14 Oct. 1983. For the visit of Egypt's Foreign Minister to Amman, Radio Amman, 27 Oct. 1983, in FBIS-DR, 28 Oct. 1983, p. Fl; for the resumption of diplomatic relations, Jordan TV and Cairo Radio, 25 Sept., FBIS-DR, 26 Sept. 1984, pp. Dl, F1. 42. Keesings, 1981, p. 30703; Keesings 1982, p. 31350-1. 43. Khutab wa kalimat wa tasrihat al-sayyid al-ra'is hafiz al-asad (Damascus, 1982), p. 95. 44. Al-Yawm al-Sabi' (Paris), 15 April 1985. 45. AI-'Alam, 13 Dec. 1986. 46. On the king's fear that 'Baghdad should fall', see AI-Qabas, 1-2 Aug. 1987; on Syrian terrorist activity in Jordan, see AI-Qabas, 11 April 1985. 47. See, for example, Iraq's 'surprise and concern' over Oman's improved relations with Iran, delivered through Jordan, al-Qabas, 9 Sept. 1987; INA, 18 Aug. 1987. 48. For example, Keesings, 1983, p. 32037; INA,S April 1987. 49. For one such case of Jordanian purchases of arms for Iraq from a Belgium-based company, PRB, and of orders of highly sophisticated missile control equipment from British companies, see Haaretz, 1 June 1990, reporting from London on the results of an investigation by lTV. 50. See interview with an anonymous senior Jordanian official by Haaretz, 20 May 1990; Haaretz, 4 May 1990; and see King Hussein's speech at the Baghdad summit, ibid., where he spoke of the danger of Israeli military expansionism. On the king's accusing Israel of planning 'a takeover in Jordan' and Shamir's assurance that this was not so, Yediot Ahronot, 19 June 1990. 51. Haaretz, 24, 25 May 1990.

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52. For example, Middle East Contemporary Survey 1981-82, pp. 677-8; Crown Prince Hasan, Radio Jordan, 17 Jan. 1984, FBIS-DR, 18 Jan. 1984, pp. AI, A2; Foreign Minister Marwan al-Qasim in an interview with Saddam Husayn, INA, 19 Feb. FBISDR, 20 Feb. 1990; the king's speech at the Baghdad Arab summit, Baghdad Radio, 28 May, FBIS-DR, 30 May 1990, p. 7. Fears of the consequences ofJewish immigration to the territories but also to Israel at large, Prince Hasan in the Los Angeles Times, as quoted in Haaretz, 7 May 1990; an interview with a Jordanian intellectual, London, 9 March 1990; Jordan's ambassador to Kuwait, al-Dustur, 15 Feb. 1990. Evidence that Shamir's government viewed Jordan as a Palestinian state may be found in the Program of Proposed Government's Policies Gerusalem Government Press Office, 12 June 1990), clause 3F (Israel will oppose the establishment of 'another Palestinian state' in the territories. Author's emphasis). 53. AI-Dustur, 24 Jan. 1990. 54. MEED, 14 July 1989, p. 15; 23 March 1989, p. 21; 28 April 1989, p. 21; 9 Feb. 1990, p. 9. According to a well-informed Western diplomat, Saddam Husayn advised the king against this democratization program for fear of an Islamic upsurge (interview, London,9 March 1990). According to Kamel S. Abu Jaber and Schirin H. Fathi, 'The 1989 Jordanian Parliamentary Election', Orient, Vol. I, No.3 (1990), pp. 81-3, only 20 Muslim Brothers and 14 Islamic independents were elected. 55. Prince Hasan in New York Times, as reported by Haaretz, 27 May 1990; and in the Los Angeles Times, Haaretz, 7 May 1990. In addition to their victory at the November 1989 elections, the Muslim fundamentalists also won the local elections in mid-May 1990 in Aqaba and Zarqa (Haaretz, 18 May 1990). The Jordanian government decided to appease these circles by, for example, forbidding alcoholic drinks on official occasions and removing erotic scenes from Jordanian TV. 56. Indeed, despite Iraq's economic difficulties at the end of the war, bilateral economic relations were further cemented, thus increasing jordan's dependence on Iraq. Most notably, in December 1988 it was decided to boostthe volume of bilateral trade in 1989 to $800 million and to link the two countries by a 1,130-km long railroad line that would reach Aqaba and be capable of transporting annually 2.5 million passengers and 10 million tons of cargo. See, for example, Amman TV, 18 Dec. 1988, FBIS-DR, 21 Dec. 1988, pp. 23-4; Baghdad Radio, 7 March 1989, FBIS-DR, 31 March 1989, p. 1; Th, 18 June 1989,FBIS-DR, 22June 1989, p. 15; Baghdad Observer, 8 March 1989, p. 2. 57. For the king's and Saddam's speeches, see Baghdad Radio, 28 May 1990, FBIS-DR, 30 May 1990, pp. 7, 9; Jordan TV, 28 May 1990. 58. INA, 30 May 1990. Iraq itself gave only $50 million Gordan TV). AI-Nahar (East Jerusalem), 31 May 1990, reported that the aid decided upon was $600 million; alAnba (Kuwait), claimed that the king demanded $1 billion, and according to alMuharrir (Beirut-Paris), 5 June 1990, the king indeed managed to obtain assurances that Jordan would be assisted to the tune of $1 billion during the summer of 1990. See ibid. also about Saddam Husayn's great efforts to advance the Jordanian cause. 59. See, for example, an interview with Brig. Gen. Danni Rothschild of Israeli military intelligence, The Jerusalem Post, 22 June 1990; Haaretz, 18 Feb. 1990; Reuven Pedahtzur, Haaretz, 18 May 1990. 60. See, for example, Haaretz, 1 June 1990. 61. The commander of jordan's air force to the Egyptian air force magazine as reported by MENA (Cairo), 23 June 1990. 62. Saddam Husayn's interview to the Wall Street Journal, 28 June 1990. For Iraqi threats following the Libyan-sponsored seaborne terrorist operation, see Yediot Ahronot, 19 June 1990. 63. For example, Haaretz, 25 May; 15 July 1990. 64. See, for example, the report in al-Bayadir al-Siyasi (East Jerusalem), 21 June 1986. 65. See, for example, Saddam Husayn's speech at the meeting of the pan-Arab leadership in

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July 1985, published in Th, 24 Nov. 1987, and al-Tali'a al-'Arabiyya, 30 Nov. 1987, p. 4, where he explained why, when it was 'kicked' by the PLO, Iraq decided against 'cutting off the leg' that kicked it. 66. For example, Tariq Aziz, in an interview with Le Monde, 8 Jan. 1983. 67. Before Arafat's announcement see, for example, a joint communique of Egyptian and Iraqi parliamentary delegations, MENA, 7 Jan. 1988. Also see the RCC and Regional Leadership joint communique in regard to the Algiers resolutions, INA, 16 Nov. 1988, FBIS-DR, 16 Nov. 1988, p. 28; Foreign Minister Aziz to the UN General Assembly, Baghdad Radio, 13 Dec1988,FBIS-DR, 14 Dec. 1988,p. 29; andSaddam Husaynon a Palestinian state, al-Tadamun, 28 Dec. 1988. The establishment of a Palestinian embassy in Baghdad, Radio Baghdad, 27 Dec. 1988, FBIS-DR, 28 Dec. 1988, p. 27; Arafat defined as 'President of the State of Palestine', Baghdad Radio, 9 May 1989, FBlS-DR, 10 May 1989, p. 16; INA, 7 May 1989, FBlS-DR, 8 May 1989, p. 24. 68. For example, Nass hadith al-ra'is ... fi a'mal al-nadwa al-thalitha lil-shabbab al-'arab (Baghdad, 26 Nov. 1988), p. 6. 69. INA, 9 Nov. 1987, FBIS-DR, 10 Nov. 1987, p. 15; Saddam Husayn, Th, 24 Nov. 1987; al-Tali'a al-'Arabiyya, 30 Nov. 1987, pp. 5-6. For Iraqi insistence on a fully independent Palestinian delegation to any peace talks, see for example, Ramadan to Uktubr, 12 Sept. 1986; Tariq Aziz to al-Sayyad, 6 March 1987; Aziz to Radio Monte-Carlo, 26 Jan. 1988. 70. See Haaretz report of Arafat's offer at a dinner with the king, 18 April 1990. See also P. M. Zayd Rifa'i, Jordan TV, 1 Nov., FBlS-DR, 2 Nov. 1988. 71. INA (in Arabic), 4 July 1988, FBIS-DR, 5 July 1988, p. 18. 72. The Iraqi press, 21 June 1989, as reported by Reuters from Baghdad, FBIS-DR, 21 June 1989, p. 72.6; and Reuters from Baghdad quoting INA, 1 July 1989. 73. Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, INA, 22 Feb. 1989, FBIS-DR, 23 Feb. 1989, p. 22; First Deputy Prime Minister Taha Yasin Ramadan, Baghdad Radio, 12 April 1989, FBISDR, 13 April 1989, p. 23; a joint meeting of the RCC and the regional leadership of the party, INA, 26 Feb 1989, FBIS-DR, 28 Feb. 1989, p. 29. 74. For example, Lisan ai-Hal (Beirut), 15 July 1989. 75. Jordan's great dependence on its share of the Yarmuk Unity Dam water was recognized when in May 1990, the king announced, in response to Israel's objection to the completion of the dam, that only water would induce him to go to war against Israel again. (Haaretz, 25 May 1990, quoting The Independent; 15 July 1990, quoting Crown Prince Hasan that water may precipitate war. The king and the prince remained silent over the fact that since 1983 Syria has constructed 28 medium-size and small dams on the Yarmuk and its tributaries, thus denying both Jordan and Israel much of the winter flood waters (220 million cubic meters annually). In Sept. 1987, Jordan was forced to sign an unsatisfactory agreement with Syria, but there is no Israeli-Jordanian agreement as yet. 76. An interview with the king, Jordan Radio, 17 June 1990; also the king's speech at the Arab summit at Baghdad, Jordan Radio, FBIS-DR, 30 May 1990, p. 7. 77. See, for example, the high-profile coverage in the British press of Jordan's help to Iraq to purchase the sophisticated Belgian technology to produce the propellant for Iraq's Supergun in 1988-89, The Independent, 14 March 1992. 78. Haaretz, 18 March 1990. 79. For Saddam's demand, see INA, 19 Feb. 1990, FBIS-DR, 20 Feb. 1990, pp. 2-3. 80. Compare the king's speech with that of Mubarak, MENA (Cairo) and INA, 28 May 1990. For Arafat's demands, see al-Muharrir, 5 June 1990. For the Jordanian line during the summit, see al-Muharrir, 19 June 1990. 81. The Sunday Times, 22 July 1990; The Times, 12 Sept. 1990, reported that, among others, Abu Nidal's group moved back to Baghdad [from where it was evicted in the early 1980s as a result of American pressure]. 82. AI-Muharrir, 5 June 1990; INA, 24 Feb. 1990; Baghdad Radio, 28 May 1990, FBIS-

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DR, 29 May 1990, pp. 2-7. 83. An interview on ABC on 17 July 1990, reported in Haaretz, 18 July 1990. See also an interview with the Wall Street Journal, in Maariv, 2 July 1990. 84. Al-Ra'y (Amman), 19 Aug. 1990, quoted in Haaretz, 20 Aug. 1990. 85. MEED, 25 Jan. 1991, p. 22; and see The Financial Times, 12 March 1992. 86. An interview with an Arab banker and economist who spent many years in Jordan, until the late 1980s, London, 9 March 1990. 87. Mid-East Mirror, 14 Sept. 1990. 88. The Times, 17,20 Sept. 1990. See also MEED, 24 May 1991, p. 20; 26 April 1991, pp. 24-5. 89. Haaretz, 30 Sept. 1990. 90. Charles Richards from Amman, The Independent, 28 Aug. 1990. Since 1979, when he became President, Saddam Husayn has been officially considered in Iraq a sharif, namely, a descendent of the Prophet Muhammad and the two Shiite imams, Ali and alHussein. See, for example, Th, 15 March 1987, when Deputy Chairman of the RCCI Izzat Ibrahim on the occasion of Ali's birthday in Najaf, referred to Ali as Saddam Husayn's 'grandfather'; and Th, 4 March 1988, Ibrahim on Ali's birthday called Saddam Husayn 'Imam Ali's grandson' (hafid). As such, he would be entitled to the caliphate no less than the Hashemites are. 91. On the level-headed Palestinian activist Hanna Seniora defining Saddam as 'an Arab Garibaldi' see Yediot Ahronot, 13 Aug. 1990. 92. On the first demonstration, see Hadashot, 3 Aug. 1990. On the lkhwan demonstration, see reports and photographs in al-Dustur, 11 Sept. 1990. Reports of demonstrations in all parts of Jordan are numerous. See, for example, The Times, 15 Sept., on a sermon in the central mosque in the southern Bedouin city of Salt, where the imam called for ;ihad against President Bush and the US. 93. The Independent, 15 Sept.; The Times, 19 Sept.; Mid-East Mirror, 17 Sept. 1990. 94. MEED, 11 Jan. 1991, p. 13. 95. See, for example, Tariq Aziz in Amman to meet with the king, Radio Monte Carlo, 29 Sept. 1990, in FBIS-DR, 1 Oct. 1990, p. 44; and Ramadan using Amman as a meeting place with the king and Japanese Prime Minister Kaifu, Radio Amman, 3 Oct. 1990, in FBIS-DR, 4 Oct. 1990, p. 4. See also FBIS-DR,5 Oct. 1990, p. 33. 96. The king in an interview on Jordanian TV, 8 Aug. 1990, in English, on BBC, 10 Aug. 1990, p. A12. 97. For confirmation that the Jordanian, Palestinian, Libyan and Moroccan ideas aboutthe peaceful resolution of the crisis were very similar, see Jordan Television, 18 Sept. 1990, in FBIS-DR, 20 Sept. 1990, al-Dustur, 20 Sept. 1990 in FBIS-DR, 20 Sept. 1990, p. 38. 98. Al-Dustur, 20 Sept. 1990, in FBIS-DR, 20 Sept. 1990, pp. 1-2. See also Jordan Times,S Dec. 1990, in FBIS-DR 5 Dec. 1990, p. 42. 99. Radio Monte Carlo (Paris) from Amman, 29 Sept. 1990, in FBIS-DR, 1 Oct. 1990, p. 44. 100. Taha Yasin Ramadan refusing to any pre-conditions, al-Ra'y (Amman), 5 Oct. 1990, pp. 1, 15. 101. Tariq Aziz to James Baker in Geneva on 9 January 1990, as reported by Aziz to The Baghdad Observer, 20 Jan. 1992. For other Jordanian initiatives see, for example, a Jordanian-Palestinian-Yemenite summit in Amman, which later moved to Baghdad to include Saddam, Amman Domestic Service (in Arabic), 4 Dec. 1990, in FBIS-DR, 5 Dec. 1990, p. 42. 102. 'Ukkaz Oidda), 15 Dec. 1990, in FBIS-DR, 21 Dec. 1990, pp. 9-10. 103. Prince Bandar Bin-Sultan to CNN as reported in Haaretz, 27 Sept. 1990. 104. MEED, 24 May 1991, p. 20; 26 April 1991, p. 24; 15 Feb. 1991, p. 15. In 1990 the Saudis supplied Jordan with 13.2 per cent of its crude oil consumption, while Iraq supplied it with over 86 per cent. At the same time Iraq supplied 62 per cent of Jordan's needs in refined products, and the rest was supplied by Kuwait, according to Jordan

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Refinery Company. MEED, 19 April 1992, p. 12. 105. AI-Dustur, 5 Dec. 1990. 106. MEED, 2 Nov. 1990, p. 14; 9 Nov. 1990, p. 15; March 1991, p. 15; 22 Feb. 1991, p. 14. 107. MEED, 15 Feb. 1991, p. 15; 26 April 1991, pp. 24-5; 24 May 1991, p. 20. 108. Reuters from Amman, in The Jerusalem Post, 18 Jan. 1991, p. 3. 109. Sawt al-Sha'b (Amman), 19 Jan. 1991, in FBIS-DR, 22 Jan. 1991, pp. 99-100. 110. A speech by King Hussein to the Arab and Islamic nation, Amman Domestic Service (in Arabic), 6 Feb. 1991, in FBIS-DR, 7 Feb. 1991, pp. 27-9. See there also Prime Minister Mudar Badran accusing the West of blocking the peace attempts and of intending to destroy Iraq's military power rather than liberating Kuwait. 111. AI-Dustur, 12 Feb. 1991. 112. Reuters from Amman, in The Jerusalem Post, 18 Jan. 1991, p. 3; Report by Danny Rubinstein, Haaretz, 25 Jan. 1991; and the author's own monitoring of Jordan's TV and radio. 113. See, for example, The Jerusalem Post, 20 Jan. 1991, p. 8, and Haaretz, 21 Jan. 1991, p. A2. For the king's call to stop the fighting see, for example, AFP (in English) in FBISDR, 22 Jan. 1991, pp. 95-6. Radio Amman, 27 Jan. 1991, in FBIS-DR, 28 Jan. 1991, pp. 55-6, and the king to his government, Radio Amman, 29 Jan. 1991, in FBIS-DR, 30 Jan. 1991, p. 39. 114. Jordan TV 17 Dec. 1991, in BBC-SWB-ME, 19 Dec. 1991, p. Al7. 115. See, for example, reports by US troops from the Kuwaiti front of the exposure there of Jordanian arms exported to Iraq in January 1991, MEED, 15 March 1991,p. 14. These reports were later dismissed by the Department of State, (MEED, 29 March 1991, p. 14), but this could be a diplomatic maneuver to prevent further deterioration of American-Jordanian relations, and prepare the ground for the Middle East peace talks. See also Der Spiegel defining Jordan as the chief violator of the embargo in an inquiry report, MEED, 25 Jan. 1991, p. 21. And see MEED, 22 March 1991, pp. 12-13. 116. MEED, 31 May 1991, p. 22. 117. The Financial Times, 12 March 1992. 118; MEED, 28 Dec. 1990, p. 24. 119. Sawt ai-Kuwait al-Duwali (London), 21 March 1992, in FBIS-DR, 26 March 1992. 120. MEED, 12 April 1991, p. 14. A few days later he denied that there was any 'collective' GCC decision to stop aid to Jordan and the PLO, but by implication this meant that such a decision may have been taken by the individual states (ibid.). 121. Sawt al-Sha'b, 7 May 1992, in FBIS-DR, 8 May 1992, p. 31. 122. Riyadh SPA (in Arabic), 12 May 1992; Radio Jordan, 11 May 1992; in FBIS-DR, 13 May 1992, pp. 19, 36. 123. AI-Jumhuriyya (Baghdad), 4 Aug. 1991. 124. Haaretz, 24 Sept. 1991. 125. Ibid. 126. See, for example, Nasif 'Awad, Th, 18 Nov. 1991, attacking 'Palestinian leaders' and 'Arabs in responsible positions' for falling into the American trap; Dr Nadya 'Abd alQadir al-Mukhtar from Baghdad University, AI-Qadisiyya, 4 Oct. 1991; Hamid Sa'id, Th, 13 Oct. 1991; Dr Hakim Habib and a leading article inal Qadisiyya, 28 Oct. 1991; a leading article, al-Qadisiyya, 28 Oct. 1991; accusing the 'oil emirs' of collaboration with Israel, Malik Mansur, Th, 31 Oct. 1991; Ibrahim Sa'id al-Baydani of Tikrit University, in al-Qadisiyya, 1 Nov. 1991; severe criticism of Syria, Th, 5 Nov. 1991; Sabri Hammadi in Th, 8 Nov. 1991 a strong condemnation of the Gulf states. 127. See, for example, Jordan's Under-Secretary of Transport ai-Tall denouncing embargo, INA, 7 July 1991, BBC, 9 July 1991, p. A10; a report in al-Qadisiyya, 4 Oct. 1991, of a speech made by jordan's Foreign Minister in the UN General Assembly; King Hussein urging the Arab and Islamic countries in the Islamic summit in Dakar to end the embargo, Baghdad Observer, 12 Dec. 1991; the king calling in a press conference in

Iraqi-Jordanian Relations, 1968-92

128.

129.

130. 131. 132.

133. 134. 135.

136.

137. 138.

139. 140.

141. 142.

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Amman to ease the sanctions for humanitarian reasons, Baghdad Observer, 18 Dec. 1991; the king demanding during his state visits to Washington and Paris to lift the embargo for 'humanitarian reasons', The Financial Times, 12 March 1992; Kol Israel from Paris, 16 March 1992. INA, 6 July 1991, BBC, 9 July 1991, p. AlD. According to the company's report, its expenses (apparently during the first half of 1991) were 10.1 million Jordanian dinars, while its incomewasJD11.5m. See Th, 28 July 1991. For tonnage see Eric Schmitt in the New York Times, 8 Dec. 1991, p. 10. Schmitt, New York Times, 8 Dec. 1991, p. 10. And see report from Washington in Evans and Novak's weekly column in the American press on 3 June 1992, as reported in Haaretz, 4 June 1992, according to which the US had decided to indefinitely suspend all joint military exercises with Jordan in response to the latter's breaches of the international embargo against Iraq. According to the column, the American President was furious when he saw the CIA report on the recent increase in smuggling of contraband goods. The President's fury may be better understood against the background of a Jordanian pledge, given in January 1992, to improve their behavior and some signs of improvement (an interview, Washington, DC, 6 Feb. 1992). See also Under Secretary for Defense J ames Lilly in a press conference confirming that contraband civilian goods and possibly military technology were finding their way through Jordan to Iraq and buttressing Saddam's position, Haaretz, 6 June 1992. MEED, 22 Feb. 1991, p. 14; 26 April 1991, p. 24. Yusuf Ibrahim, New York Times, 27 May 1992. AI-Qadisiyya, 15 March 1992. And see the Iraqi Minister of Transportation's expression of his country's gratitude to Jordan's Depury Minister of Transportation and Communication for Jordan's meaningful help to his country to overcome the siege, alQadisiyya, 7 July 1991; and see Jordan's Minister of Information, Mahmud ai-Sharif, 'our support and aid to Iraq are a matter of principle ... everything that harms Iraq harms Jordan', al-Qadisiyya, 7 Oct. 1991; and see Saddam's thanks to Jordan in an address to a Jordanian delegation, INA, 7 July 1991, BBC, 9 July 1991, p. A9. And Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) member Mizban Hadar Hadi praising Jordanian commercial companies for their efforts to beat the embargo, ai-Iraq, 5 Dec. 1991; and Hamid Sa'id on jordan's help to Iraq, Th, 16 Oct. 1991; and the head of a delegation of Jordanian workers' unions in Baghdad promising: 'We shall do everything in our power to smash the embargo', Th, 30 Jan. 1992. MEED, 3 May 1991, p. 16; 10 May 1991, p. 14. See for example, the visit of jordan's Depury Minister of Transport and Communication, Awad ai-Tall, al-Qadisiyya, 7 July 1991; Iraq's Minister of Transportation, Abd al-Sattar al-Mu'ini returning from Amman, Th, 28 July 1991. Meeting between Taha Yasin Ramadan and a delegation of the Union of [Marketing] Cooperatives of Jordan intended to 'increase bilateral cooperation in marketing', Th, 18 Aug. 1991; discussions between jordan's Chief of the Worker's Union and Iraq's Minister of Work and Social Affairs, al-Qadisiyya, 21 Oct. 1991. For example, two members visiting Baghdad (the better-known of them Majed 'Abd alRahman Khalifa), Th, 20 Jan. 1992. For an ex-minister of Awqaf, Th, 23 Jan. 1992. Th, 7 July 1991. And for Shuqayr's speech at a public rally in Amman in supportofIraq, see Th, 18 Aug. 1991; and his article supporting Iraq in Sawt al-Sha'b, as reported in Th, 23 Jan. 1992. For example, member of Parliament Fakhri Qa'war, Th, 1 Nov. 1991; Dr Abd ai-Latif Arabiyat, President of the Jordanian Parliament, in a public rally in ai-Salt, Th, 23 Jan. 1992. And members of Parliament praising Iraq, Th, 26 Jan. 1992. AI-Qadisiyya, 12 Nov. 1991. Th, 27 Jan. 1992. An interview with an American official, Washington, DC, Oct. 1992. See, for example, report in Th 26 March 1992, as reported in FBIS-NES, 31 March

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1992. 143. See, for example, a cartoon in Th, 13 May 1991, back page. 144. An interview with an American official, Washington, DC, Oct. 1992. 145. Jum, 27 July 1992; Th, 17 July 1992, in FBIS-NES, 31 July 1992, p. 23. See also VicePresident Ramadan meeting with party cadres, Th, 28 July 1992. 146. Jordan Times, 19 Sept. 1992, in FBIS-NES, 22 Sept. 1992, p. 31, and an interview with a Western diplomat serving in Amman, Haifa, Nov. 1992. 147. Jordan Times, 19 Sept. 1992, in FBIS-NES, 22 Sept. 1992, p. 31. According to an interview with the Amman-based Western diplomat, by November the volume of commerce declined even further. 148. AI-Sharq al-Awsat (London), 5 Sept. 1992 in FBIS-NES, 10 Sept. 1992, p. 23-4. 149. Radio Jordan Network, 16 Sept. 1992, Radio Monte Carlo, 16 Sept. 1992 in FBISNES, 17 Sept. 1992, p. 26; an interview with British Foreign Office officials, London, 21 Sept. 1992. 150. AI-Quds Uerusalem), 24 Nov. 1992; Radio Monte Carlo (in Arabic), 6 Nov. 1992, in FBIS-NES, 9 Nov. 1992, p. 34. 151. Haaretz 14 Dec. 1992 quoting the New York Times and al-Hayat. 152. See, for example, King Hussein thanking Saddam Husayn for his concern for his health, following the operation in the US, Th, 28 Aug. 1992. 153. See, for example, al-Ra'y (Amman) 29 Aug. 1992, in FBIS-NES, 1 Sept. 1992, p. 37. 154. See, for example, King Hussein accused of 'blind hatred' of GCC as a result of his kidney cancer 'reaching his brain', ai-Fair al-Jadid as quoted in AFP (Paris) 24 Nov. 1992, FBIS-NES 24 Nov. 1992, p. 20; and see Sawt al-Sha'b (Amman), 25 Nov. 1992, accusing the Gulf sheikhs of 'vindictivness'; and Radio Jordan, 24 Nov. 1992, accusing the Kuwaiti media of 'immoral arrogance towards the contents of the [king's] speech', in FBIS-NES, 25 Nov. 1992, p. 29. 155. According to the New York Times in late 1992 there were no fewer than 20,000 Iraqis staying in Jordan, some of them trying to get out of Iraq permanently. See report in Haaretz, 14 Dec. 1992. 156. Sawt al-Sha'b (Amman), 2 March 1992, in FBIS-DR, 4 March 1992, p. 23. 157. See, for example, the high profile of the new and united pro-Iraqi Ba'th Party in Jordan in its founding congress, al-Ufuq (Amman), 6 May 1992, in FBIS-DR, 8 May 1992, p. 32.

8

The State and the Tribe:

Egypt and Jordan, 1948-88 Han Pappe

Egyptians regard most of the other Arab states as 'tribes with flags' when compared with Egypt's distinct history, solid identity and homogeneous population.! This approach is most apparent in the Egyptian perceptions about Jordan. Until recently, Egypt, more than any other Arab country, could be singled out as jordan's principal delegitimizer. Other Arab countries, notably Syria and Iraq, had referred to the artificial circumstances of Jordan's inception, but it was always Egypt that was engaged in long, intensive attacks upon the kingdom's right to exist. Although the ideology of 'Greater Syria', advocated by almost all Syrian regimes, is ipso facto a challenge to Jordan's integrity, it was always in Cairo that the bold, most dangerous attempts to overthrow the Hashemite Kingdom were contemplated. Two different constellations in the period under review forced the Egyptians either to water down their criticism of or to align themselves with Jordan. Both situations were related to the ArabIsraeli question. It was either at times of great tension or during increased peace efforts that Cairo sought Amman's cooperation. Although Jordan did not possess the means or ability to playa leading role at either time, it was nevertheless the country with the longest border with Israel. This geo-political factor made the Hashemite Kingdom an essential part of any offensive or defensive Arab operation against Israel. As Egypt had led all the Arab military efforts against the Jewish state to date, pre-war preparations had necessitated a closer, albeit perhaps reluctant, cooperation with Jordan. In the same manner, when Egypt decided to leave the vicious circle of war and lead the Arab world onto a path of peace, Cairo looked to Amman as a potential partner, given the Hashemites' past cautious and moderate approach toward Israel.

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Egypt's relationship with the Palestinians, and particularly with the PLO, was immediately affected by these fluctuations. Only in rare cases can strong Egyptian ties be seen simultaneously with both the Jordanians and the Palestinians; usually one side was favored, thereby alienating the other. Since 1970, however, the Egyptians did try to mediate between the Palestinians and the Hashemites. It is fair to say, however, that close relations between Amman and Cairo have the effect of weakening Egypt's commitment to the Palestinian cause. Thus whenever jordan's alliance was sought by Egypt, whether at a time of peace or at a time of war, it came at the expense of Cairo's relations with the Palestinians. During periods of crisis in the relations between Egypt and Jordan, the Egyptian leadership enunciated the ideological and social differences between the two entities in strong terms as it needed to legitimize an attack against a sister Arab state. In the course of time, however, the pan-Arabist ideologies faded and differences that may have been fundamental in the past were obscured by common economic predicaments and social developments. A RELUCTANT ALLIANCE: TRANS-JORDAN AND EGYPT IN THE 1948 WAR

Trans-Jordan was officially declared an independent state at the beginning of 1946, with the abolition of the British Mandate. The Egyptian press ridiculed the significance of the event and, like many in the Arab world, pointed to the continued massive presence of British forces on T ransjordanian soil. Yet the politicians of the Arab world, Cairo included, could not afford a direct confrontation with King Abdallah of Trans-Jordan: in light of the British decision to leave Palestine and the Jewish determination to establish a state of their own there, Arab public opinion demanded that their governments form a united front in anticipation of the inevitable struggle against the Jewish community in Palestine. Whereas Trans-Jordan took a keen and active part in the affairs of Palestine from the moment that a British withdrawal seemed imminent, the Egyptians confined their action to patriotic rhetoric in the framework of the Arab League. The Transjordanian king reached a tacit understanding with the Jewish Agency about the division of Palestine between his country and the future Israel. At the same time, he ostensibly joined Egypt and the rest of the Arab

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world in their attempt to win the diplomatic battle in the UN or failing that, to prepare their armies for the end of the Mandate on 15 May 1948. A tacit agreement with the Jews meant acceptance of the UN General Assembly resolution of 29 November 1947 that called for the partition of Palestine between the Arabs and the Jews. Toeing the general Arab line meant acting against the UN resolution. Abdallah skillfully navigated his country between these two contradicting poles. 2 The Egyptian government, although aware of the king's overtures and maneuvers, was reluctant to involve the Egyptian army in the war. The Egyptian ministers, like the General Secretary of the Arab League, Abd aI-Rahman Azzam Pasha, hoped they could exclude the Egyptian army from what they regarded as a certain catastrophic defeat in Palestine. They were therefore willing to tolerate Abdallah's double-play in return for his full participation in the war. Eventually, however, Egypt's King Faruq instructed them to order the Egyptian army into Palestine. Faruq, whose status and power were in rapid decline, sought fame and regional supremacy in the struggle for Palestine. He did not wish Abdallah or any other Arab leader to appear as the sole savior of the Holy Land. 3 King Abdallah's ambivalent attitude toward the war in Palestine directly affected the Egyptian army. His deviation from the original Arab war plans left two Egyptian contingents under Israeli siege in the Negev, and the desperate calls for help by the local Egyptian commanders were unheeded. Egyptian military historians do not fail to mention the Arab Legion's conduct. 4 THE STRUGGLE OVER PALESTINIAN REPRESENTATION,

1948-1951

Trans-Jordan's behavior in the war, coupled with Egypt's constant support for a Palestinian entity in Palestine, engendered a struggle in the three years following the war over the question of Palestinian representation. The Egyptians adhered to the Arab League's decision concerning the need to establish Palestinian rule over every part of Palestine liberated by the Arab armies. The Egyptian forces that reached Hebron and Bethlehem were instructed to oppose any attempts by the Transjordanians to persuade local notables to support the annexation of these and other towns in Palestine to Abdallah's kingdom. The first 'shot' was fired by Abdallah, when his army crossed the Jordan River into the West Bank and began its de facto annexation. A confrontation with Egyptian forces led to

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their expulsion from the Hebron area. Abdallah abolished all manifestations of independent Palestinian representation in the West Bank. The Egyptians reciprocated, or rather retaliated, by establishing a Palestinian government in exile, seated in Gaza and based on the former Arab Higher Committee. This government was announced in September 1948; it lasted until Israeli operations in the south drove its members out of Gaza to Cairo, where it was transformed from a government into a department within the Arab League. (It was closed down in 1963, resulting in the creation of the PLO.) As part of this inter-Arab struggle, Abdallah convened a congress of refugees in Amman in October 1948 and of West Bankers in Jericho in December 1948 in order to show the Egyptians, or anyone else, that he was 'constitutionally' supported by Palestinian bodies. His actual rule in the West Bank, and Egypt's entanglement in other problems, allowed him to continue the process of annexation, amidst vociferous Arab opposition. s In April 1950, the two banks of the Jordan River were united without Egypt's consent or the Arab League's approval. When the war ended, Jordan and Egypt separately negotiated armistice agreements with Israel, notwithstanding intensive, but abortive, British efforts to coordinate the two countries' policy vis-a-vis Israel. Their aim was to have the Negev ruled jointly by Amman and Cairo. 6 In April 1949, the two countries participated in the Lausanne peace conference, called for by the UN Palestine Conciliation Commission in an attempt to solve the conflict. The Arab countries appeared en bloc at the conference and presented a united front on the question of the refugees and the future of Jerusalem. 7 The conference ended in the summer of that year without finding a solution. Thereafter, the paths of the two Arab states parted. The Jordanians continued their negotiations with the Israelis until Abdallah's assassination in July 1951, but achieved nothing beyond reaffirmation of the armistice agreement of 3 April 1949, in which Israel acknowledged Abdallah's rule over the West Bank. The Egyptian government and King Faruq, on the other hand, were drawn into the heat of domestic politics and the struggle against Britain, thus forgetting for a while about both Israel and the Palestine question. Yet some measure of Egyptian involvement in Jordanian politics was maintained. The Egyptians supported all the opposition groups in the kingdom, a pattern in their policy that was maintained until

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the late 1960s. They backed a futile attempt to overthrow Abdallah in 1949 and were linked to the assassination of the king inJuly 1951 by the tribunal that tried the king's assassins. There seems to be sufficient evidence that the former mufti of Palestine, Hajj Amin alHusayni, and the Egyptian government were behind the arming and organization of anti-Hashemite groups between 1948 and 1951. This activity corresponded to official Egyptian policy in regard to a solution for the Palestine problem, that is, viewing the West Bank as part of a future Palestinian state and objecting to Hashemite rule there. 8 THE BAGHDAD PACT AND ITS AFTERMATH: FROM COLLABORATION TO OPEN HOSTILITY

The internal struggle in Egypt between 1951 and 1954 did not allow for an active Egyptian regional or international policy. The consolidation of Nasser's regime in 1954 brought with it a renewed interest in the development of internal Arab affairs. Nasser's perception of an Arab world liberated from European and Western imperialism had naturally focused his attention on the two Hashemite regimes in Baghdad and Amman. His professed, or tactical, socialism had also turned the Hashemite absolute monarchs into his arch-rivals. As a result, the Egyptian-Hashemite political struggle for hegemony in the Arab world was transformed into what Malcolm Kerr so fittingly called the 'Arab Cold War'. The renewed Egyptian interest in the affairs of Jordan was triggered by British efforts to induce the young King Hussein to back Iraq's attempt to lead the Arab world onto a pro-Western path. Under strong British influence, Baghdad was seeking potential members for a pro-NATO alliance in the Middle East. The Americans had tried in 1951 to establish such a pact through Cairo and Istanbul and failed; now the British believed that Iraq could lead the way. Early attempts in 1954 to recruit Jordan and Syria failed, however, owing to a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Americans and strong Saudi objections. As these were only the early days of this Cold War and since Nasser had only just begun consolidating his control over Egypt, the initial Egyptian reaction was cautious. Nasser explained to the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri alSa'id, that Egypt could not consider such a move before the last British soldier left its soil. The Iraqis, were therefore prepared to shelve their scheme for the time being. 9

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In the spring of 1954, the Iraqis tried a different tactic. They signed bilateral agreements with Turkey, Pakistan and the United States. Within a year Britain joined the four countries, and in April 1955 the world learned of the inception of the Baghdad Pact. NATO immediately gave its blessing to the new-born child, and thus aligned Iraq and Pakistan in an official link to the Western bloc. In London as well as in Baghdad, jordan's participation in the new formation seemed essential for the success of the pact. The British Foreign Office asserted that the only way to ensure Hussein's affiliation was by removing any Egyptian opposition to the pact. British diplomats tried to seduce Nasser by offering a revival of the Alpha plan, which presumed an Israeli concession to permit a land bridge in the Negev that would ensure geographical continuity between Egypt and the rest of the Arab world by linking Egypt and Jordan. The Israelis, as in the past, rejected the plan; London, although fully aware of the Israeli position, hoped that Washington would help pressure Israel to modify its stance on the Alpha project. lO Nasser, however, was not for sale, so to speak, and decided on an all-out confrontation against the Baghdad Pact. The Egyptian leader saw the new alliance as an Iraqi and British offensive against his ideological and territorial ambitions in the Arab world. Jordan became the first and most important battlefield in this confrontation. For Nasser, the kingdom was a sort of touchstone indicating how far he could go in his drive to undermine Britain's supremacy in the area. Nasser would claim in retrospect that at the time he had not been seeking direct confrontation with either the West or the Hashemites. He claimed that the British government had promised him back in April 1955 that only Iraq would be asked to join the pact. Feeling deceived by the British attempts to include Jordan in the new alliance, he had decided to use all possible means against such a move. l l British official accounts corroborate this recollection in part. According to these documents, Eden and Nasser had reached an understanding in April 1955 that Britain would not work towards aligning additional Arab states with the Baghdad Pact; in return, Egypt would refrain from propaganda against the new alliance. 12 It seems that neither side adhered to the understanding, at least until the autumn of 1955; however, both kept a low profile in their attempts to win Jordan over to their respective side. Consequently, in mid-195 5, the British were still advising the Jordanians

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to adopt a neutral position toward the Baghdad Pact in spite of Hussein's first inclination to join it. Uriel Dann asserts that Britain's policy was that 'of neither encouraging nor discouraging ... Jordan's accession'.13 By autumn 1955, the British opted for a more active policy, this time urging the king to abandon his neutral position and to join the pact. It was Egypt's surprise attachment to the Eastern bloc that tilted the scales and forced London to act more hurriedly and in a somewhat panic-stricken manner. In September 1955, the Egyptians and Czechs signed their famous arms deal. The Turks and the Americans were now trying to persuade Britain to induce Hussein to join the pact. Nasser, for his part, intensified his efforts to prevent Jordan from becoming the fifth member of the pact. The Egyptian strategy was quite simple and later served Nasser in his attempts to divert Syria and Lebanon into his camp. He exerted pressure on the Jordanian king by aligning himself with anyone who was dissatisfied with the Hashemite rule in Jordan, be they frustrated Arab officers of the Legion, eager Palestinian nationalists, ardent Muslim fundamentalists, or just pan-Arabists and Communists; in no time, they all became disciples of Nasserism. Some of them were only fellow-travelers who would leave the Nasserist camp; but in 1955, they all shared Nasser's vision of a united, radical, progressive and socialist Arab world. They were numerous enough to create such unrest in Jordan that the young king and his advisers would eventually, contrary to the dynasty's raison d' etre, accept the election and the leadership of a particularly pan-Arabist government. This government would rule categorically against jordan's participation in the proposed pro-Western alliance. Cairo had also tried the more conservative means of persuasion. Two distinguished Egyptians visited Amman, Major Salah Salim in March and Field Marshal Abd aI-Hakim Amer in December 1955. Even these two guests, though, engaged in clandestine activity. Their mission was to encourage the young Arab officers in the Legion to stand firm against Hussein's desire to participate in the Baghdad Pact.14 These visits triggered a counter visit in December 1955 by General Gerald Templer, Chief of the British General Staff, to negotiate jordan's entry into the pact. What alarmed the British most was that Amer had invited himself to Amman without waiting for Hussein's invitation. IS Yet the problem was political, not military; and Templer, ex officio, was hardly the man to negotiate

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delicate political matters. The British seemed to repeat the mistake they had made in Egypt in 1950 when they had sent the then Chief of General Staff, General Slim, to negotiate the Anglo-Egyptian treaty. In any case, General Templer's visit only increased the opposition to Britain in Jordan, and the unrest that followed his arrival almost toppled the young King Hussein. The Egyptians, who did not fail to exploit the situation, succeeded in foiling Britain's efforts to induce the king to join the pact. Very few in London doubted that the source of the unrest was Cairo. John Glubb, the British Chief of the Jordanian General Staff, reported that both the Saudi and Egyptian representatives in Amman provided the finance for some of the demonstrations. 16 The Daily Telegraph (29 November 1955) alleged that Egypt and Saudi Arabia spent more than £60,000 to organize the unrest. Egypt's support, though, was not merely financial: Cairo kindled the ideological fire that motivated all the pan-Arabist groups among the Palestinians, who numbered about 80 per cent of the Jordanian population at the time. In return, these groups helped to enhance Nasser's popularity in Jordan. In particular, the Egyptians cultivated close ties with the local Ba'th Party, even though it was a Syrian creation. Ba'th activists orchestrated anti-British demonstrations and published long petitions opposing the visit and the Baghdad Pact. Using the Egyptian-based broadcasting station, Swat ai-Arab, to arouse the population, they also organized strikes. I? The Ba'th and the National Socialist Parties were behind the public show of support the day after Egypt's arms deal with the East. IS This unrest reached another stage when the new government, headed by the pro-Western politician, Hazza al-Majali, announced its intention to join the Baghdad Pact. It seems that Egypt was also supporting the activity of the Communist Party through Cairo's consul in JerusalemY The Hashemites suspected Egypt of inciting the Muslim Brotherhood branches in the West Bank against them. However, Nasser's attachment to that group proved very brief, as his relationship with the Brotherhood in Egypt deteriorated. Subsequently, as the fundamentalists grew less attuned to Cairo's music, their relations with the Hashemite court improved. 20 The thrust of the Egyptian effort was directed against the British military presence in Jordan. As Glubb had put it two months before his dismissal, 'the Egyptians and the Communists never cease to emphasize that the Arab Legion is a British and not an Arab army'. Glubb recognized the effectiveness of this campaign and suggested

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that 'British officers could become training teams and gIve up command'.21 Glubb, it seems, was correct about the Egyptian intentions but exaggerated the role and importance of the Communists. In fact, the British general was never too certain about developments. In a letter written in February 1956, he assured Templer that the Jordanian officer corps was still loyal to the king; in the past, he had sent gloomier evaluations of the Legion's loyalty.22 Such fluctuations could not have helped London make up its mind about a desirable policy. A month later, in March 1956, John Glubb and two other senior British officers of the Legion were dismissed. Glubb, the Chief of the Jordanian General Staff, was replaced by an Arab officer by the name of Radi Innab, who quickly sank to oblivion; he remained in the post for only two months. His successor, Ali Abu Nuwar, would fare better and enter history for his attempted coup against the king. Glubb, was apparently dismissed not so much because of Egyptian interference, but more as a result of a growing resentment against his powerful position among Arab officers in the Legion, a resentment shared by the young king himself. How much Nasser knew in advance is still debated. He heard the news of Glubb's dismissal, either for the first time or for the second, while dining with British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd and seemed, genuinely or not, surprised. The British minister was confident Nasser was making fun of him by acting in this surprised manner.23 Anthony Eden, the British Prime Minister, had no qualms about the whole affair; he regarded it solely as Nasser's doing and told his colleagues that the Egyptian ruler would have to pay.24 More was yet to come. Notwithstanding Glubb's withdrawal, Britain still maintained its legal and political position in Jordan. It is therefore understandable why Egypt's concern was centered on the Anglo-Transjordanian treaty of 1948. Immediately after Glubb's expulsion, the Jordanians participated, quite reluctantly it would seem, in negotiations with other Arab states about a joint defense pact to replace the treaty with Britain. It was an overture that led to a short but unhappy honeymoon between Egypt and Jordan. 2s THE ENFORCED HONEYMOON, JUNE 1956-APRIL 1957

Jordanian-Egyptian negotiations took a serious twist during the Suez crisis, beginning in June 1956 and culminating in the Sinai campaign of October, when Egypt's nationalization of the Suez

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Canal led to a joint English-french-Israeli attack. There was a clear linkage between Britain's deteriorating position in Jordan and London's decision to join Paris and Jerusalem in the attempt to topple Nasser. This led to fears in Amman of possible Israeli action against Jordan, as well. One of the main reasons for Israel's participation in the Suez operation was a desire to retaliate against continued fedayee activity, which was emanating from the Gaza Strip. As there was similar fedayee activity on the border between Israel and the West Bank, Jordan quite naturally could have expected a comparable Israeli attack. Indeed, the months leading to the Suez campaign were full of intensive Israeli retaliatory operations within Jordanian territory. Jordan's apprehension of an Israeli offensive created the impression of a joint fate with Egypt, hence, a short honeymoon began between the two enemies of the past, Israel being the unintentional matchmaker.1t is difficult even today to determine whether Jordan was in danger of an Israeli attack. The cycle of fedayee infiltrations and Israeli retaliations had led the British Prime Minister in May 1956 to urge Nuri al-Sa'id to send troops to jordan's rescue. AI-Sa'id was not so apprehensive about Israel as he was about Egypt's intentions in Jordan. He told the British that unless drastic action were taken by London, Hussein was doomed to be absorbed by Egypt. He wrote to the British foreign Office that he was even thinking of seeking an agreement with Israel. 26 The British request, if heeded, would certainly have instigated a war between Israel and Jordan, as Israel regarded Iraqi military presence on Jordanian soil as a casus belli. Iraq did not send its troops, but the situation was still very tense, and was made even more so by Nasser's urging Hussein to open a second front against Israel. The Hashemite king refused, but many Palestinians, who at the time constituted more than two-thirds of the population of the kingdom, enthusiastically endorsed it. On 21 October 1956, a week before the fighting broke out between Egypt and Israel, these Palestinians went to the polls and voted for a pro-Nasserite government. The new government was composed of most of the opposition groups, led by the national socialists and their leader, Sulayman al-Nabulsi, who eventually became Prime Minister. Jordan's new Chamber of Deputies endorsed a non-aligned policy and vowed allegiance to the idea of an Arab federation. Ann Derdean would write a year later that this was a genuine sampling of Jordanian public opinion. 27 Prime Minister

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al-Nabulsi told the New York Times: 'Jordan cannot live forever as Jordan', hinting of his desire to incorporate Jordan in an Egyptianled Arab federation. King Hussein cooperated with the new orientation of the nationalist government. He abrogated the AngloTransjordanian treaty and, with other Arab countries, signed a mutual defense agreement. Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia suggested financing Jordan's defense requirements in return for its abrogation of the treaty.28 Although several months would pass before this generous offer to replace Jordan's traditional philanthropists would be realized, the way was now open for the signing of a proper defense treaty with Egypt and Syria. This took place on 25 October 1956. The three armies were placed under an Egyptian commander in chief, Field Marshal Abd aI-Hakim Amer. Four days later, Israel joined France and Britain in the Suez campaign. In fact, the Israelis cited the new defense pact as one casus belli of many that had driven them into the Sinai. In his memoirs, Anthony Eden claimed that Jordan was about to open a new front to assist Egypt, but that Britain had prevented it from doing SO.29 One doubts whether it was very difficult to persuade Hussein to remain idle. Yet, Selwyn Lloyd, in retrospect, believed that British intervention in the Suez crisis prevented a large-scale war in the Middle East: 'Syria and Jordan certainly would have joined in, and it could very easily have escalated'.30 He maintained that Abd aI-Hakim Amer, the commander in chief of the tripartite command, decided to exclude Jordan and Syria from the war once he heard about Britain's intervention. In one way or another, jordan's participation in the war was averted. When the dust of war settled, the Hashemites looked for ways of freeing Jordan from Nasser's embrace. In a matter of a few months, Hussein's honeymoon with Nasser would end, and the Hashemite ruler in Amman was once more branded by the Nasserites from within and from without as a traitor. Before all this happened, Egypt had gained some significant trophies, if not in a war against Hussein then certainly in the struggle against Britain. In January 1957, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria undertook to provide Jordan with the equivalent of the British subsidy, an annual sum of £12.5 million; the last vestige of the British presence in Jordan was thus abolished. The final act in this episode was declared in March 1957, when the three countries signed a cultural treaty and integrated their educational systems. In the Arab world, Nasser's involvement in Jordan in 1956-57

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was seen as a successful move against British imperialism. Many attributed Glubb's dismissal to Nasser's intervention. 3! The year 1957 began with an impressive joint accord led by Nasser, at a meeting in Cairo. The heads of state of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia repudiated the Eisenhower Doctrine, made public just a few days earlier. In spite of Hussein's public condemnation of the doctrine, however, he would be the first to make the best use of it. A COLD WAR ONCE MORE: FEBRUARY 1957-JANUARY 1964

In less than a month, King Hussein reversed his Prime Minister's pro-Nasserite policy. The first signs were seen on 5 January 1957 in the wake of the announcement of the Eisenhower Doctrine. Hussein exploited the new American initiative to publicly warn the members of the Arab League against the communist threat in the Arab world. The king's position generated a serious conflict with the Prime Minister, who was strongly affiliated with the Eastern bloc;32 however, this crisis passed without dramatic consequences. It was only later, in April 1957, that subversive Egyptian action against Hussein would bring an all-out confrontation between the king and Sulayman al-Nabulsi. Thus, in spite of Nasser's success in aligning Jordan with his camp, Hussein's overthrow was still one of the Egyptian leader's objectives. Indeed fundamental differences still existed between Egypt and Jordan. The Hashemite regime stood for everything the Egyptian President detested and fought against. It was a monarchy, based on strong British support, serving the West, and occupying parts of Palestine. The combination of pan-Arabist officers in the army and a hostile Palestinian public opinion tempted Nasser to try once again to destabilize the Hashemite regime. The key figure in 1956 and 1957 was Ali Abu Nuwar, the Chief of the General Staff. Abu Nuwar had revealed his enthusiasm for Nasserism and Ba'thism in a conversation with the Lebanese President, Kamil Sham'un, in 1956. When Hussein and al-Nabulsi were at loggerheads once more in March 1957, Abu Nuwar sided with the Prime Minister. The latter was seeking more authority vis-iI-vis the king and hoped to achieve it with the help of Abu Nuwar and other like-minded officers. 33 The inevitable attempted coup came on 7 April 1957, when Amman was surrounded by a rebellious armored car regiment. The king did not hesitate. He immediately

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pointed to al-Nabulsi and Abu Nuwar as the chief conspirators, and with the help of loyal Bedouin officers in the Legion he succeeded in foiling the coup. Hussein dismissed both Abu Nuwar and alNabulsi and reorientated Jordan into the pro-Western camp, where he was received with open arms: the impressed Americans immediately offered military aid. 34 Before his discharge, the Prime Minister alleged that the US had tried to force the king to sever his relations with Egypt in return for vast American financial aid. 35 Was the coup attempt indeed an Egyptian plot? Hussein declared that it was a Syrian-Egyptian plot against him and his regime. Glubb alleged in his memoirs that all the officers involved in the attempted coup received monthly payments from the Egyptians. 36 P. J. Vatikiotis wrote that Abu Nuwar 'banked heavily' upon the promises of assistance and support of Egyptian and Syrian leaders.37 Be that as it may, Hussein was now on his way out of the Nasserist circle. The intensive Egyptian involvement in Iraqi and Lebanese politics and the actual union with Syria in 1958 had pushed the king even deeper into Western arms. In spite of Glubb's dismissal and the refusal to join the Baghdad Pact, Hussein in 1958 welcomed, and was willing to test the American readiness to intervene in the Middle East according to the Eisenhower Doctrine of containment. In Washington, the news was received with relief. It came shortly before Egypt and Syria announced their union. When in March 1958 Damascus and Cairo undertook a joint mission to other Arab capitals to seek additional members to the union, the new political situation caused considerable concern in Amman. The joint delegation was received cordially in Amman but was told that His Royal Highness preferred to wait and see. He did not wait. Two weeks after the proclamation of the Egyptian-Syrian union, Jordan and Iraq formed a federal union in which each state retained its sovereignty. The new federation went as far as executing military moves together with the Western powers against Nasser's stronghold in Damascus. These maneuvers allowed the free officers in Iraq to contemplate the overthrow of the Hashemite regime in July 1958. The revolution in Baghdad and the demise of Hashemite rule might have brought a similar fate upon Hussein, were it not for the immediate arrival of British soldiers on Jordanian soil, in accordance with the Eisenhower Doctrine. 38 The act, a precaution against any invasion or coup instigated by Egypt or Syria, brought Hussein's relationship with Egypt to an unprecedented low. The political constellation in the Arab world during the

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'Cold War' drew Hussein closer to another monarchy albeit a former enemy of the Hashemite family - the Saudis. In the early 1960s, the Arabian Peninsula became the principal battlefield on which Nasser fought his inter-Arab wars. A monarchist alliance against progressive Arab regimes was inevitable. Similar patterns of administration and social composition had developed as a result of this rapprochement. Nasser's and the Ba'th Party's secularism was confronted by the monarchists' own version of Arab nationalism, whose main feature was a blend of Islam, tribal values and allegiance to a dynasty. When the Yemen crisis broke out, Hussein's sympathies lay naturally with the monarchists there; to assist them he went as far as sending a small unit of his air force. 39 The conservative regimes were joined by the radicals in Iraq, who rivaled Nasser, though for different reasons. Abd aI-Karim Qassim was closer ideologically to Nasser and depended as much as the Egyptian leader on Soviet backing; but like Nasser, he was unwilling to share the leadership of the Arab world with any competitor. A similar opposition to Nasser developed in Damascus and ended in a bloodless coup against the Syrian-Egyptian union. For the first time since his accession to power, Nasser was in many ways isolated in the Arab world; for a while, Hussein could exploit the situation to his advantage. Thus when secessionist government in Syria inflicted a death blow to the UAR in early 1962, Jordan was the first country to recognize the new regime. Nasser reacted by breaking off diplomatic relations with Amman. 40 This is how Sadat recalls the coalition of Egypt's foes in those days: 'In the summer of 1962, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon held a conference in Shtura with a view to attacking and isolating Egypt, and dealing a blow to our regime'.41 In fact, Syria was more ambivalent at that meeting than in Sadat's description, and did not consent to join Jordan in an outright attack on Egypt, but adopted a neutral position. 42 As will be seen, even in periods of intense tension between Egypt and Jordan, there were signs of alternative relationships. Thus while the arrival of British forces in Jordan could have been - and was - seen as a countermeasure to Nasser, Jordan consented a month later to replace this force with a joint Saudi-JordanianEgyptian unit. Malcolm Kerr claims that Nasser was the one who compromised his position by this move. He followed the path of pragmatism and deserted Nasserism. The dispatch of Egyptian

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troops to Jordan did not help Nasser; rather, it undermined his position in the struggle for leadership in the Arab world: 'But even then, [the dispatch of troops to Jordan] did not enhance Nasser's image for his troops to be seen in the company of those of Saud and Husayn [sic], peacefully exchanging positions with Englishmen and continuing the defence of British imperial interests'. 43 That might be a rather harsh critique of Nasser's pragmatism, but the Egyptian leader was now moving on to the path of ambiguity in his relationship with the Hashemite Kingdom. This was manifested in the events leading to the formation of the PLO in 1964. EGYPT, JORDAN AND THE FORMATION OF THE PLO

As during the war of 1948, so in the early 1960s, too, the Palestinian cause became the main bone of contention between Egypt and Jordan. On 31 March 1959, Egypt succeeded in passing a motion in the Arab League's council calling on the political committee of the organization (which was composed of all the Arab heads of state) to convene a conference on 'the issue of Palestine'. The Egyptians wanted the council to adopt a firm commitment to the revival of Palestinian nationalism; but owing to Jordan's opposition, the resolution was phrased in general terms.44 This was in a way a surprise shot by Nasser, as the 1950s were devoted to 'the union of ranks' and not 'the union of the cause'. Now a new tune was being played that was particularly unpleasant to the ears of the Hashemites in Jordan. The bewildered Jordanian Prime Minister, Hazza al-Majali, responded by reiterating Abdallah's claim to represent the Palestinians. King Hussein went on the radio to declare that the 'Jordanian national guard is the Palestinian army'.45 jordan's attempt to equate the concept of a 'Palestinian entity' with that of a 'Jordanian entity', however, won no support in the Arab world. 46 A direct clash was postponed because of Qassim's involvement in the discussion; the Iraqi leader advocated the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a base for completing the liberation of the whole of Palestine. In Cairo, Qassim's scheme seemed more likely to result in a base against Egypt than against Israel. Thus, this Iraqi demand led, momentarily, to a more favorable Egyptian attitude toward jordan's claims to the West Bank. Qassim's interest in the Palestine issue forced Nasser to accelerate his own effort on the subject. Moshe Shemesh asserts that Nasser

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was fully aware that the liberation of Palestine was not a feasible goal and that he was content with seemingly pro-Palestinian gestures, all short of actual military involvement in Palestine. 47 The Ba'th in Syria and Qassim in Iraq, however, competed with Nasser and always tried to be one step ahead; thus, they suggested and formed Palestinian combat units, which were integrated into their armies. Nasser consequently retreated and continued to challenge jordan's right to the West Bank. The conflict between Jordan and Egypt on the Palestinian question was accompanied by the renewal of unrest in Jordan. In May 1959, a pro-Nasserite officer, Deputy General Chief of Staff Sadiq al-Shar'a tried to induce some Legion units to rebe1. 48 It was, though, less Nasser's activities in Jordan that worried Hussein than the Egyptian initiatives in the pan-Arabist arena, which had farreaching implications for jordan's status in the Arab world. Two such initiatives were the formation of the National Palestinians Union by Abd aI-Hakim Amer and the allocation of a daily broadcast for Palestine on Sawt AI-Arab in October 1960. The intensification of Egypt's interest in the Palestine question has been linked by some to the assassination attempt made against Hussein in 1960, although the evidence points to a Syrian connection rather than to Egypt. 49 In those days, Egypt cooperated and supported the Palestinian Ba'th Party, and encouraged the latter's plans to overthrow Hussein. This party, however, like Qawmiyun aI-Arab, and the Communists, felt more and more disillusioned with Nasser's ability to fulfill the dream of a socialist, radical Arab world. Ever more critical of his ideology and policy, they ceased to serve as a tool in undermining Hussein's regime. Nasser, however, also maintained close ties with a group calling itself the 'Revolutionary Command', composed of famous political exiles such as Abdallah aI-Tal and Abu Nuwar, all Jordanians involved in past attempted coups against the king. They operated from Cairo until a new period of reconciliation began. Egypt's anti-Hashemite activity culminated in the establishment of the PLO in 1964. Nasser's efforts at mobilizing the Arab world behind a Palestine Liberation Organization had an immediate effect on jordan's already precarious existence. Jerusalem was chosen as the venue from which the new representative of Palestinian nationalism was to be presented to the world. Nothing in the PLO's agenda or preliminary discussions of its establishment, indicated a Palestinian challenge to the right of the Hashemites to rule the

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eastern or even western Bank of the Jordan River. It was, however, in the air. 50 The officials who prepared the first Arab summit and the PLO structure were guided for the most part by Nasser's own interests and policy. Thus, Hussein had to face a PLO that was more a Nasserite tool than a Palestinian threat to his legitimacy. Hussein was particularly annoyed by the appointment of Ahmad al-Shuqayri as a chairman of the PLO. He saw the latter as an Egyptian agent-provocateur and tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent his arrival in Jerusalem for the inaugural session of the organization at the Intercontinental Hotel. Hussein's fears were unfounded, for the time being at least. The first Arab summit, in January 1964, and the first meeting of the Palestinian National Council came and went and the Hashemite dynasty was still there. The rapid pace of developments in the area would bring Egypt and Jordan closer. In fact, during the first Arab summit and at the inaugural convention of the PLO that followed, Egypt showed an ambiguous attitude towards Hussein. The first sign of this was Nasser's acceptance of Hussein's conditions for convening the PLO meeting in Jerusalem. Hussein had demanded that Egypt publicly declare its explicit recognition of jordan's right to exist. 51 Thus in many ways the first Arab summit was a reconciliation meeting between Hussein and Nasser. In Kerr's judicious words: 'A sudden and dramatic detente occurred at the end of 1963 when Nasser embraced Hussein in Cairo airport'.51 It was certainly seen like that by the Syrians, who since the Ba'th coup of 1963 were at loggerheads with Nasser. The Syrians feared that Jordan would now become an Egyptian base against them. Jordan did not become an Egyptian base, but a new era had begun in the relationship between Cairo and Amman. Kerr maintained that the catalyst for the rapprochement was the escalation of the conflict with Israel regarding the water problem. 53 jordan's recognition of the radical Republic of Yemen brought the sides even closer together. In the meanwhile, Nasser had forsaken his former allies among the Palestinians, and Hussein's regime became more stabilized than ever. A manifestation of the new period was Nasser's appeal to Hussein to mediate between Egypt and the Shah of Iran in the early months of 1964. Another indication of the new era was jordan's invitation to an Egyptian firm to build the Mukhiba Dam on the Yarmuk River. 54 This was not an easy reconciliation, however, as it pushed Nasser into a difficult position. He was aware in 1964, as he would be in 1967, that this new commitment to Jordan might involve Egypt in a

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future war with Israel. He was also cognizant of the inadequacy of the Egyptian army for such a mission. Yet appearing idle was dangerous to Nasser's prestige in the Arab world; thus Egypt embarked on a path that would eventually involve its army in a war caused by the escalation on Israel's eastern borders. RECONCILIATION AND THE SIX DAY WAR OF JUNE 1967

The recurrent character of the relationship between the two countries was maintained even after the reconciliation. A threat always seemed to loom in the air; as Kerr put it: 'Husayn [sic] knew that he [Nasser] could resume hostilities at any moment of his choosing'.55 Between 1964 and 1967, however, Egypt, as well as Syria and Lebanon, were in great need of jordan's help. The source of trouble was the struggle over the exploitation of the waters of the Jordan. The Syrians began a war of attrition against Israeli projects diverting the Jordan River to Israeli territory. Syrian countermeasures included blockading the flow of the jordan's tributaries to the Sea of Galilee (the Kinneret) and encouraging Palestinian guerrilla warfare against Israel. Jordan played a very marginal role in this new escalation, although it was apparent that without the Legion, the Arab world would not be able to form an eastern front in case of war with Israel. It could not hope to face Israel without some measure of cooperation between Egypt and the other Arab states. Hence, the new crisis required Arab unity, probably under Egypt's lead. Indeed, during the first Arab summit, Nasser had encouraged the governments of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan to sign an agreement on exploiting the jordan's tributaries and establishing a joint command to protect the proposed enterprise. The escalation helped to iron out many of the differences between Egypt and Jordan. It forced Egypt to tolerate some Jordanian policies that contradicted Egypt's interests in the area. Such was Hussein's endorsement of the Saudi initiative to establish an 'Islamic conference', a body that was meant to enhance King Faysal's prestige in the Arab world. For the first time, moreover, Nasser failed to side with Ahmad al-Shuqayri when the latter and Hussein were engaged in an unprecedented war of words in the summer of 1966. While official Cairo showed restraint, the Voice of Palestine went on attacking the Hashemite regime from Cairo. And indeed Cairo continued to be ambiguous. As the stormy Shuqayri-Hussein exchange persisted, Nasser, for a moment, lost

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his restraint and in September 1966 condemned Hussein as a traitor. 56 In November that year, it looked as though a new 'Cold War' would break out, following Egypt's criticism of Jordan's passivity in the face of an Israeli operation against the village of Samo'a in the West Bank. This had been one of many such Israeli actions following intensified PLO activity on the eastern border. The effect of the Egyptian condemnation was to provoke riots in Jordan that, according to Patrick Seal, nearly brought Hussein down. The demonstrations in Amman centered on the question of why Jordan did not align itself with Egypt and Syria against Israel. This Cairo-instigated domestic pressure bore fruit and Jordan paid a high price for Hussein's weakness - full participation in the war effort and offering its soil to Iraqi contingents. 57 This probably explains why jordan's policy in the months preceding the Six Day War was so ambiguous. A few days before the war, the ambiguity ceased and the inevitable alliance was formed. According to Hussein's biographer, James Lunt, the last days of May 1967 were most humiliating for King Hussein. On 30 May, he flew to Cairo to sign a pact wi th the Egyptian leader. He was forced, against his will, to meet with Ahmad al-Shuqayri, the head of the PLO, and to allow his entry into Jordan. Lunt believes that this episode proves that the Hashemite king had to endure even worse abuse because of Nasser's unrivaled position in the Arab world. The king went into the war cognizant of Israel's supremacy but felt there was nothing he could do. 58 Zayd al-Rifa'i, the Jordanian Prime Minister at the time, has a different recollection. He was relieved when he heard that the king had signed a pact with Nasser. For Rifa'i there was no alternative, in spite of the earlier slanders cast by Nasser. Syria and Egypt had faced Jordan with a fait accompli, disregarded the general defense pact of the Arab world, and called upon the Arab states neighboring Israel to join in. According to alRifa'i, it was Hussein, not Nasser, who had initiated the meeting through the Egyptian ambassador in Jordan, Uthman Nuri. 59 Indeed this was the heyday of Nasserism, and there was little Jordan could do. It seems that Jordan's ambivalence continued in the war itself, at least up to the struggle over the Old City of Jerusalem, in which the Legion fought fiercely in a bloody battle lasting a few days. In Khartoum in September 1967, Hussein and Nasser met for the first time after the war. There was no room for mutual accusation; what was needed was a coordinated Arab policy vis-a-vis the new

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geo-political reality. The Arab leaders unanimously decided not to accept an immediate peace agreement based on the principle of territory in return for peace. Both Jordan and Egypt would first try a war of attrition against Israel be(ore entering into the peace process initiated by US Secretary of State, William Rogers, in 1969. TOGETHER IN THE PEACE PROCESS, 1969-1970

Egypt's and jordan's parallel pattern of behavior in the late 1960s can be understood in the context of their similar problems that arose from the defeat of 1967. In Syria, the third country affected by the war, those years were characterized by internal strife, which ended only after Hafiz al-Asad took firm control of the country. In Jordan and Egypt, the same regimes continued in spite of the defeat; the two were thus forced to combine diplomacy with some show of military strength in order to satisfy internal discontent without risking another outright confrontation with Israel. In both countries, this policy only added to the regimes' destablization and had to be forsaken. Jordan's war of attrition was executed by proxies, the same Palestinian organizations that would ultimately turn against the regime and endanger the existence of the Hashemite dynasty. Egypt, on the other hand, was directly involved in a war that cost many Egyptian lives, ruined many cities in the Canal zone and deepened the Soviet involvement in the country. These developments seemed for a while to revive old rivalries. Nasser was disappointed by jordan's reluctance to open a second front against Israel in 1970. The Egyptian leader asked Lybia's Mu'amar Qaddafi in May 1970 to try to induce Hussein to take the initiative, but the king remained unwilling, fearing a repeat of the fiasco of June 1967. This time, Hussein was not called a traitor and Nasser toned down his criticism; however a serious cleavage emerged as a result of the transformation of the PLO. After the war, the PLO had freed itself from Egyptian control, but it was still supported by Nasser and still suspected by Hussein. When the PLO leadership, inspired by Maoism, decided to stage rural guerrilla warfare in the West Bank, and use Amman as a 'Hanoi', the inevitable clash with the Hashemite regime soon followed. Nasser backed the revolutionary ideology, but no more than that; after 1967, Nasser lost his own ideological zeal and was inclined to forgo his traditional hostility toward Hashemite Jordan. He was now genuinely seeking to mediate between the PLO and Hussein.

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Nasser's entanglement in the War of Attrition and his need to maintain the alliance with Jordan explain why, this time, Egypt did not side with the Palestinian organization against the Hashemite dynasty. Malcolm Kerr and Jean Lacouture have interpreted Nasser's policy as a fear of the strengthening of the fedayee element within the PLO, a development that endangered both Egypt's and Jordan's objectives - the main one in each case being the need to reach a political settlement with Israel. The Egyptian and Jordanian leaderships still had to pay lip service to the fedayee, but it was their involvement in the diplomatic effort that mattered. 60 Quite surprisingly, Egypt took the lead; on 23 July 1970, Nasser announced his acceptance of the Rogers plan, which called for the inclusion, among others, of Jordan and Egypt as partners in any peace settlement. The new chairman of the PLO, Yasir Arafat, strongly condemned both leaders. The Voice of Palestine in Cairo attacked Nasser directly and was promptly closed down by the Egyptian authorities. Nasser also suspended assistance to the embryo resistance movement in Gaza, which petered out due to a lack of funds and General Sharon's brutal measures. Thus a few days before the outbreak of 'Black September', Nasser was in no mood to support the PLO in its conflict with Hussein. Indeed throughout the early 1970s, the Egyptian threat to jordan's stability ceased to exist. Neither the events of Black September nor the abortive union among Egypt, Syria and Libya acted to destabilize Hussein's kingdom. When the clash between the PLO and Jordan broke out in September 1970, Nasser appeared as mediator, and it was in Cairo that the two sides signed the agreement for the PLO's evacuation from Jordan. 61 The PLO had undoubtedly expected some form of support from Egypt, but the Egyptian leader was not in the least sympathetic. 62 Anwar Sadat was to claim that Nasser wished to purify the PLO of its extremist elements, which is why he did not aid the Palestinians in their hour of need. According to Sadat's memoirs, in fact, Nasser stood firm against those Arab leaders, headed by Qaddafi, who wished to exclude Hussein from the Arab summit discussions on the crisis in Jordan. 63 Nasser died on the morrow of the conclusion of the Cairo agreement. His last pan-Arabist act was in total contradiction to his policies during the heyday of Nasserism. In those days Jordan, like the other monarchies, was the arch-enemy, no less than Israel and the imperialists. In his last days, like the Israelis and the imperialists,

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Nasser helped to maintain the 'reactionary' Hashemite regime in Amman. In Kerr's words: 'The supreme irony of Jamal Abd alNasser's career was that he died in the act of shielding his old enemy Hussein, at the expense of his old clients the Palestinians'. 64 SADAT'S ERA

The first words heard from Cairos new ruler were quite grating to Hussein's ears. They began with a severe attack on Hussein's federation plan of 1972, which Sadat declared to be 'voiding the Palestinian problem of content'.65 It culminated in the Arab Rabat summit's decision in March 1974 to deny Jordan the right to represent the Palestinians in the West Bank. Sadat's peace plan in those days included self-determination for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sadat would adhere to this position during the attempt to convene an international conference in Geneva in 1975. The thesis that preferred Palestinian self-rule over Jordanian rule in the West Bank also guided Sadat in the early days of his historic peace initiative in 1977. Nevertheless, Jordan had been confident enough not to be dragged into the war of October 1973; furthermore, it stayed out without being denounced as a traitor who betrayed the general Arab cause. After the war, Jordan and Egypt jointly aligned themselves with the main diplomatic effort in the area and they par" ticipated, together with Israel, in the short-lived international conference in Geneva in December 1973. The conference failed, but instead of looking for a comprehensive settlement, the sides opted for bilateral negotiations. At Rabat in October 1974, Egypt was the prime mover behind the decision to recognize the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, thereby expropriating Jordan's right to negotiate over the West Bank. Jordan disregarded the resolution and did negotiate with Israel, but it was the last time that the kingdom's troubles could be traced to Cairo. After Rabat, Egypt had different concerns, which would pave the way to a new chapter in the two countries' relationship. What was important for Cairo in the first months of 1974 was the conclusion of disengagement agreements with Israel in the Sinai. A similar agreement was signed by Syria in the Golan Heights. Who could now blame Jordan or Hussein for an unpatriotic stance? Still, while Egypt and Syria were conceding and compromising, Jordan

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did not reach any settlement with Israel. The wizard of shuttle negotiations and partial step-by-step agreements, Henry Kissinger, failed to produce a miracle on Israel's eastern front. In practice, of course, Israel's relationship with Jordan in the early 1970s was far better than it was with other Arab states. The open bridges over the Jordan River, the maintenance of Jordanian currency and laws in the West Bank and Jordan's policy in the October war had rendered the Hashemite Kingdom the most 'moderate' Arab country in the eyes of many Israelis. Some tension was produced in the wake of Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem. In its early stages, Sadat's initiative ignored Jordan's role in a peaceful solution for the problem of the West Bank. like the likud government in Israel, and unlike the labor Party, which had been in power until 1977, the Egyptian leader was talking about autonomy. In his conversations in Jerusalem, Sadat urged Israel to negotiate directly in Cairo with Palestinians affiliated with the PlO. The Israelis were willing to accept the presence of the PlO delegation in Cairo but not direct negotiations. Thus the Palestinian flag flew for a short while over the building where the meeting between delegations was intended to take place, but the PlO refused to engage in anything less than direct negotiations. The Egyptians had to suffice with the presence of a delegation from the West Bank; but in those days, and in the eyes of the Egyptians, it was not a suitable substitute for the PlO's presence in the peace process. Egypt's failure to widen the scope of the Camp David Accords through direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations led to a renewed appeal to Jordan in the summer of 1978. Sadat could not allow a long stalemate in the peace process. Signs of internal impatience were very evident that summer, and the Egyptian President embarked on an unprecedented operation that ended in the mass arrest of hundreds of activists and quite a few leaders of the opposition parties. Hence by July 1978, both Cairo and Jerusalem realized that Hussein would have to be a partner to the peace process in light of Israel's firm opposition to the idea of an independent Palestinian state. 66 At one point, during the Israeli-Egyptian meeting at leeds Castle, the Egyptians suggested the return of both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Jordan, but Begin's government rejected such a proposal out of hand. The favorite Israeli theme now was autonomy - a solution of no annexation and no retreat. In the summer of 1978 the Americans became 'full partners' in

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Sadat's accord. Carter brought Begin and Sadat together at Camp David to discuss not only a bilateral Egyptian-Israeli agreement but also the fate of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In many places in the Arab world the significance of the meeting led to indirect pressure on Egypt to forsake the idea of a 'Jordanized' West Bank. The pressure bore fruit, and the Egyptians presented their own concept of an autonomous West Bank and Gaza Strip; unlike the Israelis, they envisaged Palestinian self-rule as leading to independence. The Camp David chapter relating to the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was soon forgotten, and three years of futile negotiations did very little to advance a solution for these problems. As long as the autonomy negotiations were in progress, the Egyptians involved themselves in the affairs of the West Bank; in a way they even substituted for the Jordanians, although by then the landlord was the PLO itself, not one of the outside powers. One can assume that the autonomy plans emerging from Cairo were not entirely satisfactory to the Hashemites, yet they were not a source of serious confrontation. The measure of Jordanian disappointment with the autonomy plan was shown by Amman during the Arab summit meeting in Tunis in November 1979. At that meeting Hussein offered an alternative peace plan: an international peace conference with the participation of the PLO and the USSR and a preliminary recognition by the Arab states of Israel's right to exist. The latter component was unacceptable to the Arab leaders. The meeting ended with a general condemnation of Sadat's initiative. Yet Hussein was the first Arab leader to become reconciled to Egypt's new policy towards Israel. After all, he and his grandfather had been willing to come to terms with Israel in the past. Hence it was not surprising when in 1984 Jordan became the first Arab state to renew diplomatic ties with Egypt (although it should be noted that several Arab countries did not sever relations with Egypt in the first place). In sum, Sadat's emergence as Egypt's leader in 1971 did not cause dramatic changes in that country's relations with Jordan. The watershed was Nasser's acceptance of the Rogers plan, which legitimized, even retrospectively, jordan's past attempts to reach an agreement with Israel. Sadat's Clausewitzian use of war against Israel had enabled Jordan to adhere to its particular policy towards the Jewish state. The legitimization of particularistic Arab policies

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on the Palestinian question had implications for regional Arab policies in general. The 1970s witnessed a total disappearance of the dichotomy between 'progressive' and 'reactionary' regimes. New formations crystallized, and fluctuating constellations of forces enabled countries such as Jordan to play an important role in Arab politics - a role dreamed of and yearned for by the Hashemite rulers of Jordan since their arrival on the scene. CONCLUSIONS: MUBARAK AND HUSSEIN

The failure of the autonomy talks consolidated the Cairo-Amman axis. The war in the Persian Gulf and the civil war in Lebanon generated an economic boom in Jordan. Syria's deep involvement in Lebanon and jordan's alliance with Saddam Husayn then fragmented the Arab world in such a way that it became difficult to envisage a hostile Arab coalition against Jordan. In 1984, Egypt's President Husni Mubarak, who had taken office in the wake of Sadat's assassination, would repeatedly mention Jordan's vital role in any peaceful solution for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. His political adviser, Usama al-Baz, helped to bring the PLO and Jordan closer together in 1985, although the enforced honeymoon did not last. Yet the concept that lay behind the Egyptian initiative still remained the backbone of the diplomatic effort untilJuly 1988, when Hussein renounced his association with the West Bank. The Egyptian plan called for joint Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian negotiations leading to an autonomous Palestine aligned with Jordan. Yet once the final element in the bilateral Israeli-Egyptian agreement-the return of Tab a to Egypt in 1987 -was fulfilled, Mubarak sought a rapid way of returning to the Arab world. The old-new ticket of Palestinian nationalism became handy once more. With the completion of the Taba episode, Egypt became outspoken in its support of a Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Intifada brought the famous secession speech by Hussein in July 1988. Its significance is still obscure: should it be a permanent dissociation from the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt would then see matters in quite the same manner, as both would prefer a Palestinian entity over continued Israeli rule; should it prove only a tactical change on jordan's behalf, some friction may be expected in the future, since Egypt might want to act as the guardian of Palestinian rights vis-avis Hashemite ambitions in the West Bank. As of this writing,

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however, it does seem that both countries' rhetoric and activities are practically the same: a verbal commitment to the Palestinian cause, but no more. Sadat's visit to Jerusalem opened a new and still ongoing chapter in the Egyptian-Jordanian relationship. It is possible to discern two major characteristics in Jordanian-Egyptian contacts since then: the first relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the second to the Arab world as a whole. The exclusion of Egypt from the vicious circle of war should have been welcomed in Amman, but it was not. The Egyptian peace agreement with Israel for all intents and purposes left the Palestinian question unresolved, a situation that will always have the potential of straining the relationship. On the other hand, it does seem that Mubarak and Hussein developed a close personal relationship which explains the intensity of the meetings and the mutual visits in the late 1980s. For the time being, Jordan and Egypt share a similar policy in the Arab world. Yet, jordan's inability to advance its own peace initiative with Israel might drive it away from the more moderate Arab countries, such as Egypt. There is no better indication of this than the Gulf crisis of 1990-91, which placed the two countries at opposing poles. If this article had been concluded in the 1970s, the adjectives describing Egypt and Jordan (moderate and radical respectively) in this last paragraph would have been interchanged. Such indeed is the fast pace of political change in the Middle East. NOTES 1. A notion brought up by Tahsir Bashir, a former Egyptian diplomat, in The Economist, 6 Feb. 1988. 2. Avi Shlaim, Collusion Across the Jordan (Oxford, 1988), pp. 131-9. 3. Han Pappe, Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948-1951 (London, 1988), pp. 257. 4. Ibrahim Shakib, The War of 1948 (in Arabic) (Cairo, 1986), pp. 301-43. 5. Han Pappe, 'Sir Alec Kirkbride and the Making of Greater Transjordan', Asian and African Studies, Vol. 23, No.1 (March 1989), pp. 43-70. 6. On the British policy, see Roger W. Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East, 19451951 (Oxford, 1984), p. 578. 7. Pappe, Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, op. cit., pp. 115-23. 8. Ibid, pp. 205-7. 9. John Campbell, Defense of the Middle East, Problems of American Policy (New York, 1958), pp. 53-4. 10. PRO, FO 371111580/31, FO Minute, 11 April 1955. 11. Humphery Trevelyan, The Middle East in Revolution (London, 1970), p. 57. 12. Uriel Dann, 'The Foreign Office, The Baghdad Pact and Jordan', Asian and African Studies, Vol. 21, No.3 (Nov. 1989), p. 248. The British ambassador in Cairo felt that

Egypt and Jordan, 1948-88

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

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Nasser was later betrayed by Lloyd when the latter promised that Jordan would not be appended to the pact; see the ambassador's memoirs, Trevelyan, op. cit., p. 56. David Carlton, one of Eden's biographers, felt that in this case Nasser was almost entitled to stage an all-out confrontation and propaganda war against Britain; David Carlton, Anthony Eden (London, 1981), p. 392. Dann, op. cit., p. 249. P. J. Vatikiotis, Politics and the Military in Jordan (London, 1967), p. 122. Dann, op. cit., p. 250. Haidar H. Abidi,Jordan, A Political Study, 1947-1957 (London, 1965), pp. 375--415. Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Ba'th Party (in Hebrew) Uersusalem, 1984), p. 25. Al-Difa', 8 Oct. 1955. Amnon Cohen, Political Parties in the West Bank under the Hashemite Regime (in Hebrew) Uerusalem, 1980), p. 24. Hussein himself was quite enthusiastic about Nasser's nationalization speech; see Uriel Dann, King Hussein and Challenge ofArab Radicalism: Jordan 1955-1957 (New York, 1989), p. 37. Cohen, op. cit., pp. 132, 153. The document is produced in full in Uriel Dann, 'Glubb and the Politicization of the Arab Legion: An Annotated Document', Asian and African Studies, Vol. 23, No.2 Uuly 1987), pp. 213-21. Ibid., pp. 218-19. Peter Calvocoressi, Suez Ten Years After (London, 1967), p. 34. Anthony Nutting, No End of a Lesson, The Stroy of Suez (London, 1967), pp. 28-35. Heikal also claims that Nasser was surprised; see Muhammad H. Heikal, The Cairo Documents (New York, 1973), pp. 71-2. Vatikiotis, op. cit., p. 124. Israeli State Archives, Sharett to Eilat, 21 May 1956 in 2454/13. The New York Times, 17 Dec. 1956, p. 8. Filastin, 21 June 1956. Anthony Eden, Full Circle (London, 1960), pp. 523, 527. Selwyn Lloyd, Suez 1956 (London, 1970), p. 256. Nejla M. Abu Izzedin, Nasser of the Arabs (London, 1981), p. 177. Vatikiotis, op. cit., p. 126; Camil Chamoun, Crise au Moyen-Orient (in French) (Paris, 1963), p. 326. Vatikiotis, op. cit., p. 128. Ann Sinai and Allan Pollack (eds), The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the West Bank (Washington, DC, 1977), p. 163. Al-Ahram, 4 April 1957. John B. Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs (London, 1957), p. 434. Vatikiotis, op. cit., p. 132. Lord Birwood, Nuri As-Said, A Study in Arab Leadership (London, 1959), p. 261. Abu Izzedin, op. cit., p. 275. Malcom H. Kerr, The Arab Cold War (New York, 1981), p. 23. Anwar AI-Sadat, In Search of Identity, An Autobiography (New York, 1981), p. 198. Kerr, op. cit., p. 38. In fact between 1958 and 1961 Hussein more than once wrote to Nasser to offer reconciliation. Ibid., pp. 21-2. Moshe Shemesh, The Palestinian Entity, 1959-1974; Arab Politics and the PLO (London, 1988), p 1. Ibid. E. Be'eri, The Palestinians Under Jordanian Rule (in Hebrew) Uerusalem, 1978), p. 14. Shemesh, op. cit., pp. 1-5. Aref al-Aref, The Palestine Catastrophe, Vol. 6 (in Arabic) (Sayda, 1962), p. 183. Sela, op. cit., p. 33. Be'eri, op. cit., p. 48.

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51. Fuad Matar, The Philosopher of the Revolution (London, 1984), pp. 70-1, 83-4, 94-5; Shemesh, op. cit., pp. 23-8. 52. Kerr, op. cit., pp. 97-8. 53. Ibid., p. 98; seta, op. cit., pp. 50-4. 54. Kerr, op. cit., p. 114. 55. Ibid., p. 102. 56. Ibid., pp. 116-17. 57. Patrick Seal, Assad (University of California Press, 1989), pp. 126-7. 58. James Lunt, Hussein (London, 1989), pp. 129-37. 59. Zayd AI-Rifa'i, 'The Nasser-Hussein Reconciliation', in hamar Rabinovich and Yehuda Reinharz (eds.), Israel in the Middle East (New York, 1984), pp. 188-91. For the most updated analysis of Hussein's decision to enter the war, see Samir A. Mutwai,Jordan in the 1967 War (Cambridge, 1988), p. 130. 60. Kerr, op. cit., pp. 137-8; Jean Lacouture,. Nasser (in French) (Editions du Seuil, 1971), p. 221. 61. Shemesh, op. cit., pp. 108-10. 62. AI-Ahram, 24 July 1971. 63. Sadat, op. cit., p. 292. 64. Kerr, op. cit., p. 153. 65. Shemesh, op. cit., pp. 185-91. 66. AI-Ahram, 6 July 1978.

9

Jordan and Inter-Arab Relations: An Overview Gabriel Ben-Dor

The importance ofJordan in inter-Arab relations is obvious and farreaching.! The geographic location of the country makes it critically important, as it is able to impinge on various key actors in the Middle East, among them Israel, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. 2 Historically, Jordan has constituted a buffer zone between Israel and Iraq, the latter the only Arab military power never to have signed even the 1949 armistice agreement with Israel. In addition, the complex relationship between the various regimes in Iraq, on the one hand, and in Jordan on the other, has made either for an intimacy that most of the time was perceived as a threat by the other neighbors, or for tension that necessitated the assistance of the others. In either case, the interest in Jordan has been very strong. Geography, however, has not been the only factor to make Jordan so exceptionally important. There is also an ideological reason, having to do with the very nature of the Hashemite regime ruling there. This is a regime that is considered alien by the radical Arab forces all over the region, and certainly those active in the immediate vicinity.3 This regime, which hails from the depths of the Arabian peninsula,4 had to create its own state, based on Bedouin tribal loyalties and, from its very inception, reinforced by foreign powers. The exceedingly close relationship between Jordan and its British creators has been so extensively documented as to require no further proof or commentary.s Jordan was in need of foreign intervention on more than one occasion in order to stabilize the regime and save it from foreign or domestic foes. 6 These actions have reinforced the perception of the rulers of Amman as an alien entity and added to the conviction that it is a regime that is not really part and parcel of the mainstream of the Arab world, but one that will always be closer to the enemies of Arab nationalism than to Arab nationalism itself.7 The residue of

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this historical development is a fact of life that has never been wiped out. The Hashemite dynasty in Jordan was born in original sin, in the perception of Arab nationalism, and this sin will never really be forgiven. 8 The birth of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan at its territorial peak in the late 1940s presents a good demonstration of the fact that Jordan and the various Palestinian nationalist groups will always find themselves in a situation of mutual mistrust;9 the facts of history do indeed show that basically the two work in different and contradictory directions. The instances when these two clashed for one reason or another are too numerous to count. So are the instances when Jordan has tried negotiating an accommodation with Israel. Such attempts ran counter to the mainstream of prevailing Arab opinion at the time, and certainly appeared to be very much at the expense of the Palestinians, broadly defined. The fact that Jordan has been the only Arab country to give the Palestinian refugees citizenship has never been considered as counterbalancing the image of constant treachery. Another important political fact in the difficult and complex history of Jordan is that this regime, more than any other, has been the target of those Arab nationalists who, during periods of the 'unity of ranks', preferred to speak to the other peoples of the Arab world over the heads of their rulers, to get the people out on the streets in order to challenge the prevailing political order.1O In 1958, this incitement necessitated the intervention of British forces - with the acquiescence of Israel- to save the king. In 1970, Jordan was the target of a direct Syrian invasion, which eventually was repelled only with Israel's deterrence, and massive US 'acquiescence'. During that period, a bloody internal war was conducted in order to expel the Palestinian forces in the country, who were maintaining a state-within-a-state. l l These events have added numerous scars and traumas to the political psyche of the country and its relations with other Arab forces. 12 In the light of all this, one may be tempted to say from the beginning that Jordan is not really a proper part of the inter-Arab system; rather, it is an object of the ambitions of other Arabs. It is as though Jordan were incapable of initiating acts of its own or having an effect on the way that other Arab countries and forces think, behave and act. Such a characterization is very far from the truth. The fact is that historically - notwithstanding all the liabilities it carries - Jordan has not only been a proper actor, it has also been a

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major actor in inter-Arab affairs, and it is likely to remain so in the foreseeable future. In fact, Jordan is likely to play an increasingly important role in the system in the near future. This statement requires some elaboration and explanation. After all, one would not associate Jordan with the kind of ability to form alliances and forge blocs as Egypt, Syria and Iraq have done.13 Nevertheless, practically from its genesis the Hashemite rulers of Jordan have played an active role in the affairs of the region, and they have shown a surprising resilience in this difficult theater. In the beginning, there was also a brother Hashemite regime in Iraq; and until its collapse in 1958/4 it was a natural ally and there was a natural alliance between two countries with territorial contiguity. The fall of the Hashemites in Iraq signified the most difficult hour in the history of Jordan until then and put the kingdom in a far more exposed and isolated position. It took a long time for the king to show that he possessed the kind of adaptability required by the situation. 15 Of course one must not ignore the fact that the policies of Jordan are basically dictated by one man, a person who has had almost absolute power for 40 years, something of a world record. This has allowed a flexibility and maneuverability not seen in the foreign policies of countries ruled by more complex structures. 16 It has also allowed the accumulation of political experience and, one is tempted to say, wisdom, and permitted such an accumulation to be expressed in practical political terms. This basic characteristic of the regime is of overwhelming importance, and it should be constantly borne in mind. 17 The man responsible for, and dominating the fate of the country is himself a complex political leader, and certainly a man who possesses remarkable ability to understand and analyze complex political processes. He has understood throughout his 40 years in power the mysteries of inter-Arab politics, and he has understood that although the very nature of the regime in Jordan will always make it a likely target for major nationalist forces, two factors tend to cancel out this threat. First, the inter-Arab system is penetrated to an enormous extent by external parties with which Jordan has had an excellent relationship. Second, and no less important, is the fact that notwithstanding the colorful rhetoric of the Arab political scene,18 much of the actual political bargaining is remarkably free of ideological constraints; behind the scenes, therefore, business can be conducted in a very different way than one would expect from

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the public pronouncements. To a certain extent, such a state of affairs is a fact of life in any political system. In the case of interArab relations, this situation is even more pronounced, and no one knows this better than the King of Jordan. 19 As a result, the king has been able over the years to build up a very statesmanlike image, one that has projected stability and political wisdom. It is not surprising, then, that he has received political credit far beyond the size or the power of his country. Furthermore, this statesmanlike image of the king has constituted an important political asset of the kingdom itself. The image has been carefully cultivated. At the outset, it gained momentum more among Western countries than in the Arab world. Over the years, however, this asset has proven to a certain extent to be transferable/a and indeed it has been transferred to the Arab political scene at large, as well. The longer the king stays in power, the more likely he is to increase this political-diplomatic asset, even in the face of mistakes that he makes in the eyes of various beholders. One may argue that eventually this asset, too, will run its course and that the reputation of the king will outlive its usefulness. Such an assessment, however, is apparently a long way into the unforeseeable future. The kingdom is in a way a typical buffer state, not only between Israel and Iraq, but also between Syria and the southern part of the Arab world. The usefulness of buffer states is obvious, and in various regional political systems has long been recognized. 21 It seems that, even without any explicit theoretical discussion of buffer states, the recognition of this usefulness is very much part and parcel of the political baggage of the region. 22 It is also a political resource of great importance, as it plays a useful role in the interactions with countries that are more powerful, yet very conscious of the need for buffers and other mechanisms mediating and regulating regional conflicts/3 which are apt to gain momentum all too easily.24 The complex, and very special relationship between Jordan and Israel is also a matter of some ambiguity and ambivalence. On the one hand, the close overlapping of interests and the numerous rumors about alleged cooperation between the two vis-a-vis Palestinian nationalism have made Jordan more than suspect in the eyes of nationalists and other activists on the Arab political scene, which is known for its volatility and radical character. 25 On the other hand, more and more forces in the area have come to realize the key position that Jordan would occupy in any future Arab-Israel peace

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process and in the Arabs' attempt to get Israel out of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The declaration of the king in the late 1980s of the determination of Jordan to detach itself from the West Bank should be taken literally; it is as final as anything in Middle East politics can be. Be that as it may, the fact remains that for many years in the 1970s and the 1980s, Jordan was perceived by a great many important actors in world politics (not to mention the Israeli Labor Party ... ) as the key Arab actor in negotiations over the Palestinian problem if any progress were to be made in the first place. The result had to be a growing respect for Jordan even among those who did not approve of the particular policies or attitudes of its leadership. Being respected by the world and being considered central to peace in terms favorable to one's important allies and partners is, again, one of the king's political resources that make him important even in the face of odds that are difficult to overcome in terms of the basic structure of his political situation. The importance of Jordan to the inter-Arab system increased when the system split so radically on the question of the attitude toward Egypt in the wake of the Camp David Agreements in 1978.26 At that time, it became clear that those countries that were basically in sympathy with Egyptian objectives, but that could not and would not support the Egyptian position publicly, would become the object of the courtship not only of the radical Arab forces and their opponents inside the Arab world, but also of outside powers that had a major, vested interest in the outcome of the political conflicts associated with this dramatic development. From that point on, it became obvious that the centrality of Jordan would be increasingly evident. Moreover, inter-Arab relations had reached such a state as to make it highly improbable that Jordan would become the target of direct aggression or subversion of truly dangerous dimensions. The kingdom now became an actor of importance in its own right rather than just an object of the ambitions of others. This tendency was reinforced by the most traumatic regional event of the 1980s, namely, the eight-year-Iong war between Iraq and Iran. It was then that Jordan became a critically important supply route to Iraq, which alone would have made for a crucial role for the country. But this was not all. Jordan progressively became a linchpin of the Arab coalition supporting Iraq. It is less important to know whether this strong Jordanian commitment to the successors of those who killed off the Hashemite regime in Iraq was due to the fear of Iran's Shiite fundamentalism or to the wish

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for rapprochement or rehabilitation in the eyes of the champions of Arab nationalism. Nor does motivation matter very much in such cases; rather, what counts is the result. And the result was the enhancement of the image of Jord~n a as a mainstream country and as a power to be reckoned with in the fortunes of inter-Arab politics. As the war between Iran and Iraq drew to a close on terms favorable to Iraq, the position of Jordan seemed to be vindicated. Relations between the regimes in Amman and Baghdad drew closer, and they were increasingly being taken as a political fact of life in the Middle East. All the while, starting in fact with the onset of the civil war in Lebanon in 1976, Beirut kept losing its image as an island of stability and relative efficiency in the volatile Middle East. Amman came to be regarded as a substitute of sorts, with the result that a great many Western and Arab financial institutions and other business corporations moved from Lebanon to Jordan, thus making the latter even more prominent in the region. This also meant a period of relative prosperity, which was to end with the crash in oil revenues in the region in the second half of the 1980s.27 The reputation of Jordan as a stable environment for the investment of money by the rich Arab countries remained, however, as did its credentials as one of the more active champions of the Arab cause against Iran. Needless to say, in the volatile context of Middle East politics, political assets can and do change very rapidly. Thus jordan's close relationship with Iraq became, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, a source of tremendous embarrassment. Jordan was caught in the middle of the turmoil, pressed from all directions; however, both the economic and the geopolitical facts of life became major constraints for the kingdom to be taken into account when considering strategy and policy. Although for a time there was cause for worry about the very ability of the regime to survive a crisis of such magnitude, the story became one of deja VU,28 though no less serious for that. For decades, King Hussein has been known as a deliberate thinker, certainly one who is not eager to fight his radical nationalist opponents, even when it is clear that they are out to harm him and his regime. His pattern of political behavior in this respect has been remarkably consistent over the years, and the Kuwait crisis showed no exception. There was, however, one decisive difference in this case: Jordan apparently found itself more

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and more in company it did not like to keep; namely, estranged from its natural allies in the Arab world and, no less important, estranged, as well, from its natural and historical allies on the global scene. This situation was something new and worrisome for the Hashemite dynasty. Occasional attempts by the king to appease his radical opponents were long known to take place. 29 In practically all of these cases, however, he was still in the company of his natural allies; nor did he ever give up any of his fall-back options in case his attempts to find more peaceful ways out of a given conflict failed. Without such a fall-back position, he would have lacked the ability to maneuver, which is so crucially important, enabling a political actor to be flexible and perhaps even creative. Yet in the case of the Gulf crisis, things got out of hand and took away this ability to maneuver. The enormity of change in this crisis can be seen in the fact that other Arab forces, too, found themselves on the 'wrong' side of the fence, as was the case most notably with Syria. What this indicated was less an ideological and more a pragmatic style of politics, a trend that has been in evidence for at least two decades. Unquestionably, such a style of politics is one that is far more congruent with the national interests of Jordan, and its own modus operandi, than the volatile and vehemently ideological style of previous periods in inter-Arab relations. 3D Nevertheless, ideology does remain a very important fact of life not only on the Arab scene in general, but also on the Jordanian scene in particular, much to the chagrin of the king, who prefers a non-ideological style of politics. This is especially so in light of the problems of legitimacy endemic to all non-democratic political systems, of which Jordan is a typical example. 3 ! The popular base of the Jordanian regime remains very limited. The rulers - or in this case, the ruler - must therefore be constantly on guard against the possibility of the alienation of the population from the ruling elite, particularly of its reaching a critical mass of dissatisfaction, which will make keeping order all but impossible. 32 Thus every once in a while the rulers make an effort to create various escape valves, and even to tolerate some such valves that may at first sight seem to contradict the basic values of the ruling elite. The case of Jordan during the Gulf crisis was far more extreme than that. Here it was the king himself who initiated the policy of proximity to Baghdad, and it was he who stuck to the policy of maintaining this proximity to the point of alienating his natural

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Saudi allies, and his friends in the West, indeed, even to the point of becoming a virtual persona non grata in Washington. These policies proved to be popular, because for the Arab masses Saddam Husayn continued to be the heroic underdog challenging the vast power represented by Western imperialism and its local agents. It also turned out that his position represented the very causes that historically were used to motivate and cement the radical opposition to the king and everything that his rule represented. In a more profound sense, therefore, King Hussein himself created the momentum for the strength of the external forces opposing him on an issue that separated him from his own historical allies. In the long run, such a state of affairs could not but become a serious danger for the survival of the kingdom as it had been known for many decades. At the same time, such radical forces, once unleashed, become very difficult to contain. Therefore, as the strength of pro-Iraqi radicalism gained momentum, the king found it impossible to rule with a government that was in basic opposition to these forces. As a result, he decided to play with fire and to invite five members of the Islamic opposition to join his government. Hussein had tried this maneuver in the past, and with a good deal of success, but never to this extreme extent. The dangers of such an extreme situation were enormous, and in the middle of the Gulf crisis, it became apparent that eventually it would be necessary for the king to make another drastic volte-face; this time, though, it would certainly have to be accompanied by a realignment of Jordan in the Arab world, in a change of such magnitude as yet unknown even in the annals of this turbulent kingdom. 33 Thus far, we have seen only a modest beginning of the process. Looking for some general lessons from the experience of the Hashemite Kingdom proves a very difficult task because of the unique character of the Jordanian state. One may assume, of course, that a similar argument can be made about the 'unique character' of practically every country in the Middle East, but this does not negate its applicability to Jordan. 34 Indeed, the entire history of Jordan is full of paradoxes bordering on the absurd. Nevertheless, every country, unique as it is, may be of value in learning about the regional system of which it is a part. Clearly, the most important lesson about the inter-Arab standing of Jordan has to do with old-fashioned truths about the behavior of regional political systems. In such systems, states tend to look for a dynamic equilibrium, and to unite against any single state that appears to

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threaten the others by becoming too strong and perhaps dominating them in the future. By the same token, the same states do not particularly appreciate the weakness of any single state, which may then invite outside intervention. They tend to create checks and balances against such intervention, if for no better reason than the fear that taking over a state would create a distressing precedent or would make an invader intolerably strong or would bring about near chaos in fighting over the spoils. 35 In this sense, weakness creates its own antidote, and at times it may become even a substitute of sorts for strength. Such has been the case with Jordan, which even in its worst moments has found allies and potential allies in the region for the reasons just mentioned. In order to understand the particular case of Jordan in greater depth, it is necessary to make a comparison with another example of weakness in the region, namely Lebanon. The comparison is inviting, but a cursory look at the two immediately reveals a decisive difference: Lebanon is really a nonstate, lacking the basic attributes of statehood and stateness. 36 It invites outside intervention not only because of its weakness in the region, but also because of an inability to run its own affairs in its own territory. It reveals, furthermore, an absence of will on the part of its political center, which is disunited and lacks a clear focus. One can easily comprehend why the country not only is an easy target for the ambitions of outsiders, but also literally invites those very threatening outsiders to intervene in moments of extreme weakness. 37 This is not the case with Jordan, which does have a dominant political center. Notwithstanding some critical moments of hesitation, this center has basically shown an enormous determination to cling to power and to use it to the utmost in order to protect its own survival and dominant role in the country. If this resolve had weakened for any lengthy period of time, the fate of Jordan would arguably have been similar in some respects to that of Lebanon. The differences in the demographic structure and political sociology of the two countries are so overwhelming, however, as to make comparisons between the two countries illuminating by way of contrast rather than by way of similarity. Paradoxically, the demographic structure of Jordan is not much less complicated than that of Lebanon. In fact, the difficulty of ruling the kingdom is tremendous, in that originally there was no organic Jordanian body politic. It had to be created ex nihilo, as it were, by turning Bedouin tribes into a coherent political

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constituency in the face of the historical competition with a large and growing Palestinian population that was far more advanced in education and skills. Time, however, makes a great deal of difference and, with time, it turned out that the Hashemite regime managed to create something resembling a political society, one that also incorporated many Palestinian elements. One could argue that without the disruptive influence of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, integration in the kingdom would have proceeded fairly smoothly. The problems of demography, furthermore, would have been resolved by something resembling a genuine Jordanian entity that would have incorporated its large Palestinian citizenry in an effective fashion. 18 The fact remains, however, that the 1967 war disrupted such natural developments and rekindled the flames of Palestinian nationalism to unprecedented heights. Jordan, it turned out, was threatened by this nationalism far more than was Israel, and had to contend with it in violent terms in order to establish the very viability of the Jordanian entity. This situation naturally pit Jordan against all the radical forces supporting the Palestinians and caused it to forge closer ties with Israel, thus continuing to undermine the legitimacy of Jordan among these same radical elements. Surprisingly, at least to some analysts, the support garnered from Israel and its Western allies more than sufficed, and the radical challenge was neutralized on the inter-state level as long - and as soon - as Jordan showed the resolve to contain it on the intra-state scene, which it did virtually through an act of will. Perhaps the greatest paradox associated with Jordan is that the very same factor - the complex relationship with Palestinian nationalism - that has constituted the greatest problem of legitimacy for the country is also one of its greatest assets on the international political scene, since it eventually reflects back positively on the battle for legitimacy. In this, Israel's attitude has been of decisive importance. It is obvious that sooner or later some diplomatic offensive backed by the United States will be launched for an Arab-Israel peace settlement; it is equally obvious that this attempt will tackle the Palestinian problem as a central factor in the entire process. Many of the key participants in the diplomacy of the peace process also realize, however, that in the initial stages of such a process, the only real partner for Israel on this issue will be Jordan, no matter the gimmick used for Palestinian 'representation'. This has to do with Israel more than with Jordan itself. The various

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volte-faces executed in Jordanian declarations on the issue of representation may not be as important as the centrality of Jordan to any peace process, by virtue of history, tradition, demography and other objective facts of political life. This makes Jordan a valuable all-Arab asset, especially in a world in which Soviet power is visibly collapsing and some new world order based on pax Americana may be emerging. Whether or not one approves of jordan's policies is less important than the fact that Jordan must be persuaded to be part of the process if some progress toward peace is to be made. It may come about - paradoxically again - that Jordan will be courted by the traditional PLO-orientated elements in its society to enter some process in which it does not even pretend to have an interest. The central stage of the post-war attempts to revive the peace process have demonstrated the beginnings of such a transaction. Similar paradoxes, though not of the same magnitude, exist in jordan's relations with some key Arab countries. One should not be surprised at the complex relationship with Syria in light of the historical and ideological legacies involved. When the Syrians decided to take an active military part in the Western coalition organized by the United States, one would have expected the two countries to find themselves, finally, in the same camp. This was not to be, because of Jordan's inability to distance itself from Iraq. In past times, Syria and Jordan had made joint public pronouncements on various steps to merge systems of the two countries en route to some variety of unification. Not surprisingly, nothing much came out of those declarations. However, a situation in which Syrian troops find themselves ranged alongside American forces against a fellow Arab radical, a nationalist country that is supported by the King of Jordan, is truly an amazing sight. It is as though a mysterious force drives Syria and Jordan into different camps even when the particular alignment does not make sense prima facie. Relations between the Jordanians and the Saudis are also extremely complex, not to say ambiguous. These two are traditional monarchies in a region plagued by very strong nationalist, radical and republican forces. Political logic would drive them together; indeed, they have cooperated on numerous occasions, and have built up mechanisms for consultation and collaboration. They have resolved border disputes, employed Saudi forces to stabilize the Jordanian monarchy in the late 1950s, have given a big boost to the Jordanian economy through Saudi oil supplies and other economic

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and financial measures. Almost all of this cooperation collapsed during the Gulf crisis. That Jordan should not be counted among those who unequivocally wanted to take action to force Iraq out of Kuwait was more important to the Saudis than any ideological mumbo-jumbo. But even this explanation does not reveal the entire truth of the matter, because the historical legacy involved is complicated in itself. After all, the lineage of the Hashemites is one that holds an old rivalry with the house of Saud in the Arabian peninsula. The fact that the Hashemites migrated from the peninsula and established a dynasty elsewhere has been helpful to the relationship, but it has not erased memories of past history. Or, indeed, of more modern history - the tension between the Hashemites and the Saudis over the various 'Fertile Crescent' schemes launched in the 1940s and the early 1950s. Thus, in this case, too, seemingly logical ideological allies find themselves in different camps - and not without good reason. 39 The very nature of the inter-Arab system is of great importance to Jordan. A regional system characterized by tension and ideological vehemence is by definition detrimental to the interests of the Hashemite Kingdom. The divisions created as a result are likely to magnify the problems of legitimacy that the Jordanian entity faces with regard not only to its policies, but also to its very existence and the circumstances and the allies that have made this existence possible. In contrast, then, to the prevailing view, which considers Jordan one of the spearheads of a pro-Western effort to change the balance of power on the inter-Arab scene, it is far more sensible to regard the kingdom as one of those status-quo-oriented powers, not interested in any change that brings up ideological questions and that may suffuse with ideological tension the delicate web of relations among the various Arab countries. jordan's unhappiness with the horrible dilemmas that developed in the wake of the Gulf crisis has to be seen, therefore, not only against the background of the difficulties it experienced in geopolitical and economic terms. It also has to be understood against the background of a fractured inter-Arab state system, one that by necessity pits countries against each other in a particularly violent way, and, furthermore, one that involves outside powers. In the present instance, the outsiders, though traditionally associated with Jordan in inter-Arab politics, together constituted a coalition that could not and did not take into account the special needs and sensitivities of the Jordanian state, because the issues involved in the

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crisis were too overriding. Seen against this background, the peculiar stand taken by Jordan may be better comprehended. Ultimately, the case of Jordan is perhaps the clearest possible demonstration of the difficulty in understanding the patterns of behavior of the inter-Arab system without going deeply into the Arab-Israel system, as well. The political behavior of Jordan manifests the interrelationship of these two complexities, and no other country has ever found itself so deeply caught in the depths of the difficulties and dilemmas stemming from this complicated linkage as Jordan has on all too many occasions. Even so, Jordan would have preferred even an escalation of the Arab-Israel conflict, with which it has learned to live, over the fracturing of the interArab system, for this is something that Jordan has never learned to live with and most likely never will. Indeed, the pattern of historical evolution has to a large extent fit the interests of the Jordanian entity. From its early days, which were characterized by dynastic rivalries, the inter-Arab system developed a highly ideological nature, one that kept raising questions of the legitimacy of the various regimes around the Arab world according to the ideological structures of the elites involved. This debilitated and denormalized the Arab state system for over a decade and a half, from the mid-1950s to the 1970s, when another stage started. In this stage, some of the Messianic fervor of Arab nationalism began to recede; although the radical rhetoric did not disappear, the Arab countries increasingly rediscovered the magic of raison d'etat, and this changed their practical political behavior to an enormous extent. Such sober state behavior enabled the regional system to undergo revolutionary changes, such as the peace process between Egypt and Israel; this phenomenon is well known and perhaps understood by analysts of the regional political system. The case of Jordan, however, is not quite as well comprehended or appreciated, even though it is not much less important in regional terms. What Jordan needs most is to be taken seriously as a state; that is, to be taken for granted in the sense that it is a state like all other states and that its existence will not be threatened because of its ideological problems or because of its problems of legitimacy or the arguments associated with its historical origins. In this sense, Jordan is almost as vulnerable as Israel in the Middle East, whether or not this vulnerability is expressed in explicit terms. In other words, the ability of the country to cope with its endemic problems of legitimacy is contingent on the prevailing norms of the inter-Arab

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system: the more state-like the system, the better off the country.40 Control of this complex process is not in the hands of any single country; rather, it is a matter of unforeseeable developments. As a result, Jordan has to play a relatively active, though not predominantly decisive, role in inter-Arab affairs in order to protect its own vital interests not only in terms of the immediate business of state, but also in order to make sure that it is allowed to conduct such business in the future in relative security.41 It also happens that the trend of the historical evolution of the patterns of the inter-Arab system are congruent with global trends of protecting the rights of states to exist in their present territorial shape. These trends resulted from the quest for stability in the wake of the emergence of the postSecond World War world order, and became clear in the Middle East belatedly, but nevertheless emphatically. Logically, it also follows that Jordan should be interested in global processes that may lead to the relaxation of international tensions, since these may and do have a positive impact on deideologizing the inter-Arab system, as well. 42 It was all the more paradoxical, therefore, to witness the agony of Jordan precisely at a time when international macro developments would have been most suitable and favorable to its national interests. jordan's inability or unwillingness to break the bonds of its special relationship with Iraq in favor of the more apparent advantages in the opposite course of action is the best demonstration of the contrast, conflict, dilemmas and ambiguities inherent in the fortunes of the country on the international scene in general and on the inter-Arab scene in particular. This, however, is no more paradoxical than the fact that a country having a vested interest in a peaceful Middle East (in which the existence of countries accused of illegitimate regimes is a question) should find itself more or less in support of a country that has done precisely what Jordan feared, or ought to have feared, most. The future of Jordan used to be thought of as 'unclear', by which most analysts meant that its problems of legitimacy had been much worse than those of the other countries in the Arab world, despite the endemic problems of legitimacy plaguing them all. 43 The fear was that the combination of such an accumulation of problems along with demographic and other points of vulnerability evident in the kingdom might make for a target for powerful enemies and not allow it to survive. Over the decades, as it has turned out, Jordan has made remarkable progress in overcoming its endemic problems,

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not only because of its own ingenuity but also on account of favorable regional developments. As a result, one can safely state that the future of the country is also contingent on the trend that regional developments will take in the next decade and thereafter. Again, with Jordan this is truer than with other countries, even if some of these generalizations about the inter-relationships between internal evolution and outside regional influences have some validity to a great many other countries, as well. 44 The fate of Jordan will be determined, more specifically, to the extent to which the regional system as a whole will continue to sanctify the territorial status quo, regardless of the historical origins of the given boundaries and the various claims that inevitably arise in such a historical perspective. 45 The state of Kuwait in August 1990 merely demonstrated what may be in store for others if the Iraqi modus operandi is accepted as a norm. It is not that the claim of the Kuwaiti dynasty is particularly strong or that the case it can and did make for statehood is particularly persuasive. Logically they are not. To an extent, though, this is true with the vast majority of the other countries in the Arab world, and, for that matter, in the world at large. These boundaries have been, and in all likelihood will continue to be, respected not because they are logical, but the contrary. Because they are as illogical as they are - being the outcomes of wars and other historical accidents, such as the vagaries of colonialism - they are all too easy to refute on such grounds if they are challenged. The entire global or, in this case, regional system may literally fall to pieces if this kind of 'revisionism' is allowed, which of course would destabilize the entire world order. 46 In all likelihood, therefore, the future will see pressure on states gradually to work out these problems of legitimacy inside their own boundaries. It is not likely that the evolving international order will allow states to disappear just because their origins may have been in moral or historical doubt. That the evolving new regional order,47 if there is one, is developing against Jordan's stand on the Kuwait issue does not contradict the fact that, in the final analysis, this new interest is still basically congruent with Jordan's national interest. It will sometimes happen that a leadership of a country is caught off guard, so to speak, in a critical historical moment. 48 It may not read the political map correctly, or it may not be able to put its reading into practice even if correct. The latter may well have been the case with Jordan in the Gulf crisis. Such mistakes are not only

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reversible, they are also insufficient to alter the basic facts of life on the larger political scene: that will take the course dictated by larger international forces. That such a state of affairs should lead in the long run to considerable gains for the country concerned - admittedly, at the cost of considerable losses in the short run - may well be the best demonstration that the concept of luck is still indispensable in international affairs. We have known this fact of political life at least since Machiavelli, but we have also learned from the writings of the classics that this intangible, fortuna, is not something that appears as a deus ex machina. It is still the logical outcome of some more or less coherent process in the life of nations. Although it is obviously difficult, if not impossible, to discover the immutable laws governing these processes, it is worthwhile, and possible; to study the patterns characterizing them to the extent that we are able to discern them with any kind of consistency. Countries that have leaders capable of either adapting to these patterns (a matter of tactics) or transforming them to some extent (a matter of strategy) are the ones likely to be lucky, at least more than others. The leadership of Jordan throughout its history has shown remarkable aptitude for tactics. Now the time has come to see whether it is able to excel in strategy, as well. A good strategic recovery may compensate for the tactical mistakes made in the Gulf affair. Not many countries are fortunate enough to enjoy such second chances, but jordan's luck has not yet run out. 49

NOTES 1. It is not intended here to introduce an authoritative study of the Jordanian state nor of the bibliographic items necessary for such a study. Hence, the notes have been used sparingly, and the references are only to those works that have had a particular impact on the thinking of the author, as well as those containing a useful bibliographic list, good surveys of the literature and works of the author that develop some ideas further or contain extensive references or surveys. 2. See Uriel Dann, King Hussein and the Challenge of Arab Radicalism: Jordan, 19551967 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). This is an excellent study, and its references are varied and very useful. 3. Ibid. and the sources quoted. 4. See Raphael Patai, The Hashemite Kingdom ofJordan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958); and Kamel S. Abu Jaber et al., Bedouins ofJordan: A People in Transition (Amman: Royal Scientific Society, 1978). 5. On this, see also John B. Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1957); and James Lunt, Glubb Pasha: A Biography (London: Harvill Press, 1984). 6. See Uriel Dann, 'The "Jordanian Entity" in Changing Circumstances, 1967-1973', in I.

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7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15.

16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

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Rabinovich and H. Shaked (eds.), From June to October. The Middle East Between 1967 and 1973 (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1978), pp. 231-44. See Malcolm H. Kerr, The Arab Cold War 1958-1970 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971); and Kerr, 'Regional Arab Politics and the Conflict with Israel', in P. Y. Hammond and S. S. Alexander (eds.), Political Dynamics in the Middle East (New York: Elsevier, 1972), pp. 31-68. Eliezer Beeri, The Palestinians Under Jordanian Rule (in Hebrew) Uerusalem: Magnes Press, 1977); and Clinton Bailey, 'The Participation of the Palestinians in the Politics of Jordan' (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1966). See Gabriel Ben-Dor, 'The Institutionalization of Palestinian Nationalism', in Rabinovich and Shaked (eds.), From June to October, pp. 245-68; and Ben-Dor, 'Nationalism without Sovereignty and Nationalism with Multiple Sovereignties', in Ben-Dor (ed.), The Palestinians and the Middle East Conflict (Ramat Gan: Turtledove Press, 1978), pp. 143-71. See Fuad Ajami, 'The End of Pan-Arabism', Foreign Affairs, Winter 1978/79; and Gabriel Ben-Dor, State and Conflict in the Middle East (New York: Praeger, 1983), pp. 355-73. See Gabriel Ben-Dar, 'Inter-Arab Relations and the Arab-Israel Conflict', The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, Summer 1976, pp. 70-96. For the importance of the military factor in many of these instances, see P. J. Vatikiotis, Politics and the Military in Jordan (London: Cass, 1967). It should be noted that even though these blocs and alliances in the Arab world tend to shift very quickly, the key countries that are as a rule the pivots ofthese groupings tend to be the same. See Yair Evron and Yaacov Bar Siman-Tov, 'Coalitions in the Arab World', The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, Vol. 1, No.2 (Winter 1975), pp. 71108. See the instructive study by Uriel Dann, Iraq under Qassem Uerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1969). See the autobiography of the king, Uneasy, Lies the Head (London: Heinemann, 1962), a particularly fitting title! See also Peter Snow, Hussein (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1972); and Vick Vance and P. Lauer, Hussein de Jordanie, Ma 'Guerre' Avec Israel (Paris: Michel, 1968). See William B. Quandt, The Comparative Study of Political Elites (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1970); and William H. Wriggins, The Ruler's Imperative: Strategies for Political Survival in Asia and Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1969). See the autobiography of the king already cited. The elite around him has produced some other outstanding leaders, none mare striking than the late Wasfi ai-Tall. See the fine biographic srudy by Asher Susser, Between Jordan and Palestine: A Political Biography of Wasfi ai-Tall (in Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1983) (published in English by Frank Cass, London, 1994). This study is highly instructive of the more general aspects of the complex Jordanian-Palestinian labyrinth. See Clement Henry Moore, 'On Theory and Practice Among the Arabs', World Politics, Vol. 24, No.1 (October 1971), pp. 106-26; and Gabriel Ben-Dar, 'Political Culrure Approach to Middle East Politics', International Journal of Middle East Studies Vol. 8 Uanuary 1977), pp. 43-63. See Uriel Dann, 'King Hussein's Solidarity with Saddam Husayn: A Pattern of Behavior?', Tel Aviv University, The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, 1991. Compare this with the different theoretical approach in Lucian W. Pye, Politics, Personality and Nation-Building (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962). See Louis J. Cantori and Steven L. Spiegel, The International Politics of Regions: A Comparative Approach (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1970). See also Chapter 2 by Arnon Soffer in this present volume. For a most instructive example of the realpolitik hidden beneath the regional rhetoric,

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23. 24. 25.

26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

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see ltamar Rabinovich, 'Controlled Conflict in the Middle East: The Syrian-Israel Rivalry in Lebanon', in Gabriel Ben-Dor and David B. Dewitt (eds.), Conflict Management in the Middle East (Lexington: Heath, 1987), pp. 97-112. See Janice Gross Stein, 'A Common Aversion to War: Regime Creation by Egypt and Israel as a Strategy of Conflict Management', in ibid., pp. 59-78. See Leon Carl Brown, International Politics and the Middle East: Old Rules, Dangerous Games (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). See Ben-Dor, State and Conflict in the Middle East, op. cit.; and Manfred Halpern, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962). Also James A. Bill and Carl Leiden, The Middle East: Politics and Power (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1974). Indeed, at this stage, theoreticians of inter-Arab relations began referring to the interArab system more and more in terms of 'fragmentation' and 'fracturing'. These terms seemed amply justified, particularly in comparison to earlier periods in the same system. The very contrast with the earlier terms, 'unity' of ranks, purpose and action, is striking. See Eiyahu Kanovsky, 'Jordan's Economy: From Prosperity to Crisis', Tel Aviv University, The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Occasional Paper No. 106, May 1989. See Dann, 'King Hussein's Solidarity', op. cit. Ibid. Ben-Dor, 'Inter-Arab Relations and the Arab-Israeli Conflict'; and Ajami, op. cit. This thesis is well-presented and documented on the regional level in Michael C. Hudson, Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977). See Shaul Mishal, West Bank-East Bank: The Palestinians in Jordan, 1949-1967 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978); and Avi Plaskov, The Palestinian Refugees in Jordan, 1948-1957 (London: Cass, 1981). See Albert Hourani, 'Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq', in Abraham L. Udovitch (ed.), The Middle East: Oil, Conflict and Hope (Lexington: Heath, 1976), pp. 269-90. Ibid. On the evolution of this type of thinking, see Peter Paret, Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). On the rational calculations involved, see Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960). See the brilliant essay in political sociology by the late J. Peter Nettl, 'The State as a Conceptual Variable', World Politics, Vol. 20, No.4 Ouly 1968), pp. 559-92. In the regional perspective, in addition to the sources already cited, see Bernard Lewis, 'Loyalties to Community, Nation and State', in George S. Wise and Charles Issawi (eds.), Middle East Perspectives: The Next Twenty Years (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1981). See the detailed analysis in Gabriel Ben-Dor, 'The Disintegration of the State in Lebanon', a paper presented at the Conference on the Lebanese Crisis in its Regional and Historical Context, The Spanish Institute of International Affairs, Toledo (Spain), 1985. There is a serious scholarly debate on this issue. See, for instance, Han Pappe's chapter, 'Jordan between Hashemite and Palestinian Identity', in the present volume. Cf. Shimon Shamir, 'The Arab World Between Pragmatism and Radicalism', in George S. Wise and Charles Issawi (eds.), Middle East Perspective: The Next Twenty Years (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1981). This argument is developed in great detail in Gabriel Ben-Dor, 'Stateness and Ideology in Contemporary Middle East Politics', The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations Vol. 9, No.3 (1987), pp. 10-37. On this point, see the extensive information and numerous references in Gabriel Ben-Dor and David Dewitt (eds.), Conflict Management in the Middle East (Lexington: Heath, 1987).

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42. Cf. Ajami, op. cit. 43. Hudson, op. cit. 44. Of course, the most often cited example is that of Lebanon, but it is by no means the only one. 45. Needless to say, this is a question of the greatest importance in other parts of the world, as well. Above all, the present question has to do with eastern Europe in general, and the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in particular. The events there are as yet unclear, and they will take some time to crystallize into a logical pattern. For the time being, the picture is one of secessionist threats, with desperate - and at times forcible - effotts by the incumbents to stick to the federal system and institute reforms within its framework. Clearly, the outcome of the process in eastern Europe will have a great effect on the Middle East, as well. 46. This critically important point is discussed, documented and analyzed at length in BenDor, State and Conflict in the Middle East, which analyzes the details of these regional developments and their implications for Israel. 47. See Gabriel Ben-Dor, 'Ethnopolitics and the Middle Eastern State', in Milton J. Esman and Itamar Rabinovitch (eds.), Ethnicity, Pluralism and the State in the Middle East (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988). 48. For instance, a good case can be made that the leaders of most countries in the Middle East have missed just about every major crisis from the 1967 war to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. But this is not only a matter of the Middle East; only the magnitude of the changes in this region makes the omissions that much more salient a feature of political life. There is, of course; a voluminous literature both on misperception and on the difficulty of predicting events in the process of intelligence analysis in national security affairs. A discussion of this literature, however, is far beyond the bounds of this paper. 49. It is customary in many papers of this sort (i.e., general overviews of complex issues) to attempt to cite 'avenues of future research', by which the author normally refers to problems he thinks should be investigated futther in the light of his own findings, should the sources and the methods be available and accessible. In this case, two major 'avenues' seem to suggest themselves, the first being a study of the inter-relationship of the basic problems of legitimacy in other Arab countries, on the one hand, and the inter-Arab system, on the other. The other 'avenue' is a systematic study of the emerging new regional order, one that must be considered against the background of an emerging new world order replacing the era of the Cold War. Since the drama of the Gulf crisis and its immediate implications overshadow all other regional developments, the contours of the broader picture emerging can barely be discerned.

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Part III

Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians

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10

Jordan, the PLO and the Palestine Question Asher Susser

King Hussein's decision in July 1988 to sever jordan's legal and administrative ties with the West Bank was of historical consequence. It set the stage for a process that could culminate in the irreversible renunciation of Jordanian sovereignty over the West Bank. It was not, however, a final Jordanian withdrawal from involvement in the question of Palestine. For demographic and geopolitical reasons Jordan cannot simply dissociate itself from Palestine. Jordan still has a vital interest in any final settlement of the Palestine problem. Jordan's intimate association with the Palestine question has its origins in the very founding of the Emirate of Trans-Jordan in 1921, as part of the British Mandate for Palestine. During the Mandate period, Amir, and subsequently King Abdallah, was deeply involved in matters pertaining to Palestine. In the latter days of Abdallah's reign, during the 1948 war, Jordan occupied the area that was to become known as the West Bank, and then formally annexed it in April 1950. Jordan's long border with Palestine, and the web of social and economic ties that have linked the populations on both sides of the Jordan River for centuries, have consistently prompted a profound Jordanian interest in the Palestine question. One could hardly imagine a settlement of the Palestine problem that would not have far-reaching ramifications for the stability and longevity of the Hashemite regime. This is all the more so because of the very large Palestinian population now permanently residing on the East Bank. Indeed, there are more Palestinians on the East Bank today than there are on the West Bank. In the past, Jordan consistently sought to achieve supremacy in

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the Jordanian-Palestinian relationship as an essential means of preserving the stability of the Jordanian state on the East Bank, viewing Palestinian nationalist militancy as a potential threat. In reference to Jordan's interaction with the Palestinians, King Abdallah observed in 1947 that he did not support the creation of 'a new Arab state [in Palestine] that would hinder my plans and allow the Arabs to "ride me ragged". I want to be in the saddle, not underneath it.'! The annexation of the West Bank; the designation of the territory as the 'West Bank', rather than preserving the name of Palestine; the granting of Jordanian citizenship to all the Palestinians, on both banks; the resettlement of refugees; and the frustration of Palestinian political organizations were all essential facets of a deliberate policy designed to de-emphasize the Palestinian collective identity and to 'Jordanize' the Palestinians. In these circumstances, it was only natural for Jordan to treat the revival of Palestinian nationalism, increasingly evident from the late 1950s onward, with a combination of suspicion, apprehension, obstructionism and repression. Jordan opposed the inter-Arab efforts to foster the Palestinian nationalist revival in the early 1960s. It did not take long for Jordan and the newly established PLO, the organizational incarnation of Palestinian nationalist resurgence, to enter into a prolonged political confrontation that preceded the outbreak of the Six Day War. However, jordan's rearguard battle against the Palestinian revival suffered a severe setback in 1967. The process of 'Jordanization' was arrested after jordan's loss of control over the West Bank. The 're-Palestinization' of the West Bankers (and other Palestinian communities as well) was accelerated. jordan's efforts to stem the tide continued unabated, but with steadily diminishing returns. The PLO gradually established itself in the occupied territories and in the Arab and international arenas as the 'sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people'. In these new circumstances Jordan made a concerted effort to maintain a central role in the determination of the political destiny of the Palestinian people. This was essential, the Jordanians believed, lest a situation arise in which the Palestinians might ultimately obtain the political wherewithal to determine the fate of the Hashemite Kingdom. It was this reasoning that generated Jordanian apprehension in regard to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state under the rule of the PLO. As the 'sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people', the PLO, at

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least in theory, was also the sole legitimate representative of about half of jordan's population on the East Bank. An independent Palestinian state could eventually pose an irredentist threat toward Jordan and a serious challenge to Hashemite legitimacy, based on the contention - at times openly stated by PLO, Israeli and other sources - that the Palestinians had a majority on the East Bank. 2 Such a Palestinian challenge to the Jordanian state, if made, might be supported by certain Arab states and even by some in Israel as well. Jordan, therefore, has had in the past, and still has, a vital interest in preserving its influence over any settlement of the Palestinian issue. In recognition of the changes in the Palestinian arena since 1967, Jordan gradually modified its own Palestinian policy. These modifications, however, were invariably intended to maintain Jordan's role in Palestinian affairs and not to relinquish it. In March 1972, shortly after the final expulsion of the PLO forces from Jordan in the civil war of 1970-71, King Hussein launched a plan for a federative relationship between the East and West Banks. On the one hand, the plan was intended to preserve East Bank supremacy in the Jordanian-Palestinian equation. On the other hand, however, Hussein recognized that a return to the centralized unitary formula that had pertained from 1950 to 1967 was no longer feasible. Hussein gave limited recognition to the distinctive Palestinian national identity by proposing the establishment of the 'United Arab Kingdom'. This was to be a federation between an autonomous Jordanian 'region' (qutr) on the East Bank and an autonomous Palestinian 'region' in the West Bank (including Arab Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. The federation plan was rejected by the PLO as an undesirable peace overture to Israel and as an attempt to 'obliterate the Palestinian cause'. Generally, the plan did not enjoy support in the Arab world and was also dismissed by Israel as an unacceptable basis for negotiations. Nevertheless, it remained the cornerstone of Jordan's Palestinian policy. In the aftermath of the October 1973 war, an Arab consensus rapidly emerged, endorsing Palestinian rights to political independence and recognizing the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. In his effort to stem the tide, King Hussein argued repeatedly at this juncture that jordan's involvement in the Palestinian question was not a function of territorial ambition. Rather, he explained, it was an attempt to bring about an

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Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and then to enable the Palestinians to exercise their right to self-determination. Hussein promised that after Israel's withdrawal to the 1967 boundaries, the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza would be allowed to choose between a return to the pre-1967 formula of unity between the two banks, federation or an independent state. Jordan thus sought to dismiss the notion that it was a usurper of Palestinian rights and to portray itself as the protector, guarantor and vehicle of the Palestinians' right to self-determination. Hussein, however, also made it clear that Jordan preferred the federative formula. He seemed to be operating on the assumption that if Jordan could maintain its pivotal role in future negotiations, it would also be able to secure its desired outcome. That was not to be. The Arab world and Israel rejected the Jordanian position. At the Arab summit in Rabat, in October 1974, Jordan bowed to the Arab consensus recognizing the PLO as the 'sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people', as well as the organization's right to set up an 'independent national authority' in any Palestinian territory that Israel relinquished. The Rabat resolutions therefore disqualified Hussein as the legitimate spokesman of the people of the West Bank and denied jordan's right to re-establish its sovereignty over that territory. Formally, Jordan accepted the Rabat resolutions, but in practice Hussein sought to undermine them. From the outset he did not believe that the PLO would actually be able to fulfill the role of sole negotiator over the West Bank and Gaza, because of the positions it held and owing to Israeli and US opposition to its involvement. Eventually, he surmised, the Palestinians and the Arabs in general would have no choice but to recognize Jordan's centrality to any negotiation over the occupied territories. Systematically striving to erode the PLO's representative status, Hussein waited patiently for the first opportunity to re-establish jordan's position as senior negotiator for the occupied territories. This opportunity arrived on the heels of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which dealt a severe blow to the PLO. The loss of its territorial haven, PLO internecine warfare, and growing dependence on the Arab states, forced the PLO into a protracted period of decline. Hussein took immediate advantage of the PLO's relative weakness to create a political partnership with the organization, with the goal of granting Palestinian legitimacy to a renewed, highprofile Jordanian involvement in the Middle East peace process.

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In January 1984, Hussein revived Jordan's Parliament which had been dormant since the Rabat resolutions. The dissolution of Parliament, which also represented the West Bank, had been in ostensible compliance with the Rabat resolutions. Its revival, therefore, was an outright challenge to the PlO's exclusive representative status and a move calculated to establish Jordan's credentials as a legitimate partner to the PlO in negotiating a Palestinian settlement. In February 1985, Hussein and Arafat reached an agreement for political coordination, based on the understanding that Jordan and a future Palestinian state would be linked in a confederation. Hussein thus departed from his original federation plan, by recognizing the Palestinians' right to a state and not just an autonomous 'region'. The quid pro quo, at least in Hussein's view, was the PlO's recognition, in practice if not in theory, of jordan's central role in the peace process, and Arafat's acceptance of a joint JordanianPalestinian delegation to an international peace conference. However, the February accord was no more than yet another round in the long-standing Jordanian-PlO rivalry for supremacy in Palestinian affairs. Both parties were soon deeply engaged in efforts to co-opt, neutralize and subvert one another. Their 'accord' came to naught. In February 1986, Hussein suspended the coordination and their relations deteriorated yet again into open confrontation. In March 1986, the Jordanian Parliament passed a new election law designed to increase Palestinian representation, and in November of the same year Jordan launched an ambitious development plan for the occupied territories. These were moves intended to bolster jordan's constitutional, political and economic links with the West Bank (and Gaza as well) and to expand its base of support there. Despite the lip service Jordan paid regularly to the PlO's exclusive representative status, in Hussein's view, Palestinian representation was actually divided among three parties: Jordan, the PlO and the West Bankers. Following the break with the PlO, Hussein sought to alter the relative weight of these components by means of a Palestinian and Arab reassessment of the PlO's role. These were all facets of a policy that was designed to shift the balance of power in the Palestinian arena, giving greater influence to the West Bankers at the expense of the PlO. Jordan aimed to create a climate of public opinion in the occupied territories that would openly challenge the PlO's handling of their interests. This,

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in turn, was intended to bring pressure to bear on the PLO to accept coordination with Jordan on Hussein's terms. Hussein was not prepared to enter negotiations without broad Arab backing and credible Palestinian support. He may have been willing to undermine the PLO, but not to negotiate without it, unless he could obtain Palestinian and Arab backing to do so. Jordan, Hussein said, 'cannot talk on behalf of the Palestinians. We have to have a clear mandate.' After his break with the PLO, the king declared on numerous occasions that Jordan would not serve as a substitute for the PLO, which remained the 'sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians', but he also argued, somewhat over-optimistically, that the question of who would ultimately represent the Palestinians was still open. 3 The outbreak of the Intifada in December 1987 turned the tables on Hussein. The minor inroads Jordan had made in the West Bank and Gaza at the PLO's expense were washed away in no time by the most sustained demonstration of Palestinian nationalist fervor since 1967. The Intifada did indeed provide the people in the occupied territories with greater influence than ever before in the corridors of Palestinian power, but in precisely the opposite direction from what Hussein had initially intended. The Intifada rapidly developed into the PLO's major political asset and the scales in the Jordanian-Palestinian equation were now tipped heavily against Jordan. The boot was very much on the other foot. If Jordan had clearly had the upper hand, in the aftermath of the Lebanon War, it was now the Jordanians who were pushed into a corner, as the PLO reclaimed center stage in the interArab and international arenas. EVOLVING JORDANIAN PERCEPTIONS OF THE INTIFADA

From the very outset the Jordanians were wary that the Intifada might lead to a resurgence of PLO influence. 4 They made every effort in the first three or four months of the uprising to deny the PLO credit and to publicly discount any PLO role in the Intifada. The uprising was therefore portrayed as a purely spontaneous internal phenomenon. 5 It not only had nothing to do with outsiders, but was an expression of frustration with the Arab states and with the PLO. 6 The Intifada, according to Hussein, had created a new situation, because the people in the West Bank and Gaza had

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'chosen to lessen their reliance on others outside to speak for them'.7 The PLO, he contended, was now required to ask itself whether it still understood the wishes and feelings of the Palestinian people. If not, new realities may emerge very soon, realities that would take the PLO and the entire Arab world by surprise. There was a 'new dynamism' in the occupied territories, which had given 'precedence to the role of the people [there] over that of any party concerned ... including the PLO'.8 The attempt to portray the uprising as an expression of popular disenchantment with the PLO soon proved to be an exercise in deception or wishful thinking. From mid-January onward, the leaflets of the Unified National Leadership of the uprising were invariably published in the name and on behalf of the PLO. Moreover, they assumed an increasingly anti-Jordanian tone, frequently accusing Jordan and its supporters in the West Bank of power-sharing and collaboration with IsraeU The Jordanians were particularly perturbed by one of the versions of 'call number 10' circulated in mid-March 1988, which appealed to the West Bank representatives in the Jordanian Parliament to resign. Jordanians correctly interpreted this as a frontal assault on the concept of unity between the two banks. Hussein was said to have been 'truly stung' by the willingness of many Palestinian deputies living on the East Bank to consider the appeal before it was partially rescinded by the PLO.!O This incident was a turning point. It finally dispelled any illusions the Jordanians may still have had about the nature of the Intifada. From then onward, the Jordanian perception and portrayal of the uprising began to change; this had an immediate effect on Jordan's perception of its own role in the peace process, culminating eventually in Hussein's decision to disengage from the West Bank. jordan's argument since the 1974 Rabat resolutions - that the PLO had, in effect, been imposed on the people of the occupied territories by an Arab League decision about which they had not been consulted - had clearly been disproved by the Intifada. Hussein now admitted that the Palestinian people had 'elected the PLO' as their representative. 'From this premise', he concluded, Jordan could 'not carry any more burdens'.l1 Jordan finally accepted the fact that the Intifada was a Palestinian national phenomenon, founded not only on a deep sense of identification with the PLO,12 but also upon the rejection of Jordan as a desirable partner with the PLO in representing the Palestinians. 13

218

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On 28 July 1988 the government canceled Jordan's not very effective development plan (1986-90) for the occupied territories. Two days later, a royal decree dissolved the Chamber of Deputies. On 31 July, in a speech to the nation, Hussein announced his intention to sever jordan's legal and administrative ties with the West Bank. The speech was followed by a series of measures designed to implement the disengagement decision. On 4 August, the government decided to retire almost all the Jordanian civil servants employed in the West Bank. The decision came into effect on 16 August and affected 18,000 civil servants in the various government departments and institutions. It applied mainly to teachers, health workers and municipal employees, most of whom also received salaries from Israel. They were all to receive different forms of pension and compensation depending on the length of their service. However, the decision did not apply to over 3,000 employees of the Ministry of Religious Endowments (Awqaf) and Religious Affairs, including the Islamic religious court system. These, according to the government statement, embodied the 'Islamic cultural presence in the occupied Palestinian territory' and would therefore be exempted. 14 On 6 August, the king issued a royal decree abolishing the Supreme Committee for West Bank Affairs, a body that had been formed in 1980 to formulate administrative, financial and social policy on the West Bank. On the same day, the Ministry of Occupied Territory Affairs, also established in 1980, was similarly abolished. The duties of the ministry were now transferred to a newly formed department for Palestinian affairs in the Foreign Ministry. However, the most significant immediate step taken by the Jordanian authorities to implement the disengagement decision related to the rights of citizenship of the West Bank population. On 20 August, the Prime Minister issued new instructions to the Ministry of Interior's Civil Registration Department and the Department of Passports, according to which all Jordanian citizens residing in the West Bank before 31 July 1988 would henceforth be considered Palestinians and not Jordanian nationals. West Bankers would still be allowed to obtain 'temporary' Jordanian passports. These, however, would be valid only for renewable two-year periods, as opposed to the regular five-year duration. They would be considered solely as travel documents, which would neither

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entitle the bearer to the rights of citizenship nor require him/her to fulfill the obligations deriving therefrom, such as military service. This placed West Bankers on a par with people from the Gaza Strip who had received such 'temporary' passports in the past, without becoming Jordanian citizens. Residents of the Gaza Strip who had previously obtained Jordanian passports would be allowed to renew them for two years, but no new passports were to be issued in the future to Gazans. 15 Various restrictions on West Bankers taking up residence on the East Bank had already been in force before the disengagement. However, the new regulations, being more stringent, were clearly designed to make Palestinian emigration to the East Bank all the more difficult. Palestinians who were not actually residing on the West Bank prior to 31 July 1988, such as those working in the Gulf and elsewhere, would have to return to their 'natural place of residence'. This meant the West Bank, for all those who had originally left from there to seek employment outside the country.16 The measures adopted were unprecedented and far-reaching, but not all of jordan's ties with the West Bank were severed. According to Minister of Interior Raja'i al-Dajani, Jordan had no intention of erecting a 'Great Wall of China' between the two banks. I? The bridges across the Jordan were to remain open as before, and West Bankers were still allowed to cross without having to obtain visas or present passports. Jordan maintained an overt administrative, and no doubt political, link with the West Bank through the West Bank religious establishment. This was of particular importance because of the ties between the local religious establishment and the Islamic fundamentalist movement in the West Bank and Gaza - Hamas. The disengagement measures left a series of constitutional questions in abeyance. In his speech of 31 July, Hussein spoke of severing Jordan's legal (qanuni) and administrative (idari) ties with the West Bank. He made no mention of Jordan's constitutional (dusturi) links, which were actually left intact, at least initially. No amendment was made to the constitution even though Article One, as formulated in 1952 (that is, after the annexation of the West Bank), specified that jordan's territory was 'indivisible' and that 'no portion of it' could be ceded. 18 Indeed, Minister of Information Hani al-Khasawna denied reports that Jordanian maps were to be modified to exclude the West Bank. 19 In early 1990, the Jordanian television evening news broadcast still showed the map of Jordan that included the West Bank.

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The resolution adopted by the Jordanian Parliament in April 1950 on the unification of the East and West Banks was neither amended nor abrogated. The Chamber of Deputies did not even discuss the matter; Hussein dissolved the Chamber the day before his disengagement speech, thus effectively avoiding any such debate. He preferred not to use unambiguous terms, such as abrogation or nullification, in response to questions on this issue. In a press conference on 7 August, he was only prepared to say that the 1950 resolution had been 'affected in one dimension' when the PLO opted for an independent state, a desire to which Jordan had responded positively. When asked whether Jordan had irrevocably renounced sovereignty over the West Bank he replied with a question of his own: 'Did I say that?'20 The Minister of Information flatly denied that the disengagement meant the abolition of the 1950 resolution. 2! Another issue of constitutional significance was related to the Chamber of Deputies and the question of future elections. The king had a number of constitutional options following the dissolution of the Chamber: to call for new elections within four months, to postpone elections indefinitely, or to do neither and have the dissolved parliament automatically reconvened four months after the dissolution. On 2 October, a royal decree was issued, indefinitely postponing parliamentary elections. 22 General elections were to be held after the amendment of the 1986 Election Law, which, like its predecessor of 1960, included representation for the West Bank. The Election Law could easily have been amended in time to hold elections in November 1988. Hussein, however, chose to bide his time. He was in no rush to hold elections for a Parliament that would only represent the East Bank and thus lend a stamp of finality to the disengagement. He seemed to be waiting for the results of the forthcoming meeting of the PLO's Palestine National Council (PNC), as well as the results of the elections in Israel, before making any decisions of this nature. In August, a committee was set up in the Interior Ministry to draw up recommendations for the revision of the Election Law. In early November, Minister of Interior Raja'i al-Dajani revealed that the committee had already covered most of the material related to the amendments. What remained was the part that was 'the state's [that is, the king's] decision'. However, as Dajani himself observed, to have 'a decent law', there was no need to hurry.23 Following the November 1988 Palestine National Council,

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the declaration of Palestinian independence and the initiation of the US-PLO dialogue, there was no longer any purpose to further procrastination on the election issue. The PLO had effectively met jordan's challenge (see below), at least in the short term. In midApril 1989 a royal decree was issued approving the amendment of the electorallaw. 24 In November 1989, general elections were held on the East Bank for the first Parliament since 1950 to have no West Bank representation. Despite certain lingering ambiguities, one could now say that constitutionally, the West Bank was no longer part of Jordan. Indeed, Hussein had already stated previously that, in effect, Jordan had 'ceded sovereignty over the West Bank'.25

JORDAN, THE PLO AND THE PNC RESOLUTIONS

jordan's disengagement was a move directed at all the key players in the Middle East peace process, primarily the PLO, Israel and the United States. As far as Israel and the United States were concerned, the Jordanian objective was to finally convince them that the 'Jordan option' as they perceived it, namely, as a negotiating process that would circumvent the PLO, was unrealistic. 26 But it was the PLO and the Palestinians who were the main target of the Jordanian decision. Jordan explained that it had now removed once and for all any remaining doubts and suspicions about its intentions regarding the West Bank and jordan's commitment to the PLO's representative status. The Jordanians were, however, quick to point out that the PLO would henceforth be solely responsible for the consequences of the measures taken. 2? After all, as Hussein had noted repeatedly and quite contemptuously in his disengagement speech, jordan's decision had been made in accordance with the wishes of the PLO. This was not really the case. It could be argued, as the Jordanians did, that Jordan was simply abiding by the Arab consensus on the PLO, as reaffirmed at the behest of the PLO during the June 1988 Arab summit in Algiers. Hussein, however, had not consulted the PLO on the disengagement decision. Indeed, Hussein subsequently admitted that, since this decision pertained to Jordanian sovereignty, there was no need to consult anyone else about it. 28 Zayd al-Rifa'i remarked with noticeable disdain that Jordan had only offered the PLO what it had always insisted upon. 'Consultation about what? Had we consulted the organization would [the PLO] have refused?'29

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The Jordanians were obviously challenging the PLO to prove its diplomatic mettle and 'live up to' its responsibility as the 'sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people'. In the words of Sawt al-Sha'b, Jordan would support the PLO 'as long as it faithfully and honestly served the Palestinian cause. But [it] would not do so if the PLO became a burden on the people of Palestine. '30 Hussein expressed the hope that 'the pressure of the events, particularly in the occupied territories, and the responsibilities that Uordan had] chosen to give' the PLO, would contribute to the organization's 'ability to come up with the right answers'.31 Jordan, he said, was waiting for the PLO's response to the disengagement decision. There would be no 'quarter to blame but the PLO, if they fail to make up their minds and assume their responsibilities' .32 Though Jordanian-PLO relations remained strained in the first few months after the disengagement decision, Hussein had an obvious interest in renewed coordination with the organization, albeit on a new, more symmetrical foundation than he had previously envisaged. The disengagement was also intended to induce the PLO to recognize the relevance of Jordan to the day-to-day affairs of West Bankers, the peace process and the ultimate solution of the Palestinian question. In the aftermath of the disengagement, the Jordanians frequently noted the need for Jordanian-PLO political coordination. This, they explained, would be necessary for channeling support to the people in the West Bank and Gaza, but more so 'for the sake of the Palestinian cause' and 'the common destiny' of the Jordanians and the Palestinians. 33 Though Jordan and the PLO still had their differences, the resolutions of the PNC, held in Algiers in November 1988, and the declaration of Palestinian independence were well received in Jordan. The PLO, according to Hussein, was 'shouldering its responsibilities' and had demonstrated its willingness to join in a 'historical reconciliation between Arabs and Israelis'.34 Jordan immediately declared its support for the resolutions and recognized the independent Palestinian state;35 in early January 1989, the PLO office in Amman became the Embassy of Palestine. 36 According to Hussein, the PNC had finally accepted the US conditions for the incorporation of the organization into the peace process. The initial US response, which described the PNC resolutions as inadequate, and the subsequent American refusal to grant Ara-fat an entry visa to the United States, were condemned by Hussein as an attempt at 'stifling the voice of the Palestinian people'. 37

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In late November 1988, Arafat held talks with Hussein in Amman and, at the same time, Jordan and Egypt agreed to spearhead a collective Arab bid to move the session of the UN General Assembly from New York to Geneva to enable Arafat to address the UN body.38 Following Arafat's Geneva speech and press conference, and the US decision to enter into a 'substantive dialogue' with the PLO, Jordan, with certain justification, claimed credit for having played a major role in bringing this new state of affairs into being. 39 Hussein maintained that relations with the PLO were now 'extremely close' and 'probably better than they [had] ever been, without the suspicions and doubts of the past'. 40 This was probably more than a slight exaggeration, yet it truly reflected Jordan's fears of exclusion from the peace process and its desire for coordination with the PLO. Such coordination, according to the Jordanian daily, al-Ra'y, was imperative because of the 'bonds uniting the two peoples' and because both Jordan and the PLO were essential parties to any peace settlement. 41 JORDAN'S ROLE IN THE PEACE PROCESS IN THE WAKE OF DISENGAGEMENT

In his disengagement speech, Hussein made it quite clear that the severance of jordan's legal and administrative ties with the West Bank ought not to be construed as Jordanian dissociation from the Palestinian question and the Arab-Israeli peace process. Hussein repeatedly made the point that the disengagement was not of jordan's own choosing, but rather a response to the Palestinian and overall Arab consensus on Palestine. 42 It was the PLO, he noted, that had decided on secession (infisal) from Jordan in an independent Palestinian state, as part of the Palestinian and overall Arab tendency to highlight the Palestinian identity. Jordan, for its part, had never imagined that the preservation of its legal and administrative ties with the West Bank could be an impediment to the liberation of the occupied territories. In light of the Arab consensus, Jordan was simply fulfilling its duty by doing 'what [had] been demanded' of it.43 At the Algiers summit in June 1988, Hussein had already expressed his reservations about this Arab consensus and its lack of realism. But he was now indignantly suggesting that if this was what the Arabs wanted, then so be it.

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Jordan, however, would not 'relinquish its commitment to participation' in the peace process. Jordan had been a long-standing supporter of an international conference as the only suitable forum for negotiations for a comprehensive settlement. This support continued following the disengagement. The Jordanians repeatedly reaffirmed their position that Jordan, as a confrontation state with the longest border with Israel, still had an indispensable role, which it was 'prepared to play to the fullest extent' under the auspices of such a conference in the future. 44 In the wake of the Intifada and jordan's disengagement, the international conference assumed a significantly different role in jordan's strategy regarding the Middle East peace process. Previously, the international conference had been intended by the Jordanians to serve as a vehicle for Palestinian, Arab and international support for the central role that Jordan expected to play. In the not-too-distant past the Jordanians had seen the conference as a useful framework for the necessary inclusion of the PLO alongside Jordan; now it was becoming a vital mechanism to prevent a PLO monopoly over the negotiating process and possible Jordanian exclusion. The Jordanians admitted that they no longer pursued their former dual approach, which held that jordan's role in the peace process, as a state whose territory in the West Bank was occupied, did not conflict with the PLO's role as the 'sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people'.45 The Jordanians now reaffirmed, time and again, their lack of territorial ambition and their acceptance of the PLO's recognized representative status. Simultaneously, however, they also consistently condemned the notion of bilateral Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. This, they contended, was a form of 'unilateral action' that contradicted the Arab consensus. Only negotiations in an international conference, where both Jordan and the PLO would be represented, were likely to 'remove any possible apprehensions'.46 In the aftermath of the PNC, Jordan welcomed the notion of direct dialogue between the United States and the PLO, but only as a necessary preparatory step for an international conference, and certainly not as a substitute for it.47 The Jordanians therefore continued to urge the United States, the Soviet Union, the European Community and the Arab states to work for the convening of an international conference, which, in their view, was 'the only way to proceed' to establish comprehensive peace in the Middle East. 48 They were equally concerned to

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remind all and sundry of Jordan's 'pivotal' role in the maintenance of regional stability, because of its proximity to the West Bank. 49 As Crown Prince Hasan put it, the resolution of the PalestinianIsraeli tier of the conflict ought not to be pursued in isolation from the second, Arab-Israeli, tier. 'Decoupling those two tiers is not only inadvisable, it may be detrimental to the process as a whole.'50 The 'most appropriate vehicle' and the 'only venue' for direct negotiations for a comprehensive settlement was, therefore, an international conference to be attended by both Jordan and the PLO.51 The fact that the PLO was now 'in the driver's seat' did not 'exempt Uordan] of responsibility' .52 jordan's unique association with Palestine continued to be highlighted after the disengagement in much the same terms as before. In his disengagement speech, Hussein stated that Jordan would never give up its support for the Palestinian cause, since 'no one outside Palestine had, or could have' a closer association with Palestine than Jordan or the Hashemite family.53 The Jordanians still maintained that a 'special historic relationship' or 'sacred historic unity' bound Jordan and the Palestinians, to the extent that it would be difficult even to contemplate separating the two peoples. 54 This immutable link would remain intact, because Jordan was a 'natural demographic and geographic extension of the West Bank' and because Jordanians and Palestinians were 'one people regardless of what is said'.55 Hussein's vision of the future was based on the establishment of a 'very close relationship' between Jordan and a Palestinian state and certainly did not exclude a JordanianPalestinian confederation. 56 POSTSCRIPT: JORDAN, THE PLO AND THE GULF WAR

In the Jordanian-PLO equation, the Intifada had tipped the scales against Jordan. The Gulf War, however, altered the regional balance yet again, this time in jordan's favor. The Intifada and the PLO were two casualties of the war. The Arab-Israeli conflict was no longer viewed solely through the prism of the Palestinian question. The 'two-track' process promoted by the United States - parallel talks between Israel and neighboring states and between Israel and the Palestinians - meant greater involvement of the Arab states, including Jordan. Moreover, the PLO was punished much more than Jordan by the United States and the international community for having

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supported Saddam Husayn. Jordan was seen to have been compelled by regional and domestic pressures, but the PLO appeared to have been acting out of ideological identification with Saddam. This undermined PLO credibility in all quarters, particularly in the United States. The PLO's dialogue with Washington, the main achievement of the Intifada, was left suspended. Jordan, on the other hand, was soon forgiven by the United States for its flirt with Saddam. As displeased as the Americans were with King Hussein, they did not have appealing alternatives. They, like most powers in the region, had an interest in Jordan's stability. Given Jordan's geo-political centrality, instability there could mean regional havoc. Since the end of the Gulf crisis, Jordan displayed more political self-assurance and assertiveness than at any time since the Intifada began. Shortly after the disengagement Hussein noted that the effort to form a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation had not made any headway and was 'behind us now' .57 The revival by both Washington and Amman of the notion of joint Jordanian-Palestinian representation in peace talks was, therefore, a sign of the times - and of the ever-alternating fortunes of Jordan and the PLO. Hussein and PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat had first agreed on such a joint delegation in February 1985. The PLO was then, and still is, wary of a joint delegation, as it compromises one of the organization's articles of faith: its status as the Palestinians' exclusive representative. But in 1985, after the Lebanon War, the PLO was at one of its low points. When the Intifada strengthened its position, it could more effectively oppose joint representation. Jordan, though still clearly in favor of a joint delegation, was cautious not to appear to be imposing its will on the PLO or usurping its representative role. It preferred to have the PLO pressured by the superpowers, the other Arab states, and the Palestinians in the territories. In the aftermath of the Gulf War, the PLO had little choice but to accept the idea again. Ever since the PLO's setback in Lebanon in 1982-83, and particularly since the Intifada, the weight of the residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in Palestinian politics has grown. ProPLO activists in the territories are concerned that the PLO's diminished international status might affect their ability to extricate themselves from Israeli rule. After the Gulf War, calls for elections in the territories or for increased West Bank and Gaza representation in the PNC were indicative of an assertive mood in the

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territories. Still, neither Jordan nor the residents of the territories were able or willing to substitute for the PLO in peace talks. Jordan, the PLO and the territories are permanently locked into a triangular relationship. None can be entirely excluded from the peace process. Despite the long debate in Israel over the advantages of the Palestinian and the Jordanian options, the question was not whether to reach a settlement with one or the other, but rather what form of Jordanian-Palestinian combination would be the counterpart for an eventual final settlement.

NOTES This chapter is based largely on a paper previously published by the author: In Through the Out Door: jordan's Disengagement and the Middle East Peace Process (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1990). 1. Uri Bar-Joseph, The Best of Enemies: Israel and Transjordan in the War of 1948 (London: Cass, 1987), p. 9. 2. The figures are disputed. For a brief but cogent discussion of this issue, see Valerie Yorke, 'Jordan Is Not Palestine: The Demographic Factor', Middle East International, 16 April 1988. 3. Asher Susser, Double Jeopardy: PLO Strategy Towards Israel and Jordan (Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1987), Policy Papers No.8, pp. 545. 4. The New York Times, 8 Jan. 1988. 5. Zayd al-Rifa'i quoted in Jordan Times, 4 Jan. 1988; Hussein on Jordan TV, 14 Jan. 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 15 Jan. 1988. 6. New York Times, 8 Jan. 1988. 7. Jordan TV, 29 Jan. 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 1 Feb. 1988. 8. Hussein to Der Spiegel, 1 Feb. 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 3 Feb. 1988; Marwan Dudin in Jordan Times, 23 Feb. 1988. 9. Shaul Mishal with Reuben Aharoni, Speaking Stones: The Words Behind the Palestinian Intifada (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1989). 10. International Herald Tribune, 12 Aug. 1988. 11. Radio Amman, 3 May 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 6 May 1988; Jordan News Agency, 10 May 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 11 May 1988. 12. Hani al-Khasawna to al-Dustur (London), 8 Aug. 1988. 13. Al-Mustaqbal, 6 Aug. 1988. 14. Radio Amman, 4 Aug. 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 5 Aug. 1988; Financial Times,S Aug. 1988; Jordan Times, 6 Aug. 1988. 15. Jordan Times, 21 Aug. 1988; Sawt al-Sha'b, 30 Aug. 1988. 16. Interview with Minister of Interior Raja'i al-Dajani in al-Ra'y, 10 Sept. 1988. 17. Ibid. 18. For text of constitution, see Muhammad Khalil (ed.), The Arab States and the Arab League, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Khayats, 1962), pp. 55-75. 19. Middle East News Agency, 31 Aug. 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 1 Sept. 1988. 20. Jordan TV, 7 Aug. 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 8 Aug. 1988. 21. Sawt al-Sha'b, 3 Aug. 1988. 22. Radio Amman, 2 Oct. 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 3 Oct. 1988.

228 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

Jordan

In

the Middle East

Jordan Times, 10--11 Nov. 1988. Radio Amman, 15 April 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 17 April 1989. Jordan Times, 17 July 1989. Jordan Times, 31 July 1988; Adnan Abu Awda inal-Ma;alla, 10--16 Aug. 1988; Rifa'i in al-Anba, 10 Sept. 1988. Sawt al Sha'b, 29 July 1988; Hani al-Khasawna quoted by Radio Abu Dhabi, 30 July 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 1 Aug. 1988 and Sawt al-Sha'b, 3 Aug. 1988. Sawt al-Sha'b, 12 Aug. 1988. AI-Anba, 10 Sept. 1988. Sawt al-Sha'b, 29 July 1988; Jordan Times, 31 July 1988. Hussein's press conference on 7 Aug. 1988,Jordan TV, 7 Aug. 1988, translated in FBISNES, 8 Aug. 1988. Jordan TV, 20 Sept. 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 21 Sept. 1988; Radio Amman, 21 Oct. 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 24 Oct. 1988. For example, Hani al-Khasawna in Sawt al-Sha'b, 3 Aug. 1988 and al-Ra'y, 23 Aug. 1989. Jordan Times, 4 Dec. 1988. Radio Amman, 15 Nov. 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 16 Nov. 1988. AI-Ra'y, 8 Jan. 1989. Jordan Times, 28 Nov. 1988. Jordan Times, 28 Nov. 1988. Sawt al Sha'b, 16 Dec. 1988. Jordan TV, 16 Dec. 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 19 Dec. 1988. AI-Ra'y, 28 Dec. 1988. For the full text of Hussein's speech see al-Ra'y, 1 Aug. 1988. Ibid. For example, al-Dustur (Amman), 4 Aug. 1988; Hussein at press conference on 7 Aug. 1988, Jordan TV, 7 Aug. 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 8 Aug. 1988; Jordan TV, 25 Feb. 1989, translated in FBIS-NES, 27 Feb. 1989; al-Dustur (Amman), 7 Aug. 1989. Khasawna in Sawtal-Sha'b, 5 Aug. 1988; Tahir ai-Masri in Sawt al-Sha'b, 4 Oct. 1988. Sawt al Sha'b, 25 June 1988; al-Dustur (Amman), 10 Aug. 1988; Radio Monte Carlo, 2 March 1989, translated in FBIS-NES, 3 March 1989; al-Ra'y, 15 March 1989; Jordan Times, 27 March 1989. Rifa'i quoted in al-Dustur (Amman), 12 Dec. 1988; al-Ra'y, 16 Dec. 1988. Hussein quoted in Jordan Times, 4 Dec. 1988; Tahir ai-Masri in Jordan Times, 14 Dec. 1988; Marwan al-Qasim in al-Dustur (Amman), 22 Jan. 1989; Zayd bin Shakir in Sawt al-Sha'b, 15 June 1989. Hasan to Jordan Times, 11 Dec. 1988. Hasan in speech at the Washington Institute, 12 Sept. 1989, p. 5. Ibid., pp. 6-7. Hasan to Wochenpresse, 12 May 1989, translated in FBIS-NES, 18 May 1989. AI-Ra'y, 1 Aug. 1988. Sawt al-Sha'b, 29 July 1988; Hani al-Khasawna quoted by radio Abu Dhabi, 30 July 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 1 Aug. 1988; Jordan Times, 1 Aug. 1988; al-Dustur (Amman), 10 Aug. 1988. Raja'i al-Dajani to al-Ra'y, 10 Sept. 1988. Hussein on 'Face the Nation,' 20 Nov. 1988, US Information Service Wireless File, 20 Nov. 1988. Hussein at press conference, Jordan TV, 7 Aug. 1988, translated in FBIS-NES, 8 Aug. 1988.

11

Jordanian-Israeli Peace Negotiations after the Six Day War, 1967-69: The View from Jerusalem Yair Hirschfeld

The 'Jordanian option' - the hope for a settlement between Israel and Jordan as a first step towards a more comprehensive peace in the Middle East - has occupied and intrigued Israeli policy-makers and strategists ever since the establishment of the State of Israel. And indeed, direct or indirect Israeli-Jordanian peace negotiations or consultations toward achieving a peace have taken place many times: in the formative years of the Jewish state, 1948-51; after the Six Day War, 1967-69; in the summer of 1974; in the summer and early autumn of 1978, and between the autumn of 1984 and the spring of 1987. Academic research and writing have tended to cover IsraeliJordanian negotiations in the early period, 1949-51. t Less is known about the ups, the downs and the final failure of the negotiating effort that was made between 1967 and 1969. The aim here is to shed light on this latter important episode.

'THE JORDANIAN OPTION' IN ISRAELI STRATEGIC THINKING SHORTLY BEFORE THE SIX DAY WAR

In December 1966, Yigal Alon, Minister of Labor and one of Israel's foremost strategists, gavea lecture in which he argued that Israel had to face four basic strategic challenges: first, a massive military threat from Egypt; second, a geo-strategic threat from

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whoever controlled the West Bank; third, a trigger effect from Syria that may easily lead to war; and fourth, a Palestinian threat to the international legitimacy of Israel's existence. 2 To face these four challenges in the period before the Six Day War of June 1967, Israel had endeavored to build an effective military deterrence against Egypt and Syria. The Israeli attitude toward King Hussein was different. King Hussein's army was small and not built for an offensive; this offered hope to Israeli strategists that the West Bank would not be used as a center stage for the concentration of Arab armies against Israel. Moreover, jordan's claim to the West Bank, based on the Jordanian performance during the Israeli-Arab war of 1948, on resolutions taken by Palestinian representatives at the Conferences ofJericho and Nablus (of December 1948)/ and on American and British support for the incorporation of Arab Palestine into former Trans-Jordan,4 directly contradicted the legitimacy of the Palestinian demand for the establishment of a state in place of Jordan and Israel. Accordingly, Israel and King Hussein secretly maintained direct and indirect contacts, aimed mainly at countering the Palestinian challenge. Impressed by King Hussein, and aware that in the present context of Arab hostility against Israel, Hussein was the best Israel could get, Jerusalem made it known to the radical Arab leadership that any attempt to depose King Hussein would be seen in Jerusalem as a casus belli, and would thus bring about an Israeli invasion of the West Bank. 5 King Hussein, however, did not offer a full or satisfying answer to all Israeli prayers (regarding Alon's points two and four). Instead, he followed a dual policy of confrontation and dialogue with Israel, on the one hand, and with the PLO and the Arab world, on the other. He cooperated with Palestinian infiltrators against Israel and supported the rhetoric of Arab hostility against Israel, in order to ward off criticism against a policy of clamping down on the Palestinian organizations at home. He maintained a secret dialogue with Israel in order to use Israeli threat to deter outside Arab involvement in Jordanian affairs. Finally, he used his very friendly relations with Washington to regulate and moderate Israeli reactions to such a tightrope-walking policy.6 Hussein's policy irritated the Israeli leadership. Although his tactics did fit hand-in-glove with Israel's need to turn the West Bank into a security valve against Arab aggression, the king's verbal and tactical cooperation with the PLO and Arab radical regimes also intensified existing security threats. In November 1966, in response

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to a series of acts of terror - but also to show that Hussein could not be permitted to provide a safety net for Palestinian terrorism - the IDF launched a military attack against Samo'a (on the West Bank). Still, Israeli irritation was not diminished when Hussein secretly informed the Israeli government that he wanted cooperation, but could not totally oppose the Palestinian organizations.? The Samo'a incident also alerted the United States and induced President Johnson to send a special envoy to Israel, Jordan and Lebanon, in order to prevent further deterioration of the situation. In response, Israeli politicians expressed the hope for an IsraeliJordanian rapprochement. Shimon Peres, speaking to the Commercial and Industrial Club in Tel Aviv, floated the following idea: 'Lebanon, Jordan and Israel must join the European Common Market on the same terms. It is for us to propose such a step. In this way we are going to meet the Arabs inside the Common Market.'8 A couple of days later, on 9 January 1967, Teddy Kollek, the mayor of Jerusalem, said at a press conference in New York that cooperation with Jordan should include free movement and access from Jordan to the Mediterranean. 9 On 20 January, Moshe Dayan spoke of political cooperation, proposing a confederation between Israel, Trans-Jordan and Palestine. The confederation would be formed by sovereign units linked to each other by mutual agreement. There would be economic cooperation, access to the Mediterranean for Jordan and resettlement of refugees in Jordan. 10 No Arab response was received to any of these proposals. Nasser's decision to close the Straits of Tiran and the ensuing crisis of May 1967, which led to the Six Day War, put the IsraeliJordanian relationship under renewed stress. Immediately before the outbreak of war, Israel made a last attempt to maintain a secret working relationship with Amman. Prime Minister Levy Eshkol appealing (secretly) to the king to stay out of the fighting, offered three concessions in return. First, Israel would not attack Jordan; second, Israel would guarantee the existing frontiers, including the partition of Jerusalem; third, Israel would provide Jordan, if necessary, with military cover against outside Arab aggression. ll King Hussein chose to ignore Eshkol's appeal and launched an all-out attack on Israel. From Jerusalem's point of view, the, basis of Israeli-Jordanian secret cooperation had thus been eliminated. Moreover, Israeli irritation over Hussein's unreliability turned into a firm conviction that Israel's security had to be based on a more solid foundation. In the face of continuing Jordanian military

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attacks on Jerusalem, the Israeli army had no choice but to respond, and went on to conquer East Jerusalem and the West Bank. THE 'JORDANIAN OPTION' BECOMES THE SECOND BEST CHOICE

Military victory in the Six Day War did not eliminate the four basic strategic threats to Israel enumerated by Yigal Alon in December 1966, although it did create an opportunity to find new answers to old challenges. On 19 June 1967 (merely a week after the end of fighting), the Israeli government unanimously and secretly took four highly important decisions. First, in return for direct peace negotiations, a formal, internationally binding peace treaty, the demilitarization of Sinai and jointly agreed security arrangements, Israel would withdraw to the international Egyptian-Israeli border, or exactly the same boundary that had existed before the outbreak of the Six Day War with the exception of the Gaza Strip, which had never been a part of Egypt. Second, the same conditions would be offered to Syria for the establishment of peace. Third, no decision was taken in regard to the future of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Fourth, Israel would not unilaterally seek a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem; rather, this question would be solved within the framework of a general regional agreement. 12 The rationale for these decisions included both security and diplomatic considerations. From a security point of view, Egypt and Syria undoubtedly constituted a greater threat to Israel than did Jordan, and therefore a deal with Egypt and/or Syria had priority over a deal with Jordan. From a diplomatic point of view, Israel's offer to Egypt and Syria aimed at strengthening Washington's position in Cairo and Damascus; there was no such need for that with regard to Amman. The Israeli decisions of 19 June 1967 were transmitted at once to President Johnson. On 25 June 1967, President Johnson met with the Soviet Prime Minister Alexej Kossigyn in Glassboro, New Hampshire, in the United States, for the purpose of hammering out a deal on the Middle East. Altogether, jerusalem's offer to return both the Sinai and the Golan to Egypt and Syria, respectively, strengthened Johnson's hand tremendously. Even if no understanding were reached on a joint US-Soviet approach, America's position as a sole mediator was very strong, as Israel was enabling Washington to offer Egypt and Syria exactly what the Soviet Union was

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promising to obtain for them. If, on the other hand, the Soviets tried to encourage Egypt and Syria to regain lost territories by military force, the US could spoil these efforts by offering Israel military support and backing a militarily powerful Jewish state. If the Soviets tried to obtain the lost territories for their client states by political pressure, America could block this too. The occupied territories thus became a commodity that the United States could trade; they could be acquired from Israel in return for the provision of peace; they could be handed over to Egypt and Syria in return for a change in their radical pro-Soviet and anti-Western postures. 13 No similar gain could be made for the West in the regional equation by promoting negotiations between Israel and Jordan. In this case, everything would remain within the family of the Western alliance, whatever the outcome. The validity of these theoretical conclusions was not evident to everybody at the start, and hence they were not immediately translated into practical politics. The Glassboro summit meeting was a failure. Neither the Soviet Union nor its Arab client states were willing to negotiate a peace even if they would gain in return the territories lost. The Arab position was finally tendered at a Arab summit conference held at Khartoum, Sudan, at the very beginning of September. The Khartoum formula spoke of three no's: no recognition of the State of Israel, no direct negotiations with Israel, and no peace with Israel. The only door kept open for negotiations was the omission of a fourth 'no', prohibiting any Arab government from reaching an indirect agreement with Israel. 14 The positions for the struggle to come were set. Deadlock and the entrenchment of both sides became unavoidable. After Israel had offered to return all occupied territories, Nasser's rejection of recognition, direct negotiations and peace made any further concessions by Israel toward the Arab radical states inconceivable. There was, however, a 'second choice option'. In the summer of 1967 King Hussein was in a state of shock. The loss of the West Bank, he feared, endangered the very existence of Jordan as a state. Hussein's dependence on American support, his concern over the rising power of the PLO, his fear of being left out at home and abroad, among friends and foes, and his hope to regain the West Bank and E"ast Jerusalem, appeared to indicate that he might become a partner for serious negotiations. And indeed, he came forward publicly and said he needed to come to an agreement with Israel. IS

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Abba Eban, at the time Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs, summed up Israel's position by saying that peace with Egypt was more important than with Jordan, yet 'even an agreement with King Hussein will be a revolutionary development, a first link in a chain that will break historical ice' .16

PREPARING FOR NEGOTIATIONS WITH JORDAN

Immediately after the failure of the Glassboro summit meeting, Prime Minister Levy Eshkol decided to prepare for possible peace negotiations with Jordan. On 4 July 1967, he appointed an interdepartmental committee, whose task was to elaborate a negotiating strategy. The committee was headed by Dr Ya'akov Herzog of the Prime Minister's Office. Moshe Sasson and Shaul Bar Haim of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and David Kimche of Mossad were members. On 18 July 1967, they presented their recommendations: Peace with Jordan should be based on 1. A mutually agreed solution of the refugee problem. Gaza would first be evacuated of refugees, to be settled on the West and/or East Bank of the Jordan, and then annexed to Isreal. 2. The West Bank would be completely demilitarized. 3. A tripartite confederation between Israel, the West Bank and the Jordanian East Bank would be established. 4. Jordan and Israel would sign a defense pact. S. King Hussein would be offered the guardianship of the holy places of Islam in Jerusalem. 17

These proposals had a very obvious political aim to create a close Israeli-Jordanian alliance, even if it meant driving a wedge between Jordan and the Arab world. At the same time, ways of offering support to King Hussein, should he embark on the road to peace, were sought, and the return of the territories comprising the West Bank, albeit without East Jerusalem, was by no means precluded. Preparing for negotiations with Jordan was not merely a conceptual affair. If Eshkol wanted to be successful, he needed at least the support of the various political groupings within his own party. A contender for the position of Prime Minister, Yigal Alon opposed the plan the bureaucrats had prepared. Early in July, he presented an alternative proposal, later to be known as the Alon Plan. The gist

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of the plan was to build Jewish settlements along the Jordan River, thereby turning the river into Israel's unchangeable security border, to return the rest of the West Bank to Jordan or to create Palestinian autonomy there. Alon proposed to implement these ideas by preemption rather than negotiation. He argued that diplomatic action would prove to be counter-productive: 'Political options are exploited by attempts to create faits accomplis and not by attempts of diplomatic coordination ahead of time which only invite counterpressures ahead of time.'18 Action on the ground was necessary; thus it was a mistake that no more settlements were being founded beyond the Green Line. It should be understood, Alon argued, that every nation or state had its specific tradition and characteristics of self-defense. With us self-defense is a combination of the shield and the sword, like the medieval warrior who in one hand held a shield to defend the vulnerable parts of his body and in the other an offensive sword to pierce the sensitive points of his enemy. Regional defense [hagana merhavit], that is to say the settlements, they are the shield, and the attacking units [the IDF], they are the sword of the state. 19

Alon continued to maintain that it was a grave mistake to believe in the 'illusion' of demilitarized areas: I do not say that mutual security arrangements will not include the demilitarization of areas, but to base the security of Israel on the demilitarization of Judea and Samaria, without Israel having direct control against a violation of such a demilitarization, means to create the conditions for a fourth war. 20

Alon went on to ask: Had there been no violations of demilitarized areas between Germany and France, or elsewhere, between Israel and Syria, or in Vietnam? Demilitarized zones, he explained, created a vacuum that asked for trouble. Eshkol also had to consider potential opposition that might originate from within the IDF. Evidently, the military people involved in political planning drew much attention to the security aspects of any political settlement. Optimally, Israel was interested in allowing the IDF to maintain four central tasks on the West Bank: 1. to turn the Jordan River into a security border, an anti-tank line, which would enable the Israeli army to·keep any regular Arab forces outside the West Bank;

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2. to exploit the mountain ranges of Judea and Samaria for electronic defense installations to support the Israeli air force; 3. to provide the Israeli rear, the densely populated coastal plain between Haifa and Ashqelon, with strategic depth; and 4. to facilitate the fight against Arab terror by being able to enter the towns on the West Bank and simultaneously control rural areas from which terror acts or guerrilla warfare against Israeli targets might be launched. 21 De-militarization of the West Bank would not permit the IDF to fulfill these tasks. Abba Eban adopted yet another attitude. For him the question was not to create an ideal security situation, but to choose between two evils: continuation and renewal of the external Arab military threat against Israel, or the emergence of Arab opposition against Israel from within areas under Israeli control. Thus, it had to be decided how and under what conditions to give up an area inhabited by 600,000 Arabs and avert the danger of internal irridentism turning into an external threat. The solution, he argued, was to draw a distinction between a political and a security border. A formula had to be found that would permit an effective security solution for the West Bank. Aware of the intricacies of Arab policies, particularly after the Khartoum summit, Eban was also concerned that King Hussein might not gain sufficient legitimacy from within the Arab political setting for making peace with Israel. 22 In the search for an answer to both problems, Eban looked for historical models and found interesting and useful parallels in the settlement of the Rhineland issue after the First World War. With regard to its military provisions, the Rhineland agreement, which was part of the Treaty of Versailles, provided for complete demilitarization, not only of the area west of the Rhine, but also of a 50-kilometer wide strip to the east of the river. Moreover, the agreement permitted French troops to maintain a military presence in three bridgehead areas for a period of five, ten and fifteen years respectively, with the option of extension. The military provisions of the 1919 agreement were later supplemented by understandings reached and implemented in the Locarno Treaty of October 1925. This was essentially a non-aggression pact between the former belligerents, Germany, France and Belgium. These states received guarantees from other European powers, particularly Britain and Italy, to maintain the status quo and to come to the assistance of any

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country that became the victim of unprovoked aggression by one of the treaty partners. Britain and Italy also promised to guarantee the continued existence of the demilitarized zone. 23 Applying the Rhineland model to the Israeli-Jordanian context meant demilitarizing the West Bank completely, creating a treaty basis for the continued presence of the IDF in three or more bridgehead areas, and providing both Jordan and Israel with superpower guarantees against aggression by either side. Eban's specific reference to the possibility of American, British, French, Pakistani, Tunisian and Moroccan support for a Jordanian-Israeli understanding indicated that, in line with the Locarno Treaty, the guarantee by global and regional powers should provide legitimacy and security to both Israel and Jordan. Moreover, it was understood that such an Israeli-Jordanian peace would be promoted and supported entirely from within the Western alliance. Abba Eban's 'Rhineland' approach was also interesting from the standpoint of negotiating tactics. An examination of how the French had succeeded in obtaining the Rhineland agreement reveals that originally they had made two other proposals. First, they had opted for the annexation of western Rhineland to France and its integration within the French homeland. The alternative proposal, by the French, was the creation of an autonomous German buffer zone, a buffer state, or a Rhenish Confederation. American and British opposition prevented implementation of these ideas; however, in return for waiving these demands the French obtained provisions for French military control, German demilitarization and security guarantees in the form of the Locarno Treaty.24 If Prime Minister Eshkol applied the example of the Rhineland negotiations to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan, then it made sense tactically to demand either the annexation of the West Bank to Israel or the establishment of Palestinian autonomy there. Assuming that such demands would create opposition rather than support in Washington, the Alon Plan appeared to be not a bad starter, for external tactical as well as internal political reasons. Eshkol also had to consider Moshe Dayan's viewpoint regarding the West Bank, which in many practical aspects was not far removed from Eban's. As long as a clear distinction was made between political and military borders, Dayan did not oppose a return to the Green Line. He even opposed a separate deal over Tul Karem and Qalqilya, as had been proposed by Mapam, arguing that such a deal was of no significance from a military point of view.

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For Dayan, however, it was of vital importance to guarantee that no Arab soldier would cross the Jordan and that the IDF could maintain military control of the JJldean and Samarian mountain ranges. Dayan opposed any move that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, although he considered it necessary to speak positively of this idea in order to exert tactical pressure on King Hussein. 25 Finally, Eshkol also had to take the position of the right-wing bloc into account. As long as Eshkol wanted Menachem Begin and his Herut Party in his government, no deal over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip could be struck. This, however, did not rule out secret contacts with King Hussein. Controlling a comfortable majority in the Knesset, Eshkol could attempt to achieve progress and take necessary decisions, even if the Herut Party were to leave the government. It was no easy task for Prime Minister Levy Eshkol to blend these divergent views and political pressures into a clear, unified Israeli strategy for peace with Jordan. Eshkol's underlying personal tendency was to prepare a strong tactical basis for negotiations with Hussein, and to make far-reaching territorial offers later on, should a breakthrough towards the achievement of peace be attained. Accordingly, Eshkollet the king know that Israel was under no pressure of time. At the end of August 1967, Hussein declared that the loss of the West Bank endangered the very existence of Jordan as a state;26 this was of no direct interest to Israel. Eshkol also prepared a second tactical device for use in negotiations: the existence of a viable Palestinian alternative. In November 1967, Eshkol permitted Dayan to encourage Palestinian pressure groups and particularly Sheikh Ja'bari of Hebron, to stress the specific needs of the Palestinian community of the West Bank and Gaza, independent of Jordan and of any other political actors. 27 The most important tactical device, however, was to deflect growing pressures from Washington. It was no secret in Israel that after the UN Security Council had voted in favor of Resolution 242 on 22 November 1967, Arthur Goldberg, the US ambassador to the UN, had sent a message to King Hussein stating that the United States government would act to achieve Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank. 28 To obtain full understanding on the part of the US government, but equally important, to set in motion negotiations with Hussein, Eshkol arranged for Abba Eban to meet with the king. Eshkol would subsequently travel to the United States with

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the aim of coordinating policies and scheduling a second, more decisive meeting with King Hussein. THE FAILURE OF EARLY CONTACTS WITH KING HUSSEIN

Following this plan, Eban met Hussein in December in London, at the apartment of a Jewish dentist. 29 Eban was empowered by the cabinet to explore Jordan's reaction to a peace treaty in which the indivisibility of Jerusalem as Israel's capital would be agreed and some territorial changes in Israel's favor would be made, while restoring the greater part of the populated areas of the West Bank to the Hashemite Kingdom. According to Eban's autobiographical account, King Hussein showed interest and asked for more detailed proposals, including a map.30 It is not evident from existing source material whether Eshkol raised the issue of an Israeli-Jordanian accord and how to reach it in his talks with President Johnson in Washington early in January 1968. However, Israeli-American differences, as well as the existence of common ground in regard to Israeli-Jordanian negotiations, are apparent from the evolving course of developments. Hussein's willingness to meet the Israeli leadership secretly had an important impact on the Middle Eastern power equation. Secret Israeli-Jordanian negotiations served King Hussein in three different ways. First, in talking to the Israelis, the king acquired effective leverage against Nasser by threatening to strike a separate deal with Israel, should Egypt fail to support Jordan. Second, direct contact with Israel promised continuous attention and favor from the US. Third, secret direct contact with Israel gave Hussein a useful means of controlling and influencing Israeli actions in the region. The flaw in this intricate complex was that any conclusion of the negotiations with Israel could only weaken Hussein's position, causing him to lose support in Cairo or Jerusalem, or possibly even in Washington. As this game went on, Israel's and America's interests, as seen from Jerusalem and Washington, most evidently differed. America's vital regional interest was to stabilize Hussein's rule over Jordan and endeavor to draw Egypt out of the Soviet orbit. Israel's interest was to induce Hussein to act independently of Nasser and to make an Israeli-Jordanian peace possible. The gap between Washington's and Jerusalem's regional intentions grew, early in January, with the announcement of Great Britain's intention to withdraw from the Persian Gulf by the end of

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1971,31 The Six Day War, with Israel's military victory over Egypt, had stabilized the situation in the Gulf and induced Egypt's withdrawal from Yemen, the cessation of Egyptian revolutionary propaganda in the Gulf and the improvement of Egyptian-Saudi relationsY Moreover, in the absence of a British presence in the area, it became particularly important for the West to prevent the alienation of Egypt or the creation of a regional rift between Jordan and Egypt. In practical terms, this development strengthened Hussein in his desire to coordinate his moves with Cairo. It also made it more difficult for Jerusalem to obtain concessions from Jordan that could not be obtained from Egypt. Nevertheless, Israeli-Jordanian contacts continued. Returning from Washington, Levi Eshkol empowered Yigal Alon and Abba Eban to meet with Hussein and tell him of the Alon Plan and to present an attached map, showing Israel's intention to annex about one-third of the West Bank, mainly the area along the Jordan River.33 Probably intentionally, Jerusalem ignored the wide gap between Alon's offer and what ambassador Goldberg had promised the king in November; the Alon proposals offered several tactical advantages for Israel. First, like the first French proposals for the annexation of the Rhineland, they created a basis for an Israeli-American exchange of ideas on a possible American contractual involvement in a future Israeli-Jordanian deal. Second, Israel did not repeat the tactics of 19 June 1967, when its opening proposal expressed Israel's minimal rather than its maximal demands. The meeting between Yigal Alon, Abba Eban and Hussein took place in the apartment of the same Jewish dentist in London at the end of January 1968. The result was negative. Hussein rejected Alon's proposals out of hand and left no room for any further give and take. Direct contacts were broken off and both sides became entrenched. 34 A DANGEROUS DEADLOCK LEADS TO AMERICAN INTERVENTION

The original American design had been similar to Israeli political thinking: to opt for a general breakthrough and get Israeli-Arab peace negotiations going. As a second option, a kind of fall-back or fail-safe position, the possibilities of an Israeli-Jordanian understanding were to be explored.

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By the end of November 1967 it appeared that this strategy was most successfully underway. The Security Council unanimously accepted Resolution 242, creating an internationally accepted framework for negotiations; UN ambassador Gunnar Jarring was entrusted with the task of promoting the process of negotiations. 35 At the same time, US ambassador Goldberg tried to encourage the Jordanians to start negotiations with Israel and promised support for regaining the West Bank. 36 Indirectly, the Americans were thus telling Nasser that they had two channels to achieve progress in peace negotiations, either via Jarring, permitting Egypt to playa central role, or by supporting secret but direct Israeli-Jordanian contacts. The American-sponsored 'Jordanian option' offered two policy options: it could either be coordinated with Egypt or, if necessary, become an alternative approach causing the exclusion of Nasser from the negotiating process. Nasser's counter-tactics were to show that he, too, had two options. As long as he remained in control of events, he could offer his support to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other moderate proWestern Arab regimes but in such a way as to continue the negotiating process on his terms. If his terms were not met, he could choose to side with the radicals in the Arab world, particularly the PLO and other revolutionary movements elsewhere, and undermine American interests throughout the Middle East. 37 During February and March 1968 it appeared that events were leading toward a general radicalization. Increasing terror activities by the PLO launched from Jordanian territory against Israel left Israel little choice but to strike militarily at PLO positions in Jordan. Hussein, who apparently had received prior warning from Israel, or was informed by the Americans of Israel's planned attack against the village of Karameh, notified the PLO command and tried to create a common front. 38 In the event, however, it was the PLO rather than the Jordanian army that won 'honor and glory' in the defense of Karameh, proving again that Hussein was caught between the hammer and the anvil. Coming to terms with Israel would isolate Jordan among the Arabs and possibly encourage internal unrest; joining the Arab states and the PLO in its continuous struggle against Israel would tend to draw Jordan into armed conflict with Israel and simultaneously enhance the PLO's prestige at home and elsewhere in the Arab world. At about the same time, Gunnar Jarring's initiative also ran into a dead end, as no agreement could be achieved on the question of a

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venue for consultations. 39 Afraid of the radicalizing effect of the deadlock, both King Hussein and the Americans decided to act. On 6 April 1968, Hussein went to Cairo to reassure Nasser of his intention to continue jordan's steady coordination of policies with Egypt. 40 The Americans, for their part, coordinated moves with Saudi Arabia. On 12 April 1968, President Johnson dispatched a message to King Faysal that clearly specified the kind of accord the US government hoped to achieve between Israel and Jordan. The central paragraph of the American message read: While we could not guarantee that everything would be returned to Jordan and that some territorial adjustment will not be required in establishing permanent boundaries, we are prepared to use our influence to get the most favourable arrangement possible for Jordan. We are committed to the principle of political independence and territorial integrity. While there must be withdrawal of troops, they must be withdrawn to recognized and secure frontiers for all countries, rather than necessarily to these old and inadequate armistice lines. However, there must be compensatory adjustment for changes in those lines. We believe these adjustments must be the minimum compatible with mutual security and economic needs. 41

In order to ensure Israel's cooperation, slightly dramatic tactics were applied. The American ambassador in Tel Aviv, Walworth Barbour, requested an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Eshkol on a Saturday afternoon, the Jewish Sabbath, and handed him a letter from President Johnson, demanding in a warning tone the renewal of negotiations with Jordan and the adoption of a flexible policy with regard to Hussein.42 johnson's letter to Faysal became a guideline for negotiations between Israel and Jordan, which continued for over a year and outlived Prime Minister Eshkol as well as the Johnson administration. ISRAELI-JORDANIAN NEGOTIATIONS AND RUSK'S SEVEN POINTS

These negotiations were the last attempt by the Johnson administration to make a major contribution to peace in the Middle East. It did not augur well, however, that the initiative began in the week following the President's announcement that he would not run for

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re-election in November. From that moment on, Johnson had no real chance of exerting any serious pressure on either side. Delaying tactics on the part of the negotiating partners neutralized the American President's impact on the negotiations. The real problem for Eshkol was not that President Johnson had become a 'lame duck', but that the gap between the minimal peace conditions acceptable to Israel and those acceptable to Jordan was still too wide. Most Israeli politicians on the right as well as on the left were opposed to a return to the 'Green Line', that is, the pre-Six Day War borders, even in return for a full peace treaty. Hussein was not prepared to offer anything more than non-belligerency even in return for Israel's complete withdrawal. Nevertheless, at the beginning of negotiations, Hussein adopted a fairly accommodating attitude, fully in accordance with President Johnson's guidelines as expressed in the President's letter to King Faysal of 12 April 1968. Israel's insistence on a return to 'recognized and secure boundaries' rather than to the armistice lines was accepted in principle. For his part, Hussein demanded control and sovereignty over the Gaza Strip; he also accepted the US-proposed principle of 'compensatory adjustment' for territorial changes. This Jordanian position created the hope among Israeli policy-makers that substantial territorial changes, as envisaged in the Alon Plan, were achievable. 43 At a very early stage of negotiations, difficulties arose over Jerusalem. Hussein was adamant in demanding full sovereignty and political rights over the city, while Israel offered Hussein guardianship over the holy Islamic places in Jerusalem and free access to them. The king required the opposite: Israel would withdraw from both the Old City and East Jerusalem, while Jordan would offer Israel access to the Western (Wailing) Wall. To obtain such a concession, Hussein hinted - so the Israeli negotiators understoodthat he was willing to pay a high price: asked if Jordan would be willing to reach agreement with Israel without coordinating moves with Nasser, Hussein replied that Israeli flexibility on Jerusalem 'would advance peace'. 44 The ongoing Jordanian-Egyptian coordination of policies caused division between Jerusalem and Washington. Whereas the Americans were interested in reinforcing an Egyptian-Jordanian rapprochement, Israel wanted to demonstrate that Nasser had no control over the Israeli-Jordanian negotiating process. The issues at stake for both Jerusalem and Washington were very substantial: Jerusalem was determined to break the three 'no's' of Khartoum,

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obtain direct instead of indirect negotiations; gain recognition and sign a peace treaty, instead of merely achieving a state of nonbelligerency. Moreover, in return, Israel was no longer prepared to completely withdraw from all territories occupied in June 1967 and fiercely opposed the implementation of UN resolution 194, of December 1948, providing for either the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes or compensation payments. After Nasser's withdrawal from Yemen in December 1967, Washington was determined to encourage Egypt to build an alliance with Jordan and Saudi Arabia, hoping that sooner or later the Egyptians could be drawn out of the Soviet orbit. 45 Moreover, the Americans were also closely watching developments in the Persian Gulf. In the autumn of 1968, the Shah of Iran and King Faysal of Saudi Arabia were encouraged to coordinate their policies in anticipation of the forthcoming British withdrawal from the GUlf.46 The Saudis, afraid of a powerful Iran, needed at least passive Egyptian support, while the Iranians had to be reassured that Cairo would assert a moderating rather than a radicalizing influence in the area. Worst of all possible developments for Washington would be a renewed polarization and radicalization in the Middle East. Any American move in favor of an Israeli-Jordanian deal on conditions opposed by Nasser could all too easily drive a wedge between Cairo and Amman and encourage Nasser to revert to radical tactics. The Americans were evidently aware that the Israeli negotiators had asked Hussein 'whether Jordan would be able to come to a peace settlement without Nasser'. To pre-empt any misunderstandings, the American position was made very clear: Dean Rusk, the US Secretary of State announced early in November 1968 (several days before the US elections), a seven-point proposal, related exclusively to an envisaged Israeli-Egyptian agreement: 1. complete Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian territories (namely, the Sinai peninsula); 2. termination of the state of belligerency; 3. reopening of the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping; 4. a solution to the Palestine refugee problem by asking each refugee confidentially and on a personal basis, whether he wished to return to Israel, or be given the right to live in the country of his choice without previous commitment by that country; 5. the presence in Sharm el-Sheikh of an international force that

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could withdraw only by a UN Security Councilor General Assembly resolution; 6. an East-West agreement on the level of armament in the region; and 7. the signing by Egypt and Israel of a document containing these commitments. 47 Rusk's seven-point plan put the heat on Israel. Although it was not explicitly stated within the context of ongoing IsraeliJordanian negotiations, it was evident that the United States wanted a linkage between an Israeli-Jordanian and an Israeli-Egyptian agreement. Worse for Israel, the Americans emphasized that complete Israeli withdrawal in return for non-belligerency was seen in Washington as a fair, realistic deal, while at the same time the Palestinian 'right of return' had to be recognized. Some pressure was also directed at Egypt. Rusk told the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mahmud Riyad, that Egypt had to come to terms with Israel, as the US government could and would not pressure Israel into concessions it did not want to make. 48 The timing of the proposal, several days before presidential elections that would inevitably put a new President into the White House, indicated that no practical response was expected. Rather the aim of the outgoing Johnson administration was to tell Jerusalem, Amman, Cairo and the new foreign policy team in Washington that the exclusion of Egypt from ongoing peace-making efforts was by no means in America's national interest. THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION AND THE FAILURE OF ISRAELI-JORDANIAN NEGOTIATIONS

The new foreign policy team that now moved into the White House and the State Department looked at the Arab-Israeli conflict from two different angles. Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security adviser, looked primarily at the impact of policies on the superpower equation. William Rogers, the Secretary of State, who was responsible for America's diplomatic relations with its allies in the Middle East, had the maintenance of American interests in the region foremost in mind. In line with and resulting from these two specific points of view, Kissinger adopted a basically optimistic outlook on America's position in the Middle East, whereas Rogers' view tended to be pessimistic. Kissinger was convinced that as long

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as the Soviet Union opposed any compromise solution in the Middle East, Moscow's own position would be stalemated. Kissinger described this concept in his memoirs: Moscow never managed to choose among its dilemmas. So long as it one-sidedly supported all the positions of its clients (Egypt and Syria), it could not advance either the negotiating process or its own role. For we had no motive to support the program of the Arab radicals who were castigating us; in the unlikely event that we would change our view, we did not need the Soviet Union as intermediary. In other words, Moscow could contribute effectively to a solution only by dissociating itself to some extent from Arab demands and thus jeopardizing some of its friendships in the Arab world. But if it did not do so, it risked backing objectives it could not bring about and then earning disdain as being impotent. Like the other parties the Soviet Union temporized. It acted as the Arabs' lawyer, but could not advance their case. 49

Consequently, Kissinger was convinced, time was working in favor of Western interests in the Middle East, and sooner or later the proSoviet Arab leadership would recognize that they had to turn to Washington for assistance. Rogers, on the other hand, was concerned that a prolonged statemate in the Middle East would undermine the position of America's pro-Western Arab allies, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Sudan, Libya and others, and thus endeavored to reach a quick solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. 50 Nixon, even before his inauguration, decided to adopt a twotactic approach. One attempt was to try and achieve a breakthrough on the superpower level, either in US-Soviet talks, or in a dialogue of the four powers (US, USSR, Great Britain and France). The second approach was to encourage Israel and Jordan to continue their secret negotiations. Shortly after the US elections, the president-elect informed decision-makers in Israel of his intention to increase pressure on both Jordan and Israel to come to terms with each other. 51 There was no unanimity within Israel's ruling Labor Party on how to react. Shimon Peres argued on 19 December 1968, speaking to the Labor Party secretariat: It appears to me that the only way to ensure the safety of American interests in Jordan is for King Hussein to remain in the places where he now happens to be, and there he will try to grow stronger and to fortify his position. 52

Eshkol responded differently. In an interview with Newsweek, in

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February 1969, he said Israel wanted no part of the settled area of the West Bank, that is, Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah, Hebron, and the like. He continued: 'What we say is that the Jordan River must become a security border for Israel with all that that implies.'53 These remarks indicated clearly that the Israeli government was willing to reach an agreement with Jordan on terms far less favorable than the Alon Plan. It might even contemplate giving up the entire West Bank, if it were in return for full agreement on security measures and the content of peace. Ehskol's position encountered much opposition in Israel. Before the Prime Minister could answer his critics, however, he suffered a fatal heart attack. Golda Meir, who formed Israel's new government in March 1969, continued negotiating with King Hussein. No written evidence is available on relevant details. Apparently Golda Meir's government made King Hussein a far-reaching territorial offer, in return for peace. 54 This time the answer from Amman came very quickly. Instead of conducting negotiations with Israel, King Hussein decided to coordinate his moves completely with President Nasser of Egypt. In identical written replies to questions asked earlier by Jarring, the Egyptian and Jordanian governments stated on 24 and 27 March 1969 that Israel's boundaries had been defined by UN resolution 181 of 29 November 1947 on the partition of Palestine. 55 In other words, even if Israel returned all the territories conquered in June 1967, Egypt and Jordan were retaining the right to fight for restoration of the borders delineated in the 1947 partition plan. Nasser and Hussein knew that four-power talks on the Middle East were scheduled for April 1969. To increase pressure for an imposed settlement to his liking, Nasser announced on 1 April the unilateral abrogation of the cease-fire and the opening of the War of Attrition. 56 As Soviet pilots and bombers had been stationed on Egyptian soil since April 1968, this war threatened to bring about Israeli-Soviet clashes and thereby provoke a direct SovietAmerican military confrontation. Thus, the war would seemingly make an American-Soviet deal a necessity. In this configuration, the Egyptian decision to choose the war option by no means undermined King Hussein's position. On the contrary, Nasser was happy to maintain a close alliance with the Jordanian monarch as an insurance policy, an instrument to maintain open channels to Washington, should the need arise. Hussein himself demonstrated that he was most capable of playing such a

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role. On 10 April 1969, the king, addressing the Press Club in Washington, outlined the Jordanian and Egyptian positions, as he saw them: they had agreed to put an end to the state of belligerency with Israel, to afford it access in exchange for guarantees, to Sharm ai-Sheikh and the Suez Canal, to recognize its rights to live in peace and security and to agree to conditions which would ultimately resolve the refugee problem. 57

Seen from Jerusalem, the offer was not exactly tempting. Under the threat of war and the threat of additional territorial demands, a vague verbal commitment of non-belligerency was offered in return for full Israeli withdrawal from Sinai, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Within Israel there was a broad consensus, ranging from Herut on the right to Mapam on the left, against any such deal. It was believed that the Nixon administration's decision to call for twopower and four-power talks to seek a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict had been responsible for the hardening of the Jordanian line, and hence for the failure of these negotiations. Reviewing these events some years later, Mapam's Ya'akov Hazan explained the developments as he had seen them: At the time I was very optimistic in regard to achieving a peace settlement with Jordan ... I knew of ongoing talks and their content. Suddenly this was broken off. Why was it broken off then? Because suddenly the Four Great Powers appeared and then Hussein told us what I too would have said in his place: 'Why should I negotiate with you, when I might well get far more from them!' With that everything was finished. 58 CONCLUDING REMARKS

Placing the blame for the failure of Israeli-Jordanian negotiations on Nixon's double-tactic policies of promoting superpower talks and Israeli-Jordanian negotiations at one and the same time is an over-simplification. The truth was more complicated. The three parties concerned, the governments of Israel, Jordan and the United States, all viewed an Israeli-Jordanian peace as a second and not a first option. All three preferred, for reasons of their own, progress in negotiations between Israel and Egypt.

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On the Israeli-Egyptian level, the historical struggle between June 1967 and August 1970 was whether a settlement had to be imposed or could be negotiated. The United States and Israel unequivocally favoured a negotiated agreement, whereas the USSR and Egypt demanded an imposed one. Israeli-Jordanian peace negotiations from 1967 to 1969 must be seen in this context. Knowing that a negotiated settlement with Egypt could not be attained, Israel hoped that peace with Jordan would provide stability in the region, and force Egypt to join the negotiations at some point in the future. In practical terms, this meant that Jerusalem was not at all opposed to driving a wedge between Amman and Cairo: indeed, it actually assumed that this would be the outcome of an Israeli-Jordanian understanding. Neither the Johnson nor the Nixon administration identified with this Israeli position. On the contrary, Washington hoped that Israeli-Jordanian peace negotiations would become a stepping stone for the inclusion of Egypt in the peace process. Hence, Washington encouraged King Hussein's attempts to coordinate his policies with Nasser. Hussein did not oppose an imposed settlement, but he viewed his function in this regional power game as bringing about a rapprochement between Washington and Amman-Cairo. In these circumstances, Israeli-Jordanian peace negotiations were doomed to failure from the very beginning. Washington and Amman constantly kept one eye on Cairo during the negotiations, seeking the agreement of Nasser, who in order to strengthen his own position was interested in the failure of these talks. Hence, no breakthrough was possible. In spite of their failure, the Israeli-Jordanian peace negotiations from 1967 to 1969 had two important historical functions. First, they paradoxically reinforced the emerging Cairo-Amman-Riyadh axis. By speaking to Israel, Hussein was teaching Nasser a simple lesson and making an offer Nasser could hardly refuse: Nasser could maintain a monopoly on the negotiating process only if he was prepared to support the Jordanian king. Moreover, in return for support from Cairo, Hussein could effectively promote Egyptian interests in Washington. Second, the Israeli-Jordanian peace negotiations of 1967-69 became an important (early) stepping stone on Egypt's path away from Soviet influence and toward an alliance with the West. The failure of these negotiations reinforced the understanding in both

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Washington and Jerusalem that only negotiations with Egypt could lead to peace. True, Nasser was not yet prepared for such a move. He still hoped that the threat of war would force Washington, with or without the Soviets, to impose a settlement. When the War of Attrition was over, and Washington and Jerusalem had proven effectively that Egyptian militancy had been self-destructive, the memory of American support in favor of a coordinated JordanianEgyptian position during the Israeli-Jordanian negotiations demonstrated to the Egyptian leadership that Washington was by no means an unconditional supporter of Israel. Seen in this context, Israeli-Jordanian peace negotiations between 1967 and 1969 had an important effect in paving the way for the Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations to come.

NOTES 1. See, for example, Avi Shlaim, Collusion Across the Jordan - King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement and the Partition of Palestine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); Dan Shueftan, A Jordanian Option (in Hebrew) (Yad Tabenkin, 1986); Han Pappe, Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1948-1951 (London: Macmillan, St. Antony's Series, 1988); Uri Bar Joseph, The Best of Enemies: Israel and Jordan in the War of 1948 (London: Cass, 1987); Avraham Sella, From Contacts to Negotiations: The Relations of the Jewish Agency and the State of Israel with King Abdullah, 1946-1950 (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Shiloah Centre, 1986); Amin Abdullah Mahmoud, King Abdullah and Palestine: An Historical Study of His Role in the Palestine Problem from the Creation of Trans;ordan to the Annexation of the West Bank, 1921-1950 (Ph.D. thesis, Washington, DC: Georgetown University, 1972); Yoav Gelber, 'The Negotiations Between the Jewish Agency and Transjordan 1946-1948', Studies in Zionism, Jan. 1985, pp. 53-83. 2. Yigal Alon, 'Habitachon hashotef be'aspekleria ha'astrategit' (Ongoing Security in the Mirror of Strategy), 6th session, Beth Lessin, 16 Dec. 1966, in 15-AlonNI3, Kibbutz HaMeuhad Archives, Ramat Efal. 3. For Jordan's claim over the West Bank see King Hussein's speech of 15 March 1972; reprinted in Meron Medzini (ed.), Israel's Foreign Relations - Selected Documents 1947-1974 (Jerusalem, 1976) Vol. 2, pp. 988-9. On 24 April 1950 the jointJordanianPalestinian Parliament ratified the annexation of the West Bank to former Trans-Jordan. 4. The US government's basic positions on Palestine were laid down in guidelines given to Mark F. Ethridge, the US representative at the Palestinian Conciliation Commission, on 19 Jan. 1949. Point eight of this document states: 'Disposition of Arab Palestine - US favors incorporation of greater part of Arab Palestine in Transjordan'. Foreign Relations of the United States 1949 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1977), Vol. VI, p. 682. 5. There is little written evidence available to indicate that Israel threatened to conquer the West Bank if King Hussein was toppled, or if an Arab army would invade Jordan, nor that such a threat was known to the Arab leadership. Neverthele.ss some such written evidence does exist. See e.g. Denis Healey, 'Visit of Labour Party Delegation to the

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6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

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Middle East, 27th June to 11th July 1963', in British Labour Party Archives, London. Healey reported on confidential talks with Nasser, with the leaders of other Arab states and with the Israeli leadership. Shueftan, op. cit., pp. 266-71; d. Moshe Ma'oz, Palestinian Leadership on the West Bank - The Changing Role of the Arab Mayors under Jordan and Israel (London: Cass, 1984). Ya'akov Hazan to Mapam Political Committee, 25 Jan. 1967, in (4)/c 66.90, Mapam Archives, Givat Haviva. Quoted from Haaretz, 8 Jan. 1967, reprinted in Middle East Record (MER) 1967, pp. 163-4. Haaretz, 10 Jan. 1967; MER 1967, pp. 164-5. Haaretz, 20 Jan. 1967; MER 1967, p. 165. Different versions of the Eshkol message to King Hussein exist in the literature. This account is based on an interview with Ya'akov Hazan held in Jan. 1987. Shlomo Gazit, The Stick and the Carrot (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Zemora, Bitan, Modan, 1984), pp. 137 ff. Cf. Henry Kissinger's description of the Soviet role in the Middle East: Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, 1982), p. 200. Avraham Sella, Unity Within Conflict in the Inter-Arab System - The Arab Summit Conferences, 1964-1982 (in Hebrew) Uerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1982), pp. 64-80. Quoted from an-Nahar, 29 Aug. 1967, MER 1967, p. 258. Abba Eban to Labor Party Secretariat, 2 Jan. 1968, in 11124/68, Mapai Archives, Beth Ber!' Gazit, op. cit., pp. 136-7. Yigal Alon to Labour Party Secretariat, 21 April 1968, in 11124/68, Mapai Archives, Beth Ber!' Ibid. Ibid. See Moshe Dayan to Labour Party Secretariat, 12 April 1973, in 11124/73 Mapai Archives, Beth Bed; also Yigal Alon to Labor Party Secretariat, 19 Dec. 1968, in II124/ 68, Mapai Archives, Beth Ber!' Abba Eban to Labor Party Secretariat, 2 Jan. 1968, in 11124/68, Mapai Archives, Beth Ber!' Ibid. James T. Emmerson, The Rhineland Crisis (London: Maurice Temple Smith, 1971), pp.19-23. Gazit, op. cit., p. 139. An-Nahar, 29 Aug. 1967, quoted by MER 1967, p. 258. Gazit, op. cit., pp. 143-4. M. Riyad, The Struggle for Peace in the Middle East (London: Quartet Books, 1981), p.180. Abba Eban, An Autobiography (London: Futura, 1977), p. 446; Yossi Beilin, The Price of Unity - The Israeli Labour Party Until the Yom Kippur War (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Revivim, 1985), p. 50. Abba Eban, An Autobiography, p. 446. For Harold Wilson's anouncement on British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf see MER 1968, p. 87. Cf. Philip Darby, British Defence Policy East of Suez, 1947-1968 (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 322. On the development of inter-Arab relations after the Six Day War see MER 1967, pp. 134-50; MER 1968, pp. 135-73. Abba Eban's comment read as follows: 'The first reaction of Jordan was one of interest. But when the conception behind our policy found expression in a map attributed to Minister of Labor Yigal Allon, the Jordanian attitude became adamant. It was clear that

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King Hussein would rather leave Israel under international criticism in possession of all the West Bank than take on himself the responsibility of ceding 33 per cent of it to us.' Abba Eban, An Autobiography, op. cit., p. 446. 34. Hussein, after learning about the Alon Plan remarked that Israel intended to turn Jordan into another 'Finland'. 35. UN Resolution 242 of 22 Nov. 1967 asks 'the Secretary-General to designate a Special Representative to proceed to the Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the provisions and principles of this resolution'. 36. Riyad, op. cit., p. 180. 37. Ibid. As a matter of fact, the year 1969 witnessed two anti-Western changes in governments, first in Sudan and later in Libya. In both circumstances the geographical proximity to Egypt created speculations there had been direct or indirect Egyptian involvement in these coups. 38. Abu Ayad, Without a Homeland - Talks with Eric Rouleau (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mifras, 1979), pp. 95-9. 39. For Gunnar Jarring's activities see 'The Jarring Mission, First Phase, Excerpts from Report by Secretary General U Thant', S110070, 4 Jan. 1971, in Meron Medzini (ed.), Israel's Foreign Relations - Selected Documents, 1947-1974, Vol. 2, pp. 844-9. In light of actual developments in the region, the reader can hardly avoid the impression that Jarring's diplomacy was devoid of reality. 40. Riyad, op. cit., p. 81. 41. Ibid, pp. 80-1. 42. Gideon Rafael, Destination Peace- Three Decades ofIsraeli Foreign Policy- A Personal Memoir (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981), p. 197. 43. Even the dovish Mapam Party believed that Hussein would accept the quest for territorial compromise. See Y. Barzilai, Report to Mapam Political Committee, 10 Oct. 1968, in (4) 66.90, Mapam Archives, Givat Haviva. 44. In reporting to the Mapam Political Committee on ongoing negotiations with King Hussein, Barzilai described the situation as follows: 'On the decisive question, whether Jordan would be able to come to a peace settlement without Nasser, no answer could be obtained. The only answer was that the question of Jerusalem could advance the cause of peace.' Ibid. 45. MER 1968, pp. 69 ff.; MER 1969-70, pp. 463 ff. 46. Yohevet Weintraub 'Turkey, Iran and other Middle East Countries' in MER 1969-70, pp.651-9. 47. On Rusk's seven points, see Riyad, op. cit., pp. 90-1; Bernard Reich, Quest for PeaceUnited States-Israel Relations and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1977) p. 93; US House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcomittee on the Near East, The Continuing Near East Crisis - Background Infor. mation Prepared for the Subcommittee (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1969), Appendix A; Yitzhak Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 140; Stephen Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict - Making America's Middle East Policy, from Truman to Reagan (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 157-8. 48. Mahmud Riyad reported in his memoirs that Dean Rusk ended the discussion on his seven-point proposal by telling the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs: 'johnson's Admistration ends at the end of next month, so do not expect it to put pressure on Israel. Moreover, do not ever believe that any future American Administration will put pressure on Israel.' Riyad, op. cit., p. 92. 49. Kissinger, op. cit., p. 200. 50. On William Rogers' Middle Eastern politics see William Quandt, A Decade of Decisions - American Policy Toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1967-1976 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967); Cf. Rogers' statement of 9 Dec. 1969, announcing the Rogers

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Plan in Medzini, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 875-9. 51. Y. Barzilai to Mapam Political Committee, 11 Dec. 1968, (4) aleph 66.90, in Mapam Archives, Givat Haviva. 52. Shimon Peres to Labor Party Secretariat, 19 Dec. 1968, in 11124/68, Mapai Archives, Beth Bed. 53. Eshkol's interview to Newsweek was granted on 3 Feb. 1969, see MER 1969-70, p. 743. 54. No written evidence exists, to this author's knowledge, of an Israeli offer to King Hussein to return the West Bank to Jordan. This information was reported in an interview given to the author by Ya'akov Hazan. Moreover, Sari Nusseibeh told the author that Golda Meir used the good services of his father in order to make Hussein 'a very impressive offer'. Anwar Nusseibeh reportedly also informed the PLO leadership of this offer, fully supported the proposals made by Golda Meir, remarking only that the offer had been made to 'the wrong address'. Faysal el-Husayni again has informed the author that about the same time, Israel contacted the PLO leadership. Yet, this overture was also rejected. 55. The Jarring Mission, phase II, report to the Security Council by Secretary-General U. Thant, S110070, 4 Jan. 1971, reprinted in Medzini, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 935-46. 56. Lawrence L. Whetten, The Canal War: Four Power Conflict in the Middle East (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974), pp. 82 ff.; Cf. Nasser's statements of 30 March 1969, and 1 May 1969, quoted in Medzini, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 870. 57. King Hussein's speech to the Press Club in Washington was quoted by Golda Meir in her statement to the Knesset of 5 May 1969, in Medzini, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 871-5. 58. Ya'akov Hazan to Mapam Political Committee, 29 Dec. 1971, (1) 154.90, Mapam Archives, Givat Haviva.

12

jordan's 'Israeli Option' Dan Schueftan

The 'Jordanian option' is an Israeli term, describing an Israeli political strategy: Israel, having failed to find an acceptable Palestinian negotiating partner, willing and able to settle the Palestinian dimension of Israel's conflict with the Arabs, should seek such a settlement in close cooperation with the Hashemite regime in Amman. This strategy rests on a perception concerning an IsraeliJordanian community of interests, based, to a large extent, on a common enemy - the Palestinian national movement. The Jordanian perspective of this same alliance does not even have an appropriate name in the historiography of the last halfcentury, although it had a major impact, not only on Jordanian and Palestinian affairs, but also on the Arab-Israeli conflict and on inter-Arab relations. This perspective, which could be named 'Jordan's Israeli option', is the subject of the present study. Unlike its Israeli counterpart, the merits of Jordan's 'Israeli option', have rarely been discussed in the Arab world, except in accusations by Jordan's adversaries and enemies, and denials by the Hashemite regime. This is particularly true of the most important instance where the convergence of Israel's 'Jordanian option' (though it was not called that at the time) and jordan's 'Israeli option' (which has never been called by that name) had a lasting impact on the national history of all three players: a major impact on Israel, a crucial and irreversible impact on Jordan, and a dramatic (and traumatic) impact on the Palestinians. Every study of Jordanian policies in this field must start with a discussion of this major event, since it produced a lasting effect on the most basic political and social realities in Jordan. Were it not for these events in the late 1940s, Jordan would have had the option of a real disengagement from the Palestinian problem (as it sometimes pretends to have and exercise), and would have probably opted for it, at a relatively early stage. Since the most important component of

Jordan's