by Avi Shlaim
The day after Majali formed his government, riots broke out in all the cities of the West Bank and in Amman, Salt and Irbid on the East Bank. These were the most serious to have taken place in Jordan’s history. They were accompanied by anti-government demonstrations, the disruption of public services and attacks on Western embassies. The Ba’th Party and the communists were active in organizing the riots. But the unrest was also a manifestation of genuine anger and frustration on the part of the Palestinian population of Jordan. All sorts of rumours were circulated to inflame these fears – for example, that Jordan’s accession to the Baghdad Pact would entail the indefinite shelving of the Palestine question and that Israel would later also become a member. In his memoirs Majali wrote that these rumours and lies were spread by opportunists with no morals and no conscience: ‘The most serious of the lies was that the negotiations with Templer were definitely leading to the loss of Palestine. Egypt and Saudi Arabia recruited their friends and agents; the communist agitators supported them in misleading the people; and the fantastic story of the loss of Palestine was repeated everywhere.’23
When the crowds became violent, Majali decided to use the Arab Legion to quell the riots, and the king at first backed him. But the legion’s performance was disappointing because it was a regular army with no training, no equipment and no plan for dealing with civil disturbances. At least fifteen people were killed and many more were arrested, but the country continued to teeter on the verge of anarchy. Some ministers were intimidated into resigning, and when Majali failed to find replacements for them, he went to the palace and tendered his own resignation after only five days in power. The king accepted both his resignation and his recommendation to dissolve parliament. Round one had been won by the opposition.
The king then called on Ibrahim Hashem, the elderly and respected president of the Senate, to form an interim government with the sole purpose of organizing fresh parliamentary elections. By 21 December, Hashem succeeded in forming a strong government that included three former prime ministers. But a group of deputies claimed that the king’s action in dissolving parliament was illegal, and the High Court ruled that, for a minor technical reason, the decree dissolving parliament was indeed invalid. The court’s ruling led the king to reconsider and to reverse his decision on holding elections. He had envisaged the elections as a referendum on Jordanian membership of the Baghdad Pact, but public opinion was moving in the opposite direction. More generally, Hussein’s initial hope to restore his damaged reputation by an appeal to the people gave way to fears that elections would only strengthen the opposition and reinforce the neutralist tendency in the country’s foreign policy. His decision to cancel the elections, however, provoked a second wave of riots that swept through the capital and the West Bank from 7 to 9 January 1956.
The riots and mob violence that erupted in January were both severe and disruptive. This time, however, the Arab Legion was much better prepared than it had been during the previous month. Prime Minister Hashem dithered. At first he told Glubb to take no action and to show no troops in the capital. But when the mobs broke into the Ministry of Agriculture, Hashem panicked and reversed his order to Glubb: ‘Disperse them at once! Open fire! They will burn down the city.’24 Hussein felt compelled to assume command because the country was now on the verge of collapse. ‘Now all hell had broken loose,’ he wrote in his memoirs. ‘Riots such as we had never seen before, led by the Communists again, disrupted the entire country. This time bands of fire-raisers started burning Government offices, private houses, foreign properties. I had no alternative but to call out the Legion, who with tear-gas and determination met force with force. I imposed a ten-day curfew on the country.’ Looking back on those days, he was convinced that the majority of ordinary Jordanians were profoundly grateful when the army appeared and that it saved the country.25
This judgement is open to question. The majority of the people were Palestinians, and the riots sprang from resentment of the king’s cancellation of the elections and fear that his newly appointed government would again try to take the country into the Baghdad Pact. What the riots revealed was the deep animosity of the people towards the regime and its ties with the West. Hussein compounded his earlier mistakes by acting with such brutality. Using live fire against civilians was a distasteful task for the soldiers. When he ordered the army to fire into the crowds, Hussein damaged the reputation of both the army and the monarchy. He acted forcefully in his own dynastic interest, and for this he gained neither respect nor gratitude. On the contrary, his action alienated the people and deepened the rift between rulers and ruled. The age of ‘street politics’ and mass protest had arrived. Palestinian refugees and ordinary Jordanians flexed their political muscles for the first time and found them strong. So they were unlikely to revert to their previous political apathy and acquiescence.
Richard Crossman, a fiery left-wing British MP, gave his Israeli hosts an interesting analysis of the recent events in Jordan. The riots there were much more serious, he said, than the British officials were prepared to admit. True, there was effective Egyptian propaganda and bribes were distributed on a generous scale, but these were not the underlying causes of the disturbances. What Crossman saw was a real revolt of the Palestinians against the attempt to push Jordan into the Baghdad Pact. Their fear was that membership of the pact would distract the attention of Jordanians from the one and only thing that preoccupied them, namely, the war with Israel. The slogan used by the demonstrators was: ‘They want to sell us out to the Jew!’ Crossman was struck by the depth of the hatred that he witnessed in Jordan towards Israel. He believed that in the event of a clash between Israel and Egypt, the Jordanians would not stand idly by, and if Britain tried to prevent the army from getting involved, it would rebel against its British officers. In any case, he was certain that no government could possibly make another attempt to take the country into the pact.26
Following the suppression of the riots, Hussein called on Samir Rifa’i to form a new cabinet, and this was done on 9 January. Originally a Palestinian from Safad and a confidant of King Abdullah, Rifa’i was the strong man of the ‘Palace Politicians’. He proclaimed martial law and imposed a curfew, but, to deflect popular anger against the regime, he forswore the Baghdad Pact and promised to work to strengthen Jordan’s ties with the Arab states. Rifa’i also tried to pin responsibility for the Arab Legion’s brutality during the riots on Glubb, so that the opprobrium would not fall on the king. Like many other Jordanian politicians, Rifa’i made Glubb take the responsibility in public for unpopular policies.
Glubb himself was a shrewd observer of the Jordanian scene, and he had a low opinion of Rifa’i, as he did of the great majority of the palace politicians. He was a strict and upright Christian, an officer and a gentleman, who never used his position to line his own pocket. Glubb was reactionary in his outlook and authoritarian in his methods, but in no way was he corrupt. He therefore found the corruption that plagued Jordanian politics deeply repugnant, though it was nothing unusual by Arab standards. Glubb held out the Arab Legion as a model of selfless dedication to public duty, and he resented criticism of it, especially when it came from politicians. In a top-secret letter dated 2 February 1956 to Sir Gerald Templer, Glubb gave his own perspective on the handling of the riots. He admitted that when the first wave of riots broke out in December, the army was unprepared, but he went on to claim that in the following fortnight it remedied the omissions. So when rioting recommenced in early January, it acted firmly to gain control of the situation:
However, we are still not happy. We [the army] thought that the suppression of the second lot of riots was our ideal opportunity to close down political parties and known subversive organizations, and have a firm Government on the lines of the present administration in Iraq. This we have failed to do. The New Government consists largely of the old type of politicians, most of them not above suspicion of taking money from the Saudis and the Egyptians.
During the disturban
ces the Arab Legion behaved extremely well. We tried to avoid British officers appearing too much in the suppression of the civil disturbances, especially as the Egyptians and the Communists made as much propaganda as they could to the effect that the Arab Legion was a ‘colonial’ army and that the British were suppressing a national uprising. (The ‘Daily Herald’ said the same!)27
The king was so alarmed by the second wave of rioting that he secretly approached both Britain and Iraq for political and military support without informing his new prime minister. He felt that the Arab Legion was fully extended, so he wanted an Iraqi division to be held ready to enter Jordan to help enforce martial law. London was asked to transmit his appeal for help to Baghdad, and the message was duly sent. The British cabinet also decided to fly two parachute battalions and a battalion of the Highland Light Infantry to Cyprus at once. The wing of the RAF Regiment in Habaniyya was alerted to fly from Iraq to Amman, and the armoured regiment in Aqaba was ordered to move closer to the capital.
No sooner had the British taken these precautions than an external military threat began to loom in the desert on Jordan’s southern front. Hussein and the British received an intelligence report that a Saudi force, 1,500 to 2,000 strong, was moving towards the border. Anthony Eden promptly decided to inform the Saudi government that Britain was aware of these movements and to warn them that, in the event of aggression, it would help Jordan in accordance with the Anglo-Jordanian treaty. This warning had a salutary effect. The Saudi forces drew back from the border area, and the threat receded.28
The Iraqi response to Hussein’s plea for help was favourable but also self-serving. Nuri Said promised all the help Iraq could give within its resources. He seized the chance to reduce his country’s isolation in the Arab world, to strike a blow at Nasser and to gain more influence in Jordan. Nor was he oblivious to the new opportunity to realize his old ambition of a Hashemite union between Iraq and Jordan on Iraq’s terms. On 12 January, Hussein, Glubb and Bahjat al-Talhouni, the chief of the royal court, flew secretly to Habaniyya to confer with the Iraqi leadership. Rifa’i and the queen mother were not informed. At the meeting the Iraqi leaders agreed to start military planning for a possible intervention in Jordan. Hussein was evidently determined to control the pace of events and not to rely on the politicians. As one historian has put it, ‘Although the direction was not particularly clear, the January events showed him intent on charting his own course.’29
The struggle to take Jordan into the Baghdad Pact ended with a whimper. The riots gradually died down, there was a return to normal or near-normal conditions, and, as Richard Crossman had predicted, no government dared reopen the question of membership. Most historians agree that 1955 was a crucial year in the reign of King Hussein, but they differ as to why Jordan failed to join the British-led regional security pact. Some writers see the pact as an attempt to perpetuate colonial control of the region, which was defeated by the proponents of Arab autonomy led by Nasser. Others emphasize the internal dimension of the conflict that pitted the opposition parties and the street against the regime and ended with the triumph of the former. And others still hold with divisions within the Jordanian ruling elite.
Hussein was clearly a key player in the drama that ended in a fiasco. Regardless of the perspective taken of this eventful period in Jordan’s history, the verdict on Hussein’s performance is unflattering. Each view highlights a different set of misjudgements and mistakes. Hussein’s most basic error was to opt for, after much hesitation and wavering, an alliance with the West against the Soviet Union, when the real enemy was Israel. This was compounded by his failure to counter effectively both Egypt’s fierce propaganda campaign against the pact and Saudi subversion. Hussein also misjudged the national mood, underestimating the depth of popular anger against Israel and what were perceived as its Western sponsors. In addition, there was Hussein’s failure to carry the ruling elite with him, evident from the rapid turnover of prime ministers. Last but not least was the ruthless manner in which he deployed the British-commanded Arab Legion to suppress popular protest against his policies. The Arab Legion emerged from the emergency as the only effective tool for dealing with internal challenges to the regime; but the question of who precisely controlled the legion consequently became a burning issue in the following weeks and months.
For Hussein, 1955 was an eventful year on the personal as well as the political front. Amid all the crises that convulsed the country, Hussein found time to court and marry Sharifa Dina Abdul Hamid, a distant cousin from the Egyptian branch of the Hashemite family. Dina was six years older than the royal groom: he was nineteen and she was twenty-five. Her lineage, like that of the groom, could be traced back to the prophet Muhammad, hence her birthright title of ‘ Al-Sharifa’. She was the great-grand-niece of Hussein, the sharif of Mecca, later the king of the Hijaz. Her father, Sharif Abdul Hamid al-Awn, moved to Egypt after the collapse of the Kingdom of the Hijaz in 1925. Through her mother Dina was connected to Egypt’s Circassian elite. Like many children of the landed Arab aristocracy, she was sent to a boarding school in England, rounding off her education with a degree in English literature from Girton College, Cambridge, and a post-graduate diploma in social science from Bedford College, London. After her return home, she began to teach English literature and philosophy at the University of Cairo. She was a highly educated, sophisticated and emancipated young woman. In dynastic terms this was an excellent match. In cultural and intellectual terms, Hussein married way above his station. There was one other problem: Dina had strong Nasserist leanings.
Dina was very beautiful, with a dusky complexion, and very slight, no taller than Hussein. The main bond between them was their pride in their common Hashemite heritage. They had few shared interests apart from their love of dancing. They first met in London when Hussein was still a school boy at Harrow. As a cadet at Sandhurst, Hussein used to take Dina out to nightclubs and to parties. In Jordan and in Europe, Hussein was often photographed in the company of glamorous society girls. The rumour mill kept working and the flavour of the month kept changing. But during his visits to London after ascending the throne, he and Dina continued to meet. Queen Zain initially disapproved of the idea of marriage between them, but he was insistent. Prince Hassan, who was eight years old at the time, remembers his older brother stamping his feet in fury with their mother. Zain’s main argument against the marriage was that Hussein was too young, but she also resented the woman in question. Hassan, looking back, felt that they were an odd couple: Dina was intelligent and cultivated, while Hussein was barely out of short trousers, with no social confidence. The tension in the family was palpable from the beginning: ‘My mother could see the dangers of both the timing of Hussein’s marriage due to his youth and the age of the person he was to marry and the pitfalls that may have lain ahead. There is no doubt that she also felt threatened by an equally well-born, equally beautiful, equally intelligent woman within the family. So perhaps she did not help matters.’30
Zain had to concede that Dina had impeccable Hashemite credentials as well as a good education and high social standing. Once she realized that her son could not be deflected, Zain bowed to the inevitable and took charge of the practical arrangements. Hussein’s letter proposing marriage to Dina asked her for her help in preserving the Hashemite dynasty and in providing a focus for his people’s loyalty. Dina accepted Hussein’s proposal out of a sense of duty. ‘She was not in love with him,’ one of his biographers has written, ‘but believed he needed what she could give him.’31
On 20 February 1955 Hussein went on an official visit to Egypt, at the end of which his engagement to Dina Abdul Hamid was announced. The royal wedding took place in the queen mother’s palace in Amman on 19 April. Hussein signed the marriage contract in the presence of two witnesses: his cousin, King Faisal II of Iraq, and the cadi, or Islamic judge, of Amman. The guests sipped a celebratory glass of strawberry juice before stepping out to the balcony. Dina, who was wearing a grey and mauve dress
and a chiffon scarf, waved regally to the cheering crowd. Farid al-Atrash, the Frank Sinatra of the Arab world, sang songs especially written for the occasion. ‘It felt as though a gust of fresh young air was sweeping through the palace, blowing away the feudal cobwebs.’32 The newly-weds set up house in Hussein’s villa at Al-Hummar, called Darat al-Khair (‘House of Goodness’). It looked like a perfect marriage.
The honeymoon of the royal couple took the form of a state visit to Spain. This was followed by a visit to the United Kingdom from 16 to 23 June as the guests of Her Majesty’s Government, during which it was already apparent that the king and the queen were not on the happiest of terms – for which the king was generally blamed. At the end of the month they returned to Jordan, where a great deal of criticism was being voiced of the royal family, especially of the queen mother and her brother Sharif Nasser bin Jamil. Pamphlets attacking the royal family and the monarch were circulated for the first time. Hussein’s known support for Jordan’s entry into the Baghdad Pact also damaged his popularity and prestige.33
When Dina told Hussein that she was pregnant he was delighted. A baby girl was born on 13 February 1956, and they called her Alia. The arrival of their daughter led to a marked but temporary improvement in the relations between the parents. Dina performed the ceremonial duties of a queen: entertaining visiting dignitaries, hosting receptions and tea parties, visiting schools and hospitals, and doing charitable work. But she thought that she had been chosen to play a more substantive role in helping her husband to develop his country, and she behaved accordingly. It soon became clear that she was much more liberal in internal politics and much more interested in social issues than her husband. She was also thought to prefer the Palestinians of the West Bank to the Jordanians of the East Bank. Zain was jealous of the prominent role in the affairs of state that her daughter-in-law was beginning to play and tried to confine her to routine palace duties. The birth of Alia made things worse because Dina resented her omnipresent and intrusive mother-in-law. Zain had strong views on the bringing up of children and took to complaining to her son about both the public and the private conduct of his wife. Zain was a woman of an indomitable will who jealously guarded her powers and prerogatives in the royal household. She represented tradition, whereas Dina represented modernity, and the relationship between them deteriorated very rapidly. Zain felt vindicated. She became a prime mover in bringing about the dissolution of the marriage. Hussein, the apprentice husband, was torn between the two assertive women in his life. He longed for simple companionship, and, when problems arose, he began to distance himself from his wife. Within eighteen months of the wedding, the marriage collapsed.
