Lion of Jordan

by Avi Shlaim

  Hussein was distraught. He immediately invoked the Anglo-Jordanian treaty and asked for air support, but all he achieved was a British warning to Israel. He had to look for help in other directions. His previous appeals for military help from Iraq had been turned down. But on 11 October, the day after the Qalqilyah attack, Nuri as-Said, the Iraqi prime minister, decided to begin to transfer a division into Jordan four days later. The British charge promptly notified Israel of the Iraqi decision and warned that his country would be obliged to side with Jordan in the event of Israeli aggression. The Israel government issued a public statement that Iraq’s proposed move into Jordan constituted a direct threat to Israel’s security. Hussein became alarmed at the danger of an imminent Israeli attack on his country. So on 15 October he asked that the division be held on the Iraqi side of the border but be readied to enter Jordan upon request. War between Israel and Jordan was avoided, but Jordan remained exposed and vulnerable.27

  The Israelis hoped that Jordan would refrain from joining either Iraq or the Egyptian-led bloc. The British consul-general in Jerusalem emphasized to an Israeli official that the Iraqi Army posed no threat to Israel and that it would enter Jordan only to prevent the disintegration of the country.28 From their other sources too the Israelis concluded that Iraq’s main objective in sending troops would be to prevent Egypt from gaining control over Jordan, and at a later stage to make Jordan join the Baghdad Pact. What was not clear to the Israelis was for how long Jordan would be able to survive as an independent country between the two rival blocs. By preserving its freedom to react to Iraqi troop deployments in Jordan, Israel intended to signal to Hussein that he was running the risk of the destruction of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.29

  It was a warning that Hussein could not afford to ignore. The best option left to him was to turn to Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia for economic and military assistance to help Jordan cope with the threat from Israel. Accordingly, he initiated intensive contacts with these neighbouring Arab countries, and these led to closer coordination and unity. Small quantities of arms were obtained, as well as a financial contribution towards the maintenance of the National Guard.

  The border war with Israel thus had a two-fold effect. First, it accelerated the trend in Jordan’s foreign policy away from the reliance on Britain and Iraq and towards Egypt and Syria. Second, the border war radicalized further the opposition groups inside Jordan and prompted them to adopt an even more militant anti-Israeli and anti-imperialist stand in the lead-up to the general elections. Many of their candidates resorted to slogans about recovering ‘the usurped part of the homeland’.30

  The growing popular hostility towards Israel and the open calls by some of his Palestinian subjects for war on Israel, together with Israel’s devastating military attacks, created serious internal problems for his regime. One was that the inhabitants of the border areas began to migrate to the cities to escape Israel’s wrath. At a loss to know what to do, Hussein summoned Samir Rifa’i to seek his advice. Rifa’i recommended removing the National Guard from the border areas and replacing it with the army. He also suggested direct talks with the Israelis with the aim of reaching an informal agreement in the first instance. Rifa’i himself had had extensive first-hand experience of such talks as an aide to King Abdullah. He now suggested making contact with suitable Israelis whom he had met in the past. According to Israel’s Jordanian informer, Hussein agreed and said he was prepared to accompany Rifa’i to a secret meeting with Israeli representatives in Europe or America or Iraq.31

  There was no immediate follow-up to the suggestion of a face-to-face meeting with Israel, but Rifa’i planted the seed of what became one of the dominant ideas of Hussein’s reign: dialogue across the battle lines. Already at this early stage it is possible to detect the beginning of an understanding on Hussein’s part that Israel could be either his ultimate threat or his ultimate ally. The legacy of his grandfather pointed in the direction of a tacit alliance. King Abdullah had a closer understanding, based on a perception of common interests, and a more intimate political relationship with Israel than he did with any of his fellow Arab rulers. It was too soon for King Hussein at this stage in his career to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps, but he was already reflecting on the advantages of contact and compromise with his belligerent Western neighbour.

  In another private conversation earlier that year with Sir Alec Kirkbride, Hussein revealed a surprisingly moderate attitude towards Israel. He said he understood Israel’s difficulty in taking back Palestinian refugees but thought that it ought to pay compensation to those who had left property behind – roughly 30 per cent of the total. Hussein estimated that, if given a choice between compensation and repatriation, no more than 10 per cent would opt for repatriation, and the majority of those would probably not stay there for more than six months. Hussein talked only about the refugee problem; he did not even mention the other key issue in the Arab–Israeli dispute – borders. But Kirkbride had the impression that Hussein, and those among his advisers who wanted Jordan to survive as an independent country, realized that this depended to a large extent on a settlement with Israel.32 Hussein’s emergence as an Arab nationalist was thus combined with traditional Hashemite moderation and pragmatism on the subject of the Jewish state.

  6

  The Liberal Experiment

  The dismissal of Glubb was only the first of two exceptionally important decisions made by Hussein in 1956: the second was to hold free elections in the autumn. On the wisdom of holding the promised elections, Hussein’s advisers were divided. The old guard warned that elections could risk the rise to power of the leftist, pro-Nasser parties, who would create instability and proceed to challenge the monarchy. In his memoirs Hussein explained the thinking that led him to disregard this warning and to come down on the side of reform and change:

  I take full responsibility for that period of experiment. I had felt deeply that for too long Jordanian political leaders had relied on outside help, and it was only natural that these politicians should meet with bitter opposition from the younger, rising men of ambition, who, like myself, thought it was time to throw off external shackles.

  I had decided, therefore, that younger and promising politicians and Army officers should have a chance to show their mettle. I realized that many were very leftist, but I felt that even so most of them must genuinely believe in the future of their country, and I wanted to see how they would react to responsibility.1

  Jordan went to the polls on 21 October for the first truly free election in the history of the country. This was also the first election that was based more on political parties than on individuals. It did not follow, however, that the political parties had clear ideological positions or that the political process was essentially an inter-party contest. Everything in Jordanian politics revolved round money and patronage. The parties provided flexible frameworks to facilitate cooperation between individuals, especially at election time. There were also debates and divisions inside parties, especially on the left. Changing party for personal advantage was a common occurrence. The results were as follows:

  These results represent a remarkable victory for the left-wing opposition parties, who wanted to abrogate Jordan’s treaty with Britain and to substitute for it military pacts with Egypt and Syria. The largest of these parties was the National Socialist Party (NSP). It captured 12 out of the 40 seats of the lower house, even though its leader, Suleiman Nabulsi, narrowly failed in his bid for a seat. Nabulsi (1910–76) was born in Salt and educated at the American University of Beirut, which, despite its name, was the intellectual stronghold of pan-Arabism. He went into politics at a relatively young age and gained a reputation as an outspoken critic of the monarchy and a fiery Arab nationalist. The party that he formed in 1954 aimed to liberate politics from the control of the palace, and to work for greater equality at home and Arab unity abroad. Nabulsi was an admirer of Nasser and the leader of the opposition to the king’s bid to take Jordan into the Bagh
dad Pact. He was not a communist, but he wanted to distance Jordan from the conservative Arab states.

  The question in everybody’s mind was: how would the king react to the verdict of the electorate? After some serious reflection, the king decided to be relaxed and accept the situation. At that time he had to contend with external pressures: he was courting the radical Arab states, and he was seeking the support of his Palestinian subjects. Precisely because of his radical Arab pedigee, Nabulsi could be instrumental in achieving these ends. The king therefore invited him, as the leader of the largest party, to form a government. (Jordan’s constitution did not require ministers to be members of parliament.) ‘Nabulsi was a leftist,’ Hussein noted, ‘but even so I felt he had to have his chance.’2 Hussein did this in the face of strong opposition from Zain. One contemporary observer saw Hussein’s decision to bring Nabulsi and the National Socialists to power as the beginning of his rebellion against his mother: ‘She was a traditionalist and the king was toying with adventurous, liberal and nationalist ideas and people. Queen Zain had been ruling the country, telling Hussein whom to appoint to this and that post. She began to lose her power when Hussein started making his own decisions.’3 Whereas the decision to dismiss Glubb had been taken behind Zain’s back, the appointment of Nabulsi was made in open defiance of her. It marked a further step in Hussein’s political coming of age.

  Even before Nabulsi assumed office, Hussein made another dramatic move to establish his credentials as an Arab nationalist. On 24 October he signed an agreement in Amman with Egypt and Syria, providing for a joint command of the armed forces of the three countries under the Egyptian commander-in-chief Major General Abdel Hakim Amer. Amer and General Tawfiq Nizamuddin, the Syrian chief of staff, were guests of honour at the opening of the new parliament by the monarch the following day. Two days later Nabulsi was appointed prime minister, and he also assumed the foreign affairs portfolio. Hussein gave Nabulsi a free hand to form his own cabinet. The result was a coalition that included three independents, one communist and one member of the extremely pro-Syrian Ba’th Arab Socialist Party. Abdullah Rimawi, the leader of the Ba’th, was given the relatively humble post of minister of state for foreign affairs. But he was the most outspoken anti-royalist in the government and exercised disproportionate influence through his alliance with Nabulsi’s more extreme ministers and with some of the Free Officers in the army. He openly proclaimed his opposition to Jordanian independence and called for its merger with Syria. He was reputed to make frequent trips to Damascus and to return with suitcases full of money.4 Not a single Hashemite loyalist was included in the cabinet.

  Failure to win a majority in the Chamber of Deputies weakened the position of the new prime minister and made it more difficult for him to impose his authority on his argumentative colleagues. Nevertheless, during his short period in power, Nabulsi acted as a relatively free agent. He interpreted the 1952 constitution literally and held himself responsible to parliament, not to the palace. His government, for the first time in Jordan’s history, considered itself, rather than the king, as the principal decision-maker. The programme of the government reflected faithfully the electoral platforms of its constituent parts. The two main planks were to distance Jordan from Britain and to move closer to the radical Arab states. Hussein initially went along with this programme. The Amman pact for a unified military command fitted perfectly into this programme.

  What the Jordanians did not know was that their conclusion of the new defence pact with Egypt coincided with a conspiracy between Britain, France and Israel to attack Egypt. Thus, on the eve of the Suez War, Jordan was in the curious position of having defence pacts with one of the villains as well as with the victim of what in Arab political discourse was usually referred to as al-adwan al-thulathi, or ‘the tripartite aggression’. The timing of the Amman pact was singularly propitious for Israel. Israel’s powerful propaganda machine was able to portray the military pact between its Arab neighbours to the north, east and south as a ring of steel justifying a pre-emptive attack. In reality, the Arab alliance was little more than a paper pact with no mechanism for creating an integrated command structure. In addition, Israel was trying to divert attention from its preparations to attack Egypt by deliberately raising the level of tension on the Jordanian front. The Amman pact contributed to the success of this strategic deception plan by focusing international attention on the Jordanian–Israeli conflict. More importantly, and to the evident satisfaction of the Israeli chief of staff, up to the last minute the general staffs of the Arab armies believed that Israel’s intention was to march on Jordan.5

  It was Anthony Eden, however, who got Britain into this hopeless tangle. The road to Suez began when the neurotic prime minister declared a personal war on Nasser following the dismissal of Glubb. Relations between Egypt and the West deteriorated further when America withdrew its offer to finance the building of the Aswan Dam. Nasser retaliated on 26 July 1956, the fourth anniversary of the Free Officers’ Revolution, by announcing the nationalization of the Suez Canal – a potent symbol of Western colonial domination. Though not illegal, this action convinced Eden that force would have to be used to remove Nasser from power. Eden was adamant that Nasser must not be permitted to have ‘his thumb on our windpipe’. Because Dwight D. Eisenhower was equally convinced that force must not be used, Eden resorted to the famous collusion with the Israelis and the French that paved the way to the tripartite attack on Egypt in October 1956. Israel got on the bandwagon of this colonial-style war at a later stage. The French were the match-makers between Britain and Israel. Like Eden, they saw the canal crisis as a replay of the 1930s, and, like him, they were determined that this time there must be no appeasement. They had another cause for complaint against ‘Hitler on the Nile’, as they called President Nasser – his support for the Algerian rebels against the French Army. France’s generals at that time had only three priorities – Algeria, Algeria and Algeria. They calculated that if Nasser could be put in his place, the Algerian rebellion would collapse. Although each country had its own motives, the aim that united them was to knock Nasser off his perch.

  For Israel’s leaders the overthrow of Nasser and the defeat of his army were the primary aims but Jordan featured in their thinking as a possible secondary target. Their view of Jordan was in a state of flux. With King Abdullah they had had a solid strategic partnership that had stood the test of time and brought rich rewards. Consequently, support for the survival of the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan became a basic tenet of Israeli defence policy. As a result of Hussein’s apparent shift from the conservative to the radical Arab camp, however, this policy began to be reassessed. There were serious doubts about the capacity of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to preserve its independence and territorial integrity against its covetous neighbours. At the same time, Israeli leaders were developing their own designs for territorial expansion at Jordan’s expense. David Ben-Gurion recorded in his diary that Moshe Dayan, the chief of staff, was ‘in favour of reaching an agreement with the English regarding the whole of the Middle East, destroying Nasser and partitioning Jordan between us and Iraq’.6 This was completely outside the realm of possibility. Ben-Gurion, however, warmed to the idea and developed it into a comprehensive plan for a new political order in the Middle East. Although he admitted that this big plan might sound fantastic at first, he returned to it time and again in his diary and tried to sell it to his French co-conspirators in the course of plotting the attack on Egypt.

  The tripartite collusion took place in a private villa in Sèvres on the outskirts of Paris from 22 to 24 October. At the first meeting with the French leaders, before the arrival of Selwyn Lloyd, the reluctant British representative, Ben-Gurion presented his big plan for the reorganization of the Middle East to the French hosts. Jordan, he said, was not viable as an independent state and should therefore be divided. Iraq would get the East Bank in return for a promise to settle the Palestinian refugees there and to make peace with Israel, while th
e West Bank would be attached to Israel as a semi-autonomous region. Lebanon suffered from having a large Muslim population, which was concentrated in the south. The problem could be solved by Israel’s expansion up to the Litani River, thereby helping to turn Lebanon into a more compact Christian state. The Suez Canal area should be given an international status, while the Straits of Tiran in the Gulf of Aqaba should come under Israeli control to ensure freedom of navigation. A prior condition for realizing this plan was the elimination of Nasser and the replacement of his regime with a pro-Western government that would also be prepared to make peace with Israel.7

  Whether fantastic or not, this plan is highly revealing of Ben-Gurion’s inner thoughts about Israel, the European powers and the Arab world. It revealed his craving for an alliance with the imperialist powers against the forces of Arab nationalism; it exposed an uninhibited desire to expand by force at the expense of his neighbours and to expand in every possible direction – north east and south; and it exhibited a cavalier attitude towards the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Arab states in general and of Jordan in particular. Lebanon and Egypt were to lose some of their territory, and Jordan was to be snuffed out completely. A British official named Sir John Troutbeck once described King Abdullah as ‘a born land-grabber’, but the term fitted Israel’s founding father equally well. Far from Jordan threatening Israel’s security, it was Ben-Gurion and his belligerent chief of staff who were plotting to dismember the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and to divide up the spoils with the Hashemites of Iraq.