Lion of Jordan

by Avi Shlaim

  Nasser invited all the heads of Arab states to a summit meeting in Cairo on 13–17 January 1964. This was a new departure in Arab politics, with ‘unity of objectives’ being replaced by the less ambitious and more inclusive slogan of ‘unity of ranks’. The new approach enabled Jordan to return to the Arab fold, and Hussein was treated by Nasser as a long-lost friend on his arrival in Cairo. One positive outcome of the summit was an agreement to put an end to inter-Arab slanging on the radio and in the press. Below the surface, however, two conflicting forces continued to turn the wheels of Arab politics: the unifying force of the conflict with Israel, and the dividing force of separate and distinctive national interests.3 Called in part to discuss Arab counter-measures to Israel’s plan to divert the headwaters of the Jordan River from their natural storage basin at the Sea of Galilee to the Negev, the summit’s hidden agenda was to bolster Nasser’s leadership in the Arab world following his fracture with his revolutionary allies.

  The summit reached three decisions: the first was to divert water from the tributaries of the Jordan River before it entered the territory of Israel; the second was to set up a United Arab Command to deal with possible military action by Israel; and the third was to form a Palestinian entity. These decisions had far-reaching consequences for Jordan, and Hussein had misgivings about all of them, especially the last two; but, for the sake of his new friendship with Nasser, which enhanced his popularity at home and his legitimacy in the Arab world, he went along with them. The decision on water was the least threatening. It was the result of Nasser’s efforts to isolate Syria and to prevent it from undertaking independent military action that risked embroiling the Arab states in a war with Israel for which he knew they were not ready. In 1955 the American envoy, Eric Johnston, presented a plan for distributing the water of the Jordan River and its tributaries. Israel was allocated 40 per cent of the water and the remaining 60 per cent was to go to Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, with Jordan getting the largest share. The Arab states adhered to their respective quotas but refrained from adopting the plan officially because it implied recognition of the State of Israel. Hussein could live with the summit decision because it did not entail military action and because only the upper tributaries in Lebanon and Syria were to be diverted, not the ones in Jordan. The decision also dovetailed with Jordan’s development plan and opened up the prospect of Arab funding for the Jordanian irrigation scheme. The second decision, to set up a United Arab Command, was not welcome because it involved subordination to an overall Egyptian commander, dependence on unreliable external powers and the presence of foreign troops on Jordanian soil. Taken together, these two decisions increased the risk of an armed confrontation between the Arab states and Israel.

  But the summit decision with the most profound significance for Jordan was the one that led to the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The announcement spoke vaguely of ‘organizing the Palestinian Arab people to enable it to play its role in liberating its country and determining its future’, but the challenge to Jordan was unmistakable. Whereas the United Arab Command threatened to impair Jordan’s independence in the making of foreign policy, the PLO threatened to undermine the very foundations of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan by claiming to represent its Palestinian population. The magnitude of the challenge can be gauged from the fact that, as stated earlier, two thirds of Jordan’s population at this time were Palestinians. Ever since the merger of the West Bank with the kingdom in 1950, the Hashemite regime strove to integrate the Palestinians into Jordanian society and insisted that the population on both banks constituted one indivisible people. The guiding principle of the regime was to oppose the emergence of a separate Palestinian identity and to resist the formation of a separate Palestinian power base. This was reflected in the slogan of the regime: ‘Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan’.

  In line with this policy, Hussein resisted earlier proposals made by Iraq, Syria and Egypt in the Arab League for the creation of a Palestinian entity.4 These took various forms but they were all intended to encourage Palestinian separatism by allowing them to have their own representatives to international forums. The government of Jordan, by contrast, had always insisted that it alone spoke officially for the Palestinians within its borders. At the Cairo conference, however, Hussein modified this long-held position by going along with the collective decision to create a new Palestinian entity. A compromise was reached whereby the UAR and other Arab governments agreed that a revived Palestinian entity, though it would be institutionalized, would not challenge Jordan’s sovereignty over West Jordan.

  Going along with this compromise was a serious mistake. It could be argued that the PLO was created not to take the West Bank from Jordan but to liberate Palestine from Israel; the real target was Israel, not Jordan. On the other hand, the West Bank was part of Palestine; the PLO was bound to want to include it in its sphere of operations and make a bid for the loyalty of its inhabitants. So in the long term the PLO posed more of a threat to Jordan than to Israel. As Asher Susser has noted, ‘There was a fundamental incompatibility between the PLO’s ambition to exercise authority and patronage over the Palestinian population, the majority of whom were in Jordan, and the demand of the regime for complete sovereign authority over the territory of the Kingdom and its citizens.’5 At Cairo, Hussein took his first steps on the slippery path that was to lead to war with Israel in 1967, to the loss of the West Bank, and to the civil war on the East Bank in September 1970.

  In the short term, however, Hussein could bask in the glory reflected in his rapprochment with Nasser and his progressive posture towards the nascent Palestinian entity. His performance at the summit raised his stature and popularity with the Jordanian public. On his tour of the major West Bank towns he was accorded a hero’s welcome. Hussein thought he could control the Palestinian movement in Jordan, but it began to gather its own momentum. The real sponsor of the Palestinian entity was Nasser, and he conceived of it not as an independent force for the liberation of Palestine but as an instrument of Egyptian foreign policy. A constituent assembly had to be convened to give an institutional expression to the summit decision on the Palestinian entity. The choice was between holding it in Jordan and imposing Jordanian conditions or outside Jordan, in which case there would be no restraints. Hussein chose the former as the lesser of two evils. A Palestinian National Congress was held in Jerusalem at the end of May, with King Hussein acting as a reluctant and suspicious host. The congress chose Ahmad Shuquairi, a Palestinian lawyer and demagogue who was close to Syria, as the first chairman of the PLO. It also undertook to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of the Arab states, and it recognized Jordanian sovereignty on both sides of the Jordan River. This was a conciliatory gesture towards Jordan, promising coexistence. But the congress also resolved that the PLO should have its own flag and anthem, and that it should set up offices at the UN, in the countries of the Soviet bloc and in the Arab states. From the outset it was thus obvious that the attempt to achieve independence for the Palestinians and coexistence with Jordan was an attempt to square a circle.

  At Cairo, Hussein came under subtle pressure from Nasser to accept Soviet weapons for his army. Hussein regarded the United States with a mixture of respect and resentment. For some time he had been questioning the wisdom of having ‘all his eggs in the Western basket’, and this had led him to establish diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Relations with the Soviet bloc provided him with some sort of a counterweight to dependence on the Western powers. After the Cairo summit he started to play the Russian card in his quest for Western weapons. He let it be known that if Jordan’s needs were not met by its friends, he might follow Nasser’s lead and start shopping in Moscow for military hardware. The veiled threat secured for Hussein an invitation to an official visit to the United States in April. In his public statements Hussein sought to put his visit to the US in the context of the Arab summit conference decisions. He made it clear that he regarded
the Palestine problem as ‘a question of life and death’ and that he intended to convey the Arab point of view to all whom he met in the course of his trip. But there was no single Arab point of view, and Hussein faced the complicated problem of trying to do what he knew was in Jordan’s interest and at the same time not getting out of step with his Arab colleagues.

  The most important meeting of Hussein’s American trip was with President Lyndon Baines Johnson in the White House on 14 April 1964. The briefing papers for this meeting described the 28-year-old monarch as ‘capable, courageous, and proud’. Despite almost universal doubts that he could survive, he had weathered eleven turbulent years on the throne. Hussein was also described as ‘a frank and open friend of the West’ and consequently the target of vitriolic propaganda by fellow Arabs, who portrayed him as a stooge of America. On his trip to America, Hussein was buoyed by his improved relations with the other Arab countries, particularly the UAR, and deeply conscious of his role as spokesman for all Arab states.6 Johnson was advised to make it clear to Hussein that ‘Jordan can count on us if it plays the game’, to both reassure him of American support and to make him realize that this was a two-way street. Most interestingly, Johnson was assured that relations with Israel would not suffer as a result of support for Hussein: ‘There will be no Israeli kickback if you’re friendly to Hussein, because they’re even more anxious to keep him on the throne than we are. The last thing they want is another activist Syrian or Nasserite regime sitting right next to them.’7

  Johnson welcomed Hussein in public ‘both as soldier and wise and resolute man of peace’. But the main item on the working agenda was the Arab–Israeli conflict, and Johnson had a reputation for being a great admirer and friend of Israel. Johnson tried to strike an even-handed posture, but his bias towards Israel was evident throughout. In his characteristically blunt Texan style he reminded Hussein of the large amount of aid that his country had already given Jordan. He was prepared to consider the supply of arms, but he warned Hussein that flirting with Moscow was unlikely to go down well in Congress. The final congressional aid level of support, he said, would be influenced more by Jordan than by the White House and accepting Soviet equipment might seriously jeopardize the whole American aid programme. He also pointed out that the supply of arms to Jordan would prompt Israeli demands for compensation and could end up fuelling the arms race in the Middle East.

  Hussein expressed gratitude for the economic aid that his country received and welcomed the opportunity to tell the Arab side of the story. There was Arab annoyance, he said, that so many sorely needed resources had to be diverted to counter the major threat of Israel, a hostile state that split the Arab worlds of Asia and Africa and complicated the problems of development. Jordan bore the brunt of the problem because of its large numbers of Palestinian refugees. Hussein said that Arab policy at that time was the containment of Israel. Stability in the area depended on the establishment of a balance between Israel and the Arab states. Israel had to be brought to realize that it could not continue to maintain a position in the area based on force. At present, there was no balance between the Arabs and Israel, and this has led the Arabs to look to the Soviets for military equipment. Johnson and his advisers tried to explain and justify their support for Israel. They thought that Arab fears of Israeli expansionism were unfounded. Hussein replied that their differing estimates of Israel’s expansionism and capabilities should not prevent them from exploring areas of possible cooperation.8 None the less he left Washington empty-handed and came under renewed pressure from Nasser to turn to Moscow for arms.

  Marching on the path to Arab unity had implications for Hussein’s relations with Israel as well as with America. Hussein’s public statements and actions gave the Israelis cause for concern, and they sought clarification through the secret channel. Yaacov Herzog requested a meeting with the king, and on 2 May 1964, the meeting took place at the home of Dr Emanuel Herbert in St John’s Wood, London. Herzog was immediately struck with the change that seemed to have come over Hussein since their meeting the previous September: he looked firm, tranquil and dignified, and had about him an air of calm statesmanship. The meeting lasted an hour and three quarters, and covered a broad range of topics connected with bilateral relations, and regional and international politics. Herzog restated Israel’s commitment to the independence and integrity of Jordan, and reported on their lobbying in Washington against cuts in the aid budget to Jordan and attempts to get some private companies to invest money there. Hussein explained that his policy in the Middle East was directed at controlling the extremists. At the conference of the heads of state in Cairo he had tried to keep all the Arab leaders together and in this way to prevent the extremists from acting on their own. The main thing now was to get the Arab leaders to concentrate on economic development.

  The dispute over the water of the Jordan River was the principal and the most contentious issue in the discussion. Earlier that month Israel had inaugurated the programme in which the National Water Carrier conveyed water for irrigation from the Sea of Galilee to the Negev. Herzog said that Israel would abide by the American envoy Eric Johnston’s allocations if the Arabs did the same. He disputed Hussein’s charge that this was causing increased salinity in the lower flow of the Jordan River. Hussein said that he was working to ensure that the Arab plan for diverting the headwaters of the river did not depart from the Johnston Plan. Herzog seized the opportunity to warn that any action contrary to the Johnston Plan would lead to tension. A diversion of the Banias tributary to the Jordan River in Syria or of the Hasbani tributary in Lebanon beyond their immediate vicinity, for example, would be considered by Israel as a flagrant departure from the plan. Whatever the quantities of water involved, Israel would consider itself free from the Johnston framework, which would then fall apart, and serious trouble would ensue. On this issue, there was no meeting of minds.

  As in the previous meeting Herzog gave a detailed intelligence survey of the various conflicts in the region and analysed closely Nasser’s recent moves. On this occasion, however, Hussein leaped to Nasser’s defence. He conceded that Nasser could be impulsive but added that, in their recent conversations, the Egyptian leader admitted that he had made mistakes in the past and asked that these be forgotten. Nasser was now ready to work together with other Arab countries in equality and in mutual respect for the good of the Arab world. He agreed with Hussein that the quarrels between the Arab countries had weakened the Arabs, diverting their attention and economic resources from the more important objective of development. Over the years Hussein had argued for cooperation and the abandonment of any attempt at control by one Arab country of another. Nasser now agreed with him. This was the basis of their relationship.

  Having covered all the ground on his agenda, Herzog suggested that he sum up the talk. Hussein nodded assent. Herzog said (1) they had reaffirmed that their common objective was to work towards an ultimate settlement. War could bring only endless tragedy. Peace would open up a great future for the Arab people and Israel. Hussein interpolated to say that war could solve nothing. (2) It was agreed that each side should proceed with water development within the Johnston allocations and without departing from the Johnston framework. (3) Integrity and independence of all countries in the area was their common interest. (4) Israel, for its part, would study ways of assisting Jordanian economic development. (5) Hussein, for his part, would study ways and means of alleviating tension – propaganda, arms race and so on. Somewhat embarrassed at being pinned down, Hussein blushed and nodded simultaneously.

  At the end of the meeting they discussed the method of communication. Herzog wanted Hussein to appoint a representative to meet regularly with them, to advance cooperation and exchange impressions. At their last meeting he had felt that this could be arranged. Were there no people he could trust to maintain the contact? Hussein replied that there were those whom he could trust. ‘At this stage, however, I do not want to take further people into this matter.’ How then, He
rzog asked, could cooperation be developed? Hussein replied that Herzog could come to meet him whenever he went abroad. Moreover, Herzog could communicate with him through their common friend. Hussein then asked whether Herzog ever went to Eilat. When he replied that he did, Hussein said with a broad smile that he was often in Aqaba and thus they were close to each other. Herzog asked him if he had a residence in Jerusalem. Hussein said that he was building a house there. Herzog asked if he could go to visit him there. Smiling broadly Hussein replied, ‘Not yet.’9 As they rose to leave, Herzog remarked that Allah had preserved the king from his enemies and that he had become a living legend of courage and survival. It was surely the will of merciful Providence that he should be an emissary of peace in the Middle East. Hussein blushed and smiled, they shook hands, and he left the room. Herzog went away with the impression that Hussein accepted the permanence of Israel and at any rate considered that war was no solution to the Arab–Israel problem. If Hussein believed otherwise, reasoned Herzog, the risk of continuing the contact would surely have seemed to him greater than the risk of snapping it.10

  Hussein was unlikely to cut his newly established contact with Israel because his entire foreign policy was based on balancing between rival forces in order to avoid becoming isolated or too dependent. The principle of balancing applied at all levels: the inter-Arab, the regional and the global. In practical terms this meant balancing between Arab conservatives and Arab radicals, between the Arab world on the one hand and Israel on the other, and, at the global level, between the West and the Soviet bloc. At all these different levels, Hussein’s dynastic interests were paramount. The survival of the Hashemite dynasty was the guiding principle behind his foreign policy, the key to the constant shifts and manoeuvres, to all the alliances and realignments. Hussein made sure he always had at least one major Arab power on his side to provide protection. Thus, when the UAR threatened him, he forged an alliance with Saudi Arabia. Now that the Syrian militants were pushing the Arab states to a showdown with Israel, he could use his new friendship with Nasser in order to restrain them. The covert contact with Israel afforded him a measure of protection and he also tried to turn it to his advantage in his relationship with America. But Israel was not just one more element to be balanced but a country that was unique in the Middle East by virtue of its history, religion, democracy, military power and special relationship with the United States. In short, Israel was a very complex country to handle, and Hussein’s contact with it greatly complicated the rest of his foreign policy.