Lion of Jordan

by Avi Shlaim

  The attack on Samu’ and Hussein’s failure to respond with force stirred greater Palestinian antipathy towards him and played into the hands of his enemies. Samu’ thus widened the existing rift between the regime and its Palestinian subjects. The regime was accused at home and in the Arab world of neglecting the defences of the country and of failing to protect the inhabitants of Samu’ against the enemy. The PLO, Syria and Egypt fanned the flames of popular hatred against the regime by launching a fierce propaganda offensive, much of it directed against the king personally. All the pent-up frustrations suddenly came to the surface and fuelled angry and often violent protest. Mass demonstrations erupted in the refugee camps and in the cities of the West Bank. Serious riots convulsed Hebron, Jericho, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem and Qalqilyah. Demonstrators marched through the streets carrying nationalist placards, shouting pro-Nasser slogans and calling on Hussein to follow the path of Nuri as-Said – the Iraqi premier who was killed by the Baghdad mob in 1958. The main targets of the demonstrators were government offices and police vehicles. The army was called in and instructed to use harsh measures to suppress the riots: curfews, mass arrests, tear gas and firing live ammunition into the crowd. Even with these aggressive methods, it took the army the best part of two weeks to restore order. One new feature of this crisis was the active involvement of West Bank leaders and mayors in the anti-Hashemite protests. Some of these notables styled themselves as the ‘National Leadership’; they demanded the convocation of ‘a people’s convention to discuss the core issues regarding the Homeland’; and they formulated a ‘national manifesto’ that called for the presence of the Arab armies on Jordan’s soil and supported the PLO as the only representative of the Palestinian people’s will. The manifesto stopped short of asserting a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence on the West Bank, but it posed a challenge that the Hashemite regime could not afford to ignore.6

  By provoking such a fierce domestic backlash, the Samu’ raid constituted a turning point in the relations between the Hashemite monarchy and the Palestinians of the West Bank, and, in the words of Israeli expert Moshe Shemesh, a turning point ‘in Jordan’s attitude toward Israel, from a state of guarded coexistence to one of disappointment and pessimism’. ‘At the heart of Jordan’s military and civilian estimate,’ Shemesh has written,

  stood the unequivocal conclusion that Israel’s main design was conquest of the West Bank, and that Israel was striving to drag all of the Arab countries into a general war, in the course of which it would make a grab for the West Bank. According to this appraisal, in light of Jordan’s military weakness and the Arab world’s dithering, Israel believed it would have little trouble in seizing the West Bank. After Samu’, these apprehensions so obsessed the Jordanians that they should be regarded as the deciding factor in King Hussein’s decision to participate in the Six-Day War. He was convinced that Israel would occupy the West Bank whether Jordan joined the fray or not.7

  For Israel’s leaders the immediate worry after Samu’ was that Hussein’s regime would collapse and that forces from the neighbouring Arab states would move into Jordan. Dr Yaacov Herzog was rushed to London to undo at least some of the damage that the Samu’ raid had inflicted on bilateral relations with Jordan. A meeting with Hussein was out of the question, so Herzog drafted a letter for Dr Emanuel Herbert to send to his friend the king. Although Dr Herbert was extremely angry with his Israeli friends, he was prevailed upon to send the letter in order to save what Herzog described as a central project in Israel’s foreign policy. The letter expressed the deepest regret for the loss of life and assured the recipient on the basis of ‘the most reliable information from the highest authority’ that there was no change whatsoever in basic policy. The letter referred to the action as ‘a blunder of the gravest character’, but it also mentioned the provocation to which Israel was subjected by the terrorist gangs and ended with a plea for both sides to make an effort to alleviate the tension, as they had done in the past.8 Dr Herbert received no reply to this letter, and he reported that the friends of the king, who came to see him after the raid, spoke about Israel in a very different and extremely hostile manner.9

  In mid December 1966 a series of discussions took place in Jerusalem on policy towards Jordan with representatives from the Foreign Ministry, Military Intelligence and the Mossad. There was a general consensus that the Hashemite regime had demonstrated its determination to survive during the previous eighteen years but also that it had virtually no chance of survival in the long term. The question was whether the survival of Hussein’s regime was vital for the State of Israel. Here there were two positions. Those who embraced the first said that Hussein was a problem because the existence of the West Bank in its present form was a catastrophe for Israel and he was an obstacle to change. The second position was the polar opposite of the first. Its adherents believed in the status quo; they wanted Hussein to consolidate it; and they looked forward to coexistence with him. The IDF position was described as being halfway between the two approaches. It was reconciled to the existing situation, but it would be glad of an opportunity to establish a new and more convenient status quo.10 With such opposing views and tendencies within the political–military establishment, it is not surprising that Hussein was getting mixed messages from the Israeli side.

  Mistrust of Israel made Hussein turn to America for reassurance. The Johnson administration sharply rebuked Israel for its raid on Samu’ and voted in the Security Council for a resolution condemning the attack. Hussein had strong backing from Findley Burns, Jr, the American ambassador to Amman, and from Jack O’Connell, the CIA station chief in Amman from 1967 to 1971. Burns suspected that Egypt, Syria and Israel were not too worried about the consequences of a short Arab–Israeli war that might end with the collapse of Jordan. He did not imply that the Israeli attack on Samu’ was part of a dark plot to set in train an Arab–Israeli war or cause the liquidation of the Hashemites. Nor did he discount the advantages for Jordan’s neighbours in retaining the country’s present regime. He merely suggested that there could none the less be strong policy considerations in all three countries working against their instincts for caution. For these countries the continuation of a moderate Jordan was ‘the stopper that keeps the dirty water from running out of the bathtub’. For Burns, by contrast, the status quo in Jordan was vital for the maintenance of balance and stability in the Middle East.11

  Jack O’Connell had a closer relationship with King Hussein than any other American official before or after, one that was based on mutual respect and absolute trust. O’Connell was a well-educated man. As a Fulbright Scholar he did an MA in Islamic Law in the University of the Punjab, after which he returned to Georgetown University to do a Ph.D. in international law. During the 1958 crisis he was sent to reinforce the CIA team in Jordan and that was when he and the king bonded. O’Connell was a man of complete integrity and Hussein always found him to be entirely reliable. Hussein reciprocated O’Connell’s honesty by being honest with him in turn. Hussein could be vague and give indirect answers, but he did not tell outright lies. As a result of this honesty, the working relationship between the two men was both harmonious and effective. O’Connell gave tremendous assistance to the king and his kingdom. The relationship continued after O’Connell retired from the CIA in 1971 and joined a law firm in Washington. He became the family lawyer of the Hashemites and an adviser and advocate of the Jordanian government.12

  President Johnson was persuaded by his advisers of the need to support Jordan. On 23 November he sent a secret private letter to Hussein that opened by saying: ‘Words of sympathy are small comfort when lives have been needlessly destroyed.’ Johnson went on to make two points. First, he assured Hussein that his administration maintained its interest in the peace and security of Jordan and in the well-being of its people. Second, having heard from Burns about Hussein’s concern, Johnson wanted to assure him that Israel’s policies had not changed and that Israel did not intend to oc
cupy the West Bank of the Jordan River. America’s opposition to the use of force to alter borders in the Near East had been made unmistakably clear to Israel both in private representations and in public statements, and Johnson was certain that it was fully understood and appreciated by the Israelis.13

  Johnson’s letter was significant for the promise it provided to oppose any attempt by Israel to change the border at Jordan’s expense, but it did not dispel Hussein’s fears. Hussein invited Burns and O’Connell to see him on the evening of 10 December at his private residence at Al-Hummar. Burns had never seen the king so grim or so obviously under pressure. It was apparent that he had to use the utmost self-restraint to keep his emotions from erupting openly. At several points in the conversation Hussein had tears in his eyes. He said that although the demonstrations had abated, pressures under the surface were in fact building up. The discontent on the West Bank was deeper than he had imagined. ‘The growing split between the East Bank and the West Bank has ruined my dreams.’ The only thing that bound the army to him, Hussein said, was traditional loyalty, but this was daily growing weaker: ‘There is near despair in the army and the army no longer has confidence in me.’

  Hussein said that he was beset on all sides by enemies, outside Jordan and within. Syria was openly calling for his overthrow, publicly offering arms and covertly infiltrating arms and terrorists into Jordan to help achieve this purpose. Hussein concluded by saying that he simply must have Washington’s decision on his request for assistance. For a decade he and America had been partners and at that critical hour they were the only friend to whom he could turn. The right answer from the US would enable him to justify his past policy to his army, to his people, to the PLO and to everyone else. If this was not forthcoming, even he would be forced to conclude that his past policy had been a failure. Repeated delays by America left Hussein no choice, he said, but to agree to the decision of the Arab Defence Council in Cairo to station Saudi and Iraqi troops in Jordan.

  If the US turned down Hussein’s request for assistance, three courses were open to him, he said: to turn East; to batten down the hatches and take on all his enemies together; or to declare the West Bank a ‘military directorate’ and call on the Arab states and the PLO to station forces there to protect it. Of these three courses only the third appealed to him because it would enable him to make a redoubt of the East Bank and thus offer him one last chance to serve his cause. There were many indications in the course of the conversation that Hussein had become suspicious of America’s intentions with regard to Jordan. America was too closely tied to Israel and this could inhibit its ability to respond to his request for assistance. Hussein also felt that America did not appreciate the seriousness of the situation in Jordan or the depth of the desire of its enemies to liquidate it. Hussein hoped that his views could be brought to the personal attention of the president.14

  Having finished the business part of the meeting, Hussein asked Burns and O’Connell to stay on. In the privacy of his home at Al-Hummar, free from the formal constraints of the royal court, the king proceeded to reveal to his astonished American guests that he had been in secret contact with Israeli leaders for the past three years through clandestine meetings. The purpose of these exchanges, Hussein explained, was to reach understandings that would ensure peace between their two countries and eventually, he hoped, achieve a negotiated settlement of the Palestine problem. Hussein said he wondered what more he could have done to avert what happened. He then added quietly that no one in his country, except himself, knew about these discussions with the Israelis. Hussein repeated that he did not believe in war as a solution to the Palestine problem. He had consistently followed a course of moderation on the whole question of Palestine in the hope that reasonable men would one day negotiate a just settlement. He had done his utmost to eliminate terrorism against Israel from across Jordan’s border. The US knew all these things and so did the Israelis. The Israelis knew it, he said, because ‘I told them so personally.’

  Hussein had warned the Israeli leaders, among other things, that he could not absorb or tolerate a serious retaliatory raid. They accepted the logic of this and promised there would never be one. In addition to these secret meetings, Hussein had maintained a personal and confidential correspondence with the Israeli leaders. These messages served to ‘underscore and reinforce our understandings’. The last message he received from the Israelis was to reassure him that they had no intention of attacking Jordan. That message arrived on 13 November, the very day the Israeli troops attacked Samu’. Hussein added that the message was unsolicited and that it was presumably dispatched twenty-four to forty-eight hours before he received it. ‘As far as I am concerned,’ Hussein told his American guests, ‘this attack was a complete betrayal by them [the Israelis] of everything I had tried to do for the past three years in the interests of peace, stability and moderation at high personal political risk. Strangely, despite our secret discussions and correspondence, despite secret agreements, understandings, and assurances, I never fully trusted their intentions towards me or towards Jordan. In assessing Israeli intentions I ask you to put my experiences with them into your equation.’ Hussein ended the soliloquy on a bitter note: ‘This is what one gets for trying to be moderate, or perhaps for being stupid.’ He asked that this information be held in strictest confidence by as few people as possible. Burns, when writing later of this conversation, underscored Hussein’s request by recalling that King Abdullah had been assassinated by a Palestinian when it became known that he had contact with the Israelis.15

  Reports of the semi-official, semi-private conversation in Al-Hummar fed into a reassessment of American policy towards Jordan that was under way in Washington. The CIA’s contribution to this process was an eleven-page memorandum, ‘The Jordanian Regime: Its Prospects and the Consequences of its Demise’, prepared by the Office of National Estimates and coordinated with the Office of Current Intelligence and the Clandestine Services. The name of the author was omitted but the content reflects the private knowledge and the views of Jack O’Connell. Whoever the author, the memorandum sheds much light on what was undoubtedly one of the most critical crises of Hussein’s reign. It was noted that ‘King Hussain has stayed on his throne in Jordan despite slender domestic political support, military weakness relative to his enemies, and the hostility of radical Arabs who regard him as a Western puppet.’ His survival was attributed in part to his own courage and resourcefulness and in part to US support. Another reason was that the Arab radicals generally tolerated Hussein’s rule as an alternative to conflict with Israel for which they knew they were unprepared. ‘As a consequence Jordan served as a kind of political buffer between irreconcilable opponents and to an important degree kept the unstable elements in the area in equilibrium.’

  Recent events, however, put the future of Jordan in question and threatened the precarious status quo. The PLO had become more violent in its criticism of Hussein for his refusal to admit Arab military forces to Jordan and to station them on the border with Israel. Al-Fatah stepped up its sabotage raids into Israel, mostly from Jordan, which did its best to prevent them. The Israeli raid on Samu’ badly shook Hussein and his government and humiliated the army. In the aftermath of the raid Hussein appeared to his subjects, to his neighbours and perhaps even to himself to have been badly let down by the US. The Palestinians agitated and demonstrated against him and his government for over three weeks. They were enthusiastically egged on by the Syrian government and by Egyptian and PLO propaganda campaigns. Disaffection in the Jordanian armed forces – the mainstay of the king’s position – had grown greatly. ‘Hussain is aware of his weakened position at home. He probably believes that the threat from Israel is greater than he had calculated, and has probably lost faith in the modus vivendi. He is also deeply concerned lest the US fail to give him firm support. Hence, his first priority is to demonstrate to the Jordanian army and citizenry that he continues to enjoy the full backing of the US. He has asked the US for a
large additional supply of arms to help him allay dissatisfaction in the armed forces.’

  The US response to Hussein’s request was said to be an important factor in the situation: ‘A military aid package, if it included prompt delivery of some showy items, would help the king greatly. A US refusal to extend aid, or to give only token amounts of it, would weaken his position and discourage him.’ The clinching argument was that ‘Hussain himself already entertains some suspicions that the US and Israel are collaborating against him, and he would feel that these suspicions were confirmed.’ While the memorandum conceded that no amount of US aid could guarantee Hussein’s tenure, it pointed out that prompt and substantial assistance could help him to maintain political control. ‘In sum, Hussain’s chances of surviving this crisis depend on a number of variables, nearly all of them outside his control. It is clear that he is in deep trouble, and that there are significant dangers to him and to the modus vivendi which has helped maintain an uneasy peace in the area.’16

  The review resulted, towards the end of December, in a decision to supply military hardware to Jordan, though not on the scale that Hussein had requested. It was generally understood that the collapse of his regime could precipitate open warfare between the Arabs and Israel and that this would not be to America’s advantage. As tangible evidence of his administration’s continuing support, President Johnson agreed to airlift to Amman military equipment worth $4.7 million in order to improve the mobility, firepower and effectiveness of the Jordanian Army. American officials hoped that Hussein would use this hardware ‘to prevent guerrillas from using Jordan as a base for operations against Israel’, and not to prepare for war with the Jewish state.17 Thus, from the beginning to the end of the crisis that finished with the modest package of arms for Jordan, the chief preoccupation of the policy-makers in Washington seemed to be the security of Israel.