Lion of Jordan

by Avi Shlaim

  Some reports in the American press suggested that Jordan was invited to the Camp David summit but that it declined to participate. These reports were untrue but they may have stemmed from Hussein’s ambivalent position on the eve of the summit, when he seemed to be angling for an invitation but insisting on conditions that made it difficult to include him. The summit meeting at Camp David lasted thirteen days, starting on 5 September 1978 and ending on 17 September. Throughout this period Hussein remained in London, feeling excluded and following developments nervously. Ashraf Marwan, a wealthy Egyptian businessman, the son-in-law of Nasser and a confidant of Sadat, happened to be in London at the time, and Hussein asked to see him. He told Marwan in strict confidence of his interest in joining the summit and asked him to sound out Sadat. Marwan flew to Washington, spoke to one of Sadat’s senior aides and returned to London to convey a negative response to the king. Sadat did not want Hussein at Camp David partly because he neither liked nor trusted him, but more importantly, because he feared that Hussein’s presence at Camp David would complicate the process and block the path to progress. Sadat understood that Hussein was bound to raise the question of Palestinian self-determination and to insist on a comprehensive settlement to the dispute. When Begin’s press secretary asked Sadat why he had declined Hussein’s request, Sadat replied simply, ‘Because if Hussein had arrived at Camp David, we would not have reached any agreement.’13

  Yet Sadat did not want to fall out with Hussein: his support could be valuable in countering the inevitable Arab opposition to a partial agreement with Israel, and Sadat needed a façade of legitimacy. The role assigned to Hussein in Sadat’s grand design was not that of an equal partner but that of the sabi as-sutra. When a woman leaves her house with a less than honourable purpose in mind, she might take a boy with her to make it appear like an innocent family outing. Literally, sabi as-sutra means the youth who protects the honour of women. Hussein’s role, according to this analogy, was not to play an independent part in peace negotiations but to lend legitimacy to what in Arab eyes was bound to look like a shady deal. Sadat reckoned that with combined Egyptian-American pressure, Hussein would have no choice but to fall in line. Sadat had a low opinion of his fellow Arab rulers and often referred to them as dwarfs and clowns. In his meetings with American officials, he often bad-mouthed and belittled Hussein. This contributed to the American tendency to take Hussein for granted and to ignore his repeated warnings against a separate agreement. On this, as on other occasions, particularly during the Johnson administration, the White House officials treated Hussein as a ‘cheap date’.

  The most contentious issues at Camp David were Jerusalem, Palestinian rights and the future of the Jewish settlements on the West Bank. The media reported that deadlock was reached on all of these issues. On 14 September, the tenth day of the conference, Hussein, with the encouragement of Ashraf Marwan, called Sadat at the presidential retreat in Maryland. Sadat told Hussein that the negotiations were foundering on the Palestinian issue, that he was very depressed, and that he was preparing to pack his bags to go back home. Hussein saluted Sadat for having tried and encouraged him to hold his ground and to put the responsibility for failure where it belonged. He also arranged to meet Sadat in Morocco on his way back from the US and to accompany him on a tour of Arab capitals to explain what had gone wrong and to work out a joint strategy. Hussein in effect offered to help Sadat to break the fall and restore his position in the Arab world. Three days later, Hussein heard on the BBC that agreement had been reached at Camp David. Hussein was very angry because he thought that Sadat had deliberately deceived him, so instead of going to Morocco he went back to Jordan.14

  The Camp David Accords were in two parts. The first accord was entitled ‘A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt’. The treaty was to rest on four principles: complete Israeli withdrawal from Sinai and recognition of Egyptian sovereignty over this territory; demilitarization of most of Sinai; the stationing of UN forces to supervise demilitarization and to ensure freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal; and full normalization in the relations between Egypt and Israel. The second, entitled ‘A Framework for Peace in the Middle East’, dealt with the Palestinian problem. This called for the election of Palestinian representatives to negotiate the establishment of limited local autonomy on the West Bank and Gaza with Israel. Although this accord was also based on Resolution 242, it fudged the question of Israeli withdrawal, leaving it for ‘final status’ negotiations after a transitional period of autonomy during which Israel would maintain military control. There was no mention of the PLO or of Palestinian self-determination, and no commitment to Israeli withdrawal except from Sinai. As a result, the Camp David Accords were immediately rejected by the PLO, Syria and the other radical Arab states.

  Hussein was in a state of shock when he read the text of the accords, especially in the light of the assurances he had received from Sadat only three days earlier. His nightmare scenario became a reality: Egypt had opted for a separate deal; Jordan and the Palestinians had been sidelined; and the Arab world was in complete disarray. Hussein feared that endorsement of Sadat’s deal would strain relations with the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world. He felt insulted by the crude manner in which the Americans had tried to involve him. He refused to legitimize Israel’s occupation or to play the part of Israel’s policeman on the West Bank; and he particularly resented the assumption that Jordan could be forced to play the role assigned to it in the Camp David script. The ‘Framework for Peace in the Middle East’ mentions Jordan no less than fourteen times, although Jordan was not consulted about the role assigned to it by the writers. Hussein and his government repeatedly emphasized that Jordan was not legally or morally bound by accords that it took no part in formulating. Jordan, they said, would continue to insist on Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied territories and on the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.

  Hussein believed that Sadat simply deceived him, but the sequence of events towards the end of the summit suggests that it was Begin who deceived all the other participants. On Friday morning, 15 September, Sadat told Cyrus Vance, the secretary of state, that he had decided to go home, as he saw no hope of an agreement. At the end of an hour-long conversation, Carter persuaded Sadat to stay. On Saturday evening Carter and Vance met with Begin and his senior advisers for six hours, and it was felt that a major breakthrough had been reached on the question of settlements. Begin agreed to write a letter to Carter to be made public, saying that no new settlements would be built during the five-year transitional period to Palestinian autonomy. Begin’s commitment was a major argument in persuading Sadat to sign the Camp David Accords in Washington on Sunday, the seventeenth. On Monday, Begin’s letter arrived. It limited the moratorium on the building of new settlements to the three-month period of negotiations on the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Carter’s notes were quite clear – that the settlements freeze would continue until all negotiations were completed – and Vance confirmed his interpretation.15 Begin said that there must have been a misunderstanding, but there was no misunderstanding: he behaved dishonestly and dishonourably. Carter was so appalled by Begin’s duplicity that he ended up by describing him as a ‘psycho’.16 An Israeli settlement freeze on the West Bank was the one concession that might have persuaded the Arabs that America was committed to peace with justice. By withdrawing this concession, Begin brought about an ignominious collapse of the American position in the Arab world. Even the most moderate and pro-Western Arab leaders were now reluctant to endorse the defective and deficient accords signed by Egypt.

  Yet America lobbied vigorously for Jordanian and Saudi support. In his memoirs Carter writes that he called Hussein in Amman and discovered that he was under pressure from some of the other Arabs to reject any role in the forthcoming negotiations to implement the Camp David accords. Carter explained the advantages of the accords to Jordan and the Palestinians, and Huss
ein promised, somewhat reluctantly, not to make any decision or public comment until he had been informed thoroughly about the documents.17 There is no mention in Carter’s memoirs of the letter that Hussein had written to him on 27 August warning him precisely against the outcome that was eventually reached at the summit.

  As soon as it was concluded, Carter sent Cyrus Vance to Jordan and Saudi Arabia to drum up support for the settlement. Vance was the victim of the political geography of Washington. The State Department building is a mile away from the White House while the national security adviser’s office adjoins the Oval Office. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security adviser, intervened destructively after the conclusion of the Accords. He adopted a tough line, saying, in effect, that beggars cannot be choosers. Brzezinski ignored the State Department warning that the Jordanians and the Saudis would take a long time to accept the new situation. He enraged both states by ill-disguised briefings to the American press in which he claimed that they were simply putting up token opposition before joining enlarged talks.18

  The triumphalist tone of the American media worked against Vance during his visit to the Middle East. Hussein and Crown Prince Fahd were angry with Sadat. They believed that he had given them an explicit commitment before the summit to negotiate a comprehensive settlement in which the rest of the Arabs, including the Palestinians, could join, or that they could at least support, without unacceptable political risk. Instead, Hussein and Fahd told Vance, most of the Arab world was attacking Sadat and no recognized Palestinian leader was prepared to participate in the autonomy negotiations. Sadat had let them down by making a separate peace with Israel in exchange for the return of Sinai. Vance argued that the autonomy arrangements could lead eventually to Palestinian self-determination. His hosts doubted that Israel would abide by the terms and the spirit of the accords. At the conclusion of a lengthy discussion, Hussein said he had additional questions to which he needed answers before he could give his considered response, and promised to send them shortly.19

  Most of Hussein’s advisers were ambivalent about joining the Camp David negotiations. They did not want to damage relations with America, but they also felt that involvement entailed unacceptable personal and political risks for the king, the greatest of which was being compromised by joining Sadat and emerging empty-handed. Hussein and his advisers understood that this was a process, but they wanted to be certain about the intended outcome before embarking on the journey. In particular, they needed to be assured that the result would be a comprehensive settlement and Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied territories. Hussein appointed a committee of five officials under the chairmanship of Sharaf to draft the questions. The committee prepared a list of fourteen searching questions mostly about the American interpretation of the Camp David Accords and the American role in implementing them. President Carter personally signed the answers and sent Harold Saunders, the assistant secretary of state, to deliver them to the king on 16 October. The answers stated that America’s interpretation of 242 had not changed since 1967, and they elaborated on America’s view of specific issues in the Camp David Accords, but they did not contain the assurances that Jordan had sought. There was no indication that the Carter administration was prepared to apply to Israel the kind of pressure it was applying to the Arabs. All the contentious issues, the American document said, had to be resolved by direct negotiations between the parties themselves. The imbalance of power between the parties was not addressed. The consensus among the king’s advisers was that the answers were opaque, non-committal and unsatisfactory.20

  Harold Saunders spent hours with the king’s advisers and had two meetings with the king himself. Hussein was still anxious to be constructive, but he was not prepared to take the plunge on his own. He told Saunders that Jordan could not participate in the negotiations to implement the Camp David Accords without the support of the Palestinians or the Saudis. Saunders met with West Bank leaders but could elicit no support for Jordanian participation. He also went to Saudi Arabia but fared no better than Cyrus Vance. Saunders put the question directly to Crown Prince Fahd: would Saudi Arabia back Hussein if he came out in support of the Camp David Accords? Fahd’s reply was anything but direct. He gave an oblique and undecipherable answer and then changed the subject. Saunders went back to Amman to a meeting with the king at which he candidly admitted the failure of his mission.21 Despite all his disappointments, the king did not want to exclude all future possibilities of discussion. In his memoirs Carter writes: ‘I received a typically equivocal message from Hussein, leaving open the possibility that either the Jordanians or the Palestinians might negotiate as agreed at Camp David, but making no commitment.’22 In private conversations Carter used less diplomatic language, describing Hussein as the weak king of a weak country.23

  Jordan depended heavily on subsidies from the Gulf states, so there would be an economic price to pay for a break with the Arab consensus. The military threat from Iraq and Syria to Hashemite rule in Jordan would also be exacerbated by a break, and there was a danger to domestic stability from any move that defied the Rabat resolution and displeased the Palestinian population of the kingdom. Under these circumstances, Hussein’s usual balancing act became practically untenable; Jordan was indeed a weak country. He moved closer to the Arab rejectionists by accepting an invitation to attend a summit in Baghdad from which Egypt was excluded. Baghdad was not the most congenial of Arab capitals for Hussein to visit because it was the city in which the Hashemite royal family had been murderously ejected twenty years previously. This was to be his first visit to Baghdad since 1958. Great care was taken to make him feel welcome. Ba’th officials were sent to the overgrown royal cemetery to scythe down the long grass around the graves of the Hashemites in case Hussein wanted to visit them.24

  The other twenty members of the Arab League attended the meeting in Baghdad from 2–5 November. At the summit Hussein positioned Jordan at the heart of the new Arab consensus. In his speech to the delegates he outlined a framework for joint action to protect the Arab world against Israeli expansionism and to secure the peaceful recovery of the occupied territories. All their resources had to be mobilized, he argued, to meet the common danger. The meeting resolved to suspend Egypt’s membership of the Arab League and to transfer the headquarters of the Arab League from Cairo to Tunis. It declared Camp David to be in contradiction to the resolutions of the Arab summit in Rabat and confirmed Arab support for the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. It also voted to extend financial support over a period of ten years to Syria, Jordan and the PLO. Jordan was allocated a third of the total – $1,250 million over ten years. This financial support by the Arab oil-producing countries for the Eastern Front was intended to correct the imbalance of power caused by Egypt’s defection.25

  The Baghdad summit marked the beginning of a close personal friendship and political partnership between the Hashemite king and Saddam Hussein, the young vice-president of Iraq. Saddam was the strongman of the Ba’th regime who within a few months was to take over the presidency from the ailing Ahmad Bakr. At the summit Saddam played a major part in persuading the wealthy Arab states to extend financial aid to the remaining confrontation states with a common border with Israel. Hussein was most impressed with the energetic Iraqi leader, who spoke eloquently about the need for unity among the Arab states and their collective responsibility to make sure that no Arab went hungry. Saddam treated Hussein with great courtesy and showed real understanding and sympathy for his predicament. Later on Saddam would reveal himself as a dissembling psychopath, but on this occasion all the members of the Jordanian delegation found him to be a perfect host and a man of considerable charm. Like other members of the Hashemite royal family, Hussein viewed Iraq with a mixture of admiration and loathing: admiration for its power and wealth and loathing for the savage massacre of their relatives in the revolution of 1958.26 Hussein’s fledgling friendship with the Iraqi leader tilted the balance in favour of admir
ation and helped him to overcome the bitter memories of the past. But the personal friendship was to assume growing political significance. Hussein always looked for an Arab regional order that would be conducive to the survival of the Hashemite dynasty. Iraq was to become the anchor of this political order during the following decade.

  America reacted aggressively to Jordan’s rejection of the Camp David Accords. The Carter administration intensified the pressure to compel Jordan to change course and to join in the Camp David negotiations. It cut economic aid and advised its allies in the Gulf not to help Jordan. Jordan experienced difficulty in obtaining grants for development projects from the World Bank, and there were times when it was unable to pay the wages of the army. In March 1979 Zbigniew Brzezinski visited Amman and threatened to restrict arms supplies if Jordan did not change its attitude towards the American-sponsored peace process. Jordanian officials thought that he also implied that unless there was a change of attitude, America might not protect Jordan against a future Israeli attack. The explicit threat met with a cool response from Hussein, who said that Jordan would have to look around for alternative sources of military equipment. Hussein also accused America of double standards in encouraging Islamic resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan while portraying the Palestinians as criminals for resisting the occupation of their land by Israel. Relations between Jordan and America sank to an all-time low. Jimmy Carter cut aid to Jordan from $40 million in 1978 to $20 million in 1980. Jordan’s request to buy F-16 aircraft was ignored. The House of Representatives approved a military aid bill denying Jordan any funds until it played the role assigned to it in the Camp David Accords. In Jordan this bill was regarded as blackmail. The Americans attached so many conditions to their offer to sell 300 M60A3 Main Battle tanks that Hussein ended up buying 274 British Chieftain tanks with the help of Saudi Arabia. Hussein’s personal relations with Carter also suffered. Carter described Hussein as ‘a slender reed’ on which to rest the prospects of peace.27 On 17 June 1980 Hussein visited Washington for talks with Carter. Hussein explained the importance of the arms denied by Congress in view of Jordan’s vulnerability. But he also repeated his objections to the Camp David Accords, and stressed the need to convene an international conference under UN auspices, to provide for Palestinian representation and to address the question of Palestinian self-determination.28