Lion of Jordan

by Avi Shlaim

  Hussein, for his part, increasingly looked to Iraq to offset the threat of an expansionist Israel. The alliance with Iraq compensated to some extent for Egypt’s disengagement from the Arab–Israeli conflict. It gave Jordan strategic depth and acted as a deterrent to an Israeli attack. King Abdullah II has commented: ‘Iraq, as a counterbalance to Israel, would be a lot stronger than Syria or Saudi Arabia. It was a dividend of the relationship that was built in fighting Iran. The dividend of having a strong neighbour like Iraq allowed my father to have a much firmer position in dealing with the Israeli governments at the time.’7 Alignment with Baghdad was also relevant for diplomatic bargaining with Israel. As Prince Talal bin Muhammad has observed: ‘His Majesty saw Iraq as providing the Arabs with strategic parity with the Israelis to enable us to resume negotiations from a position of strength. He believed that the only thing that would break the deadlock would be Arab strategic parity with Israel. Israel would then be forced to come to the negotiating table. We would be able to negotiate from a position of equality rather than inferiority.’8

  The prospects for breaking the diplomatic deadlock were not enhanced by the election of a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan in November 1980. Reagan was one of the most passionately pro-Israeli presidents in American history. In his memoirs Reagan wrote: ‘I’ve believed many things in my life, but no conviction I’ve ever held has been stronger than my belief that the United States must ensure the survival of Israel.’9 Like Nixon and Kissinger before him, Reagan also emphatically perceived world politics through the prism of his country’s global rivalry with the Soviet Union. Israel for him was not only a beacon of freedom but a strategic asset in countering Soviet advances in the area. Initially, he was reluctant to get involved in the diplomacy of the Arab–Israeli conflict, although he did wish to cultivate good relations with moderate Arab rulers. With Hussein, Reagan quickly developed a warm personal relationship. He and his wife Nancy enjoyed the glamour that went with entertaining royalty, and Hussein was the first foreign leader to be invited to Washington on a state visit after Reagan was elected. Reagan said to Richard Viets, the American ambassador to Amman, ‘That man is a straight shooter and I believe we can do business together.’ The king subsequently began to realize that Reagan was not always on top of his brief, to put it mildly. Conversation between them often wandered off course.10

  One major issue in American–Jordanian relations during Reagan’s first term of office was the conflict in Lebanon. The traditional rivalry there between Muslims and Maronite Christians was accentuated by the arrival of the Palestinian guerrilla organizations after their expulsion from Jordan. Palestinian attacks on Israel from Lebanese territory further fuelled the cycle of violence by provoking Israeli reprisals. Jordan was not directly involved but Hussein felt all along that Lebanon should be stabilized and that it should not be used as a battlefield. Jordan’s interest lay in containing the violence and in calming things down. Accordingly, Hussein used what influence he had to promote reconciliation among the various parties to the civil war but of course he had no influence over the PLO. On 14 March 1978, following a serious terrorist attack, Israel invaded Lebanon and occupied the south of the country between the border and the Litani River. The aim of ‘Operation Litani’ was to destroy the PLO bases and to widen the buffer zone under the renegade Lebanese Army officer Major Saad Haddad, Israel’s surrogate in southern Lebanon. The price the Lebanese paid for the incursion was 700 dead, scores of villages devastated, and the flight from the war zone of 225,000 civilians. There was no Arab military resistance to this incursion, and Hussein, in a nationwide speech, deplored what he called the atmosphere of lethargy and indifference that prevailed in the Arab world. He called on the Arab leaders to rise to their national responsibility and so stop the Arab nation from having to ‘see itself being eroded bit by bit, its limbs chopped off and its honour humiliated’.11 Hussein feared that Jordan could be just as vulnerable to Israeli aggression as southern Lebanon in the absence of united Arab action. On more than one occasion he referred to this first Israeli invasion as one of the most troubling moments in his career because if Israel did to Jordan what it had done to Lebanon, the Arab reaction would be the same: silence and impotence.12

  Silence and impotence were the hallmarks of the Arab response to Israel’s second invasion of Lebanon on 6 June 1982. The invasion was called ‘Operation Peace for Galilee’ in an attempt to portray it as a defensive measure to stop PLO attacks. But it was an offensive war that violated a year-long ceasefire brokered by the US. Menachem Begin was nominally in charge, but the real driving force behind the war was Ariel Sharon. From his first day at the defence ministry, Sharon started planning the invasion of Lebanon. He developed what came to be known as the ‘Big Plan’ for using Israel’s military power to establish political hegemony in the Middle East. The first aim of Sharon’s plan was to destroy the PLO’s military infrastructure in Lebanon and to undermine it as a political organization. The second was to establish a new political order in Lebanon by helping Israel’s Maronite friends to form a government that would proceed to sign a peace treaty with Israel. The third was to expel the Syrian forces from Lebanon or at least to weaken seriously the Syrian presence there. In Sharon’s big plan, the war in Lebanon was intended to transform the situation not only in Lebanon but in the whole Middle East.13 The destruction of the PLO would break the backbone of Palestinian nationalism and facilitate the absorption of the West Bank into Greater Israel. The resulting influx of Palestinians from Lebanon and the West Bank into Jordan would eventually sweep away the Hashemite monarchy and transform the East Bank into a Palestinian state. Sharon reasoned that Jordan’s conversion into a Palestinian state would ease international pressure on Israel and give it a freer hand to determine the fate of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. To his close friends Sharon disclosed that had he been prime minister he would have actively helped the Palestinians depose Hussein and establish a Palestinian state in Jordan. He said he would give Hussein twenty-four hours to get out of Amman, but he did not say what would happen if Hussein declined.14 Begin was not privy to all aspects of Sharon’s ambitious geopolitical scenario, but they were united by their desire to act against the PLO in Lebanon.

  Israel’s war in Lebanon affected Hussein both psychologically and politically. He wore uniform most of the time, and looked tense and troubled. His army was not involved, but its morale was adversely affected by seeing another Arab country being humiliated by the Israelis. As their supreme commander Hussein was duty-bound to raise the morale of his soldiers by staying in close touch with them. Most of all he was upset by the loss of Lebanese life and by the suffering inflicted on innocent civilians. In pursuit of the PLO the IDF soon reached the outskirts of Beirut and laid siege to the city. Seeing an Arab capital being occupied by the Israeli Army was a bitter blow to Hussein both as an Arab and as a Hashemite.15 More ominous was the political fallout from the war. As Zaid bin Shaker, the commander of the Jordanian armed forces at the time, recalled, ‘There was a very severe reaction in Jordan to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, especially as the war leader was Sharon and the prime minister was Begin. This was extremely worrying. We had an alert in the armed forces. The situation was unpredictable because the Likud government was an aggressive, expansionist organization.’16 Anxiety about Israel’s intentions led Hussein to send his cousin on a secret trip to Washington at the end of July to meet with George Shultz, the new secretary of state. Shaker sought reaffirmation of America’s military and political support for Jordan. Hussein, he said, feared that Israel intended to carry out Sharon’s threat to create a Palestinian state in Jordan by overthrowing the king. Hussein’s fears had been heightened by the lengths to which Israel had gone in Lebanon. Shultz reassured Shaker that they could continue to count on American support for Jordan’s independence and territorial integrity.17

  One of George Schultz’s first acts as secretary of state was to send Philip Habib to negotiate an end to the fightin
g round Beirut. Arafat let it be known that he was prepared to withdraw his men from the city, if appropriate terms and guarantees could be worked out. The withdrawal of the PLO was then only a matter of time: the difficulty was that they had nowhere to go. Sharon came up with a suggestion. He asked an Egyptian intermediary to persuade Arafat to lead the PLO back to Jordan and said that, if Arafat accepted, Israel would force Hussein to make way for the organization. ‘One speech by me’, boasted Sharon, ‘will make King Hussein realize that the time has come to pack his bags.’ The message was conveyed to Arafat, who asked the intermediary to give Sharon an immediate reply: ‘1. Jordan is not the home of the Palestinians.2. You are trying to exploit the agony of the Palestinian people by turning a Palestinian–Lebanese dispute into a Palestinian–Jordanian contradiction.’ Arafat also suggested that Sharon wanted to provoke a Palestinian–Jordanian conflict to give Israel an excuse for occupying the East Bank of the Jordan. When Sharon heard Arafat’s reply, he responded with an obscene curse in Arabic.18

  Habib eventually succeeded in arranging for the withdrawal of the PLO to Tunisia. A first contingent of fighters left Lebanon by sea on 21 August. Arafat left on 30 August aboard a Greek merchant ship, with the US Sixth Fleet providing cover. After seventy-five days of heavy fighting, the remnants of the PLO were banished from its stronghold in Lebanon to the periphery of the Arab world. But in Lebanon itself the strife and violence continued. One consequence of the Lebanon War was the Reagan administration’s disenchantment with the Likud. Another was its recognition that one of the root causes of disorder and instability in the Middle East was the plight of the Palestinians.19 This led to the launching of the Reagan peace plan on 1 September 1982. In the speech unveiling the plan, Reagan said that the departure of the Palestinians from Beirut dramatized more than ever the homelessness of the Palestinian people. His plan was for self-government by the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza in association with Jordan. He ruled out both an independent Palestinian state and annexation by Israel. Additional Israeli settlements in the territories would be an obstacle to peace, said Reagan, and the status of Jerusalem had still to be decided. The message was clear: the United States rejected the Israeli claim for permanent control over the West Bank and Gaza. Equally clear was another message: the United States did not think that Israel was entitled to exploit the recent carnage in Lebanon to implement her grand design for Greater Israel. Reagan, however, did not recognize the PLO, and he was unwilling to talk to its leaders. He wanted Hussein, not Arafat, to represent the Palestinians in negotiations on a settlement with Israel. The Reagan Plan sought to bypass the PLO and to bring Hussein and Jordan back into the centre of the scene.

  So, shortly before the public unveiling of the Reagan Plan, Nicholas Veliotis, the assistant secretary of state for the Near East and a former ambassador to Jordan, was sent on a secret mission to Amman to present the plan to Hussein and to try to enlist his support. The plan was favourable to Jordan and in its basic conception it was not all that different from Hussein’s own United Arab Kingdom project of a decade earlier. Veliotis reiterated the American position that there should be Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, but he did not say how much. On the other hand, he promised American support for a real settlement freeze. Hussein thought that something really might come out of this initiative and cautiously agreed to join the negotiations on the plan, provided the US stood by its provisions.20 He also proceeded to relaunch his earlier project for a Jordanian–Palestinian federation. Menachem Begin rejected the Reagan Plan with all the vehemence he could muster. He had always opposed Palestinian or Jordanian sovereignty over the West Bank and he stuck to his position. He also announced the building of new settlements on the West Bank and used Israel’s continuing occupation of Lebanon to derail the Reagan Plan.

  Despite Israel’s categorical rejection, Hussein remained optimistic and continued to shuttle round the capitals of the region in an attempt to build up an Arab consensus in the plan’s favour. But the consensus that emerged at the Arab League summit in Fez, Morocco, the week after Reagan had spoken, was not entirely to Hussein’s satisfaction. The summit indirectly recognized Israel and opted for a two-state solution. This represented a fresh pragmatism in the Arab position on Israel – but it went no further. Instead of endorsing a Jordanian–Palestinian delegation to negotiate with Israel, the summit reaffirmed the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The plain fact was that Hussein was acceptable both to the US and to Israel as a negotiating partner, whereas the PLO was not.21 Moreover, the Fez summit called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, whereas the Reagan Plan envisaged Palestinian autonomy in association with Jordan. Despite his best efforts, Hussein failed to secure an unambiguous Arab mandate to proceed with the American initiative.

  Following the departure of the PLO fighters, the situation in Lebanon went from bad to worse. On 14 September, Bashir Gemayel, the recently elected Maronite president and Sharon’s ally in the war against the PLO, was assassinated by pro-Syrian elements. Two days later Gemayel’s followers, with their Israeli allies standing by, entered the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, and systematically massacred as many as 800 Palestinian civilians. Once again, the Palestinian issue was entangled with murky Lebanese politics. Hussein watched with mounting dismay America’s inability to restrain Israel. Lebanon for him became a test case of American resolve. He, like many Arabs, considered that unless America could get the Israelis out of Lebanon, there was little chance of dislodging them from the West Bank.22

  In December, Hussein visited Washington for talks with Reagan and his advisers. The Americans tried to persuade the king to continue to support their initiative. At the end of the talks Reagan gave Hussein a letter in which he committed himself to trying to halt the Israeli settlements and to arrange military and financial assistance to Jordan if Jordan entered negotiations. As always, Reagan and Hussein got on well and the meeting seemed to be a success but nothing happened. Although Hussein declared himself to be optimistic as a result of the visit, the differences on the nature of Palestinian autonomy and the question of Palestinian participation in the talks had not been resolved. Hussein’s greatest concern was that in the likely event that the negotiations failed, the Begin government would be free to retain the territories. He had doubts about engaging in a process that failed to guarantee the principal objective of his foreign policy: Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. On occasion Hussein may have given the impression that he would be willing to proceed without Arafat if the PLO chairman turned out to be intransigent. American wishful thinking probably contributed to this impression.23

  The risks of proceeding without the PLO were too great because the organization was supported by an all-Arab consensus. If Hussein proceeded on his own and failed, the blame would have been laid fairly and squarely on his shoulders. Hussein therefore needed Arafat’s support, and he made a sustained effort to get it. Arafat had his own reasons for wanting to cooperate with his old rival. Weakened by the expulsion of his organization from Lebanon and anxious to recover, Arafat arrived in Amman on 1 April 1983. Hussein impressed on his guest the merits of the Reagan Plan and the advantages of a Jordanian–Palestinian federation. He proposed a coordinated Jordanian–PLO effort to recover the occupied territories and the subsequent establishment of a federation along the lines of the UAK plan. Hussein’s aim was to marry the American and the Arab plans: to utilize the Reagan Plan as a vehicle for realizing the principles of the Fez summit. After three days of intensive discussions, Hussein and Arafat drew up an agreement for joint action on the basis of the Fez plan. Before signing the final text, Arafat asked for a delay to make a quick trip to Kuwait to get the approval of the PLO Executive Committee. He promised to come back within forty-eight hours with the signed document. Hussein had no choice but to agree, though he feared that the committee would be divided between moderates and hardliners. This is what indeed happened:
the hardliners argued that coordination with Jordan infringed the independence of the PLO and that the reference to Resolution 242 would make Jordan a key player in the negotiations over the West Bank. Arafat did not return to Jordan for more than a year. The Jordan–PLO document was a dead letter.

  On 10 April, Hussein called Reagan to inform him that his talks with Arafat had failed and that he was not prepared to go forward on his own. The same day the Jordanian government officially declined to take up Reagan’s initiative. Its statement read: ‘We in Jordan, having refused from the beginning to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians, will neither act separately nor in lieu of anybody in Middle East peace negotiations.’24 The announcement strained relations between the Reagan administration and Hussein. To Reagan and his advisers it appeared Hussein had never fully accepted their plan; that he did not fight for it; and that he walked away from it after Arafat had double-crossed him.25 In his memoirs Reagan wrote that his plan was part of a long American effort to persuade Hussein to take part in negotiations with Israel, but ‘We were never able to get him completely on board.’26

  American comments on Hussein’s caution are not unfair, but they serve to obscure other, more fundamental reasons for the failure of the Reagan Plan: the consistent tendency of the PLO to shoot itself in the foot and to put doctrinal purity above practical progress; and the impossibility, for any Arab leader, of ignoring the Arab consensus, as defined by the Rabat and Fez summits, which prevented entry into negotiations with Israel while its troops were occupying another Arab country. The lion’s share of the responsibility for the failure of the Reagan Plan, however, goes to Israel, not only because it angrily and absolutely rejected it but because it deliberately sabotaged it by dragging its feet in Lebanon. The Arab response to the Reagan Plan was divided, incoherent and incompetent. But no Arab response could have overcome Israel’s opposition. Last but not least were the errors and mistakes committed by the Americans themselves. Jordanians saw no evidence that the Reagan administration was prepared to apply to Israel the degree of pressure required to secure its withdrawal from the occupied territories. The administration was not noted for its courage. Its failure to back its own initiative weighed more heavily with the Arabs than Begin’s objections. The Reagan Plan was a sensible, fair-minded and timely initiative to tackle the Arab–Israeli dispute that collapsed for want of American political will and staying power. In the final analysis it was not Hussein who let down Reagan but Reagan who let down Jordan and the Palestinians.