Lion of Jordan

by Avi Shlaim

  The aborting of the Murphy mission gave the hardliners on both sides their chance and was consequently followed by a cycle of terrorism and counter-terrorism. Palestinian terrorists murdered three Israelis thought to be Mossad agents in the port of Larnaca, Cyprus. Sharon, the minister of trade and industry, publicly demanded that Israel retaliate against ‘the terrorist headquarters in Amman’. Sharon wanted to destroy any chance of renewing the dialogue with Jordan and to destabilize the country. He had always opposed the Jordanian option, and pointed to the pact between Hussein and Arafat as evidence that Hussein was not a suitable partner for peace talks. Peres and Rabin resisted Sharon’s demand to undertake an operation inside Jordan, but they could not afford to appear ‘soft’ compared with the Likud half of the administration.17 They therefore proposed to the inner cabinet a strike by the IAF on the PLO headquarters in Tunis. On 1 October eight Israeli F-16s carried out the raid against Hamam el-Shaat, the military compound in the PLO headquarters, killing 56 Palestinians and 15 Tunisians and wounding about a hundred others. Arafat himself narrowly escaped. The Security Council and many countries condemned the raid, but the United States condoned it as a legitimate response to terrorism. Reagan sent Peres a message expressing his satisfaction with the operation.

  On 5 October, only four days after the raid on Tunis, Hussein had another meeting with Peres. Hussein was accompanied by his prime minister, Zaid Rifa’i, and Peres was accompanied by the young and very dovish director-general of the Foreign Ministry, Yossi Beilin. The meeting took place in the country cottage of Lord Mishcon, a British Jew, a distinguished lawyer, a member of the British Labour Party and a close friend of the king. Hussein’s younger sister, Princess Basma, went to school and university with the daughter of Lord Mishcon. He liaised between Hussein and Peres, and his flat in Hyde Park Gardens in central London was used on several occasions for private meetings between them.18 The relationship between Victor Mishcon and Hussein was one of mutual respect and admiration; Mishcon thought Hussein was a great and very brave man. Mishcon’s role in the 1980s was rather similar to that played by Dr Emanuel Herbert, Hussein’s Jewish physician, in the 1960s.19

  The king summarized his contacts with the PLO and his efforts to set up a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation for peace talks with Israel. He stressed that the negotiations would have to be part of an international conference. Peres summarized his country’s complicated domestic political scene in order to underscore the importance of speed. He would have to change places with Shamir in a year’s time, he said, and then it would be harder to move towards peace. The king expressed concern that the government of Israel, as a result of its unusual structure, was paralysed and incapable of making difficult decisions. The prime minister responded by saying that if and when the moment of decision arrived, and the Likud ministers were the final obstacle to peace negotiations with Jordan, he would not hesitate to dismantle the coalition. The two leaders exchanged views about the speeches they were due to give later that month at the annual session of the UN General Assembly. The meeting ended with polite smiles, handshakes and an agreement to meet again ‘to advance the peace process’.20

  Within the PLO the hardliners began to pose a challenge to Arafat’s leadership and to devise ways of arresting his drift towards accommodation with the enemy. They worked behind his back to mount terrorist attacks on Israeli targets with the intention of scuppering the diplomatic option. The most spectacular of these acts of terror was the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro by four gunmen off the coast of Egypt on 7 October. Before the end of the incident, an elderly American Jew confined to a wheelchair was murdered and thrown overboard. Although the operation was carried out by a minor faction of the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), it seriously damaged the credibility of the entire organization. For Hussein this episode was almost the last straw. ‘At the end of the day Arafat didn’t deliver, and that,’ according to Taher al-Masri, ‘was the beginning of the severing of relations between them.’21 In the aftermath of this episode Hussein came under growing pressure, especially from America, to dump Arafat as a negotiating partner and go forward with Israel on his own.

  Gradual estrangement from Arafat paved the way for Hussein’s reconciliation with his old enemy, President Asad of Syria. Asad had opposed the Jordan–PLO accord from the outset and warned that the effort to arrange direct talks with Israel could lead to another Camp David. Hussein was forced to conclude that Syrian claims could not be ignored if the peace process was to move forward. Zaid Rifa’i activated his back channel to Asad to prepare the ground for a reconciliation. The price of reconciliation with Damascus was a confession of past misdeeds in aiding and abetting the domestic opponents of the Ba’th regime. Hussein was obliged to acknowledge in a letter to his prime minister that underground Syrian Muslim groups had been allowed to operate from Jordan’s territory in their violent struggle to overthrow the Asad regime. At the end of the year Hussein and Asad met in Damascus for the first time in six years. The meeting secured Jordan’s flank with Syria and further isolated the PLO, setting the stage for the final break between the king and the PLO leader.

  In January 1986 Hussein made a private medical visit to London. During the visit he also had two rounds of talks with Richard Murphy. These dealt with two main issues: defining the mandate of the international conference, at which he was still aiming, and Palestinian representation. Murphy displayed considerable flexibility, and Hussein asked him for a clear statement of the American position to convey to the PLO. Their joint efforts seemed to bear fruit. On 25 January, after his return to Amman, Hussein received a final reply from the Reagan administration concerning PLO participation in the proposed conference. The reply came in the form of a written commitment that said: ‘When it is clearly on the public record that the PLO has accepted Resolutions 242 and 338, is prepared to negotiate peace with Israel, and has renounced terrorism, the United States accepts the fact that an invitation will be issued to the PLO to attend an International Conference.’

  Hussein felt that his persistence had at long last paid off and that the ball was now in the PLO’s court. He proudly presented the American text to the PLO delegation headed by Arafat that came from Tunis to Amman on 21 January. The talks went on for four days. The upshot was that the PLO would not accept 242 unless America recognized the Palestinian right to self-determination. Hussein argued that the important thing was to achieve Israeli withdrawal first and then to proceed to a confederation along the lines of the 11 February accord. But since Arafat insisted, Hussein referred the matter back to the State Department and received an amended text. The new text contained a reference to ‘the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people’. Arafat informed Rifa’i that, despite the positive development of the American position, recognition of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people did not encompass the right to self-determination. There was nothing more that Hussein could do, and both he and the Americans finally gave up on Arafat. Hussein concluded that Arafat would never be able to show the vision and leadership necessary to accept the conditions that would make a peace conference possible. One American described Arafat as a ‘mud puppy’ – a bottom-feeding salamander in the canals of the South, which flaps about to muddy the water whenever anything approaches.22

  Angry and downcast, Hussein asked Adnan Abu-Odeh, his political adviser, to draft a lengthy speech detailing why his efforts to forge a peace partnership with the PLO had ended in failure. On 19 February 1986, in a speech from the throne that lasted three and a half hours, Hussein gave his side of the story. He characterized Arafat as untrustworthy and said that the problem lay in Arafat’s unwillingness to accept unconditionally resolutions 242 and 338 as the price for participation in an international conference. ‘After two long attempts,’ Hussein said, ‘I and the Government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan hereby announce that we are unable to continue to coordinate politically with the PLO leadership until such time as their word becomes their bon
d, characterized by commitment, credibility and constancy.’23 The long speech marked not just the end of a phase but the end of an era in which Jordan was the leading actor in the search for a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict.

  The rift between Hussein and Arafat revived hopes in the Peres camp that the Jordanian option might be realized after all. The Israeli government supported Hussein in his efforts to rebuild his political influence on the West Bank. As a means to this end, Jordan launched an ambitious five-year plan for improving economic conditions on the West Bank. However, the PLO’s assassination of Zafir al-Masri, the pro-Jordanian mayor of Nablus, on 2 March 1986 sent a strong signal that it intended to fight for its position as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Political rivalry thus undermined joint action between the Jordanian government and the PLO to promote the economic well-being of the West Bank population. The Joint Commission to Support the Steadfastness of the Palestinian People was established, with Taher Kanaan, the Jordanian minister of occupied territories affairs, as head of its Jordanian side and Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) as head of its Palestinian side.

  The Palestinians had complete confidence in Kanaan, who was himself of Palestinian origins. When Jordan launched the West Bank Development Plan, Kanaan approached it as an economist. He advocated a whole menu of measures to improve the everyday life of the people of the West Bank in education, health and welfare. But Prime Minister Zaid Rifa’i had a political agenda that affected economic and technical cooperation with the PLO. Rifa’i was trying to prove that a large section of the West Bank population was still loyal to Jordan. He also wanted to demonstrate that the PLO was inadequate and that Jordan was indispensable. Kanaan, by his own account, performed poorly because he did not understand the political game. He was therefore moved to the Ministry of Planning and replaced by Marwan Doudin, who knew much less about economics but much more about politics.24

  High-level contacts with Israel were resumed when discord grew between Jordan and the PLO. Hussein had a secret meeting with Itzhak Rabin near Strasbourg in France in March 1986. The last time they had met was in 1977 when Rabin was prime minister. Now he was minister of defence with responsibility for the occupied territories. Rabin expressed his concern about the increase in PLO guerrilla activity and asked Hussein to curb the PLO leaders who lived in Jordan. Hussein said he had no intention of allowing the PLO to step up their attacks on Israel, and asked for Israel’s help in strengthening the economic and institutional links between the Palestinian population of the West Bank and the Jordanian government. Soon after his return home Hussein ordered the closing down of the PLO offices in Amman and the expulsion of Khalil al-Wazir, the PLO chief of operations and Arafat’s deputy. These measures raised tension between Jordan and the PLO to new heights, and they did nothing to enhance Hussein’s popular appeal. A poll conducted by the East Jerusalem paper Al-Fajr indicated that Hussein had lost favour among the West Bank Palestinians: 93.5 per cent regarded the PLO as the ‘sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people’ 77.9 per cent supported the establishment of an independent Palestinian state; 1 per cent supported a link with Jordan; and 60 per cent called for continuation of the ‘armed struggle’ against Israel.25

  The erosion of Hussein’s constituency on the West Bank made him more dependent on Israel. Coordination with the Israeli officials became more frequent and more detailed. Rabin and Peres paid a clandestine visit to Hussein at his holiday house in Aqaba in July. This was the house that George Shultz had liked so much. It was a short distance by speedboat from Eilat to Hussein’s private wharf in the Gulf of Aqaba. Rabin and Peres were accompanied by Chief of Staff Moshe Levy and Hussein by Zaid Rifa’i. The talks went on for more than four hours, and it was well past midnight when the Israelis set off on their journey back home. The question of an international peace conference inevitably came up for discussion. Peres said that he would continue to work on this after he stepped down to become foreign minister and that Rabin would also represent an element of continuity in the Israeli team.

  Hussein agreed with the Israelis that there was no sense in waiting for the PLO to adopt a single unified and realistic stance. He said that he would continue to cultivate moderate leaders from the occupied territories as an alternative to the PLO. The discussion then turned to Jordan’s West Bank Development Plan. The Israelis promised to use their influences in Washington, but the American response was disappointing. Jordan was looking for $1.5 billion over the five years of the plan but Congress had allocated only $90 million. The Israelis reaffirmed their policy of providing economic incentives and encouragement to the pro-Jordanian elements on the West Bank. This policy was publicly stated by Rabin in an interview to a newspaper in September: ‘The policy of Israel is to strengthen the position of Jordan in Judea and Samaria and to strike at the PLO.’26 The use of the Hebrew terminology was rather revealing. It suggested that Israel, like the PLO, was not about to surrender its own claim to the West Bank.

  Another aspect of Israeli policy, which deeply troubled Hussein when he found out about it, was the supply of arms to Iran. Hussein saw Iran as a threat not only to Iraq but to the entire Arab world. He was therefore totally committed to Iraq, and assiduously cultivated Arab and Western support for it in its war against Iran. Israel, on the other hand, had a stake in prolonging the Iran–Iraq War: the Khomeini regime in Tehran and the Ba’th regime in Baghdad were both supporters of the PLO, and it suited Israel that they were at war with one another. Israel’s interest was believed to be best served by a long and inconclusive war that weakened the two sides. Henry Kissinger once said that America wanted both sides to lose the Iran-Iraq War, and the same was true of Israel. In the spring of 1985 Israel secretly began to sell American-made weapons to Iran. It subsequently involved the Reagan administration itself in the sordid swap of arms to the Khomeini regime for the release of American hostages held by Islamic militants in Lebanon. The Israelis also suggested the spurious strategic guise in which this idea was dressed up, namely, that by supplying modest amounts of arms, America would help the moderates prevail against the radicals in the Khomeini regime and then win back Iran for the West. Soon the scandal was given a name by the American media: Irangate.

  The damage from Irangate was serious. As George Shultz noted:

  We have assaulted our own Middle East policy. The Arabs counted on us to play a strong and responsible role to contain and eventually bring the Gulf War to an end. Now we are seen to be aiding the most radical forces in the region. We have acted directly counter to our own major effort to dry up the war by denying the weapons needed to continue it. The Jordanians – and other moderate Arabs – are appalled at what we have done.27

  The revelation that America was actually arming Iran against Iraq outraged Hussein. The additional news that Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council was supplying Iran with US intelligence in the ongoing war against Iraq was equally disturbing, as Iran had just scored a major victory in the Fao Peninsula in February 1986. Against this backdrop came the news that the Reagan administration was postponing indefinitely the sale of weapons to Jordan. Small wonder that Hussein’s mood grew more and more sombre.28 In a letter to the Reagan administration towards the end of the year, Hussein said that he failed to see how its arms shipments to Iran constituted neutrality. He was convinced that these weapons prolonged the war, strengthened the pro-war faction in the Iranian government and encouraged more hostage-taking. He warned that American actions offered the Soviets an opening to expand their regional influence.29

  Unlike the Americans, Hussein was completely consistent and unswerving in his support for Iraq. At the personal level the close working relationship between the king and Saddam Hussein developed into a genuine friendship. This was obvious from the way they talked to one another in the company of others. Saddam treated Hussein with great respect and evident affection, calling him ‘Abu Abdullah’, or ‘father of Abdullah’. The two leaders also trusted one another. This
helped them to reach a level of mutual understanding and strategic cooperation beyond what was normal in inter-Arab relations.30 So close was the relationship that the years 1980–90 might be described as the Iraqi decade in Jordanian foreign relations. During this time Hussein visited Baghdad sixty-one times. Important issues did not arise on every occasion, but the king chose to go to Baghdad to sustain the friendship with Saddam and to show solidarity with the Iraqi people.

  During the first eight years of the decade, when the Iran–Iraq War was going on, the pattern of these meetings did not change much. Hussein would go to Baghdad with a retinue of aides and advisers. The two delegations would meet in a conference room. Iraqi officers would give a briefing on the war with Iran, including a report from the battle field. Saddam would add a few comments of his own, saying that he remained confident they were doing the right thing and that they had a solution to all the problems. His subordinates never contradicted him. Hussein would follow up with his own evaluation of regional and international developments. The two leaders would then go into a room on their own for a private conversation without any aides or note-takers. Hussein rarely told his people what transpired at these face-to-face meetings, but some of the issues they discussed were clearly highly sensitive. Saddam, for example, used the king to pass information and messages to many countries, including America and Britain.31