Lion of Jordan

by Avi Shlaim

  Jordan emerged from the Gulf war internally united but politically isolated and economically devastated. A UN-sponsored report estimated that the overall cost of the crisis to Jordan, including the implementation of UN sanctions, reached $1.5 billion in 1990, climbing to $3.6 billion in 1991. The true magnitude of the loss can be appreciated only by noting that Jordan’s total GDP in 1990 stood at $4.2 billion and $4.7 billion in 1991.2 On top of all its other problems, Jordan had to cope with 300,000 Palestinian–Jordanian refugees and other Arabs without citizenship who had been expelled from Kuwait following the Iraqi invasion. Crown Prince Hassan continued to provide energetic leadership in dealing with the financial and humanitarian consequences of the crisis, but the problem was as much political as it was economic. The challenge was how to get Jordan out of the political mire so that the flow of external aid could be resumed. Hussein went about meeting this challenge by rehabilitating Jordan in the eyes of America, by supporting the US-sponsored Arab–Israeli peace process and by building on the strategic understanding he had reached with Prime Minister Itzhak Shamir on the eve of the Gulf War. Shamir turned out to be surprisingly supportive of the king’s efforts to repair his relations with the Americans, but he was none the less a reluctant participant in the peace process.

  The first order of business was to overcome the crisis in Jordanian–American relations. The end of the cold war in 1990–91 and victory in the Gulf War gave the Bush administration the impetus to re-engage in the Arab–Israeli peace process. The key figure in this enterprise was Secretary of State James Baker. Baker was a blunt and straightforward Texan lawyer who had the rare merit among American politicians of being as tough with the Israelis as he was with the Arabs. Baker’s ambitious aim was to get the parties to the conference table in order to deal with all aspects of the Arab–Israeli conflict. After the guns fell silent he made several trips to the region, and in the first two deliberately avoided Jordan to show his displeasure with its recent conduct. His first meeting with Foreign Minister Taher al-Masri took place in Geneva, not in Amman. But on his third trip, in April 1991, Baker did pay a visit to Hussein in the relaxed surroundings of the summer palace in Aqaba.

  George Bush was still so angry with Hussein that he refused several requests for a meeting. Baker was just as upset, but they understood that there would be no peace process without Jordan’s active participation. Jordan was crucial in persuading the Palestinians to come to the conference table. Like Jordan, the PLO was in disfavour because of its support for Iraq following the invasion of Kuwait. Baker was determined to exclude the PLO but to allow moderate individuals from the occupied territories to represent the Palestinians at the conference. The endgame he had in mind was a Palestinian entity that possessed more than autonomy but less than statehood. From his point of view the ideal solution was a joint Jordanian–Palestinian delegation, but for this he needed Jordan’s cooperation. He also had considerable leverage to exert: ‘Simply stated, the King was broke and he needed America’s help to persuade his longtime benefactors in Riyadh to bail him out. There was every practical reason to believe that the King would be willing to do almost anything to end his political isolation and to reclaim the good graces of the United States.’ At their meeting Baker told the king that they were willing to move step by step to let bygones be bygones but only if Jordan enlisted actively in the US peace initiative. He wanted the king to know that it was going to be ‘a tough row to hoe to repair Jordan’s relationship with the United States’. Baker also told the king that despite their differences, ‘We’ll do what we can to help you patch things up with the Saudis.’ During lunch the king gave a long rationalization of his behaviour during the war, which Baker considered wholly unconvincing.3

  Nevertheless, Baker found the meeting encouraging because the king understood a simple dynamic: for America to help him he needed to play on America’s terms. The Jordanian preference was for a UN-sponsored international conference with an ongoing role, aimed at tackling the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue simultaneously, and on the basis of resolutions 242 and 338 and the principle of ‘land for peace’. Baker proposed a superpower-sponsored international conference followed by a twin-track approach in the form of bilateral negotiations between Israel and the Arab states, and Israel and the Palestinians. Hussein expressed scepticism, fearing that the Palestinian issue, the core of the conflict, would be lost and that the whole process would be liable to break down.4 But in fairly short order Hussein endorsed the American proposal and declared that Jordan would attend the conference even if Syria did not. He also agreed to Shamir’s idea of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation and settled for Baker’s compromise of UN observer status.5 Palestinian representation at the conference was a key issue. Hussein preferred separate Jordanian and Palestinian delegations each with its own separate agenda. The idea of a joint delegation had surfaced in his abortive peace partnership with Arafat in 1985/6 but it was overtaken by Jordan’s disengagement from the West Bank and by the subsequent process of democratization on the East Bank. At their next meeting, on 14 May, Hussein told Baker he was willing to put together a joint delegation but only if the Palestinians asked him to do so. As a sweetener to encourage his continued cooperation, Baker told the king that, despite congressional objections, the administration would shortly deliver $27 million in food assistance to Jordan.6

  Why did Hussein agree to play on America’s terms? Quite simply, because he believed Baker when he said that the peace bus would come only once and anyone who did not get on would be left standing on the kerb. Hussein had been waiting for the peace bus since 1967, and he was determined not to miss it. He also agreed to provide an ‘umbrella’ for Palestinian participation in the peace conference – not as a favour to the Americans or the Palestinians but because it was in Jordan’s interest. ‘I thought’, he recalled, ‘that a process was about to start that was irreversible, and that we had to go. The Palestinians had to go and speak for themselves, and we had to provide them with the umbrella they needed. And that’s what we did.’7 It was Shamir who continued to quibble over the fare, the driver, the rights of other passengers, and the bus’s speed, route and destination.

  Shamir, thought the American secretary of state, looked as if he had bitten into a sour persimmon. There was one and only one Arab leader who enjoyed Shamir’s trust and that was the ruler of Jordan. Shamir carried his support for Hussein to the point of confrontation with the Bush administration. He insisted that the administration should do everything possible to keep the king in power despite his support for Saddam during the war. A stable Jordan, said Shamir, was crucial to the long-term prospects for peace. At one of Baker’s frequent visits to Jerusalem, Shamir told him that he had met secretly with Hussein, that Hussein was critical to peace, and that some sort of confederation with Jordan at some distant point in the future was the likeliest solution to the problem of the West Bank.8 Shamir also used Israel’s influence in both houses of Congress to moderate their punitive attitude towards the Jordanian monarch. Some Americans did not want to forget or forgive, but Israel and its friends in Washington gave them little choice. For Shamir this curious stand was a logical continuation of his meeting with Hussein in Ascot on the weekend of 4–5 January 1990. Shamir insisted in his talks with the Americans that Hussein’s stand during the war was justified and that this was accepted by Israel.9 Dan Meridor, a Likud leader and a lawyer by profession, recalled a meeting with Baker and his team of peace processors shortly after the end of the Gulf War. Meridor urged them to visit the king and to rehabilitate him. The Americans reacted sharply by saying, ‘Who are you, the king’s lawyer?’10

  Inside Jordan, the king needed no advocates because his policy of democratization gained him widespread support from all parts of the political spectrum. But whereas the move towards democracy commanded general support, engagement in the peace process with the enemy did not. To give peace a chance Hussein replaced, in June 1991, the conservative prime minister Mudar Badran
with Taher al-Masri, the soft-spoken Jordanian of Palestinian extraction and liberal leanings. Badran and some of his ministers had indicated their unwillingness to negotiate with Israel. The appointment of a Palestinian to the top post was intended to foster a climate of trust and national unity. In his letter of appointment to Masri, the king emphasized Jordan’s commitment to a negotiated settlement and support for international efforts to resolve the Arab–Israeli conflict peacefully.11 But the Muslim Brotherhood persisted in their opposition to the peace policy of the king and tabled a motion of no-confidence in the new government in parliament. It also refused to participate in the National Congress that the king convened in order to rally popular support for his peace policy.

  Another obstacle that had to be cleared on the road to the peace conference was Syria. Hussein decided to speak to Asad directly. Relations between the two men were superficially correct. But the president had the power to intimidate and to undermine the king. He had resorted to subversion in the past against what he saw as the archetypal ‘imperial lackey’ and he could do so again if he chose. Baker was dubious about Asad, and he thought there was a chance that Hussein could be persuaded to participate unilaterally. He wanted a commitment from Jordan to attend regardless of whether Syria came. ‘I’ll be the master of my own destiny,’ Hussein told Baker. ‘I’m going to Damascus only for reasons of form.’ Although Baker was still cautious, he saw this as a plausible reason to end Hussein’s political and economic isolation.12 On 19 August, Hussein made the trip to Latakia, accompanied by his liberal prime minister. They informed Asad that Baker insisted on a joint Jordanian–Palestinian delegation and that they agreed to form one. Although Jordan preferred to have separate delegations, they said, this was unacceptable to America and Israel. They asked for Asad’s understanding of their position, and he reluctantly gave his consent.13

  Once Asad had been squared, the arduous task of forming the joint delegation began. For Hussein it was like squaring a circle. He had to preserve the fiction that the PLO was not represented, while assuring the PLO that within the joint delegation the Palestinians would be able to speak with an independent voice. Arafat feared that once the conference began, the fiction would become a reality and that this was the king’s intention. But this was not the case. He respected the right of the Palestinians to represent themselves, and he entreated the members of the Jordanian delegation to treat their Palestinian colleagues honestly and fairly, and to give them all the help and assistance they needed. Hussein understood the sensitivities of the Palestinians and the constraints under which they were operating. His general approach to international relations was one of empathy, and this worked well with the Palestinians.14

  An agreement between the Jordanian government and the PLO was signed on the modalities of coordination and cooperation. Dr Kamel Abu Jaber, the foreign minister and former academic, was appointed as head of the joint delegation, which consisted of twenty-eight members, fourteen Jordanians and fourteen Palestinians. Dr Abdul Salam Majali, who hailed from one of the largest and most influential East Bank families, was appointed as head of the Jordanian delegation. He was a former chief medical officer in the army and a former president of Jordan University; he had extensive ministerial experience; and he was proud of the fact that his name meant ‘the servant of peace’ in Arabic. Half the members of the Palestinian delegation were doctors and university professors. The head of their delegation was Dr Haidar Abdel Shafi, an elderly physician from Gaza and a much respected public figure. Faisal Husseini headed the Palestinian Guidance Committee and Dr Hanan Ashrawi was its spokesperson. Husseini and Ashrawi knew only too well the complex legacy of resentments and conflicting claims between the Hashemites and the Palestinian nationalists. But they felt that the king was quite sincere in seeking new relationships with the Palestinians based on candour and trust.15

  The formal letter of invitation to the Madrid peace conference assured Jordan that negotiations would be based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and that the aim was to achieve a comprehensive peace. In an address to the Jordanian National Congress on 12 October, the king declared: ‘Peace demands no less courage than war. It is the courage to meet the adversary, his attitudes and arguments, the courage to face hardships, the courage to bury senseless illusions, the courage to surmount impeding obstacles, the courage to engage in a dialogue to tear down the walls of fear and suspicion. It is the courage to face reality.’ He rejected the arguments of the Islamic opposition to peace negotiations. Negotiations, he claimed, represented the only means to induce Israel to accept the principle of land for peace. Apart from seeking a solution to the Palestinian problem, Jordan had a number of specific interests to safeguard through negotiations, namely, security, the environment, water and economic development.

  A great deal of preparatory work on all of these issues was carried out in the weeks and months before the conference under the supervision of Prince Hassan. He was very active in chairing meetings, in brain-storming sessions, in devising negotiating tactics, in preparing position papers and in presenting Jordan’s views to the media. Hussein himself did not get involved in the details or issue any general policy guidelines. But he had a talent for inspiring loyalty to the cause and fostering a team spirit. Some of the officials were reluctant to meet with the Israelis, but his humble and diffident manner moved them to want to serve king and country. Hussein went to the airport to bid farewell to the team. He spoke very briefly but movingly to say it was a national call, to ask them to do their best and to express his full confidence in them.16

  In an interview with an American newspaper just before the conference opened, the king remarked that he had ‘almost forty years on active duty’. He conceded that he was tired, had contemplated stepping down and was increasingly conscious of his own mortality. He hoped that the lasting achievement of his nearly forty years on the throne would be ‘to contribute towards peace and to see it coming’. He warned that if the Israelis proved inflexible at the peace conference and continued to build Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, a very dark phase in the life of the entire region would result. He worried that the status quo would only solidify Israel’s hold on the occupied territories and said that if the Madrid meeting failed, the flickering hopes of peaceful coexistence would be snuffed out.17

  The Middle East peace conference opened in the Palacio Real in Madrid on 30 October 1991 with the United States and the Soviet Union as co-sponsors, the UN as an observer and delegations from all the parties to the conflict in attendance. The Soviet Union, bankrupt and in the final phase of disintegration, had virtually no influence over the proceedings. The conference was carefully staged by the Americans, with Baker acting as the master of ceremonies. Jordan’s two main objectives at the conference were to begin negotiations for the resolution of its dispute with Israel and to enable the Palestinians to engage in separate negotiations with Israel about the future of the occupied territories. In other words, Jordan wanted the Palestinians and Israel to settle the dispute between them but not at its expense.18 In his opening speech Kamel Abu Jaber delivered a clear message that Jordan was there to negotiate an enduring peace based on international legality. He focused sharply on UN resolutions embodying the principle that land must not be acquired by force. He was preceded by Shamir and followed by Haidar Abdel Shafi.

  Shamir’s opening speech confirmed the Jordanians’ worst fears. The whole tone of the speech was anachronistic, saturated with the stale rhetoric of the past and wholly inappropriate for the occasion. His version of the Arab-Israeli conflict was singularly narrow and blinkered, portraying Israel simply as the victim of Arab aggression and refusing to acknowledge that any evolution had taken place in the Arab or Palestinian attitude to Israel. All Arabs, according to Shamir, wanted to see Israel destroyed; the only difference between them was over the ways to bring about its destruction. His speech, while long on anti-Arab clichés, was exceedingly short on substance. By insisting that the root cause of t
he conflict was not territory but the Arab refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel, he came dangerously close to rejecting the whole basis of the conference: UN resolutions and the principle of land for peace.

  The contrast between Shamir’s speech and the speech of Dr Haidar Abdel Shafi, the head of the Palestinian delegation, could hardly have been more striking in tone, spirit or substance. The principal aim of the speech, an aim endorsed by the PLO leaders in Tunis, was to convince the Israeli public that the Palestinians were genuinely committed to peaceful coexistence. Abdel Shafi reminded the audience that it was time for the Palestinians to narrate their own story. While touching on the past, his speech was forward-looking. His basic message was that Israeli occupation had to end, that the Palestinians had a right to self-determination, and that they would pursue this right relentlessly until they had achieved statehood. But, while staking a claim to Palestinian statehood, Abdel Shafi qualified it in two significant ways. First, he accepted the need for a transitional stage. Second, he envisaged a confederation between an ultimately independent Palestine and Jordan. No PLO official had ever been able to declare so unambiguously that a Palestinian state would be ready for a confederation with Jordan. Abdel Shafi’s speech was both the most eloquent and the most moderate presentation of the Palestinian case made by an official Palestinian spokesman since the beginning of the conflict at the end of the nineteenth century. As the head of the Palestinian delegation was delivering his speech, Israel’s stone-faced prime minister passed a note to a colleague. One of the 5,000 journalists covering the conference speculated that the note could well have said: ‘We made a big mistake. We should have insisted that the PLO is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.’