Lion of Jordan

by Avi Shlaim

  Towards the end of the year Hussein made the decision to re-engage as a major player in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. On 4 December he issued an open letter to Prime Minister Abdul Salam Majali on Jordan’s position regarding all the items on the final-status agenda. The background was ‘what appears to be the continuous attempt on the part of the Israeli prime minister to demolish the Palestinian–Israeli Oslo agreements’. The three main items were security, Jerusalem and sovereignty. There were Likud claims that Israel needed to retain the Jordan Valley for its own protection but also to protect Jordan against an irredentist Palestinian entity. Hussein made it clear that ‘these claims are baseless and they are categorically and unequivocally rejected.’ On the other hand, Hussein highlighted Israel’s commitment to Jordan’s special role in the Muslim holy places in the Old City of Jerusalem as mandated in the treaty. Jordan was in a weak position here because it had to rely on Israel to serve as its advocate when the Jerusalem issue arose in the final-status talks. Finally, Hussein announced his intention to play a direct role in the next phase of negotiations. Now that the final disposition of the Palestine question was being negotiated, he wanted to be deeply involved, every step of the way, though not actually present at the table.30

  On the Israeli side, Ariel Sharon started to play a more important role in the conduct of relations with Jordan. As we have seen, Sharon had been one of the loudest trumpeters within the Likud of the clarion call that ‘Jordan is Palestine.’ When the peace treaty was submitted by the Labour government to the Knesset for ratification, Sharon had refused to vote for it; he would not support any agreement that required Israel to concede territory.31 Sharon, however, changed his tune when he saw how popular the peace with Jordan turned out to be with the Israeli public. He therefore reinvented himself as a reformed character and as an advocate of a strong Jordan. As minister of infrastructure he was directly responsible for the water aspects of the peace treaty. During his first visit to Jordan after taking up his post, he had a private conversation with the king. Sharon explained why in the past he used to say that ‘Jordan is Palestine.’ The king heard him out without making any comment. Sharon added philosophically that men grow older, circumstances change, and opinions are corrected. After that meeting Sharon demonstrated on every occasion his commitment to close relations with Jordan.32 His abandonment of the plan to turn Jordan into an alternative homeland for the Palestinians gave the regime much satisfaction. His known opposition to Arafat and to the idea of Palestinian statehood went down well with the Jordanian hardliners, who were sometimes referred to as the ‘Jordanian Likud’.

  Security cooperation between Jordan and Israel was resumed by early 1998, but the atmosphere remained chilly. Netanyahu’s announcement that he had no intention of withdrawing from the Jordan Valley rekindled Hussein’s wrath. Hussein sent Netanyahu a letter denouncing the statement as an insult to his kingdom and a violation of Israel’s commitments. The replacement of General Danny Yatom by Efraim Halevy as head of the Mossad restored some of the old warmth to the relations between Amman and Jerusalem.33 Netanyahu, however, wanted to demonstrate to hardline Republicans and to the conservative Jews in America that Israel under his leadership was a strategic asset, that he was delivering, that he was not following in the footsteps of Itzhak Rabin. Rabin had wanted to make peace with Iraq in order to surround Syria and place it in a tight spot. Syria would have been surrounded by Israel, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. Netanyahu’s message to the American right was that US interests, and the Israel lobby’s interests, were his interests. He would not make peace with Iraq even if that would isolate Syria. Indeed, he was prepared to go to war with Iraq: he had both the political will and the means to launch an aerial strike. The Pentagon had delivered twenty special F-15s to Israel. These could fly fully armed all the way to Baghdad and back without refuelling. One day Netanyahu came up with a plan to attack Iraq. He claimed that Saddam was still developing weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles. He therefore wanted to attack these sites, and his plans were leaked to the press.34

  Hussein was worried. Should the IDF overfly Jordan to attack Iraq, Jordan would be accused of colluding with Israel over the air raid. The climate in Jordan was one of disappointment with the meagre fruits of peace, and an attack on Iraq through Jordanian airspace was bound to provoke renewed calls for the renunciation of the treaty. Hussein knew that the majority of Israel’s military leaders were against the plan; that Netanyahu was pressing them as he had pressed Danny Yatom into the Mishal Affair. Hussein had a secure telephone line to Netanyahu, but he did not use it because he had given up on him. Instead Hussein invited Efraim Halevy to a meeting in Amman on 11 February 1998 to express his concerns. Hassan and Shukri were also present. Hussein said that Israel would be completely on its own if it decided to attack Iraq. He also noted that no progress had been achieved in the talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority since the Hebron Protocol and that this indicated that Netanyahu had a different agenda. Granting Israel access to attack Iraq through Jordan was unthinkable because the Jordanian public still strongly identified with Iraq. Both Jordan and Israel would suffer from an unprovoked attack on Iraq; it would be a terrible mistake. Hassan insisted that Israel had to respect the treaty and all other understandings between them. Halevy was apparently convinced by these arguments. He understood very well that if Israel attacked Iraq through Jordanian airspace, Jordan would be accused of collusion. The conversation reverted to final-status issues. Hussein said that Netanyahu was deliberately driving a wedge between Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, and Hassan described him as insan la’im jiddan–‘a very nasty person’. Both Hussein and Hassan emphasized their commitment to the resumption of negotiations because the absence of a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians posed a threat to Jordan.35

  Hussein’s health continued to deteriorate throughout 1998. Binyamin Netanyahu, his nemesis, was called Bibi for short, and in jest Queen Noor began to call her husband’s malady the Bibi virus, alluding to the bio-terrorism episode in Amman the previous autumn.36 In fact, as Queen Noor knew better than anyone, her husband had a history of illness that long preceded Bibi’s rise to power. Moreover, Bibi most probably would not have been elected in 1996 had it not been for her husband’s catastrophic miscalculation. By interfering in the Israeli elections, Hussein helped to inflict Bibi not just on the Palestinians, Jordanians and Arabs in general but on Israel as well.

  During Hussein’s annual check-up at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, in May 1998, the medical staff came up with theories involving various obscure viruses, but they did not identify any other anomalies in his system. Hussein and his wife left the clinic and headed for Washington, DC, where he met President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to talk about reviving the stalled peace process. Then they went on to England for a week, to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary at Buckhurst Park in Ascot. Hussein seemed to have shaken off the fevers, and was happy and relaxed. On their return to Jordan the fevers came back, this time fiercer and more debilitating. In July 1998 Hussein went again to the Mayo Clinic. This time he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, with abnormal cells in multiple locations.37 He was to stay in the clinic until the end of the year. During his absence his younger brother Hassan, who had been crown prince and heir apparent since 1965, acted as regent.

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  The Last Journey

  The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, was king Hussein’s home during the second half of 1998, before his last journey home. The cancer in his lymph glands caused occasional fever, weight loss, fatigue and extreme exhaustion. To deal with it, the doctors prescribed six courses of chemotherapy over five months, followed by a bone marrow transplant. Hussein was given a VIP suite that included a kitchen, a dining room and a little room for Queen Noor to sleep in next to his. The rest of their family and entourage stayed in a nearby hotel connected to the hospital by a tunnel. All Husse
in’s children and various other family members came and went. Hamzah, his beloved eldest son with Noor, spent several months by his father’s side during the break between graduation from Harrow and the beginning of his first term as an officer cadet at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. In between cycles of chemotherapy Hussein and his wife would fly to River House outside Washington or go on day trips around Minnesota in a silver Volkswagen Beetle she had bought shortly after their arrival. Throughout his time at the clinic, Hussein put a brave face on his illness, and, at least outwardly, projected hope and optimism. He had a heavy workload, countless messages from well-wishers and an endless stream of visitors. The doctors insisted that he had to rest to conserve his energy and Noor became the gatekeeper who enforced the doctors’ orders. In her book Leap of Faith she gives a moving description of her husband’s battle against cancer, of the agony of his final days, and of their travels back and forth between the Mayo Clinic, London and Amman.1

  Hussein was the most undemanding of patients, profusely apologetic for any inconvenience he may have caused and almost pathetically grateful for every little thing that was done for him. He bore his suffering stoically, retained his gracious manners in adversity, and radiated warmth and humanity. All the doctors, nurses and staff in the clinic fell under his spell. His kindness and courtesy extended to everyone, regardless of their status and position. When he heard that one of the cleaners had a birthday, for example, he organized a jolly party for her in his suite, with refreshments, cards and presents. The woman was so moved, she cried uncontrollably.

  Throughout his stay in the Mayo, Hussein kept in close touch with affairs at home. The year 1998 was a difficult one for Jordan and not just because of the illness and absence of the monarch. Living standards were declining. The annual growth rate of the GDP had dropped from 10 per cent in 1992–4 to 5.6 per cent in 1995, and then to 1.5 per cent during 1996–8. The population was now growing at a faster rate than the GDP, resulting in a fall in per capita income.2 The general sense of frustration was exacerbated by bureaucratic lethargy and incompetence. A scandal involving the contamination of the water supply to the capital led to the dismissal of the government of Abdul Salam Majali. He was replaced by Fayez Tarawneh, the former ambassador to the United States and chief negotiator with Israel. The new government faced the daunting task of restoring the people’s confidence by ensuring transparency as they contended with a stagnant economy and a bloated bureaucracy. Prince Hassan continued the ‘national dialogue’ that his brother had initiated with all segments of the public, and especially with the opposition. This did not produce any significant policy changes or any dramatic improvements, but it did have a pacifying effect on the domestic scene.3

  Prince Hassan performed his duties as regent with great dedication, energy and efficiency. But, though he won the respect of the intellectuals and the technocrats, he failed to gain the affection of the masses. He was said to be aloof and to lack the common touch. His relations with the army were rather strained in part because he was not a military man himself and, more seriously, because of his open criticism of the leaders of the army. Moreover, the army was rooted in the rural Bedouin population, and Hassan did not have this avenue to the tribes. The money that was given by the regime to the Bedouins to secure their support came from the army coffers. Because Hassan did not dispense subsidies to the Bedouins directly, he did not enjoy the power of patronage that went with them. Hassan did have close relations with some of the Bedouin tribes, but the relationship was personal rather than institutional. His relations with successive prime ministers were not trouble-free either, reaching rock bottom with Abdul Karim Kabariti, who had been appointed on 19 March 1997. It was probably true that Hassan micro-managed the government more than was wise, doing so even more after becoming regent, but that was his character. At no point before or during his regency did Hassan try to build a power base of his own. On the contrary, he alienated many potential supporters in the government and in the army by his call for accountability, by his promise to root out corruption and by his outspoken attacks on vested interests.

  With a touch of hyperbole, Hassan once described his brother and himself as one mind and soul in two bodies.4 He looked up to Hussein, he was devoted to him, and he was extremely hurt by the false rumours of disloyalty that his opponents put about. Unlike his brother, Hassan was a steady and systematic policy-maker and a meticulous record-keeper. Every Thursday he sent a full report to his brother at the Mayo on the events, discussions and decisions of the previous week.5 Nevertheless, Kabariti, both as prime minister and as chief of the royal court, was much more devoted to Hussein than to Hassan, perhaps understandably. Like Hussein’s other close aides, Kabariti enjoyed the kind of direct access and personal contact that was now beginning to be denied to the regent. None of these aides was particularly sympathetic to Hassan, and most were harshly critical of him.

  Relations between Hassan and Noor were frosty from the very beginning. Hassan did not like Noor’s pillow-talk access to the king on policy matters, and Sarvath, Hassan’s Pakistani wife, did not like the way her husband was treated by the strong-willed Noor. Hassan did not visit his brother at the Mayo even once; not because he did not want to but because he was deflected, being told that, if he went to the Mayo, the people at home would conclude that the king was dying. Hassan was kept in the dark about his brother’s real state of health. He never spoke directly to the king’s American doctors. Consequently, the sudden deterioration in his brother’s health in the autumn of 1998 took him by surprise. As the issue of succession came to the fore, the court of the ailing king in a foreign land became thick with rumours and intrigues. Family feuds were added to bitter political rivalries to produce a scene fit for a Shakespearean tragedy. The title of Hussein’s autobiography, Uneasy Lies the Head, was in fact based on a line from Shakespeare. The actual line from Henry IV, Part II runs: ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’

  One of the chief plotters against Hassan was General Samih Batikhi, the head of the General Intelligence Department, the Mukhabarat. Batikhi was widely rumoured to be using his position to line his own pockets, and five years later he was in fact charged with corruption and put in prison. He also had ideas above his station. The head of the Jordanian secret service is meant to be a soldier, not a politician, but Batikhi persistently dabbled in politics and accumulated in his own hands considerable power and influence. Not content with this, he aspired to become a king-maker, perhaps in order to preserve his power and ill-gotten wealth. It was clear that if Hassan became king, this would not be possible. Hassan’s zealous campaign against corruption had won him few friends in high places. There was a strong anti-Hassan lobby in Amman, and Batikhi was at its head. Unlike Hassan, Batikhi knew the real state of the king’s health, and, also unlike Hassan, he had regular access to the king. There is an old saying that ‘Near and sly beats fair and square who isn’t there’, and Batikhi was near and sly. Hussein’s main source of information on the affairs of his kingdom was none other than General Batikhi. Batikhi used to fly to the Mayo at regular intervals and hold long sessions in private with Hussein. It is a fair guess that Batikhi made the most of this opportunity to drip poison in the king’s ear about the regent. If Hussein’s entourage began to resemble a Byzantine court, Batikhi was chiefly responsible for the transformation.

  As his health began to fail, Hussein became more and more obsessed with the responsibilities of his Hashemite heritage inherited from his great-grandfather and grandfather, which he had tried to discharge throughout his life.6 Now he was determined to secure the line of succession. Batikhi was aware of Hussein’s anxieties and exploited them to further his own ends. Having discredited Hassan and planted doubts in the king’s mind about his suitability for kingship, Batikhi began to promote his alternative candidate for the succession: Prince Abdullah, the king’s eldest son. Batikhi told Hussein that Abdullah was a good soldier, that he was widely respected, and that he had the strong support of th
e army behind him. The message was clear, and it did not have to be stated in so many words: the house of Hashem would be safer in the hands of the soldier-prince than in the hands of the would-be philosopher-king.

  Prince Abdullah was largely an unknown quantity. Within the army he was reputed to be a tough, capable and courageous soldier. Outside the army little was known about him. He was the eldest son of the king by his English wife, Princess Muna, and he had followed the family tradition by going to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst before joining the Jordanian Army. Having an English mother was not an advantage because, although she converted to Islam, her son was not considered to be a pure Arab. Moreover, because Abdullah spoke English at home and had received his training in Britain and America, his command of classical Arabic was less than perfect. On the other hand, a number of things worked in Abdullah’s favour. First, he was a handsome young man and very like his father in many ways. Second, he fitted neatly into the Hashemite line of succession because he bore the name Abdullah and his first-born son was called Hussein. Third, Abdullah was not a complete stranger to the title of crown prince. He had been named as crown prince three days after his birth on 30 January 1962 in accordance with the 1952 constitution. But it was a turbulent era, with frequent assassination attempts against the king, and to have an infant crown prince would have been risky for the Hashemite dynasty in the event of regicide. Therefore, in 1965, when Hassan reached the age of eighteen, the constitution was amended to make it possible for any brother of the king to be a crown prince, and Hassan was appointed because he was considered a safer bet than the mentally unstable middle brother, Muhammad bin Talal. So the appointment of Abdullah as crown prince could be seen as simply the restoration of his birthright. Fourth, Abdullah’s beautiful wife, Rania, was a Palestinian with the potential to draw the support of the Palestinian segment of the population. Last but not least, as an officer in the army, Abdullah had a natural avenue to the tribes and hence the potential to build a strong power base in the rural parts of the country.