Lion of Jordan

by Avi Shlaim

  My father wasn’t looking very well and he said, ‘Look, for many reasons I have been wanting to say this for a while. What I want to say to you is all I am doing is rewriting, as opposed to writing, history. You were crown prince when you were born and I want you to become crown prince again. And there are two reasons.’ I said, ‘Sidi, this is something that I have never wanted. I don’t want this job.’ He said, ‘That is one of the reasons why I want you to have it. The other reason is because I know that out of all the members of the family you can keep the balance.’ When I was a young child growing up, I was the eldest, so I treated everybody fairly and I looked after everybody. I had a good relationship with all my siblings and cousins. For him, that was very important.

  I said, ‘What about Prince Hassan?’ He said, ‘Look, I’m not doing well… I am going back.’ I said, ‘And so what happens if something happens to you? If you want me to become crown prince, then I have got to make a decision on who is going to work with me.’ It was very hard for him at that time and I said, ‘I guess what you are saying to me, Father, is that you don’t think that you are going to make it.’ And so there was a bit of silence there as we tried to come to grips with the reality of the situation that he was facing. And he said, ‘He is my brother and he is your uncle, so try to do the best you can.’ He wasn’t proud… he said, ‘You are my son. I have had a lot of faith all these years and I want you to step into these shoes.’ But I kind of had a feeling that he wished that things had continued… I don’t know if it is fair for me to say that I think it was a tremendous disappointment that his right-hand man for thirty-four years… It’s his brother at the end of the day. And to make a decision that somebody who has been with you for so many years is not the man that you want.

  He said, ‘I am feeling very tired.’ So I had another five minutes to ask a lot more questions. I needed six months really of questions to ask him. I just ticked off what I thought was the most important. The sadness of that conversation was not my being crown prince, it was him saying: I am not going to make it. That was a shock. I didn’t care about the position. I told my father: ‘I care about you.’ And the conversation was more about: let us put the emotion aside and deal with some practical aspects. I was not ready for that.

  The last two weeks I pretty much knew what he was going to say, but it was still a shock when he said it. And the biggest shock was not that I was becoming crown prince but that he was dying and the implications of that for me. I could have done with four or five years of tutoring under him to get comfortable and all of a sudden I was being thrown in at the deep end of this. I lost twelve kilos in a week. My father was going back. I could see in his eyes that he didn’t think he was going to make it. It was pretty tough between the father and the son.39

  While Hassan and Abdullah changed places, the position of young Prince Hamzah remained uncertain. Contrary to media reports, Noor says that she had been advocating all along that Hamzah should have an opportunity to attend university and develop his intellectual interests and talents. She quotes her husband telling her: ‘I want Hamzah to finish what I was not able to do in terms of schooling, and let him be the critical partner with Abdullah,’ and that she fully supported his decision. After Abdullah had the meeting with his father, he asked to see her. He was completely surprised by the sudden turn of events, he said. Hassan had been Crown Prince since 1965, and Abdullah said that he had assumed that after Hassan his father’s choice would be Hamzah, and he had been willing to support that choice. Noor told her stepson that it was important for her that he knew that she fully supported his father’s choice and had complete confidence in him. ‘I will be here for you, and honour my father’s wishes toward Hamzah,’ Abdullah told her. She said she would wholeheartedly support him in every way she could, and do everything in her power to ensure that he and his father had as much time to work together as possible. She hugged him as he left, still stunned, to return home and inform his wife, Rania.40

  Prince Talal bin Muhammad justified his uncle’s decision to replace Hassan with Abdullah as crown prince and as the head of the Hashemite clan. Talal and Abdullah belonged to the younger generation of Hashemite princes on whom Hussein pinned his hopes. They were not just cousins but friends who had served together in the army in some very testing conditions. According to Talal, of all Hussein’s children Abdullah was most like the current head of the family: very open, strong, assertive and courageous. He was therefore the best choice to rule Jordan; he was the family’s great hope. In Talal’s judgement, Abdullah was much better suited to rule than their uncle Hassan. Dynastic considerations were paramount. Talal’s gloss on the critical meeting in Amman was that Hussein said to Abdullah: ‘If Hassan becomes king, that would be the end of the Husseins and the bin Muhammads. But if you become king, the Husseins, the Muhammads, and the Hassans will all go on.’ Talal elaborated: ‘The implication was that under Hassan the family would no longer be a unified family. The family would disintegrate. Hassan’s behaviour would exclude the rest of the family and cost us the throne.’41

  In the midst of this family drama, Hussein’s health took a sharp turn for the worse. Exposure to the elements during his triumphal ride home did not do him any good. He developed a new ailment: unrelenting hiccups. Hussein had blood and plasma transfusions on an almost daily basis, but his condition did not improve. His physicians decided to perform another CT scan and yet another bone-marrow tap. The scan confirmed that his cancer had already returned. The king and the queen were presented with three options: to keep the king comfortable and stay in Amman; to stay at home but have another course of chemotherapy; or to return to the Mayo to try another transplant. The last option was the most dangerous but it was his only chance for remission. Neither hesitated. ‘We’re going back,’ the king told the doctors.42

  It was Monday, 25 January. The king asked for seventy-two hours to attend to some important matters but was told by Hussein Majali, his ADC, that they had to leave for the Mayo the following day at noon. He had only the rest of the day to complete all his unfinished business. The king still had the draft of his original, polite ‘thank you’ letter to his brother, but he now threw it into the fire. Instead he settled down to write the now infamous, fourteen-page-long letter that took six hours to complete. This was the king’s last letter and, in a sense, his last will and testament. It was a rambling, polemical and politically explosive letter, laced with insults and unsubstantiated charges against his younger brother. Majali described in graphic detail the process by which this controversial letter came to be written at Bab al-Salam, the ‘Gate of Peace’:

  His Majesty looked at me and told me to bring two yellow pads and a bunch of pencils. He used to love writing on yellow pads. He sat in his sitting room by the coffee table and started writing the letter in the early afternoon. Once he started writing, he did not want to be disturbed. Queen Noor would go to him every hour or so to massage his back because it became very stiff. He was weak and frail at that time… The fourteen-page letter was finished and typed around nine o’clock in the evening. The change of the succession was announced on the news at 11.00. Before the announcement, His Majesty met with Prince Hassan, Prince Abdullah, the family elders and all the chiefs of all the main institutions in Jordan. There were many people whom His Majesty wanted to inform about his decision before making it public, and they were all invited to the palace.43

  Although it touched on a whole host of irrelevant issues ranging from weapons of mass destruction to environmental pollution, most of the letter was self-justifying and revolved round the issue of the succession. Hussein claimed, implausibly, that he returned to the homeland with the intention of abdicating in Hassan’s favour, but ‘I and my immediate family were hurt by the backbiting and slander.’ An impassioned but slightly strange defence of Noor follows: ‘She is a Jordanian who belongs with all her senses to this homeland and raises her head high when she defends it and its causes.’ There is also a detailed account of Hussein’s proposal t
o set up a family council in his own lifetime, which Hassan had declined because he regarded it as tantamount to the opening of a Pandora’s Box. This is followed by the cruellest cut of all: the reference to parasites and opportunists who thought that his illness gave them their chance. To be sure, there was no shortage of opportunists and time-servers in the Hashemite court, but Hassan was not one of them. Hassan was the victim, not the perpetrator, of the plots that were hatched in the twilight of Hussein’s reign. Hassan is further accused of exceeding his authority, of acting in an arbitrary manner and of settling scores during the six months that he was regent. Another charge is that he meddled in the affairs of the army, tried to politicize it and impugned the good name of the chief of staff. In addition, Hassan is criticized for disloyalty and for all manner of presumption to kingship. Finally, Hussein refers to Hassan’s letter in which he left it to him to settle the issue of the succession and coldly announces his decision ‘to name His Royal Highness Prince Abdullah bin Hussein to assume the powers and responsibilities of the crown prince of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan immediately’.44

  Majali remarked to the author, in a moment of startling candour, that 90 per cent of the letter was untrue. Prince Hassan himself refuted the allegations against him point by point in his twelve-page letter of 28 January, which was never published.45 The question therefore arises: why did Hussein write such a damning and wildly inaccurate letter to the younger brother who had served him so faithfully and so ably for over a third of a century? One answer might be that the pain and the pain-killers clouded Hussein’s judgement and prevented him from reflecting on and editing what he was writing. But the more likely explanation is that Hussein acted deliberately to disqualify Hassan and to discourage him from taking any counter-measures he might contemplate to defend his position. In the words of Marwan Kasim: ‘The purpose of the king’s letter was to discredit Prince Hassan in the eyes of the bureaucracy and the military and to give his son a breathing space to consolidate his power.’46 Talal bin Muhammad had no doubt whatever that this was indeed the king’s motive:

  The letter to Hassan was out of character and very harsh. The reason His Majesty did it was to make the way clear for Abdullah. It was very cruel but it had to be done. He had to break Hassan in public completely and utterly so he could offer no resistance to Abdullah. He did not have time to consolidate Abdullah as crown prince, as his anointed heir. He died a week later.

  He wrote the letter the day before he returned to the Mayo. He wrote it so there would be no ambiguity as to where loyalty should lie after him. Loyalty should be to Abdullah. This came as a relief to many people. People breathed a sigh of relief. There was no Hassan camp and Abdullah camp. There was a smooth transition. The only resentment was from Hassan and his immediate circle. Most Jordanians were happy to change allegiance.

  His Majesty wanted to make a change in the succession. So he procrastinated and procrastinated almost literally until his last day. The ruthlessness of his last letter to Hassan was justified. He worried that Hussan would create trouble for Abdullah and he was determined to prevent him. It was an exercise in pure power-politics.47

  Having deposed his brother and anointed his eldest son as his heir, the ailing monarch returned immediately to the Mayo Clinic. On Tuesday, 26 January, after exactly a week in his capital, he boarded a TriStar plane that took him to the United States. He was tired and frail, but he shook hands and said something to each of the dignitaries who stood in line to bid him farewell. To Zaid Rifa’i, the crafty old courtier, he said, ‘Don’t play any of your tricks with my son.’ To his nephew Talal bin Muhammad he said only one word: Ashkorak, ‘I thank you.’48

  Back at the Mayo Clinic, Hussein was given another bout of chemotherapy and a bone-marrow transplant. Because of the perils involved, he was placed in the Intensive Care Unit so he could be closely monitored around the clock. As soon as his condition improved slightly, he was moved back into his old room, but little by little he became confused and quiet. He was visibly losing the battle against cancer and his wife made the decision to take him back home to die. His human decency, kindness and generosity, however, were in evidence until the end. Majali recalled one particularly moving example of his humanity. It was the morning of 4 January, the day of their departure. Hussein was a little disoriented. He was watching CNN news in English but commenting on it in Arabic. Majali, Noor, Hamzah and a nurse were with him. They massaged his leg in order to get the blood circulation going. Hussein suddenly looked at the nurse and said to her in Arabic: ‘My daughter, do you have a family, are they OK, do you have a nice house, do you have heating in your house?’ Hussein then turned to Hamzah and asked him to tell his ADC to take care of this woman. The nurse was American, and had not understood a word of what the patient was saying. This little episode confirmed what the people around Hussein always knew: he was a genuinely caring and an exceptionally kind man.49

  On the last journey home Hussein was accompanied by his wife, a medical team, a flight nurse, a respiratory therapist and all the equipment and medication he could possibly need. Once again they had fighter escorts, but this time no one paid attention to them. From the airport the patient, who had lost consciousness during the flight, was taken directly to the King Hussein Medical Centre. Outside the hospital thousands of Jordanians kept up a vigil in the rain. Inside the hospital Hussein’s family gathered to say their final farewells. Noor could not help feeling that having his family together gave him peace at the end.

  Hussein died on Sunday, 7 February. He was sixty-three years old. He was facing Mecca when his heart stopped beating. At the moment of his death, Noor was standing next to his bed holding his hand, surrounded by their children and other relatives. Noor turned to Abdullah, gave him a big hug and said, ‘The king is dead; long live the king.’50 Abdullah’s first act as king was to issue a royal decree appointing his half-brother Hamzah bin Al Hussein crown prince of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan with immediate effect.

  The funeral, in accordance with Muslim custom, was held the following day. Despite the short notice, it brought to the Jordanian capital an extraordinary galaxy of international luminaries to pay their respects: kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, soldiers and statesmen, friends and foes. A delegation of four American presidents was led by Bill Clinton, who called the king ‘a partner and friend’. There were delegations from all the Arab countries from North Africa to the Gulf, including two former foes – Asad and Arafat. By far the largest foreign delegation came from Israel, with President Ezer Weizman at its head. By their very presence at the funeral, these leaders expressed the appreciation of the whole international community for the critical role that the king had played in the struggle for peace in the Middle East. Hussein bin Talal was a titanic figure, an outstanding Hashemite ruler and, above all else, a peacemaker. He was also a popular monarch. His coffin was placed on a funeral bier for the long procession through the capital to the Raghdan Palace and then to the royal cemetery for burial. The rain was unremitting, and the fog was thick. ‘ Hatta al samaa tabki ‘ala Al Hussein,’ the people in the streets said to one another: ‘Even the sky is crying over Al Hussein.’

  1. Hussein ibn Ali, King of the Hijaz, 1924

  2. King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan in the courtyard of Raghadan Palace, Amman, 1948

  3. Sir John Glubb, 1951

  4. Hussein with his father, Prince Talal, and his mother, Princess Zain Al-Sharaf, 1939

  5. Members of the royal family standing behind the flag-draped coffin of assassinated King Abdullah in the royal cemetery at Amman. From right to left behind coffin: Hussein, Prince Naif, Prince Abd al-Ilah, the Iraqi Regent, and Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia, July 1951

  6. Hussein entering the Parliament building for the Accession to the Throne Ceremony, 2 May 1953. Sharif Nasser bin Jamil, his uncle and ADC, is seen behind him

  7. Hussein as a cadet with his detail on the shooting range, Sandhurst, 1953

  8. 18-year-old Hussein and 24-year-
old Dina Abdul Hamid dancing in London, 1953

  9. Hussein with his cousin Faisal II of Iraq during a visit to Baghdad, 1955

  10. Hussein and his British wife, Princess Muna, on their wedding day, 25 May 1961

  11. Hussein at the wheel of his Mercedes Gull Wing, Lebanon, c. 1960

  12. Crown Prince Abdullah, wearing the robes and dagger that originally belonged to his great-grandfather, 1963

  13. Hussein with the royal family (left to right) back row: Prince Mohammad and Princess Ferial; Crown Prince Hassan; Princess Basma; Princess Muna; the King; Alia; Queen Zain with Abdullah (on her lap) and Faisal, c. 1965

  14. Hussein walks through frontline trenches during his visit to the Jordan–Israel frontier, 29 May 1967, accompanied by his officers

  15. Hussein with his cousin, Sharif Zaid bin Shaker (left), his uncle, Sharif Nasser bin Jamil, and brother Muhammad in the Jordan Valley on the eve of the June 1967 war

  16. Hussein announcing the loss of the West Bank at a press conference, Amman, 8 June 1967

  17. Hussein meets Wasfi al-Tall during Black September 1970

  18. Arab heads of state meet at the Nile Hilton in Cairo (left to right): Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, PLO chief Yasser Arafat, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Hussein, 27 September 1970