by Avi Shlaim
In the West, King Hussein enjoyed a degree of respect and admiration that no other Arab leader could match. Just one example of it was the memorial service held in St Paul’s Cathedral in London on 5 July 1999, the first occasion since before the First World War that a foreign monarch had been honoured in this way. The Christian service to a Muslim leader of ‘extraordinary dignity and exceptional modesty’ was also the first occasion on which the Koran was read from at St Paul’s. King Abdullah II and his family were joined by European royal families, prime ministers and representatives from almost every country in the world and 2,000 friends of the ‘Lion of Jordan’. The steps of the cathedral were lined by a Guard of Honour from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. The Prince of Wales paid tribute in his address to his old friend as ‘a man amongst men and a king amongst kings’. The second reading was from Matthew 5 – ‘Blessed be the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.’ That was probably how Hussein bin Talal himself would have wanted to be remembered most of all, and that was his most enduring legacy – the possibility, at least, of peace in the Middle East.
Notes
Chapter 1: The Hashemite Heritage
1. Timothy J. Paris, Britain, the Hashemites and Arab Rule 1920–1925: The Sherifian Solution (London: Frank Cass, 2003).
2. Elie Kedourie, In the Anglo-Arab Labyrinth: The McMahon–Husayn Correspondence and Its Interpretations 1914–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
3. Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), 34.
4. Quoted in ibid.
5. Kathryn Tidrick, Heart-beguiling Araby, 2nd ed. (London: I. B. Tauris, 1989).
6. Kedourie, In the Anglo-Arab Labyrinth.
7. T. E. Lawrence, Revolt in the Desert (London: Jonathan Cape, 1927), 12.
8. Isaiah Friedman, Palestine: A Twice-promised Land? (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2000).
9. Elizabeth Monroe, Britain’s Moment in the Middle East 1914–1971, new and rev. 2nd ed. (London: Chatto and Windus, 1981).
10. Paris, Britain, the Hashemites and Arab Rule, 44.
11. George Antonius, The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement, 1965 ed. (New York: Capricorn Books, 1938), 267–9,331–2.
12. Avi Shlaim, ‘The Balfour Declaration and Its Consequences’ in More Adventures with Britannia: Personalities, Politics and Culture in Britain, ed. Wm. Roger Louis (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005).
13. James Morris, The Hashemite Kings (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), 63–5.
14. David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East 1914–1922 (London: Penguin, 1991).
15. Ibid., 440.
16. Alec Seath Kirkbride, A Crackle of Thorns: Experiences in the Middle East (London: John Murray, 1956), 27.
17. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill. Volume IV: The Stricken World 1916–1922 (London: Heinemann, 1975), 553.
18. Kirkbride, A Crackle of Thorns, 19–20.
19. Gilbert, Churchill, Volume IV, 545.
20. Mary C. Wilson, King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 36–7.
21. For a detailed account see Avi Shlaim, Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988). An abridged and revised paperback edition of this book appeared as Avi Shlaim, The Politics of Partition: King Abdullah, the Zionists, and Palestine 1921–1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). It was reissued with a new preface in 1998. I have drawn heavily on these books in the writing of this chapter.
22. Ezra Danin, ‘Talk with Abdullah, 17 Nov. 1947’, S25/4004, and Elias Sasson to Moshe Shertok, 20 November 1947, S25/1699, Central Zionist Archives (CZA), Jerusalem. See also Shlaim, Collusion across the Jordan, 110–17.
23. Iraqi Parliament, Taqrir Lajnat at-Tahqiq al-Niyabiyya fi Qadiyyat Filastin [Report of the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into the Palestine Question], in Arabic (Baghdad: 1949).
24. Golda Meir’s verbal report to the thirteen-member Provisional State Council, Israel State Archives, Provisional State Council: Protocols 18 April-13 May 1948, in Hebrew (Jerusalem: Israel State Archives, 1978), 40–44.
25. Golda Meir, My Life (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975), 176–180.
26. For a comprehensive review of the literature and the debate see Avraham Sela, ‘Trans-jordan, Israel and the 1948 War: Myth, Historiography and Reality’, Middle Eastern Studies, 24: 4 (October 1992).
27. Eugene L. Rogan, ‘Jordan and 1948: The Persistence of an Official History’ in The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, eds. Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
28. See in particular Sela, ‘Transjordan, Israel and the 1948 War: Myth, Historiography and Reality’. My reply to my Israeli critics on this and other issues is contained in Avi Shlaim, ‘The Debate about 1948’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27: 3 (1995).
29. Interview with Yaacov Shimoni. Also in Shlaim, Collusion across the Jordan, 142.
30. For part of the story see Joshua Landis, ‘Syria and the Palestine War: Fighting King Abdullah’s “Greater Syria Plan” ’ in The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, eds. Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
31. Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), Appendix 1.
32. Yoav Gelber, Jewish-Transjordanian Relations 1921–1948 (London: Frank Cass, 1997).
33. David Ben-Gurion’s diary, 18 July 1949, Ben-Gurion Archive, Sede-Boker.
34. Ben-Gurion’s diary, 13 February 1951. See also Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 66–7.
35. Ibid., 67–8.
Chapter 2: Murder of a Mentor
1. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head: An Autobiography (London: Heinemann, 1962), 10.
2. Ibid., 14.
3. John Bagot Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1957), 281,293.
4. Alec Kirkbride, From the Wings: Amman Memoirs 1947–1951 (London: Frank Cass, 1976), 121.
5. Quoted in Mary C.Wilson, King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 132.
6. Interview with Prince Raad bin Zaid.
7. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 12.
8. Ibid., 12–13.
9. Interview with Sharif Zaid bin Shaker.
10. Interview with Marwan Kasim.
11. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 13–17.
12. Philip Geyelin’s interview with Hussein, October 1991, ‘The Papers of Philip Geyelin’, Middle East Centre Archive, St Antony’s College, Oxford. Philip Geyelin, a senior American journalist who worked for the Washington Post, conducted this interview and many others for a biography of King Hussein that he never completed.
13. Jordanian government text of 5 November 1992, address by King Hussein, quoted in Philip Geyelin, ‘Hashemite: The Story of King Hussein of Jordan’, unpublished manuscript, ‘The Papers of Philip Geyelin’, Middle East Centre Archive, St Antony’s College, Oxford.
14. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 7–9, 19.
15. Ibid., 8.
16. Ibid., 9.
17. Interview with Moshe Sasson, Jerusalem, 8 September 1982. See also Avi Shlaim, Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 584–606.
18. Elias Sasson to Walter Eytan, 21 July 1951, 2408/11, Israel State Archives (ISA), Jerusalem.
19. Israel and the Arab States, a consultation in the prime minister’s office, 1 October 1952, 2446/7, ISA.
20. Avi Shlaim, ‘Husni Za’im and the Plan to Resettle Palestinian Refugees in Syria’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 15:4 (Summer 1986).
21. Mendel Cohen, Behatzero shel hamelech Abdullah [At the Court of King Abdullah], in Hebrew (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1980), 84–91.
22. Ibid., 91–6.
23. Kirkbride, From the Wings, 140–41.
24. Quoted in Wilson, King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan, 132.
25. Kirkbride, From the Wings, 141.
26. Ibid., 142.
27. Hazza’ al-Majali, Mudhakkarati [My Memoirs], in Arabic (Beirut: Dar al-’Ilm lil-Malayeen, 1960).
28. Kirkbride, From the Wings, 142–3.
29. Interview with Prince Talal bin Muhammad.
30. Kirkbride, From the Wings, 143–4.
31. Robert B. Satloff, From Abdullah to Hussein: Jordan in Transition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 41.
32. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 22–9.
33. Quoted in Peter Snow, Hussein: A Biography (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1972), 40–41.
34. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 29–32.
35. Interview with Prince El Hassan bin Talal.
36. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 33–4.
37. Satloff, From Abdullah to Hussein, 73.
38. Quoted in James Lunt, Hussein of Jordan (London: Fontana/Collins, 1990), 25.
39. Snow, Hussein, 51.
Chapter 3: The Making of a King
1. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head: An Autobiography (London: Heinemann, 1962), 48–9.
2. Interview with Princess Basma bint Talal.
3. Interview with Prince Talal bin Muhammad; and Lawrence Tal, Politics, the Military, and National Security in Jordan 1955–1967 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 32, 134.
4. Philip Geyelin’s interview with King Hussein, October 1991, ‘The Papers of Philip Geyelin’, Middle East Centre Archive, St Antony’s College, Oxford.
5. Joseph A. Massad, Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 169–71.
6. Ibid., 172–3.
7. Geoffrey Furlonge, ‘Political Review of Jordan for 1953’, 25 January 1954, FO 371/ 119873, Public Record Office (PRO).
8. Interview with Sharif Zaid bin Shaker.
9. Philip Geyelin’s interview with King Hussein, October 1991, ‘The Papers of Philip Geyelin’.
10. Robert B. Satloff, From Abdullah to Hussein: Jordan in Transition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 75–6.
11. Interview with Prince Talal bin Muhammad.
12. Avi Plascov, The Palestinian Refugees in Jordan 1948–1957 (London: Frank Cass, 1981).
13. Amnon Cohen, Political Parties in the West Bank under the Jordanian Regime 1949–1967 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), 71.
14. Benny Morris, Israel’s Border Wars 1949–1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation, and the Countdown to the Suez War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
15. King Abdullah, My Memoirs Completed: ‘Al Takmilah’ (London: Longman, 1978), xvi.
16. Interview with King Hussein bin Talal, 3 December 1996, Buckhurst Park, Ascot. An abridged version of this interview was published after the king’s death under the title ‘His Royal Shyness: King Hussein and Israel’, New York Review of Books, 15 July 1999.
17. Protocol of a meeting held with district commanders on 2 July 1952 and chaired by Ahmed Sidqi al-Jundi, collection of Jordanian records of the General Investigations, General Security and Military Intelligence departments captured by the IDF during the June War. Classified papers deposited in the Ben-Gurion Archive, Sede–Boker.
18. E. H. Hutchison, Violent Truce: A Military Observer Looks at the Arab–Israeli Conflict 1951–1955 (New York: Devin-Adiar, 1956), 44.
19. John Bagot Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1957), 310.
20. Ariel Sharon, Warrior: The Autobiography of Ariel Sharon (London: Macdonald, 1989), 90–91.
21. Yemima Rosenthal, ed., Documents on the Foreign Policy of Israel. Volume XIII: 1953 (Jerusalem: Israel State Archives, 1995), introduction and editorial note, 769–71.
22. Arye Eilan to Gideon Rafael, 4 January 1954, FM 2474/13A, Israel State Archives (ISA), quoted in Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, 67.
23. Interview with Natheer Rasheed.
24. Philip Geyelin, ‘Hashemite: The Story of King Hussein of Jordan’, unpublished manuscript, ‘The Papers of Philips Geyelin’, Middle East Centre Archive, St Antony’s College, Oxford, Chapter 14, 13.
25. Satloff, From Abdullah to Hussein, 86–7.
26. Ann Dearden, Jordan (London: Robert Hale, 1958), 107.
27. Satloff, From Abdullah to Hussein, 87.
Chapter 4: The Baghdad Pact Fiasco
1. Fawaz A. Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East: Regional and International Politics 1955–1967 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 26.
2. Uriel Dann, ‘The Foreign Office, the Baghdad Pact and Jordan’, Asian and African Studies, 21 (1987).
3. Humphrey Trevelyan, The Middle East in Revolution (London: Macmillan, 1970), 56.
4. Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East, 25.
5. Charles Duke, ‘Jordan: Annual Review for 1955’, 27 July 1956, FO 371/121461, Public Record Office (PRO).
6. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head: An Autobiography (London: Heinemann, 1962), 83.
7. Ibid., 87.
8. Interview with Prince Talal bin Muhammad.
9. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 86.
10. Ibid., 86–7.
11. Nutting to Eden, 18 June 1955, cited in Robert B. Satloff, From Abdullah to Hussein: Jordan in Transition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 111.
12. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 88.
13. Satloff, From Abdullah to Hussein, 110.
14. Elie Podeh, The Quest for Hegemony in the Arab World: The Struggle over the Baghdad Pact (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 175–7.
15. Ibid., 176–83.
16. Dann, ‘The Foreign Office, the Baghdad Pact and Jordan’.
17. Charles Duke, ‘Jordan: Annual Review for 1955’, 27 July 1956, FO 371/121461, PRO.
18. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 93.
19. Trevelyan, The Middle East in Revolution, 57.
20. John Bagot Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1957), 393–7.
21. Lawrence Tal, Politics, the Military, and National Security in Jordan 1955–1967 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 22.
22. Interview with Mreiwad al-Tall.
23. Hazza’ al-Majali, Mudhakkarati [My Memoirs], in Arabic (Beirut: Dar al-Ilm lil-Malayeen, 1960), 72.
24. Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs, 407.
25. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 92–3.
26. E. Schneorson to E. Elath, 4 January 1956, 3745/1, ISA.
27. Quoted in Uriel Dann, ‘Glubb and the Politicization of the Arab Legion: An Annotated Document’, Asian and African Studies, 21 (1987).
28. Anthony Eden, Full Circle: The Memoirs of the Rt Hon. Sir Anthony Eden (London: Cassell, 1960), 345–6.
29. Satloff, From Abdullah to Hussein, 131–2.
30. Interview with Prince El Hassan bin Talal.
31. Peter Snow, Hussein: A Biography (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1972), 65.
32. James Morris, The Hashemite Kings (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), 205.
33. Charles Duke, ‘Jordan: Annual Review for 1955’, 27 July 1956, FO 371/121461, PRO.
34. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 57.
35. Amalia and Aharon Barnea, Mine Enemy (London: Halban, 1989).
36. Ibid., Chapter 5.
Chapter 5: The Dismissal of Glubb
1. James Morris, The Hashemite Kings (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), 206–7.
2. Evelyn Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez: Diaries 1951–1956 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986), 292.
3. C. H. Johnston, ‘Jordan: Annual Review for 1956’, 19 March 1957, FO 371/127876, Public Record Office (PRO).
4. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head: An Autobiography (London: Heinemann, 1962), 107–12.
5. Morris, The Hashemite Kings, 209.
6. Interview with Marwan Kasim.
7. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 116.
8. Interview with Marwan Kasim; interview with Natheer Rasheed.
9. Interview with Prince Talal bin Muhammad.
10. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 117–18.
11. Interview with Marwan Kasim.
12. Morris, The Hashemite Kings, 211.
13. Anthony Eden, Full Circle: The Memories of the Rt Hon. Sir Anthony Eden (London: Cassell, 1960), 347–8.
14. Ibid., 348–9.
15. Hussein bin Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head, 119–20.
16. Interview with Ahmad al-Lozi.
17. Eden, Full Circle, 349.
18. Anthony Nutting, No End of a Lesson: The Story of Suez (London: Constable, 1967), 18.
19. Mohamed H. Heikal, Cutting the Lion’s Tail: Suez through Egyptian Eyes (London: André Deutsch, 1986), 96–8.
20. Lester Mallory to DOS, 16 March 1956, Foreign Relations of the United States 1955–1957.Volume XIII. Near East: Jordan – Yemen (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing House, 1988), 33.
