The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict

by Mitchell G. Bard, Ph. D.

  Opposition to Israel Unites the Arabs

  Nasser maintained his belligerent attitude toward Israel, between 1957 and 1967, building up his forces, threatening war, ordering the UN Emergency Force out of the Sinai in May 1967, and once again blockading the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping. Although they would not support his broader pan-Arab vision, Nasser did attract the support of Syria, Jordan, and other Arab states for his goal of destroying Israel. Anticipating an Egyptian-led attack, Israel struck first and defeated the combined Arab forces in just six days in early June 1967 (see Chapter 14).

  The disastrous defeat had little impact on Nasser’s popularity as he refused to acknowledge the defeat and make peace. Instead, he vowed to continue the fight and, within weeks, began to shell Israeli positions in the hope of exhausting Israel’s mostly reserve army in a prolonged war of attrition. That, too, failed (see Chapter 15).

  On September 18, 1970, Nasser died of a heart attack. Despite having failed to destroy Israel or unite the Arabs, he was revered as a hero who represented worthy goals that Arab leaders who succeeded him were expected to fulfill.

  Enter Sadat

  Nasser was succeeded by his first vice president, Anwar Sadat, who shelved Nasser’s pan-Arab vision. Sadat was more interested in the restoration of Egyptian honor and territory, which had been devastated by the defeat in 1967. Toward that end, he built up his military to the point at which they succeeded in mounting a surprise attack against the Israelis in October 1973 (see Chapter 16). Paradoxically, although Israel won that war, the Israelis were psychologically traumatized by the fact that they had been caught unprepared and were in danger of being defeated. The Egyptians, who had lost, emerged with a new respect for themselves and from the rest of the Arab world. This helped make it possible for Egypt to make peace with Israel.

  Sadat also made a personal psychological leap to accept the idea of negotiating peace with Israel, though the process would take more than five years to complete. In the course of the initial negotiations mediated by Henry Kissinger, Egypt began to move closer to the United States and away from the Soviet Union.

  Ultimately, Sadat understood that American support for Israel would make defeat of the Israelis difficult if not impossible and that the Soviets could not trump that Israeli advantage. More importantly, he discovered that the Americans were anxious to reward him for his friendship and began to provide Egypt with generous amounts of financial assistance and, after signing the peace treaty with Israel, nearly as generous grants of military aid.

  In a final, decisive break with the pan-Arabist legacy, Sadat took an independent course in negotiating with the Israelis and ignored the objections of other Arab states. After signing the treaty with Israel, Sadat paid for this policy first by the ostracism of Egypt by the rest of the Arab world and then with his life when he was assassinated by Islamic terrorists on October 6, 1981.

  Uncertain Succession

  Sadat was succeeded by his vice president, Hosni Mubarak, who, at the time, was largely unknown and not expected to stay in power. He has defied his critics, however, and remained firmly in control of the country ever since. His longevity is due to his ruthless suppression of opponents, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, and his cautious foreign policy that has kept Egypt out of any military conflicts while rhetorically supporting popular Arab causes.

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  Mysteries of the Desert

  Members of Congress have increasingly questioned the level of aid to Egypt, which is second only to Israel among foreign-aid recipients. Although most members support economic assistance, which is desperately needed in the impoverished nation, they find it harder to justify the billions of dollars in military aid given that Egypt faces no significant external threats.

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  For example, Mubarak was never as hostile toward the Soviet Union as Sadat, but he also remained closely allied with the United States to ensure the continued flow of aid and arms.

  Most important, he did the absolute minimum required to maintain the peace treaty of Israel, while giving rhetorical support to its opponents and expressing fealty to the Palestinian cause.

  Whereas the Israelis expected to normalize relations with Egypt and have a brisk flow of trade and tourism, Mubarak has made sure that the little of both that exists goes primarily in one direction, from Israel to Egypt. He has also allowed the government-controlled press to pursue a vitriolic, and often anti-Semitic, editorial policy toward relations with Israel and has done nothing to encourage the Egyptian public to embrace the treaty. Although he has met with Israeli officials many times in Cairo, he has gone to Israel only once—to attend the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin. In part because he has kept the peace with Israel at this frigid level, the other Arab states accepted Egypt back into the fold and the nation’s traditional leadership position was restored.

  On the other hand, although Mubarak has taken a rhetorical hard line, he has scrupulously observed the terms of the treaty with Israel in terms of military activity and resisted calls from other Arabs, in particular the Palestinians, to intervene on their behalf. From the U.S. perspective, the greatest frustration has been Mubarak’s resistance to move in the other direction; that is, to use Egypt’s influence to a greater degree to prod the other Arabs, and especially the Palestinians, to be more compromising in negotiations with Israel.

  Egyptian policy showed signs of changing at the end of 2004 when the government began to openly discuss with Israel ways to improve security and stability in the Gaza Strip in anticipation of an Israeli withdrawal in 2005. Mubarak also started to encourage other Arab leaders to support the reform of the Palestinian Authority.

  Mubarak is now in his seventies and has no designated successor, though he appears to be grooming his son for the job. Many Egyptians object, however, to the idea of creating a family dynasty. The succession in Egypt is crucial to the future. If that nation were to change its orientation toward Israel and/or the United States—especially now that it has billions of dollars of America’s sophisticated weapons—the geostrategic situation in the region would change overnight and the West would suddenly be confronted with new dangers presented by a militant Egypt.

  Transjordan: Churchill’s Baby

  As you learned earlier, Jordan did not exist until 1921, when Winston Churchill invented it. For the next 25 years, Britain dominated the nation’s affairs. Britain also created, trained, and led one of the region’s most effective armies, the Arab Legion.

  This force captured the eastern half of Jerusalem in the 1948 war, and much of what the United Nations had partitioned to be the Arab state and was later called the West Bank.

  In 1946, Transjordan formally became independent, and Abdullah, who the British had installed as the nation’s ruler, assumed the title of king. One of Abdullah’s goals was to create a Greater Syria. Toward that end, he annexed the area of Palestine he controlled (West Bank) and shortly thereafter renamed his country the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. One consequence of this action was to more than double the country’s population, which now included about 400,000 Palestinian refugees.

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  Ask the Sphinx

  The Soviet Union vetoed Jordan’s application to the United Nations in 1947 because of its conviction that Abdullah was a puppet of the British.

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  Abdullah was essentially a tribal ruler, having come from that tradition in Arabia, and increasingly was faced with the political complexities of ruling a nation where Palestinians made up the majority of the population and where his territorial ambitions clashed with those of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Ironically, his relations with Israel were better than those with the other Arabs. The Israelis believed it might be possible to reach a peace agreement with Abdullah. However, those hopes were dashed when the king was assassinated on July 20, 1951, in front of a mosque on the Temple Mount by one of the followers of the mufti of Jerusalem.

  Hussein Takes the Reigns

  The death of the king created a cr
isis because the expected heir, Crown Prince Talal, was being treated for a nervous breakdown in Switzerland at the time. Talal returned to rule the country, but his mental condition made him unable to govern, and he was deposed in 1952 in favor of his son Hussein. A few months later, when Hussein turned 18, he became king.

  For more than 40 years, Hussein, who had witnessed his grandfather’s murder, artfully ruled his nation, overcoming numerous assassination attempts and navigating the sensitive politics of the Arab world. Internally, the principal problem was the restive Palestinian population, which hated Israel for displacing them, and Jordan’s allies, Britain and the United States, for their support of Israel. The Palestinians also tended to look down on the natives who were not as well educated and viewed as less sophisticated. This resentment would fester for years and, to some degree, is still a problem.

  Hussein continued his grandfather’s close relationship with Britain and also developed strong ties with the United States, culminating in an economic aid agreement in 1954—the first negotiated with any Arab government.

  Jordan Becomes Vital

  Other Arab states hoped to wean Jordan away from the “imperialists” and offered to replace the aid given by Great Britain. Jordan abrogated its longstanding treaty with the British in 1957, and Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia began to provide financial aid to Hussein’s regime. Although he was now on better terms with these nations, some elements within Jordan did not believe Hussein was revolutionary enough, plotting to overthrow him and replace the monarchy with a republic that would be part of Nasser’s pan-Arab vision and under his control. Hussein put down a series of revolts in April 1957—the last of which prompted the United States to send the Sixth Fleet to the coast of Lebanon and to announce that America considered Jordan’s integrity of vital interest and would provide financial aid to the government. This angered the Arab states, which discontinued their aid payments to Jordan. These were soon replaced by American funds, and from that point on the United States became Jordan’s principal ally.

  A year later, after the 1958 revolution in Iraq, militants in Jordan again tried to revolt. Hussein asked the British for help, and they deployed a paratroop battalion. American forces had also moved into Lebanon to quell disturbances there and made clear that they were prepared to help in Jordan if necessary. Hussein’s own forces also contributed to putting down the rebellion.

  Jordan continued to have testy relations with other Arab nations. As a conservative monarchy, it did not get along well with the revolutionary regimes in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, which were all allied with the Soviet Union and pursued socialist, anti-Western, pan-Arab agendas. Hussein also had trouble, however, with the other monarchies, especially Saudi Arabia, because of his close ties with the West and relatively moderate approach to Islam.

  Losing to Israel

  Although Hussein did not maintain the publicly belligerent attitude toward Israel that most of the other Arab leaders expressed, relations were still often tense. They had disputes over the use of the waters of the Jordan River, which the Israelis wanted to divert for their use and the Arabs wanted to deny to them. Also, Palestinian terrorists often attacked Israel from bases in Jordan and provoked counterattacks.

  In 1967, King Hussein ignored the Israeli warning to stay out of the fighting and attacked Israel (see Chapter 14). Although his army fought well, it was forced to retreat from Jerusalem and the West Bank. Thousands of Palestinians fled to the east bank to avoid coming under Israeli rule.

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  Tut Tut!

  During the 19 years Jordan ruled the West Bank, the Palestinians never protested the occupation of “their land” or demanded the creation of a Palestinian state.

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  Although Palestinian terrorists continued to complicate relations between Israel and Jordan, the two countries settled into a mostly peaceful relationship. Secret contacts were common, and Hussein chose not to repeat his mistake of 1967 and opted out of a major role in the 1973 war with Israel.

  The PLO Attempts a Coup

  The greater threat to Jordan was internal, from the Palestinians, who had gradually built up what amounted to their own state within the kingdom. They controlled the refugee camps themselves, smuggled in weapons that they openly brandished, ignored officials of the Jordanian government, and undermined Hussein’s authority. The king attempted to negotiate an understanding with the Palestinians, but they flouted his authority.

  The final straw for Hussein occurred when Palestinian terrorists flew three hijacked planes to Jordan in September 1970, which would become known as Black September (see Chapter 15), and blew them up. From that point on, Hussein’s forces increasingly clashed with the Palestinians, who now were openly trying to depose him. Syria sent tanks to Jordan to support the Palestinians. At Jordan’s request—via the United States—Israel mobilized some of its forces and the United States moved the Sixth fleet in the Mediterranean closer to its eastern shores. Hussein’s army repulsed the Syrians and defeated the Palestinians. Most of the Palestinian leadership, including Yasser Arafat, fled to Syria and later Lebanon where they soon set about undermining the central government of that country.

  Hussein Survives Again

  One of the few Arab leaders who was probably better off in the mid-1970s than he was before this time of turmoil was King Hussein. He had beaten back the challenge of the Syrians and the PLO, managed to minimize his role in the 1973 War with Israel, and improved relations with just about everyone except the Palestinians.

  Although Egypt’s Sadat and Syria’s Assad were angry that Hussein had not joined their attack on Israel, neither shared their predecessors’ interest in undermining his regime. More importantly, perhaps, Hussein’s ties with the United States improved dramatically.

  In 1974, President Nixon became the first American president to visit Jordan. The following year, the United States sold Hussein a HAWK missile defense system. From then until his death in early 1999, Hussein was viewed as the most moderate Arab leader and America’s most reliable friend in the Islamic world.

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  Mysteries of the Desert

  In June 1978, King Hussein wed Lisa Najeeb Halabyan, an Arab American who had come to Jordan to do research. Because of her beauty, grace, and articulateness, Queen Noor became a popular figure in the United States. She and the king had two sons, Prince Hamzah and Prince Hashim, and two daughters, Princess Iman and Princess Raiyah. Their family also included two children from Hussein’s previous marriage. After the king died, it was rumored that she had tried to engineer the ascension of her 18-year-old son Hamzah over the king’s brother Hassan. Abdullah, the king’s eldest son from his first marriage, ultimately assumed the throne.

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  Jordan Loses the West Bank Again

  With the threat of the PLO out of the way, Hussein hoped to assert his claim to speak for the Palestinians and to press for the inclusion of the West Bank in Jordan or as some form of federation. The Arab League rejected Hussein’s effort to speak for the Palestinians and, in 1974, declared the PLO the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

  For much of the next 20 years, Israel hoped to strike a deal with Hussein that would involve him taking over most of the West Bank in exchange for peace. The Israelis viewed him as a moderate, prepared to coexist with them, and wanted to preempt any effort to create a Palestinian state.

  Many Israelis insisted that the Palestinians did not need a state because Jordan was their state. However, neither the Jordanians nor the Palestinians accepted this formulation.

  Hussein also hoped for some time to regain the territory for Jordan, but finally gave up in the wake of the violence during the first intifada. In July 1988, he formally renounced his claim to the West Bank. This marked the end of Israeli hopes to avoid negotiating with the Palestinians or preventing the creation of a separate Palestinian state, though most Israeli leaders remained opposed to the idea. Israel still hoped to sign a peace treaty with Jordan, b
ut Hussein made it clear that he would not do so until some agreement was reached with the Palestinians. He knew that he could not afford to make a separate peace as Sadat had done, given the Palestinian majority in his country and the hostility toward Israel of the Arab states other than Egypt.

  The king had no sooner cleared this land mine with the Palestinians when he stepped on a new one by refusing to join the coalition against Iraq in the Gulf War and allowing Saddam Hussein to partially circumvent the embargo against Iraq by bringing goods in through Jordan. As a weak neighbor with a long history of ties to the Baghdad regime, Hussein felt he had little choice but to do what he had often done to survive, try to straddle the fence. In the short run he alienated the United States and other coalition members, but his position as a pro-American moderate allowed him to regain his favored position in the United States among the Arabs after a brief chill in relations.

  The opportunity to redeem himself came after the Palestinians signed the Oslo accords (in 1993) and paved the way for him to negotiate a separate agreement with Israel. When it was clear that he would not be viewed as betraying the Palestinian cause (though some Arabs still said this) and would not provoke an upheaval within Jordan, he quickly negotiated a peace treaty with Israel, which was signed in 1994. Since that time, Jordan and Israel have enjoyed good relations (much warmer than those between Israel and Egypt). As was the case in Egypt, however, the grand vision of most Israelis for large-scale trade, tourism, and other joint ventures has yet to materialize.

  In January 1999, King Hussein, fighting a losing battle with cancer, announced that his oldest son, 37-year-old Prince Abdullah, would succeed him on the throne. He died the following month. King Hussein’s decision to name his son as his successor came as a surprise; Hussein’s brother, Prince Hassan, had been designated as his heir for more than three decades. The king is said to have changed his mind in part because of his brother’s behavior while Hussein was in the United States for medical treatment, notably acting as though he were about to become king. Other analysts speculate that the king wanted to ensure that his sons continue the succession of the Hashemite family.