King Hussein's Black September
No Middle Eastern ruler more obviously personified the defeat of Arab nationalism than King Hussein Ibn Talal of Jordan did. Trained at Sandhurst's military academy, Hussein was thrust onto the throne by his British sponsors. His father Talal had been crowned in 1951 following the assassination of Hussein's grandfather, but Talal's anti-British policy meant that he was forced to abdicate on grounds of insanity.
The little English soldier was made King on coming of age on May 2, 1953. Hussein's natural inclinations were towards Britain, already a fading power in the Middle East. His soldiers served under British Commander Glubb Pasha, and marched to the sound of bagpipes. Hussein wanted to join the pro-Western Baghdad pact but a growing mood of Arab nationalism frustrated his plans.
Jordan at that time included the Palestinian territories known as the West Bank, bordered by the US sponsored state of Israel. In Egypt Nasser had raised the banner of Arab nationalism, which had an instant appeal for the Palestinian population of Jordan. Israeli raids into the town of Qaqilya left 48 slaughtered in 1956. Hussein had to bend to the popular mood, sacked Glubb Pasha and moved closer to Nasser.
Nationalism threatened the Hashemite Kingdom. The nationalist party won the election in 1956. But in 1957 Hussein dismissed Suleiman Nabulsi's government and established a military regime based upon the Bedouin loyalists in the Army. In the absence of elected government, Hussein had to appeal to nationalist sentiment to forestall opposition.
In 1964 he again turned to Nasser and made the alliance that would lead to the 1967 war against Israel. The joint Egyptian-Jordanian force was decisively defeated by Israel's superior fire-power and US support. Humiliation was heaped upon Jordan as the Israelis occupied the West Bank, forcing the Palestinians across the river Jordan to become refugees in the Hashemite Kingdom.
The situation in Jordan was explosive. Hussein had raised popular expectations with the war against Israel, and instead lost Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Palestinian refugees were the social base of the nationalist uprising and threatened Hussein's throne. The Palestine Liberation Organization conducted raids into Israel and agitated against Hussein. At the same time Hussein turned to the West to ask help with dealing with his Palestinian problem. As Edward Said wrote in 1971, the US strategy was to 'outmaneuver the Palestinian guerillas by using, and financing, all governments in the area who stood to lose most if the Palestinians were to have fulfilled their revolutionary role'. The result was Black September.
According to Said, the evidence was that Hussein had planned to make war on the Palestinians since 1969, a war that was prosecuted in September 1970. The battle continued for ten days and thousands of Palestinian fighters and civilians were slaughtered. The Jordanian Army that had proved so ineffective in the public relations war against Israel, was decisive in its life and death struggle with the Palestinians for control of Jordan.
With the slaughter of Black September Hussein worked his way back into the good books of the West. But the Kingdom lacked any solid basis. It's people are amongst the poorest in the Middle East. Hussein's policy since 1970 has been to pay lip-service to Arab nationalism while keeping Jordan out of any direct conflict. So Jordan took no part in the war of 1973 between Israel and a joint Egyptian and Syrian force, but denounced the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt in 1977.
Today Palestinian aspirations are tied to a caricature of independence on the West Bank and in the Gaza strip, where a few towns exercise 'autonomy' under Israeli gun-positions. But even this phony independence has more reality than Jordan's territorial claims to the West Bank, which were abandoned in 1988.
Hussein Ibn Talal, 1935-1999
The Politics of Dispossession, Edward Said, Vintage, 1995 The Arab Nation, Samir Amin, Zed Press 1978 A to Z of the Middle East, Alain Gresh, Dominique Vidal, Zed Books, 1990
-- Jim heartfield