Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0204/02041.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 29KB | 471 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02041}
$Pretitle{234}
$Title{Jordan
Chapter 1C.   Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert Rinehart}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{jordan
arab
hussein
bank
israel
government
west
british
united
al}
$Date{1979}
$Log{Figure 6.*0204102.scf
}
Country:     Jordan
Book:        Jordan, A Country Study
Author:      Robert Rinehart
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1979

Chapter 1C.   Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

     The population of Transjordan before the war had not exceeded 500,000. As
a result of the war, some 500,000 Palestinian Arabs took refuge in
Transjordan or in the West Bank. Most of them had to be accommodated in the
refugee camps, administered under the auspices of the United Nations Relief
and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), set up in
1949. In addition there were about 500,000 indigenous residents of the West
Bank.

     In December 1948 Abdullah took the title of King of Jordan and in April
1949 directed that the official name of the country-East Bank and West
Bank-be changed to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a term found in the 1946
Constitution but not until then in common use. In April 1950 elections were
held in both banks that were considered favorable by Abdullah, and he formally
annexed the West Bank to Jordan, an important step that was recognized by only
two governments, Britain and Pakistan. Within the Arab League the annexation
was not generally approved, and traditionalists and modernists alike condemned
the move as a furtherance of Hashemite dynastic ambitions.

     Abdullah continued to search for a long-term, peaceful solution with
Israel, although for religious as well as for security reasons he did not
favor the immediate internationalization of Jerusalem. He found support for
this position only from Hashemite kinsmen in Iraq. Nationalist propaganda,
especially in Egypt and Syria, denounced him as a reactionary monarch and a
tool of British imperialism.

     The Arab League debates after the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank
were inconclusive, and Abdullah continued to set his own course. The residual
special relationship with Britain continued, helping to keep the East Bank
relatively free from disturbance. Although not yet a member of the UN, Jordan
supported the UN action in Korea and entered into an economic developmental
aid agreement with the United States in March 1951 under President Harry S
Truman's Point Four program.

     On July 20, 1951, Abdullah was assassinated as he entered the Al Aqsa
Mosque in Jerusalem for Friday prayers. His grandson, the fifteen-year-old
Prince Hussein, was at his side. Before the assassin was killed by the king's
guard, he also fired at Hussein. The assassin was a Palestinian reportedly
hired by relatives of Haj Amin al Husseini-a former mufti of Jerusalem and a
bitter enemy of Abdullah-who had spent World War II in Germany as a pro-Nazi
Arab spokesman. Although many radical Palestinians blamed Abdullah for the
reverses of 1948, there was no organized political disruption after his
murder. The main political question confronting the country's leaders was the
succession to the throne.

     Abdullah's second son Prince Naif acted temporarily as regent, and some
support existed for his accession to the throne. Naif's older brother Prince
Talal was in Switzerland receiving treatment for a mental illness diagnosed as
schizophrenia. It was widely believed that Abdullah would have favored Talal
in order that the succession might then pass more easily to Talal's son
Hussein. Accordingly the government invited Talal to return and assume the
duties as king. During his short reign he promulgated a new constitution in
January 1952. Talal showed an inclination to improve relations with other Arab
states, and Jordan joined the Arab League's Collective Security Pact, which
Abdullah had rejected. Talal was popular among the people of the East Bank,
who were not aware of his periodic seizures of mental illness. But the king's
condition steadily worsened, and in August the prime minister recommended to
a secret session of the Jordanian legislature that Talal be asked to abdicate
in favor of Hussein. Talal acceded to the abdication order with dignity and
retired to a villa near Istanbul, where he lived quietly until his death in
1972.

     Hussein, who was a student at Harrow in England, returned immediately to
Jordan. Under the Constitution he could not be crowned because he was under
eighteen years of age, and a regency council was formed to act on his behalf.
Before he came to the throne he attended the British Royal Military Academy
at Sandhurst. When he was eighteen-years old, by the Muslim calendar, he
returned to Jordan and in May 1953 formally took the constitutional oath as
king.

Hussein's Early Reign

     The chief influences that guided the young Hussein were the example and
teachings of his grandfather and his own education in conservative English
schools. As king he had extensive legal powers. Although Jordan was a
constitutional monarchy, the Constitution allowed the king to dismiss the
National Assembly and to appoint the prime minister and other ministers at
will (see The Constitution, ch. 4). In addition, he enjoyed the traditional
support of the East Bank beduin tribes. Considered the backbone of the
Hashemite monarchy, the Arab Legion was composed of intensely loyal beduin and
paid for by a British subsidy.

     Two-thirds of Hussein's subjects were Palestinians, whereas the
government elite were mostly from the East Bank, more conservative and
traditional in their political attitudes than the Palestinians whose spokesmen
often reflected a radical brand of Arab nationalism. In Cairo the successful
coup d'etat carried out by the Egyptian Free Officers Movement headed by Gamal
Abdul Nasser had overthrown the monarchy in July 1952 and established a
republic. Nasser's image as the new champion of Arab nationalism was highly
regarded by Palestinians who generally blamed Britain, the United States, and
the Hashemites for their misfortunes.

     Hussein's problems were magnified by the intensification of border
incidents with Israel that escalated into a succession of reprisals and
counterreprisals between Palestinian infiltrators and Israeli security forces.
The Arab Legion endeavored to secure the armistice line and prevent
infiltration, but its numbers were inadequate to provide complete and
continuous coverage of the border. In response to the terrorist attacks Israel
adopted the technique of massive retaliation and often went deep into
Jordanian territory (see Development and Disaster, this ch.).

     In 1953 and early 1954 an American plan for distribution of the Jordan
waters (the Eric Johnston plan) was tentatively accepted by Israel but,
although recognized as technically sound from an engineering standpoint, was
ultimately rejected by Jordan and the other Arab states concerned because it
would involve coordination with and at least the implied recognition of
Israel. In the stress of inter-Arab political relationships, it was
impracticable for Jordan to initiate a settlement with Israel, even if there
were strong incentives to do so.

     A new financial aid agreement was made with Britain in 1954 in which the
British evinced an interest in coordinating military and economic aid to
Jordan with Jordanian participation in the context of an overall Middle
Eastern defense system. In February 1955 Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan
joined Britain in signing the Baghdad Pact, which ultimately became the
Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). A high-ranking British military
delegation visited Amman to discuss conditions under which Jordan might also
become a participant. The purpose of the visit was generally known, and Arab
nationalist propaganda, especially from Palestinians and Radio Cairo, raised
a storm of protest denouncing the pact and the monarchy as "tools of Western
imperialism" and a "sellout to the Jews." In Decem