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--- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector- WASHINGTON - 11/7/1998:The day before traveling to the U.S. last month, there they were in Amman - Bibi Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon, and Crown Prince Hassan - parading before the cameras. And as he flew to the U.S. for the already ongoing talks at Wye River, Sharon didn't go right to the talks. Instead he headed out to the Mayo Clinic to get King Hussein's blessings first, to once again demonstrate to the world his cordial personal relations with the Hashemite dynasty, whose only remaining power base (after being thrown out of both [Saudi Arabia] and today's Iraq) is Amman, Jordan.
There was a time, not that long ago, that Sharon championed a Palestinian State -- one across the river, replacing the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Now Sharon has thrown in his lot with the Hashemites, promising them, so insiders say,
that there will be no real Palestinian State (no matter what terminology is used and no matter what declarations are made). At most there will be "autonomous" Palestinian [enclaves] surrounded by and controlled by Israel, with Jordan now serving as junior partner in the venture. No longer will Sharon recite the "Jordan is Palestine" mantra long associated with the Likud's Jabotinsky-esque ideological origins.
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Origins of the Hashemite dynasty:
In June 1916, Amir Hussein ibn Ali, Grand Sherif of Mecca since 1908, launched the Arab aspect of the Allies' war against the Ottoman Empire, as their contribution to World War Two and, more importantly, as the first phase in the Arab struggle for independence (in which they were initially happy to have British assistance).
In the course of this campaign, Amir Hussein came to style himself "King of the Arabs" in 1916 (which claim almost no one accepted) and as "King of the Hejaz" from 1916 to 1924 (which claim many Arabs questioned). With British assistance and promises of an Arab Kingdom to emerge from the war, Hussein and his sons Abdullah and Faisal conducted, a combination of a successful guerrilla war directed at Ottoman lines of communication and of a more tradirtional military campaign which resulted in the Arab capture of Mecca (June 1916), Al-Aqabah (July 1917), Daraa (September 1918), and Damascus (October 1918).
In July 1919, an Arab state was created in Syria (in "greater" Syria, comprising contemporary Lebanon and Palestine as well) with Hussein's son Faisal as king.
Faisal would later be overthrown as King of Syria by French armed intenvention and would eventually be placed on the Iraqi throne by the British.
Meanwhile, Faisal's brother Abdullah had been raising troops to secure his brother's throne in Damascus. With a force of over 2000 men, he marched north from Mecca, arriving in Amman, Jordan in March 1920, about the time Faisal ibn Hussein was named king in Damascus.
As the British had emerged from the San Remo Conference with a mandate to administer postwar Palestine (cis- and trans-Jordan Palestine), and as the British (and French) wished to discourage Abdullah from intevening to salvage his brother's Syrian claims, he was offered a throne of his own in Amman (and a subsidy from Britain to accompany it).
In March 1921, prewar "Palestine" was partitioned, with the Transjordan trerritories separated and placed under Amir Abdulla ibn Hussein's semi-autonomous authority.
By this time, Faisal ibn Hussein had been driven from Syria and negotiations were well underway to seat him on a new throne in Baghdad. There was, therefore, little to dissuade his brother from accepting the British offer of a throne in Transjordan on 1 April 1921.
With the two brothers ruling in Amman and Damascus and their father (and, later, brother Ali) contiuing to rule from Mecca (until 1925), the appearance loomed of a Hashemite Arab Kingdom similar to that discussed with Lord Kitchener and Sir Henry McMahon, although not with the unity envisioned before and during the war.
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On May 15, 1948, the day after the Jewish Agency proclaimed the independent state of Israel, and immediately after the British withdrew from their Palestine mandate, Transjordan joined its Arab neighbors in the first Arab- Israeli war. The Arab Legion, commanded by Glubb Pasha (John [later Sir John] Bagot Glubb), as well as Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, and Iraqi troops entered Palestine.
Abdullah's primary purpose, which he had spelled out in secret discussions with Jewish envoys, was to extend his rule to include the area allotted to the Palestinian Arabs under the United Nations partition resolution of November 1947. Accordingly, he engaged his forces in the area of Palestine known as the West Bank and expelled Jewish forces from East Jerusalem (the Old City).
When the Jordan- Israel armistice was signed on April 3, 1949, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - - an area of about 2,100 square miles - - came under Jordanian rule, and the half-million Transjordanians were joined by almost half a million more Palestinian Arabs. This territory was formally annexed by the kingdom in April 1950.
Israel and Britain had tacitly agreed to Abdullah keeping the area, but the Arab countries and most of the world opposed the king's action, and only Britain and Pakistan recognized the annexation.
The incorporation of the West Bank, with 400,000 Palestinians, into Jordan, as well as a large refugee population which was generally hostile to the Hashemite regime, brought with them severe economic and political consequences. On the other hand, Abdullah did gain the Muslim shrines such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Old City, which compensated for his father's loss of Mecca and Medina at the hands of Ibn Sa'ud a generation earlier.
Abdullah was assassinated at the al- Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on July 20, 1951, by a young Palestinian frustrated by the king's hostility to Palestinian nationalist aspirations.
...
The history of Jordan after 1953 was largely shaped by King Hussein's policies to secure his throne and to retain or regain the West Bank for the Hashemite dynasty. Jordan's relationship with Israel in the first decade of the Jewish state's existence, although uneasy, was tolerable, though bloody raids and acts of terrorism carried out by each side added to the tension.
The kingdom's involvement in the Palestinian question led as much to a contest with Egypt over Jordan's future as it did to a struggle with Israel. In particular, it repeatedly forced Jordan to walk a tightrope between various Arab nations, the Palestinians, and the West and Israel. Thus, popular demonstrations, especially in the West Bank, and pressure from Egypt prevented Hussein in 1955 from signing the pro-Western mutual defense treaty between Great Britain, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq known as the Baghdad Pact, which he had helped initiate.
When members of the [Jordanian] National Guard --[Palestinians] drawn mainly from the West Bank-- attempted a coup d'�tat in 1957, the king acted decisively to curb domestic unrest; he purged the legislature of Palestinian nationalists and extremists, banned political parties, and set up a royal dictatorship.
After Egypt and Syria merged in February 1958, establishing the United Arab Republic (UAR; 1958- 61), Hussein was persuaded by his cousin King Faysal II to join in a federal union with Iraq as well.
In July 1958, however, Faysal and his family were killed in an army coup coordinated by Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt. Hussein, realizing his regime was under threat, turned to Great Britain and the United States for assistance. Washington agreed to provide additional military as well as economic aid. The British government, eager to see the pro-Western Hussein secure in Jordan, stationed British paratroops in the country. This thwarted any further attempt by anti-Hashemite Palestinians supported by Nasser to overthrow the monarchy.
By the early 1960s the United States was providing about $100 million per year, enabling economic development, and, despite a number of assassination attempts, the king's future appeared secure.
THE PLO AND THE JUNE 1967 WAR
The emergence in the 1960s of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the militant group al- Fatah was a potential threat to Jordan's [claim to] the West Bank as well as a threat to Israel.
In 1965 al- Fatah, supported by the radical Ba'ath Party government in Syria and encouraged by Egypt, began a series of raids against Israel, generally from Jordan, inflicting serious casualties and damage. Israel responded with raids into the West Bank in an effort to force Jordan to quash these military operations. Relations between Jordan and Syria and Egypt and between the Palestinians and Amman deteriorated.
Privately, Hussein had sought an understanding with Israel over an approach to the external and internal dangers facing the two countries. On his side, Hussein attempted to stop the passage of Syrian-based Palestinian guerrillas through Jordan into Israel, eventually breaking off diplomatic ties with Syria (May 23, 1967).
However, as tension mounted between Israel and Egypt and Syria in the spring of 1967, Jordan reversed its position and signed a defense pact with Egypt and Syria, placing Jordanian forces under Egyptian command.
Despite assurances from Israel that Jordan would not be attacked if it remained neutral, Israeli and Jordanian forces clashed in East Jerusalem, and King Hussein joined Egypt and Syria in the third Arab- Israel war in June 1967.
The June 1967 war was a watershed in the modern history of Jordan. Within 48 hours Israeli forces had overrun the entire territory west of the Jordan River, capturing Bethlehem, Hebron, Jericho, Nablus, Ram Allah, Janin, and the city of Jerusalem. Jordan suffered heavy casualties and lost one- third of its most fertile land, and its already overburdened economy was faced with supporting some 200,000 new refugees. Hussein had regarded entering the war [against Israel] as the lesser of two evils; he believed that, if he had not joined Egypt and Syria, they would have supported the Palestinians in overthrowing his regime. The loss of the West Bank and Jerusalem, devastating as it was, was preferable to the loss of his kingdom.
Despite the fact that an Arab summit meeting held in Khartoum in August 1967 passed the "three no's" resolution - -no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel-- King Hussein resumed his secret negotiations with Israel over the disposition of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Relations with Israel were thus inseparably linked to the future of the Palestinians.
While privately willing to recognize the state of Israel and to cooperate with it across a wide range of issues, Hussein unrealistically sought the return of all the [Palestinian] territory lost to Jordanian rule, so he was not prepared to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state. The two nations were no longer enemies, and cooperated against PLO terrorism, but there was little progress toward a lasting peace.
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