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Jordan HASHEMITE KINGDOM OF JORDAN
The population of Transjordan before the war was about 340,000.
As a result of the war, about 500,000 Palestinian Arabs took refuge
in Transjordan or in the West Bank. Most of these people had to be
accommodated in refugee camps, which were administered under the
auspices of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East, 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 he directed that the official name of the country--
East Bank and West Bank--be changed to the Hashemite Kingdom of
Jordan, a name found in the 1946 constitution but not until then in
common use. In April 1950, elections were held in both the East
Bank and the West Bank. Abdullah considered the results favorable,
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 Hashimite dynastic ambitions.
Abdullah continued to search for a long-term, peaceful solution
with Israel, although for religious and security reasons he did not
favor the immediate internationalization of Jerusalem. He found
support for this position only from Hashimite 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 following 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,
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
Hajj Amin al Husayni, a former mufti of Jerusalem and a bitter
enemy of Abdullah, who had spent World War II in Germany as a proNazi 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 so that the
succession might then pass more easily to Talal's son, Hussein.
Accordingly, the government invited Talal to return and assume the
duties of king. During his short reign, Talal 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 Britain, 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.
Data as of December 1989
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