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Jordan The Guerrilla Crisis
In the wake of the June 1967 War, Hussein's government faced
the critical problems of repairing a shattered economy, providing
for the welfare of the refugees, obtaining external aid,
readjusting foreign policy, and rebuilding the armed forces.
Internally, however, the major problem was the continuing
confrontation with the several Palestinian guerrilla organizations.
The Arab League heads of state met in Khartoum at the end of
August 1967. The conference reached four major decisions generally
considered to represent the views of Arab moderates: resumption of
oil production, which some oil-producing states had suspended
during the war; continued nonrecognition of and nonnegotiation with
Israel, individually and collectively; continued closure of the
Suez Canal and the elimination of all foreign military bases in
Arab territory; and provision of financial subsidies aid to Egypt
and Jordan by Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Kuwait. The total annual
subsidy promised for the indefinite future amounted to the
equivalent of US$378 million, of which Jordan was to receive about
US$112 million. Donor states at first regularly paid their shares
in quarterly installments, but Libya and Kuwait withdrew their
support to Jordan during the 1970-71 war between the Jordanian
government and the fedayeen.
In addition to the Khartoum subsidies, Jordan also received
grants from Qatar, and the shaykhdom of Abu Dhabi, and a special
grant of US$42 million from Saudi Arabia for arms purchases. Aid
also came from Britain and West Germany, with whom Jordan had
resumed relations. Although direct United States aid had been
terminated, substantial long-term government loans were extended to
Jordan for emergency relief, development, and military assistance.
In February 1968, the United States resumed arms shipments to
Jordan. Jordan narrowly averted financial disaster.
After months of diplomatic wrangling, on November 22, 1967, the
UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242 as a guideline for a
Middle East settlement. The principal provisions of the resolution
proclaimed the inadmissibility of territorial acquisition by war;
withdrawal of Israeli forces from areas occupied in the June 1967
War; termination of all states of belligerency; acknowledgment of
the sovereignty of all states in the area--including Israel--within
secure and recognized boundaries; freedom of navigation on all
international waterways in the area; and a just settlement of the
refugee problem. Jordan, Egypt, and Israel all accepted this
resolution in principle but each country interpreted it differently
(see Jordan -
Relations with the Arab States
, ch. 4).
King Hussein has been the most consistent advocate of UN
Resolution 242. He viewed it as the most viable means by which the
Palestinian problem could be resolved while also preserving an
important Jordanian role in the West Bank.
The intractability of the Palestinian problem has been due in
large part to the widely differing perspectives that evolved after
the June 1967 War. For the Israelis, in the midst of the
nationalist euphoria that followed the war, talk of exchanging
newly captured territories for peace had little public appeal. The
government of Levi Eshkol followed a two-track policy with respect
to the territories that would continue under future Labor Party
governments: on the one hand, it stated a willingness to negotiate,
while on the other, it laid plans to create Jewish settlements in
the disputed territories. Thus, immediately following the war,
Eshkol stated that he was willing to negotiate "everything" for a
full peace, which would include free passage through the Suez Canal
and the Strait of Tiran and a solution to the refugee problem in
the context of regional cooperation. This was followed in November
1967 with his acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 242. At
the same time, Eshkol's government announced plans for the
resettlement of the Old City of Jerusalem, of the Etzion Bloc
(kibbutzim on the Bethlehem-Hebron road wiped out by Palestinians
in the 1948-49 War), and for kibbutzim in the northern sector of
the Golan Heights. Plans also were unveiled for new neighborhoods
around Jerusalem, near the old buildings of Hebrew University and
near the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus.
The 1967 defeat radicalized the Palestinians, who had looked to
the Arab countries to defeat first the Yishuv (the Jewish community
of Palestine before 1948), and after 1948 the State of Israel, so
that they could regain their homeland. The PLO had no role in the
June 1967 War. After the succession of Arab failures in
conventional warfare against Israel, however, the Palestinians
decided to adopt guerrilla warfare tactics as the most effective
method of attacking and defeating Israel. In February 1969, Arafat
(who remained the leader of Al Fatah) became head of the PLO. By
early 1970, at least seven guerrilla organizations were identified
in Jordan. One of the most important organizations was the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) led by George Habash.
Although the PLO sought to integrate these various groups and
announced from time to time that this process had occurred, they
were never effectively united
(see Jordan -
The Palestinians and the Palestine Liberation Organization
, ch. 4).
At first by conviction and then by political necessity, Hussein
sought accommodation with the fedayeen and provided training sites
and assistance. In Jordan's internal politics, however, the main
issue between 1967 and 1971 was the struggle between the government
and the guerrilla organizations for political control of the
country. Based in the refugee camps, the fedayeen virtually
developed a state within a state, easily obtaining funds and arms
from both the Arab states and Eastern Europe and openly flouting
Jordanian law.
As the guerrilla effort mounted, Israel retaliated quickly and
with increasing effectiveness. In March 1968, an Israeli brigade
attacked the Jordanian village of Al Karamah, said to be the
guerrilla capital. Although the brigade inflicted damage, it was
driven back and in the process suffered substantial losses. The
incident boosted Palestinian morale and gave the PLO instant
prestige within the Arab community. In reprisal, Israel launched
heavy attacks on Irbid in June 1968 and on As Salt in August. It
soon became obvious to the PLO that the generally open terrain of
the West Bank did not provide the kind of cover needed for classic
guerrilla operations. Moreover, the Palestinian population residing
in the territories had not formed any significant armed resistance
against the Israeli occupation. By late 1968, the main fedayeen
activities in Jordan seemed to shift from fighting Israel to
attempts to overthrow Hussein.
A major guerrilla-government confrontation occurred in November
1968 when the government sought to disarm the refugee camps, but
civil war was averted by a compromise that favored the
Palestinians. The threat to Hussein's authority and the heavy
Israeli reprisals that followed each guerrilla attack became a
matter of grave concern to the King. His loyal beduin army
attempted to suppress guerrilla activity, which led to sporadic
outbursts of fighting between the fedayeen and the army during the
first half of 1970. In June 1970, an Arab mediation committee
intervened to halt two weeks of serious fighting between the two
sides.
In June Hussein designated Abd al Munim Rifai to head a
"reconciliation" cabinet that included more opposition elements
than any other government since that of Nabulsi in 1957. Although
the composition of the cabinet maintained a traditional balance
between the East Bank and the West Bank, it included a majority of
guerrilla sympathizers, particularly in the key portfolios of
defense, foreign affairs, and interior. But the king's action did
not reflect a new domestic policy; rather, it indicated Hussein's
hope that a nationalist cabinet would support peace negotiations
generated by a proposed UN peace mission to be conducted by Gunnar
Jarring. On June 9, 1970, Rifai and Arafat signed an agreement
conciliatory to the fedayeen. According to its provisions, the
government allowed the commandos freedom of movement within Jordan,
agreed to refrain from antiguerrilla action, and expressed its
support for the fedayeen in the battle against Israel. In return,
the commandos pledged to remove their bases from Amman and other
major cities, to withdraw armed personnel from the Jordanian
capital, and to show respect for law and order.
Small-scale clashes continued throughout the summer of 1970,
however; and by early September, the guerrilla groups controlled
several strategic positions in Jordan, including the oil refinery
near Az Zarqa. Meanwhile, the fedayeen were also calling for a
general strike of the Jordanian population and were organizing a
civil disobedience campaign. The situation became explosive when,
as part of a guerrilla campaign to undermine the Jarring peace
talks to which Egypt, Israel, and Jordan had agreed, the PFLP
launched an airplane hijacking campaign.
Within the space of two hours on September 6, PFLP gangs
hijacked a TWA jet, a Swissair jet, and made an unsuccessful
attempt to seize control of an El Al airplane. About two hours
later, another PFLP group hijacked a Pan Am jet and forced the crew
to fly to Beirut airport, where the airplane landed almost out of
fuel. The next day the airliner was flown to the Cairo airport,
where it was blown up only seconds after the 176 passengers and
crew had completed their three-minute forced evacuation.
King Hussein viewed the hijackings as a direct threat to his
authority in Jordan. In response, on September 16 he reaffirmed
martial law and named Brigadier Muhammad Daud to head a cabinet
composed of army officers. At the same time, the king appointed
Field Marshal Habis al Majali, a fiercely proroyalist beduin,
commander in chief of the armed forces and military governor of
Jordan. Hussein gave Majali full powers to implement the martial
law regulations and to quell the fedayeen. The new government
immediately ordered the fedayeen to lay down their arms and to
evacuate the cities. On the same day, Arafat became supreme
commander of the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA), the regular
military force of the PLO.
During a bitterly fought ten-day civil war, primarily between
the PLA and Jordan Arab Army, Syria sent about 200 tanks to aid the
fedayeen. On September 17, however, Iraq began a rapid withdrawal
of its 12,000-man force stationed near Az Zarqa. The United States
Navy dispatched the Sixth Fleet to the eastern Mediterranean, and
Israel undertook "precautionary military deployments" to aid
Hussein, if necessary, against the guerrilla forces. Under attack
from the Jordanian army and in response to outside pressures, the
Syrian forces began to withdraw from Jordan on September 24, having
lost more than half their armor in fighting with the Jordanians.
The fedayeen found themselves on the defensive throughout Jordan
and agreed on September 25 to a cease-fire. At the urging of the
Arab heads of state, Hussein and Arafat signed the cease-fire
agreement in Cairo on September 27. The agreement called for rapid
withdrawal of the guerrilla forces from Jordanian cities and towns
to positions "appropriate" for continuing the battle with Israel
and for the release of prisoners by both sides. A supreme
supervisory committee was to implement the provisions of the
agreement. On September 26, Hussein appointed a new cabinet;
however, army officers continued to head the key defense and
interior ministries.
On October 13, Hussein and Arafat signed a further agreement in
Amman, under which the fedayeen were to recognize Jordanian
sovereignty and the king's authority, to withdraw their armed
forces from towns and villages, and to refrain from carrying arms
outside their camps. In return the government agreed to grant
amnesty to the fedayeen for incidents that had occurred during the
civil war.
The civil war caused great material destruction in Jordan, and
the number of fighters killed on all sides was estimated as high as
3,500. In spite of the September and October agreements, fighting
continued, particularly in Amman, Irbid, and Jarash, where
guerrilla forces had their main bases. Hussein appointed Wasfi at
Tal as his new prime minister and minister of defense to head a
cabinet of fifteen civilian and two military members. The cabinet
also included seven Palestinians. Tal, known to be a staunch
opponent of the guerrilla movement, was directed by Hussein to
comply with the cease-fire agreements; furthermore, according to
Hussein's written directive, the government's policy was to be
based on "the restoration of confidence between the Jordanian
authorities and the Palestinian resistance movement, cooperation
with the Arab states, the strengthening of national unity, striking
with an iron hand at all persons spreading destructive rumors,
paying special attention to the armed forces and the freeing of the
Arab lands occupied by Israel in the war of June 1967." The closing
months of 1970 and the first six months of 1971 were marked by a
series of broken agreements and by continued battles between the
guerrilla forces and the Jordanian army, which continued its drive
to oust the fedayeen from the populated areas.
Persistent pressure by the army compelled the fedayeen to
withdraw from Amman in April 1971. Feeling its existence
threatened, Al Fatah abandoned its earlier posture of
noninvolvement in the internal affairs of an Arab state and issued
a statement demanding the overthrow of the Jordanian "puppet
separatist authority." In a subsequent early May statement, it
called for "national rule" in Jordan. Against this background of
threats to his authority, Hussein struck at the remaining guerrilla
forces in Jordan.
In response to rumors that the PLO was planning to form a
government-in-exile, Hussein in early June directed Tal to "deal
conclusively and without hesitation with the plotters who want to
establish a separate Palestinian state and destroy the unity of the
Jordanian and Palestinian people." On July 13, the Jordanian army
undertook an offensive against fedayeen bases about fifty
kilometers northwest of Amman in the Ajlun area--the fedayeen's
last stronghold. Tal announced that the Cairo and Amman agreements,
which had regulated relations between the fedayeen and the
Jordanian governments, were no longer operative. On July 19, the
government announced that the remainder of the bases in northern
Jordan had been destroyed and that 2,300 of the 2,500 fedayeen had
been arrested. A few days later, many of the captured Palestinians
were released either to leave for other Arab countries or to return
to a peaceful life in Jordan. Hussein became virtually isolated
from the rest of the Arab world, which accused him of harsh
treatment of the fedayeen and denounced him as being responsible
for the deaths of so many of his fellow Arabs.
In November members of the Black September terrorist group--who
took their name from the civil war of September 1970--avenged the
deaths of fellow fedayeen by assassinating Prime Minister Tal in
Cairo. In December the group again struck out against Hussein in an
unsuccessful attempt on the life of the Jordanian ambassador to
Britain. Hussein alleged that Libya's Colonel Muammar al Qadhafi
was involved in a plot to overthrow the monarchy.
In March 1973, Jordanian courts convicted seventeen Black
September fedayeen charged with plotting to kidnap the prime
minister and other cabinet ministers and to hold them hostage in
exchange for the release of a few hundred fedayeen captured during
the civil war. Hussein subsequently commuted the death sentences to
life imprisonment "for humanitarian reasons" and, in response to
outside Arab pressures, in September released the prisoners--
including their leader Muhammad Daud Auda (also known as Abu Daud)-
-under a general amnesty.
Data as of December 1989
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