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Jordan Palestinians
Jordanians tended to refer to Palestinians as persons who fled
or were driven from Palestine during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948
and the June 1967 War. Some immigrants from Palestine who had
entered Jordan in preceding centuries, however, were so thoroughly
integrated into the local society as to be indistinguishable from
their neighbors. The Majalis, for more than a century the leading
tribe in Al Karak area, came originally from Hebron. For political
and social purposes, they and others like them were considered
Jordanians. Other Palestinians from Hebron, who came to Al Karak as
merchants well before 1948, remained to a considerable degree
outsiders, for the most part taking their spouses from the Hebron
area and maintaining economic and other ties there.
Al Karak is not representative of the impact of Palestinians on
East Bank society and culture. In 1948 the population of the East
Bank was about 340,000. The 1950 annexation of the West Bank
increased the population by about 900,000. This increase included
the West Bank population itself (around 400,000 to 450,000) and
about 450,000 refugees from those areas of Palestine that became
Israel in 1948. In addition, many thousands of Palestinians not
classified as refugees entered Jordan after 1948. As a result of
the June 1967 War, in 1967 an additional 250,000 to 300,000 West
Bank Palestinians entered Jordan as refugees.
Most of the refugees, inside and outside refugee camps,
continued to live in Amman and areas to the north. In 1986 UNRWA
reported that 826,128 Palestinians were registered as refugees in
the East Bank; of these, nearly one-fourth resided in camps. Many
other refugees lived on the fringes of the economy in urban areas.
A substantial number of Palestinians had the kind of education
and entrepreneurial capacity that enabled them to achieve
substantial economic status. A few brought some of their wealth
from Palestine. Some became large landowners or businessmen,
whereas others became professionals or technicians. A number worked
for the government, often in posts requiring prior training. Many
Palestinians were merchants on a small or medium scale, craftsmen
or skilled workers, or peasants.
Whatever the social or economic status of Palestinians in the
East Bank, their sense of national identity had aroused much
debate. Such identity depended on international and regional
political developments with respect to the Palestine question, the
interests of Palestinians themselves on the East Bank, and the
balancing act of the government between East Bank Jordanians and
those of Palestinian origin. One observer indicated that the regime
had an interest in perpetuating the idea of a Palestinian majority
so that East Bank Jordanians would continue to perceive Hussein as
ensuring their interests and that of the East Bank.
An autonomous Palestinian political identity did not begin to
assert itself until the mid-1960s. In the 1950s, no political
organization existed around which a specifically Palestinian
identity could be articulated. Pan-Arabism was a dominant mode of
political expression, and the Hashimite regime strongly promoted
Jordanian sovereignty over Palestinian affairs and identity.
Nevertheless, and in spite of a security apparatus that kept a
close watch on political affairs, Palestinian national identity
emerged and grew. The loss of the West Bank in 1967 and the
repressive Israeli occupation contributed to nationalist
sentiments, as did the Jordanian government's repression of
opposition political movements. The rise in the mid-1960s of the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its international
recognition furthered this nationalist climate. The PLO offered an
organizational format to Palestinian political identity separate
from a Jordanian identity. The 1970-71 war between the fedayeen
(Arab guerrillas) and the Jordanian government and the 1974 Rabat
Summit further enhanced Palestinian nationalist sentiment
(see Jordan -
The Palestinians and the Palestine Liberation Organization
, ch. 4).
Wide divergences in political identity and sentiment existed
among the Palestinians in the East Bank. Factors influencing a
person's identity included the date of arrival in the East Bank,
whether the person was a refugee or lived in a camp, and the degree
of the person's economic success. The merchants and professionals
who came prior to 1948 generally identified closely with the East
Bank. Refugees who came in 1948 but who did not reside in the camps
and were government employees or successful professionals or
businesspeople tended to be tacit supporters of the regime and to
invest heavily in homes and businesses. More militant were the
refugees who arrived in the wake of the June 1967 War, including
those refugees who were not living in camps. Persons residing in
the camps tended to be the most militant. They were the poorest and
had the least stake in the survival of the Hashimite regime.
Socioeconomic and political events in the late 1980s converged
to fuel growing frustration with East Bank political policies. The
reduced flow of remittances to Jordan from expatriate workers in
the oil-producing states was a source of anxiety for the regime.
For refugees living in the camps and for urban squatters, the
economic downturn led to greater poverty, compounded by the high
unemployment rate in the East Bank.
The Palestinian uprising (intifadah) in the occupied
territories caused the Hashimite regime concern. The continuation
of the uprising and the occupation seemed likely to radicalize less
prosperous Palestinians in the East Bank.
Data as of December 1989
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