Deconstructing
The Jordan Option
By Osamah Khalil
14 August, 2007
The
Electronic Intifada
Last
month the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the US and Israel
were considering a revival of the "Jordan option." In spite
of the fervent denials emanating from Amman, the report caused a rash
of speculation and concern among Palestinians. Many fear that if implemented
it would mark the end of hopes for an independent Palestinian state.
Resurrecting the Jordan option,
in which the West Bank and possibly Gaza would be united in a political
and economic confederation with Jordan, demonstrates not just the poverty
of ideas in Washington and Israel, but their desperation as well. Perhaps
the allies believe that by trapping the Palestinians between the "rock"
of Israel's apartheid wall and the "hard place" of Jordan's
vaunted Arab Legion and dreaded Mukhabarat intelligence service, they
will extinguish Palestinian nationalism. However, they and whichever
Arab leaders agree to such a policy are sadly mistaken. If history is
any guide, the Hashemite regime has more to fear from such a confederation
than the Palestinians.
Initially proposed as a response
to the outbreak of the "Great Arab Revolt" against the British
Mandate in 1936, a confederation with Jordan has consistently been used
by the global and regional powers as a mechanism to punish Palestinian
political activity and reward loyal clients. The Peel Partition Plan
called for the creation of a small Jewish state in northern Palestine
and for an Arab state united with Transjordan under the rule of the
first King Abdullah, who until his death remained a willing British
tool. This plan was soundly rejected by the Palestinian Arab leadership,
who objected to the partition of Palestine, the leadership of Abdullah,
and the proposed population transfer of roughly 225,000 Palestinians
from the territory allotted for the Jewish state.
A decade later the United
Nations' Partition Plan for Palestine appeared to abandon some of the
earlier provisions. However, Britain secretly coordinated with Transjordan
to seize the areas designated by the UN for an Arab state. This arrangement
was ensured in a tacit agreement between King Abdullah and the Zionist
leadership in Palestine as detailed in Avi Shlaim's Collusion Across
the Jordan. Known as the "Greater Transjordan Plan," this
policy advocated the annexation of central Palestine (now known as the
West Bank) by Transjordan. Fearing that a Palestinian state would be
led by Hajj Amin Husseini and become a source of radical nationalism
and irredentism leading to continual conflict in the region, the Anglo-American
allies believed the Greater Transjordan Plan offered the best chance
of achieving peace and stability.
In the aftermath of the Nakba,
with Palestinian society shattered and more than half of its indigenous
population refugees, including over 300,000 in the West Bank and Jordan
alone, Abdullah gained acceptance for his rule in a sham conference
led by the representatives of his allies in the Palestinian National
Defense Party. The combined territories were officially renamed the
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1950, and received de jure recognition
by London and private approval from Washington. A year later Abdullah
was assassinated by a Palestinian at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque in front
of his grandson, and later king, Hussein.
Within a decade the Palestinian
national movement reemerged, inspired by the Algerian revolution and
the broader trend of Arab nationalism as espoused by Egyptian President
Gamal Abdel Nasser. After the June 1967 War, as Arab regimes across
the political spectrum were discredited with their publics and the West
Bank, Gaza, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights were occupied by Israel,
it was the Palestinian resistance which stood as the symbol of Arab
hopes and aspirations across the region. Although the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) was recognized by the Arab League and the UN as the
"sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people"
by 1974, a possible confederation with Jordan was kept alive by American,
Israeli, and Jordanian leaders, in order to quell Palestinian demands
for self-determination. The outbreak of the first intifada and King
Hussein's subsequent declaration renouncing his claim to the West Bank
appeared to finally end the possibility of the Jordan option. Or so
it seemed.
As if any further evidence
was required, reviving the notion of a confederation with Jordan reveals
how shallow and hollow the Bush doctrine's call for "democratizing
the Middle East" truly is. Its vision of a "new Middle East"
a shambles, Washington has once again embraced "stability"
over representative government by bolstering the conservative Arab regimes
with increased military and financial aid. While King Abdullah II and
others may believe that by tightening Jordan's relationship with, and
dependency upon, Washington it will ensure the security of the regime,
they conveniently forget that American support is no guarantee of success.
One need look no further than Ahmed Chalabi's aborted bid to become
President of a "free Iraq" with Washington's assistance, or
for that matter how the appointed and elected Iraqi governments have
fared since the American occupation began. Nor has history been kind
to families that have opted for corruption, opulence, and subservience
over the needs of their populations: the Diems, Pahlavis, and Somozas.
Indeed, this fate should
already be familiar to the Hashemites, who should remember how their
cousins' British-imposed monarchy in Iraq ended in 1958. However, the
Hashemites are not just an elite clique, they are a minority regime
that is increasingly distant from the population within its boundaries.
Over 50 percent of Jordan's 6 million people are Palestinians, most
of whom are refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars. Jordan has also been
forced to contend with a recent refugee influx of roughly 750,000 Iraqis.
Moreover, the regime is dependent upon US foreign aid and subsidies
from the Arab oil states to remain solvent. Incorporating Palestine
into such a scenario, with the embers of the second intifada still smoldering,
an emboldened Hamas, and a disintegrating Iraq, will result not in smothering
Palestinian national aspirations, but in encouraging them.
America's increasing reliance
on conservative Arab regimes is exemplified by its relationship with
the Jordanian military and intelligence apparatus. As Joseph Massad
illustrates in Colonial Effects, the Arab Legion has served as the backbone
of Jordanian national identity. It has also been the blunt instrument
through which Britain and the US have suppressed movements they deemed
"radical" in the Middle East, including the Great Arab Revolt
(1936-1939) and the PLO (September 1970). More recently, the Arab Legion
and Mukhabarat have also proven to be a reliable, if not necessarily
adept, outsourcing service for Washington. In the US' "War on Terror,"
Jordan has become one of several sites where terror suspects and "high
value detainees" are subject to "extraordinary rendition,"
a bland euphemism for interrogation and torture by the Mukhabarat so
Americans don't sully their hands. While in Iraq, The New Yorker magazine
recently reported that Iraqi workers and translators in the "Green
Zone" are now considered a potential security threat and have been
replaced with Jordanians. Moreover, in the past few years, Jordan has
helped to train Mohammad Dahlan's militia in Gaza and elements of the
Lebanese army. Considering how poorly both have fared recently, this
is hardly evidence of Jordan's training prowess. Although the Lebanese
army, like the Arab Legion, has displayed a particular aptitude in the
indiscriminate shelling of a densely populated civilian area, demonstrating
yet again that the armies of the Arab states are intended primarily
for internal population suppression and military parades.
The first King Abdullah was
contemptuously known as "Bevin's Little King" due to his diminutive
stature and obsequiousness to British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin.
Unlike his great-grandfather, Abdullah II is not content tying his fortunes
to a single individual or administration. Rather, like his father, he
is determined to be America's Little King, and in the process make Jordan
and himself indispensable to Washington's plans for the Middle East.
Perhaps like his predecessors, King Abdullah II believes that absorbing
Palestine will not only make Jordan more viable economically, but will
further ingratiate him to American and Israeli policy makers. Yet, in
an increasingly unstable region, it is questionable how long Amman will
be able to support the US' disastrous policies and maintain control
over its own population. What is apparent, however, is that should the
Hashemite regime attempt to swallow Palestine again, they do so at their
own peril.
Osamah Khalil
is a Palestinian-American doctoral candidate in US and Middle East History
at the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on US foreign policy
in the Middle East. He can be reached at [email protected].
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