The
many documents that have been declassified since the Six-Day War —
which began on this date 45 years ago — offer new insight into what took
place on the Jordanian front. In a nutshell (and as detailed in my
book, "The Political Legacy of King Hussein"), the results of the war
demonstrate that Jordan's participation was part of a calculated gamble
by one of the greatest leaders this region has ever known. As far as
King Hussein was concerned, the West Bank's population had become a
burden. He had hoped that ongoing contact with Israel — to the point of
maintaining a covert, but genuine, peace — would guarantee the continued
existence of the Hashemite Kingdom, while effectively transferring
responsibility for the Palestinians to Israel, making it their problem
to solve.
In
December 1966, King Hussein — who had ascended to the throne in 1953 —
concluded that the growing disparities between the eastern bank of the
Jordan River, with its Bedouin and Transjordanian residents, and the
largely Palestinian West Bank were getting increasingly worse. The
latter had become the proxy of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and
Syria's rulers. Under their orders, Palestinian terrorist cells from
Jordan would stage attacks inside Israel, hoping they would provoke an
Israeli retaliation that would topple the Hashemites, who had become
their archenemy.
When
Syria and Egypt signed a mutual defense treaty in late 1966, they said
the move was designed facilitate a war with Israel; the pact's unstated
objective was to topple the Jordanian monarchy and replace it with a
republican regime.
In
light of these unfolding regional developments, King Hussein wisely
predicted a large-scale war between the Arab states and Israel within
six months (June 1967) and believed that Israel would capture of most of
the Sinai Peninsula but would not make any territorial gains on the
Syrian front. Most important, he expected Jordan's West Bank, in its
entirety, to fall into Israeli hands. Such an outcome would free King
Hussein of any responsibility over the welfare of the Palestinians in
these parts, and would make it easier for both Israel and Jordan to
reach mutual understandings that could further develop their covert
relations, in an effort to contend with shared regional enemies.
The
king's plan succeeded beyond his wildest dreams; in a slow and prudent
diplomatic maneuver, he led Jordanian foreign policy through successive
phases that culminated in the complete and final disengagement from the
West Bank in 1988.
To
Jordan's detriment, it took only four days for Israel to capture the
West Bank, resulting in long-term damage to Hashemite interests: The
king and his family lost Jerusalem to Israel; King Hussein was denied
the foothold he had on the Temple Mount when Defense Minister Moshe
Dayan unilaterally decided to hand over control over to Islamic forces
(although some were pro-Jordanian). This created a void that,
unfortunately for Israel and Jordan, has since been filled by forces
hostile to both nations.
The writer is director of The Middle East Research Center at the Ariel University Center of Samaria.
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