Why Hussein dropped claim to West Bank

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The Palestinian uprising on the West Bank is now extending into Jordan.

New Socialist Action pamphlets Now Available in Expanded Book Form Price: $7.95 plus $1.00 postage. Order from Veritas Press, P.O. Box 90609, Santa Barbara, CA 93190-0609 SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 1988 The rebellion in Palestine has breached the sanctified "Green Line," which represents the boundary separating that part of Palestine occupied since 1967 from the territory occupied in 1948. The generalization of the uprising within Palestine has led to its extension to Jordan, confirming the worst fears of U.S. policy makers.

Charles P. Wallace sounded the alarm in The Los Angeles Times (July 24) with a lead ominous in its implications for the Hashemite regime of King Hussein. "Friction," Wallace wrote, "between East Bank Arabs and Palestinians tests Hussein."

Wallace's story detailed the extent to which the regime of King Hussein is reeling from the uncontainable impact of the Intifada, the Palestinian uprising, resulting in "a deep sense of unease in the country." [See accompanying story on the crisis of the Jordanian regime.] Tensions between the regime and the Palestinian population are assessed by Wallace as "higher than they have been in decades" at a time when "throughout the Arab world, sympathy for the Palestinians is at an all-time high."

Wallace reveals, however, that the universal hatred of Palestinians in and out of Jordan for the Hashemite Kingdom is but part of the problem.

"Perhaps the most significant concern for the Jordanian king, who has reigned for 35 years, is a sudden spate of reports from Israel and from supporters of the Jewish state suggesting that Jordan is increasingly viewed as a possible homeland for Palestinians now living under Israeli occupation."

This plan has been attributed by the established press to supposedly marginal groups such as the openly fascist movement of Rabbi Meir Kahane and his Kach party. The reality, however, is different.

A longstanding plan Since the start of the Palestinian uprising, discussion of the so-called transfer option—in effect the deportation of all or most of the West Bank's 750,000 Arab residents-has reached a serious stage. According to Western diplomats, such talk has left the Jordanians deeply fearful.

The Israeli government, faced with the deepening revolution of the Palestinian people, is preparing a new adventure.

Writing in The Washington Post (Feb. 7, 1988), Israeli writers Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv, reveal the longstanding Zionist plans to "transfer" or "resettle" the entire Palestinian population. [For greater detail on this plan, see article titled "Israel's answer to Uprising: 'Expel the Palestinians,'' in the July issue of Socialist Action.] What emerges from the article on the DDEN HISTORY ZIONISM Ralph Schoenn front page of The Washington Post is that public opinion is to be prepared for Israeli plans once again to drive out the people of Palestine. Now, however, the rationale for this brutal plan, which can only be implemented under the cover of another war, will be the resistance by the Palestinians themselves to their intended fate. Melman and Raviv conclude with the following prognosis: "Kahane's message expel the Palestinians or risk losing Jewish control of the land of Israel-remains a potent one. And in the absence of a political solution to the Palestinian problem, Israel may be pushed [sic] toward such desperate measures."

Hussein surrenders claims This then is the setting for King Hussein's dramatic speech of July 31, in which he announced that he was surrendering to the Palestine Liberation Indispensable" -Rabbi Elmer Berger "Timely and revealing"

- Muhammed Hallaj Editor, Palestine Perspectives shatters four overriding myths which have shaped the consciousness of most people in this society about Zionism and the state of Israel. Organization (P.L.O.) claims to the Israelioccupied West Bank the Hashemite family had ruled between 1948 and 1967.

King Hussein's grandfather, King Abdullah, had been installed in the territory called Trans-Jordan by British imperialism, a land carved out of Eastern Palestine and Saudi Arabia.

After the Israeli state was declared on the land of Palestine in 1948—and nearly 90 percent of Palestinian towns and villages were razed to the ground by Zionist shock troops, forcing 85 percent of the Palestinians to flee-King Abdullah, in a secret pact with David Ben Gurion and other Zionist leaders, seized the West Bank and added it to the usurped territory of the Trans-Jordan.

Even without the West Bank, over 60 percent of the population of Trans Jordan is Palestinian. The Hashemite Kingdom, no less than Israel, has usurped Palestinian Lessons of Working Class Defeats An Analysis of the Popular Fronts in Spain, Chile and Peru To order and for list of 16 other Socialist Action pamphlets, write to:

3435 Army St., Rm. 308, SF, CA 94110 sovereignty. This is the rationale for the increasingly favored Zionist scheme to expel the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to the East Bank, a resort to which the dependent Arab regimes of the region are giving tacit consent. "Jordan is not Palestine," the King added in a rebuff to both Israeli rightists and Jordanian radicals who might call for a Palestinian homeland on his land.

Thus, King Hussein has sought to force the hand of his masters. "The independent Palestinian state," he declared, "will be established on the occupied Palestinian land."

Ensuring Jordan's stability The two objectives of the Hashemite king are, therefore, to prevent abandonment of his regime through the expulsion of the Palestinians from the West Bank and Israel to Jordan and, simultaneously, to make Stock Market Crash: Its Meaning for Working People' and Lynn Henderson ($1.50) 'Philippines: Reform or Revolution?

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Economic crisis grips Jordan Lebanon Syria Haifa dereeth Tel Aviv asalem GRIZA BARAsi eba ESTINE BEFORE 1947 Egypt Trans- Egypt jordan clear that he will use brute force against the Palestinian population, who already comprise two-thirds of Jordan.

Hussein stated:

"National unity is precious in any country, but in Jordan it is more than that. It is the basis of our stability. Safeguarding national unity is a sacred duty that will not be compromised."

At the same time, Hussein dissolved the lower House of Jordan's parliament, which gave nominal representation to figures from the West Bank. Hussein set forth his purpose:

"It has to be understood in all clarity, and without any ambiguity or equivocation that our measures regarding the West Bank concern only the occupied Palestinian land and its people. They naturally do not relate in any way to the Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan."

An editorial in The New York Times summed up the meaning of Hussein's move:

"He acted ... at a time when the eightmonth-old uprising in the Occupied Territories has prompted more talk among Israeli hardliners that Jordan is the Palestinian state. Hussein's state is, in fact, 60 percent or more Palestinian. Continued unrest in the West Bank could send [sic] many of these people ... into Jordan.

"Hussein advanced that point directly: 'Jordan,' he said, 'is not Palestine.' ... The king has at least set the legal [emphasis added] basis for closing the border to prevent such an inundation."

Pressure for mini-state

It is not the case, however, that Hussein is now somehow willing to see the establishment of a genuine Palestinian state run Lebanon Syria Jordan UN PARTITION PLAN 1947 Arab areas Jewish areas

Lebanon

Syria Jordan DAY My Israel Egypt Occupied territories ment from the West Bank:

"Twenty-one thousand West Bank civil servants [were] dismissed. Analysts estimate 100,000 people one out of eight West Bank Palestinians are affected. $35 million of income has been lost. Jordan has spent $100 million annually in the West Bank in addition to paying salaries of civil servants, teachers, and municipal workers.

"It maintained health, welfare, and religious institutions, provided pensions and housing loans, administered examinations in West Bank schools, and issued various licenses for West Bank farmers and merchants. All these arrangements are now in doubt."

The New York Times reported on July 29 that "Jordan cancelled a $1.3 billion development plan for the West Bank."

Following Hussein's divestment from the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir announced that Israel would not fill the void created by Jordan's dismissal of its West Bank civil service.

The Los Angeles Times reported (Aug. 2, 1988): "There is ... almost no hope that the P.L.O. will be able to make up the estimated $100 million per year that Jordan pumps into the West Bank."

For Hussein, the divestment moves were clearly aimed at putting pressure on the P.L.O. to come to terms with the Israelis.

Promoting Israel's legitimacy The essence of United States and Israeli policy has always been to deny the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to assign either to Israel or the Jordanian king the role of "representation" for the Palestinian masses.

The leadership of the P.L.O. has been fixated on the possibility of proving to a The Jordanian regime is in jeopardy.

Disaffection with the ruling Hashemite monarchy has reached such proportions that the merchants are bailing out.

An article by Charles P. Wallace in The Los Angeles Times (July 24)

provides a glimpse into Jordan's crisis:

"Jordan has been gripped by its worst economic crisis ... according to Jordanian officials and bankers. Jordan's currency, the dinar, has been hit by panic selling twice in the past two months. ... The central bank was stuck with $600 million in bad debt ... and refused to issue new credit to exporters."

The evidence was mounting that the Saudi monarchy and the Sheikhs of the Persian Gulf, on whose largesse the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is dependent, were abandoning the regime.

"Economists see major troubles looming because the two key components of Jordan's national budgetremittances from Jordanians abroad and Arab aid-are decreasing.

"Out of a $3 billion annual budget, only $500 million is financed from home. One Western economist said that remittances, such as salaries earned by Jordanians working in the oil-rich Gulf states, will ... decline sharply in the second half of the year." (Ibid.)

If Jordanians abroad suddenly stopped sending money home, the word must be Appearing on the C.B.S. News program "Face the Nation," Secretary of State George Shultz said that King Hussein was now "registering • the fact that the Palestinians living on the West Bank and Gaza have asserted themselves as wanting to speak for themselves."

Shultz then reiterated U.S. imperialism's longstanding objective of bludgeoning the P.L.O. into accepting Israeli power and legitimacy:

"The P.L.O., if it wants to be a partner in a peace process, has to change its ways. We need to keep the pressure on the P.L.O. to recognize that Israel is there. Israel is going to stay there. It is a fact of life, and they might as well accept the fact."

A new situation exists in the Middle East after King Hussein's move. As The Christian Science Monitor (Aug. 19) stated:

"It is reported that the executive committee of the P.L.O. is now considering a plan it may unveil at the next session of out that the regime is in trouble. Wallace explains:

"At the same time ... Saudi Arabia, which provides $500 million a year alone, is upset over reports of official corruption and is reluctant to offer new assistance." (Ibid.)

Observers of both the Jordanian and Saudi monarchies, however, have long noted that pervasive corruption has been the hallmark of both regimes for decades. The Saudis subsidize every corrupt regime in the region and are hardly moved by such considerations.

The undermining, therefore, of King Hussein's faltering government must be due to other motives. Wallace reports: "The Jordanians are going to have to tighten their belts substantially, if they hope to weather the crisis."

Hussein has been reduced to begging in public for the support of his neocolonial rulers in the region.

"At a summit meeting of Arab leaders in Algiers last month, Hussein made an impassioned plea for stepped-up assistance.... While expressing sympathy, the Arabs made no concrete offer." (Ibid.)

The sudden abandonment of Hussein, one of the principal satraps of imperialism in the Arab world, is tied to the growing perception that he can no longer be relied upon to govern a totally disaffected population.—R.S.

the European Parliament in September. Under the plan, a Palestine government-in-exile would accept the partition of Palestine as voted by the United Nations on Nov. 29, 1947. ... Until now ... the P.L.O. has declined to recognize the right of existence of a Jewish state.' This then is the setting in which to understand and evaluate the proposals by Bassam Abu Sharif and Yasir Arafat of the P.L.O. to negotiate directly with Israel, accept an interim status for the Palestinian people, agree to a demilitarized state which will guarantee Israeli security, and enjoy a close relationship to King Hussein's Hashemite Kingdom.

Part Three of this series will examine the role of Jerome Segal, the American Zionist who drafted the declaration for an independent Palestinian state, with its call for Israeli military presence to guarantee Israeli interests. HELP BREAK

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