Democratic Palestine : 7 (ص 12)
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- Democratic Palestine : 7 (ص 12)
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ARAB WOR De
4
Jordan
~ Tactics for Reviving the Reagan Plan
When Jordan’s King Hussein
became the first Arab head of state to
resume full diplomatic and political ties
with Egypt, there was quick agreement
among observers that the king was lay-
ing the ground for eventual negotiations
with ‘Israel’ on the basis of the Reagan
plan some time after the US presidential
elections. For his part, Egyptian Presi-
dent Mubarak lost no time in capitalizing
on the Jordanian offer. He visited
Amman within days of Jordan’s
announcement of the resumption of
relations, and confidently urged other
Arab states to follow Jordan's lead. The
lraqi government extended an invitation
to Mubarak to visit Baghdad and indi-
cated it was only a matter of time before
relations with Egypt were officially
restored.
It appeared that the stage was
rapidly being set for a formal end to
Egypt's isolation in the Arab world, and
that the Reagan plan, conceived by the
US president as a mechanism for imple-
menting the Camp David accords, was
once again gathering momentum.
Yet as soon as Jordan's intent to
reestablish relations with Egypt was
made public, a number of statements by
various Jordanian officials, including the
King and Crown Prince Hassan, stres-
sed commitment to a comprehensive
settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
This would imply rejecting bilateral or
trilateral talks on the status of the
occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip,
offering instead to participate in an inter-
national peace conference under the UN
auspices. In fact, Jordan’s move came
against the background of repeated
public statements expressing dissatis-
faction with the US's Middle East policy,
which in the words of King Hussein «is
completely biased in favor of Israel». At
the same time, Jordan was pressing its
overtures to the Soviet Union and pre-
paring for King Hussein to visit Moscow.
If Jordan’s motive for unilaterally
ending the diplomatic boycott of Egypt
was to help reactivate the Reagan plan
in anticipation of a fresh US Middle East
drive after the elections, how then can
12
we explain other Jordanian actions and
signals that indicate a desire to keep a
safe distance from US-sponsored initia-
tives? Why would King Hussein risk
what was certain to be a confrontation
with Syria at a time when Syria’s influ-
ence seemed to be at an unprecedented
level?
It is a fact of history that the Jorda-
nian regime has consistently acted in
concert with the objectives’ of
imperialism. Over the years, King Hus-
sein has proved himself to be a close ally
of the US and worked to insure Jordan’s
collaboration with every regional plan
initiated or sponsored by the US. Jor-
dan’s overstated ‘annoyance’ with the
Reagan Administration has in fact less
to do with the king’s lack of desire to
accomodate the Reagan plan than with
the failure of the US to deliver on its own
promises. The US's unconditional sup-
port to ‘Israel’ under the Likud and failure
to pursue its own proclaimed strategy,
the Reagan plan, have left the Jordanian
regime in a precarious situation and
forced it to seek ways out of the
impasse. It was also feared that ‘Israel’
might in the meantime enter and occupy
the East Bank (Jordan) in order to create
a new set of facts before negotiations
got underway.
Royal Jordanian calculations
Jordan's initial strategy was based
on the assumption that the Likud would
be replaced by Labor in the last Israeli
elections, and that Reagan would seek
to reactivate his dormant plan soon after
his own reelection. King Hussein was
too politically vulnerable to act on his
own, and a strong reaction on the part of
Syria could be anticipated. Hussein thus
proceeded to protect his flanks by cul-
tivating eventual partners and preparing
to seize the initiative. Quietly, he unoffi-
cially ended all boycott of Egypt and
sought to get a majority of Arab League
member states to formally restore ties
with Mubarak’s regime. He gave strong
political and military support to Iraq inthe
war with Iran, in return for Iraq’s aban-
doning opposition to the Camp David
accords and Reagan’s plan. In the wil-
lingness of a number of right-wing ele-
ments in the PLO leadership to accomo-
date US strategy, King Hussein found a
basis for bringing in the PLO as a partner
in some form acceptable to the US and
eventually to ‘Israel’. This, of course,
means a PLO in a form that would effec-
tively do away with its status as the sole
legitimate representative of the Palesti-
nian people and bypass its demand for
an independent Palestinian state. In
addition, the king sought to normalize
Jordan's relations with the Soviet Union
which is the primary source of support
for Syria, other Arab nationalist states
and the PLO.
In effect, King Hussein proceeded
to prepare for the anticipated fresh US
initiative by seeking to encircle and neut-
ralize Syria, by reinforcing Jordan's
status as the legitimate party in any
negotiations on the future of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, and by linking up
with Egypt as a prospective partner.
Arafat's visit to Cairo provided the cover
for Hussein to make his own Egyptian
connection public. By inviting Mubarak
to visit Amman, Hussein also served
notice that Jordan intended to maintain
its role of chief broker in the new
alliance: At stake was the relative posi-
tion of Jordan and the PLO in the
developing partnership, and the King
sought to make it clear that Jordan
would certainly not be the junior partner.
The most the PLO could hope for in fact
was to name Palestinian members of a
Jordanian delegation to the prospective
talks, in return for conceding to the king
the role of chief negotiator on behalf of
the occupied territories. A Jordanian-
Egyptian rapprochment would go a long
way in insuring precisely that.
The PLO leadership, by opting for
the Jordanian connection and failing to
take the lead in confronting the US
strategy, in cooperation with the national
and progressive Arab forces and states
and the socialist countries, is com-
promising the fundamental objectives of
the Palestinian national movement at
this stage, namely self-determination
and the establishment of an indepen-
dent Palestinian state.
It should be clear that the recent
Jordanian decision to end the boycott of
Egypt can only be seen in light of the
regime's pursuit of a settlement of the
conflict with ‘Israel’ that will allow Jordan - هو جزء من
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