Accession Abdullah's eldest son, Talal, was proclaimed
King of Jordan.
First years , 1953 The teenaged king inherited the throne not only of Jordan, but also of the
West Bank, captured by Jordan during the
1948 Arab–Israeli War and
annexed in 1950. The Palestinian nationalist organization
Fatah started organizing cross-border attacks against Israel in January 1965, often drawing
Israeli reprisals on Jordan. One such reprisal was the
Samu Incident, an attack launched by Israel on 13 November 1966 on the Jordanian-controlled West Bank town of
As-Samu after three Israeli soldiers were killed by a Fatah landmine. The assault inflicted heavy Arab casualties. Israeli writer
Avi Shlaim argues that Israel's disproportionate retaliation exacted revenge on the wrong party, as Israeli leaders knew from their coordination with Hussein that he was doing everything he could to prevent such attacks. The incident drew fierce local criticism of Hussein amid feelings he had been betrayed by the Israelis; Hussein also suspected that Israel had changed its attitude towards Jordan and had intended to escalate matters in order to capture the West Bank.
Yitzhak Rabin, the then
Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, later admitted the disproportionate reaction by Israel, and that the operation would have been better directed at Syria, which was supporting such attacks: "We had neither political nor military reasons to arrive at a confrontation with Jordan or to humiliate Hussein." The events at Samu triggered large-scale anti-Hashemite protests in the West Bank for what they perceived as Hussein's incompetency for defending them against Israel: rioters attacked government offices, chanted pro-Nasser slogans, and called on Hussein to have the same fate as
Nuri As-Saidthe Iraqi prime minister who had been killed and mutilated in 1958 along with the Iraqi royal family. Jordanians believed that after this incident, Israel would march on the West Bank whether or not Jordan joined the war. Perception of King Hussein's efforts to come to peaceful terms with Israel led to great dissatisfaction among some Arab leaders. In a meeting with American officials, Hussein, sometimes with tears in his eyes, said: "The growing split between the East Bank and the West Bank has ruined my dreams," and, "There is near despair in the army and the army no longer has confidence in me." Hussein travelled to Cairo on 30 May 1967 and hastily signed an Egyptian-Jordanian mutual defense treaty, returning home to cheering crowds. Shlaim argues that Hussein had possessed options, but had made two mistakes: the first was in putting the Jordanian army under Egyptian command; the second was in allowing the entry of Iraqi troops into Jordan, which raised Israeli suspicions against Jordan. Egyptian general
Abdul Munim Riad arrived in Jordan to command its army pursuant to the pact signed with Egypt.
Six-Day War in
East Jerusalem when the
West Bank was under
Jordanian control, 1964 On 5 June 1967 the
Six-Day War began after an Israeli strike wiped out
Egypt's Air Force. The Egyptian army commander in Cairo transmitted to General Riad that the Israeli strike had failed, and that
Israel's Air Force was almost wiped out. Based on the misleading information from Cairo, Riad ordered the Jordanian army to take offensive positions and attack Israeli targets around
Jerusalem. Jordanian
Hawker Hunters made sorties but were destroyed by Israel when they went to refuel; Syria's and Iraq's air forces followed. Israel's air superiority on the first day of war proved decisive. Two Israeli jets attempted to assassinate Hussein; one was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery, and the other shot directly at Hussein's office in the royal palace. Hussein was not there, the
CIA station chief in Amman
Jack O'Connell relayed a message threatening the Israelis, and the attempts stopped. The Jordanians had prepared a war strategy, but the Egyptian commander insisted to build his strategy based on the misleading information from Egypt. By 7 June fighting led the Jordanians to withdraw from the West Bank, and Jerusalem's
Old City and the
Dome of the Rock were abandoned after desperate fighting. Israel blew up the bridges between the two banks to consolidate its control. Jordan suffered a severe setback with the loss of the West Bank, which contributed 40% to Jordan's GDP in the tourism, industrial, and agricultural sectors. Around 200,000 Palestinian refugees fled to Jordan, destabilizing Jordan's demographics. The loss of Jerusalem was critical to Jordan, and specifically for Hussein who held the
Hashemite custodianship of Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. Al-Aqsa mosque is the third holiest site in Islam, believed to be where
Muhammad ascended to heaven. By 11 June Israel had decisively won the war by capturing the West Bank from Jordan,
Gaza and the
Sinai from Egypt, and the
Golan Heights from Syria. Nasser and Hussein, recognizing their defeat, sought to work together towards a more moderate stance. On 22 November 1967 the
United Nations Security Council unanimously approved
resolution 242, which became one of Jordan's foreign policy cornerstones. It denounced acquisition of territory by force and called on Israel to withdraw from territories occupied in the 1967 war. Israel rejected the resolution. Hussein restarted talks with Israeli representatives throughout 1968 and 1969, but the talks went nowhereShlaim claims the Israelis stalled and that Hussein refused to cede any West Bank territory.
Black September , 21 March 1968. After Jordan lost control of the West Bank in 1967,
Palestinian fighters known as "
fedayeen", meaning self-sacrificers, moved their bases to Jordan and stepped up their attacks on Israel. One Israeli retaliation on a PLO camp based in
Karameh, a Jordanian town along the border with the West Bank, developed into a full-scale battle. It is believed that Israel had wanted to punish Jordan for its perceived support for the PLO. After failing to capture
Yasser Arafat, the PLO leader, Israeli forces withdrew or were repulsed, but not before destroying the Karameh camp and sustaining relatively high casualties. The perceived joint Jordanian-Palestinian victory in the 1968
Battle of Karameh led to an upsurge of support in the Arab World for Palestinian fighters in Jordan. The PLO in Jordan grew in strength, and by the beginning of 1970 the fedayeen groups started to openly call for the overthrow of the
Hashemite monarchy. Acting as a
state within a state, the fedayeen disregarded local laws and regulations, and even attempted to assassinate King Hussein twice, leading to
violent confrontations between them and the Jordanian army. Hussein wanted to oust the fedayeen from the country, but hesitated to strike because he did not want his enemies to use it against him by equating Palestinian fighters with civilians. PLO actions in Jordan culminated in the
Dawson's Field hijackings incident on 10 September 1970, in which the fedayeen hijacked three civilian aircraft and forced their landing in Zarqa, taking foreign nationals as hostages, and later bombing the planes in front of the international press. Hussein saw this as the last straw, and ordered the army to move. On 17 September the Jordanian army surrounded cities that had a PLO presence, including Amman and
Irbid, and began shelling the fedayeen, who had established themselves in Palestinian refugee camps. The next day, a force from Syria with PLO markings started advancing towards Irbid, which the fedayeen declared a "liberated" city. On 22 September, the Syrians withdrew after the Jordanian army launched an air-ground offensive that inflicted heavy Syrian losses, and after Israeli Air Force jets flew over Syrian units in a symbolic show of support of Hussein, but did not engage. An agreement brokered by Egyptian president Nasser between Arafat and Hussein led to an end to the fighting on 27 September. Nasser died the following day of a heart attack. On 13 October Hussein signed an agreement with Arafat to regulate the fedayeen's presence, but the Jordanian army attacked again in January 1971. The fedayeen were driven out of Jordanian cities one by one until 2,000 fedayeen surrendered after being encircled in a forest near Ajloun on 17 July, marking the end of the conflict. with Prime Minister
Wasfi Tal (right) and Army Chief of Staff
Habis Majali (left), 17 September 1970 Jordan allowed the fedayeen to leave for Lebanon through Syria, an event that led to the
Lebanese Civil War in 1975. The
Black September Organization was founded the same year, named after the conflict. The organization claimed responsibility for the assassination of Jordanian prime minister
Wasfi Tal in 1971, and the highly publicized 1972
Munich massacre against Israeli athletes. In a speech to the Jordanian parliament on 15 March 1972, Hussein announced his "
United Arab Kingdom" plan. Unlike the
unitary state that had existed between the West Bank and Jordan during
Jordan's annexation of the West Bank (1950–1967), this plan envisaged two
federal entities on each bank of the Jordan River. According to the proposal, the two districts of the federation would be autonomous, excluding the military and the foreign and security affairs that would be determined by an Amman central government but the plan's implementation was to be conditional upon achieving a peace agreement between Israel and Jordan. Ultimately, Hussein's proposal was ruled out after it was vehemently rejected by Israel, the PLO, and several Arab states.
Yom Kippur War After the 1967 war,
Gunnar Jarring was appointed by the UN as a
special envoy for the Middle East peace process, leading the
Jarring Mission. The stalemate led to renewed fears of another war between Arab countries and Israel. Worried that Jordan would be dragged into another war unprepared, Hussein sent
Zaid Al-Rifai to Egyptian president
Anwar Sadat in December 1972 to inquire. Sadat informed Al-Rifai that he had been planning a limited incursion in the Sinai that would allow some political manoeuvring. Sadat then invited Al-Rifai and Hussein to a summit on 10 September 1973 with him and
Hafez al-Assad, who had become president of Syria. The summit ended with a restoration of ties between Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Sadat disclosed to Assad and Hussein his intention to initiate military action. Hussein refused Sadat's request to allow the fedayeen's return to Jordan but agreed that in case of a military operation, Jordanian troops would play a limited defensive role in assisting the Syrians in the Golan Heights. through his car's
megaphone, 12 July 1974 Egypt and Syria launched the
Yom Kippur War against Israel in the Sinai and in the Golan Heights on 6 October 1973 without Hussein's knowledge. Between 10 September and 6 October, Hussein secretly met with Israeli prime minister
Golda Meir in
Tel Aviv on 25 September. Israeli leaks of the meeting led to rumors in the Arab World that Hussein had tipped off Meir about Arab intentions. Hussein only discussed with Meir what both already knew, that the Syrian army was on alert. On 13 October Jordan joined the war and sent the 40thbrigade to assist the Syrians in the Golan Heights. Some see it as ironic that it was the same brigade that had been sent to deter the Syrian invasion during Black September in 1970. Subsequent peace talks with Israel collapsed; while Jordan wanted a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, Israel preferred to retain control but with Jordanian administration. In the
1974 Arab League summit held in Morocco on 26 October, a Fatah plot to assassinate Hussein upon his arrival was uncovered by the Moroccan authorities. The plot did not deter Hussein from joining the summit, but at the end Jordan had to join all the Arab countries in recognizing the PLO as "the sole representative of the Palestinian people," a diplomatic defeat for Hussein. The relationship between Jordan and the United States deteriorated when Jordan refused to join the
Camp David Accords. The Accords formed the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, and allowed the withdrawal of Israel from the Sinai. In 1978 Hussein went to
Baghdad for the first time since 1958; there, he met Iraqi politician
Saddam Hussein. When Saddam became president of Iraq in 1979, Hussein supported Saddam's
Iran–Iraq War that stretched from 1980 to 1988. The relationship grew as Saddam provided Jordan with subsidized oil, and Jordan allowed Iraq to use the
Port of Aqaba for its exports.
Involvement in peace initiatives When the PLO moved to Lebanon from Jordan after 1970, repeated attacks and counter-attacks occurred in southern Lebanon between the PLO and Israel. Two major Israeli incursions into Lebanon occurred in
1978, and the other in
1982, the latter conflict troubled Hussein as the IDF had laid siege to
Beirut. The PLO was to be expelled from Lebanon, and
Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Defense minister, suggested they be moved to Jordan where the monarchy would be toppled and Jordan would serve as an "alternative Palestinian homeland". Sharon boasted: "One speech by me will make King Hussein realize that the time has come to pack his bags." However, Arafat rejected Sharon's suggestion, and the fedayeen were transported to Tunisia under American cover. , Iranian
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Shahbanou
Farah (from left to right), 31 December 1977 In 1983 American president
Ronald Reagan suggested a peace plan that became known as the Reagan plan, similar to Hussein's 1972 federation plan. Hussein and Arafat both agreed to the plan on 1 April, but the PLO's executive office rejected it. A year and a half later, a renewed effort by Hussein to jump start the peace process culminated in the establishment of a Jordan–PLO accord that sought a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an unprecedented milestone for the PLO and a Jordanian diplomatic victory. The accord was opposed by Israel and garnered no international support from either the United States or the Soviet Union. Around the same time, Hussein met Israel prime minister
Shimon Peres on 19 July 1985 in the United Kingdom, where Peres assented to the accord, but later the rest of his government opposed it due to the PLO's involvement. Subsequent talks between the PLO and Jordan collapsed after the PLO refused to make concessions; in a speech Hussein announced that "after two long attempts, I and the government of Jordan hereby announce that we are unable to continue to coordinate politically with the PLO leadership until such time as their word becomes their bond, characterized by commitment, credibility and constancy." Jordan started a crackdown on the PLO by closing their offices in Amman after the Israeli minister of defense, Yitzhak Rabin, requested it from Hussein in a secret meeting. Jordan announced a $1.3billion five-year development plan for the West Bank, in a bid to enhance its image in the West Bank residents at the expense of the PLO. Around the same time, Hussein became troubled after he heard that Israel had been selling American weapons to Iran, thereby lengthening the conflict between Iraq and Iran, both supporters of the PLO. The relationship between Hussein and Saddam became very closeHussein visited Baghdad 61 times between 1980 and 1990, and Saddam used Hussein to relay messages to several countries, including the US and Britain. In June 1982, after Iran's victory seemed imminent, Hussein personally carried to Saddam sensitive photographic intelligence forwarded to him by the US. In return, Saddam provided incentives for Jordanian exports to Iraq, which accounted for a quarter of all Jordan's exports, valued at $212.3million in 1989. Iraqi aid helped Jordan's finances; Hussein had felt it humiliating to keep asking
Gulf countries for assistance. Hussein made a little-known attempt to heal the rift between the two
Ba'ath regimes of Iraq and Syria in April 1986. The meeting between Hafez al-Assad and Saddam Hussein occurred at an airbase in
Al-Jafr in the eastern Jordanian desert. The talks lasted for a day, after which no progress was made. Saddam was angry at Al-Assad for supporting Iran against an Arab country, Iraq, and Al-Assad was adamant about establishing a union between Iraq and Syria, which Saddam rejected. On 11 April 1987, after
Yitzhak Shamir became prime minister of Israel, Hussein engaged in direct talks with Shamir's foreign minister, Peres, in London. After reaching an agreement between Hussein and Peres on establishing an international peace conference, Shamir and the rest of the ministers in his cabinet rejected the proposal. On
8 November 1987 Jordan hosted an Arab League summit; Hussein enjoyed good relations with rival Arab blocs, and he acted as conciliatory intermediate. He helped mobilize Arab support for Iraq against Iran, and for Jordan's peace efforts, and helped to end the decade-long Arab boycott of Egypta boycott that began after it unilaterally signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. Hussein described the summit as one of the best moments in his life. In the summer of 1993 Hussein opened Challenge 93, the First International Ex-Service Wheechair Games, organised by
The Royal British Legion, at Stoke Mandeville and led the reconcilliation on the sportsfield of former combattants on the battlefield.
Disengagement from West Bank , 1984 On 9 December 1987 an Israeli truck driver ran over four Palestinians in a
Gaza refugee camp, sparking unrest that spread to violent demonstrations in the West Bank. What began as an uprising to achieve Palestinian independence against the Israeli occupation turned into an upsurge of support for the PLO, which had orchestrated the uprising, and consequently diminished Jordanian influence in the West Bank. Jordanian policy on the West Bank had to be reconsidered following renewed fears that Israel would revive its proposal for Jordan to become an "alternative Palestinian homeland". US Secretary of State
George P. Shultz set up a peace process that became known as the Schulz Initiative. It called for Jordan rather than the PLO to represent the Palestinians; however, when Schultz contacted Hussein about the plan, he reversed his position and told him it was a matter for the PLO to decide. The orchestrators of the Intifada were the
Unified National Leadership of the Uprising, which issued its 10th communiqué on 11 March 1988, urging its followers to "intensify the mass pressure against the [Israel] occupation army and the settlers and against collaborators and personnel of the Jordanian regime." West Bank Palestinians deviation from the Jordanian state highlighted the need for a revision in Jordan's policy, and
Jordanian nationalists began to argue that Jordan would be better off without the Palestinians and without the West Bank. Adnan Abu Oudeh, a Palestinian descendant who was Hussein's political advisor, Prime Minister
Zaid Al-Rifai, army chief of staff
Zaid ibn Shaker,
Royal Court chief Marwan Kasim, and mukhabarat director Tariq Alaeddin, helped the King prepare West Bank disengagement plans. The Jordanian Ministry of Occupied Territories Affairs was abolished on 1 July 1988, its responsibilities taken over by the Palestinian Affairs Department. On 28 July Jordan terminated the West Bank development plan. Two days later a royal decree dissolved the
House of Representatives, thereby removing West Bank representation in the Parliament. In a televised speech on 1 August, Hussein announced the "severing of Jordan's legal and administrative ties with the West Bank," essentially surrendering claims of sovereignty over the West Bank. The move revoked the Jordanian citizenship of Palestinians in the West Bank (who had obtained it since Jordan annexed the territory in 1950), but not that of Palestinians residing in Jordan. Nevertheless, the Hashemite custodianship over the Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem was retained. Israeli politicians were stunned, thinking it was a political manoeuvre so that the Palestinians could show support for Hussein, but later realized that it represented a shift in Jordan's policy after Hussein asked his West Bank supporters not to issue petitions demanding that he relent. In a meeting in November 1988 the PLO accepted all United Nations resolutions and agreed to recognize Israel.
1989 riots Jordan's disengagement from the West Bank led to a slowing of the
Jordanian economy. resulting in six protesters killed and 42 injured, and two policemen killed and 47 injured. Despite the fact that the protests were triggered by a troubling economic situation, the crowds' demands became political. Protesters accused Zaid Al-Rifai's government of rampant corruption and demanded that the martial law in place since 1957 be lifted and
parliamentary elections be resumed. The National Charter was drafted and ratified by parliament in 1991. The Israeli general election held on
29 May 1996 witnessed Netanyahu's ascension to the prime ministry.
Tensions with Israel with American secretary of Defense
William Cohen, 2 April 1997 Hussein's support for Netanyahu soon backfired. Israel's actions during the 1996
Qana massacre in Southern Lebanon, the Likud government's decision to build settlements in
East Jerusalem, and the events at the
Temple Mount where clashes between Palestinian and Israeli police ensued after Israeli tunnel diggings around the Mount, generated an uproar of criticism for Netanyahu in the Arab World. On 9 March 1997 Hussein sent Netanyahu a three-page letter expressing his disappointment. The King lambasted Netanyahu, with the letter's opening sentence stating: "My distress is genuine and deep over the accumulating tragic actions which you have initiated at the head of the Government of Israel, making peace – the worthiest objective of my life – appear more and more like a distant elusive mirage." Four days later, on 13 March, a Jordanian soldier patrolling the borders between Jordan and Israel in the north near the
Island of Peace,
killed seven Israeli schoolgirls and wounded six others. The King, who was on an official visit to Spain, returned home immediately. He travelled to the Israeli town of
Beit Shemesh to offer his condolences to the grieving families of the Israeli children killed. He went in front of the families, telling them that the incident was "a crime that is a shame for all of us. I feel as if I have lost a child of my own. If there is any purpose in life it will be to make sure that all the children no longer suffer the way our generation did." His gesture was received very warmly in Israel, and Hussein sent the families $1million in total as compensation for the loss of life. The soldier was determined to be mentally unstable by a Jordanian military tribunal and was sentenced to 20years in prison, which he served entirely. Clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian groups in Gaza and the West Bank surfaced. Hussein's wife,
Queen Noor, later claimed her husband was having trouble sleeping: "Everything he had worked for all his life, every relationship he had painstakingly built on trust and respect, every dream of peace and prosperity he had had for Jordan's children, was turning into a nightmare. I really did not know how much more Hussein could take." On 27 September 1997 eight
Mossad agents entered Jordan using fake Canadian passports and attempted to assassinate Jordanian citizen
Khaled Mashal, head of the Palestinian group
Hamas. Hussein was preparing for a 30-year Hamas-Israel truce three days prior to the attempt, after Hamas had launched two attacks in Jerusalem. Two Mossad agents followed Mashal to his office and injected poison into his ears, but they were caught by Mashal's bodyguard. The two agents were then held by the Jordanian police, while the six other agents hid in the Israeli embassy. Furious, Hussein met with an Israeli delegate who attempted to explain the situation; the King said in a speech about the incident that he felt that somebody "had spat in his face." Jordanian authorities requested Netanyahu to provide an antidote to save Mashal's life, but Netanyahu refused to do so. Jordan then threatened to storm the Israeli embassy and capture the rest of the Mossad team, but Israel argued that it would be against the
Geneva Conventions. Jordan replied that the Geneva Conventions "do not apply to terrorists", and a
special operations team headed by Hussein's son
Abdullah was put in charge of the operation. Hussein called American president Clinton and requested his intervention, threatening to annul the treaty if Israel did not provide the antidote. Clinton later managed to get Israel's approval to reveal the name of the antidote, and complained about Netanyahu: "This man is impossible!" Khaled Mashal recovered, but Jordan's relations with Israel deteriorated and Israeli requests to contact Hussein were rebuffed. The Mossad operatives were released by Jordan after Israel agreed to release 23 Jordanian and 50 Palestinian prisoners including Sheikh
Ahmed Yassin. Mounting opposition in Jordan to the peace treaty with Israel led Hussein to put greater restrictions on
freedom of speech. Several dissidents were imprisoned including
Laith Shubeilat, a prominent Islamist. A few months into his imprisonment, the King personally gave Shubeilat, his fiercest critic, a ride home from the
Swaqa prison. However, the crackdown led the opposition groups in Jordan to boycott the
1997 parliamentary elections. In 1998 Jordan refused a secret request from Netanyahu to attack Iraq using Jordanian airspace after claiming Saddam held weapons of mass destruction. ==Illness, death and funeral==