It was on the very same evening that King Hussein made his populist speech, while at the same time his police agencies rounded up 200 people in Ramtha. A curfew was imposed in the town for the subsequent two days.
AT THE START of the Gulf crisis, germinate and a new Arab generation will
Jordan's King Hussein put himself emerge." (Ha'aretz, March 6, 1991).
Dismantling the bomb
But even assuming that President Bush
The left, respecting the national consensus, decided not to notice the repression accompanied the speech. It has also chosen to overlook the resumption of American aid, which has taken place despite the King's speech. According to cases, the regime's adaptation to has indeed decided to dismantle the Palthe anti-imperialist radicalization of estinian bomb, it remains unknown to what extent a formula can be worked out which will satisfy at the same time the
Palestinian minimum and the Israeli maxthe masses was purely verbal, without any practical government figures, some $750m worth of gifts and loans on easy granted in the final terms were week of the war. In fact, gold and have reached reserves money consequences. This was, indeed,
For Shamir and his government, it is "no to the PLO, no to a Palestinian state"
masses were demanding arms and the best that can be negotiated would be some form of autonomy, and the negotiations will be with the leaders in the occupied territories. Husseini: "We are a people, that is why one does not negotiate with a self-styled local leadership, but with our national leadership, that is the PLO. And a people has a right to self-determination, that is a state. These two elements are not negotiable".
The militants of the Palestinian left in the occupied territories are less categorical. One among them told us: PLO there are some currents ready to play the game of autonomy, as a provisional solution obviously, and who would not hesitate to give the green light to local notables, more or less influenced by the nationalist right, to negotiate in the name
In the last analysis what will determine the next stages, including the limits of the compromise realizable by the PLO and the diverse currents of the Palestinian national movement, will be the capacity for struggle of the Palestinians, occupied territories, but also in Jordan, in Lebanon and throughout the Arab region. Indeed on this plane, the perspectives are clear; the intifada continues, and is likely to become even more radical, if only because of the dramatic economic situation in which the inhabitants of the occupied territories are which, as a renowned orientalist recently explained "creates an atmosphere reminiscent of 1987, when impasse and no longer having anything to reduced to dust the status quo and the analyses of the experts and the politiInternational Viewpoint #203 • April 1, 1991 understandable, given that the the breaking of the blockade of Iraq. OMAR SALEM
T HIS is the context in
Washington has found itself able to "understand the difficult circumstances in which King Hussein found himself and George Bush has declared that it was not his intention to "overlook Jordan's role" in the postwar regional reorganization. The American president has despatched a special envoy to the monarch to ask him to avoid all friction with Israel and assure him that he is not to be written out of the regional
The king stuck to his neutrality until the end of the war. This position was publicly restated several times by the king and other representatives of the regime. On February 6, 1991, however, the sovereign made a speech without any apparent motive in which he laid into the United States and its Arab allies, meeting a chorus of praise from the parties of the national consensus. Populist speech and popular
The aim of the speech was to contain spontaneous popular anger which neither the parties of the consensus nor the regime could control. At the start of the third week of the war, the anti-Iraqi coalition had started to bomb Jordanian trucks and other civilian vehicles on the road between Amman and Baghdad, record levels at $2.1bn. The financing obtained by the Jordanian regime fits within the regional framework of the "new world order" inaugurated by the massacre perpetrated against the Iraqi people. On March 1, at the end of the war waged by the coalition, the king made a new speech, in which he described the broad outlines of his policy for the "new period", at a time when the population was still reeling from the shock of the scale of the defeat suffered by Iraq. The passivity of the masses following the royal speech was only the first result of the illusions sown, in the course of the six preceding months, by the regime, the media, and all the parties of the national consensus.
Reactivating the regional
Arab order
The sovereign appealed, in his speech, for the turning of "a new page.... founded on reconciliation and inter-Arab understanding" and the reactivation of "our Arab regional order". He reaffirmed his commitment to work for "a lasting peace and regional stability" and declared that "Jordan opens wide its arms to whoever wishes to establish amicable relations
The king apologized to "the leadership of the Israeli people" for the rejoicing amongst Palestinians when the Scuds fell on Israel. Finally, the king declared that he would pursue his project around the National Pact, the final version of which had been published at the end of 1990 (sce /V 195, November 26, 1990).
The regime is thus attempting to circumvent both its own crisis and the masses, profiting from the demoralization of the latter following the Iraqi defeat and
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National Pact or constituent assembly? forward as a "mediator". Then, when the war broke out, he took refuge in "neutrality" . In both
benefiting from the collaboration of the parties of the Pact. These latter have already shown that they were capable of containing and mystifying the masses, where the repressive and media apparatuses of the regime were not sufficient.
The king launched his policy for the new period, fortified by his local success in projecting an image for himself as a nationalist leader fratricidal" Being now more acceptable to the Palestinians, whereas the role of the PLO is in regression, he could be coopted by the Palestinian leadership as a last recourse. The famous "Jordanian option", renewed, seems more credible than ever.
Liquidating the Palestinian cause
It would guarantee the king a key role in the liquidation of the Palestinian cause, that is the commandeering of the struggle of the Palestinian people, at least cost and in the regional context of the "new world order"
The monarch's speech did not constitute in any way a turning point, but confirmed very well the of nature the regime, which has never changed.
There are those in the
"national consensus" left impressed by the "populist" speeches of the king in the last few months and having seen in these a radical change in the regime, have been surprised by his remained flabbergasted.
submit, in his expression, has been adopted in unanimity by the royal comdrawing it up, in which all the parties of the reformist left were represented. It is not only a programme of also a rewriting of the history of the country.
Its preamble retraces the history of the Hashemite dynasty to which King absolves the regime of all crimes against the Jordanian and Palestinian people, and covers up his past in the service of Arab reaction and imperialism.
the Pact will be a useful instrument in the hands of the throne to put the political parties to the service of its policy, and confer on its armed forces a "national legitimacy" to strike against the revolutionary forces in the period to come.
It is not objective conditions which have derailed the struggle against the regime over the last two years. It is rather the subjective capacity to organize this struggle which was absent. The hope of revolutionaries is that the global crisis of the regime will give birth to a radicalization from which will emerge militants free of the illusions held by the court
In this spirit, Jordanian revolutionary
Marxists are opposing to the farce of the
National Pact the demand for a freely elected constituent assembly. Against the attempts to liquidat the
Palestinian cause, they defend the demands for the total and unconditional withdrawal of the
Israeli army from the territories occupied in 1967, as well as the right to self- determination of the Palestinian people, including their right to return to the terrifrom which they tories have been expelled. *
JORDAN Appearance and reality
TWO developments on March 20 seem to contradict the analysis of the articles on Iraq and Jordan published in this issue. First, the US Senate voted to cut off military and economic aid to Jordan because of King Hussein's attitude during the Gulf war. Secondly, a US F-15 shot down an Iraqi
Su-22 over the town of Tikrit in Iraq, while the Bush administration warned Baghdad not to use its air force against the rebellion unfolding in the country. Superficially, these events imply that the US government really wants to punish the King of Jordan, its long-time ally and protégé, and assist the popular uprising in Iraq. The truth is very
The decision to rescind this year's military and economic aid to Jordan was carried by 57 votes to 43. It irritated the administration, as is often the case with votes in Congress. Senate majority leader Bob Dole opposed the decision, saying it would tie Bush's hands in his Middle East "peace" efforts. The Senate resolution thus authorized Bush to restore economic aid if he certified that Jordan was cooperating politically with his government. Nor did it exclude the resumption of military aid, subject to congressional consent.
The downing of the Iraqi bomber is more blatantly hypocritical.
According to Iraqi opposition sources, planes have been repeatedly used by the dictatorship to bomb the uprising (and are still being used). This has led to much criticism of Washington for failing to limit Saddam's ability to murder his people. Bush had then to make some token gestures: Baghdad was warned not to use fixed-wing military aircraft, but can continue using helicopter gunships which are its main repressive weapon against the
In fact, the real dilemma of the administration today is whether to withdraw from Iraq to give Baghdad a free hand to quell the rebellion, or stay there to deter Tehran from stepping up its aid to the rebels. Salah Jaber - March 21 * April 1, 1991 • #203 International Viewpoint
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