Palestinians in Jordan

The Politics of Identity

Luisa Gandolfo

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781786725042
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

60 per cent of Jordanians are of Palestinian origin, a statistic which has propelled Jordan into the role of both player and pawn in regional issues such as the birth of the state of Israel, the prolonged Israel-Palestine conflict, the ascent and decline of Arab nationalism and the subsequent rise of political Islam and radicalism. Exploring Jordan's diverse Palestinian communities, Luisa Gandolfo illustrates how the Palestinian majority has been subject to discrimination, all the while also playing a defining role in shaping Jordanian politics, legal frameworks and national identity. The conflicts of 1948 and 1967, the civil unrest following Black September in 1972 and the uprisings of 1988 and 2000 have all contributed to a fractious Jordanian-Palestinian relationship. In Palestinians in Jordan, Gandolfo examines the history of this relationship, looking at the socio-political circumstances, the economic and domestic policies, the legal status of Palestinians in Jordan and the security dimension of Jordan's role in the region.
She argues that policies put in place over the last century have created a society that is marked by high levels of inter-faith cohesion, as evidenced by the success and integration of minority Christian communities. She goes on to suggest that society divides along lines of ethnic and nationalist loyalty, between Jordanians and Palestinians, while domestic politics become increasingly fractious with the growth of Islamist groups that have gained grassroots appeal, especially in the refugee camps. Palestinians in Jordan looks through the kaleidoscope of Palestinian-Jordanian identities that accommodate a complex and overlapping web of different religious affiliations, mixed socio-economic conditions and the experience of exile reconciled with daily life in Jordan. At the same time, identities of these communities continue to be rooted in an attachment to the concept of Palestine, and the unifying force of the struggle against Zionism. These layers have made the versatile and fluid nature of identities essential, affording a fascinating study in inter-communal dynamics and nationalism.
It is this which makes Palestinians in Jordan an important resource for those researching the Israel-Palestine conflict as well as for students of the Middle East, Politics, Anthropology and Gender with an interest in identity.

1

THE EMERGENCE OF THE PALESTINIAN COMMUNITY IN TR ANSJORDAN

In entering a province one has always the need of the goodwill of the natives.¹

The words of Machiavelli are on first sight so removed from the formation of Transjordan as to seem incongruous. Published in 1532 in the Florentine Republic by a diplomat and political philosopher, the construct of a twentieth-century Middle Eastern kingdom can be viewed as quite disparate. The fact that Machiavelli addresses acquired, as opposed to constructed, principalities through The Prince does not lessen its pertinence: for the Hashemites, governing a purposefully delineated state comprising Bedouin tribes, Palestinian refugees, Circassians and Chechens, required a stability dependent on the support of the ‘natives’, in this instance the Bedouins. Yet while their domain of dominance has been the government and military, their minority status amidst increasing grassroots unrest raises the spectre of the goodwill losing its permanence. The aftermath of the region’s partition by the British authorities in 1922 brought into existence the semi-autonomous Emirate of Transjordan and rendered residents of Palestine not only stateless, but subjects in the new Kingdom. At the end of World War I, the area that encompasses Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem was granted to the United Kingdom by the League of Nations under the Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan and while King Abdullah I was the head of state, the remainder of Palestine continued under the British High Commissioner, Sir Alan Cunningham, until 1948. The Mandate over Transjordan drew to a close on 22 May 1946 and within 72 hours the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan grasped independence. When the following year’s United Nations Partition Plan divided the former Mandate area between the Jewish and Palestinian population Transjordan assumed a ringside seat to the political unrest and a responsibility for the victims of the conflict fleeing Palestinian towns and villages. While for some Jordan became a state en route to a new beginning in the West, for others it became a second homeland, that over the years they would dominate, challenge and contribute to as the Jordanian state progressed.

The annexation of the West Bank by Jordan in 1950 altered the demographic structure of the Kingdom: for the indigenous Transjordanian population – estimated at 450,000 in 1948² – the addition of 900,000 persons (roughly half of whom were refugees) would have lasting socio-political consequences.³ More advanced in terms of education, healthcare, employment, trade unions and newspapers, the Palestinian population contrasted with the predominantly nomadic, semi-nomadic, and sedentary Bedouin tribes.⁴ Having sustained the Arab struggle against the emergent Israeli nation, the Palestinians had developed not only skilful economic competition, but also a political awareness that was more cognizant than that of their Jordanian counterparts.⁵ Guided by Western political ideologies, the political identity of the Palestinians was conducive to a reluctance to integrate into the Jordanian system and concepts of trade unionism and democracy rendered them critical of a monarchy that relied on the support of tribes and the military as a source of power.⁶ Unable to assent to a primitive, tribal and autocratic monarchy, the Palestinians struggled with the existing institutions of administration.⁷ For their part, the Hashemites strove to incorporate the Palestinians into the state and by 1964 the government had created a moderately high level of employment and prosperity. Yet while the infrastructural issue was resolvable, ‘political homelessness’⁸ would prove less surmountable and would bear a significant impact through the creation of a bi-national discourse within the country.

Palestinians in the Jordanian Military (1926–1968)

Transjordan’s first monarch was assassinated in Jerusalem on 20 July 1951 by a Palestinian contingent operating under the financial auspices of benefactors residing in Egypt. Having ruled for 15 months, King Abdullah I was killed as rumours of a joint Jordanian and Lebanese peace treaty with Israel gained momentum. The circumstances of Abdullah’s assassination emphasized the threats the state confronted during early independence as the plot demonstrated the lengths to which Jordan’s enemies would go to destroy the monarchy. The Palestinian element emphasized the animosity held for the Hashemite family by the Palestinian population who perceived the king as an impediment to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.⁹ Amongst the convicted were a distant relative of the Mufti and a close confidant of the monarch, Abdullah al-Tall. Having fled to Cairo in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, he made connections with West and East Bank Palestinian dissidents¹⁰ and in the long term consolidated the foundations of Jordanian distrust of the Palestinian community. Equally, it marked the beginnings of the two groups’ struggle to exist side by side, establishing and asserting identities, and achieving acceptance and integration without relinquishing hope and support for a Palestinian homeland.

Following Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank, Abdullah confronted the challenge of absorbing the West and East Bank Palestinians into Jordanian society. The skills brought by the Palestinians were crucial to the Kingdom’s evolution towards a viable state, yet all the while the king was aware of his support base in the East Bank and the destabilizing effect of the nearby Palestine conflict. To upset the former or become entangled with the latter would have produced devastating results and in turn Abdullah sought to integrate the Palestinians into not only political circles, but also the military, to the chagrin of Jordanians, for ‘with the incorporation of Palestinians, the Legion had lost its homogeneity.’¹¹ The disdain with which the Palestinian presence was regarded in military circles is ironic: the earliest recruits of the Legion were a force of 50 gendarmes employed by the Karak administration to collect fines and taxes and detain criminals.¹² Within a short time, the overwhelmed force prompted British officer Frederick Peake to resort to Arabs who had served in the Ottoman army, many of whom were recruited from Egypt, Sudan, Syria and Palestine.¹³

The Arab Legion was founded on 1 April 1926 as the Transjordan Frontier Force (TJFF), a multinational unit associated with the imperial forces in Palestine. With the majority of its 1,000 men drawn from Palestine, Syria and Lebanon,¹⁴ the Transjordanian contingent was represented by the Circassians.¹⁵ By 1929 the Arab Legion resembled a police force in its duties and equipment as opposed to a regular army, having been reduced from 1,300 to less than 900 in all ranks including a number of Syrian and Palestinian recruits.¹⁶ Post-independence, the Jordanian armed forces confronted an increasing population and technical branches that necessitated more staff, a need met by numerous Palestinian refugees and Palestinians from the West Bank. While many of the new recruits had been technicians in the employ of the Palestinian Mandate in areas of public service and utilities, they came to almost exclusively compose the Legion’s maintenance workshops.¹⁷ Indeed, far from homogenizing the Jordanian military, the Palestinians bolstered the corps.

The transformation of the Jordanian Army into a national army incorporating the growing Palestinian population demonstrated not only the integration of the two communities within the Kingdom, but also the problem of ‘nationalization’. Far from being the model of acceptance, the move to incorporate Palestinians was calculated according to Transjordanian interests. The Palestinian presence denoted integration and cohesion, but its real value resided in the opportunity to defend the Kingdom, while preventing them entering into the army officer corps and presenting a threat to the military status quo, since the majority of Palestinians were allocated administrative and technical positions:

the monarch has been careful to retain the traditional tribal element as the preponderant one in the operational ground force units, namely, infantry and armoured car regiments. In doing this, the monarch [King Hussein] has managed to continue to identify himself with the traditional forces in the Legion, while at the same time he had led the process of a viable integration of the various elements in the country that is so essential to political stability.¹⁸

Just as the Arab Legion afforded a means to integrate the Palestinians, so too did the Jordanian National Guard question the extent to which the Palestinian community could contribute to and defend Jordanian state interests. In January 1950, prior to the annexation of central Palestine to Jordan, the government issued the Law of the National Guard that inaugurated a new military force in the Kingdom.¹⁹ Initiated by a British officer, John Bagot Glubb, the new legal stricture enabled military conscription to control the tribes and integrate them within the nation-state.²⁰ Considered the foremost authority in pacifying Bedouin tribes, Glubb had previously excelled in neighbouring Iraq during the 1920s and he sought to apply his methods to the integration of Palestinians in the new Guard. Glubb’s insight into the position of the Palestinians in the region prompted the frank conclusion that the isolation of Palestinians from Jordanian affairs would benefit Jordan’s unscrupulous neighbours as they sought to instigate animosity between West Bank and East Bank:

One of the major points they used to stir up resentment was that the Jordanian government did not trust the Palestinians. The Arab Legion was depicted as a purely East Bank army. The Communist went farther. They labelled the Arab Legion – ‘The Anglo-Hashemite Army of Occupation in Palestine.’ [The Palestinians] could not be half-citizens. We must make them feel trusted, and the first sign of trust was to arm them.²¹

It was a risky move and one that did not pass without resistance, particularly from the government that feared arming the Palestinians would not protect the Kingdom, but rather place it in further jeopardy. The Law also encountered resistance from West Bank Palestinian notables not yet reconciled to unification.²² Yet the real task was not protecting Jordan from forces within, but from damage to relations with neighbouring states, new and old. In particular, border infiltration into Israel by armed members of the National Guard gained significance in October 1953 when 66 civilians, including children, were massacred by Israeli forces in the West Bank town of Qibya.²³ Both Jordan and Palestine were becoming rapidly embroiled in an internal impasse over policy and security on the Israeli border. Vehement in their cries for better arms and training, the Palestinians deplored the Jordanian civilian and military evasion of confrontation with Israel. Impassioned by both the experience of losing their homeland and suffering previous Israeli violations, the gulf between the peace-seeking Jordanians and the retribution-hungry Palestinians within the Kingdom widened.

Viewed by many as ‘the protector of Israel from Palestinian infiltrators,’²⁴ the onus for events was placed on the Kingdom. Jordan was not acting (or not) alone, for the British command was perceived as equally weak, restricting the army from engaging in action against the Israelis.²⁵ Opposition MPs, predominantly from the West Bank, called for the Legion to be given a free hand to retaliate with force against Israel and the then representative of Nablus in the Jordanian parliament, Qadri Tuqan, contended that ‘only a daring will and the power of the fist will be able to drive back the frivolous, despicable, and treacherous Jew. As long as the Arabs concede a lot, the Jews will go on running wild.’²⁶ If the Hashemite’s gentleness proved contentious for the Palestinians, it was no less comforting to the regime: challenged on its borders and within, Jordan assumed a stance that would characterize its foreign and domestic policy, treading the fine line between loyalty and stability. Unable to satisfy all (or none), ultimately she risked the wrath from within over that which shared its western border.

The protests and demonstrations that followed the Qibya massacre brought the Jordanian government under increasing pressure from Arab governments to withdraw the National Guard from Arab Legion supervision, itself under British officers, and place it under joint Arab direction and leadership. After the British Mandate, the Jordanian army remained under the auspices of a Joint Defence Board that stipulated that British officers would fill the top positions.²⁷ Glubb had come to represent Jordan’s reliance on Britain and in turn became a liability for Hussein in an atmosphere of increasing nationalism. Galvanized by the rise of Nasserism, Glubb was duly dismissed and deported on 2 March 1956.²⁸ With the final vestige of British presence removed, the regime could reorient itself towards an intra-regional approach to domestic politics and for the Transjordanian population, the proposal offered by the Arab governments proved tantalizing. Subsisting on little or no wages under the British employ, a sympathetic stance vis-à-vis Israel provided an additional allure for the people and a problem for the new monarch. In a preventative step, the Guard was integrated into the Arab Legion in May 1956, two months after the expulsion of Glubb from the Kingdom. The juxtaposition of the two forces yielded ‘an essentially élite regular force of beduin [sic], tribesmen and Transjordanian peasants with a territorial frontier force wholly consisting of settled Palestinian agricultural peasants and a few townsmen.’²⁹ Yet in the midst of Palestinian integration was a scheme that brought credence to the suspicions within Jordanian society. The withdrawal of British officers brought enticing opportunities to a generation of young men, ideologically inspired, albeit ‘from the dynasty’s viewpoint, of doubtful political loyalty.’³⁰ Lieutenant Colonel Ali Abu Nowar quickly rose in prominence and formed the Fourth Infantry Brigade, composed almost exclusively of Palestinians. On the surface a simple military division, it was a military nucleus primed for a coup d’état, concurrent with a group of Free Officers as the base for a future regime.³¹ The coup attempt of April 1957 ultimately failed due to the loyalty of the king’s Bedouin ground o...