Abdullah doesn't want to get stuck with the Palestinians

I wish I could find the transcript of King Abdullah's speech to a graduating class of police and army officers at a Jordanian university earlier today. According to Middle East Online(?), he said

"If there is anyone who believes that it is possible to settle the Palestinian issue at the expense of Jordan, he should know that Jordan will never be a substitute homeland for anybody .... The Palestinians' homeland and their state should be on Palestinian soil, and nowhere else."

Never mind that there is no Palestinian soil (and that is precisely the problem), why does the king protest so much? Perhaps a question he was asked in an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth alarmed him:

Responding to the argument that Jordan could as act as a replacement Palestinian state, Abdullah said that Palestinians have only one homeland, in Palestine. He added that Jordan is Jordan, and Palestine is Palestine.

For those who need a little background to make this really interesting, PalestineFacts.org explains

The 1922 White Paper (also called the Churchill White Paper) was the first official manifesto interpreting the Balfour Declaration.... Although the White Paper stated that the Balfour Declaration could not be amended and that the Jews were in Palestine by right, it partitioned the area of the Mandate by excluding the area east of the Jordan River from Jewish settlement.

That land, 76% of the original Palestine Mandate land, was renamed Transjordan and was given to the Emir Abdullah by the British.

The White Paper included the statement that the British Government... does not want Palestine to become "as Jewish as England is English", rather should become "a center in which Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride."

After the partition, Transjordan remained part of the Palestine Mandate ... its legal system applied to all residents, both East and West of the Jordan River, who all carried Palestine Mandate passports [and] Palestine Mandate currency was the legal tender in [both]. This was the consistent situation until 1946 ... when Britain completed the action by unilaterally granting Transjordan its independence.

Thus the British subverted the purpose of the Palestine Mandate, partitioned Palestine and created an independent Palestine-Arab state with no regard for the rights and needs of the Jewish population.

David Littman explains why:

This new entity was put under the rule of Emir Abdullah, the eldest son of the Sharif of Mecca, as a recompense for his support in the war against the Turks, and of Ibn Saud's seizure of Arabia (Faisal, Abdullah's brother, later received the even vaster Mandate area of Iraq).

As you can see, the plot is very thick.

Let's go back to PalestineFacts. Herein may lie the crux of the biscuit:

According to Sir Alec Kirkbride, the British repre-sentative in the area, Transjordan was "intended to serve as a reserve of land for use in the resettle-ment of Arabs once the National Home for the Jews in Palestine, which [Britain was] pledged to support, became an accomplished fact. There was no intention at that stage of forming the territory east of the River Jordan into an independent Arab state."

Meanwhile, Great Britain ... decided that no Jews could reside or buy land in the newly created Emirate. This policy was ratified by Jordan in 1954, made law in 1963, and remains valid today. Any person may become a citizen of Jordan unless he is a Jew. But that is a tangent for a different post; here, I'd better stick to Jordan and the Palestinians.

Abdullah may say that "Jordan is Jordan, and Palestine is Palestine," but two thirds of his country's people are Palestinian "refugees" and their descendants. A May 2004 Reuters article (link expired) asserted that

Jordan, which has hosted successive waves of Palestinian refugees since the creation of Israel in 1948, fears the rejection of the right of refugees to return [to Israel] will pave the way for their permanent integration in the kingdom.

And I would think Abdullah is even more afraid now than he was then, what with Hamas in power in the Terror-tories and al Qaeda seeping into Gaza. Otherwise, why would he be touting the "Jordanian-Palestinian relationship" as a "sacred historic bond" ?

Let's look at some of that history. You will remember (or learn) that throughout the 1960s, Jordan was the center of operations for Yasser Arafat's war on Israel. One of the PLO slogans at the time was "the road to Tel Aviv lies through Amman." In some parts of the country, the PLO was the defacto government and PLO members roamed the streets armed and in (PLO) uniform. They operated their own checkpoints, conducted illegal searches of citizens and collected "taxes" at gunpoint. They refused to carry Jordanian identity papers or use Jordanian license plates on their vehicles. They were to a great extent, a country within a country (much as they are now in Israel).

On September 1, 1970, there were several failed attempts to assassinate King Hussein. On September 6, Palestinian terrorists hijacked several foreign planes and forced three of them to land in (PLO-controlled northern) Jordan. I don't want to get bogged down in too much detail here, but it's kind of interesting to note that all the passenger-hostages (except the Jewish ones, of course) were freed on September 11 of that year (Wikipedia).

Thus, in an untenable position both internationally and domestically, King Hussein sought to retake control of his country. He imposed martial law and ordered the forced expulsion of the PLO from Jordan. This is remembered by Palestinians simply as "Black September," but some sources say it took ten months to drive the PLO out of Jordan... and into Lebanon (that's another story). It is unknown how many people were killed (Hussein saw to that), but estimates run as high as five thousand.

I have always wondered about the double standard: No one talks about -much less, objects to- the fact that Jordan forcibly expelled (and in the process, killed) unknown numbers of Palestinians, but Gd help any Israeli who might suggest a peaceable "transfer." We hear all about the terrible conditions of Palestinian life under evil Israeli "occupation," but nobody mentions that Jordan, through the UNRWA, hosts ten "refugee camps" and at least a million registered refugees.

Of course, there are a million registered refugees in JewFreeGaza^TM too... and eight camps. Why the PA doesn't liberate them remains a mystery, but that's yet another story.

To come back to my original question, King Abdullah is in a tight spot. He protests that his country must not become a "substitute homeland" for Palestinians, yet he must know better than anyone that it was intended "to serve as a reserve of land for use in the resettlement of Arabs." He wants to calm his natives by claiming a sacred historic bond with them, yet it was his own father who forcibly expelled and killed thousands of Palestinians in order to retain Hashemite control of the throne.

What will Abdullah do next? How long can he maintain that Jordan is Jordan, and Palestine is Palestine?

Stay tuned, as BtB will be watching closely when the King comes to Israel tomorrow for talks with Olmert.

Today's Trivia Quiz: True or false?

His Majesty King Abdullah II is the 43rd generation direct descendant of the Islamic hero, Muhammad.

Comments

[Smooth]

Excellent post. Thank you for publishing it. It is critical that the history of the White Paper be disseminated through every media portal that exists. Crown Prince Abdullah insists that "...the first thing they say is that Islam and the Arabs are not interested in peace... Islam is peace, love, brotherhood, humanism and morals. We do not want to fight, and we are not bloodthirsty." He also talked about the right of return for Palestinians. Does that right of return for all Palestinians include the right to return to their rightful homeland of JORDAN, Prince? Does it also include the right for the Jews to return to all of the Arab lands who kicked them out? It's a dreadful and regretful event that the civilized and evolved western world is being held captive by distasteful and unevolved Pan-Arab politics and customs.

[Smooth]

One more thing; here's an excellent resource ==> http://www.geocities.com/israelwhitepaper/

[Oceanguy]

Thanks very much, I appreciatethe time you put into the post. Great job.

[downtowndubai]

great post. another interesting tidbit of history. the military commander who at this time defended king hussein against various plo attacks and, with great relish, unleashed the dogs of war against the plo was none other than future pakistani strongman...zia al haq!!!!!! muslim brotherhood...right....

[soccerdad]

I believe that King Abdullah is a direct 43rd generation descendant of the prophet Mohammed. I also suspect that somewhere upwards of 90% of all Muslims are directly descended from the prophet. I wish some demographer would study that question and disclose the actual percentage of Muslims he estimates are descended from Mohammed. Once Muslims knew that there was a very good chance that they too are descended from the founder of their religion they'd start demanding the perks.