From Abdullah to Abdullah: Jordan's Policy on Jerusalem: The Regional and National Contexts - Abstract. By: Shay Har-Zvi

Transcription

1 1 From Abdullah to Abdullah: Jordan's Policy on Jerusalem: The Regional and National Contexts - Abstract By: Shay Har-Zvi This thesis has examined the changes in the policies and conduct of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan toward Jerusalem and its holy places from the reign of King Abdullah I to the reign of his great-grandson, King Abdullah II. While it discusses the development of Jordanian policy on Jerusalem throughout this period, it is the first examination of the connection and impact of the evolution of a particular Jordanian national identity after the 1967 war on Hashemite policies towards Jerusalem. Five main periods in the history of the Jordanian kingdom have been examined: The reign of King Abdullah I until his assassination in July 1951; The fifteen years before 1967 during which King Hussein ruled Jerusalem; The years between the loss of the West Bank and Arab Jerusalem in the 1967 war and the early 1990s; The period between the signing of the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement and King Hussein's death; and finally, the reign of King Abdullah II. The examination shows that each of the Hashemite kings understood the issue of Jerusalem differently in terms of geo-strategy, domestic Jordanian politics and their varying personal and religious outlooks. These differences, in turn, led to the adoption of different approaches to the city in accordance with their alternating world views and the effects of contemporary political events and ideological trends. Particular emphasis was placed on developments in the Israel-Jordan-PLO triangle and the changes that took place in the collective identity of the Jordanian people throughout the period in question.

2 2 The introduction and first chapter discuss the views, policies and conduct of Abdullah I toward Jerusalem before and after 1948, when he assumed control of the Arab part of the city. The study indicates that until the late 1940s, despite the fact that Jerusalem was the third most important Muslim holy site, the Hashemite connection to the city was not self-evident. In the early 1920s Sharif Hussein bin Ali had set his sights on Mecca and Medina, while Abdullah I envisioned Damascus as his capital, rather than Jerusalem. Sharif Hussein showed interest in Jerusalem only after he lost his position as guardian of the holy places in Mecca and Medina in 1924, and upon his death in 1931 he was buried near Al-Aqsa mosque. His burial place subsequently served as a justification for Jordan s rulers (especially King Hussein, after Arab Jerusalem was lost in 1967) to claim a special relationship with the Holy City. However, Jerusalem remained of secondary importance to Abdullah I, until Britain announced its intention to end the Mandate for Palestine. The situation now changed significantly as Abdullah I understood that, in view of his failure to take Damascus and realize his vision of "Greater Syria", a new opportunity had arisen to extend the boundaries of his kingdom by taking control of Islam's third most important city. The consequences of the 1948 war, especially the conquest of Arab Jerusalem and its holy places, gave Abdullah I the opportunity he had been waiting for to expand his realm and to enhance his prestige in the Arab-Muslim world. After the war he did not hesitate even to cooperate with Israel to maintain his control of Arab Jerusalem and its holy places, regardless of the opposition of the international community and the Arab world, which preferred the internationalization of the city. Abdullah I, however, did not make Jerusalem the capital in his united kingdom. He chose Amman instead, to ensure the continued superiority of the East Bank in the

3 3 union, and to prevent any advantage that might accrue to the Palestinian opposition in Jerusalem and the West Bank in general. As a consolation, the Jordanian establishment inflated Jerusalem's religious status, manifested in various ways, including by Abdullah's frequent visits to pray at Al-Aqsa. In any event, the policy of administrative inferiority for Jerusalem coupled with its religious promotion was consistently maintained throughout the nineteen years of Jordanian rule of the city. The second chapter discusses the reign of King Hussein until the 1967 war. The assassination of Abdullah I on July 21, 1951, symbolically, at the entrance to Al-Aqsa mosque as he arrived for Friday prayers, and the ascension of his grandson Hussein to the throne, led, as could be expected, to a number of significant changes in the kingdom. However, with respect to Jerusalem, the Hashemite approach remained largely unchanged. During the fifteen years that Hussein ruled over Jerusalem, his policies toward the city, like his grandfather's before him, were complex and ambiguous: unyielding politically but actively promoting its religious status. Throughout the period, the Jordanian administration was careful to preserve Jerusalem's political and administrative inferiority vis-à-vis Amman and to discriminate against it in the allocation of resources. Hussein also rejected all demands to recognize Jerusalem as the kingdom's second capital, though he did grudgingly agree to refer to it as the kingdom s spiritual capital, and to eventually accord Jerusalem a similar administrative status to Amman. At the same time, the Jordanians exploited Jerusalem's Islamic religious status for their political benefit. Hussein invested resources to reinforce the status of Jerusalem's religious institutions and to promote and cultivate the holy places. The most concrete example was the project to renovate the mosques on Al-Haram Al- Sharif, which lasted for almost ten years, ending in The Project was motivated

4 4 by the desire to focus attention on and emphasize Jerusalem's Muslim character and thus to enhance the legitimacy of the Hashemites and their rule over Jerusalem and Jordan as a whole in the eyes of the Arab-Muslim world. Another tactic used by Hussein to show his strong association with Jerusalem was to conspicuously display his commitment to the preservation of its Arab character in the face of steps taken by Israel in the western part of the city. For example, in response to Israel's decision to move its ministry of foreign affairs to Jerusalem, in July 1953, the Jordanian cabinet met for the first time in Jerusalem, instead of Amman. However, the single meeting was held more than five years after the Jordanian conquest of the city, and three years after the declaration of Jordan's unification with the West Bank. Clearly, despite occasional symbolic demonstrations, Jerusalem was not the center of the united kingdom's political life. The third chapter discusses Hussein's policies in the initial phase after the loss of Arab Jerusalem in the 1967 war. The Jordanian defeat presented the king with new challenges, which threatened to erode his legitimacy and even the survival of the Hashemite royal house. Furthermore, if until 1967 Hussein had glorified Jerusalem's religious sanctity to promote the Arab-Islamic identity of his kingdom, the post-june 1967 situation and his power struggle with the PLO forced him to adopt a different political position regarding the city and to stress not only its religious character but its political importance for Jordan as well. In the first years after the war, Hussein desperately tried to restore Jordan's full control over the West Bank and the Arab part of Jerusalem. He believed that they rightfully belonged to Jordan, that he personally remained responsible for these territories, and had to act to restore them. In all his speeches and diplomatic contacts after the war he reserved a special place for Jerusalem. Beyond the city's religious

5 5 importance and Hussein's personal attachment, Jerusalem was perceived as a more pressing problem than the other occupied territories because of the juridical and physical changes Israel was making. These threatened to permanently undermine the Arab-Muslim character of the city by transforming the new status quo into an irreversible fait accompli. The fourth chapter discusses the two decades between March 1972, when Hussein announced his plan for a federation between the East and the West Banks, with Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian region, and April 1992, when Adnan Abu Odeh published a plan dividing responsibility for Jerusalem (a Jewish area in the western part of the city, an Arab area in the east and an area within the walls over which neither side would have sovereignty). The stalled political process with Israel and the recognition of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians in 1974 led to a gradual but consistent erosion of Jordan's status in Jerusalem and forced Hussein to adopt new positions in his relationship to the city. The beginning of the first phase was marked by the federation plan, in which Hussein formally recognized the Palestinian national identity for the first time ever, and was even willing to consider Jerusalem as the capital of the autonomous Palestinian region within the United Arab Kingdom that would span both banks of the Jordan River. During the first few years after the war Jordan had demanded the complete restoration of its sovereignty over Jerusalem. Following the rise of the PLO Hussein had no choice but to recognize the West Bank as a Palestinian territory. However he made a point of referring to Arab Jerusalem in order to preserve a Jordanian foothold there (even though he stopped calling for the return of the city to Jordanian sovereignty). The next stage was marked by the July 1988 disengagement decision,

6 6 after which Arab Jerusalem was both Arab and Palestinian, while the Old City and the holy places were to be "under the sovereignty of God". In the eyes of Hussein, this terminology ensured a historic role in the holy city for the Hashemites, as the direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. The fifth chapter discusses , the years of the agreements signed between Israel and the PLO and Israel and Jordan. Towards the middle of the 1990s the struggle between Jordan and the PLO for political and religious hegemony in East Jerusalem intensified. Jordan was clearly in a position of weakness in this confrontation because of the overwhelming support the Palestinians enjoyed in the Arab-Muslim world and in Jerusalem itself, where Jordan s influence was severely curtailed. Hussein, all the same, waged a determined struggle to preserve his status in Jerusalem and to lay the foundation for a Jordanian role in the final status arrangements for Jerusalem. His greatest achievement was in extracting from Israel, in the July 1994 Washington Declaration and in the peace treaty that was signed in October 1994, the recognition of the Hashemite Kingdom s special role in the Islamic holy places in Jerusalem. Israel agreed to grant high priority to Jordan's historical role in the holy places when negotiations would take place on the permanent status arrangement for Jerusalem. The sixth chapter discusses Hussein's desperate attempts to arrest the continuing erosion of Jordan's status in the holy places in Jerusalem during the second half of the 1990s. It rapidly became clear that the achievements of the peace treaty had no political, legal or practical validity. The battles Hussein waged to halt the erosion could do no more than slow it down somewhat. The PLO quickly learned how to exploit, at the expense of the Hashemite Kingdom, not only its physical presence in Jerusalem after the Oslo Accords, but also the local population's growing sense of

7 7 solidarity with the Palestinian national struggle. Moreover, the PLO also enjoyed the overwhelming support of the Arab-Muslim world for its objective to establish itself in Jerusalem and its holy places. Thus the political processes which had been gradually maturing since the 1974 Rabat Conference that recognized the PLO finally defeated the Jordanians. The last period examined is the reign of Abdullah II. The change of leadership brought with it a change in Jordan's policy toward Jerusalem, influenced by a combination of three main factors: Hussein's deep personal attachment to Jerusalem were not shared by Abdullah II; the new king's priorities were topped by domestic Jordanian issues, especially those relating to the economy and social inequalities; and the results on the ground of the rapid Palestinian takeover of most of the civilian and religious institutions in the city. Moreover, in view of the continued impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Abdullah II's most pressing problem in Jerusalem was to prevent any changes in the status quo in the city and its holy places. Such changes might ignite a violent confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians, which, the Jordanians believed, could have a spillover effect that was potentially threatening to the national security of the Hashemite Kingdom. The stalled peace process and the consequent declining stature of the PLO allowed Abdullah II to express himself more freely and to enhance Jordan's role in protecting the holy places in Jerusalem. However, as opposed to his father, who never hesitated to clash with the Palestinians and the Arab-Muslim world to preserve Jordan's status in Jerusalem, Abdullah II consistently sought to coordinate his position with the PLO and the Arab states on the Jerusalem question in a way that would not entangle him in any power struggles with his Arab neighbors. His criticism

8 8 was mainly directed against Israel rather than the Palestinians. The ramifications of Israel s actions were his main concern not the competition with the PLO. The most concrete manifestation of this approach was at the Camp David talks in the summer of 2000, in which Jordan abstained from playing any role at all in the talks between Israel and the Palestinians on the issue of Jerusalem. This was diametrically opposed to the role played by Hussein in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1996 Western Wall tunnel crisis or in the Wye Agreement of The approach of Abdullah II was also influenced by the linkage between the gradual development of the specific Jordanian national identity, associated with the East Bank, and the way in which the Hashemite monarchy related to Jerusalem. During the 1970s, to a great extent due to the loss of the West Bank and the consequences of the civil war, a particular Jordanian national identity began to develop. That led to the demise of the idea that "Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan," and gave ideological and practical backing to a very different claim, namely that "Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine," as stated in Hussein s speech of July 1988, announcing Jordan s disengagement from the West Bank. The Jordanians systematically promoted a sense of national identity, mobilizing symbols of the Nabatean, Roman and Islamic historical past towards that end. The objective was to encourage all the people of the East Bank, of their various origins, to feel "Jordanian," and to stress the uniqueness of the East Bank as an independent sovereign territory under the Hashemite crown. As a result, the West Bank and Jerusalem gradually lost their special symbolic status that was replaced almost entirely by symbols associated with the East Bank. For instance, there was a change in the postage stamps issued by the kingdom: Before

9 9 the 1967 war many stamps bore illustrations of the holy places in Jerusalem. Thereafter, in contrast, far more stamps featured historical sites on the East Bank, such as Petra, rather than sites in Jerusalem. Thus, 50 years after Abdullah I annexed Arab Jerusalem and the holy places, and more than 30 years after Husssein lost them, Abdullah II s ascension to the throne initiated a new chapter in the history of Jordan and Jerusalem. Not only had the Hashemite Kingdom lost any truly significant role in determining Jerusalem's future, more importantly, it seems that the preservation of Jordan's status in the holy places was no longer on King Abdullah II s list of top priorities.