Lion of Jordan by Avi Shlaim Page A

split the Arabs down the middle. Hussein tried to work out an Arab solution to the crisis, but he was not given a chance. He came under strong pressure to join the American-led war against Iraq but he resisted all the pressures and the blandishments. It was a difficult period in Jordan’s history, fraught with perils and uncertainties. There was a real danger that Jordan would become a battleground between Iraq and Israel and that the hard-liners on the Israeli right would seize the opportunity to realize their programme of turning the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan into a Palestinian state. Hussein forestalled the danger by secretly meeting Itzhak Shamir in England and getting him to agree to respect Jordan’s neutrality when the bombs started falling. This was a striking example of the use made by Hussein of his back channel to Tel Aviv to protect the security of his country.
    Jordan was an enthusiastic participant in the American-led peace process that got under way after the Gulf War, and provided an umbrella for non-PLO Palestinian participation in the Madrid peace conference. But little progress was made in the subsequent bilateral negotiations in Washington under American auspices. The Oslo Accord between the PLO and Israel in September 1993 took Jordan and the other Arab states by complete surprise. Hussein’s initial reaction was anger at the PLO for breaking rank and suspicion that Israel intended to drop him in favour of a partnership with the PLO. But Itzhak Rabin succeeded in reassuring him that his government remained committed to the survival of the monarchy in Amman and that Jordan’s interests would be taken into account in all future negotiations with the PLO. The Oslo Accord involved not just a risk but also an opportunity for Jordan. Once thePLO had made its peace with the Jewish state, there was no longer any reason for Jordan to hold back from doing so too. The Arab taboo had been broken, and the road was clear to the direct negotiations that culminated in the signature of a peace treaty between Jordan and Israel on 26 October 1994.
    Hussein viewed the peace treaty with Israel as the crowning achievement of his reign. It clearly served his dynastic interests but he firmly believed that it also served Jordan’s national interests. It restored the alliance with America which had been badly damaged by Jordan’s stand during the Gulf War; it restored lost territory and water resources; it revived the strategic understanding with the State of Israel; and it underpinned the centrality of Jordan in regional politics. Crucially, it also protected his kingdom from a takeover bid by his Palestinian opponents and forestalled the emergence of an Israeli–Palestinian axis. By concluding his own pact with Israel, Hussein turned the tables on his radical Palestinian rivals and reasserted the Hashemite dynasty’s position as Israel’s natural ally in the region. Most of all, the peace agreement provided a lasting defence against the dreaded policy of the Israeli right of toppling the monarchy in Amman and transforming the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan into the Republic of Palestine. The spectre of Jordan becoming an alternative homeland for the Palestinians was finally laid to rest. A comprehensive peace settlement for the Middle East was beyond Hussein’s reach, but he successfully stopped Jordan from becoming the solution to the Palestinian problem.
    There was, however, an internal price to pay for the peace with Israel. Peace and democracy usually go hand in hand, but they did not do so in this case. There was strong popular opposition to peace and normalization with Israel, and many prominent Jordanian politicians thought that Hussein was in too much of a hurry, that he was conceding too much in his dealings with the Israelis. Hussein realized the depth of the opposition to his peace policy but he counted on the material benefits of peace to bring about a change in attitudes. The