King Hussein speaking to
Jordanian soldiers after assuming command of the army.
Trouble had been brewing for a while between the growing force of Palestinian militias in Jordan, the largest of which was Yasser Arafat's Al Fatah, and the Bedouin army of the monarch. The power of the Palestinian militias grew in Jordan after the Israeli conquest of the West Bank, which had been part of Jordan, in 1967. Fedayeen, such as Fatah, relocated to Jordan to set up bases. The prestige of Fatah grew after their fight with the Israeli military during the Battle of Karameh in March 1968.
The Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) had effectively become a state within a state in a country where at least half of its population was Palestinian. As a Western diplomat put it:
When you have two sovereign powers operating in one country, with the population practically evenly divided, you’ve got a problem.
The evolving power of the PLO threatened King Hussein and there were explicit calls from among the ranks of the Palestinian guerrillas to overthrow the Hashemite king.
Some historians put the start on September 6th while others make it September 17th when King Hussein created a military government. But it is worth noting that on September 2nd, 1970, King Hussein had survived an assassination attempt when a mortar was fired on his convoy. The king had granted concessions over the months to the PLO much to the chagrin of his soldiers.
What was the precise turning point?
This allegedly came from “The Bra on the Tank Gun” incident when Hussein encountered a bra on the turret gun of a tank.
“Do you have women on board?” he asked.
“We are all women now,” came the morose reply.
Although there would be an agreement in Cairo signed by Hussein and Arafat which was mediated by the about-to-be deceased Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the fighting would continue until July the following year. Victory ultimately came to Hussein whose 55,000-strong army proved too much for the poorly organised and divided Palestinian militias.
This conflict would have many ramifications:
First, the Palestinian militias were expelled to neighbouring Lebanon where they would play a part in the in-fighting of the Lebanese Civil War. Their presence would also play a part in successive Israeli invasions including the bloody one of 1982.
Secondly, the bitter defeat and the ill-treatment by Hussein’s army of Palestinian refugee camps (Jordan was and remains a majority Palestinian population) would lead to the creation of the terror group "Black September" which assassinated Jordan's Prime Minister Wasfi Tal and carried out the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics; an act that prompted a series of Israeli acts of vengeance such as "Operation Spring of Youth", all of which came under the assassination programme known as "Operation Wrath of God".
The war was also important because of external actors: The Syrian Army intervened on the Palestinian side and Iraqi troops based in Jordan threatened to act against Hussein. It will be remembered that the King's cousin, Faisal II, a Hashemite king of Iraq was murdered during the military coup of July 1958. The Hashemites were the original custodians of the Holy City of Mecca until forced out by Ibn Saud.
One other external actor, a certain Brigadier Zia ul-Haq played a key role in the brutal takedown of the PLO's attempt to seize power. Zia would of course later become the military dictator of Pakistan.
Israel, the presumed enemy of all its Arab neighbours, watched with a projected neutrality, although Palestinian groups claimed that their airplanes struck at them. The Israelis, who certainly would not have wanted a Palestinian state on its borders, nonetheless projected a neutral, even humanitarian stance with General Moshe Dayan, waiting with truckloads of aid by the Allenby Bridge, and Palestinian Fedayeen crossing the border and surrendering to the Israeli enemy rather than be captured and face the wrath of Jordanian soldiers.
The Israelis played a role in preserving the king’s throne. The Syrians had withdrawn through a combination of Israeli threats to intervene, strafing attacks by the Royal Jordanian Air Force and diplomatic pressure from the Americans.
"Black September" as Palestinians referred to the month in 1970 was a decisive moment in the history of the Palestinian people. Lives of innocent women and children were lost during the shelling of refugee camps. And the guerrillas, who were the only hope of ever regaining the lands and properties lost after their expulsion during the Nakba of 1948, had to relocate en masse to Lebanon.
It was the continuation of a bitter exile that lasts to this day.
© Adeyinka Makinde (2020)
Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.
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