Lion of Jordan (91 page)

There were three key points in the document. First, Israel would restore land it had appropriated in Wadi Araba and the Dead Sea to
Jordanian sovereignty, but these lands would be leased to Israel for a nominal rent. Second, the two countries would establish normal relations and exchange ambassadors. Third, the two countries would cooperate in the fields of agriculture, transport and tourism, and in the development of energy resources. A large international economic conference was to be held in Amman with senior business figures from Israel and the Arab world. Several informal understandings were also reached. Israel would use its influence with the Clinton administration and with Congress to try to secure the remission of Jordan's heavy external debt. The Jordanian dinar was to remain legal tender in the area of Palestinian self-government. Israel was to provide a military umbrella for Jordan and defend it in the event of attack by a third party. The document was prepared in advance and initialled by Peres and Hassan after nine hours of discussions on the night of 2/3 November. It was a highly significant meeting that foreshadowed much of what came later. The king confided to Peres that he did not feel well, that he may not have many more years to live, and that he wanted to leave the peace treaty as his legacy for future generations.
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Peres was overjoyed by the results of the meeting with the man he once referred to as ‘His Royal Shyness'. He returned to Israel in a euphoric mood, dropping hefty hints that a peace treaty with Jordan was imminent. ‘Put 3 November in your calendars as an historic date,' he told journalists. Peres had, of course, gone to Amman with Rabin's permission. Prior to his departure he had told Rabin that if they met the king's demands on land, water and guardianship of the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, a peace treaty would be possible. Rabin doubted that the king would be ready to move so fast.
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He also made allowance for the possibility that the king might get cold feet and change his mind, as he had on some past occasions.

Hussein was incensed by Peres's indiscretion. He was not ready yet to commit himself to bilateral peace negotiations in public. The rumours that the Israeli foreign secretary had visited him in Amman were liable to complicate his relations with the Palestinians and to antagonize Syria and Saudi Arabia. Strict secrecy was an explicit condition governing the clandestine contacts, and all Israeli officials going back to Dr Yaacov Herzog respected that. Peres, however, apparently could not contain his excitement. In self-defence he pointed out that he made no mention of Jordan, its ruler, the meeting or its subject matter. But there was not a
single Israeli journalist who did not know what Peres was talking about. Nor was there any doubt that he was seeking publicity for his achievement. This, at any rate, was how Hussein saw the matter. The disclosure caused a crisis in Jordanian–Israeli relations. Hussein complained to Rabin about his colleague's indiscretion and warned him that there would be no more secret meetings if they could not be kept secret.

Rabin did not need much persuasion to relegate his foreign secretary to the sidelines and to keep all contacts with the palace in his own hands. He suggested that he and the king should appoint a number of aides whom they could trust implicitly to keep a secret. The king appointed Hassan, Shaker, Majali and Shukri. Rabin appointed Rubinstein, Halevy, Haber and General Danny Yatom, his military secretary. Rabin ordered his aides in no uncertain terms not to report to Peres and to take every necessary measure to prevent him from knowing what was going on.
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Rabin was a brutal military man who liked a clear chain of command. He used Peres's indiscretion to gather all the reins of power into his own hands and to set himself up as mover, negotiator and only decision-maker in the peace process with Jordan.

The Oslo Accord had implications not only for Jordan's relations with Israel but also for its progress towards democracy. This process got under way with the election of November 1989, in which the Muslim Brotherhood did well. Another election was scheduled for 8 November 1993. Arafat's deal, however, meant that some Palestinians could end up voting for two legislatures, one in Amman and one in Jericho. Under the initial shock of the Oslo surprise, Hussein gave a clear signal of his intention to postpone the election. The assurances given to him by Rabin at a meeting in Aqaba lay behind the subsequent decision to go ahead as planned. The general election held on 8 November was the first multi-party election since 1956. A change in the electoral law, replacing the old bloc-voting system with a one-person, one-vote formula, was calculated to limit the strength of the Islamic opposition.
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The amendment had the desired effect: a strengthening of the conservative, tribal and independent blocs and a resounding rebuff to the Islamic Action Front, whose principal platform was opposition to the peace talks with Israel. IAF representation in the eighty-member lower house declined from 34 to 21 seats. A large majority in the new house were moderate-to-conservative independents generally supportive of the regime and of its pursuit of the peace process. The king subsequently appointed the
forty-member Senate from the ranks of his own supporters on 18 November. This gave him a pliant parliament for proceeding with the task of Arab–Israeli peacemaking, which remained at the top of his agenda. It also gave rise to speculation that the signing of a Jordanian–Israeli peace accord was imminent.

The signature of a peace treaty with Israel represented, in Hussein's own words, the ‘crowning achievement' of his political career. It was also the culmination of almost half a century of Hashemite efforts to secure their kingdom and to carve for themselves an enduring regional role through the settlement of the Arab–Israeli conflict. In this respect, Hussein was the true heir to his revered grandfather, Abdullah bin Hussein. Abdullah I initialled in 1950 a peace treaty with Israel, but an overall settlement was beyond his reach and the following year he was assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist. Hussein followed in his grandfather's footsteps because he shared his conception of the vital interests of their dynasty and their country. The most important of these was to protect the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan against external threats. In the aftermath of the Oslo Accord this interest narrowed down to the protection of the East Bank against threats from whatever quarter, whether Israeli, Palestinian or Syrian.

A peace treaty with Israel was needed in order to fend off the challenge of Palestinian militants and Israeli extremists who wanted to convert Jordan into an alternative homeland for the Palestinians. By concluding a peace treaty with Israel Hussein hoped to achieve other aims as well, such as securing the status of the Hashemite dynasty as the guardian of the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, an economic link with the West Bank, a resolution of the refugee problem and American economic aid. But defence of the realm was the paramount consideration. The treaty was intended to renew and institutionalize the strategic understanding with Israel, so that Jordan would not be hurt when Israel and the Palestinians proceeded to a final settlement.

Like his grandfather, Hussein relied heavily on personal diplomacy in working for an understanding with his neighbour across the river.
The trust between him and Itzhak Rabin was crucial to progress on the road to peace. But there was one other Israeli official who played an important role because he fitted in with the king's peculiar brand of personal diplomacy and that was Efraim Halevy, the deputy head of the Mossad. Halevy, who had been born in Britain and had earlier headed the Foreign Liaisons Division of the Mossad, formed an unusually close working relationship with the king, which over time developed into a personal friendship. Hussein trusted Halevy, and he often sought his advice on sensitive internal issues that did not concern Israel directly. Halevy's principal task was to serve as a back channel between the prime minister and the king, and to step in whenever the negotiations reached an impasse. Halevy made countless secret visits to the king and his brother, the pattern of which was remarkably uniform. Halevy would arrive for a meeting with Prince Hassan around eleven in the morning, and they would spend two and a half hours together. At 1.30 Hassan would go to brief his elder brother, and the two would return half an hour later. Lunch would last a couple of hours and the conversation would continue for another couple of hours in the garden. Hussein needed time to think and to explore issues from different angles. He did not like the Israeli habit of getting straight down to specifics, and Halevy easily accommodated to the king's pace and method of doing business.
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In the last months of 1993 and the early months of 1994 Israel was preoccupied with the implementation of the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-government and with negotiations on the Syrian track. Hussein was concerned that Jordan would be left behind. His concern seemed justified by the refusal of the Palestinians to take into account Jordan's interests in their negotiations with Israel. On 4 May 1994 Israel and the PLO reached an agreement on extending self-rule from Gaza and Jericho to the rest of the West Bank. This agreement threatened Jordanian access to the markets of the West Bank and the status of the dinar there. By posing a threat to the Jordanian economy, the agreement provided an impetus to the slow-moving talks between Jordan and Israel. On 19 May, Hussein had a meeting in his house in London with Itzhak Rabin. The other participants were Prince Hassan, Elyakim Rubinstein and Efraim Halevy. Hussein asked Rabin whether he was ready to move forward on the Jordanian track, and he received a positive answer. At this meeting Hussein heard for the first time that Israel would be prepared to grant Jordan a privileged position in looking after the
Muslim holy places in Jerusalem in any future peace settlement. This was the turning point in the talks. Hussein agreed to start drafting a peace treaty; that detailed negotiations would move from Washington to the region; and then, in principle, a public meeting with Rabin could take place in the White House. Rabin, in return, promised to recommend to the American president and Congress the cancellation of Jordan's debt to the United States.
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Hussein himself presented the decision to go public as a joint decision that arose naturally from the progress in the talks:

The fact that we did not announce peace contacts publicly all through the past was due to a mutual agreement. At first we were so far apart that there would have been no benefit in announcing the meetings. These meetings enabled us to get to know each other. They enabled us to examine our positions every now and then to see if there was any chance of progress. They certainly changed the atmosphere, but it was a mutual agreement from the word go that we keep them quiet until we had something of substance so that when we reached the right moment all this would not be lost.
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In June, Hussein went to Washington to coordinate the peace moves with the Clinton administration and to present his case for the renewal of the American economic and military aid that had been cut off during the Gulf crisis. In Congress and in public opinion there was still resentment towards the king and the kingdom from the Gulf War. At Hussein's request Halevy was dispatched to Washington to help behind the scenes. Israel's ambassador to Washington at that time, Professor Itamar Rabinovich, was a friend and a tennis partner of Prime Minister Rabin, and he too was active behind the scenes in lobbying on behalf of the Jordanian cause.
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If Hussein expected his courageous step in authorizing direct talks with Israel to be rewarded, he was in for a shock. The American officials he met told him that to get any aid he would have to make a more visible move towards peace with Israel. Going back home with an empty bag could have serious consequences, especially in relation to the army, which had been starved of supplies for a number of years. In his distress, Hussein turned to his Israeli friends. Rabin himself authorized Halevy and Rabinovich to go to the rescue. At a meeting with Dennis Ross, the peace process coordinator, Halevy strongly argued the Jordanian case, including the request for a squadron of F-16 fighter aircraft to upgrade their air force. Ross turned to Halevy
and said, ‘Tell me, Efraim, who are you representing here? Israel or Jordan?' Without hesitation Halevy blurted out, ‘Both!'
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Halevy advised Hussein to prepare a letter detailing Jordan's specific requests prior to his meeting with the president. The meeting took place in the White House on 22 June. Clinton conducted the meeting without any notes but having thoroughly studied Jordan's submission. His mastery of his brief persuaded Hussein and his aides that Clinton was certainly looking for ways to respond. After going over what he could and could not do, Clinton turned to Jordan's crippling debt burden. Jordan's debt to America amounted to $700 million. Clinton said he knew that this was the most important of all of Jordan's economic requests. But the political reality was that Congress would reject debt forgiveness unless he had a powerful argument to use on Jordan's behalf: ‘A public meeting with Rabin would give me that argument.' Clinton offered to host such a meeting and asked the king to think about it. In political terms the main outcome of this visit was the president's personal engagement. This was very reassuring for Hussein because he placed so much store by personal relations. The king told his aides that he had not had such a meeting with any president since Dwight Eisenhower. Halevy reported that the king had been ‘amazed' by the president and was ‘thrilled' by his visit to Washington. On 4 July, Hussein sent a message suggesting a trilateral meeting at ministerial level by the Dead Sea preceded by a meeting of the Jordanian and Israeli negotiators. The Americans understood that the sequence was the king's way of conditioning his public, and the Israelis accepted it with alacrity.
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The sequel was described by the king: