Israel, formally known as the State of Israel on a global scale, is a sovereign state in the Middle East, southeast of the larger Mediterranean Sea. In addition to Jordan on the east, this province shares borders with Lebanon to the north and Syria to the northeast. Additionally, it has a slender boundary to the east and west with the disputed Gaza Strip and the Palestinian West Bank. Within its internationally recognized territorial lands, it has geographically distinctive characteristics. Furthermore, Tel Aviv is the country's economic and technical hub, while Jerusalem, the nation's capital, is where the government is located. However, its sovereign rights over Jerusalem remain internationally unrecognized. However, it was recognized as a state in 1947, when the United Nations unanimously adopted a Partitioning Plan for a Mandatory Palestine which in effect recommended the creation of an independent Arab and Jewish states and a legally internationalized Jerusalem. This plan was welcomed by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, but on the contrary rejected by the then Arab leaders. This lead to a state of strife that necessitated the declaration of; "the establishment of a Jewish state to be recognized as the State of Israel." Since then that newly created state has been entangled in several wars waged against its neighboring Arab countries, which lead to it forcefully occupying the West Bank, Golan Heights, and the contentious Gaza Strip. It later extended its national and legislative laws to the Golan Heights and the East of Jerusalem, excluding the West Bank. This occupation of the Palestinian territories provoked the longest diplomatic conflict with many Arab nations inclusive of Jordan and Efforts to resolve it has not been successful although since then a series of peace treaties involving Israel, Egypt and the Kingdom of Jordan have been successfully signed and ratified (Flapan 25).
Jordan or as officially known as The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is an Arab monarchical country in Western Asia, specifically on the East Bank of the known Jordan River. It is bordered by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the east and parts of the south; the state of Iraq to the north-east; Syria to the far north; the state of Israel, the state Palestine, and the famous Dead Sea to the west. It is relatively small in square meters, very semi-arid, almost entirely landlocked, and it bears a total population of peoples numbering at 9.5 million. Its dominant religions are Sunni Islam, which is practiced by approximately 92% of the people and the rest are Christian minorities. It is strategically positioned at the intersection of major crossroads of Asia, North Africa, and Europe. Its capital is referred to as Amman, and it is the most populated city in that kingdom and the seat of its economic, political and social cultural facilities.
This kingdom got humanly populated since the Paleolithic period and was part of three sovereign nations that came up at the end of the Bronze Age; the others include Ammon, Moab, and Edom. It was later ruled by kings were from the Nabataean Kingdom, the Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. However after the Great Arab Revolt in 1916 waged against the Ottoman's regime just during the World War I, the government's territorial lands were partitioned by the British and France. And so the in 1921 the Emirate of Transjordan was born, under the watch of the then Emir Abdullah I was established as a British protectorate. But thirty years later in 1946, it was created as an independent state officially and internationally recognized as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. However in 1948 during the Arab-Israeli war as mentioned previously, Jordan managed to annex the West Bank, but later lost territorial control over that land in 1967, causing its name in 1949 to be changed to what it’s known today as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Rayner 175).
This paper seeks to illustrate in historical detail the development of the Israel – Jordanian relation and how they led to the ultimate formation of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) in 1967.
To begin with; these two sovereign states (Israel and Jordan) have in the past been broiled in constant conflict over several substantial issues some of them stretching as far into their history as religion. Their relations can only be described as complicated; they thrived in a constant state or rivalry which is often settled by the signing of peace treaties only for a while and then they are at it again.
Some of the reasons as to why their relationship is always shaky include; religion. As mentioned Israel is predominately a Jewish state and Jewish is the state recognized religion, on the other hand, Jordan is an Islamic state with almost the entire population practicing the strict sense of the Muslim religion (Patai 57). These two religions in their essence have been contrary to each other occasionally causing the two sides to wage wars, having stated that then Jewish which is a similar in many ways to Christianity as an independent religion has always been a point of focus for the Islams in Jordan. Such religious differences have exacerbated previous attempts to resolve conflicts within the two nations up to such a time that the UN promoted the course in religious tolerance (Weiss 40).
This state of constant rivalry can be traced in as early as between 1949 and 1953, where there was a total of 99 official sovereign complaints made by the state of Israel about the constant infiltration of armed vigilante groups and religious sects consisting of Jordanian militia crossing into Israeli sovereign territory. Though the complaints were largely ignored and treated as a mere case of provocation, it leads to the sparkle of a civil war that saw several hundred Israeli civilians killed by alleged Jordanian infiltrators, some of the Israeli nationals claimed cases of rape and body mutilation. Due to this; rounds of military attacks was waged by Israel in response and between 1949 and 1956, a total of 286 Israeli civilians were killed and 489 Jordanians killed. Moreover, at the same time, 2,700 and 5,000 Arab militia infiltrators were murdered in the Suez Canal conflict (Brinch 27). These numbers were extremely disturbing causing Jordan to seek a peace treaty with Israel, however, because the latter had already perceived the infiltration as an act of sovereign provocation, Israel would not back down neither concede to signing any peace treaty. It was determined to treat any foreign Arab infiltrators or any other unauthorized crossers, as Jordanian even though they were other nationals crossing the trade path for economic reasons. Having control of that trade route was substantial any Israel being the state that managed it meant that Jordan was poised to encounter financial problems and so a treaty had to be sought.
Later on in 1956. After the State of Israel had waged was to reclaim its sovereign rights over the Suez Canal, more tensions arose because the Israel had control of the trade route that long distant, cross-Atlantic cargo ships used to cross over to the other side of the Pacific ocean. This situation caused a diplomatic fester between Israel and the Arab states leading to the six-day war in 1967. Jordan even having been severally warned by Israel not to align itself with any Arab country with economic sanctions as part of the retaliation Israel was to take, choose to align itself with Egypt (Sharp 12). The six-day war waged by Nasser's Egypt consequently lead not only to the defeat of Egypt but to the embracement of Jordan which ended up losing East Jerusalem and the West Bank areas which were of economic advantage to Jordan since its commercial center was based in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, Yasser Arafat the then leader in Egypt formed Fatah (a militia group) for the sole purposes of conducting guerrilla operations against the state of Israel, in an attempt to end the peninsula occupation (Laqueur 10). However, this leads to huge fatalities on both sides with Israel managing to maintain its control over the peninsula and consequently the Suez Canal. With such successful Israel military operations, the Arabs had to regroup and come up with new ways to conquer Israel once and for all and Jordan part of the team that spearheaded the deliberations (Ali 900). And so in 1963, a wave of Arab socialism arose, the Ba'ath Party became the ruling party that took over power in Iraq and Syria, their principal aim was to liberate the Suez peninsula from the Israelis, and so they facilitated the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). By 1967, the PLO its primary goal as the complete decimation and destruction of the State of Israel (Robinson 48), so over the next decade it was to implement that purpose by executing massive terroristic campaigns against Israel, and it's allied forces by which its very reputation was hinged. This deliberate terror war was to later cause the massive deaths of hundreds and the wounding of many casualties, on both sides, with little or no efforts to indicate any benefit for the Palestinian regime. Therefore, the group made deliberately no efforts to change their mandate and so was to make any conscious decision later not to deviate from its focus, which was purely based on terrorism to any other approach that seeks to include the need for diplomatic and or political elements substantially necessary for any meaningful dialogue.
This development caused the king of Jordan; Hussein to advance a secret diplomatic approach to restoring his kingdom's relation with Israel because it had become almost apparent that the Latter was determined to maintain an upper arm in the Arabian prevalent conflicts. Therefore top level secret meetings were organized hoping for an amicable path resulting to mutual assurance for an economic survival of both states in that hostile environment. The king had but two options; one was to seek mending fences with the Palestinians who had by now indicated their growing influence over the region, a choice that would have meant the eventual transformation of the Jordanian kingdom into an entire Palestinian-controlled state. The other option as; having to fall back to diplomatic negotiations with Israel and to foster more corporate strategic plans for how the two nations could collaborate to eliminate and crush the growing Palestinian influence. By doing so, he knew he would be procuring a future for his country since Israel was more poised to be an active diplomatic and bilateral trading partner for Jordan as opposed to the Palestinian state. The ramifications of this decision by the King meant that Israel was to have access to very vital Arab shared top secrets that Jordan was privies to and use them to reinstate its military dominance in the peninsula.
Even with the secret diplomacy with Israel still, on course, the PLO had already managed to infiltrate Jordan. They saw the secret diplomacy between the two states as a betrayal by the Jordanian state, which they thought ought to have collaboratively aligned itself with the rest of the Arab countries and worked towards diffusing Israel. So the PLO adapted to their mission the attempt to overthrow the Hashemite monarchical government during the 1970 civil war. This war became referred to as the "Black September," (Makara 400), although Egypt which had by then started losing military muscle in the Arab peninsula did not substantially support the war, it helped negotiate a peace treaty between the Jordanian and the PLO regime. And that truce meant that PLO was to maintain its presence in Jordan to monitor the activities of Israel. Although that peace pact was later viewed as strategic for Egypt in disempowering both nations (Israel and Jordan) a situation that meant it would use that void to regain its military muscle again.
However, this quiet interim period, which was intended to disarm the two states ended up being the birth of cooperation that would last up to date. With positively growing diplomacy between Jordan and Israel, the two countries became friendlier, and the greener relationship with Israel meant that Jordan was now free to act against a threat to its legitimate government without interference from any foreign patrons. Jordanian-Israeli strategic and economic cooperation grew intense and even motivated by US diplomacy, lead to the establishment of a more Jordanian freedom of to engage in any military retaliation should it be provoked. They by the tactical aid of the Israeli army were able to suppress the attempts by Syria to broadening their coverage of the civil war into a regional conflict thus annexing parts of its sovereign territory. Israel became an ally to Jordan and used its military prowess as a major factor in deterring the Syrians from attacking Jordan and forcing them to acknowledge the existence of
A Jordanian-Israeli-US axis. This military coalition meant that the Syrian forces were to withdraw from already occupied Jordanian territory failure to which joint military operations were to be held. This particular action saw the fastening of a strong bond between the two states (Israel and Jordan), and also served to emphasize on the specific need for the two nations to foster more corporation even to trade for goods.
Furthermore, these collaborative efforts between the two states meant that the anti-Western coalition forces led by Egypt or Syria could not in any case ever regain military resources to infiltrate attack or destroy either Israel or Jordan.
Meanwhile, with this period of relative calm in the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt and Syria still harbored ill-motives against Jordan, as mentioned previously, they viewed it as a state that had betrayed the Islamic allegiance, and so feelings of frustration festered in them. But at that point, Jordan was too cozy enjoying the mutual benefits it was receiving from Israel. So Jordan went ahead to consolidating its relations with new found ally, and since they already shared their longest border with one another, security and intelligence cooperation between them became extensive. Jordan had to reciprocate the bilateral treaties it enjoyed by serving as a buffer zone to Israel from the radical Islamic states situated to its east, as well as managing the growing political threat from the Islamic faction in Syria, (a state which both Israel and Jordan share fundamental borders). They two states also saw further joint military action against other countries for instance; al-Nusra, which was situated where the territorial borders of the three nations converged. Jordan also benefited economically, specifically in the West Bank. Jordan state doesn't have any oil reserves and so since then started to heavily rely on Israeli gas exports for domestic and large scale energy provisions. Israel also promised to pumps billions of fresh water into Jordan.
This very close and strong bond between the two nations saw the declaration of a
"Jordanian Option" (Beck 86). This meant that with the renewed amicable understanding between the two countries, then if Israel decided to withdraw from the Jordanian territories entirely, then probably Jordan would relapse back to instituting the Hashemite regime on them. This declaration which had its climax during the mid-1970s, terminated with the 1977 establishment of the Likud bloc to power, which effectively overlooked two substantial obstacles (Zheng 78). Firstly, King Hussein's dilemma, which assured Jordan's full cooperation with Israel as long as the detail of the extent of collaboration were to be kept secret. Secondly, in October 1974, the occasioned Arab summit conference organized in Rabat, was to pronounce PLO "the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people".
Therefore currently the PLO enjoys diplomacy from over 100 sovereign states with which it holds bilateral relations, and was accorded observer status at the United Nations Convention since 1974 (Power 31). It was still referred to by the United States and the state of Israel to be a terrorist organization up until the Madrid Conference held in 1991. But in 1993, the group consented to recognize Israel's pertinent right to exist in peace and tranquility. These meant it was also to accept UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and further reject "violence and extreme terrorism" (Segal 90). In reciprocation, the state of, Israel had to recognize the PLO as the people's representative officially
Finally, having illustrated how the relationship between the two states mentioned above grew from one that was murky to one of full cooperation. It is worth noting that the future of Jordan as a state could have been bleak should king Hussein decided to seek cooperation with the other Arab countries as opposed to Israel.
Works Cited
Ali, Mohammad Haji Molla, MaghsoodRanjbar, and Ali SherKhani. "Analysis of the Political and Strategic causes of the Arab defeat by Israel in 1967." International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies (IJHCS) ISSN 2356-5926 3.1 (2016): 898-910.
Beck, Martin, and Simone Hüser. "Jordan and the ‘Arab Spring': No Challenge, No Change?." Middle East Critique 24.1 (2015): 83-97.
Brinch, Mark Nygaard. "A Curious Case of Political Legitimacy: The Illiberal democracy of The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan." (2015).
Flapan, Simha. "The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities (Hardcover)." Pantheon (1987).
Laqueur, Walter, and Dan Schueftan, eds. The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict: Eighth Revised and Updated Edition. Penguin, 2016.
Makara, Michael. "From concessions to repression: Explaining regime survival strategies in Jordan during Black September." The Journal of the Middle East and Africa 7.4 (2016): 387-403.
Patai, Raphael. Kingdom of Jordan. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Power, Susan, and Elisabeth Koek. "International Legal Personality for Palestine." Palestine- Israel Journal of Politics, Economics, and Culture 20.2/3 (2015): 51.
Rayner, Timothy, and Andrew Jordan. "The United Kingdom: A Record of Leadership under Threat." (2017): 173-188.
Robinson, Glenn E. "Palestine Liberation Organization." (2016).
Segal, Jerome M. "Creating the Palestinian State, Revisited." Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics, and Culture 20.2/3 (2015): 72.
Sharp, Jeremy M. Jordan: Background and US Relations. DIANE Publishing, 2014.
Weiss, Thomas G., et al. The United Nations and changing world politics. Westview Press, 2016.
Zheng, Chao. In Those Lost Times. Xlibris Corporation, 2017.
