Jordan: Nearly Civil War

The fastest-growing force in the Arab world today is that of the fedayeen, meaning “men of sacrifice.” An estimated 24,000 strong, they are terrorists in the eyes of the Israelis, but daring commandos to admiring Arabs. Operating mainly from Jordan against Israeli-occupied territory, they are amply supplied with money and arms by sympathetic Arab businessmen, and command immense popular support, particularly among Jordan’s 500,000 Palestinian refugees. As they constitute a virtual state-within-a-state, they are also a constant threat to Jordan’s King Hussein.

Jordanians have long expected Hussein to crack down on the fedayeen, who stand in the way of any hope of a settlement with Israel. Two weeks ago, residents of Jordan’s capital of Amman awakened to the sound of gunfire. Loyal Bedouin soldiers clapped a tight curfew on the city and rounded up members of Kataeb al Nasr (“phalanx of victory”), a shadowy group on the fringe of the fedayeen movement. Tensions ran high between the Bedouins and the dispossessed Palestinians who now make up a restless majority of Jordan’s population. When Bedouins also attacked a training camp of Al Fatah, the largest fedayeen group, killing nine men, its leaders alerted 7,000 armed fedayeen to stand by to move in on Amman.

Rule or Burn. The move never came, but neither did Hussein’s expected crack down. Instead, the king and the fedayeen leaders had a tense and angry showdown in a two-hour meeting in Amman’s military headquarters. Hussein, wearing the uniform of Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, angrily opened the meeting: “If I don’t rule this country, then I shall burn it.” In reply, the fedayeen leaders pointedly reminded the king of their own strength.

They asked: “What was the population of Amman in 1948?”

Hussein: “35,000.”

“What is it now?”

Hussein: “About 400,000.”

“Don’t the Palestinians own the main buildings and businesses?”

Hussein: “Yes.”

“We are still able to reduce Amman to what it was in 1948.”

Hussein insisted on maintaining his authority. The fedayeen demanded an end to the curfew, and freedom of movement. The standoff came to an end when Sheik Akif al-Faiz, Minister of Communications and leader of the largest Bedouin tribe, threatened to withdraw his support if the king used Bedouin troops against the fedayeen. Hussein, under pressure as well from Saudi Arabia, which subsidizes Jordan’s budget, promised to lift the curfew and to allow the fedayeen to keep their arms. In turn, they promised to keep their armed men off the streets of Amman.

So narrowly was civil war averted that when Egpyt’s President Nasser cabled a demand for an explanation of what was going on, Hussein hastily had both Nasser’s query and his own reply broadcast to the nervous population of Amman. He did not intend, he told Nasser, to crack down on “genuine strugglers,” as distinct from the splinter groups of fedayeen who often operate on the edge of banditry. He soon had an opportunity to prove it. Last week the commandos killed an 18-year-old Israeli girl with a mortar shell, planted a mine that wounded three Israeli soldiers, and tossed grenades outside a Jewish school. Just as the fedayeen intended, tempers flared, and Israeli and Jordanian gunners staged a four-hour duel, in which three Jordanian soldiers were killed.