Lion of Jordan (44 page)

2. We can evacuate the west bank tonight.

3. Or, obviously, we can try to stay on the west bank another 24 hours. But if we do, the total destruction of the Jordanian army is inevitable.

King Hussein has asked me to inform you of the above in order to learn your opinion and your decision at the earliest possible time.

At 12.30 Hussein sent a personal telegram to Nasser in which he reported: ‘The situation is deteriorating rapidly. In Jerusalem it is critical. In addition to our very heavy losses in men and equipment, for lack of air protection, our tanks are being disabled at the rate of one every ten minutes. And the bulk of the enemy forces are concentrated against the Jordanian army.' Hussein requested Nasser's views as soon as possible. At almost the same moment Riad received an answer from Field Marshal Amer that said, ‘We agree to the retreat from the west bank, and the arming of the civilian population.' Hussein answered Amer with another message: ‘We are still holding on. We are trying to put off the retreat as long as possible. The civilian population has been armed for a long time.'

Hussein did not hear from Nasser in response to his telegram until eleven hours later. From a telephone conversation and a cable Hussein learned for the first time that Nasser's air force was out of commission, that his army was in retreat in the Sinai, and that the situation on the ground was desperate. ‘We have been purely and simply crushed by the enemy,' Nasser summed up. His advice to Hussein was to evacuate the West Bank and hope that the Security Council would order a ceasefire but not to break off diplomatic relations with London and Washington.
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The UN had called for a ceasefire two hours after the outbreak of hostilities and Israel responded positively, but the fighting continued
none the less. On the second day it became clear that unless Israel could be stopped by political means the Jordanian front would collapse. Jordan desperately needed a ceasefire, but it could not say so openly nor could it act on its own without consulting its Arab allies. Hussein got round this problem by asking the Americans to arrange a ceasefire directly with Israel without going through the UN. On the morning of the second day the Americans informed the Israelis of Jordan's readiness to cease hostilities immediately but emphasized the need for secrecy so as not to compromise Hussein's position. This American request prompted the Israeli government to order the army to take the Old City of Jerusalem before the Security Council had a chance to order a ceasefire.
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At 11.00 p.m. on 6 June an immediate and unconditional ceasefire was ordered by the Security Council. An hour earlier, with Hussein's agreement, General Riad had issued an order for all the Jordanian forces to retreat from the West Bank to the East Bank. The Security Council resolution gave hope of holding on to the West Bank until the ceasefire came into effect. With this prospect in mind, Riad issued a new order countermanding his earlier order and directing the troops to stay in their positions. A few units had already moved back and had to fight to regain the positions they had just relinquished. The counter-order also led to general confusion because of problems of communication between army headquarters and the units in the field. The IDF did not respect the ceasefire. On the contrary, it intensified its offensive in order to gain as much territory as possible. The Israeli offensive destroyed any lingering Jordanian hope of holding on to the West Bank. At 2.30 a.m. on the night of 6/7 June, Riad, once again with Hussein's approval, ordered a complete withdrawal from the West Bank. Both men feared that failure to do so would result in the annihilation of the remnants of the Jordanian Army.
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The retreat of units from the West Bank continued all night.

Wednesday, 7 June, was the third and to all intents and purposes the last day of the war on the Jordanian front. Military and diplomatic events, closely interrelated, unfolded at a bewildering speed: the rapid deterioration in Jordan's military situation led it to intensify its diplomatic efforts to bring about an end to hostilities. The reverse was also true: the unstoppable momentum of the IDF offensive tipped the balance against a ceasefire until the capture of the West Bank had been completed. At noon, Jerusalem, including the Old City, fell after a desperate battle. Following this, a general order was issued for the withdrawal
of all the bruised and battered units from the West Bank to the East Bank. The main cities of the West Bank fell in rapid succession. By nightfall the entire West Bank was in Israeli hands. Last to leave were three units that secured the bridges across the Jordan River. The Israelis blew up the bridges in order to sever the link between the two banks and consolidate its control of the territory all the way up to the river.

All day long Hussein persisted in his frantic efforts to secure a ceasefire and stayed in close contact with the ambassadors of the Western powers, who were bringing pressure to bear on Israel. Walworth Barbour, the American ambassador to Israel, forwarded to the Foreign Ministry four telegrams that came directly from Amman, starting at 5.25 in the morning. If the fighting continued, Hussein stated, his regime would be destroyed. In a second telegram that followed half an hour later, Hussein tried to clarify that he was not asking for a formal ceasefire but urging Israel to halt what he described as its punitive actions against his army. Shortly before seven, he warned again that he was in danger of losing control over the situation. These four messages gave Israel a chance to stop before hundreds of thousands of Palestinians came under its rule.
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Dean Rusk instructed Barbour to convey at the highest level their insistent demand that Israel agree to a ceasefire. The ambassador was to stress that the flood of refugees to the East Bank and the disintegration of the Jordanian security forces created a real danger for the regime and for the large foreign community in the country.
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Barbour conveyed the message to Levi Eshkol but gained the impression that it was too late, that Israel was no longer interested in keeping the king on his throne, not after he had bombarded Jerusalem, Kfar Saba Netanya and other civilian settlements.
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The British ambassador, Michael Hadow, made similar representations. For the rest of the day the press agencies reported that Hussein was ready to start negotiations with Israel for a ceasefire. Moshe Dayan, Israel's minister of defence, rejected this request with some vehemence: ‘We have been offering the King an opportunity to cut his losses ever since Monday morning. Now we have 500 dead and wounded in Jerusalem. So, tell him that from now on, I'll talk to him only with the gunsights of our tanks!'
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London put pressure on Israel to stop shooting and to start talking to Hussein across the conference table. Prime Minister Harold Wilson told the Israeli ambassador that Israel's refusal to respond to Hussein's offer
of a ceasefire cast doubt on its claims that its war aims were defensive and not territorial. Sir Julian Amery, a prominent Conservative politician who was both a supporter of Israel and a close personal friend of Hussein, tried hard to reconcile the warring sides. Amery met Prince Hassan, Hussein's younger brother, who was studying Oriental Languages at Christ Church, Oxford, when the war broke out. Hassan told Amery that he spoke to his brother on the telephone and that there was a reasonable prospect for signing a peace agreement. A ceasefire could be made conditional on the immediate start of negotiations for a peace treaty and a comprehensive settlement between the two countries. Amery relayed this report to his Israeli friends and pressed them to act on it.
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Another meeting in London involved Amery, Air Vice-Marshal Sir Erik Bennett, who had been an air adviser to Hussein in the early 1960s, the Israeli ambassador, Aharon Remez and the Mossad representative, Nahum Admoni. The British stated, on the basis of their discussion with Prince Hassan, that there was a reasonable prospect of persuading Hussein to agree to a separate peace treaty with Israel. It was likely that Bennett, who was also a friend of Hussein, would go to Amman the following day with the approval of the British government. Bennett planned to recommend to Hussein the option of a separate peace on a fair basis. He therefore asked the Israelis to indicate to Hussein the kind of terms on which this could be concluded. Bennett realized that the Israelis would need to hold detailed and direct negotiations before entering into a final commitment, but he suggested that it might be decisive to let the king know as soon as possible the kind of terms he might expect to obtain.
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Bennett's suggestion was not taken up.

Hussein also used a direct British intelligence channel to try to arrest the Israeli assault on his army. Jock Smith, the MI6 representative in Tel Aviv, met his opposite number, Naftali Kenan, at 5.30 p.m. on 7 June at Kenan's house. Smith reported that Hussein saw a very bleak situation: he could either withdraw his army from the West Bank and the result would be his fall from power, or he could throw his army into battle with the IDF, in which case his army would be defeated and the result for himself would be the same – the collapse of his regime. Either course would create a situation that would permit the entry of Syrian troops into Jordan. Hussein estimated that the Syrians had eleven brigades that so far had not been committed to the battlefield. Smith asked his colleague to believe that the long-term interests of both their
countries could best be served by ‘reducing fighting immediately to the level of skirmishes; this would enable the Jordanians to hold their positions until the Egyptians are seen to be defeated and a ceasefire arranged by somebody. The internal situation could then be controlled. If this is not done the King believes his regime will fall and you will be faced with a Syrian-type regime in Jordan.' Kenan wanted to know whether this was a service-to-service or a government-to-government approach. Smith replied that it was a service-to-service approach that had the support of the British government. He added that they took into account Hussein's provocative actions during the crisis and after the outbreak of hostilities and his stupid statement about the participation of British airplanes in the fighting alongside Israel, but they still wanted to help him. Kenan asked whether the initiative for this appeal came from Hussein or from the British side. Smith replied that Hussein turned to their representative in Amman and that the assessment and the conclusions that he presented came from Hussein himself. The British government shared Hussein's assessment of the situation and his conclusions, and they supported the course of action that he proposed. Indeed, the British government considered this to be the only way to save Hussein's regime.
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These behind-the-scenes manoeuvres did not have any visible effect on Israel's conduct of the war, but they are very revealing of Hussein's state of mind and of his feeling that he and his dynasty might have reached their end. They also reveal the depth of his disenchantment with his Arab allies, and especially with the Syrians. Let down by the Arabs and threatened by the Israelis, he was fighting for political survival. For him the Six-Day War lasted less than three days. In the early hours of Thursday, 8 June, Jordan accepted unconditionally the Security Council call for a ceasefire. Exhausted, his voice cracking with emotion, Hussein addressed his people in a radio broadcast. First, he paid tribute to the heroism with which Jordan's soldiers had fought against overwhelming odds. He went on to express his deep grief over the loss of all their fallen soldiers. ‘My brothers,' he intoned, ‘I seem to belong to a family which, according to the will of Allah, must suffer and make sacrifices for its country without end. Our calamity is greater than any one could have imagined. But, whatever its size, we must not let it weaken our resolve to regain what we have lost.'
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The reference to Hussein's family may seem odd in this context but it
was not accidental. He was the proud heir to a Hashemite heritage that went back to Hussein, the sharif of Mecca, and the Great Arab Revolt. Throughout his own career, Hussein had to walk a tightrope between Arab nationalism on the one hand and coexistence with Israel on the other. In the mid 1960s he began to lean towards accommodation with Israel. The tacit alliance with Israel was grounded in a common interest in keeping a quiet border, in a common enemy in the shape of radical Arab and Palestinian nationalism and in a common allegiance with the West in the global cold war. Israel's attack on Samu' suddenly destroyed the trust on which this evolving alliance was based. It pushed Hussein into the arms of the radical Arab nationalists. This process culminated in his dramatic reconciliation with Nasser and in the signature of a mutual defence pact with Egypt. From this point on Hussein was locked into the inter-Arab dynamic of escalation that ended in a full-scale war with Israel. Hussein went to war not because he was threatened by Israel but because he feared that he would be denounced as a traitor to the Arab cause if he did not. By this time, in any case, he had relinquished control over his armed forces to an Egyptian general. It was the Egyptians who committed his country to war against the enemy, and it was they who made all the strategic decisions that led to the crushing defeat of his army and to the loss of the Old City of Jerusalem and the West Bank of his kingdom. Hussein was the only Arab ruler who faithfully discharged all his duties to Arab unity during the first few days of the much vaunted battle of destiny. But Arab unity was a snare and a delusion. Hussein made his choice and he paid the price. Within sixty hours of launching his forces in support of Egypt, Hussein lost much of his army, the whole of his air force and half of his territory. Under his leadership, Jordan's part in the June War was brief, ineffective and inglorious.

The June War opened a new chapter in the life of Hussein. It faced him with the most serious test to date of his ability to survive. His main preoccupation in the weeks that followed the war was with picking up the pieces. In Arabic the defeat of June 1967 was referred to as Al-Naqsah, meaning ‘The Setback' or temporary reversal. This was in contrast to the Al-Nakbah, or ‘The Catastrophe', of 1948. For Jordan, however, 1948 was less than a catastrophe, while 1967 was more than a setback. For the Hashemite dynasty the defeat suffered in 1967 was much worse than that suffered in 1948. In 1948 King Abdullah managed to salvage East Jerusalem and the West Bank from the dismal wreckage of Arab Palestine. In June 1967 King Hussein lost what his grandfather had gained on the battlefield and later incorporated into the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. A heavy, almost crushing sense of personal responsibility for the loss lay on Hussein's shoulders. The result was an emotionally disturbed state and mood swings that alternated between bouts of resignation and fatalism and sober realism in dealing with the bitter consequences of defeat. Hussein was bitter towards Israel, the West, the Soviet Union, Nasser and the other Arab leaders but above all he was bitter towards himself.