Jordan to Cut Key Ties to West Bank : Acts at Request of PLO, Hussein Says, in Attempt to Boost Palestinian Cause

King Hussein said Sunday that he accepts Jordan’s separation from the West Bank of the Jordan River and is dismantling his kingdom’s “legal and administrative links” to the Israeli-occupied territory at the request of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

In a carefully crafted speech one day after he dissolved the lower house of Parliament, the Jordanian monarch indicated that he was bowing to Arab and, in particular, to PLO pressure to follow a course that Jordan--he implied--does not necessarily believe to be in the Palestinians’ best interests.

However, he said, “we respect the wish of the PLO, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, to secede from us in an independent Palestinian state.”

Putting Pressure on PLO

The king’s speech, outlining in broad terms the reasons behind his decision earlier this week to disband Parliament and cancel a $1.3-billion development plan for the West Bank, was widely viewed here as an attempt to put pressure on the PLO to exercise the leadership and make the concessions necessary for it to participate in the Middle East peace process.

“It puts the PLO on the spot,” an Arab diplomat said. “It tells the PLO that now they have to take the hard decisions if they want to take part in an international peace conference.”

Without saying so directly, the king implied that the burden--and the blame for any failure--is now squarely on the PLO.

At the same time, diplomats said, the king also seemed to be sending a strong signal to the United States and Israel that, in one envoy’s words, “they must face up to the fact that there is no way around dealing with the PLO.”

Citing what he said was the current Arab consensus that Jordan’s close links to the West Bank were hampering “the Palestinian struggle to gain international support,” Hussein said: “ . . . It becomes our duty to be part of this direction . . . by dismantling the legal and administrative links between the two banks” of the Jordan River.

Defensive Reaction

While Hussein stressed that his decision was merely fulfilling “the wish of the Palestine Liberation Organization,” most analysts here see it more as a defensive reaction to the eight-month-old Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which has undermined Jordanian influence in the territories and threatened to spill over into Jordan itself.

When it was launched by Jordan two years ago, the $1.3-billion development plan for the West Bank was widely viewed as an attempt to undercut the PLO’s influence there. The plan was supported by the United States but failed to attract Arab financing and never really got off the ground.

Meanwhile, the intifada, as the uprising is called in Arabic, has strengthened the PLO’s position, both in the territories and in the Arab world, largely at Jordan’s expense.

Hussein is said by officials to have been deeply shocked by the strength of the anti-Jordanian sentiment expressed during the uprising, especially in view of the substantial financial support he has been pumping into the territories over the years.

More worrisome to the king, however, is the possibility of the unrest spreading into Jordan itself, where the nationalism kindled by the uprising has inflamed tensions between native East Bankers and Palestinians, who make up 60% of this country’s population.

Some East Bankers privately have been urging a total break in ties with the West Bank, and there have been several violent incidents recently that appear to be related to rising communal tensions.

“There have always been East Bank extremists, but it’s gone beyond that now. There are a lot of East Bankers now who are very pleased with what the king has done,” one diplomat said.

The king alluded to this in his speech, warning that “safeguarding national unity is a sacred duty that will not be compromised” and there is “no place in our midst for sedition or treachery.”

Assures East Bankers

At the same time, Hussein sought to assure Palestinians in the East Bank that the measures he is taking toward the West Bank affect “only the occupied Palestinian land and its people” and “do not relate in any way to the Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.”

These Palestinians, he said, “all have the full rights of citizenship,” and, he reminded them, “all of its obligations.”

While he spoke of dismantling Jordan’s administrative links to the West Bank, Hussein did not indicate what Jordan intended to do to implement that decision beyond the two largely symbolic steps taken so far.

Cancellation of the development plan and dissolving the lower house of Parliament, half of whose members represented the West Bank, by no means signify a total Jordanian cold shoulder to the West Bank Palestinians.

Only Raised $50 Million

The development plan, for all its lofty goals, had actually succeeded in raising only about $50 million in its first two years. And the lower house of Parliament was considered by West Bank Palestinians as a virtually meaningless institution.

The monarch could go much further.

Other ties still in place, for example, include those involving such practical matters as travel and money. West Bankers carry Jordanian passports and move relatively freely across “open” bridges from the occupied territories to the East Bank of the Jordan River. Also, the Jordanian dinar is the currency of choice on the West Bank.

Further, Hussein pays out an estimated $50 million to $70 million a year in salaries to 13,000 West Bank teachers and civil servants and for pensions and municipal assistance. Another 4,000 members of the Muslim Religious Council get their salaries from Jordan.

Outlays for Teachers

Jordanian officials have been quoted as saying that other West Bank administrative institutions will be dismantled, and there has been talk here of “reviewing” the outlay that Jordan makes each year to pay the teachers and civil servants.

Some sources say the king may delay paying these salaries as a means of impressing upon the Palestinians the true magnitude of the contribution that Jordan makes to their welfare.

However, diplomats and other analysts said they doubt that Jordan will stop paying the salaries altogether or, for that matter, cut the most important of its ties to the West Bank.

Rather, they see what appears to be a policy of limited disengagement from the West Bank as a way of responding to the PLO’s attempts to dilute Jordan’s influence in the West Bank.

Arafat Due in Amman

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat is due to visit Amman in the coming days, and “this is a way of putting pressure on him to come to terms with the king,” one diplomat said.

“The king is being very clever,” another diplomat said. “He is putting Arafat’s feet into the PLO’s own fire.”

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was quoted Sunday night as welcoming Hussein’s moves.

Shamir said they show that the king has given up hope of an Israeli pullout from the West Bank, according to Israeli Television.

Shamir’s main political rival, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, played down the importance of Hussein’s announcement. According to wire service reports, he said that Hussein will remain a key player, having “committed himself to continued involvement in the peace process.”

Times staff writer Dan Fisher contributed to this story from Jerusalem.