Jordan’s Exodus Angers the PLO, Worries Israel

Palestinians have been throwing stones at the Jewish “invaders” of their land for the past 90 years, not just for the last nine months of the intifada . However it is only now, for the first time, that they will be in direct control of their national struggle without a third party, a ruler, interfering from outside.

This is because of the third important development in that struggle--Jordan King Hussein’s recent secession from the West Bank. The other two were Britain’s Balfour Declaration in 1917, which promised a Jewish “National Home” in Palestine, and the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948.

So, in public, the Palestine Liberation Organization cannot but approve, somewhat ruefully, what Hussein decided, since it was what the PLO has been asking for. But in private the PLO is angry at the way it was done--without prior consultation and on very short notice, suggesting bad faith and a possible intent to destabilize the PLO and the intifada .

That the king is not so much “liberating” the Palestinians as merely getting rid of them is indicated by the way he is playing the numbers game. For several decades, until the end of last month, the Jordanian government was happy to go along with the unsubstantiated belief that Palestinians constituted 60% of the population of the Jordanian East Bank, because the more Palestinians Jordan was supposed to have, the more money was it given by the other Arab governments; now, however, the king has said that that figure was exaggerated and that the unwanted Palestinians are less than 40% of the population of his kingdom.

The PLO admits that it provoked the king into going his own way. During the last Arab summit, at Algiers in June, Hussein was asked to terminate his tutelage over the West Bank, was informed that the PLO was responsible for all Palestinians including those in the kingdom and, consequently, that the PLO would never agree to a joint Jordanian-PLO delegation to any future international peace conference.

Adding insult to injury, the PLO declared that in future no aid to the West Bank should be routed through Jordan. What particularly irks the PLO is that the king’s decisions were issued through a Cabinet containing members who are personally and venomously hostile to the Palestinians, notably Zaid Rifai, the prime minister.

The PLO, for once, has not reacted emotionally to a challenge. It has kept cool and it has, more unusually, kept united. This was evident at the meeting of the 80-member Central Council last week in Baghdad. It set up a committee of 10, representing every group in the PLO, to draft position papers for the consideration of the Palestine National Council, the parliament-in-exile, that will convene in Baghdad at the end of this month. And it was agreed without dissent, almost taken for granted, that the PNC would, at long last, decide to bring into existence a Palestinian government-in-exile.

This should be preceded by the people in the Israeli-occupied territories issuing a declaration of independence for a Palestinian state, perhaps by the end of August or early September. As part of its cautiously respectful hands-off policy toward the intifada, the PLO “outside” is leaving that important decision to the leadership of the struggle “inside.” There will not, of course, be any formal state structure in the territories because the Israelis would not permit such a thing; thus it would be left to the government-in-exile to give form to Palestinian independence.

Because of the absence of any state structure, the declaration could lay down whatever state frontiers the framers want--the frontiers of the 1947 U.N. partition plan or those of the West Bank and Gaza.

Any such government should receive swift recognition from at least 60 countries, beginning with Jordan, and its “capital” will, most probably, be Baghdad. If that decision angers Iraq’s enemy, Syria, that, for the PLO, would be an extra bonus.

Apprehensive about the possibility of a widely recognized Palestinian state, Israel has been trying to reduce the number of Palestinians on the land. One strategy has been to play up the scare that Hussein would close the bridges across the Jordan, thereby bringing economic ruin to the territories. The king has denied any such intention, but to aid the exit of frightened people, the Israelis are keeping the bridges open from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m., where previously they were open from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. And they have even waived the recently introduced requirement for income-tax clearances. But there has been no increased Palestinian exodus.

By keeping cool, the PLO has been able to see that the king’s measures are not as drastic as they first appeared. The cancellation of the five-year development fund and the dissolution of the lower house of Parliament were both symbolic gestures. The ending of the services of civil servants on the West Bank affects only 3,500 of the 5,200 regular employees; another 16,000 workers were on short-term contracts. Their total salaries amounted to $5.5 million a month; the PLO can easily afford that, since it is an affluent organization. Libya’s Col. Moammar Kadafi has already promised to subscribe $1 million a month toward the wage bill.

But the real problem is getting any large sums of money into the West Bank. The Israelis are trying to keep all funding out. PLO leader Yasser Arafat claims that the PLO has been able to send $193 million into the territories since last December when the uprising began. But this was through sporadic, clandestine methods; now the PLO needs regular and open channels. International organizations such as U.N. agencies, charitable groups and non-governmental institutions have been suggested, but they will all have to get through the Israeli financial blockade.

The intifada committees already functioning in the West Bank could replace Jordanian control--or rather, supervision--of West Bank administrative structures.

There will be one clear disadvantage to the Palestinian cause arising from Jordan’s secession. It was well known that the king, because he is a Hashemite, a direct descendant of the prophet Mohammed, would never personally surrender Islamic control over East Jerusalem, the third-holiest site in the Muslim world. Now that unshakeable veto no longer applies, because the king no longer has any direct personal- cum -political responsibility for East Jerusalem. But although the PLO is a secular organization, it is no less aware of its Islamic and Christian responsibilities in the Holy City.