Lion of Jordan (92 page)

I returned home and gathered parliament and told them that we had decided to meet. I also made a statement in the United States that I was not against a public meeting with Rabin. That's the way people do business; there is no other way. And we prepared the document that turned out to be the Washington Declaration. At first I wanted the first meeting to be held in Wadi Araba. But when we told the Americans, President Clinton invited us to the White House, and both of us felt that the Americans had been our partners in trying to get somewhere for so long, particularly President Clinton. So we accepted. And we went with the paper agreed to its last detail and we gave it to the president's office at the last possible moment in the evening so it could not get into the newspapers until it was ratified by us the next morning.
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In his speech to parliament on 9 July, Hussein stated that it was time for Jordan to pursue its own peace agenda and that a public meeting with the Israeli leadership would be an important step towards that end. Three days later he sent a letter to Clinton proposing a public meeting with Rabin on the border between Jordan and Israel followed three or four days later by a meeting in Washington. Hussein wanted the first meeting to be in the region, not at the White House, as if it were some media replay of Arafat's meeting with Rabin. ‘Follow your instincts,' Queen Noor told him. ‘Don't let anyone hijack this critical historic moment for their own short-term political benefit.' But the Americans were dangling all sorts of financial incentives, including the forgiveness of Jordan's $700 million debt. In the end, Hussein felt he had no choice. ‘This is the only time I've ever compromised for profit to the country,' he said. The next day he was informed that Clinton was about to break the secrecy of the negotiations and announce the upcoming meeting in Washington. Only after the news announcement did the king and queen learn that the official trip included a banquet, a White House ceremony, and an invitation to both Hussein and Rabin to address a joint session of the United States Congress. This elaborate plan gave Hussein just the opportunity he was looking for to take his vision of peace directly to the American decision-makers.
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From this point on events moved at a rapid pace. On 18 July the heads of the Jordanian and Israeli delegations appeared together in Wadi Araba to announce the commencement of peace negotiations between the two countries. The meeting took place in a tent pitched on the border, seventeen miles north of Aqaba. ‘The tent is temporary, but the peace will be permanent,' said Rubinstein in his opening speech. Two days later, Majali, Peres and Christopher held a public meeting at the Dead Sea Spa Hotel in Jordan. They discussed plans for a Red–Dead Sea canal, joining their electricity grids, and turning the barren Wadi Araba Desert into a ‘Valley of Peace' with thriving farming, industrial and tourist centres. ‘The flight', said Peres, ‘took only fifteen minutes but it crossed the gulf of forty-six years of hatred and war.' The meeting was of great symbolic significance and helped to prepare the Jordanian public for the much more dramatic meeting between their king and the Israeli prime minister in the White House.

Negotiations and drafting of what became known as the Washington Declaration were conducted directly between Hussein and Rabin
through a back channel with the help of their most trusted aides, Ali Shukri and Efraim Halevy. Hussein insisted on absolute secrecy and on excluding the two foreign ministries and the State Department. Negotiations went on literally until the last minute and, as planned, the text of the declaration was not disclosed to the Americans until the evening before the ceremony. The much publicized ceremony took place on the White House lawn on 25 July 1994. Clinton read the text, and his two guests signed it. The Washington Declaration terminated the state of belligerency between Jordan and Israel, and committed the two countries to seek a just, lasting and comprehensive peace based on UN resolutions 242 and 338. Israel formally undertook to respect the special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem and to give priority to this role in the negotiations with the Palestinians on final status. This was a serious blow to Arafat, who regarded control of the holy places as a Palestinian prerogative and claimed Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Finally, various bilateral measures were announced, such as the establishment of direct telephone links, joint electricity grids, new border crossings, free access to third-country tourists, and cooperation between the two police forces in combating crime and drug smuggling.

All three leaders made eloquent speeches on the White House lawn, but Hussein's speech was the most moving. Without a note in hand he spoke at some length about peace as the realization of a dream. He spoke with particular insight about the mental adjustments that were needed to attain real peace. ‘I have felt over the recent past that many of us in our part of the world, both in Israel and in Jordan, had to begin the inevitable readjustments, psychologically, after so many years of denial of our right to live normally together, to build and to move ahead. And, as I have said before, unfortunately, the abnormal became normal, which is indeed a tragic state of affairs.' Hussein's clear and unqualified statement that the state of war had come to an end was greeted with a spontaneous round of applause and featured prominently in the media reports of the ceremony.

After the ceremony the principals adjourned to the cabinet room. As this was supposed to be only the second meeting between Rabin and Hussein, Clinton was mildly surprised to see how well acquainted they seemed. ‘Tell me, how long have you known one another?' he asked. ‘Twenty-one years, Mr President,' Rabin replied. Hussein corrected him
with a benign smile: it was ‘only' twenty years. On a more serious note, Hussein emphasized the need for the Jordanian people to enjoy the material fruits of peace. Clinton explained to Rabin that only Congress had the power to write off Jordan's debt, and he asked for his help in persuading Congress to do so. ‘Yes, Mr President,' replied Rabin slowly. ‘We will do our best.' To the Jordanians present this brief exchange provided a remarkable demonstration of the political clout wielded by Israel and its friends on Capitol Hill. In the evening a banquet was laid on in honour of the two visiting dignitaries and their delegations. Clinton lavished praise on Hussein for his courage and commitment, comparing him to King Abdullah, his grandfather. No comparison could have been more flattering to Hussein, and Clinton knew this. Rabin added his own words of praise for Hussein but he was more prosaic and more forward-looking. Hussein was visibly moved.
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The following day, 26 July, Hussein and Rabin addressed a joint session of Congress. Both speeches were well received. In his speech, Hussein outlined his vision for a bold peace. He spoke of his great grandfather, who had led the Arab Revolt, and of King Abdullah, who was martyred at the doors of the Al-Aqsa Mosque: ‘He was a man of peace who gave his life for an ideal. I have pledged my life to fulfilling his dream.' Hussein came across as a man who understood the fears of his neighbours and only wished to live in peace with them. Towards the end of his speech Hussein touched on America's role in facilitating and supporting the move of the two countries from a state of war to a state of peace. He was greeted with a standing ovation. None of Jordan's Arab neighbours accepted his claim to leadership, while the Oslo Accord threatened the security of his kingdom. Now, in Itzhak Rabin, he had found a true friend and an ally who understood his anxieties better than any Arab ruler and was willing to help him. According to Taher al-Masri, Hussein felt a deep debt of gratitude to Rabin for pleading his case in Washington and for procuring for him the much coveted invitation to address the two houses of Congress. This personal attachment to the strong Israeli leader, in Masri's opinion, is the key to understanding Hussein's decisions and actions from this point onwards.
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Some of Hussein's senior advisers had reservations about the speed with which he was moving towards a formal peace treaty with Israel. Masri, now the speaker of the lower house, warned Hussein that his rush to normalization was counter-productive. For decades the Jordanian
people had been conditioned to think of Israel as the enemy, and the abrupt reversal of attitudes that Hussein was proposing was simply not realistic. The transition had to be gradual or it might provoke a backlash. Masri also objected to the Jerusalem clause in the Washington Declaration, the text of which he did not see until only a few hours before it was announced. He felt that it was a mistake to ask Israel to acknowledge Jordan's special status in Jerusalem because Israel was an occupying power with no legal standing in this matter.
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Adnan Abu-Odeh, now Jordan's permanent representative to the UN, believed that Hussein had to proceed to a peace treaty with Israel, but he too objected to the Jerusalem article in the Washington Declaration because it implied that Israel was the legal owner of Jerusalem. He also believed that it would give rise to problems between Jordanian and Palestinian officials because it gave priority to the former in administering the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem. Hussein was not pleased to hear these criticisms.
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The very effective support that Hussein received from Israeli officials during his visit to Washington reinforced his determination to move forward swiftly. Rabinovich played a major role in lobbying for Jordanian debt forgiveness by Congress, and Hussein was very appreciative of his efforts. They had a number of extended meetings both in the Four Seasons Hotel and in Hussein's home on the Potomac outside Washington, DC. Halevy delayed his return home by five days at Hussein's request in order to assist with the campaign for congressional debt forgiveness. He left Washington aboard the royal aircraft. During the flight Hussein was in high spirits and in a celebratory mood. He was well on the way to having Jordan's debt written off; his armed forces stood to receive sorely needed spare parts and upgraded equipment, including a first squadron of F-16 fighter aircraft; and his relationship with the American superpower had been repaired. Among the friends Hussein called to thank from his airborne satellite telephone in the presence of Halevy were Rabinovich and Rabin.
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It was Hussein's nature to act intuitively and sometimes impulsively. Perhaps because of his recent physical ordeals, Queen Noor felt particularly protective of him and worried that he would be let down. They had lived through many failed attempts but they remained cautiously optimistic. Her husband described to her his relationship with Rabin as one between two military men who dealt directly, and often bluntly, with each other. Two weeks after the signing of the Washington
Declaration, the royal family went to Aqaba to prepare for the inauguration of the first open crossing point between Jordan and Israel. Christopher flew in for the historic event with several of his officials. Israel sent a large delegation, including Rabin, Peres, army officers and journalists. The telephone lines that the Washington Declaration called for between the two countries had just opened, and Hussein inaugurated them with a conversation with Ezer Weizman, Israel's President.
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Teams of experts from the two sides got down to work on the sensitive issues of water allocation, border demarcation and mutual security. Most of the meetings took place in the house of Crown Prince Hassan in Aqaba. The Jordanian team included General Ihsan Shurdom, the former head of the air force; Dr Munther Haddadin, a tough-minded water expert; Dr Ahmad Mango, an economist and a senior adviser to Prince Hassan; and Awn Khasawneh, the chief of the royal court and a distinguished jurist who was later appointed to the bench of the International Court of Justice in the Hague. The Jordanians also brought another expert in international law, the Australian-born Professor James Crawford from Cambridge. Crawford had been Khasawneh's tutor at Cambridge, and he was a leading expert on refugees under international law. Refugees were a particularly complex issue because the great bulk of them were Palestinians, not East Bank Jordanians. Initially, the Israelis wanted no reference whatsoever to the question of refugees. Crawford and Khasawneh sat with Rubinstein, and Khasawneh explained to him that it was impossible for Jordan to enter into a treaty of peace without reference to the question of refugees. Khasawneh spoke for eighteen minutes and when he finished, Crawford said to his former student: ‘Those were the most dramatic eighteen minutes of my whole professional life, including my appearances before the International Court of Justice.' A compromise was eventually reached, and, though it was not completely satisfactory to the Jordanians, at least it allowed for a reference to the question of refugees in the treaty.
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Discussions on all the issues were intense, and, when the differences had been sufficiently narrowed, the negotiators reported to their principals that the time was ripe for a top-level meeting.
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This took place in Aqaba on 29 September. The most intractable issues were land and water. In the aftermath of 1967 Israel encroached on Jordanian land south of the Dead Sea and built a string of agricultural settlements that specialized in growing flowers. To supply these farms
with water, Israel bored wells deep inside Jordanian territory. In total Israel stole more than 380 square kilometres, roughly the area of the Gaza Strip. Jordan demanded the return of all this land and an end to the exploitation of its water resources. At the meeting Rabin proposed to Hussein that Israel would recognize Jordanian sovereignty over the entire area in return for an agreement to lease it back to the agricultural settlements. Hussein did not reject the proposal out of hand and seemed willing to bargain. But the following day Ali Shukri arrived in Jerusalem by helicopter and handed the prime minister an urgent letter from the king with an absolute rejection of his proposal. Hussein stated that unless he received all 380 square kilometres that he demanded of Israel, he would not be able to sign a peace treaty. At first it looked as if all was lost. But Rubinstein and Halevy were dispatched for an intensive round of talks with the king and his brother, and eventually they came up with a saving formula.