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| Jordan
History |
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The Nabataeans were
the 1st known inhabitants of the area that is now Jordan. The Romans
absorbed it into their empire, as part of the province of Arabia,
in AD 106. Shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in AD
632, Arab armies entered the region and acclaimed the Umayyad dynasty.
This became something of a regional backwater after the conquest
of Baghdad. During the 11th and 12th centuries,
Jordan was the scene of some of the major conflicts among the Christian
Crusaders and Islamic forces.
Salah ad Din
(known in the West as Saladin) and his successors ruled Jordan from
his main seat of power in Egypt from the late 12th century until
they were displaced by the Mamluks, which is a race of mostly Kurdish
and Circassian origin.
The Mamluks
repelled the Mongol invasion of the 14th century but were finally
overthrown by the Ottoman Turks in 1517. Jordan was governed along
with modern day Palestine and Syria as a single administrative entity
(called a vilayet).
Turkish rule lasted,
in an increasingly feeble form, until the beginning of the 20th
century. After World War I, when the major Western powers began
to dismember the old Ottoman Empire and dispense its territories
among themselves, the area east of the Jordan River, known as Transjordania,
fell to the British.
Like neighbouring Palestine, Transjordania came
under a League of Nations mandate under which the British retained
control. The mandate concluded in 1946, at which point Transjordania
attained full independence under the present constitution.
Jordan came under the rule of King Abdullah ibn Hussein,
a member of the Arabian Hashemite Dynasty who had held the position
of Emir since the 1920s. When King Abdullah was eliminated in 1951,
the crown passed to his son Hussein ibn Talal.
King
Hussein assumed the throne in 1952 and ruled Jordan until
early 1999. Jordanian history and politics have been dominated by
the Palestinian issue and relations with Israel since independence.
When war broke out in 1948 between the newly declared state of Israel
and the Palestinians, backed by the forces from neighbouring Arab
countries, the Jordanian army occupied a 6,000 square kilometres
area of Palestine bounded by the west bank of the River Jordan.
Until a major change in Jordanian policy in 1988, the West
Bank contained 3 of Jordan’s 8 provinces,
while over half of the Jordanian population claimed Palestinian
origin.
Relations between King Hussein
and the Palestinians were difficult from the very start as his father
was murdered by a Palestinian extremist. Jordan lost the West Bank
after the 6 Day War of 1967, and gained 1,000's of Palestinian refugees
who fled across to Jordan.
Many of the refugees joined 1 of the myriad of
guerrilla groups organised under the umbrella title of the Palestine
Liberation Organisation (the modern PLO is a coalition of 7 main
factions, the largest of which is Al-Fatah headed by the PLO’s
overall leader Yasser Arafat).
Hussein ultimately came to feel that they composed a major threat
to his authority and, in September 1970, he deployed the Jordanian
army to expel them. In 1973, Israel again defeated a combined
Arab force, including a small Jordanian contingent, in the Yom Kippur
war, Jordan did not loose territory on this occasion.
Throughout the late 1970's and early 1980's Jordan pulled back from
regional politics to concentrate more on domestic
matters. After 1967, political power in Jordan was concentrated
fully in the hands of the King and his Council of Ministers, therefore
political parties and almost all political activity were banned.
This prohibition has been considerably relaxed since the mid 1980's
to the point where political parties can now campaign
openly for election. Nevertheless, the government continues to limit
their activities and is especially wary of any manifestations of
Islamic fundamentalism which, as elsewhere in the Arab world, has
been growing in Jordan.
Most political parties boycotted the most recent parliamentary poll
in November 1997, the only officially represented political
party is the small Ba’ath party, and the National
Assembly remains, as beforehand, dominated by supporters of the
King. There is also a significant Islamist bloc although it is not
formally organised.
The Palestinian problem reappeared as a major factor
in Jordanian politics with the onset of the first Intifada (the
uprising by Palestinians living in Israeli occupied areas) in 1987.
This led, in July the following year, to a surprise decision by
Hussein to surrender the residual Jordanian interest in the internal
affairs of the occupied West Bank (notably the financing of public
services such as education).
In 1990, another of Jordan’s other neighbours, Iraq,
became the cause of huge problems for the Jordanians when Saddam
Hussein invaded Kuwait. The resulting Gulf War of 1991 proved a
political and economic disaster for Jordan.
Traditionally friendly to both the United States and Iraq and, in
different ways, economically reliant on both, Jordan was forced
into an unwelcome choice. Unavoidably, Jordan lost out with both
sides through its failure to give wholehearted support for the United
States led coalition which defeated the Iraqis, and by accepting
large numbers of Iraqi refugees.
During the rest of the 1990's, Jordan suffered badly from the United
Nations sanctions imposed upon Baghdad and it has benefited
significantly from the gradual disintegration of the sanctions regime.
The Iraqi situation also had the effect of urging
King Hussein into a peace agreement with the Israelis, allowing
for security and economic cooperation, which was concluded in 1991.
Since the year 2000, and the 2nd Palestinian Intifada, this agreement
has come under serious strain.
However, by this time, there had been an important change in Jordan.
King Hussein’s health had been in decline
throughout the 1990's and he died of cancer in February 1999. The
King’s brother, Crown Prince Hassan, had long been the heir
apparent.
King Hussein had stipulated before his death that one of his sons,
Prince Abdullah, had been chosen to take over upon
his death (Hassan remains an important figure in the regime). During
his 1st year in office, Abdullah adopted a more populist style than
his father but there has been little change in the substance of
policy. A new Prime Minister, Ali Abu al-Ragheb, took office during
2000 at the head of a government made up of independents and members
of the main Islamic bloc.
During the year 2002, Abdullah was confronted by
the same dilemma as King Hussein as, once again, the Americans have
Iraq in their sights. There is strong anti American feeling in the
country due to the Bush administration’s support for Israel
and its proposed assault on fellow Arabs. The government is also
deeply concerned about the economic consequences of a 2nd Gulf War.
The regional situation lay behind Jordan’s
decision to cancel the planned Non Aligned Summit, scheduled in
Amman in April 2002. Jordan’s planned takeover of the presidency
of the movement from South Africa is now in danger.
Elsewhere, Jordan has cut diplomatic relations
with Qatar over a broadcast by the al-Jazeera television station
(famous as the main outlet for the al-Qaeda terrorist set-up) which
criticised supposed corruption within the Jordanian government.
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