United Arab Kingdom

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United Arab Kingdom
Flag of Hejaz 1917.svg
Flag of the United Arab Kingdom
LocationUnitedArabKingdom.png
Map of the United Arab Kingdom
Official language Arabic
Capital Amman
Head of state Hussein I.
founding officially never completed
resolution 1974
Jordan's King Hussein I (1980)

The United Arab Kingdom ( Arabic المملكة العربية المتحدة, DMG al-mamlaka al-ʿarabiyya al-muttaḥida ) was a planned unification of Jordan with Palestine in 1972. In this way, Jordan's King Hussein I wanted to bring the West Bank and East Jerusalem back under Jordanian control, which had previously been occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War were. The kingdom was to form a federation of Cis-Jordan (West Bank) and Trans-Jordan (Jordan) with the capitals Jerusalem and Amman and including the Gaza Strip , while Amman was to be the common capital.

Rejection by PLO, Arab League and Israel

The proposal of a United Arab Kingdom was rejected by the PLO and most of the Arab states, which were demanding an independent Palestine. As a reaction to Hussein's plan, in March 1972 Iraq pushed for a federation of Arab republics as a new edition of the Egyptian-Iraqi-Syrian union that failed in 1963 , which was rejected by Egypt and Syria with reference to the already existing Federation of Arab Republics , as was the Jordanian plan .

Israel also rejected the plan, but in March 1972 Israel's deputy foreign minister, Jigal Allon , endorsed Jordan's proposal, excluding the PLO, as a basis for negotiations to resolve the Middle East conflict . (The Allon Plan intended to return only parts of the West Bank).

The reunification of Jordan with Palestine did not meet the interests of the Palestinians , who were striving for an independent Palestine, and ultimately failed with the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. In 1974 the Arab League recognized the PLO as the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and not Jordan. Jordan bowed to this All-Arab decision and in April 1974 recognized the PLO as the representative of all Palestinians (except for those Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin living in Jordan). In October 1974, King Hussein renounced his claims to West Jordan in favor of the PLO.

Jordanian-Palestinian Confederation

In 1977 and 1979 there were cautious overtures between the PLO under Yasser Arafat and Jordan under King Hussein. In response to the Reagan Plan , Hussein called again in September 1982 on the PLO to consider a federation and a joint delegation in Middle East negotiations. Although the PLO was open to a confederation (not a federation), it rejected the Reagan Plan in April 1983, as did the prospect of having Palestinian issues negotiated by a delegation chaired by Hussein. Nevertheless, a Jordanian-Palestinian agreement on a common Middle East policy and a future confederation of Arab states was reached in Amman on February 11, 1985 , and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation promoted a Middle East peace conference in Western Europe on June 25, 1985. However, after Israel refused to negotiate with a "terrorist" delegation on October 22, 1985, Hussein declared that it was "rethinking" its relationship with the PLO and blamed it for the failure of the Jordanian peace efforts. Finally, on February 19, 1986, the break came when Hussein called on the PLO to renounce terrorism. Indeed, both sides argued over the Palestinian precondition that Israel should recognize UN Security Council Resolution 242 as a basis for negotiations. In 1986, Arafat saw only an interruption in the Jordanian-Palestinian talks and the cause of the problem only in a lack of coordination and in the intrigues of the Palestinian-born Jordanian Prime Minister Zaid ar-Rifaʿi .

From then on, Hussein supported Syria in the fight against the PLO leadership and conducted secret negotiations with Israel. At the summit of the Arab League in Amman in November 1987 there was again a reconciliation between Hussein and Arafat. In view of the Intifada that broke out in 1987 , Hussein announced on July 31, 1988 the abandonment of all formal legal and administrative ties between Jordan and the West Bank as well as the cancellation of the development plan agreed with Israel for the occupied territory and called on the PLO to fill the power vacuum. The PLO then proclaimed the state of Palestine in Algiers on November 15, 1988 , but in 1989 reaffirmed its interest in uniting this Palestinian state in a confederation with Jordan.

In view of the refusal of the Israeli Shamir government to negotiate directly with the PLO or with Palestinians from East Jerusalem, Jordanians and Palestinians actually came to the Madrid Middle East Conference in 1992 with a joint delegation, and the PLO and Jordan again spoke out in favor of a subsequent confederation .

After a change of government in Israel, there were nevertheless secret Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that led to the Oslo peace process in 1993 , and Israeli-Jordanian negotiations that led to a separate peace in 1994. The establishment of an independent Palestinian state within five years (i.e. 1998) as envisaged in the Oslo Agreement has not yet come about (2018).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ofra Bengio: Saddam's Word - Political Discourse in Iraq , p . 46 . Oxford University Press, New York 1998
  2. Hamburger Abendblatt from March 20, 1972: Little prospects for Union plans from Baghdad ( Memento from July 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Approval from Israel for the Hussein plan. Hamburger Abendblatt , March 25, 1972, archived from the original on July 27, 2014 ; Retrieved January 25, 2010 .
  4. ^ A b Munzinger Archive / IH-Zeitarchiv, Jordanien 8/84, Zeitgeschichte
  5. Süddeutsche Zeitung of February 25, 1985: Jordanian-Palestinian Agreement
  6. Munzinger Archive / IH-Zeitarchiv, Jordanien 14/87, Chronik 1985
  7. ^ Munzinger-Archiv / IH-Zeitarchiv, Jordanien 14/87, Chronik 1986
  8. Spiegel Online 29/1986 of July 14, 1986: The Palestinian Resistance is alive (Spiegel interview with Arafat)
  9. Munzinger-Archiv / IH-Zeitarchiv, Jordanien 30/88, Chronik 1987
  10. Munzinger Archive / IH-Zeitarchiv, Jordanien 19/90, Chronik 1988
  11. Spiegel Online 35/1988 of August 29, 1988: We will soon turn our fate
  12. ^ Palestinian Says His Delegation Will Assert PLO Ties at Talks. The New York Times , October 22, 1991, accessed March 22, 2010 .

literature