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Chapter 3 Premature Peacemaking The 1987 Hussein-Peres London Document In 1987, Jordan’s King Hussein and Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres personally drafted an accord in a secret London meeting, the culmination of many months of intense communication between the two men and their trusted aides. The London Document of 11 April 1987 (document 48) envisioned an international conference followed by bilateral Arab-Israeli negotiations. It broke new ground in a number of ways, but ultimately fell victim to several traditionally flawed conditions of ArabIsraeli negotiation. In this it was representative of the peace process of the 1980s, which witnessed several plans that, “while strong on form, delivered very little by way of outcome.”1 In other words, lots of process, but little peace. Previous Negotiating Experience The scope and depth of Zionist-Transjordanian and Israeli-Jordanian contact since the 1920s are remarkable. Israel and Jordan are, after all, the Solomonic baby who survived. In 1921 the British divided the territory of the Palestine Mandate in two: the land west of the Jordan River remained “Palestine,” but that part east of the Jordan became the Hashemite Amirate (principality) of Transjordan, with Abdallah ibn Husayn as its ruler (amir) (see map 2). In importing Abdallah from Arabia and bequeathing a kingdom and a throne to him, the British were repaying a debt owed to Abdallah’s father, Sharif Husayn of the Hashemite family that ruled the Hejaz area of the Arabian Peninsula. The sharif had rallied an Arab revolt on behalf of the British and against the Turks during World War I, in return for which the British had promised to recognize an independent Arab state.2 But Abdallah was not content to govern only his assigned desert principality. Hegemonic ambitions to rule over “Greater Syria” made the ultimate disposition of western Palestine a matter of continuing interest to him. In the 1930s he solidi- 74 / the arab-israeli peace process: beginnings fied a budding political relationship with the Jewish Agency Executive through a land-sales option.3 For the amir, an alliance with the Jews offered a common front against the Palestinian Arabs, who were demanding Palestinian-Arab sovereignty over the land Abdallah coveted and who absolutely rejected any formula for sharing Palestine with the Zionists. In his desire to outflank the Palestinians and extend his kingdom to the Mediterranean coast, he was prepared to accept a Jewish autonomous unit within western Palestine under his sovereignty—a scenario that had little appeal to Zionists. But the Zionists and the amir had reason to find one another appealing partners nevertheless. There is evidence that Abdallah held traditionally exaggerated beliefs about the wealth and influence the Jews could put at his disposal, perhaps reinforced by the gifts he was offered and accepted. For the Zionists, Abdallah was the panArab , non-Palestinian leader who might eventually accommodate a Jewish National Home in Palestine in the classic “exchange of services” mode.4 Frequent negotiating attempts were motivated by a mutual desire to bypass the Palestinian Arabs and win each other’s acquiescence in a shared arrangement for the future “partition” of Mandate Palestine between themselves. Abdallah and members of his inner circle and Jewish Agency for Palestine (JA) officials met often, exchanging ideas and proposals for resolving the conflict over Palestine to the satisfaction of both Hashemite and Zionist aspirations.5 Some Israeli scholars contend that as the first Arab-Israeli war approached, a plan took shape whereby Transjordan would not fight against Israel and in return would take that territory designated as Arab Palestine by the UN Partition Plan of 29 November 1947 (see map 3). Avi Shlaim has written extensively on this plan, arguing that military activity during the ensuing war was governed by “an explicit agreement . . . between the Hashemites and the Zionists on the carving up of Palestine following the termination of the British mandate, and that this agreement laid the foundation for mutual restraint during 1948 and for continuing collaboration in the aftermath of war.”6 The fact is that despite extensive discussions—including the last-minute May 1948 visit to Abdallah in Amman by future Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, disguised as an Arab peasant woman—Abdallah did send the Arab Legion into battle against Israeli positions when the war broke out. The cease-fire line on the Jordanian-Israeli front, however, did conform, more or less, to the 1947 partition plan map.7 The war on the Jordanian-Israeli front ended with an armistice, officially signed at...

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