(2 of 9)
The showdown in Jordan was all but inevitable. Since 1968, Hussein's successive Cabinets and the eleven guerrilla organizations that make up the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) have rubbed each other like two jagged pieces of Jordanian limestone. The government resented the fact that the guerrillas had become so strong that they were practically the joint rulers of Jordan: they set their own laws of conduct, carried guns in spite of Jordanian prohibition, ruled the refugee camps and openly defied the King. The guerrillas resented the fact that Hussein's government did not show sufficient regard for the Palestinians, who make up 65% of Jordan's population. Three times since 1968, disagreements between sides have resulted in actual miniwars. Three months ago, 200 people were killed in three days of fighting.
The hostility intensified last month, as far as the guerrillas were concerned, when Hussein and Egypt's President Nasser agreed to a cease-fire with Israel. A new attempt on Hussein's life infuriated the army. Two weeks ago, any hope of reconciliation between the two sides was finally fractured when the guerrillas skyjacked three jet airliners and held as hostages 430 crewmen and passengers (TIME cover, Sept. 21). Most were finally let go by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, but 54 —38 Americans, two with dual Israeli-U.S. citizenship, and 16 Britons, West Germans and Swiss—were still being held at undisclosed hideaways at week's end. The hostages were in danger of getting caught in the battle, and a guerrilla spokesman would say nothing about their condition. "All we know," he said, "is that all are alive." The whole episode, said Hussein, was "the shame of the Arab nation."
Jordanian Premier Abdel Moneim Rifai tried to paper over this latest controversy with an agreement stipulating that the guerrillas be allowed to operate openly in Amman and that the army stay outside the capital. When Hussein saw the agreement, he was aghast. The army was already close to mutiny as a result of the restrictions placed upon it in its dealings with the cocky, freewheeling fedayeen. At one inspection an armored commander flew a brassiere from the radio antenna of his tank. When Hussein asked why, the officer snapped: "We have all become women." At another inspection, army officers pulled off their kaffiyehs and threw the traditional Jordanian headdress to the ground at the King's feet. The skyjacking represented a final humiliation: army units had quickly ringed the three jets squatting in the desert outside Amman, but orders from the King pre vented them from doing anything more. Hussein knew that his soldiers, roughly half of them Bedouins with little use for the fedayeen, were bitterly resentful. "They are on the razor's edge," he told the French daily Le Figaro. "They've had enough. They are not accustomed to being so vilified, denigrated, provoked endlessly without being able to react. The situation cannot go on. Every day Jordan sinks a little deeper. There must be peace—or war."
Scathing Rebuke