Black September in Jordan
Encyclopedia
September 1970 is known as the Black September ( aylūl al-aswad) in Arab
history and sometimes is referred to as the "era of regrettable events." It was a month when Hashemite
King Hussein
of Jordan
moved to quash the militancy of Palestinian
organizations and restore his monarchy's rule over the country. The violence resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, the vast majority Palestinian. Armed conflict lasted until July 1971 with the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and thousands of Palestinian fighters to Lebanon
.
; the end of the British Mandate of Palestine and the unilateral Israeli Declaration of Independence in May 1948 – immediately endorsed by the major powers. Neighboring Arab states immediately invaded Israel with the aim of destroying it in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
. The fighting between the Arab states and Israel was halted with the UN-mediated 1949 Armistice Agreements
, but the remaining Palestinian territories
came under the control of Egypt and Trans-Jordan. In 1949, Trans-Jordan officially changed its name to Jordan; in 1950, it annexed the West Bank
of the Jordan River, and brought Palestinian representation into the government.
At the time, the population east of the Jordan River contained over 400,000 Palestinian refugees who made up one-third of the population of the Kingdom; another third of the population was Palestinians on the West Bank. Only one third of the population consisted of the original inhabitants of Trans-Jordan, which meant that the Jordanians had become a ruling minority over a Palestinian majority. This proved to be a mercurial element in internal Jordanian politics and played a critical role in the political opposition. Since the 1950s, the West Bank had become the center of the national and territorial aspects of the Palestinian problem that was the key issue of Jordan's domestic and foreign policy. According to King Hussein, the Palestinian problem spelled "life or death" for Jordan and would remain the country's overriding national security issue.
King Hussein feared an independent West Bank under PLO administration would threaten the autonomy of his Hashemite kingdom. The Palestinian factions were supported variously by many Arab regimes, most notably Egypt
's President Nasser
, who gave political support; and Saudi Arabia, which gave financial support. The Palestinian nationalist organization Fatah
started organizing attacks against Israel in January 1965, and Israel was also subject to repeated cross-border attacks by Palestinian fedayeen
; these often drew reprisals that killed and injured Jordanians. The Samu Incident
was one such reprisal. Jordan had long maintained secret contacts with Israel concerning peace and security along their border. Due to internal splits within the Jordanian government and population however, many of King Hussein's orders to stop these raids were not obeyed, and some Jordanian commanders along the Israeli-Jordanian border began giving the Palestinian raids passive assistance. In June 1967 Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan during the Six-Day War
.
entered the village of Karameh
on March 21, 1968. The IDF
destroyed the camp. The PLO suffered some 200 killed and another 150 were taken prisoner. Forty Jordanian soldiers were also killed. Israeli casualties stood at 28 killed and 69 wounded. The Karameh operation highlighted PLO vulnerabilities in operating in close proximity to the Jordan River and so they moved their bases farther into the mountains, which placed additional strains on their operations. To further shield themselves from Israeli attacks, the guerillas attempted to mingle with the Jordanian civilian population which gave rise to friction between the Jordanians and guerillas.
and attempted to extort "taxes." During the November 1968 negotiations, a seven-point agreement was reached between King Hussein and Palestinian organizations:
The PLO did not live up to the agreement, and instead came to be seen more and more as a state within a state
in Jordan. Discipline within the Palestinian militias was often poor, and there was no central power to control the different groups. Many of them were recently formed, and new groups sprang up spontaneously after the Karameh battle, or were set up by foreign governments such as Syria and Iraq. This created a bewildering scene of groups spawning, merging and splintering rapidly, often trying to outdo each other in radicalism to attract recruits. Some left-wing Palestininan movements, such as the PFLP and the DFLP, began openly questioning the Jordanian monarchy and raising slogans calling for the "resistance" to seize power, while also stirring up conservative and religious feelings by provocative anti-religious statements and actions. In other cases, illustrating the lack of discipline on the fringes of the movement, fedayeen activity became a cover for gangsterism, with theft of vehicles or extortion from local merchants, by claiming that the goods were confiscated for the battle effort or were a donation to "the cause". By far the largest Palestinian faction, Arafat's Fatah
, preached non-involvement in Jordanian affairs, but all members did not necessarily live up to this slogan. Fatah also protected smaller movements from being singled out for retaliation from the government, by threatening to stand by them in any armed clashes. Palestinians also claimed that there were numerous agents provocateurs from Jordanian or other security services present among the fedayeen, deliberately trying to upset political relations and provoke justifications for a crackdown.
Between mid-1968 and the end of 1969, no fewer than five hundred violent clashes occurred between the Palestinian guerrillas and Jordanian security forces. Acts of violence against civilians and kidnapping
s frequently took place. Chief of the Jordanian royal court (and subsequently a Prime Minister) Zaid al-Rifai
claimed that in one extreme instance, "the fedayeen killed a soldier, beheaded him, and played football with his head in the area where he used to live." Jordanian security forces would typically respond to fedayeen provocations and transgressions by rounding them up and sending them to the front. Outbreaks of violence were continuously on the rise. It was believed that as long as both parties maintained the condition that they would not enter or remain in the capital a large scale clash could have been avoided.
On the military side of things, the PLO also continued attacking Israel from Jordanian territory with little regard to Jordanian authority or security. Heavy Israeli reprisals resulted in both Palestinian and Jordanian civilian and military casualties, and the threat of larger-scale Israeli invasion loomed large.
, and the Egyptian President Nasser in February 1970. Upon his return, King Hussein published a ten-point edict, restricting activities of the Palestinian organizations. On February 11, fighting broke out between Jordanian security forces and the Palestinian groups in the streets of Amman
, resulting in about 300 deaths. Trying to prevent the violence spinning out of control, King Hussein announced "We are all fedayeen
" and fired the interior minister
who was hostile towards the Palestinians.
Armed Palestinians set up a parallel system of visa controls, customs checks and checkpoints in Jordanian cities and added more tensions to already polarized Jordanian society and the army.
In July, Egypt and Jordan accepted the U.S.-backed Rogers Plan
that called for a cease fire in the War of Attrition
between Egypt and Israel and for Israel's negotiated withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967, according to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242
, but the plan mentioned the West Bank
to be under King Hussein's authority and that was unacceptable for the more radical organizations; the PLO, George Habash
's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP), and Naif Hawatmeh's Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(DFLP) opposed the plan, criticized and scandalized Nasser. Thus, the PLO lost the good relations with Nasser and his protection. Reportedly, the plan was a trap conceived to destroy PLO's relations with Nasser, and it had never been implemented.
As a result, King Hussein started his military campaign against the PLO. Between February and June 1970, about a thousand lives were lost in Jordan alone due to the conflict. The more radical organizations in the PLO decided to undermine Hussein's pro-Western regime.
, three planes were hijacked by PFLP: a SwissAir
and a TWA
that were landed in Azraq area and a Pan Am
that was landed in Cairo
. Then on September 9, a BOAC
flight from Bahrain was also hijacked to Zarqa
. The PFLP announced that the hijackings were intended "to pay special attention to the Palestinian problem". After all hostages were removed, the planes were dramatically blown up in front of TV cameras. Directly confronting and angering the King, the rebels declared the Irbid
area a "liberated region."
. The next day, Jordanian tanks (the 60th Armored Brigade of the Jordanian Army) attacked the headquarters of Palestinian organizations in Amman
; the army also attacked camps in Irbid
, Salt
, Sweileh, Baq'aa, Wehdat and Zarqa
. Then the head of Pakistani training mission to Jordan, Brigadier Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
(later Chief of Army Staff and President of Pakistan), took command of the 2nd division. However, the Jordanians could not devote all their attention to the Palestinians. The 3rd Armoured Division
of the Iraqi Army
had remained in Jordan after the 1967 war. The Iraqi regime sympathised with the Palestinians, and it was unclear whether the division would intervene on the part of the Palestinians. Thus the 99th Brigade of the Jordanian 3rd Armoured Division had to be retained to watch the Iraqi division.
Arafat later claimed that the Jordanian army killed between 10,000 and 25,000 Palestinians, although more conservative estimates put the number between 1000 and 2000.
Hostage David Raab described the initial military actions in Black September this way:
The armored troops were inefficient in narrow city streets and thus the Jordanian army conducted house to house sweeps for Palestinian fighters and got immersed in heavy urban warfare
with the Palestinian fighters.
Amman experienced the heaviest fighting in the Black September uprising. Syrian tanks rolled across the Yarmouk River
into northern Jordan and began shelling Amman and other northern urban areas. Outdated missiles fired by the PLO struck Amman for more than a week. Jordanian infantry pushed the Palestinian Fedayeen
out of Amman after weeks of bitter fighting.
tried to intervene on behalf of the Palestinian guerrillas. President Hafez al-Assad
told his biographer, Patrick Seale
, that Syria's intervention was only to protect the Palestinians from a massacre.
The Syrians sent in armored forces equivalent to a brigade
, with tanks, some of them allegedly hastily rebranded from the regular Syrian army for the purpose. Other Syrian units were the 5th Infantry Division (with the 88th and 91st Tank Brigades and the 67th Mechanised Brigade with over 200 T-55
tanks) and Commandos. They were under the command of the Palestine Liberation Army's (PLA) Syrian branch, whose headquarters were located in Damascus
, and which was controlled by the government. They were met by the 40th Armored Brigade of the Jordanian Army. The Syrian Air Force, under orders of Assad, never entered the battle. This has been variously attributed to power struggles within the Syrian Baathist government (pitting Assad against Salah Jadid
), and to the threat of Israel
i military intervention.
As King Hussein dealt with threats by both Palestinian refugees in his country and invading Syrian forces, the king asked "the United States and Great Britain to intervene in the war in Jordan, asking the United States, in fact, to attack Syria, and some transcripts of diplomatic communiques show that Hussein requested Israeli intervention against Syria." Timothy Naftali
said. "Syria had invaded Jordan and the Jordanian king, facing what he felt was a military rout, said please help us in any way possible."
A telegram indicates that Hussein himself called a U.S. official at 3 a.m. to ask for American or British help. "Situation deteriorating dangerously following Syrian massive invasion...", the document said. "I request immediate physical intervention both land and air... to safeguard sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Jordan. Immediate air strikes on invading forces from any quarter plus air cover are imperative."
On 21 September the Syrian 5th Division broke through the defenses of the Jordanian 40th Armoured Brigade, and pushed it back off the ar-Ramtha crossroads. King Hussein was thrown into a near panic. On 22 September the Royal Jordanian Air Force
began attacking Syrian forces, which were badly battered as a result. The constant airstrikes broke the will of the Syrian force, and on the late afternoon of 22 September the 5th Division began to retreat.
Whatever the case, the swift Syrian withdrawal was a severe blow to Palestinian hopes. Jordanian armored forces steadily pounded their headquarters in Amman, and threatened to break them in other regions of the kingdom as well. The Palestinians agreed to a cease-fire. Hussein and Arafat attended the meeting of leaders of Arab countries in Cairo, where Arafat won a diplomatic victory. On September 27, Hussein was forced to sign an agreement which preserved the right of the Palestinian organizations to operate in Jordan. For Jordan, it was humiliating that the agreement treated both sides to the conflict as equals.
, near Jordan
. At the beginning of September, U.S. President Richard Nixon
sent an additional carrier
task force and the Marine assault ship USS Guam
to supplement the 6th Fleet. Two Royal Navy
aircraft carriers arrived in the area of Malta
as well. By 19–20 September, U.S. Navy concentrated a powerful force in the Eastern Mediterranean. According to the official U.S. version the goal was to protect American interests in the region and to respond to the capture of about 50 German
, British
, and U.S. citizens in Jordan by Palestinian forces.
However, the Soviets claim that the goal of U.S. shock grouping was taking control of the West Bank
of the Jordan river to support the upcoming Israel
invasion into the neighboring territories of Syria
, Jordan
and Lebanon
. To protect Soviet interests in the area and to assist Syria
, the 5th Mediterranean Squadron of the Soviet Navy
was increased to about twenty surface warships and six submarines. By mutual agreement with Syria, Soviet landing troops were ordered to respond to the expected U.S. landing and assist in demarcation of the Syria national boundaries with Israel.
On 19–20 September, a particularly busy time of confrontation, U.S. landing ships entered the Haifa
outer harbour and prepared for disembarking: U.S. Marines stood on the deck in full gear ready for landing in helicopters. However, after the Soviet landing ships ran for Tartus, the preparations for disembarking were rolled back.
The 82nd Airborne had been alerted on the Sept.15. On the 19th they were loaded on C-141s. They were to drop in to the Amman Airport, secure and hold for the slower units to have a place for insertion by air. Within minutes after the first C-141s became airborne the mission was aborted and all returned to Pope AFB/Fort Bragg.
U.S. Forces remained on alert in the area throughout September and October. However, the tensions gradually decreased starting from 23–24 September.
in Cairo and on September 27. Hussein signed an agreement that treated both sides as equals and acknowledged the right of the Palestinian organizations to operate in Jordan, but which required them to leave the cities and stay in the fronts.
On September 28, Egypt's Nasser died of a sudden heart attack. As a result the PLO lost its protection, and King Hussein continued the attack.
from Cairo reported genocide
.
Had the Palestinians honored that agreement, Hussein would have had difficulties in continuing to act against them. But the PFLP and the DFLP – the two organizations to the left of Arafat – refused to accept its conditions. They called on their members to ignore the Jordanian government, and at a meeting of the Palestinian National Council, they were responsible for prompting the acceptance of the proposal that Transjordan would be part of the Palestinian state to be established in the future.
The open defiance caused renewed conflict between the Palestinians and the Jordanian army, whose commanders were in any case eager to finish the work they had begun in September. At the beginning of November 1970, incidents of fighting erupted between members of the PFLP and DFLP and the Jordanian security forces. On November 9, Jordanian prime minister Wasfi al-Tal
, the sworn enemy of the Palestinians, announced that in accordance with the agreement signed a month earlier, the authorities would no longer allow the Palestinians to walk around with weapons or to store explosives. The announcement was not honored, and the security forces received instructions to confiscate the Palestinians' weapons.
Until January 1971, the Jordanian army heightened its control in all the central cities. At the beginning of that month, the Jordanian army began an attack against the Palestinian bases along the highway between Amman and Jerash to cut them off from the other cities and to take over the roads linking their strongholds. In response to the operation, the Palestinians agreed to hand over their weapons to the Jordanians. This agreement was not honored either.
Toward the end of March, after a Palestinian arms warehouse was discovered in Irbid, the Jordanian army placed a curfew on the city, arrested some of the Palestinian activists, and expelled others. The takeover of Irbid was completed at the beginning of April. Afterward, many senior members of the Palestinian organizations, who were aware of their weakness, began to withdraw from Amman as well.
Yet, despite the series of defeats, the Palestinian organizations did not give in. On June 5, the senior Palestinian organizations, including Yasser Arafat's Fatah, came out with a declaration on Radio Baghdad in which they called for the deposition of King Hussein. The reason they gave for this was that deposing him was the only way to prevent the signing of "a peace agreement between Israel and Jordan."
In mid-June 1971, after three tense months during which the sides made efforts to fortify their positions by political means, Jordan embarked on the final campaign against the Palestinians. The Jordanian army, which for almost 10 months had been pushing the Palestinian organizations out of the major cities, used large forces to expel them from the mountainous regions of the cities of Jerash
and Ajlun, in the north of the kingdom, where about 3,000 armed Palestinians were located.
The members of Fatah declared that they preferred to die in battle rather than surrender to the Jordanian dictates. After four days of battle, the Jordanian army overcame the last pockets of resistance. King Hussein held a press conference and declared that there was now "absolute quiet" in the kingdom. Seventy-two Palestinians fled to the West Bank and surrendered to IDF soldiers. The commander of Fatah's forces in northern Jordan, Abu Ali Iyad
, was captured and killed by the Jordanian Army.
The Palestinian rout was complete. King Hussein had removed the threat to his throne, and had strengthened his control over the kingdom.
was established by Fatah members in 1971 to serve as a front organization for revenge operations and international strikes after the September events. On November 28, 1971, in Cairo, four of its members assassinated Wasfi al-Tal
. The group would go on to perform other strikes against Jordan, and against Israeli and Western interests outside of the Middle East, such as the Munich massacre
in 1972. The Black September Organization was later disbanded in 1973–1974 as the PLO sought to exploit the October War of 1973 and pursue a diplomatic strategy. Fatah has always publicly denied its responsibility for Black September operations, but by the 2000s, numerous high-ranking Fatah and Black September activists openly acknowledge the relationship.
Lebanon: In the September fighting, the PLO lost its main base of operations. Fighters were driven to Southern Lebanon
to regroup. The enlarged PLO presence in Lebanon and the intensification of fighting on the Israeli-Lebanese border stirred up internal unrest in Lebanon, where the PLO fighters added dramatically to the weight of the Lebanese National Movement
, a coalition of Muslims, Arab nationalists and leftists who opposed the rightist, Maronite-dominated government. These developments helped precipitate the Lebanon Civil War, in which the PLO would be engrossed from 1975 until well after the mid-1980s.
Jordan: King Hussein of Jordan was maligned throughout the Arab world for having attacked the Palestinian resistance, and although he had now averted the physical threat to his throne, his legitimacy had suffered a crippling blow among Palestinians (who made up the majority of the kingdom's inhabitants) and on the regional Arab scene. Only a few years later, in 1974, the Arab League
(and then the UN) would recognize the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, denying Jordan's long-held claim to ownership of East Jerusalem
and sovereignty over the Palestinian West Bank
population.
Syria: The September events set alight the smouldering conflict between Hafez al-Assad
and Salah Jadid
in Syria. This culminated in Assad's Corrective Movement of November 1970, in which he deposed Jadid and seized power, after Jadid had tried to fire him over the Black September debacle and other issues.
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
history and sometimes is referred to as the "era of regrettable events." It was a month when Hashemite
Hashemite
Hashemite is the Latinate version of the , transliteration: Hāšimī, and traditionally refers to those belonging to the Banu Hashim, or "clan of Hashim", a clan within the larger Quraish tribe...
King Hussein
Hussein of Jordan
Hussein bin Talal was the third King of Jordan from the abdication of his father, King Talal, in 1952, until his death. Hussein's rule extended through the Cold War and four decades of Arab-Israeli conflict...
of Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
moved to quash the militancy of Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
organizations and restore his monarchy's rule over the country. The violence resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, the vast majority Palestinian. Armed conflict lasted until July 1971 with the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and thousands of Palestinian fighters to Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
.
Palestinians in Jordan
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in late 1947 led to civil war1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine
The 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine lasted from 30 November 1947, the date of the United Nations vote in favour of the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the UN Partition Plan, to the termination of the British Mandate itself on 14 May 1948.This period constitutes the...
; the end of the British Mandate of Palestine and the unilateral Israeli Declaration of Independence in May 1948 – immediately endorsed by the major powers. Neighboring Arab states immediately invaded Israel with the aim of destroying it in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
. The fighting between the Arab states and Israel was halted with the UN-mediated 1949 Armistice Agreements
1949 Armistice Agreements
The 1949 Armistice Agreements are a set of agreements signed during 1949 between Israel and neighboring Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. The agreements ended the official hostilities of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and established armistice lines between Israeli forces and the forces in...
, but the remaining Palestinian territories
Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries as the State of Palestine or simply Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the...
came under the control of Egypt and Trans-Jordan. In 1949, Trans-Jordan officially changed its name to Jordan; in 1950, it annexed the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
of the Jordan River, and brought Palestinian representation into the government.
At the time, the population east of the Jordan River contained over 400,000 Palestinian refugees who made up one-third of the population of the Kingdom; another third of the population was Palestinians on the West Bank. Only one third of the population consisted of the original inhabitants of Trans-Jordan, which meant that the Jordanians had become a ruling minority over a Palestinian majority. This proved to be a mercurial element in internal Jordanian politics and played a critical role in the political opposition. Since the 1950s, the West Bank had become the center of the national and territorial aspects of the Palestinian problem that was the key issue of Jordan's domestic and foreign policy. According to King Hussein, the Palestinian problem spelled "life or death" for Jordan and would remain the country's overriding national security issue.
King Hussein feared an independent West Bank under PLO administration would threaten the autonomy of his Hashemite kingdom. The Palestinian factions were supported variously by many Arab regimes, most notably Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
's President Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...
, who gave political support; and Saudi Arabia, which gave financial support. The Palestinian nationalist organization Fatah
Fatah
Fataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the left-wing of the spectrum; it is mainly nationalist, although not predominantly socialist. Its official goals are found...
started organizing attacks against Israel in January 1965, and Israel was also subject to repeated cross-border attacks by Palestinian fedayeen
Palestinian fedayeen
Palestinian fedayeen refers to militants or guerrillas of a nationalist orientation from among the Palestinian people...
; these often drew reprisals that killed and injured Jordanians. The Samu Incident
Samu Incident
The Samu incident refers to events on November 13, 1966 involving an Israeli military attack on the Jordanian-controlled West Bank village of Samu in response to Fatah raids against Israelis near the West Bank border...
was one such reprisal. Jordan had long maintained secret contacts with Israel concerning peace and security along their border. Due to internal splits within the Jordanian government and population however, many of King Hussein's orders to stop these raids were not obeyed, and some Jordanian commanders along the Israeli-Jordanian border began giving the Palestinian raids passive assistance. In June 1967 Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan during the Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
.
Battle of Karameh
The Israel Defense ForcesIsrael Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
entered the village of Karameh
Karameh
al-Karameh is a town in Jordan, near the Allenby Bridge which spans the Jordan River. The river defines the border between Israel and Jordan....
on March 21, 1968. The IDF
IDF
-Military:*Iceland Defense Force*Irish Defence Forces*Israel Defense Forces*AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-kuo, a light fighter aircraft created for the Republic of China Air Force under its Indigenous Defence Fighter program*Identify, Insured Deposit Fund-Non-military:...
destroyed the camp. The PLO suffered some 200 killed and another 150 were taken prisoner. Forty Jordanian soldiers were also killed. Israeli casualties stood at 28 killed and 69 wounded. The Karameh operation highlighted PLO vulnerabilities in operating in close proximity to the Jordan River and so they moved their bases farther into the mountains, which placed additional strains on their operations. To further shield themselves from Israeli attacks, the guerillas attempted to mingle with the Jordanian civilian population which gave rise to friction between the Jordanians and guerillas.
Seven-point agreement
In Palestinian enclaves and refugee camps in Jordan, the Jordanian Police and army were losing their authority. Uniformed PLO militants openly carried weapons, set up checkpointsCivilian checkpoint
Civilian checkpoints or Security checkpoints are distinguishable from border or frontier checkpoints in that they are erected and enforced within contiguous areas under military or paramilitary control...
and attempted to extort "taxes." During the November 1968 negotiations, a seven-point agreement was reached between King Hussein and Palestinian organizations:
- Members of these organizations were forbidden from walking around cities armed and in uniform
- They were forbidden to stop and search civilian vehicles
- They were forbidden from competing with the Jordanian Army for recruits
- They were required to carry Jordanian identity papers
- Their vehicles were required to bear Jordanian license plates
- Crimes committed by members of the Palestinian organizations would be investigated by the Jordanian authorities
- Disputes between the Palestinian organizations and the government would be settled by a joint council of representatives of the king and of the PLO.
The PLO did not live up to the agreement, and instead came to be seen more and more as a state within a state
State within a state
State within a state is a political situation in a country when an internal organ, generally from the armed forces, intelligence agencies or police, does not respond to the civilian leadership....
in Jordan. Discipline within the Palestinian militias was often poor, and there was no central power to control the different groups. Many of them were recently formed, and new groups sprang up spontaneously after the Karameh battle, or were set up by foreign governments such as Syria and Iraq. This created a bewildering scene of groups spawning, merging and splintering rapidly, often trying to outdo each other in radicalism to attract recruits. Some left-wing Palestininan movements, such as the PFLP and the DFLP, began openly questioning the Jordanian monarchy and raising slogans calling for the "resistance" to seize power, while also stirring up conservative and religious feelings by provocative anti-religious statements and actions. In other cases, illustrating the lack of discipline on the fringes of the movement, fedayeen activity became a cover for gangsterism, with theft of vehicles or extortion from local merchants, by claiming that the goods were confiscated for the battle effort or were a donation to "the cause". By far the largest Palestinian faction, Arafat's Fatah
Fatah
Fataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the left-wing of the spectrum; it is mainly nationalist, although not predominantly socialist. Its official goals are found...
, preached non-involvement in Jordanian affairs, but all members did not necessarily live up to this slogan. Fatah also protected smaller movements from being singled out for retaliation from the government, by threatening to stand by them in any armed clashes. Palestinians also claimed that there were numerous agents provocateurs from Jordanian or other security services present among the fedayeen, deliberately trying to upset political relations and provoke justifications for a crackdown.
Between mid-1968 and the end of 1969, no fewer than five hundred violent clashes occurred between the Palestinian guerrillas and Jordanian security forces. Acts of violence against civilians and kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
s frequently took place. Chief of the Jordanian royal court (and subsequently a Prime Minister) Zaid al-Rifai
Zaid al-Rifai
Zaid al-Rifai in the city of Safed in Palestine is a former Prime Minister of Jordan.-Biography:He served as Prime Minister of Jordan twice and . His father, Sameer al-Rifai was also an important politician in Jordan and former prime minister...
claimed that in one extreme instance, "the fedayeen killed a soldier, beheaded him, and played football with his head in the area where he used to live." Jordanian security forces would typically respond to fedayeen provocations and transgressions by rounding them up and sending them to the front. Outbreaks of violence were continuously on the rise. It was believed that as long as both parties maintained the condition that they would not enter or remain in the capital a large scale clash could have been avoided.
On the military side of things, the PLO also continued attacking Israel from Jordanian territory with little regard to Jordanian authority or security. Heavy Israeli reprisals resulted in both Palestinian and Jordanian civilian and military casualties, and the threat of larger-scale Israeli invasion loomed large.
Ten-point edict
King Hussein visited U.S. President Richard NixonRichard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, and the Egyptian President Nasser in February 1970. Upon his return, King Hussein published a ten-point edict, restricting activities of the Palestinian organizations. On February 11, fighting broke out between Jordanian security forces and the Palestinian groups in the streets of Amman
Amman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
, resulting in about 300 deaths. Trying to prevent the violence spinning out of control, King Hussein announced "We are all fedayeen
Fedayeen
Fedayeen is a term used to describe several distinct militant groups and individuals in West Asia at different times in history. It is sometimes used colloquially to refer to suicide squads, especially those who are not bombers.-Overview:...
" and fired the interior minister
Interior minister
An interior ministry is a government ministry typically responsible for policing, national security, and immigration matters. The ministry is often headed by a minister of the interior or minister of home affairs...
who was hostile towards the Palestinians.
Armed Palestinians set up a parallel system of visa controls, customs checks and checkpoints in Jordanian cities and added more tensions to already polarized Jordanian society and the army.
In July, Egypt and Jordan accepted the U.S.-backed Rogers Plan
Rogers plan
The Rogers Plan was a framework proposed by United States Secretary of State William P. Rogers to achieve an end to belligerence in the Arab-Israeli conflict following the Six-Day War and the continuing War of Attrition. The plan was publicly proposed in a December 9, 1969 speech at an Adult...
that called for a cease fire in the War of Attrition
War of Attrition
The international community and both countries attempted to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict. The Jarring Mission of the United Nations was supposed to ensure that the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 242 would be observed, but by late 1970 it was clear that this mission had been...
between Egypt and Israel and for Israel's negotiated withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967, according to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967, in the aftermath of the Six Day War. It was adopted under Chapter VIof the United Nations Charter...
, but the plan mentioned the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
to be under King Hussein's authority and that was unacceptable for the more radical organizations; the PLO, George Habash
George Habash
George Habash also known by his laqab "al-Hakim" was a Palestinian nationalist. Habash, a Palestinian Christian, founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which pioneered the hijacking of airplanes as a Middle East militant tactic...
's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a Palestinian Marxist-Leninist organisation founded in 1967. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization , the largest being Fatah...
(PFLP), and Naif Hawatmeh's Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a Palestinian Marxist-Leninist, secular political and military organization. It is also frequently referred to as the Democratic Front, or al-Jabha al-Dimuqratiyah...
(DFLP) opposed the plan, criticized and scandalized Nasser. Thus, the PLO lost the good relations with Nasser and his protection. Reportedly, the plan was a trap conceived to destroy PLO's relations with Nasser, and it had never been implemented.
As a result, King Hussein started his military campaign against the PLO. Between February and June 1970, about a thousand lives were lost in Jordan alone due to the conflict. The more radical organizations in the PLO decided to undermine Hussein's pro-Western regime.
Aircraft hijackings
On September 1, 1970, several attempts to assassinate the king failed. On September 7, in the series of Dawson's Field hijackingsDawson's Field hijackings
In the Dawson's Field hijackings five jet aircraft bound for New York City were hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine...
, three planes were hijacked by PFLP: a SwissAir
Swissair
Swissair AG was the former national airline of Switzerland.It was formed from a merger between Balair and Ad Astra Aero , in 1931...
and a TWA
Trans World Airlines
Trans World Airlines was an American airline that existed from 1925 until it was bought out by and merged with American Airlines in 2001. It was a major domestic airline in the United States and the main U.S.-based competitor of Pan American World Airways on intercontinental routes from 1946...
that were landed in Azraq area and a Pan Am
Pan American World Airways
Pan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the principal and largest international air carrier in the United States from 1927 until its collapse on December 4, 1991...
that was landed in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
. Then on September 9, a BOAC
Boac
Boac may refer to:* Boac, Marinduque, a municipality in the Southern Philippines* Boac , an American rapper* British Overseas Airways Corporation, a former British state-owned airline...
flight from Bahrain was also hijacked to Zarqa
Zarqa
Az-Zarqāʔ is a city in Jordan located to the northeast of Amman. With a population of more than one million 1000,000. It is the country's second largest city after Amman. Zarqa is the capital of Zarqa Governorate . Its name means "the blue one".- Overview :Zarqa is Jordan's industrial centre, home...
. The PFLP announced that the hijackings were intended "to pay special attention to the Palestinian problem". After all hostages were removed, the planes were dramatically blown up in front of TV cameras. Directly confronting and angering the King, the rebels declared the Irbid
Irbid
Irbid , known in ancient times as Arabella or Arbela , is the capital and largest city of the Irbid Governorate. It also has the second largest metropolitan population in Jordan after Amman, with a population of around 660,000, and is located about 70 km north of Amman on the northern ridge of...
area a "liberated region."
Jordanian army attacks
On September 15, King Hussein declared martial lawMartial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
. The next day, Jordanian tanks (the 60th Armored Brigade of the Jordanian Army) attacked the headquarters of Palestinian organizations in Amman
Amman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
; the army also attacked camps in Irbid
Irbid
Irbid , known in ancient times as Arabella or Arbela , is the capital and largest city of the Irbid Governorate. It also has the second largest metropolitan population in Jordan after Amman, with a population of around 660,000, and is located about 70 km north of Amman on the northern ridge of...
, Salt
Salt, Jordan
Salt is an ancient agricultural town and administrative centre in west-central Jordan. It is on the old main highway leading from Amman to Jerusalem. Situated in the Balqa highland, about 790–1100 metres above sea level, the town is built in the crook of three hills, close to the Jordan River...
, Sweileh, Baq'aa, Wehdat and Zarqa
Zarqa
Az-Zarqāʔ is a city in Jordan located to the northeast of Amman. With a population of more than one million 1000,000. It is the country's second largest city after Amman. Zarqa is the capital of Zarqa Governorate . Its name means "the blue one".- Overview :Zarqa is Jordan's industrial centre, home...
. Then the head of Pakistani training mission to Jordan, Brigadier Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq , was the 4th Chief Martial Law Administrator and the sixth President of Pakistan from July 1977 to his death in August 1988...
(later Chief of Army Staff and President of Pakistan), took command of the 2nd division. However, the Jordanians could not devote all their attention to the Palestinians. The 3rd Armoured Division
3rd Division (Iraq)
The 3rd Division is a formation of the Iraqi Army. It was active by 1941, disbanded along with the rest of the Iraqi Army in 2003, but reactivated by 2005.-History:...
of the Iraqi Army
Iraqi Army
The Iraqi Army is the land component of the Iraqi military, active in various forms since being formed by the British during their mandate over the country after World War I....
had remained in Jordan after the 1967 war. The Iraqi regime sympathised with the Palestinians, and it was unclear whether the division would intervene on the part of the Palestinians. Thus the 99th Brigade of the Jordanian 3rd Armoured Division had to be retained to watch the Iraqi division.
Arafat later claimed that the Jordanian army killed between 10,000 and 25,000 Palestinians, although more conservative estimates put the number between 1000 and 2000.
Hostage David Raab described the initial military actions in Black September this way:
- "We were in the middle of the shelling since Ashrafiyeh was among the Jordanian Army's primary targets. Electricity was cut off, and again we had little food or water. Friday afternoon, we heard the metal tracks of a tank clanking on the pavement. We were quickly herded into one room, and the guerrillas threw open the doors to make the building appear abandoned so it wouldn't attract fire. Suddenly, the shelling stopped."
The armored troops were inefficient in narrow city streets and thus the Jordanian army conducted house to house sweeps for Palestinian fighters and got immersed in heavy urban warfare
Urban warfare
Urban warfare is combat conducted in urban areas such as towns and cities. Urban combat is very different from combat in the open at both the operational and tactical level...
with the Palestinian fighters.
Amman experienced the heaviest fighting in the Black September uprising. Syrian tanks rolled across the Yarmouk River
Yarmouk River
The Yarmouk River is the largest tributary of the Jordan River. It drains much of the Hauran Plateau. It is one of three main tributaries which enter the Jordan between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. To the south, are the Jabbok/Zarqa and the Arnon/Wadi Mujib) rivers...
into northern Jordan and began shelling Amman and other northern urban areas. Outdated missiles fired by the PLO struck Amman for more than a week. Jordanian infantry pushed the Palestinian Fedayeen
Palestinian fedayeen
Palestinian fedayeen refers to militants or guerrillas of a nationalist orientation from among the Palestinian people...
out of Amman after weeks of bitter fighting.
Syrian intervention attempt
On September 18, during the time of turmoil, SyriaSyria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
tried to intervene on behalf of the Palestinian guerrillas. President Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad
Hafez ibn 'Ali ibn Sulayman al-Assad or more commonly Hafez al-Assad was the President of Syria for three decades. Assad's rule consolidated the power of the central government after decades of coups and counter-coups, such as Operation Wappen in 1957 conducted by the Eisenhower administration and...
told his biographer, Patrick Seale
Patrick Seale
Patrick Abram Seale is a British journalist and author who specialises in the Middle East, as well as a literary agent and art dealer. He is a former correspondent for The Observer and has interviewed many of the Middle East's most prominent leaders and personalities.Seale is the author of a number...
, that Syria's intervention was only to protect the Palestinians from a massacre.
The Syrians sent in armored forces equivalent to a brigade
Brigade
A brigade is a major tactical military formation that is typically composed of two to five battalions, plus supporting elements depending on the era and nationality of a given army and could be perceived as an enlarged/reinforced regiment...
, with tanks, some of them allegedly hastily rebranded from the regular Syrian army for the purpose. Other Syrian units were the 5th Infantry Division (with the 88th and 91st Tank Brigades and the 67th Mechanised Brigade with over 200 T-55
T-55
The T-54 and T-55 tanks were a series of main battle tanks designed in the Soviet Union. The first T-54 prototype appeared in March 1945, just before the end of the Second World War. The T-54 entered full production in 1947 and became the main tank for armored units of the Soviet Army, armies of...
tanks) and Commandos. They were under the command of the Palestine Liberation Army's (PLA) Syrian branch, whose headquarters were located in Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
, and which was controlled by the government. They were met by the 40th Armored Brigade of the Jordanian Army. The Syrian Air Force, under orders of Assad, never entered the battle. This has been variously attributed to power struggles within the Syrian Baathist government (pitting Assad against Salah Jadid
Salah Jadid
Salah Jadid was a Syrian general and political figure in the Baath Party, and the country's de facto leader from 1966 until 1970.- Rise to power :...
), and to the threat of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i military intervention.
As King Hussein dealt with threats by both Palestinian refugees in his country and invading Syrian forces, the king asked "the United States and Great Britain to intervene in the war in Jordan, asking the United States, in fact, to attack Syria, and some transcripts of diplomatic communiques show that Hussein requested Israeli intervention against Syria." Timothy Naftali
Timothy Naftali
Timothy Naftali is the director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, a post he assumed in 2007 when control of the library was transferred from the Richard Nixon Foundation to the National Archives and Records Administration...
said. "Syria had invaded Jordan and the Jordanian king, facing what he felt was a military rout, said please help us in any way possible."
A telegram indicates that Hussein himself called a U.S. official at 3 a.m. to ask for American or British help. "Situation deteriorating dangerously following Syrian massive invasion...", the document said. "I request immediate physical intervention both land and air... to safeguard sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Jordan. Immediate air strikes on invading forces from any quarter plus air cover are imperative."
On 21 September the Syrian 5th Division broke through the defenses of the Jordanian 40th Armoured Brigade, and pushed it back off the ar-Ramtha crossroads. King Hussein was thrown into a near panic. On 22 September the Royal Jordanian Air Force
Royal Jordanian Air Force
The Royal Jordanian Air Force is the air force branch of the Jordanian Armed Forces.-Early days:...
began attacking Syrian forces, which were badly battered as a result. The constant airstrikes broke the will of the Syrian force, and on the late afternoon of 22 September the 5th Division began to retreat.
Whatever the case, the swift Syrian withdrawal was a severe blow to Palestinian hopes. Jordanian armored forces steadily pounded their headquarters in Amman, and threatened to break them in other regions of the kingdom as well. The Palestinians agreed to a cease-fire. Hussein and Arafat attended the meeting of leaders of Arab countries in Cairo, where Arafat won a diplomatic victory. On September 27, Hussein was forced to sign an agreement which preserved the right of the Palestinian organizations to operate in Jordan. For Jordan, it was humiliating that the agreement treated both sides to the conflict as equals.
U.S. and U.S.S.R. involvement
The U.S. Navy's 6th Fleet positioned off the coast of IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, near Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
. At the beginning of September, U.S. President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
sent an additional carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
task force and the Marine assault ship USS Guam
USS Guam (LPH-9)
USS Guam , an Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ship, was laid down by the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard 15 November 1962; launched 22 August 1964; sponsored by Mrs. Vaughn H. Emory Green; and commissioned 16 January 1965, Captain N. E. Thurmon in command...
to supplement the 6th Fleet. Two Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
aircraft carriers arrived in the area of Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
as well. By 19–20 September, U.S. Navy concentrated a powerful force in the Eastern Mediterranean. According to the official U.S. version the goal was to protect American interests in the region and to respond to the capture of about 50 German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and U.S. citizens in Jordan by Palestinian forces.
However, the Soviets claim that the goal of U.S. shock grouping was taking control of the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
of the Jordan river to support the upcoming Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
invasion into the neighboring territories of Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
and Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
. To protect Soviet interests in the area and to assist Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, the 5th Mediterranean Squadron of the Soviet Navy
Soviet Navy
The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...
was increased to about twenty surface warships and six submarines. By mutual agreement with Syria, Soviet landing troops were ordered to respond to the expected U.S. landing and assist in demarcation of the Syria national boundaries with Israel.
On 19–20 September, a particularly busy time of confrontation, U.S. landing ships entered the Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
outer harbour and prepared for disembarking: U.S. Marines stood on the deck in full gear ready for landing in helicopters. However, after the Soviet landing ships ran for Tartus, the preparations for disembarking were rolled back.
The 82nd Airborne had been alerted on the Sept.15. On the 19th they were loaded on C-141s. They were to drop in to the Amman Airport, secure and hold for the slower units to have a place for insertion by air. Within minutes after the first C-141s became airborne the mission was aborted and all returned to Pope AFB/Fort Bragg.
U.S. Forces remained on alert in the area throughout September and October. However, the tensions gradually decreased starting from 23–24 September.
Hussein-Arafat Cairo agreement
Meanwhile, both Hussein and Arafat attended the meeting of leaders of Arab countries1970 Arab League summit
The 1970 Arab League summit was held on September 27 in Cairo, Egypt as an extraordinary Arab League Summit. The summit came in the aftermath of the bloody events of Black September in Jordan, and the clashes between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and King Hussein of Jordan...
in Cairo and on September 27. Hussein signed an agreement that treated both sides as equals and acknowledged the right of the Palestinian organizations to operate in Jordan, but which required them to leave the cities and stay in the fronts.
On September 28, Egypt's Nasser died of a sudden heart attack. As a result the PLO lost its protection, and King Hussein continued the attack.
Casualties
Estimates of the number of the people killed in the ten days of Black September range from three thousand to more than five thousand, although exact numbers are unknown. The Palestinian death toll in 11 days of fighting was estimated by Jordan at 3,400, while Palestinian sources often cite the number 5,000, mainly civilians, killed. Arafat at some point claimed that 10,000 had been killed. The Western reporters were concentrated at the Intercontinental Hotel, away from the action. Nasser's state-controlled Voice of the ArabsVoice of the Arabs
Voice of the Arabs , was one of the first and most prominent Egyptian transnational Arabic-language radio services. Based in Cairo, the service became known as the main medium through which former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser spread his messages on Arab unity and revolutions across the...
from Cairo reported genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
.
After September 1970
On October 31, 1970, Yasser Arafat signed a five-point agreement, which was similar to that signed in November 1968, and was designed to return control of the country exclusively to King Hussein. The agreement stated that members of the Palestinian organizations were expected to honor Jordanian laws, instructed them to dismantle their bases, and forbade them to walk around armed and in uniform in the cities and villages.Had the Palestinians honored that agreement, Hussein would have had difficulties in continuing to act against them. But the PFLP and the DFLP – the two organizations to the left of Arafat – refused to accept its conditions. They called on their members to ignore the Jordanian government, and at a meeting of the Palestinian National Council, they were responsible for prompting the acceptance of the proposal that Transjordan would be part of the Palestinian state to be established in the future.
The open defiance caused renewed conflict between the Palestinians and the Jordanian army, whose commanders were in any case eager to finish the work they had begun in September. At the beginning of November 1970, incidents of fighting erupted between members of the PFLP and DFLP and the Jordanian security forces. On November 9, Jordanian prime minister Wasfi al-Tal
Wasfi al-Tal
Wasfi al-Tal was Prime Minister of Jordan for three separate terms. He was assassinated by the Black September unit of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1971....
, the sworn enemy of the Palestinians, announced that in accordance with the agreement signed a month earlier, the authorities would no longer allow the Palestinians to walk around with weapons or to store explosives. The announcement was not honored, and the security forces received instructions to confiscate the Palestinians' weapons.
Until January 1971, the Jordanian army heightened its control in all the central cities. At the beginning of that month, the Jordanian army began an attack against the Palestinian bases along the highway between Amman and Jerash to cut them off from the other cities and to take over the roads linking their strongholds. In response to the operation, the Palestinians agreed to hand over their weapons to the Jordanians. This agreement was not honored either.
Toward the end of March, after a Palestinian arms warehouse was discovered in Irbid, the Jordanian army placed a curfew on the city, arrested some of the Palestinian activists, and expelled others. The takeover of Irbid was completed at the beginning of April. Afterward, many senior members of the Palestinian organizations, who were aware of their weakness, began to withdraw from Amman as well.
Yet, despite the series of defeats, the Palestinian organizations did not give in. On June 5, the senior Palestinian organizations, including Yasser Arafat's Fatah, came out with a declaration on Radio Baghdad in which they called for the deposition of King Hussein. The reason they gave for this was that deposing him was the only way to prevent the signing of "a peace agreement between Israel and Jordan."
In mid-June 1971, after three tense months during which the sides made efforts to fortify their positions by political means, Jordan embarked on the final campaign against the Palestinians. The Jordanian army, which for almost 10 months had been pushing the Palestinian organizations out of the major cities, used large forces to expel them from the mountainous regions of the cities of Jerash
Jerash
Jerash, the Gerasa of Antiquity, is the capital and largest city of Jerash Governorate , which is situated in the north of Jordan, north of the capital Amman towards Syria...
and Ajlun, in the north of the kingdom, where about 3,000 armed Palestinians were located.
The members of Fatah declared that they preferred to die in battle rather than surrender to the Jordanian dictates. After four days of battle, the Jordanian army overcame the last pockets of resistance. King Hussein held a press conference and declared that there was now "absolute quiet" in the kingdom. Seventy-two Palestinians fled to the West Bank and surrendered to IDF soldiers. The commander of Fatah's forces in northern Jordan, Abu Ali Iyad
Abu Ali Iyad
Walid Ahmad Nimer Al-Naser better known by his nom de guerre Abu Ali Iyad was a senior Palestinian field commander based in Syria and Jordan during the 1960s and early 1970s....
, was captured and killed by the Jordanian Army.
The Palestinian rout was complete. King Hussein had removed the threat to his throne, and had strengthened his control over the kingdom.
Aftermath and regional consequences
Palestinians: The group Black SeptemberBlack September (group)
The Black September Organization was a Palestinian paramilitary group, founded in 1970. It was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of eleven Israeli athletes and officials, and fatal shooting of a West German policeman, during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, their most publicized event...
was established by Fatah members in 1971 to serve as a front organization for revenge operations and international strikes after the September events. On November 28, 1971, in Cairo, four of its members assassinated Wasfi al-Tal
Wasfi al-Tal
Wasfi al-Tal was Prime Minister of Jordan for three separate terms. He was assassinated by the Black September unit of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1971....
. The group would go on to perform other strikes against Jordan, and against Israeli and Western interests outside of the Middle East, such as the Munich massacre
Munich massacre
The Munich massacre is an informal name for events that occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Bavaria in southern West Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually killed by the Palestinian group Black September. Members of Black September...
in 1972. The Black September Organization was later disbanded in 1973–1974 as the PLO sought to exploit the October War of 1973 and pursue a diplomatic strategy. Fatah has always publicly denied its responsibility for Black September operations, but by the 2000s, numerous high-ranking Fatah and Black September activists openly acknowledge the relationship.
Lebanon: In the September fighting, the PLO lost its main base of operations. Fighters were driven to Southern Lebanon
Southern Lebanon
Southern Lebanon is the geographical area of Lebanon comprising the South Governorate and the Nabatiye Governorate. These two entities were divided from the same province in the early 1990s...
to regroup. The enlarged PLO presence in Lebanon and the intensification of fighting on the Israeli-Lebanese border stirred up internal unrest in Lebanon, where the PLO fighters added dramatically to the weight of the Lebanese National Movement
Lebanese National Movement
The Lebanese National Movement or Mouvement National Libanais in French, was a front of parties and organizations active during the early years of the Lebanese Civil War...
, a coalition of Muslims, Arab nationalists and leftists who opposed the rightist, Maronite-dominated government. These developments helped precipitate the Lebanon Civil War, in which the PLO would be engrossed from 1975 until well after the mid-1980s.
Jordan: King Hussein of Jordan was maligned throughout the Arab world for having attacked the Palestinian resistance, and although he had now averted the physical threat to his throne, his legitimacy had suffered a crippling blow among Palestinians (who made up the majority of the kingdom's inhabitants) and on the regional Arab scene. Only a few years later, in 1974, the Arab League
Arab League
The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
(and then the UN) would recognize the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, denying Jordan's long-held claim to ownership of East Jerusalem
East Jerusalem
East Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem refer to the parts of Jerusalem captured and annexed by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and then captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War...
and sovereignty over the Palestinian West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
population.
Syria: The September events set alight the smouldering conflict between Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad
Hafez ibn 'Ali ibn Sulayman al-Assad or more commonly Hafez al-Assad was the President of Syria for three decades. Assad's rule consolidated the power of the central government after decades of coups and counter-coups, such as Operation Wappen in 1957 conducted by the Eisenhower administration and...
and Salah Jadid
Salah Jadid
Salah Jadid was a Syrian general and political figure in the Baath Party, and the country's de facto leader from 1966 until 1970.- Rise to power :...
in Syria. This culminated in Assad's Corrective Movement of November 1970, in which he deposed Jadid and seized power, after Jadid had tried to fire him over the Black September debacle and other issues.
See also
- Palestinian political violencePalestinian political violencePalestinian political violence refers to acts of violence undertaken to further the Palestinian cause. These political objectives include self-determination in and sovereignty over Palestine, the liberation of Palestine and establishment of a Palestinian state, either in place of both Israel and...
- Adwan RebellionAdwan RebellionAdwan Rebellion or the Balqa Revolt was the largest uprising against the newly installed Transjordanian government, headed by Mezhar Ruslan, during its first years. The rebellion was initiated in the early months of 1923, but was quickly crushed with the assistance of the British RAF...
- Hama massacreHama massacreThe Hama massacre occurred in February 1982, when the Syrian army, under the orders of the president of Syria Hafez al-Assad, conducted a scorched earth policy against the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Sunni Muslim community against the regime of al-Assad...
in Syria - 2011 Syrian uprising2011 Syrian uprisingThe 2011 Syrian uprising is an ongoing internal conflict occurring in Syria. Protests started on 26 January 2011, and escalated into an uprising by 15 March 2011...
- Fouad ChemaliFuad ShemaliFuad Shemali, alternatively Fouad El Chemali was a major figure in Black September, which was active in the early 1970s, and was the mastermind of some of its early operations, including the kidnapping and killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich and the 1972 attack on the...
External links
- Jordanian Removal of the PLO (globalsecurity.org)
- Terror in Black September (David Raab)
- Hussein – the Guerrilla Crisis Country Studies at the U.S. Library of CongressLibrary of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, alt. http://countrystudies.us/jordan/14.htm - Black September: Tough negotiations 1 January 2001 (BBC)
- 1970 – Black September (HistoryCentral)
- Black September, The PLO's attempt to take over Jordan in 1970 (Uria Shavit, Ha'aretz Newspaper, May 28, 2002)
- Black September in Jordan 1970–1971 (onwar.com)
- Hussein of Jordan: The Bloody King of Black September (Revolutionary Worker #995, February 21, 1999)
- Impact of 'Black September' on American strategy in the Middle East (especially Chapter 3)
- Уроки черного сентября. Дан Михаэль.
- Matheson, Gemma (2010), The Significance of Black September, Clio History Journal. Retrieved 2010-12-20.
- "PLO: History of a Revolution – Black September" by Al-Jazeera http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShud_iyX9s