Article OPEN ACCESS Black September and Identity Construction in Jordan Georgetown University, Washington D.C., USA Barbara Gallets Email: [email protected] Abstract The events of Black September were a turning point in the development of Jordanian st identity. As a result of the attempt on King Hussein’s life on 1 September 1970 and the subsequent bloody civil war that played out between the Palestinian Resistance Movements that had acted as a “state within a state” inside Jordan, the Hashemite government expelled the Palestinian Liberation Organization from the country and other Fedayeen groups that comprised the Palestinian Resistance Movements. A second consequence of the war was the increased distrust of Palestinians and the crystallization of a distinct Jordanian identity as a reaction to the developing Palestinian identity. After a brief overview of the events leading up to Black September and the war itself, this paper describes the period of “Jordanization” that the government, the military, and the public sector experienced under Prime Minister Wasfi al-Tall. It then discusses the expanding societal divisions of the period immediately following, during which the state restructured itself at the expense of the Jordanians of Palestinian origin. Finally, the paper discusses social manifestations that resulted from the government’s construction of a Jordanian national identity, such as the linguistic assimilation of Palestinian males, and the use of the kefiyyeh to denote ethnic identity and political stances. http://dx.doi.org/10.5339/ messa.2015.12 Accepted: 1 March 2015 © 2015, Gallets, licensee Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Cite this article as: Gallets B .Black September and Identity Construction in Jordan, Journal of Georgetown University-Qatar Middle Eastern Studies Student Association 2015:12 http://dx.doi.org/10.5339/messa.2015.12 2 of 9 pages Gallets, Journal of Georgetown University-Qatar Middle Eastern Studies Student Association 2015:12 Introduction The question of Jordanian identity has always been a contentious point in Jordanian national dialogue. Palestinian Jordanians and Transjordanians (the original inhabitants of the East Bank of the Jordan River) see themselves as two different nationalities within the Jordanian state and social structure, the question of national allegiance lying at the heart of the matter. After the annexation of the West Bank in 1950, the Jordanian state had worked to integrate Palestinians into Jordanian society and “insisted that the population on both banks constituted one indivisible people.”1 Though Jordanian citizenship laws reflect this,2 Palestinian Jordanians must deal with subtle structural and social discrimination because of the state’s identity practices that appeared shortly after the Black September events. These practices seek to simultaneously distance the Jordanian state from Palestinian identity markers while building its own identity by affirming “Jordanian” identity markers.3 The problem of identity has been compounded by the Palestine-Israel conflict and the successive waves of Palestinian refugees flooding across the Jordan River from the West Bank, bringing with it the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and other Fedayeen groups. The differences between Palestinian Jordanians and Transjordanians came to a head during the events of 1970-1, most commonly referred to as Black September because of the dark stain it has left on Jordanian history. In what began as a campaign to eliminate the Fedayeen groups from Jordan, Black September provided the impetus that spurred the development of a distinct Jordanian identity as a reaction to the developing Palestinian identity. This paper investigates the period around Black September and the ensuing identity conflict that resulted from the conflict between the Jordanian government and the Fedayeen organizations. It looks at how these events provided the rupture that spurred the consolidation of Jordanian identity around common Transjordanian national ties. First, the paper will give a brief overview of Black September itself before discussing the subtle shift in official policy that lead to the Jordanization of the government, the military, and the public sector as the Transjordan identity focused on its Hashemite and tribal aspects. It will then discuss the consequences of Black September and its aftermath on Palestinian Jordanian/ Transjordanian relations. Finally, it looks at societal manifestations of the Palestinian/ Jordanian Jordanian identity divide that ultimately stem from the period of the civil war. 1970-1: An Overview After the 1967 loss of the West Bank to Israel, Jordan suddenly found itself without its most valuable piece of territory and thousands of displaced Palestinians within its new borders. Without the West Bank, Jordan had lost the majority of its agricultural land as well as its most developed territory, the income earned from the important tourist sites that fell within the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and, most importantly, its status as The Holy Land.4 In addition to the thousands of new refugees, Jordan was also forced to deal with the PLO- headed Palestinian Resistance Movements (PRM)5 within its own borders. The PRM comprised multiple Fedayeen organizations in addition to the PLO, the most important being Fateh, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the 1Avi Shalaim, Lion of Jordan, 206. 2See: United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees. “Law No. 6 of 1954 on Nationality (last amended 1987).” Refworld. Accessed: 16 February 2015, http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b4ea13.html. 3An identity practice is an act by an individual or group that affirms what identity the entity is assuming either by stating what it is not (negative identity practice) or by emphasizing what it is (positive identity practice). See Mary Bucholtz, “‘Why be normal?’: Language and identity practices in a community of nerd girls,” in Language in Society vol. 28, (1999): 212-13 for a definition. 4Kamal Salibi, The Modern History of Jordan, (London: IB Tauris, 2006), 222. 5This is the term that Iris Fruchter-Ronen uses throughout her 2008 article, “Black September: The 1970-71 Events and their Impact on the Formation of Jordanian National Identity,” to refer collectively to the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the other Fedayeen movements in Jordan, including Fateh, the PFLP, and the PDFLP. I will also refer to these groups using this term throughout this essay. 3 of 9 pages Gallets, Journal of Georgetown University-Qatar Middle Eastern Studies Student Association 2015:12 Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.6 These well-organized groups were able to operate freely within Jordanian territory because of the large Palestinian population in Jordan. By 1969, the PRM essentially functioned as a “state within a state.”7 The state-like system of the PRM was particularly strong in the Wahadat and Husseini refugee camps, which were popularly referred to as independent republics.8 Within the camps, the PRM provided welfare and educational services to Palestinians in addition to having their own headquarters, offices, militias, and recruiting offices.9 The military and the Fedayeen militias clashed with increasing frequency after the 1967 war. Despite attempts at reconciliation from both sides, a full-scale war broke out between the Jordanian government and the PRM on 16th September after the PFLP attempted to st assassinate King Hussein on 1 September 1970, and then blew up three hijacked airplanes on 12th September.10 The Jordanian military retaliated by shelling the Wahadat and Husseini refugee camps, which housed the PRM headquarters and was their primary bastion of support.11 As a result of pressure from neighboring Arab states, Jordan was forced to sign the Cairo Agreement on 27th September 1970, after eleven days of intense fighting that resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,400 Palestinians.12 While the agreement led to a ceasefire, the agreement also forced Jordan to recognize the Fedayeen’s right to remain in Jordan and continue their opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.13 Despite the agreement, the Jordanian military continued their attempts to push the PRM out of its borders with limited success. Fighting resumed in March 1971, but the PRM was not completely expelled until the 18th July that same year.14 Al-Tall: From Integration to Differentiation Wasfi al-Tall was the son of a famous poet from a well-established family.15 Educated at the American University of Beirut, he was also a distinguished battalion commander in the First Arab-Israeli War and was known as a good administrator and diplomat.16 Al-Tall was appointed as Prime Minister of Jordan for the first time on 27th January 1962, and again in 1965.17 He was known to be extremely loyal to the Hashemite crown and critical of Nasser’s brand of Arab nationalism.18 During both periods as Prime Minister, al-Tall distinguished himself because of his loyalty to the crown. He also played an important role as advisor to King Hussein, even after his resignation as Prime Minister, and was among those who had advised King Hussein to crack down on the PRM even before Black September.19 His unwavering loyalty to the Hashemite dynasty in the face of a multitude of challenges contributed to his reappointment as Prime Minister on 28th October 1970, one month after the Cairo Agreement was signed.20 Given the King’s desire to eradicate the PRM from Jordan and create order in the kingdom, the choice of al-Tall as Prime Minister was strategically sound. His appointment marked a distinct shift in the stance of the Jordanian government towards the Palestinians within its borders. Where its policies had previously focused on ridding the country of 6Salibi, The Modern History of Jordan, 226-27. 7Iris Fruchter-Ronen, “Black September: The 1970-71 Events and their Impact on the Formation of Jordanian National Identity,” In Civil Wars vol.