Our Last Best Chance_ The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril - King Abdullah II [40]
The implicit understanding among the Arab states was that they would maintain a united front to preserve the interests of the Palestinians, rather than each negotiating on the basis of its own interests. To do this, they agreed to coordinate their positions and keep each other informed of their progress.
But without my father’s knowledge, Israel and the PLO began parallel secret talks in Oslo, Norway, and after eight months unexpectedly reached a historic breakthrough agreement that came to be known as the Oslo Accords. This agreement, which established mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO and self-government for the Palestinians in Gaza and Jericho, represented a turning point in Israeli-Palestinian relations. It established the framework for a final peace agreement and set up stages for its implementation. The Declaration of Principles was signed in Washington in September 1993 by Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat in a ceremony at the White House hosted by President Bill Clinton.
My father was angered that Arafat had not informed him of the Oslo channel and that he had made a separate peace with Israel. “I can’t believe they did this!” he said to me. He was also alarmed that the Syrians were more advanced in their talks than they had told us. Deeply disappointed that the Arabs had not been able to maintain their united front, my father focused more on Jordan’s own peace negotiations with the Israelis.
Jordan had actually encouraged direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations since 1988, when my father made the historic decision to sever Jordan’s legal and administrative ties with the Israeli-occupied West Bank. When it was occupied by Israel in 1967, the West Bank was part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Palestinians in the West Bank were Jordanian citizens and the government in Amman had remained responsible for their affairs and for sustaining Palestinian schools, the judiciary, and other institutions throughout the occupation. Civil servants in the West Bank were employees of the Jordanian government, even after 1967, and half of the seats in the parliament were allocated for the West Bank. The disengagement decision meant that Jordan would no longer be in charge of these institutions. Only its responsibility for the holy sites was excluded from the decision. My father felt that were he to relinquish his responsibility for the holy sites in Jerusalem, a vacuum would be created that Israel would use to assume control of the sites. So he held on to this responsibility, which was later recognized by Israel in the peace treaty it signed with Jordan in 1994.
My father’s formal break with the West Bank meant that the Palestinians could assume responsibility for their own political future in the Occupied Territories. In an address to the nation on July 31, he said that he believed this was the logical response to the conclusion of the Rabat Summit of 1974, when all Arab states had decided to designate the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The decision was also prompted by many failed attempts to coordinate strategy with the PLO and by the outbreak in December 1987 of civil revolt in the West Bank and Gaza Strip against Israel’s occupation—the first Palestinian intifada. Palestinians had made clear their intention to pursue their political aims independent of Jordan. My father was not going to stand in their way. His decision was crucial to Palestinian ambitions for statehood: the West Bank would now form the core of a future Palestinian state.
Another unintended consequence of the 1991 Gulf War was the flood of Iraqis into our country. Before, during, and after the war many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and people from other countries who had been living in Iraq sought refuge in Jordan. Most Jordanian and Palestinian