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This article describes the events surrounding September 1970 in Jordan. For the organization, see Black September (group).
September 1970 is known as the Black September (Arabic: أيلول الأسود) 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 autonomy of Palestinian organizations and restore the prestige of his monarchy.[2] The violence resulted in the deaths of 7,000 to 8,000 people.[1] Armed conflict lasted until July 1971 with the expulsion of the PLO and thousands of Palestinians to Lebanon.
[edit] BackgroundFollowing Israel's victory in the 1967 Six-Day War Fatah was fearful that King Hussein would sell out the Palestinians at the conference table and resumed guerrilla raids against Israel, mounting the raids from bases in the West Bank, Lebanon and Jordan. Fatah were gaining volunteers from within Palestinian and non-Palestinian communities where the conflict was seen as one between the oppressed and an oppressive, colonist state.[3] Palestinian guerrilla organizations received support from within Jordanian society. Wasfi Tall a member of the Jordanian Royal Consultative Committee believed that Israel had no intention of withdrawing from the recently occupied West Bank or in seeking a political settlement with the Arab States. Due to an internal split within the Jordanian government many of King Hussein’s orders were not obeyed. Contrary to Hussein’s commands many of the Jordanian commander along the Israel/Jordanian border started to give the Palestinian guerrillas passive assistance.[4] The Palestinian section of Jordanian society augmented by displaced Palestinians constituted a large internal population of Jordan and King Hussein feared an independent West Bank under PLO administration would threaten the autonomy of his Hashemite kingdom.[5][6] The Palestinian factions were supported by many Arab regimes, most notably Egypt's President Nasser gave political support and Saudi Arabia gave finical support. Israel was repeatedly hit with cross-border attacks by Palestinian fedayeen guerrillas. The Palestinian nationalist organization Fatah had been organizing such attacks since January 1965, but received much broader support following the 1967 defeat. [edit] Battle of KaramehThe Israel Defense Forces entered the village of Karameh on March 21, 1968.[7] The Israelis, who aimed to destroy Fatah in their assault, were unsuccessful and were forced to withdraw. Arafat managed to leave Karameh at night after being informed of the impending attack. King Hussein gave orders to the Jordanian forces not to intervene but Jordanian General Mash'hor Haditha and some Jordanian officers ignored their king's orders and engaged the battle. The arrival of Jordanian troops in full-force shifted the tide of the battle and managed to inflict serious damage on the IDF. In fact, the Jordanian Army's intervention was not expected at all. (According to the Israelis) Israeli casualties from the battle were 28 soldiers killed and 69 wounded, with other losses including the destruction of four tanks, three half tracks, two armoured cars, and an airplane shot down by Jordanian forces. (According to the Jordanians) Israeli casualties were 250 soldiers killed and 50 wounded, 27 tanks, 24 armored cars, 37 camions. About 100 Palestinian fedayeen were killed in the battle, with another 100 wounded and 120 - 150 captured. The Jordanians sustained 61 fatalities, 108 wounded, and the destruction of thirteen tanks. Although the Jordanian Army had been decisive, the incident was a public relations coup for the PLO and Arafat. The Karameh battle boosted Palestinian morale and gave the PLO additional prestige within the Arab community.[8] Yasser Arafat, claimed this as a victory (in Arabic, "karameh" means "dignity") and quickly became a national hero portrayed as one who dared to confront Israel. Masses of young Arabs joined the ranks of his group Fatah. Under pressure, Ahmad Shukeiri resigned from the PLO leadership and in July 1969, Fatah joined and soon controlled the PLO. The fierce Palestinian guerrilla fighting and the Jordanian Artillery bombardment forced the IDF withdrawal and gave the Arabs an important moral win as Israel was calling their army the indomitable army and this was its first defeat at the hands of Arabs after the two wins in 1948 and 1967. [edit] Seven-point agreementIn Palestinian enclaves and refugee camps in Jordan, the Jordanian Police and army were losing their authority. Uniformed PLO militants openly carried weapons, set up checkpoints and attempted to extort "taxes." During the November 1968 negotiations, a seven-point agreement was reached between King Hussein and Palestinian organizations:
The PLO, reneging on this agreement, acted as a state within a state in Jordan. 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 kidnappings frequently took place. Chief of the Jordanian royal court (and subsequently a Prime Minister) Zaid al-Rifai claimed that "the fedayeen killed a soldier, beheaded him, and played soccer with his head in the area where he used to live." [9] Many elements in the PLO extorted money from merchants at gunpoint under the claim that they were donations to the Palestinian cause. Jordanian security forces would typically respond by rounding them up and sending them to the front. Outbreaks of violence however 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.[dubious ] The PLO also continued attacking Israel from Jordanian territory without regard to Jordanian authority. Heavy Israeli reprisals resulted in high Jordanian civilian and military casualties. Jordanian soldiers who were on weekend leave were continuously attacked by Palestinians. Jordanian soldiers were confined to their barracks. [edit] Ten-point edictKing Hussein visited U.S. President Richard Nixon, 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 Israel and Egypt 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.[1] 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. [edit] Events of September 1970[edit] Aircraft hijackingsOn September 1, 1970, several attempts to assassinate the king failed. On September 7, in the series of Dawson's Field hijackings, 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." [edit] Jordanian army attacksOn September 15, King Hussein declared martial law. The next day, Jordanian tanks (the 60th Armored Brigade) 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.[2] [3] In addition, the Iraqi army in Jordan after 1967 war serving as a reserve forces supported the Jordanian army.[4] Some estimates indicate that Jordan killed Palestinians between 10,000 to 25,000 [5] [6], which would be a greater death toll of Palestinians in one month than Israel has killed during the three years of heighten Palestinian suicide bombings that began in the fall of 2000.[7]. 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 inexperienced and undisciplined Palestinian fighters. Amman experienced the heaviest fighting in the Black September uprising. The American backed Jordanian army shelled the PLO headquarters in Amman and battled with Palestinian guerillas in the narrow streets of the capital. 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. Hussein has often been criticised because of the ordering of 'random' attacks; however, many justify Hussein's decisions, saying that he ran out of options. For example, Hussein's wife Queen Noor, who came to Lebanon in 1978, describes in her bestselling book titled Leap of Faith how serious things were, how many people were killed by the Palestinian groups, and argues that Hussein didn't actually want to do anything violent, but he was forced to. However, she was not living in Jordan during that time period. She had lived in the USA until her marriage to the king on June 15, 1978. [edit] PLA intervention attemptOn September 18, Syria, through the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) branch, whose headquarters were located in Damascus and which was very close to the Syrian regime, tried to intervene on behalf of the Palestinian guerrillas. The PLA size was equivalent to a division and was met by the 40th Armored Brigade of the Jordanian army. [edit] Syrian involvementOn September 18, some 300 Syrian tanks rolled into Jordan. Hussein's army seemed incapable of checking the Syrian drive. As King Hussein dealt with threats by both Palestinian refugees in his country and Syrian military forces crossing Jordan's border, 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. " 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."[8] 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."[9] Israel, which found the move undesirable, performed mock air strikes on the Syrian column at the Americans' request. Possibly alarmed at the prospect of an armed conflict with Israel, Syria's president at the time, Nureddin Atassi, ordered a hasty retreat. Its involvement at the time remained a subject for historical debate. Hafez al-Assad, who was the Syrian defense minister in September 1970, told his biographer, Patrick Seale, that Syria's intention in invading northern Jordan was only to protect the Palestinians from a massacre. 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. [edit] U.S. and U.S.S.R. involvementThe U.S. Navy's 6th Fleet positioned off the coast of Israel, near Jordan. At the beginning of September, U.S. President 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 U.S., U.K. and FRG 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. In order to protect Soviet interests in the area and to assist Syria, 5th Mediterranean Squadron of the Soviet Navy was increased to about 20 surface warships and 6 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. U.S. Forces remained on alert in the area throughout September and October. However, the tensions gradually decreased starting from 23–24 September.[10] [edit] Hussein-Arafat Cairo agreementMeanwhile, both Hussein and Arafat attended the meeting of leaders of Arab countries 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 his protection, and King Hussein continued the attack. [edit] CasualtiesEstimates 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 at 3,400, though Arafat claimed that 20,000 had been killed.[11] The Western reporters were concentrated at the Intercontinental Hotel, away from the action. Nasser's state-controlled Voice of the Arabs from Cairo reported genocide. [edit] Events after SeptemberThe situation in Syria became unstable and soon Hafez al-Assad became the ruler of Syria in a coup d'état. On October 31, Arafat, whose position was weakened, had to sign another agreement (similar to one of November 1968) that returned control of Jordan to the King, requiring the dismantlement of Palestinian militant bases and banning their members from carrying unconcealed weapons. At a meeting of the Palestinian National Council that followed, both PFLP and DFLP groups refused to accept this agreement and instead, accepted the proposal that Jordan would be a part of a Palestinian state to replace both Jordan and Israel. The violations continued and on November 9, Jordanian prime minister Wasfi al-Tal signed an order to confiscate illegal weapons. By January 1971, the army strengthened its control over the cities. Another agreement regarding surrendering weapons was signed and broken. After the discovery of illegal arms warehouse in Irbid in the spring, the army placed a curfew and began arresting the rebels. On June 5, several leading Palestinian organizations including Arafat's Fatah, called on Radio Baghdad to overthrow King Hussein who was regarded as a "puppet separatist authority." The army regained control over the remaining PLO strongholds in the mountainous cities of Jerash and Ajlun. [edit] Aftermath
The number of casualties in what resembled a civil war is estimated at tens of thousands, and both sides were involved in intentional killing of civilians. It was a turning point for Jordanian identity, as the kingdom embarked on the program of "Jordanization" of the society. Palestinian militants were driven to Southern Lebanon as a result of the Cairo Agreement, which helped precipitate the Lebanon Civil War. The group Black September, later responsible for the Munich massacre, was established by Fatah members. On November 28, 1971, in Cairo, four of its members assassinated Wasfi al-Tal. Ma'an (Arabic) reports that a series of articles being authored by longtime Arafat aide Marwan Kanafani in Egypt's Al Ahram will say that it was Yasir Arafat himself who created the Black September organization in 1970. Black September was behind many of the highest-profile terror attacks in the early 1970s, including the murder of Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi Tel, the Munich Olympic massacre, the May 1972 hijacking of a Belgian airliner from Vienna, dozens of letter bombs including one that killed an Israeli politician in London, and the murder of two US diplomats in Khartoum. The PLO always used Black September for plausible deniability, claiming that the deadliest BSO attacks had nothing to do with them. Although many historians had already made the connection between the two groups, the US State Department wrote a confidential memo in 1973 (released in 1981) showing connections between the groups, and the State Department also had linked Fatah and Arafat directly to the Khartoum murders, this appears to be the first confirmation by someone in Arafat's inner circle that it was Arafat himself who was the founder of Black September and personally in charge of operations. [edit] Footnotes
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