Saudis and Jordanians

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Saudi Oar in West Bank to Block Jordanian Influence

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

14 May: Masked by the brouhaha pro and con a Palestinian state and

the Saudi peace plan – and the lip-service to both - is a diplomatic

process that has been quietly re-activated since the Bethlehem

standoff deal fathered by European officials floundered.

It hinges on an alternative Palestinian solution, based on shared

Jordanian-Israeli supervision of a self-ruling West Bank.

The European formula petered out embarrassingly when, first Italy,

then the rest of Europe, refused to accept the 13 master terrorists

released from the Church of Nativity as exiles. As a makeshift

measure, the 13 were dumped in a Larnaca hotel in Cyprus.

Monday, May 13, the EU foreign ministers were scheduled to assign a

number of European countries for the dispersal of the banished

Palestinians. This they failed to do - or even agree on the exiles'

status. After EU officials pronounced the 13 terrorists "free men",

no European government is in a hurry to accept men with long, violent

records as free agents – men who could moreover face extradition

demands from the countries of their victims. The other 26 terrorists

deported to Gaza, instead of being tried as stipulated in the deal,

won a heroes' welcome instigated by Yasser Arafat.

Similarly, strong doubt has been thrown on the Saudi peace plan.

Monday, May 13, to the Saudi crown prince Abdullah's undertaking to

rein in Palestinian suicide operations was met with defiant responses

from the Jihad Islami and even the Hamas, which has been lavishly

supported by Riyadh for many years. Both vowed to continue the

suicide campaign against Israelis. Israeli defense minister Binyamin

Ben Eliezer disclosed Sunday, May 12, that such attacks are being

foiled at the rate of one per day, making another major military

counter-terror operation unavoidable.

The Bush administration gave both the European and Saudi initiatives

a chance. Since they were programmed to be accompanied by progress

towards Palestinian statehood, their failure has placed the issue of

Palestinian independence on a back seat, according to DEBKAfile's

Washington sources. Even secretary of state, Colin Powell, its

strongest advocate, speaks in terms of "eventual" statehood.

In any case, Saudi concerns lie in a different direction.

Saturday and Sunday, May 11 and 12, Prince Abdullah, Egyptian

president Hosni Mubarak and Syrian president Bashar Assad met in the

Sinai Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, claiming they were ushering

in direct Saudi involvement for the first time in the Palestinian

problem. Oddly enough, given that agenda, the Arab ruler with the

largest Palestinian population, Jordan's King Abdullah II, was not

present. Neither was Yasser Arafat.

According to our sources, the real theme of the three-way summit had

little bearing on the Palestinian-Israel conflict, but focused rather

the mounting tension between Riyadh and Amman. The Jordanian King's

non-invitation tied in with the eight Saudi armored brigades, beefed

up by surface to air and anti-tank missile units parked on the Saudi-

Jordanian border without an official explanation, in the third week

of April.

That Saudi military concentration is still in place and still on the

ready.

Notwithstanding the published reports of improved US-Saudi relations

following the crown prince's visit to the Bush ranch in Crawford and

the two rulers' decision to work together on the Palestinian issue,

the Saudis are deeply worried by the sight of one of their deepest-

seated fears coming true.

The Bush administration has returned to its plan for fostering the

Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan as its strategic, political and military

linchpin in the Middle East before and after the offensive against

Iraq. Abdullah II returned home only this week after nearly two weeks

in Washington.

For Riyadh, America's Hashemite Plan touches the long and still

sensitive roots of a historical feud.

In the 1920s, Ibn Saud, founder of the ruling dynasty, drove the

Jordanian king's ancestor, the Hashemite Sherif of Hijaz out of

Arabia, thus gaining control of the holy places of Islam in Mecca and

Medina, as well as the Red Sea town of Jeddah. The British installed

one branch of the House of Hashem in Baghdad and a second in Amman,

in the newly-created Kingdom of Transjordan.

 

Fifty years later, in November 1979, the Saudi princes sent a

distress call to Abdullah's father, the late King Hussein, for help

in subduing an Islamic fundamentalist Wahabi invasion of Mecca and

revolt against the Saudi throne. Hussein agreed, but his price was

the restoration of some Hijazi lands to Hashem sovereignty, including

the Prophet's Tomb in Medina. The Saudi throne, which draws much of

its legitimacy from its standing as guardians of the Muslim Holy

Places, turned Hussein down. Ever since, the Saudis have regarded

Jordanian intentions as regards Saudi territory with lively

suspicion. They fear the incumbent king will be encouraged to revert

to his father's plan of extending the Hashemite kingdom to the Hijaz,

exploiting the war on world terrorism and Osama bin Laden's Saudi

legions to take a bite out Saudi territory.

That fear prompted two Saudi counter-measures:

1. The concentration of more than half of its fighting strength on

the Saudi-Jordanian frontier, as a deterrent to the Jordanians.

2. The crown prince's offer to the Americans to undertake an active

role in the West Bank.

While many Israelis interpreted this offer as further pressure to

force Israel into dealing with Arafat and accepting a Palestinian

state, Riyadh's real motive is to thwart Jordanian attempts to take

control of the territory.

The next contest, signs of which have begun to surface, will

therefore not be over US-Saudi efforts to impose on Israel an

unwelcome Palestinian solution, but between the Americans, Jordanians

and Israelis, on the one hand, and the Saudis and Palestinians, on

the other.

3. At the Sharm summit, crown prince Abdullah sought Egyptian and

Syrian backing against Jordan. Which is why the Jordanian king was

not invited.

4. The Palestinian who was invited is Muhamed Dahlan, the preventive

security chief, terrorist mastermind and strongman of the Gaza Strip.

Nabil Shaath was there too to lend the Dahlan presence a semblance of

respectability.

According to DEBKAfile's exclusive Palestinian sources, Prince

Abdullah and President Mubarak offered Dahlan logistical and

intelligence backup as well as financial largesse if he would head

the campaign to block Jordanian influence in Palestinian Authority

bodies on the West Bank.

One indication of the contest building up appeared Monday, May 13,

when Yasser Arafat emerged from six months barricaded in Ramllah for

visits to Bethlehem,Jenin and Nablus, on the West Bank. The grudging

crowd welcome accorded him was the outcome of pro-Jordanian pressure.

Arafat's supporters fought back by spreading a false rumor there and

then that the West Bank security chief, Jibril Rajoub, who leads the

pro-American Jordanian faction, had collapsed from a heart attack.

That night, five masked men, presumably Rajoub's followers, beat up

Hassan Asfour, the most fiercely anti-American Palestinian minister,

outside his Ramallah home. Asfour comes from Gaza and is close to

Dahlan. The violence against him was also a broad hint from West Bank

groups that the Gaza faction had outstayed its welcome.

The issue of a Palestinian state is therefore not the hottest item of

the Middle East crisis at this moment. Still at the outset is an

inter-Arab contest over control in the West Bank - between Saudi

Arabia backed by Egypt and Syria, and Jordan. The statehood issue

will have to wait until this contest is played out.