Laurie A. Brand

Palestinians and Jordanians: A Crisis of Identity

Since the annexation of the West Bank in 1950, the population of the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan has been composed of two major communal groups: Transjordanians and Palestinians. Tensions between the two, a persistent if suppressed feature of domestic politics, were finally allowed more open expression in 1989, as the country embarked on a path of political liberalization. Despite the long history of the troubled relationship, however, Palestinian-Transjordanian tensions remain largely unexplored, except, to a limited extent, as a direct function of PLO-Jordanian relations. The interaction of both internal and external factors in sustaining or exacerbating intercommunal tensions becomes particularly apparent when examining the recent conjunction of three processes: economic reform, political liberalization, and peacemaking. The first two, by promising to alter the domestic balance of political and economic power, portend a change both in relations among citizens and between

The Effects of the Peace Process on Political Liberalization in Jordan

In April 1989, economic riots triggered a political liberalization process in Jordan. Initially promising, the political opening was first side-tracked at the time of the Madrid conference in 1991 and had effectively stalled by summer 1994, as the government changed the electoral and other laws and curbed public freedoms. In chronicling the retreats in liberalization from 1991 to the present, the author argues that while there have been numerous pressures on the Jordanian political system since 1989, one can draw clear causal relationships between these retreats and developments in the peace process.

Nasir's Egypt and the Reemergence of the Palestinian National Movement

The post-1948 reemergence of the Palestinian national movement is generally traced to the mid1960s, specifically to the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization at the initiation of the Arab League and with the special patronage of Egyptian President Gamal Abd al-Nasir. However, such an analysis overlooks the fact that some Palestinian institutions continued to function during the 1948-49 period and others began to regroup shortly thereafter to address the new social and political needs of a displaced and stateless people. In addition, throughout the 1950s and early 1960s politicized Palestinians participated in the entire spectrum of political parties and movements, from the Muslim Brethren to the Arab Nationalist Movement. All of these activities, whether specifically Palestinian or more generally Arab nationalist or Islamic, should be understood as laying the groundwork for the establishment of a larger, diaspora-wide Palestinian political entity. Indeed, 1964 and the founding of the PLO may be better understood as the natural conclusion of the first chapter of the national movements reemergence rather than as its beginning, as it is often presented. While the role of Egyptian President Gamal Abd al-Nasir in supporting the establishment of the PLO is acknowledged (although, at least among