Jordan Now Tops the Agenda

Political observers here believe the prospect of Israel-Jordan talks will be the focus of attention in Jerusalem and Washington during the coming weeks with efforts to explore the prospect intensifying as the time for King Hussein’s visit to the U.S. approaches. Hussein is scheduled in Washington in March.

While Premier Yitzhak Rabin formally supports the Genera alternative, there seems a large measure of agreement in private that Geneva is not a likely prospect because of Soviet and Syrian reluctance, and insistence on the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The most practical possibility for progress therefore, would seem to be with Jordan. For this reason, observers here are watching with special interest Hussein’s current program of tightening his ties with the West Bank.

REPORT TALKS BETWEEN ISRAEL, JORDAN

Sources on the West Bank have indicated there were talks progressing during recent weeks between Israel and Jordan. These talks, according to the sources were not of a broad political nature but were rather focussed on West Bank affairs, and particularly on the upcoming municipal elections there. Israel and Jordan are said to share interests in certain candidates (of the pro-Hussein type) and to share opposition to PLO sympathizers being elected to municipal office.

Hussein last week summoned 15 West Bank deputies to a meeting of the Jordanian Parliament in Amman which postponed Jordanian elections for a year. The deputies were due to return today and it is expected here that this will mark the beginning of intensified activities by Hussein’s supporters in the West Bank. Jordan will channel funds to institutes and officials in the West Bank in order to gain support for Hussein in the municipal elections.

The talks between Israel and Jordan which were conducted directly by officials of the two countries are aimed at giving the relationship between Jordan and the West Bank more “legitimization” according to reports here. One result is the reported opening of branches of an Amman bank in the West Bank and East Jerusalem so that Jordanian funds can be channeled more easily to West Bank Arabs.

Supporters of the PLO on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem have reacted angrily to the latest Jordanian moves. The East Jerusalem newspaper, “El Fajar,” said yesterday that Rabin was handing over “the Palestinian people as a present to Jordan.”

LIP SERVICE TO PLO

Meanwhile, Hussein continues to pay lip service to “political support for the PLO”–but it’s hard to see how this squares with his very definite and obvious effort to return to the status of patron of the West Bank. What remains to be seen is to what extent Egypt. Saudi Arabia–and even Syria–will support this new Hashemite activism. If he can win broader Arab support, then Hussein will begin to appear the kind of authoritative negotiating partner which optimistic Israelis have, since Rabat, predicted he would.