Jordan, the Palestinians and the Al‐Aqsa Intifada
The outbreak of the Al-Aqsa intifada (uprising) had an entirely different impact on Jordan from that of the first intifada 13 years previously. When the first intifada began in December 1987 Jordan still felt a certain responsibility for the West Bank, despite the Rabat Arab summit resolution of 1974 that recognised the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The first uprising came as a surprise for the three concerned parties Israel, Jordan and the PLO yet King Hussein was the first to read the writing on the wall and to correctly grasp its full meaning. Namely, that it heralded a long and painful process that was to dominate the Israeli-Palestinian scene and to influence its surroundings. The king therefore took pains to prevent the infiltration of the intifada to the East Bank and it is likely that his final decision to dissolve Jordan's ties with the West Bank, a few months later, was made inter alia under the influence of the intifada. The Al-Aqsa intifada broke out, for Jordan, in a different setting. For over a decade Jordan's territorial and national aspirations had been confined to the East Bank. The country had a peace treaty with Israel; the late King Hussein was succeeded by his son Abdullah and the public was preoccupied mainly with economic problems as well as the implications of the democratisation process that the kingdom was undergoing.