Jordan: A King at Bay

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Though at 33 he is already a veteran of countless brushes with death or dethronement, Jordan's King Hussein has never faced a challenge quite as taxing as the one he faces now. His country is seething with frustration over losing the fertile land of the Jordan River's West Bank. His people increasingly show their open admiration for the self-styled commando groups of Palestinian Arabs that are striking out against the occupying Israelis. Before Hussein can consider making his peace with Israel, he must leash the commandos. Last week, as the king prepared to fly back to Amman after a month of rest and minor medical treatment in London, the shock waves of struggle were reverberating throughout his kingdom.

The immediate cause was a perceptible move toward negotiations with Israel. In indirect contacts in New York and London, both sides spelled out in more detail than ever before their terms for a settlement. Israel offered to with draw from most of the occupied territory and to give Hussein custody of Jerusalem's Moslem shrine. The sticking point remained Jerusalem itself. Israel insists on retaining the Old City, while Hussein demands its return, as well as repatriation of Arab refugees.

Fedayeen Power. Even those highly tentative talks have stirred the revolutionary feelings of the commandos, or fedayeen, who are adamantly opposed to dealings of any sort with Israel. They wield political power in Jor dan far out of proportion to their numbers, which probably total no more than 5,000 active terrorists. They have the fervent support of Jordan's 700,000 displaced Palestinians, who owe no particular allegiance to the Hashemite Hussein, and the open sympathy of many officers in the Jordanian army.

More and more, the commandos operate as a state within a state. They occupy the Jordan River's East Bank and defy government requests that camouflage-uniformed fedayeen stay off the streets of Amman. When a Bedouin army unit tried to disarm a group of commandos at a checkpoint outside the capital last week, Fedayeen Leader Yasser Arafat rolled up two jeeploads of commandos and threatened to shoot his way through. The army backed down.

Palace Plot? In any showdown with the fedayeen, Hussein can count on the loyalty of Jordan's 20,000 Bedouins, whom he has recently been placing in army units, but not on his politicians. Last week angry fedayeen leaders called on Hussein's Prime Minister, Bahjat Talhouni, to claim that they had discovered a palace plot to arrest some commandos and pressure politicians to cease supporting them. As Palestinian refugees braced for battle, the Cabinet sided with the fedayeen, conceding them full freedom of movement and promising to resign en masse should the plan go through.