Just Like Algeria

Last fall, after Nasser and Jordan's King Hussein had seemingly patched up their quarrel and agreed to resume diplomatic relations, all went well until the United Arab Republic assigned a new man to head its consulate in Arab Jerusalem. His credentials, as if calculated to give offense, defined the post as in "the area west of the Jordan River which is occupied at present by the forces of The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan." It has been part of Jordan for ten years.

Hussein's response to this diplomatic slight was to send the consul packing. Nasser's next move was to propose that the Arabs re-create an entity called Palestine, with its own army. What is left to the Arabs of what used to be Palestine, except for the Gaza Strip wedge that Nasser controls, has been absorbed into Jordan, adding an educated and restless population to what used to be a desert kingdom.

After a three-year spell of comparative quiescence, Nasser plainly wanted to follow an aggressively Arab-nationalist line in the Middle East. To do this, he was quite prepared to hot things up against Jordan and to make life miserable for Jordan's Premier Hazza Majali, 40, a sophisticated moderate who, before taking the premiership last spring, privately approached Nasser to assure himself of Cairo's benevolence. Now Majali found himself thunderously denounced by "Voice of the Arabs" as "a notorious old imperialist stooge." Not yet attacking King Hussein by name, Nasser himself charged last week in a Syrian speech that "the Amman rulers have yielded themselves to American and British imperialism to work against the Arab nation."

Nasser's ambitions are becoming clearer. Surrounding Israel on two sides, he would like to close the circle by creating a sort of provisional Palestine regime in the area now part of Jordan. The Palestine refugee movement, if noisy, has been ineffectual since the Arabs were beaten by Israel in 1949. Nasser wants to purge it of discredited oldtimers and replace them with a group of young militants who would stir up trouble as the rebel F.L.N. leaders do for Algeria. They would be backed by Cairo and run from Cairo. King Hussein was thus in for another showdown with Nasser. At such times he usually sends for his old troubleshooter, hard-nosed Samir Rifai, to take over as Premier. All Jordan was waiting for the luckless Premier Majali to step down.

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