Avi Shlaim Penguin
November 2008
In Lion of Jordan, the Iraqi-born historian Avi Shlaim tracks the life of King Hussein through three perspectives: the traits, strategies and political vision of King Hussein. Throughout the book he makes these three categories interconnected so as to create an archetype of King Hussein.
In describing the late king's traits, Shlaim adopts a developmental approach. Documenting the King’s life beginning from his early childhood allows the writer to evaluate how the King’s early childhood would impact his subsequent behaviour. Born to a closely-connected royal family consisting of a caring father, King Talal Ibn Abdullah, a legendary mother, Queen Zain and three caring siblings, Hussein acquired his pacifying nature in this warm familial atmosphere. The author refers to his devotion to his grandfather, king Abdullah, founder of Jordan and his great grandfather, Hussein Ibn Ali, spiritual father of Arab Nationalism. He often associated himself with the latter and considered himself the true inheritor of this Arab revolutionary. Hussein’s family ties are presented in conjunction with his early education in
a multicultural milieu in Egypt's prestigious Victoria College and then in London. This, according to Shlaim, made him tolerant of others' opinions.
Hussein's vision, was to preserve the rule of the cherished Hashemite family by any means. Much of Shlaim’s book focuses on the extraordinary bilateral relationship between the king and successive Israeli governments. If the King was never quite Israel’s friend he was “the best of enemies.” Here was the earnest of Hussein’s obsession with preserving his own regime. To do this, he was willing to trade with Israel, even while its governments clung doggedly to Jerusalem and the West Bank. His own people were far more hostile to their Jewish neighbours than he was himself. Hussein's tolerant nature also had a role to play in stabilizing internal politics. Those who staged a royal coup in 1957 were all given amnesty by the king and later became his loyal servants.
The author adopts a historicist approach so that all the so-called betrayals of the Arab cause for which Hussein was notorious are presented by Shlaim as driven by circumstances beyond Hussein's control. For example, his alignment with the West and Israel in the period leading up to October War is interpreted by the author as a result of an excessive fear to repeat the grave mistake of aligning with Nasser and the Arabs in 1967. This mistake cost him the loss of East Jerusalem and his grip over West bank. Indeed it is here that the book seems like an apologetic about king Hussein rather than an objective biographical account.
The book, however, has certain historical inaccuracies. It refers to the 1956 War between Egypt and Israel as a defeat for Egypt, despite the full deterrence of the Tripartite Aggression by the Egyptian forces. Nonetheless, the author almost convinces us of Hussein's weight as a true peace-maker when the king of Jordan secured a solemn promise from Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait on the second day of the invasion, on the condition that Arabs would not issue a formal condemnation of the invasion. This arrangement was already agreed upon in a meeting between Mubarak and Hussein before the latter's meeting with Sadam. Hussein returned from Baghdad only to discover that the Egyptian president "changed his mind" and condemned the invasion on August 3, 1990. What the author seems not to be aware of is that Egypt did so when the intensive contacts with the Iraqi side in this short span of time proved to be utterly futile.
Perhaps unwittingly, the book reveals serious contradictions in Hussein's attitudes. While King Hussein boasted his origin as a natural extension of the architect of Arab revolt against the turks, Hussein junior's revolt lacked orientation. For the Turks are no longer on the scene, and Israelis are, more or less, the best of enemies. Besides Hussein junior, the author says, had an infectious antipathy to Arab nationalists.
Despite all the above criticisms the book is an important documentation of the life and reign of King Hussein and the events that accompanied them.
