342 • 18 WAR AND THE QUEST FOR PEACEarranged, because of Israel's earlier bombing raids, and noted that Israel
had deployed more advanced weaponry in the area under the guise of re-
supplying its troops. In October 1973 Egypt would use its missiles against
Israel in the Sinai, but in 1970 Washington did not want to derail the nego¬
tiations by forcing a pullback. Israel then ended peace talks with Jarring,
even though the US had offered Jerusalem $500 million in credits, mainly
to buy more Phantom jet fighters.
Clashes in Lebanon and Jordan
The Rogers Peace Plan set off a crisis in Jordan. Its root cause was the Pales¬
tinian problem. The fidaiyin could not maintain bases within Israel or its
occupied lands because of Israel's strict security arrangements and its harsh
reprisals against suspected resistance fighters. Instead, they stationed them¬
selves in refugee camps and peasant villages in southern Lebanon and east
of the Jordan River. Since guerrilla attacks led to Israeli retaliatory raids
across the border, many Lebanese and Jordanians resented having the
Palestinians in their countries. Several clashes took place in Lebanon in
the fall of 1969. An accord reached in Cairo between the PLO and Leba¬
non's government limited the Palestinians' freedom to act there, causing
them to step up their activities in Jordan in 1970. Quarrels broke out be¬
tween the PLO and King Husayn's troops, many of whom were bedouin
who had never liked the Palestinians.
The explosion was sparked by a Marxist group, the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), led by George Habash. He believed that
the Palestinians could reach their goals only by first attacking Western
governments and civilians in order to dramatize their cause. Specifically,
his group chose to hijack passenger airplanes, starting with an El Al jet
that it diverted to Algiers in 1968. In September 1970 the PFLP climaxed
its campaign by hijacking four Western planes, all filled with homeward-
bound tourists, and forcing them to land in a desert airstrip near Amman.
The hijackings so embarrassed the Jordanian government that Husayn's
army began attacking the Palestinians, civilians as well as fidaiyin, destroy¬
ing whole sections of Amman and other cities and towns, an assault that
came to be called "Black September." Syria sent an armored column into
Jordan to help the Palestinians but pulled back when Israel (with US sup¬
port) threatened to intervene. Egypt's government again stepped in, as it
had done in Lebanon, but it took literally all Nasir's remaining strength to
mediate between Arafat and Husayn. On the next day Nasir died of a heart
attack. Given his career as an Arab militant, it is ironic that Nasir's last act
was to rescue Husayn from the Palestinians, thus saving a US peace plan.