It was in the autumn of 1970 when I began my adventure as a correspondent in the Middle East in Amman. King Hussein, grandfather of Prince Hussein bin Abdallah, the man who will inherit the Hashemite crown – who has just celebrated a sumptuous princely wedding with the presence of crowned heads from half the world – was fighting with Arafat's fedayeen and other Palestinian leaders who threatened his power in the hills of the capital.
From that unequal fight in Aman, fierce, whose nights I described as "a faithful company of death", Black September and the Palestinian defeat would emerge. The Jordanian capital, which some wanted to turn into the Arab Hanoi, returned to being a monarchical city. The fedayeen, Palestinians, after being defeated by the fierce Arab Legion made up of faithful Bedouins infeuded to the Hashemite crown, then headed towards Beirut, which they turned into their stronghold for decades.
Independent since 1946, the Hashemite kingdom, formerly known as the Emirate of Transjordan, when it had not yet absorbed part of Palestine and the Arab sector of Jerusalem, extended its rule over the Palestinian population. Hence, the Hashemite dynasty, supported by Great Britain and the West -legend has it that it was Churchill one dull summer afternoon who drew its irregular angular border- became a regime fought by the so-called then radical Arab regimes such as Egypt, Syria or Iraq. King Hussein survived countless coup attempts and assassinations. His sympathetic image in Western public opinion, much loved by his elegant wives of Palestinian origin like Alia and Soraya, saved his throne as monarchies like those of Egypt and Iraq were swept by military uprisings. The survival of the Jordanian monarchy, which made peace with Israel, is one of the stabilizing facts in the turbulent Middle East.
The succession story to this throne that lacks the power and economic strength of the wealthy kingdoms and principalities of the Gulf has not been an easy one. With his brother, the influential Prince Hasan, discarded, the throne fell to Prince Abdallah, the current monarch. Abdallah also excluded his brother Hamzah, which caused serious intrigues around the throne.
In the end, in 2009, Husein bin Abdallah, who was only 15 years old, was appointed heir. As the Constitution does not establish any specific function for the position of heir, the future monarch has only carried out some protocol international missions.
What was considered for decades an artificial country created by European colonizers as a buffer state between Israel and Syria, has survived the historic disasters in the Middle East. Jordan – with eleven million inhabitants, which had a historic King Hussein, Bedouin monarch, westernized – consolidates his dynasty when the ill-fated Arab springs have already been forgotten.
A local newspaper has written: "Let us hope that the young Jordanian heir can one day become someone as important as Prince Mohamed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia."
