55 years ago/May 30, 1967

King Hussein of Jordan flew to Cairo, had negotiations with President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and they signed a mutual defence treaty. According to the treaty, during joint operations, Jordan forces were under the command of Egyptian General Abdul Moneim Riad. The treaty was signed by Iraq as well, but Syria refused to do it. Ahmad Shukeiri, the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was also present during the negotiations. The step of King Hussein was a surprise, and generates debates since then. Also shows how complicated the situation was. Jordan was a pro-Western monarchy with a huge Palestinian Arab/Palestinian population, with neighbours like Syria and Iraq, where “revolutionary” leaders were in charge, with Soviet connections. The other two neighbours were Israel and Saudi Arabia, and despite they were pro-Western, because of the Arab-Israeli conflict and because of the conflict between the dynasties, none of them were too friendly with Jordan. Officially. King Hussein’s grandfather, the founder of Jordan, was killed because of his negotiations with Israel. He was there, and never forgot it. Even during the peace process in the 1990’s, he knew he couldn’t sign the peace treaty with Israel too fast, he had to wait for the right time. Before the Six-Day War, King Hussein was regularly criticized, verbally attacked by Nasser, Shukeiri, a few days before Jordan broke the diplomatic relations with Syria. The most accepted opinion, which was practically admitted by King Hussein himself, that he had two choices in May 1967, to try to stay out of the conflict, but it could cause to lose his throne because of the anger of his subjects, or to join the Arab states against Israel and to risk a war what he didn’t believe to be able to win. After a two-day visit and meetings with high-ranking Soviet leaders in Moscow, Syrian President Nureddin al-Atassi returned to Damascus. Turkey announced that 10 Soviet warships had got authorization to move from the Black Sea into the eastern Mediterranean through the Turkish Straits to reinforce the Soviet naval force in that area.