Year 1960 - Part 12: The Assassination of Jordan's Prime Minister Hazza al-Majali

Wednesday the 20th

The President of Sudan, Lieutenant General Ibrahim Abboud, arrived in Cairo. He too had seized power in a military coup.

We were invited to a dinner held in his honor and that of his accompanying delegation, at al-Tahira Palace. There, I found the chance to speak with the two central ministers, Fakhir al-Kayali and Dr. Bashir al-Azma, and told them that news of the central ministers' own disputes and factionalism was reaching us in Damascus in exaggerated form. Their national and ethical duty, I told them, required them to clear the air within the central ministry, and to work together fruitfully among themselves and with the President. Failing that, resignation would be the more honorable course. I reminded them of the noble verse: "retention in an acceptable manner or release with kindness" [Quran 2:229].

We already knew the central ministers complained of idleness and a lack of real work, and so grew impatient with their own offices, and with being in Cairo at all.

I was not unaware of this complaint myself.

Friday the 22nd

President Shukri al-Quwatli arrived on a visit to Cairo, and I went to greet him. After the Friday prayer, we were invited, along with him, to a luncheon held in honor of the Sudanese President Ibrahim Abboud by Abdul Khaleq Hassouna, Secretary-General of the Arab League.

I was seated beside President Abdel Nasser, facing our guest president. Praise God for this honor, one he genuinely enjoys, and one I am glad to see given him as well, a thousand times better than the era of insults once heaped upon him by politicized officers, who once marched past in a procession before the Chamber of Deputies chanting against him, when he put himself forward for the presidential election of 1955.

Saturday the 23rd: Lieutenant General Abboud in Damascus

I could scarcely contain myself, sitting in the government's own box, watching a military parade marking the army's revolt against the monarchy, when the jet fighter "Cairo," built in the Arab war industries, flew past.

I felt as though a powerful electric current had shot through the crowds, who began cheering as though they had lost all control of their own senses, like men possessed.

Truly, love of country is a fierce, consuming thing.

Especially when danger threatens its own safety and dignity right at its own borders.

After the parade, we returned by plane to Damascus, Nour al-Din Kahhaleh aboard with us, now Vice President of the Republic, along with Lieutenant General Jamal al-Faisal, commander of the First Army. Kahhaleh thereby gave up his chairmanship of the Executive Council to Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj, moving instead to Cairo as Vice President of the Republic and central Minister of Planning. (Decision No. 1338, dated 18 July 1960.)

On this same day, Lieutenant General Ibrahim Abboud arrived in Damascus, on an official visit to the Northern Region, and we received him at the airport.

On the return, the Minister of Irrigation and Communications, al-Maqbool al-Amin al-Hajj, rode in my own official car.

At the dinner reception, I was seated beside Major General Hassan Bashir Nasr, deputy commander-in-chief and Minister of Presidential Affairs.

I was delighted to meet them, and to discuss Arab affairs with them.

Their own great courtesy and evident humility made the evening a real pleasure.

My own dinner companion was pleased when I told him I had represented my own country at the Arab League session that approved Sudan's own membership in it.

Sudan, at that session, had been represented by its own Foreign Minister, the gentle poet Mubarak Zaroug.

Their own situation, like ours, saw them coming and going, as government shook and officers seized control of it, one wave after another.

What a tragedy for the Arab world, spreading like a contagion from one Arab country to the next. One wonders: will this long night never come to an end?

Thursday, 28 July

The Ministry of Justice in the Southern Region issued, today, Decision No. 799, dated the 28th (of July), assigning 36 judges and public prosecutors to work in the Syrian region.

I was once Minister of Justice myself, and know the region's own need for judges willing to work in "remote" areas, areas Syrian judges themselves have little love for. Should they be sent there by decision of the Supreme Judicial Council, they will spare no effort to have themselves transferred out and return home.

As a rule, only newly appointed judges are ever sent to these regions, and these lack experience and knowledge, or else judges under some cloud of suspicion, which is worse still.

I believe assigning Egyptian judges was a wise solution, one the new minister, Mr. Nihad al-Qasim, arrived at. It also serves as an exercise in acquainting the people of the Southern Region with their own fellow citizens, the people of the Northern Region. A union without this kind of genuine bonding is nothing more than a union on paper.

Thursday, 11 August, through Friday the 19th: A Week's Vacation in Hammana

I gave myself a week's vacation, retreating with my wife Amal and my children Maysa and Ghassan, to rest, hoping to restore my own energy, "repair" my own spirit, and spend time with the children, whom I scarcely get to see except in passing.

We chose the Lebanese town of Hammana.

The French poet Lamartine had already sung its praises before me, having visited this region in the middle of the last century.

Lebanon, with its beautiful mountains and valleys, its own means of leisure, and the fine service and gentle manner of its hoteliers and cafe owners, makes long journeys elsewhere unnecessary, especially when one's own vacation is short.

We took the occasion to have ourselves examined by a well-known physician, Dr. Edouard Lahham, dined at the elegant Casino des Aemmaltain, and made several trips to Zahle, where we accepted two invitations, one from my lifelong friend Hisham al-Azhari, the other at the Shbeen family orchard.

Among the guests were the governor of the Bekaa and some of the region's own officials and deputies.

Staying in Sofar or Dhour el Choueir might well have been more pleasant still, but I preferred to keep my distance from these two areas, teeming as they are with Syrian political exiles, and it seemed unwise to throw myself into arguments that would bring no good, whether started or extinguished.

I had already had my own experience with Husni al-Barazi, and so I chose rest for my body and calm for my own spirit instead.

"The most resolute of men is he who, though he thirst to the point of death, will not approach the watering hole until he has learned the truth of it."

Sunday the 21st

I had a long session today, at my office, with Mr. Amin al-Nafouri, who had resigned from the central ministry along with his colleague Ahmad Abdel Karim.

He had come to see me to correct an error in the calculation of his own retirement pension, though it turned out there was no such error at all.

He repeated to me the reasons for his resignation, summarizing them as follows:

"Frankly, the Union is no longer a genuine partnership in government, but Egyptian domination over the Syrians, with Abdel Nasser deliberately neglecting his own Syrian ministers, to drive them into resigning."

In this, al-Nafouri agreed entirely with Akram al-Hourani, in the rumors both were spreading against the Union.

I remarked to him: were you not the very author of that famous memorandum submitted, in the name of a group of "unionist" officers, to Khalid al-Azm, Minister of Defense, hinting at threatening him should any resistance arise against uniting the two countries? So what, exactly, has changed now?

Did one of you not say he stood ready to bombard Aleppo, should Abdel Nasser order it? Did you not declare to him that you were placing your own resignations in his hands, should he agree to the Union? And did your own leader not proclaim that there were three sacred things beyond all question: God, the Homeland, and the President?

I reminded him of the state of the Ministry of the Treasury, which I myself head. It is a ministry I alone run, taking orders from no one and forbidden by no one. I have opened neither its doors nor those of its general administration to anyone from the Southern Region, not out of any dislike for them, but simply because I have no need of anyone from among them.

And if President Abdel Nasser reserves foreign policy for himself alone, this is exactly what he announced before you all at the very first session of the very first Council of Ministers, held at the Guest Palace in Damascus.

You yourselves, and the country along with you, approved the provisional constitution, resting as it does on the principle of a presidential republic.

So there is, in truth, nothing new at all in how the government is being run.

Monday, 22 August

Republican Decision No. 1454 was issued, providing for the dismissal of Mr. Abdul Halim Qaddour from service.

I was genuinely astonished at this decision. It is true that Abdul Halim belonged to Akram al-Hourani's own circle, but he had chosen to remain in his post, and did not resign in solidarity with the resigned Baathist ministers. His departure from office is a loss to the Ministry of Interior, in whose service he had proven himself one of its most capable governors, and a loss to the Union as well, for a new "enemy" will now join the ranks of its "enemies." I remember him fondly, as a friend and as governor of Latakia. He once came to see me while I was resting at a hotel in Slenfeh, to help me persuade the father of Michel Aflaq's own bride, a member of the al-Bishour family, friends of mine, to consent to his daughter's marriage to the "founder of the Baath Party."

I recall that when the father asked Abdul Halim how the groom intended to support his own daughter, he answered, laughing: "he feeds the whole Arab world philosophy and principles, and philosophy is the very best thing your own daughter could be fed."

We attended the wedding some time later, at a church in Damascus.

The "professor" circled the altar candelabra in his own black suit, a crown resembling Christ's own placed upon his head. He later converted to Islam, and died a Muslim in Iraq, or so it has become generally known.

Radio Baghdad devoted three whole days to reciting the Quran for his soul, as though he were some great head of state.

Tuesday the 23rd

Rushdi al-Kikhya visited me today.

I told him of the conversation between President Abdel Nasser and myself, on 3 July, at his own home in Cairo, concerning him and his own brothers, that they were true unionists, upright men. I asked him not to give any weight to reports reaching the Ministry of Interior that might cast doubt on their own political conduct.

Al-Kikhya was grateful for this testimony, for, as he put it, he is a committed unionist, and knows well that should the Union ever be destroyed, the country would return to internal strife and chaos, and perhaps to violence as well.

He mentioned that he needed to meet with Ahmad al-Hunaidi, Minister of Agrarian Reform, who had taken Mustafa Hamdoun's place (the independent Baathist).

I visited al-Hunaidi at his office at the Chamber of Deputies, and asked him whether he would agree to receive Rushdi al-Kikhya, and when, and whether he would receive him with the welcome his own upright character deserved.

He was the very picture of graciousness.

I went to the hotel where al-Kikhya was staying, and accompanied him to the Ministry of Agrarian Reform's headquarters, at the agreed time. We found the minister waiting to receive us. He praised al-Kikhya warmly, extolling his own patriotism and sincerity.

He looked into al-Kikhya's own request, his right to have his rain-fed olive groves recognized as such, as a requisition committee had already ruled, a ruling that had since drawn an objection.

The minister confirmed the committee's own ruling.

Mr. al-Kikhya left grateful, and the minister saw him out to the ministry's own door himself.

Wednesday the 24th

Messrs. Ahmad Qanbar and Zuhdi al-Jasser visited me at home this evening, both leading figures of the dissolved People's Party in Aleppo.

The first is director of the private cement company.

The second is director of the oil company.

There was nothing unusual in this visit at all. My home remains open to my former brothers in the party, and it is my own habit to open my heart and my arms wide to them.

I consider welcoming them a service to the Union itself, easing hearts and softening spirits.

For my own part, it is simply loyalty to a friendship that no ministerial post has any right to touch, a post that will pass away in any case. "Even should it last for another, it will never remain yours forever."

What truly astonished me, from the two of them, was the attack they launched on "the capitalists," insisting we were "right" to hate them and press hard upon them.

They endorsed al-Hourani's own stance boycotting capitalism and feudalism.

They demanded I take a "firm" stand against these exploiters, whom they described as "far worse than I imagine."

I have no need of this lesson. I know well that the merchant seeks profit, and is never satisfied. There are two kinds of men who are never satisfied: the seeker of knowledge, and the seeker of wealth.

But my own duty forbids me from letting personal feelings guide me. I must apply the law, no more and no less, leaving the merchant whatever profit is his, and taking for the state only what is rightfully its own.

This is exactly what I affirmed to them in our many meetings together.

They always came away reassured by what I told them, satisfied with my own "fair" approach.

Professor Barthélemy, our own professor of public finance, used to describe the finance minister as the state's own "watchdog," guarding its money and defending it.

And when he wished to praise the qualities a successful finance minister ought to have, he would say that a successful finance minister is one who can pluck the chicken's own feathers without making it feel any pain.

Thursday, 1 September

An exhibition has been held in Damascus every year since 1937, drawing citizens from various cities to visit Damascus and see what is on display there.

These are, for the most part, certain Syrian industries, such as canned goods and cotton clothing.

Some "friendly" foreign countries take part as well, displaying "some of their own innovations," scaled to suit the exhibition's own modest capacity.

Given how often it has been held with no real change to it at all, a foreign ambassador once expressed his own weariness with it, asking me: why hold an exhibition at all, if you have nothing to actually put in it?

This year, something new happened, one I had not known of: foreign performing troupes were invited to entertain visitors.

Among the most notable of these troupes was the "American Ice" troupe.

We were invited to attend their performances, ice skating on an artificial rink built especially for this troupe.

The performances were truly of a high standard, worthy of the troupe's own well-known reputation.

One of its members playfully asked me to join him on the ice.

I excused myself, telling him I knew nothing of this art.

It seems an official at the American embassy pointed out to him his own mistake, for he came back with the official to apologize to me, and I found the apology strange, since there was nothing in what he did that needed one at all.

We went out with some friends to Dummar, to have dinner at the al-Firdaws cafe. Its own cafes and restaurants were still packed with customers, even though the hour had already passed one in the morning.

How lovely Dummar is, at this time of year.

May God have mercy on Ahmed Shawqi, who once visited it, and said of it and its neighbor al-Rabwa:

"And the hillside of the valley, in the robe of a dancing girl, her calf veiled, her throat bare,

and the fair maidens of Dummar, or those around its own crest, fair maidens revealing calf and neck alike."

In his own day, this oasis along the Barada had not yet filled with all these elegant cafes and restaurants in such abundance.

The Assassination of Jordan's Prime Minister

Four days ago, a bomb exploded in the office of Hazza' al-Majali, Jordan's prime minister, killing him along with, as the reports say, ten other people.

King Hussein was quick to lay the blame on Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj's own intelligence service, insisting the perpetrators had fled to Damascus.

The King issued us a warning, that he would wage a merciless war upon us, should the Republic fail to hand over these two refugees.

The Republic denounced this accusation, calling it a shameful one. I am not here to shield al-Sarraj, for he did once order a Syrian fighter jet to pursue a plane King Hussein himself was piloting, which had passed over Syrian territory "without permission to fly through it," as we were told, though the King managed to escape this deadly trap through his own skill as a pilot.

This was not the first attempt on his life, and in every attempt, God, glory be to Him, had decreed his own survival.

Al-Majali may well have placed himself in the ranks of the Republic's own enemies, fighting it, as Hussein himself did, with the utmost ferocity.

Many rejoiced at his own killing, without realizing, caught up as they were in the emotion of the moment, that political assassination serves no purpose at all.

And the innocent people killed in this incident died having committed no offense whatsoever. What benefit, then, could the killers possibly draw from their deaths?

Political killings have proven themselves nothing more than ordinary crimes, ones no "noble" motive can ever justify their perpetrators in committing, and ones that never actually put an end to the problem of one-man rule.

For this reason, the Syrian Penal Code removed such acts from the category of political crimes altogether, treating them instead as ordinary crimes.

Article 196 of this law provides that:

"Political crimes shall be considered to include compound crimes or those closely linked to political crimes, unless they rank among the gravest felonies in terms of morality and the public interest, such as murder, grievous bodily harm, and attacks on property by burning, blowing up, or flooding, and grave theft, especially theft carried out with weapons and violence.

The same applies to any attempt to commit such felonies."[1]

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Endnotes:

[1] See our own book, Political Crime, Dar al-Maaref, Beirut, 1963.