Jerusalem: The Biography

‘A fortified strip of barbed wire, minefields, firing positions and observation posts crossed [the city],’ wrote Amos Oz. ‘A concrete curtain came down and divided us from Sheikh Jarrah and the Arab neighbourhoods.’ There was often sniper fire: in 1954, nine people were killed in this way and fifty-four wounded. Even when the two sides cooperated, it was agonizing: in 1950, the UN mediated the feeding of the one tiger, one lion and two bears of the Biblical Zoo on Israeli-controlled Mount Scopus and officially explained that ‘Decisions had to be taken whether (a) Israeli money should be used to buy Arab donkeys to feed the Israeli lion or (b) whether an Israeli donkey should pass through Jordan-held territory to be eaten by the lion in question.’ Eventually the animals were escorted in a UN convoy through Jordanian territory to west Jerusalem.

Across the barbed wire, the Nusseibehs mourned the Catastrophe: ‘I suffered what amounted to a nervous breakdown,’ admitted Hazem Nusseibeh. His nephew Sari missed ‘the English and Arab aristocrats, the free-wheeling parvenus, the middle-class tradesmen, the demimonde catering to soldiers, the rich blend of cultures, the bishops, Muslim clerics and black-bearded rabbis crowding the same streets’.

In November, Abdullah was, bizarrely, crowned king of Jerusalem by the Coptic bishop – the first king to control the city since Frederick II. On 1 December, he had himself declared king of Palestine in Jericho, renaming his realm the United Kingdom of Jordan. The Husseinis and the Arab nationalists denounced Abdullah for his compromises and could not forgive him for being the only Arab to have succeeded in the Palestinian Catastrophe.

The king turned to the Families of Jerusalem, who now enjoyed a strange renaissance. He offered Ragheb Nashashibi the premiership of Jordan. Nashashibi refused, but agreed to become a minister. The king also appointed him governor of the West Bank and Custodian of the Two Harams (Jerusalem and Hebron) as well as presenting him with a Studebaker car and the title ‘Ragheb Pasha’. (The Jordanians were still awarding Ottoman titles in the 1950s.) His dandyish nephew, Nassereddin Nashashibi, became royal chamberlain.^* In a satisfying dismissal of the hated mufti, Abdullah officially sacked him and appointed Sheikh Husam al-Jarallah, the very man cheated of the title back in 1921.

Abdullah was warned of assassination plots, but he always replied, ‘Until my day comes, nobody can harm me; when the day comes, no one can guard me.’ Whatever the dangers, Abdullah, now 69, was proud of his possession of Jerusalem. ‘When I was a boy,’ recalled his grandson Hussein, ‘my grandfather used to tell me that Jerusalem was one of the most beautiful cities in the world.’ As time went on he noticed that the king ‘grew to love Jerusalem more and more’. Abdullah was disappointed in his eldest son Talal, but he adored his grandson whom he educated to be king. During school holidays, they breakfasted together every day. ‘I’d become the son he always wanted,’ wrote Hussein.

On Friday 20 July 1951, Abdullah drove to Jerusalem with Hussein, a sixteen-year-old Harrow schoolboy, whom he ordered to wear his military uniform with medals. Before they left, the king told him, ‘My son, one day you I’ll have to assume responsibility,’ adding ‘When I have to die, I’d like to be shot in the head by a nobody. That’s the simplest way.’ They stopped in Nablus to meet the mufti’s cousin, Dr Musa al-Husseini, who had served the mufti in Nazi Berlin: he bowed and expressed loyalty.

Just before midday, Abdullah arrived in Jerusalem for Friday prayers with his grandson, Glubb Pasha, Royal Chamberlain Nassereddin Nash-ashibi and the unctuous Musa Husseini. The crowd was sulky and suspicious; his nervous Arab Legion bodyguard was so numerous that Hussein joked ‘What is this, a funeral procession?’ Abdullah visited his father’s tomb, then walked to al-Aqsa and told the guards to pull back, but Musa Husseini stayed very close. As Abdullah stepped into the portico, the sheikh of the mosque kissed the royal hand, and simultaneously a young man emerged from behind the door. Raising a pistol, the youth pressed the barrel against the king’s ear and fired, killing him instantly. The bullet exited through the eye, and Abdullah collapsed, his white turban rolling away. Everyone threw themselves to the ground, ‘doubled up like bent old terrified women,’ observed Hussein ‘but I must have lost my head for at that moment, I lunged towards the assassin’, who turned on Hussein: ‘I saw his bared teeth, his dazed eyes. He had the gun and I watched him point it at me then saw the smoke, heard the bang and felt the shot on my chest. Is this what death is like? His bullet hit metal.’ Abdullah had saved his grandson’s life by ordering him to wear the medals.