— particularly after warnings were
sounded in Jordan against Israeli inter-
ference in Jordan's internal affairs.
But speaking off the record, several
sources said that they were not con-
cerned by the royal reshuffling and
that Abdullah would continue his
father's policies.
The 63-year-old king, who had just
returned home from six months of
cancer treatment in the United States,
went back to the Mayo Clinic
Tuesday, one day after promulgating a
royal decree on his successor.
The decision to replace Hassan as
his heir was a political stunner. Middle
East expert Ehud Ya'ari described the
move as little short of a "monarchical
coup d'etat.
Hussein was crowned king at the
age of 17 in May 1953. He subse-
quently carried on the -pro-Western
policies of his grandfather, King
Abdullah, who was assassinated in
1951 after trying to make peace with
Israel. The demographic makeup of
Jordan changed after the 1967 Six-
Day War, when the kingdom was
flooded with Palestinian refugees.
Some 3 million of Jordan's current
population of 4.4 million are
Palestinians.
Abdullah, 37, is the son of
Hussein's second wife, Queen Mona.
Married to a Palestinian woman,
Abdullah is seen by some sources in
Jerusalem as better positioned to
maintain a good relationship with
Jordan's Palestinian majority.
But some in the Jewish world were
saddened by the decision to bypass
Hassan, the king's designated successor
for 34 years.
While lacking the charisma of the
king, Hassan, 52, is a familiar figure
among Jewish audiences, who viewed
him as likely ro carry on his brother's
policies toward Israel.
Hassan has many friends in the
Jewish state, Professor Shimon Shamir,
Israel's former ambassador to Jordan,
said this week.
"Hassan had built through the
years an extensive network of contacts
with Israeli economists, politicians and
intellectuals," he said. "They have
learned to appreciate his personality
and are certainly sorry to see a
decrease in his status."
Sources in Amman predicted this
week that Hassan could be named a
deputy to the king, a new post with
limited authority.
For years, the king and his brother
had worked closely, with nothing in
their behavior betraying any strains.

"

When Hussein left for the United
States six months ago, he entrusted
Hassan with control over Jordan's
affairs.
But according to reports in
Jerusalem, problems developed when
Hassan behaved as if Hussein was not
coming back. Shortly after Hussein
left for the United Stares, Hassan
spoke publicly of the need to eradicate
corruption. Jordanians loyal to the
king wondered whether the comment
was meant to imply that Hussein had
condoned corruption.
In a sign that relations between the
two were cooling, Hassan did not visit
his brother's bedside during the months
Hussein spent at the Mayo Clinic.
In addition, Hussein had expressed
concern that as king, Hassan would
pass on the line of succession to his
own sons, not the king's.

Queen Noor
wanted her son
Hamza as
crown prince.

With his own mortality evidently
in mind, Hussein moved quickly to
dispel growing speculation about the
line of succession.
"Hussein's children and wife played
a crucial role" in Hussein's decision
this week, said Ya'ari. Queen Noor
had wanted her eldest son, Hamza,
19, to be appointed crown prince.
Indeed, palace officials said Hussein
was grooming Hamza for the position.
Hamza was the only of Hussein's five
sons to be at the monarch's bedside
during the past six months.
But analysts say that Hussein ulti-
mately decided that Jordan is facing
too many problems — an economic
crisis, an internal struggle for more
democracy, tension with Iraq and
Syria, and the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process — to allow the throne to pass
to a young, inexperienced leader.
"One of the main issues on the
national agenda is the Hashemite con-
cern about a Palestinian state," said
Ya'ari. "Hussein is well aware of the
fact that once a Palestinian state
becomes a political reality, it will have
a major affect on Jordan.
"Only a solid grip on the armed
forces, ensuring their continued loyal-
ty, will prevent turning the country
into a de facto Palestinian state."

FIGHTERS FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE
After generations of slavery in Egypt, the Exodus brought ancient Israelites
an exhilarating taste of milk and honey after an arid pilgrimage to the
Promised Land. They savored a newborn freedom flowering under the Ten
Commandments and Mosaic Law. And within a land of their own they
created a social system based on a rational code of ethical conduct. While
the society they evolved vanished in the mists of history, its communal
spirit survived. That spirit has been resurrected in modern times by Jewish
activists born to a belief in human dignity, decency and the rule of
honorable and just laws. We salute such advocates, including:

AUGUST BONDI
b. Vienna, Austria Before the
(1833 1907)
outbreak of the Civil War, virtually all American
Jews living in the North fiercely opposed slavery.
Among the most outspoken were Rabbi David
Einhorn ; a leader of American Reform Judaism,
and Moritz Pinner, publisher of the Kansas Post,
a militant abolitionist newspaper. Kansas was
also the site of an event concerning a little known
Jewish immigrant who risked his life for negro liberation.
August Bondi was not new to hazardous undertakings. As a
teenager, he served in a failed 1848 anti-government coup mounted by the
Vienna Academic Legion and subsequently tried to join U.S. expeditions
to Cuba and Japan. Adventure also came to Bondi and several Jewish
founders of a general store in.Osawatomie, Kansas. They narrowly escaped
death at its destruction for their stand against slavery. Bondi, who was not
intimidated, joined the "Kansas Regulars" organized by the legendary John
Brown, and engaged in ill-fated warfare against pro-slavery forces.
Surviving the battles of Black Jack and Osawatomie, Bondi later
enlisted in the Union Army to continue his personal crusade against the
great moral evil of enslavement. His published accounts of both
experiences are considered the most vivid and memorable ever written by
a Jewish Civil War veteran. He retired to the practice of law and continued
working for civil rights in public life.
Leopold . Blumberg of Baltimore, yet another heroic Jewish soldier -
of the times, followed in Bondi's footsteps. Narrowly averting a mob
lynching for preaching abolition, he helped organize the 5th Regiment of
Maryland Infantry when war broke out. Blumberg was promoted to Brevet
Brigadier General of his unit for gallantry during the Battle of Antietam.

-

ARTHUR GARFIELD HAYS
(1881-1954) b. Rochester, NY As co-counsel at
the epochal Scopes "Monkey Trial," he stood
beside the famed Clarence Darrow, together
defending the right to teach Darwinian evolution
in Tennessee's public high schools. During his
long career as a civil rights attorney, the Columbia
Law School graduate was also at the epicenter of
many of America's most turbulent legal storms.
The personal fortune he earlier amassed representing major corporations
later helped fund the numerous cases lie litigated without charge.
From 1912 on, as general counsel of the American Civil Liberties
Union, Hays tirelessly pressed legal actions against incidents of bigotry,
news censorship and other violations of freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of
Rights. The Sweet segregation-violence trial held in Detroit (1925) teamed
him once again with Clarence Darrow. He vigorously, though vainly, de-
fended two illiterate Italian immigrants in the notorious "Sacco-Vanzetti"
murder case (1921-27), strongly (and correctly) alleging judicial irreg-
ularities. And in 1931 he successfully argued against death penalties for
the ."Scottsboro Negroes" who likely were falsely convicted of rape by a
"kangaroo" court in Alabama.
Hays also participated in one of the most dramatic pre-World War
Two dramas--defending anti-Hitler activists against trumped-up charges of
setting the Reichstag fire (1933). As a Jew forbidden to appear, lie ad-
ressed the court through a German attorney, but his indirect presence shed
light on the malevolence of Nazism. At war's end, Hays worked with the
allies to rebuild Germany's democratic institutions.
-Saul Stadtmauer

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Detroit Jewish News

1/29
1999

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