Arabs Fearful of Impact on Exams, Wages

JERUSALEM — Palestinian doctors on the Israeli-occupied West Bank get their medical licenses through the Jordanian Physicians’ Union.

The West Bank equivalent of the SAT, which every high school student must pass in order to enter college, is graded and certified by the Jordanian government.

Every employee of a West Bank mosque--from the priest, or imam, to the janitor--is paid by the Jordanian Ministry of Islamic Affairs.

Those are just a few of the myriad and crucial ties that have bound about 850,000 West Bank Palestinians to the Hashemite kingdom across the Jordan River--ties that were thrown into question over the weekend by King Hussein’s announcement that he intends to dismantle his country’s “legal and administrative links” to the occupied territories.

By effectively renouncing any Jordanian claim to the West Bank, which was under Hashemite rule from 1948 until Israel captured it in the 1967 Six-Day War, Hussein bowed to Palestine Liberation Organization demands that he clear the way for a future Palestinian state in the occupied lands.

Political Victory

But although the overwhelmingly pro-PLO West Bank residents welcomed what they saw as the political victory implicit in the king’s announcement, they were clearly apprehensive Monday over the practical impact his new policy might have on their daily lives.

In Amman, senior Jordanian sources indicated that Jordan will cut off all funds and relinquish all responsibility for government services in the Israeli-occupied territories, including the suspension of salaries and stipends to more than 18,000 Arab civil servants and teachers that Jordan has on its West Bank payroll.

In public, comments by Israeli leaders appeared to reflect their own political positions on the peace process more than any real assessment of the Jordanian move.

Israel Radio quoted its correspondent in Washington as saying the Reagan Administration had tried until the last minute to persuade Hussein not to cut his ties with the territories, arguing that it would hurt the U.S. Middle East peace initiative and undermine the more moderate Labor Alignment political bloc in upcoming Israeli elections.

It is clear that if Hussein goes ahead and withdraws all support, it will add up to what one Palestinian termed one of the greatest challenges the PLO has ever faced.

Jordan funnels about $100 million annually into the West Bank--about 15% of the total value of goods and services produced there each year. About $70 million of that is in the form of salaries and pensions to teachers, civil servants and other workers.

In some cases, the Jordanian money is a relatively modest supplement to the incomes of these West Bank residents, whose main income is paid by the Israeli military government from taxes it collects in the occupied territories. But for others, the Jordanian contribution may be 50% or more of their total livelihood.

Also, about one-third of all West Bank exports are to Jordan. The Jordanian dinar is just as legal a currency on the West Bank as the Israeli shekel, and West Bank residents carry Jordanian passports as well as Israeli identity cards.

Depending on how far Hussein chooses to go, Israeli and West Bank Palestinian sources note, he could stop all those salaries as well as blocking agricultural and other imports from the territories, stripping West Bank residents of their Jordanian passports and even closing the Jordan River bridges.

Such Draconian measures would begin to put West Bank inhabitants on a par with their Gaza Strip counterparts, who have been stateless and isolated from most outside Arab support for the last 20 years.

PLO’s Responsibility

The king implied that it is now up to the PLO to take responsibility for the occupied territories. But Israeli and Palestinian sources alike questioned whether Arafat’s organization is equipped, for example, to certify new doctors and administer college entrance examinations.

Also, while the Israeli authorities permit Jordanian money to flow relatively freely into the occupied territories, they are not likely to look so kindly on funds clearly earmarked from the PLO, which they condemn as an unrepentant terrorist organization.

Asher Susser of Tel Aviv University, an expert on the Palestinian issue, speculated in an interview with Israel Radio on Monday that Hussein is using reverse psychology.

What the king really wants, he said, is for “the people in the West Bank and the PLO itself actually to ask Jordan not to finally cut itself off, since this would be damaging to the Palestinian population. Then the Jordanians would be in a position to maintain that they are keeping their ties with the West Bank . . . at the behest of the Palestinian people and their legitimate representatives.”