In September 1970, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan — one of the most stable Arab states — descended into civil war. On one side was King Hussein, the young monarch who had ruled Jordan since 1952, determined to preserve his throne and his country. On the other was the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by Yasser Arafat, which had built a "state within a state" inside Jordan — complete with its own army, its own checkpoints, and its own disregard for Jordanian law. After years of mounting tension, the conflict exploded in September 1970 into a brutal, ten-month war that killed thousands of Palestinians and ended with the PLO expelled from Jordan and driven into Lebanon. The Palestinians called it "Black September" — the month when their Arab brothers turned against them with devastating force. It was a traumatic event that reshaped the Palestinian national movement, radicalized a new generation, and spawned the infamous "Black September Organization" that would carry out the Munich Olympics massacre two years later.
Summary: After the 1967 Six-Day War, Jordan became the main base for Palestinian fedayeen (guerrilla fighters). The PLO, under Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, established an autonomous infrastructure within Jordan — checkpoints, courts, tax collection, and armed militias — that challenged King Hussein's sovereignty. The crisis escalated with the Dawson's Field hijackings (September 6-12, 1970), when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked four planes and landed them in the Jordanian desert. King Hussein declared martial law on September 16 and launched a full-scale military offensive. The Jordanian army — largely Bedouin and loyal to the king — shelled Palestinian refugee camps and fought PLO fighters in the streets of Amman. Syrian tanks crossed the border to support the Palestinians but were driven back. After ten months of fighting, the PLO was expelled. Arafat and thousands of fighters fled to Lebanon. The Black September Organization, formed in the aftermath, carried out the Munich Olympics attack in 1972, killing 11 Israeli athletes.
🇯🇴 Jordan Before Black September: The State Within a State
After the 1967 Six-Day War, in which Israel captured the West Bank (previously under Jordanian control) and Gaza, Jordan became the primary base for the Palestinian fedayeen. The PLO's Fatah faction, led by Yasser Arafat, established a vast autonomous infrastructure in Jordan. Palestinian fighters set up checkpoints on Jordanian roads. They collected "taxes" from Palestinian communities. They held their own courts, tried their own prisoners, and executed their own sentences. They ignored Jordanian laws and openly defied the authority of King Hussein. The fedayeen were popular among Jordan's large Palestinian population (which made up over half the country's inhabitants), and their attacks against Israel — while militarily ineffective — were a source of pride for Arabs humiliated by the 1967 defeat. But for King Hussein, the PLO's "state within a state" was an intolerable challenge to his sovereignty. The young king — who had survived multiple assassination attempts — was not willing to preside over the dissolution of his kingdom.
"I did not want this war. But I cannot be the king of a country where armed militias rule the streets, where my authority is openly mocked, where foreign hijackers blow up planes on my soil. Jordan will not become a second Palestine."
✈️ The Dawson's Field Hijackings: The Spark
On September 6, 1970, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist faction within the PLO, hijacked three commercial airliners — TWA Flight 741, Swissair Flight 100, and Pan Am Flight 93 (the Pan Am plane was diverted to Cairo and destroyed). On September 9, a fourth plane — BOAC Flight 775 from Bahrain — was hijacked. The PFLP flew all three planes to Dawson's Field, a remote desert airstrip in Jordan, and landed them dramatically before the world's media. Over 300 passengers were held hostage for a week while the PFLP demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners. On September 12, the hijackers evacuated the passengers and blew up all three empty planes on camera — an image that shocked the world and humiliated King Hussein. The Dawson's Field hijackings made a mockery of Jordanian sovereignty. The hijackers had operated freely on Jordanian soil. King Hussein, who had been trying to negotiate with the PLO for months, had been publicly humiliated. He decided that enough was enough. On September 16, he declared martial law and ordered the Jordanian army to crush the PLO.
Dawson's Field — September 12, 1970
"The hijackers ordered the passengers off the planes. Then they set the charges. One by one, the aircraft exploded — a TWA 707, a Swissair DC-8, a BOAC VC-10 — turned into fireballs in the Jordanian desert. The world watched on television. King Hussein watched from his palace. His kingdom had become a stage for international terrorism."
⚔️ The War: September 1970 – July 1971
The Jordanian army — a largely Bedouin force intensely loyal to King Hussein — launched a full-scale offensive against Palestinian positions. The fighting was brutal. Tanks shelled Palestinian refugee camps in Amman, Zarqa, and Irbid. Thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed in indiscriminate shelling. The PLO fighters — estimated at 20,000 to 40,000 — fought back fiercely but were outgunned and outnumbered by the Jordanian military. In the north of Jordan, Syria attempted to intervene. On September 20, Syrian tanks crossed the border to support the Palestinians. King Hussein called for international help. Israeli warplanes flew threateningly over the Syrian column, and the United States moved the Sixth Fleet to the eastern Mediterranean. The Soviet Union, Syria's patron, did not intervene. The Syrian tanks withdrew. The Palestinian fighters were crushed. By July 1971, the PLO had been completely expelled from Jordan. Arafat and his fighters fled to Lebanon, where the cycle would repeat itself — with even more catastrophic consequences.
💀 The Aftermath: Black September Organization
In the aftermath of the defeat, a radical faction within Fatah formed the "Black September Organization" — named after the month of the Jordanian offensive. The group was dedicated to revenge and to keeping the Palestinian cause alive through spectacular acts of violence. Its most infamous act was the Munich Olympics massacre on September 5, 1972. Eight Black September militants broke into the Olympic Village, killed two Israeli athletes immediately, and took nine others hostage. In a botched rescue attempt by German police at Fürstenfeldbruck airbase, all nine Israeli hostages were killed, along with five of the eight attackers and a German police officer. The Munich massacre transformed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a global issue and triggered Israel's "Wrath of God" campaign — a covert Mossad operation that hunted down and assassinated Black September members across Europe and the Middle East. The Black September Organization was eventually disbanded, but the trauma of Munich and the bitterness of Black September continued to haunt the Middle East.
📖 The Legacy: Palestinians Without a Home
Black September was a defining trauma for the Palestinian national movement. The Palestinians had been defeated not by Israel but by an Arab brother — a betrayal that deepened their sense of abandonment. Expelled from Jordan, the PLO moved to Lebanon, where it would repeat the pattern of building a "state within a state" — and trigger the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) and the Israeli invasion of 1982. King Hussein emerged from Black September with his throne secure. He would rule Jordan for another 29 years, becoming one of the most respected leaders in the Middle East. But the ghosts of September 1970 never fully left him. In his memoirs, he wrote: "It was the most painful decision of my life. I had to fight my own people to save my country."