After much poking around, I cannot find any particular significance about 11 Sept 1970 that Natalie was wondering about. The dates of any significance I found were:
On 6 September 1970 the PFLP carried out one of the most memorable hijackings in history prior to September 11 2001. This was the simultaneous hijack to Jordan of a Swissair DC-8 and a TWA 707.
On 12 September, this was followd by the hijacking of a BOAC VC-10. All aircraft were forced to land at Dawson Field, outside Amman. At the same time another group of PFLP hijackers hijacked a Pan American 747 to Cairo and blew it up there. The Jordanians were deeply divided on what to do about the hijackers. The day after the destruction of the hijacked planes King Hussein declared martial law and sacked his pro-Palestinian prime minister.
As far as I can figure, it was 14 September when it all finally went horribly pear shaped. The Jordanian army and Palestinians directly came to blows when the Jordanians attacked the Palestinian base at Zarqa.
On the 19 September, Palestine Liberation Army and regular Syrian army armoured units invaded northern Jordan, driving towards Amman, with Arafat declared northern Jordan a ‘liberated area’. After initially loosing ground, the very professional Jordanian army counter-attacked the Syrian/PLA forces and pushed them back.
On 22 September an Arab League delegation arrived in Amman to broker a deal between the Jordanians and Palestinians.
On 24 September (or 25 Sept in one accounts I found) no sooner had the Arab delegates returned to Cairo to announce a political deal than Arafat rejected the settlement and renews his calls for the overthrow of the Jordanian Hashemite monarchy (in spite of the fact the Jordanian Army was now starting to get the upper hand throughout the country).
On 27 September King Hussein arrived in Cairo for more peace negotiations with Arafat. These came to nothing and eventually Arafat’s forces were finally completely crushed and ejected from Jordan by July 1971.
Does any one else know if there was anything special about September 11 1970 that I might have missed? If so, e-mail and tell us.
