All the Way with P.L.K.

Beirut and Amman lie 140 miles apart, and the jet flight between the two cities normally takes only 40 minutes. These days, however, the journey is an extended and somewhat nerve-wracking odyssey. Passengers aboard Alia (Royal Jordanian Airline) Caravelles are subjected to a thorough and intimate antihijack body check; still, four mid-air hijackings have been foiled, while another plane was shot at by anti-Jordanian guerrillas while taking off. After leaving Beirut, Alia Caravelles must fly out over the Mediterranean toward Cyprus and then to Mersa Matruh, swing inland over Egypt to Luxor, turn again to cross the Red Sea and fly north over Saudi Arabia to reach Amman. The nonstop flight lasts four hours and consumes nearly every drop of fuel. "It is just within range with nothing to spare," says Alia Director Ali Ghandour. "If a hijacker demands to go to some onward destination, he will die for his decision."

The long detour is part of the price that Jordan is paying for King Hussein's suppression and summary expulsion last summer of Palestinian guerrillas who were doing more damage to his kingdom than they were to Israel. Ever since, Jordan has been virtually blockaded by its Arab neighbors. Syria and Iraq barred Jordanian planes from their airspace, and Jordanian farmers have had to dump crops because they were barred from their usual markets in those countries. Shipment of phosphate, Jordan's principal export, was barred by Syria. As a result, Turkey now buys phosphate from Israel. Imported goods are brought in through Jordan's single port of Aqaba. Because the Suez Canal is blocked and ships must go around Africa, prices of imports have risen 7% to 10%.

Hostile Attitude. Jordan has never been able to match expenses with revenues, and Hussein's biggest headache is a money shortage. Libya and Kuwait, which formerly provided $67 million in annual subsidies, cut off that money in response to the King's crackdown on the guerrillas. The U.S. has partially filled the gap with economic and military aid so far totaling $104 million. Last December, Hussein violated the aid agreement by lending nine of his American-supplied F-104 Starfighters to Pakistan for the war against India. India, which now is Jordan's biggest phosphate customer, accepted the explanation that Hussein was chivalrously helping a fellow Moslem nation and did not retaliate.

The irony of an Arab boycott against Arabs infuriates Hussein. "I'm puzzled and I'm disillusioned," he told TIME Correspondent Gavin Scott in an interview at Amman's Basman Palace. "Nothing that has happened since 1967 makes any sense to me at all in terms of logic or what's in the Arab interest." There is no doubt that Libya's fiery Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is the man most responsible for the boycott. Among other things, Gaddafi offered Syrian President Hafez Assad $13 million to participate. (So far he has paid only $5,000,000.) For the moment, Hussein is trying not to further antagonize Gaddafi, with whom he has traded face-to-face insults in the past. "Libya is responsible for putting a great deal of pressure on some in the Arab world to take a hostile attitude toward Jordan," Hussein told Scott. "But to what extent and how I would not care to comment."

The P.L.K.--an irreverent shorthand for "Plucky Little King" used by Western diplomats in Amman--is not bending under the boycott. "I think we are soldiering on quite happily," he told Scott. "The intention was to create discontent but it is having the opposite effect. Our people are more united than they have ever been. We will accept no form of interference in our internal affairs from any quarter." Indeed, the boycott is showing some cracks. Iraq once again permits Alia overflights and recently backed down and allowed Jordan Valley tomatoes into Baghdad, because the price of local products had gone skyhigh. Syria last week announced that Jordanian phosphate trucks could once again use Syrian roads en route to the port of Beirut.

Unclear Policy. The King's greater fear is another war with Israel. He intends to avoid it and also to blunt the boycott with a few new diplomatic moves of his own. Hussein, who until recently was opposed to municipal elections being held this month in Arab towns on the occupied West Bank, is now acquiescent. The King is also trying to increase traffic with the West Bank over the Allenby Bridge.

Last month Jordan allowed 22 American "pilgrims" to enter by way of the bridge despite Israeli stamps on their passports; the group represented the first non-Arabs to traverse that route since the Six-Day War. Last week 38 students from Brigham Young University constituted the first such postwar group to cross in the opposite direction. Peace talks could follow the easing of border restrictions, even though Hussein maintains that Israeli policy now is "unclear and in point of fact dangerous." The King told Scott: "There is no real activity at the moment, but some movement in the right direction must take place and take place soon."

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