The Last major influx of refugees to Jordan took place in 1967 and it consisted of two main groups of Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza strip (Gazaouis). Gaza was densely populated Palestinian area hitherto under Egyptian control, thus its inhabitants had a close economic and political relationship with Egypt. Jordanian government viewed this group as foreign national which could potentially involve Cairo in Amman's affair. Furthermore, Gazaouis were known to be staunch supporters of the PLO which made them even more undesirable (Lunt, J., 1990). To combat with such a likely out-come and to make official distinction clear, the Jordanian government rapidly issued passports and nationality documents for the West Bank Palestinians while only issued temporary residency permits for the Gazaouis. Members of royal family swiftly moved to render themselves with high ranking army positions and the government granted special privileges to army and the tribes to secure their absolute loyalty as the necessary pillars of stability. The policy of Palestinian social segregation was also followed at national stage by almost total exclusion of the native Palestinian from bureaucratic and administrative positions, particularly after the insurrection of PLO in 1971, replacing them with East Jordanian nationals in all levels.
The result of these schemes and addition of the new groups of Palestinian refugees to the existing depressed residents of refugee camps created a sever political tension between PLO and Jordanian Government. Army generals criticised PLO for endangering the maintenance of law and order in the kingdom, and on few occasions Jordanian armed forces actually opened fire on the inhabitants of refugee camps in Jabal Wahdat and Al-Hussein. As time passed, the refugee camps became foci of political opposition to the government. Tensions were still raising from 1968 to 1969 and there were other armed confrontations between PLO supporters and the army between 1970 to 1971 shortly before PLO had totally to
withdraw to Lebanon.
The Arab summit of 1974 recognised the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people and provided the final justification for severing the last remaining strands of formal relationship between the kingdom and the Palestinian movement. With these development the isolation of the Palestinian community in Jordan was complete and their chances of finding any bargaining power with the government seemed but totally lost.
In desperation, Palestinian skilled workers, living in the refugee camps, found an economic out-let in the labour market of the oil reach Arab countries of the Gulf. During 1970’s massive number of these labourers worked in that region and sent their wages back to their dependents. This was in fact a considerable income of foreign currency for Jordan which boosted the inflow of money (remittances) to local economy. A large part of this incomes was spent to acquire housing or on upgrading the existing Palestinian dwellings which greatly benefited local land market and construction industry. According the UDD sources there were 350,000 Palestinians who worked in the Gulf area, sending increasing amount of foreign exchange to Jordan (picking to 1 milliard US$ in 1986). From 1987, this amount was gradually reduced depriving Jordanian economy from its benefits (amounting to US$ 750 million in 1987) (Nasir, A. 1989).
In short, the main source of investment and driving force behind the short-lived economic boom in Jordan during the period of 1973 to 1976 was construction activities. There were two other international factors which contributed to this change of fortune, namely the contemporary policy of United States in the Middle-East and the civil war in Lebanon. At the time US administration favoured King Hussein's policy towards the PLO, and that used its own world-wide influence to facilitate the flow of Western economic and military aids to Jordan. This form of aids started in the early 1970's and increased throughout the decade.
The latter factor was to turn Jordan into temporary safe heaven for Lebanese business community. Gradual escalation of the Lebanese civil war during resulted in the outflow of capital and investments to Jordan and many Lebanese businessmen chose Jordan as a western oriented and close country to shift their capitals to. Some of them particularly invested their money in land accusation and building industry which due to existing high demands, most visibly among Palestinians, was very profitable. Transformation of economic prospects brought social and institutional change to Jordan. In one hand, it increased the social gap between East Jordanians who had more access to land title and the Palestinians living in and around refugee camps with little access to land and services. It also created new economic alliances between government officials and private sector which hitherto was limited to tribal ties.But the most important of all was official recognition of "the housing problem", an issue which never was raised in previous periods, despite Palestinian far cries. Intensified activates of the Land market now meant although government could benefit more from its own land distribution programmes but also it had to think about housing provision for its employees and political allies. Housing could not be left to traditional mechanism of tribal connections and required direct state intervention, planning and investment. In terms of policies and organisations this meant institutional changes to adopt to new circumstances.
5.1. EMERGENCE OF THE HOUSING POLICIES AND HOUSING