clause requiring that Jordan recognize the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinians; Wasfi Tal rejected this clause. Habash and Hawatmeh continued their attacks on the monarchy in spite of the Amman agreement. Hussein appointed Tal to form a government. Tal was seen as anti-Palestinian; however, he had made pro-Palestinian gestures during his previous two tenures as prime minister. Tal viewed Arafat with suspicion as he considered that the PLO concentrated its efforts against the Jordanian state rather than against Israel. On one occasion, Tal lost his temper and shouted at Arafat "You are a liar; you don't want to fight Israel!". Shlaim describes Tal as a more uncompromising figure than Hussein, and very popular with the army. Clashes between the army, and the PFLP and DFLP, ensued after Tal was instated. Tal launched an offensive against fedayeen bases along the Amman-Jerash road in January 1971, and the army drove them out of Irbid in March. In April, Tal ordered the PLO to relocate all its bases from Amman to the forests between Ajloun and Jerash. The fedayeen initially resisted, but they were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. In July, the army surrounded the last remaining 2,000 fedayeen from the Ajloun-Jerash area. The fedayeen finally surrendered and were allowed to leave to Syria, some 200 fighters preferred to cross the Jordan River to surrender to Israeli forces rather than to the Jordanians. At a 17 July press conference, Hussein declared that Jordanian sovereignty had been completely restored, and that there "was no problem now". Aftermath Jordan In the wake of the conflict, the new civilian government of Tal began a wide-scale purge of the government's bureaucracy and military, freeing them from any supporters of the guerrillas. This effectively meant that large numbers of Palestinian officers, bureaucrats and even some Jordanians were expelled from their jobs. This was accompanied by a war by Tal on the newspapers and massive arrests of the government against the "saboteurs". Many newspapers were closed, their permits withdrawn and their editors rejected. Even though the conflict was not a result of a Jordanian-Palestinian divide as there were Palestinians and Jordanians on both sides of the conflict, but rather paved the way for the divide. Ali Kassay further elaborated: Hussein's resilience in the face of the joint Palestinian-Syrian challenge impressed both the West and Israel. Nixon ordered $10 million in aid to be delivered to Jordan, and