Jordan Foreign Policy

King Hussein, reaching out to both Iraq and Kuwait, called Friday for postwar unity among the Arabs and warned of "painful memories which can be transformed into hatred and rancor if they are allowed to grow and fester." "I do not propose to go into the details of the sad drama because you know it too well. You have lived it," he said of the Persian Gulf crisis that divided Arab countries into hostile camps.

King Hussein, reaching out to both Iraq and Kuwait, called Friday for postwar unity among the Arabs and warned of "painful memories which can be transformed into hatred and rancor if they are allowed to grow and fester." "I do not propose to go into the details of the sad drama because you know it too well. You have lived it," he said of the Persian Gulf crisis that divided Arab countries into hostile camps.

A prominent politician in Amman advertised his dissent from his government's backing for Iraq by reprinting and handing to friends an editorial from a newspaper in Egypt that was critical of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. He thought nothing of the gesture--after all, Jordan has come to view itself as a nascent democracy--until a colleague came to him with a warning: "The Iraqi Embassy is wondering why you are spreading anti-Iraqi literature."

A prominent politician in Amman advertised his dissent from his government's backing for Iraq by reprinting and handing to friends an editorial from a newspaper in Egypt that was critical of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. He thought nothing of the gesture--after all, Jordan has come to view itself as a nascent democracy--until a colleague came to him with a warning: "The Iraqi Embassy is wondering why you are spreading anti-Iraqi literature."

When the United Nations voted to partition Palestine, the United States supported the two-state solution. Israel came into existence, but the Palestinian state never emerged. Arab opponents of partition viewed the creation of a Palestinian state as acceptance of Israel's existence. Today the situation is reversed. The Arab nations and the Palestinians call for an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel is opposed, citing the threat to its security, and the U.S.

King Hussein, whose death from cancer at age 63 was announced Sunday, survived more than four decades of turbulent Middle East history to become a pivotal figure in the search for peace. A lifelong champion of the Arab cause, the tenacious monarch of Jordan sent his troops into two wars with Israel against impossible odds yet in his last years became the Israelis' most trusted ally in the Arab world and a crucial mediator attempting to build a lasting peace.