Jewish World Review /Feb. 10, 1999 / 24 Shevat, 5759
King Hussein Was
Truly Gentle Man of Peace . . .
JOURNALISTS ARE SUPPOSED TO keep an
impersonal distance from the people they
write about, lest familiarity shade our
reporting. It's a good rule; a little flattery has been
known to lull the judgment of even veteran cynics
among us.
But somehow, Jordan's King Hussein bin Talal was different. He
had a gracious knack of putting you at ease, a regal talent to make
you feel at once equal but decidedly in the presence of a king. He
remembered faces and names. When he shook your hand, he'd
grasp your arm. When he answered a reporter's question, he always
said, "Sir."
You had to admire his tenacity and courage, even when you
disagreed with his policies. He was, as one colleague once put it, "a
good guy" — a tireless leader who kept his artificially created nation
alive through courage and cunning, a sovereign who won his
countrymen's loyalty and affection through his fidelity to them, a
husband and father who deeply loved his family and faith — and a
man who also enjoyed racing cars, flying planes and the presence of
pretty women.
He was only a few years older than I am. And because I'd spent so
much of my life and career in the Middle East, where his public
presence was constant for nearly half a century, I sometimes felt as
if, in a way, we'd grown up together. I once dared to mention this to
him at a private dinner. He chuckled warmly and said, "Well, sir, I
hope we are still both growing!"
Not long after the Gulf War ended, I was back in Amman to
interview Hussein once more. It was not the best of times.
Pressured by his poor country's economic dependence on Iraq —
not to mention his subjects' overwhelming support of Saddam
Hussein — the king had opted out of the U.S.-led alliance and
vocally opposed military action against Iraq.
It cost him and his resource-poor desert kingdom dearly.
Washington was furious with him, and the oil-rich Saudis had cut off
all support. When I came to his hilltop palace at the appointed hour,
Hussein was in a meeting. Ever hospitable, he stuck his head into
the anteroom to apologize for the delay and make sure that someone
brought me a sandwich.
When we eventually retired to a back porch at his adjoining private
residence, he loosened his tie and over glasses of freshly squeezed
orange juice looked back at the Gulf War. He tried to defend his
role and gave his version of events. But he also looked forward.
"With good will and calm, this region can still bloom," he said
wistfully. "I only pray that something good will come out of all this
violence."
It did. It helped trigger the true beginnings of Arab-Israeli peace, of
which this great Arab leader was a major architect, publicly and
secretly.
The last time I saw the king in person was in New York. He was
being honored by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.
The scene was wonderfully surrealistic: Hussein, his beautiful
American-born wife, Queen Noor, and a sizable royal Jordanian
party — all surrounded by almost 1,000 American Jews. On the
stage, two bands took turns playing. One traditional Arab music; the
other, klezmer.
In his eloquent speech, he spoke once more of his devotion to
bringing a lasting peace to Arabs and Israelis, Jews, Christians and
Muslims — "all the Children of Abraham, all of our brothers."
It was one of his favorite themes — the one Hussein invoked when
he made peace with Israel, when he grieved at Yitzhak Rabin's
funeral, when he went on bended knee to visit families of Israeli
girls murdered by a Jordanian assassin, when he heroically, but
characteristically, got out of his sickbed last year to urge Israelis and
Palestinians not to destroy their peace accord.
Now this great son of the desert is gone, and all the children of
Abraham weep. We will sorely miss this brave brother of
By Richard Z. Chesnoff
JWR contributor and veteran journalist
Richard Z. Chesnoff is a senior correspondent at US News
And World Report and a columnist at the NY Daily News. His book on the wartime plunder
of the Jews, Pack of Thieves, will be published by Doubleday in 1999.
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