Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril

by King Abdullah II

  One of my top priorities was to carry out a broad program of social reforms, and in particular to provide more support for the weakest members of our society. My new government and I began to look at ways of protecting women and children, and to talk publicly about topics that had previously been taboo, such as domestic violence and child abuse.

  One of the biggest taboos was the issue of so-called honor killings, which I had first encountered as a young officer in the army. Women are sometimes murdered by members of their own family, frequently fathers or brothers, when these men feel that they have dishonored the family by indulging in inappropriate relationships. One of my men had killed his female cousin with a knife, and then turned himself over to me as his superior officer. His family had gathered together and debated the issue, and he had been selected to carry out the murder. This soldier was one of my best tank commanders, and he was pressured to fulfill a distorted concept of “honor” that robbed a young woman of her life. I handed him over to the military police, regretting this terrible loss of two young lives, and he was subsequently convicted of murder and sent to prison.

  At the time, I had thought it was a senseless waste. Now that I was in a position to influence public policy, I was determined to act. I could not change people’s mindset overnight, but I could do something about how these crimes were investigated and prosecuted, and how they would be treated by society.

  I attacked on several fronts. We began an awareness campaign, stressing that such murders were morally wrong and went against the teachings of Islam, and tackled the penal code and judiciary. Rania was an outspoken critic of “honor” killings, and she joined a demonstration march to Parliament against them. We began to provide institutional support to women suffering from domestic violence, and set up shelters for battered women.

  One of our biggest problems was that the victim’s family would often not come forward and press charges. Added to that, many judges treated “honor” killings as crimes of passion rather than murders, and the typical sentence handed down was between six months and two years. Now all such crimes are considered murders; special courts have been set up to address these cases and they are taking a harsher view. The penal code was amended to ensure that the perpetrators receive no leniency.

  Over time, our efforts began to show fruit. Sentences became harsher, and cases became less frequent. The number of “honor” crimes dropped from thirteen in 2008 to ten in 2009. The murderers whose trials ended in 2009 were sentenced to ten years in prison, compared to sentences that ranged between six months’ to two years’ imprisonment before the law was amended. But to my mind, even one such killing is a stain on the honor of all Jordanians, and I will not rest until such a barbaric view of justice no longer has a place in our country.

  One of the more frustrating misconceptions in the West is that all Arab women are oppressed, illiterate, kept at home to look after children, and forced to wear the veil when they venture out of the house. Many women across Jordan and the Arab world, like my wife, go to university and then achieve great things in their professional careers. Statistics for the school system in Jordan show that every single year the highest grades in high school exams are achieved by girls. Our modern, educated, successful professional women have more in common with professional women in London, New York, or Paris than with the oppressed prisoners of Western imagination. Some of these women choose to cover their hair with a head scarf, while others, like Rania, do not. But this tells you nothing about their abilities or professional achievements. The traditionally dressed Jordanian woman wearing a head scarf may have a PhD from MIT or Harvard. As Rania likes to say, “We should judge women according to what’s going on in their heads rather than what’s on top of their heads.”

  But it is a sad fact that there is more than a grain of truth to the stereotype. Many Arab men are extremely prejudiced and believe that women should either stay at home and raise children or be restricted to certain professions. Even in my own family, some of my brothers and cousins were against my sisters, Aisha and Iman, going to Sandhurst—although no one dared to try to stop them. Somewhere along the line you need more women like them to stand up and say, “Let me lead my life as I want to lead it!”

  Rania has worked hard to address misperceptions about women in Arab societies. She has been an outspoken champion of women’s rights, and in recent years she has adopted the most modern communications tools—such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter—to make her case. She quickly realized that, in a globally connected world, the Internet allows us Jordanians to speak beyond our borders, making our country’s small size and lack of resources irrelevant. By going online, she could be heard around the world.

  Technology is in many ways an equalizer, and it means that the first lady of even a small country like Jordan can have a prominent voice on the international stage. But the question then is, how do you make sure that what you have to say is interesting? How do you make sure that you use this tool in the most effective, creative, fun way that will just keep people engaged to hear your message? And it is here that Rania has done some terrific work, using technology to communicate her messages on the importance of education and to challenge misconceptions about Islam and the Arab world. Her most important work has been improving the educational standards for children across Jordan.

  In April 2008, Rania launched the Madrasati (“My School”) initiative, a groundbreaking program to improve the quality of education in five hundred disadvantaged public schools throughout the Kingdom. At the heart of Madrasati is a simple concept: we all share responsibility for our children’s education. Madrasati brings together businesses, nongovernmental organizations, communities, and the Ministry of Education with parents, teachers, and pupils in pursuit of one common goal: rejuvenating schools in need. Since its 2008 launch, over three hundred public schools have been revitalized, lifting the lives of more than 110,000 students. The initiative has significantly enhanced the infrastructure of those schools and has introduced a series of programs that improve the educational experience, such as health awareness, access to technology and medical services, and teacher training.

  Alarmed by the deteriorating conditions of schools in East Jerusalem and the dangerous implications of the increasing school dropout rate for a population that not only prizes education but needs it for its survival, Rania launched Madrasati Palestine in 2010. The initiative will build on the experience in Jordan while trying to address the specific needs of the 94,000 school-aged Palestinian children in East Jerusalem. It hopes to reintegrate some of the 10,000 children who are now out of school in the city, and to improve graduation rates, especially among boys, who are now dropping out at a rate of over 50 percent.

  In early March 1999 we restored diplomatic relations with Kuwait, suspended since the first Gulf War. Feelings among Kuwaitis had been raw, because some people mistakenly believed that my father’s attempts to prevent the war meant that he had sided with Saddam. That Rania had grown up in Kuwait proved helpful in putting all of that baggage behind us. Later that month, I met with Yasser Arafat, chairman of the PLO and then president of the Palestinian National Authority, who visited me in Amman for the first time since I had become king. We discussed the lack of progress in the peace process and Arafat’s upcoming visit to Washington. Although Arafat had a long history of jousting with my father, I sensed that he respected him. He had been quite emotional when he bowed before my father’s coffin at the funeral. I was prepared to listen to him and to help where I could.

  Two weeks later, to mark the end of the forty-day mourning period for my father, some of my advisers suggested that we grant amnesty for certain prisoners, as was the tradition with the accession of a new ruler. I agreed, on condition that we not release anyone accused of a very serious crime, such as murder or rape. My advisers came up with a list of seven hundred people who, they said, had been very carefully vetted, and I gave my approval for their release. Both houses of Parliament voted to approve the amnesty, and a few
days later the first of the prisoners walked free. One of them, Ahmed Fadil Khalayleh, a man now notoriously known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, should never have been allowed out of jail. I would later bitterly regret that his name was on the list.

  Some leaders, such as Netanyahu and Arafat, had come to visit me. But others were waiting for me to visit them. It was a delicate time. My fellow Arab rulers had all known my father and my uncle, in many cases for decades, and I would have to work hard to earn their respect as a peer. Some had fought with my father, and even tried to kill him. In those instances, I could use the fact that I was new to the job to start over with a clean slate.

  Chapter 14

  Friends and Neighbors

  One thing that is not well understood in the West is the diversity of the Middle East. Even though the countries of Europe share a common religion and political structure, there are tremendous cultural and social differences between a Swede and a Greek, a German and a Spaniard. Even European countries that speak the same language, such as Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales, have fiercely defended their cultural and historical identities. So it makes little sense to talk about a “European”; most citizens of Europe will define themselves by their national identity.

  There is a similar level of diversity in the Middle East. A Moroccan is quite different from a Jordanian or a Yemeni. Even though most Arab countries share a common religion, Islam, and a common language, Arabic, there are important cultural and historical differences between them, and they are also home to significant religious minorities. The Egyptians trace their history back to the ancient civilization of the Pharaohs, while the Gulf states have a bedouin desert tradition. Turks and Iranians speak different languages and have their own histories and cultures. So it makes as little sense to make sweeping generalizations about all “Arabs” as it does with all “Europeans.”

  Even though I had met my counterparts around the region with my father, no one was going to go easy on me just because I was my father’s son. I live in a tough neighborhood. And as the new King of Jordan, I was about to find out just how tough it really was. To the west were Palestine as well as Israel, the region’s only nuclear power. To the east was Baathist Iraq, ruled by Saddam Hussein, who had fought wars with two of his other neighbors and had a million men under arms. To the north was Syria, ruled by Hafez al-Assad, an astute leader who had been in office for around three decades. And to the south was Saudi Arabia, home to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, where Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz was assuming wider responsibilities due to the illness of his brother, King Fahd. Just over the horizon in Egypt was Hosni Mubarak, an experienced leader with whom my father had developed a strong friendship. And farther afield were Libya, the Gulf states—Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman—and, across the Arabian Gulf, Iran. Many leaders of those countries had been in power for decades and would likely remain there for years to come. The presidents were often in office longer than the kings.

  My father had known all of these leaders personally and, as one of the world’s longest-serving heads of state, many of their predecessors too. He had taught me that Jordan had to maintain a delicate balance in regional politics. Relations with our neighbors had sometimes been turbulent. A few of them during the 1950s and 1960s, when Arab nationalism was pervasive, had even tried to overthrow or assassinate my father. But all had come to pay their respects at his funeral and mourned his passing. Now I would have to form my own relationships with them. And from my father’s experience I knew it would be hard to predict when they would be supportive and when they would not.

  One leader I knew I would not be too close to was Saddam Hussein. Once I became king, I had very little direct contact with him. I chose not to visit Baghdad, but Iraq was not so easily avoided. It continued to be a source of concern, as many in the international community were worried about the possibility that Iraq would again attack one of its neighbors and suspected that Saddam had restarted his biological and nuclear weapons programs.

  Tensions between Baghdad and the United States had been building steadily in the last year of my father’s life. In September 1998 the Iraq Liberation Act was introduced in the U.S. Congress, stipulating, “It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.” President Clinton signed the act into law on October 31, 1998, at which point “regime change” became official U.S. policy. The next day, Saddam threw the UN weapons inspectors out of the country. Six weeks later, Clinton launched four days of air strikes against Iraqi weapons facilities from carriers in the Arabian Gulf, with British forces also joining in the attack.

  This was a period of intense domestic pressure for Clinton. Throughout 1998 his affair with a White House intern had been under investigation, and the president had been forced to testify before a grand jury. On the last day of the air strikes, December 19, he was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for perjury. He was acquitted by the Senate the following February, but that did not signal the end of his woes.

  The relentless legal assault on the U.S. president made my father furious. Whatever Clinton’s personal failings, my father knew him as a firm friend of Jordan and a strong supporter of the peace process, and it was his nature to always come to the defense of friends. My father was a great admirer of America’s democratic traditions, but on occasion he believed things could go too far. He thought the whole investigation into Clinton’s personal life was like a soap opera, and he was really upset that people were attacking the president in such a vicious way. I remember watching television with him at the Mayo Clinic when Ken Starr, who was leading the investigation, came on the news. My father blew up and forcefully expressed his disapproval of how Starr was handling the investigation. “If I ever met that man, I would give him a piece of my mind,” he burst out—and that was not all he said. I left Mayo that night pleased that his morale was high and he still had his fighting spirit.

  One difference between politics in the Middle East and in Europe and America is its deeply personal nature. In the West, international affairs tend to be conducted through institutions and permanent cadres of civil servants who provide policy continuity as political leaders step on and off the stage. Personal relations tend to be less important than the correct set of talking points.

  But in my part of the world, people like to get to know one another face-to-face. We pride ourselves on our culture of hospitality, which often means a lot of eating and socializing. In the West, it is perfectly acceptable to meet with a head of state for twenty minutes, conduct some business, and move on. But in the Arab world it is considered rude to visit for a short time. The appropriate way to host honored guests is to invite them to a grand dinner. The real work gets done in informal conversations after the dinner, not in official meetings.

  I knew I would have to build personal relationships with my fellow Arab leaders. The centers of power in the Middle East are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iraq, due to their size and historical importance, and the Gulf countries, because of their wealth and influence. I would need to meet the leaders of all of these nations to establish good relations. So in late March 1999 I began a whirlwind tour of the region, stopping first in Egypt, where I met President Hosni Mubarak.

  Egypt has for centuries been a major center of regional power due to its size, history, and religious institutions. Cairo is home to Al Azhar University, which at over a thousand years old is one of the world’s most ancient, and Egyptians fondly refer to their country in Arabic as um al dunya—“mother of the world.”

  The Mubaraks have been family friends since the early 1980s, and I knew Hosni Mubarak and his son Gamal well. Mubarak was extremely warm when he greeted me. We talked about some of the challenges we were both facing, and in particular about the difficulty of providing jobs and opportunities for a young population facing terrible poverty and unemployment. M
ubarak mentioned how much the region had suffered from Rabin’s assassination a few years earlier. Rabin had been prepared to make considerable sacrifices for peace, and we both reflected on how the entire Middle East would have benefited from his forceful determination to come to terms with the Palestinians. Looking across our borders into Israel, neither of us saw a leader with the strength to bring his countrymen along with him as Rabin could have done. The stalled peace process and how to reinvigorate it were, and would be in every other meeting we would later have, major items on our agenda. We talked about the need to push for a breakthrough that would put the region back on track toward a settlement on the basis of the two-state solution.

  Not long after that, in early April, I paid a visit to King Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his brother Crown Prince Abdullah in Jeddah. Crown Prince Abdullah had assumed a great deal of responsibility for ruling Saudi Arabia in recent years due to King Fahd’s failing health. I first met Prince Abdullah in the late 1970s when, on holiday from Deerfield, I went with my father and Feisal to Taif, a mountain town that is the summer seat of the Saudi Royal Court. I sat next to him at a dinner and remember reflecting on the fact that this man, almost forty years older than me, and I shared the same name. He had been a crack shot and told me stories about putting out cigarettes with his pistol. He was also a keen rider and regaled me with accounts of his horses.

  But although Crown Prince Abdullah and I had a good personal rapport, the relationship between Jordan and Saudi Arabia had historically been a delicate one. The Hashemite family originally came from the Hijaz and had ruled over the holy cities of Mecca and Medina for more than seven hundred years, until 1925, when the Hashemites lost the area to Ibn Saud, who founded the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. My father’s relationship with the Saudis had been very strong, but it was damaged by the position he had taken in the Gulf War in 1991. Never one to let politics trump personal friendship, however, Crown Prince Abdullah visited my father at his house in Washington in the last months of his life and brought him Zamzam water, which comes from a well in the holy city of Mecca. He poured the water for him as a good omen, and also brought a copy of the Holy Quran, a gesture that deeply touched my father, who spoke of it more than once with warm appreciation in the days that followed.