Israel
Regal gestures
ERIC SILVER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT
Jerusaiem
King Hussein, who has made a career of caution, on Sunday boldly came, consoled and conquered 5.5 million Israelis.
By the end of a 10-hour flying visit to Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem last Sunday, he had Israel at his feet and had consolidated a leading role for himself at the apex of the Israel-Palestinian-Jordanian triangle of peace.
Two classes from Beit Shemesh's Fuerst religious high school, seven of whose eighth-grade girls were shot dead by a
Jordanian soldier during a field trip on March 13, wrote to thank the king for visiting the bereaved families.
"He was a brave man," Motti Farber, principal of the junior high department, reflected, "especially if you remember what happened to his grandfather."
The king's grandfather, King Abdullah, was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1951 by a young Palestinian fanatic for "selling out" to the Jews. Today's king, then a young boy, stood nearby as it happened. "If there were a few more Hke Hussein," the British-bom Mr. Farber added, "we might have got out of this conflict a lot quicker."
The people he visited, ofl;en kneeling on the floor in front of them, were the ones who are often seen as having the most hard-line view against the Arabs. They were blue-collar Israelis, mostly of Middle Eastern or North African origin, wearing shapeless jeans and rumpled sweaters (no Shabbat suits, even for a crowned head).
One set of parents were deaf mutes. The interpreter translat-
ed into sign language. In several of the homes, immigrant grandparents of the 1950s and 1960s addressed the king in their native Arabic.
In the Jewish tradition, the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters were sitting s/iiua/i with only cushions or mattresses between them and the tiled floor.
Jordan Television, which received a live feed from Israel TV, delayed screening the footage, presumably while the producers confirmed that it was kosher to show it. Once they received the green light, they ran it uncut.
Paying respects: King Hussein shakes hands with iVIargaiit Badayev, the mother of slain Israeii school girl Shiri, during a condolence call at the parent's home.
If the king \vas in any danger, it was not in Beit Shemesh or Jerusalem. Unlike the aRermath of last year's bus bombings, there were no mobs chanting: "Death to the Arabs." No one spray-pamted anti-Jordanian slogans on the walls. In Beit Shemesh, which once won notoriety for running Labor leader Shimon Peres out of town with a barrage of tomatoes, the same ri^t-wingers put up posters welcoming His Majesty.
That's because Israelis supported the 1994 peace treaty witJi Jordan. They want it to succeed. 1 he king fought against Israel in two wars, but he was never a terrorist 'Tm against ihc peace witli the Palestinians," Almog Shuni, a 17-year-old boy in the Fuerst school, said. "But I still think it's possible to live in peace with Jordan. Even after last week."
The king's visit to Beit Shemesh £vid Jerusalem, as one commentator said, was a double triumph. "He eroded the stereotypes by exposing Jordanians to the humanity of the Israeli in Uie street." □