His Majesty King Abdullah II’s interview with Bengt Norborg on SVT2 Aktuellt
Anchorman: Jordan's King Abdullah is now directing harsh criticism at both sides of the conflict, but it is necessary for a Palestinian state to be formed for it to be possible to resolve the conflict, he says. Aktuellt has met King Abdullah prior to his state visit to Sweden, which will begin tomorrow.
SVT2: King Abdullah is possibly the leader in the Middle East who is manoeuvring with the greatest caution and who, not without dexterity, has managed to follow in his father's footsteps and keep Jordan out of all the violence and all conflicts. The country lies squeezed between Israel and Iraq, two trouble spots that many fear could spill over onto Jordan.
King Abdullah: The worst situation is the core issue, the Israeli-Palestinian one, because until you solve that there will never be the peace, the stability, the future for all in the Middle East, the social, economic and political conditions that all of us want, until you solve the core issue, like extremism, battling terrorism. If you don't solve this problem then the Middle East will always be unstable, so the larger issue has always been and will always be the Israel-Palestinian one. Iraq obviously is of tremendous difficulty for everybody, it is unstable and this is creating a lot of problems, but in the total picture it is a secondary problem.
SVT2: If His Majesty could wish for one thing to change in the region, for one thing that could have the strongest impact on events, what would that be then?
King Abdullah: I would say put some moral strength and common sense in leaders. If you look at the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the people paying the price are the people. It is the normal Israeli and Palestinian that are suffering. The courage comes to the leadership. We know what it takes to bring peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, it is fairly articulated in the roadmap by United Nations resolution; by the Arabs' proposal to give Israel anything they ever wanted from the Arabs. Everybody knows what needs to be done. But we are in the position now of the blame game, Israelis and Palestinian leadership continue to point the finger at each other. I believe the future for the Israelis is not to the borders to Jordan or to the Golan Heights up in the north or to the Sinai in the south. I presume that Israelis want a future, which allows integration from Morocco on the Atlantic to Oman in the Indian Ocean. They want to be a part of the neighbourhood. The Arabs are prepared to give them all that but for one simple thing, the Palestinians also need a future, they need to have a state. So it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what is to be done. We all know what needs to be done. It just needs international pressure, including that of United States, to say to Israelis and Palestinians that this has to happen and will happen.
SVT2: In anticipation of this, Jordan is trying to continue to grow but without those tourist revenues and the trade that a peace agreement with Israel was intended to give. Jordan has in fact no natural resources of its own but is investing in infrastructure and education. Queen Rania has involved herself a great deal in social issues. Here she is opening a new school. The royal couple are also one of the most written about and popular in the world, but on the domestic scene it will probably take a while before King Abdullah has fully shouldered the mantle left behind by his father King Hussein.
What does His Majesty say to the people who despair of peace, who are fed up with the situation and don't want to hear anything more about it?
King Abdullah: Well, it's pretty simple. If people give up; and there are a lot of voices out there that it is just too difficult to get involved with either the issues of Iraq or the Israelis and Palestinians and wish to give up, that means more violence, that means more Israelis and Palestinians losing their lives on the Israel-Palestinian issue, more destruction inside Iraq. And as we have learned as a good lesson after September 11, nobody is safe. So this crisis is going to infect all of us in the international community and nobody is safe. So to put your head in the sand and ignore the situation is not the outcome that I think is realistic. We have to keep trying. We have to find a solution and solve the problems. Otherwise people are going to pay the price whether it is us in the region, or in the United States, Europe or even Sweden. It is an international problem now.
