The Queen and a king
James MacManus
Amman From the hills around Amman at night one can see the lights of Jerusalem some 30 miles away across the Jordan valley. By day truckloads of oranges from the Gaza °trip and vegetables from the West Bank cross the valley floor, trundling noisily over the creaky Allenby Bridge to unload in the Markets of Jordan and beyond. There is a constant passage of people !cross this armistice line as Palestinians 'rent the West Bank, tourists from America and Europe, diplomats and churchmen cross and recross the disappointing ditch that denotes the de facto frontier between Israel and Jordan. nGeography, recent history and commerce 4,11 find the two countries in a reluctant rela- tionship that neither can easily break. It is not surprising therefore that the Queen's first visit to Jordan this week should have been accompanied by rumblings of dis- Pleasure from across the valley. The Israelis are peeved that no member Of the royal family has ever set foot in the Jewish state. They are doubly irritated that the Queen should descend upon Jordan and annoint King Hussein with the fulsome tribute to his 'qualities of courage and statesmanship... which have made Jordan a. beacon of stability.' This is a royal and deserved blessing for a fine man but it is unlikely to endear Her Majesty to an Israeli Vvernment not a few of whose ministers believe Jordan to be an illegitimate sibling of the British Empire. President Chaim Herzog, who arrived in the on Tuesday for a ten-day visit at ue invitation of British Jewry, is a solid Labour man who does not share the view of the wilder Likud ministers that Jordan should be delivered- or pushed- into the in-
evitable chaos of a Palestinian state. But he is as miffed as most of his countrymen that the royal family has fought shy of Israel for 36 years and he will use his lunch at Wind- sor next week to suggest tactfully that the Queen would be warmly welcomed in the Jewish state.
The Foreign Office is already primed to fight this suggestion with the argument that while Israel occupies Arab territory in the West Bank and Gaza such a visit would turn most of our Middle East embassies into smouldering ruins.
And so politics and the shadow of ter- rorism once again form the backcloth to a royal tour. On this occasion the threat of violence to the Queen's person almost wrecked the visit before it began. The tim- ing and location of the one pound of gelignite that exploded harmlessly outside the Intercontinental Hotel on Saturday sug- gested that the Syrian-based Palestinian ter- rorist group which claimed responsibility was really after headlines in the British press — who happened to be staying in the hotel — and cancellation of the visit.
The terrorist leader in question, Abu Nidal, whose visiting card normally turns up on the corpses of slain Arab diplomats, got his first wish as the 85-strong British press corps gave the propaganda bomb and another undetonated device containing 21 sticks of explosive, royal treatment in the Sunday papers. But as Mrs Thatcher sum- moned her ministers for an out of hours session last Saturday to debate the risks of the royal visit the Queen put her foot down. She let it be known that she was not going to be deflected from a long overdue visit to a country whose king she has known and liked since they both took their thrones in 1953.
The Syrian-inspired campaign to embar- rass and humiliate its Hashemite neighbour, abetted by some heavy Israeli propaganda activity in London, thus ran into those two pillars of the British establishment, Buck- ingham Palace and the Foreign Office. The latter was just as determined as the Queen that the visit should go ahead, partly because British interests in the region would have taken a terrible knock if Syria's diplomacy of terror had been seen to triumph yet again.
The Foreign Office, which writes the Queen's speeches on such trips, was also anxious to thwart Israeli efforts to land a royal visit of its own. At a banquet given by King Hussein on the first night of the visit, the Queen, who was obviously delighted by her host, firmly expressed her pleasure at the visit. The speeches took a political turn after the orange juice toasts (the King never drinks and since this is the age of Pan- Islamism rather than Pan-Arabism he will not have his guests filmed doing so either).
In a speech by the Queen that came straight from the pen of the British ambas- sador to Amman, Alan Urwick, the reference to the Palestinian problem was brief and to the point.
'The tragedy that has befallen the Palesti- nian people affects no country more than Jordan. My Government will continue to support all constructive efforts to achieve a peaceful, just and lasting solution to this problem in accordance with the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations Organisation,' the Queen said.
This is a standard Foreign Office line, but the reaction from Jerusalem was not long in coming. At seven a.m. the next morning, Israel Radio, in one of its four daily English news bulletins, wheeled on its correspon- dent in London to talk of the 'controversy' surrounding the Queen's remarks and to state quite baldly that at a forthcoming royal dinner for the Israeli ambassador in London the Queen would find herself in 'confrontation' with the envoy.
Compared to some royal remarks on tour, the regal nod towards the Palestinian issue was not controversial at all. In Zambia in 1979 the Queen told an admiring President Kenneth Kaunda that the Roman colonisation of Britain had done us a power of good. the corollary was neither lost on Dr Kaunda, nor did it upset him in the slightest.
But in the Middle East skins tend to be thin, tempers short and paranoia abounds. Coupled with her praise of King Hussein's orderly kingdom the Queen's acknowledg- ment of the plight of the Palestinians rubb- ed salt into a very old Israeli wound. That will not deter a new Labour government in Israel, as now seems likely later this year, from pushing for a royal visit. Nor will it thwart the activities of Syria's violent agents in Jordan. But both have been set aside briefly for a visit that has brought great satisfaction to host and guest and pro- duced a rare and pleasurable interlude in an increasingly violent region.
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