The Future of the Middle East

This is a speech His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan gave today at Oxford University.

In the Name of God, the Most merciful, the Compassionate

Mr. Chancellor,

Distinguished Members of the University,

My friends,

It is a wonderful experience to join you today. For me, only one day at Oxford rivals this one, and that was the day in 1982 that I entered university, and joined this extraordinary community of fellowship and knowledge.

I am especially pleased to receive this honour from the hands of a champion of global dialogue, my friend Chris Patten. But may I say, I see this honour as one for all Jordanians. It is they who inspire me - their achievement and tenacity; their hard work, and their loyalty to our nation. The responsibility I bear as a Hashemite is dedicated to their future. So today, it is on behalf of all Jordanians, that I do most gratefully accept this honorary degree.

My friends,

Since 1190 Oxford has been welcoming international students ... encouraging the most rigorous enquiry ... and inspiring innovative thinking. This University is the wellspring of a worldwide community of graduates ... men and women energized by its standards of excellence and social responsibility. Scholars and scientists here have revolutionized human understanding and advanced human welfare ... not for your country only, but for the world.

It is with a deep respect for these global contributions that I wish to speak today. I wish to speak about the urgent need to understand and act upon the threat facing the Middle East today. I wish to speak about the need to prevent global disaster by preventing regional disaster. I wish to speak about the opportunity to make my region a contributor to world stability, rather than a source of radiating crisis.

Today, for much of the developed world, wars are history. For the Middle East, they remain a constant. Our region is in the firing line of extremist ideologies that seek to divide and control. Their strategy is to promote confrontation, break down moderation, and sever cooperation with the West. This minority of extremists have driven conflicts that are now increasing at an unprecedented rate. New actors, new military doctrines, and advanced weapons capabilities are transforming the security landscape. Frustration over the Palestinian situation has fuelled radicalism. There has been no easing of the public perception that the global system has ignored the Arab and Muslim world.

I do not need to say that, for a region as strategic as the Middle East, these trends are a crisis - not only for us, but for you. Our regions are deeply intertwined - in trade, in the movement of peoples, in security, in ideas. And we have a critical shared interest in how the challenge is met ... whether we find the right answers ... and whether we find them in time.

Powerful models are at hand. Our globalizing world has brought opportunity and progress, not just because of economic efficiencies, but because of its expanding partnerships. Here, and elsewhere, people are seeing that peaceful engagement, not hostility, is the way to a better future. It is a path that Europe itself has spearheaded, through historic reconciliations and a pioneering regional community. Today the European Community joins 27 countries and 500 million people ... with, by the way, at least six religions, with Islam as the second largest - all forming a diverse community, that cooperates, under the rule of law, for mutual benefit.

It is moderation, not extremism, that opens the way to that future - through co-existence, cooperation, and all the benefits they entail. I believe this path is essential for my region. But to achieve it, we must work together - boldly, effectively - to create the strategic space for peace and progress to grow.

The first step is - must be - peace at the core. Justice and statehood, finally, for the Palestinian people.

We meet here today, on a day - June 4th - that resonates in the ears of every Arab. June 4th, 1967, marks the last day a Palestinian lived free of occupation. The next day, June 5th, began 41 years of whiplashing violence, invasive settlements, a crippled economy, and harsh and multiplying restrictions on life. For Israel, it has been 41 years of incessant conflict. Sixty years after its founding, it is still not recognized by 57 countries representing one-third of the members of the United Nations, with a total population greater than Europe and the United States combined.

While the conflict continues, people on both sides lose. It is time to help people win. For Palestinians, justice and a future, in an independent, sovereign, and viable state. For Israelis, recognition and security - a security that isolation, behind walls and military forces, can never bring.

The groundwork is in place, the opportunity is here. And Europe, especially the United Kingdom, can make a critical contribution ... as honest brokers in negotiations ... as sources of security support ... and as investors in the Palestinian economy. Your efforts will send a global message to young people, young Muslims especially, that the international community can and will deliver on its promise of justice and hope.

Nothing is more important for the youth of our region - 200 million young men and women - the largest and the fastest growing youth cohort in our history. They see, in a thousand different ways, all this century has to offer ... and they want to share in that promise. Yet most of our countries are still developing their way out of poverty. Even in this plugged-in generation, illiteracy remains unacceptably high, especially for women. Our youth face some of the world's worst unemployment rates.

We must respond. Over the next few years, there needs to be wide-scale, tangible solutions to the issues that affect people's lives: community development ... access to health care ... affordable energy ... secure water resources ... good schools ... gender equality ... and jobs, jobs, jobs - some 200 million more - for college graduates as well as school-leavers.

We in the region are determined to lead the way. We look to those who understand the stakes to join with us. In Jordan, we have pressed forward, in spite of the obstacles, making a major commitment to development and reform. Our people are participating more actively than ever in the larger world, rejecting the voices of extremism and hatred. Our country is the home of the Amman Message ... with its global message about Islam and its call for tolerance, mutual respect, and human equality.

My friends,

Jordan has taken risks for a future of peace in our region and the world. I hope we can look to the members of this university for intellectual, moral and practical support.

Bonds between the Arab, Muslim, and British peoples go back hundreds of years. In the medieval Canterbury Tales, Chaucer tells us the mark of a learned English doctor: to be "well versed" in the work of Al Razi, Ibn Sina, and Ibn Rushd. Ibn Sina's The Canon of Medicine was a standard text for European medical students well into the 17th century.

Today, such academic cross-fertilization continues. I treasure this honorary degree as a symbol of the close relationship between Oxford and the Arab world. Academic exchanges and joint projects have brought our people together. Our students have been welcomed here. Alumni make a major contribution. Jordan's Oxonians are in key roles across society - banking, telecommunications, humanitarian work, public service, and more.

Such interactions between East and West are vital today - and we need many more. Not just official delegations, but students, teachers, entrepreneurs, civic leaders, development innovators and others. If we refuse to accept the walls that others would create, imagine what we can achieve. What new thinkers will emerge? What new art and inventions? What new breakthroughs will enlighten our understanding?

Millions of people in the Middle East want to share in creating a century of progress and peace. Let us not allow false divisions to hold us back. Let us not accept polarization. Together, we can leave old conflicts, old inequalities, old ignorance, in the past. Together, we can confront the attack on reason and co-existence. Together, we can make a reality of our shared humanity - European, Asian, Arab; Muslim, Christian, Jew; East and West.

Thank you very much.

Comments

[dissolvethecorporation]

"Your efforts will send a global message to young people, young Muslims especially, that the international community can and will deliver on its promise of justice and hope."

It wouldn't hurt if the international community's petrodollars were used for schools, roads and hospitals instead of high-rise luxury resorts in Dubai and Las Vegas.

[CarmenCameron]

This is precisely the kind of discussion that gives me hope for the future AND it's precisely why we need to elect Sen. Obama as our next president. His openness to communicating even with those who disagree with us is NOT "naive" but rather will help America open its eyes to the truth that there are GREAT men beyond our border - like this incredible man, King Abdullah - and that truth is not restricted to one race, one nation OR one religion. May God the Merciful bless our world through men like these! (You have my humble support, sir, in your righteous quest.)

[mamacat]

"Extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice." Barry Goldwater, American "conservative"

"It is moderation, not extremism, that opens the way to that future........." King Abdullah of Jordan, peacemaker

I have long sought to understand why the fundamental flaws in the "conservative" ideology are so destructive. We live today with the consequences of so-called conservative policies. Agressively exporting a skewed view of liberty, even at the end of a gunbarrel, is the result of pursueing conservative beliefs to their logical conclusions. Instead of pursueing liberalism, moderation, and respecting the principle of self-determination, conservative extremists believe that they have the right to tell others how to live.

Thank you for being a moderate. This world does not need any more extremists.

[LondonGQ]

King Abdulla ... Respect is ll I can say

I am really proud of you and proud of the work you have been doing. Too bad congress doesn't want to listen cause the congree is run and intimidated by AIPAC and other groups that don't want peace. They want war cause that's the only way they can get support from the west. Any intelligent person with minimum common sense about the middle east problems would know that Israel is the probem.

Arab unanimously agreed to peace and normalization with Israel including Saudia arabia and other Muslim countries. That was in 2002, still no answer from Israel.

U.S MEDIA THAT IS ALSO RUN BY BY THE SAME PEOPLE WOULD NOT SHOW THIS SIDE OF ARABS OR MUSLIMS. AS A MUSLIM, I FEEL HUMILIATED, DISRESPECTED AND CALLED ALL KINDS OF NAMES BECAUSE THE MEDIA WANTS TO SHOW THE PUBLIC THAT WE ARE AMERICA'S ENEMIES, ARABS DO NOT HATE AMERICANS, THEY HATE THEIR POLITICS AND THE DAMAGE AMERICA HAS INFLICTED ON THE MIDDLE EAST TO PLEASE ISRAEL.

I hope this message gets posted,

Peace

Canadian, Arab, Muslim, Jordanian

[earthwealth]

CORRECTION: The great Razi and Sina were persian (Iranians).
Name one Arab country that has a democratic elected government and truly serving its own people.

[mamacat]

Gaza? Which, as soon as they elected a government, led by Hamas, the U.S. government declared them to be terrorists, and as such refuses to recognise or to negotiate with them. A self-fulfilling prophecy - call someone a terrorist, treat them like terrorists, and you convince yourself that they are terrorist.

[MagisterLudi]

LondonGQ posted "Any intelligent person with minimum common sense about the middle east problems would know that Israel is the probem. "

Any intelligent person with MORE than a minimum intelligence understands that problems of the Arab/Muslim civilization lie in the failure to progress beyond the Medieval mind set. While bete noire of Arabs changes ( Crusaders, Ottoman, British, Israel, U.S.) the inherent problems remain.

Islamic civilization was progressive during the Middle Ages, but that was centuries ago.Since then the West developed: science, technology, philosophy, astronomy, film, democracy, human rights, separation of church and state, separation of church and science (except for the idiot Bush).

Facts: 50% of Middle Eastern Muslims can't read or write. In Yemen 75% of women are illiterate!

In the last decade only 10,000 books were translated into Arabic from all other languages!!! And all that while sitting on trillions of dollars in wealth.

And the despotic rulers LOVE IT! It's not easy to steal from literate people!

You want to address problems? Stop believe the propaganda and start working WITHIN your culture to catch up to the The West and Far East.

Hmmm, but I see you chose to immigrate.....

[MagisterLudi]

"It is moderation, not extremism, that opens the way to that future - through co-existence, cooperation, and all the benefits they entail. I believe this path is essential for my region."

Agreed. The countrties that earn for peace can make peace with bold steps. Jordan and Israel made peace. Egypt made peace with Israel. Vietnam and U.S made peace. Germans made peace with the world. Those countries and peoples who truly want peace can achieve it. Visionaries like HM King Hussein, Sadat, Menachem Begin made peace. Notably, people like Arafat and Syrian controlled Lebanon weren't willing. Hopefully Palestinian people can ( one day) unite and elect a visionary leader willing to deliver peace.

[mommamia526]

King Abdullah holds the solution. I like and respect him and his queen, Rania. I also respected his father. King Abdullah and queen Rania - she is a Palestinian - understand better than we do what the exact problem is that must be solved. Money, and aid, is NOT the solution as a resource standing alone.. It may help under careful guidance. I think, who better to provide it than King Abdullah and Queen Rania. Jordan is already for a large part Palestinian. The British protectorate was divided, a.o. in the two parts Israel and Jordan, and Jordan is for the Palestinians. Palestinians want Israel, again, to GIVE THEM AN ARMY. Jordan already has a well organized army. Jordan is an organized and respected country. Israel gets along with Jordan. Jordan and Israel could cooperate in soil improvement, in science, medicine, internet, exchange of university professors, providing scholarships for trainable Palestinians, etc. Most important, Jordan is a modernizing muslim country, where women are getting educated and move into the 21st century. One of several in the area, by the way. This is an Arab issue and Arabs should solve it. Arabs who are muslims deserve, moreover, to live in a muslim society. Cultural and religious, as well as tribal issues play such a large part in the solution, and Arabs hold the key. Arab muslims also hold the key to reasoning with human errors, such as murder, pride, spite. These impede solutions.Nothing is created out of it.

[jmad]

Lets all hold our collective breath that the blame gamers don't do anything stupid before the bush bums are thankfully gone.
It takes a great dead more courage to yes than no.

[darthdarcy]

Don't tell us your Majesty, go tell AIPAC..

We're just citizens we have no say in anything anymore..

[unfoxworthy]

-- "If we refuse to accept the walls that others would create, imagine what we can achieve. What new thinkers will emerge? What new art and inventions? What new breakthroughs will enlighten our understanding?" --
It takes a pretty decent guy (or king), who otherwise has it all...to offer up his dreams of "hope", rather than, as others in seats of power do, offer up nothing more than egotisitical banter, or extremism, or control.
King Abdullah, if you happen along and read these posts....my hat's off to you sir.

[omop]

With all due respect not one socalled Arab leader, President, King or Prime Minister has ever demanded officially from the UN. to order any Israeli Government to comply with international law and UN Resolutions in allowing the return of over 800,000 refugees living in makeshift camps in Lebanon to be returned to their homes and lands.

Most all leaders of the Arab nations including the present King of Jordan have been overly pliant in going accepting a m odus vivendi that israelis would have never accepted. One would like to hope that a real acceptance of the equality of peoples in the region as expressed by the Kings comments will lead to tangible ressults and in alleviating the hardships experienced by close to a million people living in make shift camps for close to 60 years and in violation of international laws,and human decency.

America would do well by the King and all tthe people that reside in the ME in taking positive and equal actions in the lessening of polarization. America does an injustice not only to others but to ist own social beliefs by not treating others on an equal basis.

[MagisterLudi]

"...have been overly pliant in going accepting a m odus vivendi"

Eh, to put a cold shower of reality on this opinion...
Arab leaders were not pliant. Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis did their best to destroy Israel and failed, repeatedly. Or to put it bluntly their got their butts kicked by Israeli citizen armies.
In the Middle East, negotiations come ONLY after military decides the facts on the ground.
Example: Lebanon--weak army= Syrian foreign domination.

Interestingly, when Jordan occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Palestinians agitating for independence were persecuted by the Jordanian authorities.

Jordan "gave" West Bank to Palestinians ONLY after it was no longer theirs. Ah, the true reality of the Middle East politics.

[FCBarca]

He speaks the truth, a truth that is hidden from our view in America...Until it is revealed and supported by the U.S. as it is in the majority of the world, there will be no peace

[larry278]

You may not like his majesty's words. Remember-he's not in a popularity contest, he's from a distinguished family, bears the name of a great king who died for his people & peace, has been trained to serve his people, his religion & not to fear death. We who admire his majesty await carping criticisms of his majesty & his religion from trolls of all stripe; we may not read the comments of trolls who don't admire his majesty. We have heard & seen them before. Write on; you're in a free country.

[TimSearl]

A royal family put into power by the British.

[larry278]

There is a saying among Christians that God acts in mysterious ways. Allah has been said to have used the British & other infidel forces to do his will. My Arabic won't do to say [it will be accomplished] if Allah wills it. My English translation does not conver the full meaning of the Arabic phrase.
larry lynch

[Ohioan4truth]

The Leaders of the World cried, "Peace, Peace, Peace! And then the end came." There are powerful machinations involved with a New World Order that will prevent anything resembling peace to be accomplished. What with all those going hungry on Earth today, the financial institutions crumbling before our eyes, how can I have faith in Mankind to solve it's heavy problems of greed and anger? I was a boy scout when I was young. I learned to "be prepared". I'm doing just that....in case...just in case.

[MrsWakely]

It would be wonderful: Jew, Arab, Christian, living side by side, in peace. I look at the headlines today and think of the headlines of my youth, close to 50 years ago. They're the same headlines. It takes a leader willing to put his life on the line, not talk. It takes a leader willing to carve out a piece of his country for the Palestinians, not talk. It takes a leader without a history of hostility towards, and invasion of Israel. Israel is for the Jews. They will not give it back. It was hard fought, and won, after 6 million of them were exterminated by hate. I say this as a Roman Catholic American, who understands my predecessors exterminated the Native American. These are the sins of expansion and survival: you or me. The Jews, when they created Israel, were on the brink of extinction, like some rare bird seen only at night, and so, rarely seen. Israel is theirs. Period. The Palestinians are the victims of displacement and discrimination at the hands of Israel, but Israel was not a Palestinian State before Israel was created, it was a British protectorate, full of a strain of Arab people that no other Arab State was willing to shelter.

[xxnounxx]

LIES AND MORE LIES,THE BRITISH MADE IT A PROTECTORATE,PART OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE
ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME MY FAMILY FROM NAZARETH NEVER EXISTED BEFORE THE BRITISH EMPIRE TOOK HOLD OF PALESTINE???

Stop day dreaming,my family has been living as palestinian arab in palestine for hundreds of years,,european jews are not entitled to palestine,only palestinian jews are entitled to live side by side of palestinians of all religions.

[MrsWakely]

Again, there was no STATE named Palestine, recognized by the world community, with its own defense, and a functioning representative government. It was a "land" CALLED Palestine, that had been comprised of Palestinian Arabs, Jews, Christians and Muslims throughout its history. Check your facts.

[MagisterLudi]

obviously xxnounxx never heard of immigration.

A dose of reality. Majority of Israeli population are native to the land: born and raised there. this talk is nonsense, born of hatred, not of reasonable thinking.

By the way, the Bedouin tribes in the West Bank are saying EXACTLY the same things about Arab Palestinians who over-breeding and kicking poor native Bedouin off their grazing lands RIGHT NOW. Any sympathy for the them?

[MrsWakely]

And so, without the protection of statehood, and the means to fight for what they felt was theirs, they were beaten by a ragtag group of Jewish warriors willing to die to establish one place on this earth where they and their families could live. They fought for it, they earned it, and they continue to defend it, to this day, and rightfully so. King Abdullah's father attempted to extinguish the state of Israel, participating in wars to wipe it off the map. Arab pride was deeply hurt by their repeated thrashings at the hands of the Jews, long the worlds wretched, the worlds victims, the lowest of the low. The solution is one the Palestinians and the Arab world does not want to hear: leave Israel alone, and find a way to create a Palestinian homeland out of the abundance of your own land, in your own states. Take care of your Arab brothers, and move on from the thirst for a revenge unwarranted by the history of Israel. Life is hard, and wars redefine boundaries, right or wrong, according to the victors. The Jews have always been the hunted. They fought bravely for a homeland and they deserve to live in peace. Rise above King Abdullah, and do the right thing.

[edtastic]

"they were beaten by a ragtag group of Jewish warriors willing to die to establish one place on this earth where they and their families could live"

As far as I know Jewish people live in other places on earth with their families. If they had to fight for that place it is because people were already living there. Basically a rag tag group of colonist fighting the natives.

"They fought for it, they earned it, and they continue to defend it"

It was taken by force. You can steal a thing and keep it by the same way you took it. But those who you took it from will not be happy.

"Arab pride was deeply hurt by their repeated thrashings at the hands of the Jews, long the worlds wretched, the worlds victims, the lowest of the low"

The lowest of the low were Africans traded as human cattle. The Africans and there decendants were not considered equal even as they fought to free the Jews of Europe. Those African decendants lived with their oppressor, they did not establish a country in hostile lands.

"Take care of your Arab brothers, and move on from the thirst for a revenge unwarranted"

It is possible for wronged people to live amongst the people who wronged them as in America. It is not the offender who should say when the thirst for revenge shall end. It would be better to ask forgiveness.

[MrsWakely]

Forgiveness for what? You speak as if the Palestinian people had their sovereign lands taken by the Jews. Last time I checked, Jews, Palestinian Arabs, Christians and Muslims lived in a British protectorate named Palestine. It was not a state. It was a contested land with a long history of power being taken and power being lost. "The Country of Palestine," recognized by the world, as an established sovereign entity, with it's own defense, a functioning economy, and a representative government? I'm sorry, but if you check the facts, you'll find that never existed. You cannot underestimate the depth of feeling in the immediate post-Holocaust years for a Jewish homeland. They had as much right to carve out a state for themselves as the Palestinians did, or Christians, or Muslims living there, for that matter. The fact is: the Jewish people fought for the land, died for it - but the Arab states surrounding what became Israel? Where were they to help their Palestinian brethren? Nowhere. (cont'd)

[MrsWakely]

Why? Because the Palestinian people were considered a lesser Arab people, not worthy of the full support and protection of the powerful Arab states. They let them suffer and die in refugee camps, not bringing them fully into Jordanian society, or Syrian society, or Saudi Arabian society. This continues TO THIS DAY. But once the Jewish people took control of their destiny and forced the issue? THEN the Palestinians became a cause celbre among surrounding Arab states, when before they were not worthy of aid and respect. The solution to the Arab Israeli conflict has ALWAYS been in Arab hands. They have MORE than enough land, money and influence to create a homeland for the Palestinian people. The question is: why haven't they done so?

Finally: "a wronged people?" There is no more wronged people throughout the depth and breadth of human history: not Africans, as horrible as their relatively RECENT oppression has been, not anyone. Read your history. From the B.C. persecutions to the "you killed Christ" fallacy, to the blood libels of the days of the Middle Age plagues, there is no historical match for the persecution of the Jews.

[xxnounxx]

Thank you edtastic

maybe the hashemite king would like to take a look in this link

www.uruknet.info/?p=24885

and we will keep fighting for our rights,and stolen land and property,i wonder if anyone would accept a stranger to know on hid door and tell him to get out of his house becouse its the property of the theif now,and the owner hads to accept it,and go pitch a tent and live as an alien refugee for the rest of his life.