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Over a decade ago, in the last months of his life, my father raised himself from his sickbed to address Yasser Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu at the signing of the Wye Accords. He understood how fragile the dream of peace could be and was under no illusions as to the difficulties that lay ahead. He said, “I think such a step as is concluded today will inevitably trigger those who want to destroy life, destroy hope, create fear in the hearts and minds of people, and trigger in them their worst instincts. They will be skeptical on the surface, but if they can, they will cause damage, wherever they are and wherever they belong.”

My father spoke at a time when trust between Israelis and Palestinians was high and many hoped the leaders on both sides would build on this foundation to achieve a lasting peace. The last decade of neglect has seen trust and hope fall to new lows and has strengthened those bent on destruction.

Every family, in East Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv, in Ramallah and in Jaffa, in the end, wants the same things: a peaceful and dignified life; the ability to fulfill their potential and to secure a better future for their children. Our better nature compels us to always look toward the light. I cannot believe that the people of Israel and Palestine want to continue to kill and be killed. We must all pray that their political leaders will give them the opportunity to live in peace and dignity.

Unless we see some positive breakthrough in the next year, I fear that we will miss our last chance for peace in a generation, and condemn our region to suffer another cycle of violence, war, and death. I fear that we are slipping into the darkness. But that does not have to be the future for our region. Our people want peace. It is our responsibility as leaders to make this much-eroded dream come true.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Not that long ago, I was speaking to some friends about how remarkable it was to me that more than ten years had passed since I had become king. We talked about the extraordinary series of events that Jordan, the Middle East, and the world had been through in that decade and my hopes that the next ten years would see greater safety, prosperity, and opportunity for all our citizens. Most of all, we talked about my conviction that the world is at a crossroads. In early 2009, it seemed to me that the stars could be uniquely aligned to give us a chance to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and to achieve the regional peace that had eluded past generations. I said that I would continue to do everything I could to make that happen.

During that discussion, one of my friends suggested that this would be a good time for me to write a book about what I had seen and done, and what I dreamed about for the future.

I had never given much thought to writing a book. My army training leads me to prefer courses of action with timelier outcomes. And besides, I thought, I’m a young man who, God willing, has only just begun his time as King of Jordan. But someone pointed out that my father had published a book, Uneasy Lies the Head, in 1962, the year I was born, describing his first ten years as king. I have always found following my father’s example to be a wise course, so I began to give it serious thought.

The first step was to find a publisher who might be interested in bringing this story to a wider audience, and Andrew Wylie and Scott Moyers of Wylie & Company, one of America’s most respected literary agencies, helped me to navigate the complex waters of international publishing. With their help, I was introduced to Clare Ferraro and Joy de Menil of Viking Penguin. Clare immediately believed that I had a story to tell that would be of interest to the reading public and we began to work together on the process of producing a book. Joy was assigned as my editor, and throughout I have benefitted greatly from her razor-sharp intellect, broad knowledge of politics and history, and keen sense of how to present complex facts in a simple manner. She helped me pull together the threads of a varied life into