Our Last Best Chance_ The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril - King Abdullah II [94]
Sadly, one of my scholars was not among the graduating class. Ahmad Tarawneh was a young man from Kerak, who had never studied in English before. He was one of the best students in his class and was planning to apply to a top university in the West to study engineering, until he died in a tragic car accident only two months before his graduation. I felt as if I had lost one of my own sons.
We remembered Ahmad at the graduation ceremony. My fellow Deerfield classmates had offered King’s a trophy to be presented as the King Abdullah II Award to the student who most embodies King’s guiding principles of respect, love of learning, responsibility, an integrated life, and global citizenship. The award was given posthumously to Ahmad.
The school remains one of my proudest achievements. The copyright for the English-language edition of this book has been transferred to King’s Academy and the proceeds from the sale of the book will support its scholarship fund for needy students.
PART IV
Chapter 17
Jerusalem at the Heart of Conflict
On May 17, 1999, as I was about to embark on my first visit to the United States as king, Israelis went to the polls. Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the peace process had stalled badly, and we all hoped that a new Israeli leader would bring new momentum. The previous year in Washington, Netanyahu and Arafat had signed what was intended to be a framework to advance the peace process, the Wye River Memorandum. Supported by my ailing father in the last months of his life, the Wye Accords, which provided for further Israeli withdrawals, in stages, from the West Bank, seemed to represent a breakthrough. But seven months later, after completing only one of the three stages of withdrawal, Netanyahu was stalling, twisting, and turning, and any further progress based on Wye was essentially halted. In Jordan and across the Arab world, we hoped that a change of prime minister might revive the peace efforts.
A former chief of staff of the Israeli army and Israel’s most decorated officer, Ehud Barak was riding high in the polls. He had been in the Special Forces, and when he left the army and went into politics, he took on the challenge of peacemaking. Barak won a landslide electoral victory. The results were announced as I was meeting with President Clinton in the White House. We were both optimistic that he would succeed where Netanyahu had failed and take bold action to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
In April 2000, I went to Israel for my first official visit. I had been scheduled to go two months earlier but postponed the trip when Israel arbitrarily struck targets in southern Lebanon. My delegation went by boat from Aqaba to Eilat, where we were met by Barak, who led us on a tour of a fishery and then took us for a working lunch at a local hotel. We discussed the final status talks that, under the Sharm El Sheikh Accord of September 1999, were to lead to a comprehensive agreement. I told Barak that if he wanted relations to improve between Israel and Jordan, he would have to make substantial progress with the Palestinians.
As the Clinton administration neared the end of its term, the Israeli prime minister was seriously engaged in efforts to create an atmosphere that would enable Israelis and Palestinians to develop a lasting peace. The summer of 2000 was a period of intense diplomatic activity surrounding the peace process. In May, Ehud Barak withdrew Israel’s forces from southern Lebanon, which they had occupied for almost two decades. But the withdrawal was not complete; Israel maintained its hold on the area of Shebaa Farms and a few other small Lebanese territories. Had Israeli troops withdrawn completely from Lebanon, we might not have seen further conflict later on. The decision