On February 29, addressing approximately 800 students, faculty, and others in Princeton’s Richardson Auditorium, King Abdullah II of Jordan urged the United States to make Middle East peace a priority in 2008. The king’s speech and his visit to campus was sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School as part of his visit to the U.S. to meet with United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon in New York, and President George W. Bush in Washington D.C.

Abdullah’s plea for greater U.S. involvement in the peace process was imbued with the importance of making significant progress this year, before President Bush’s term of office expires. He uttered the phrase “time is running out” three times, saying, “2008 is a critical year,” and that “it is difficult to exaggerate how great the stakes are, for Americans, for Arabs, for Israelis, and, indeed, for the whole world.”

The king began his talk by emphasizing the number of states that do not recognize Israel: “Fifty-seven countries are not at peace with Israel today. Fifty-seven countries out of 193 countries in the world. Fifty-seven countries with a total population greater than Europe and the United States combined. Fifty-seven countries, representing one third of the members of the United Nations. Fifty-seven countries for whose citizens the conflict in Palestine is the issue of their time. We must, therefore, ask the important question. What are the implications for global stability if this continues?”

This opening evoked the potential benefits to Israel of reaching a peace agreement with Palestinian leadership. The king, introduced by Princeton President Shirley Tilghman as “a voice of moderation in a region of the world where extremists often claim the headlines,” said he disagreed with “those [in Israel] who do not want peace with Palestinians and who reject a two-state solution,” emphasizing that “Israel’s security cannot depend indefinitely on occupation, walls, and the Israeli military. Real security for Israel will occur when it is a neighbor among neighbors, an economy among economies, a people among people working together towards the achievement of common goals and bright futures.”

Abdullah stressed the importance of this election year, presenting a picture of progress perhaps contrary to what many Americans believe can be accomplished by a president serving his last year in the White House. However, with no re-election worries and a renewed commitment to Middle East peace very late in his presidency, it is possible that President Bush could at least lay a strong foundation for his successor.

Asked “why now?” by a student in the audience during a Q&A session after his speech, the king responded that there is hopeful moderation in the region’s leadership now, and that it could take “at least two to three years before another administration can get involved.”

The king referenced other conflicts in the region, as he compared radicalism among Palestinians to “Iraq’s armed sectarian division,” as well as “the attacks on Lebanese sovereignty,” and “power-projection by state and non-state actors.” All three examples demonstrate that until a peace agreement is reached, there will always be those, opposing American interests, who use the Palestinian situation to “operate on their behalf,” Abdullah said.

The king’s remarks extended beyond politics to other factors influencing peace in the region, including unemployment, demographics, and governance. Referring to students in the audience, he said, “You are a prime example of some of the gifted, ambitious youth of America. We are acutely aware of the urgent needs of our own youth who make up 70 percent of my region’s people.” He said that while they “see a lack of opportunities and an uncertain future,” the alternative view is “the prosperity and freedom that countries and regions in peace can offer.” Job creation will be a big part of that alternative view, including a need for 200 million new jobs by 2020 that will require “a strong cooperative Arab-American strategic partnership.”
Abdullah began his closing with a plea to “Princeton scholars” to “join me in thinking about the reality that together our countries can create.” His to-do list included “an end to 60 years of conflict, violence, and occupation, a homeland for Palestinians…security and new acceptance for Israel…” and “a strategic region that is able to turn to the future as peace takes hold.”

He concluded by quoting Woodrow Wilson, former Princeton president and the 28th U.S. president: “Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together. There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized peace.”

Responding to a question from the audience after his address, Abdullah explicitly stated that “what’s on offer” is not only peace, but recognition for Israel from Morocco to Indonesia, a reference to the dozens of Organization of the Islamic Conference member states that would follow the Arab League in recognizing Israel if a two-state solution is reached.

Barbara Bodine, a diplomat-in-residence at the Woodrow Wilson School and former U.S. ambassador to Yemen who attended the speech, found this a compelling argument, noting, “Even those of us who have worked on this for years were struck by the simple fact that 57 members of the UN, about a third, do not recognize Israel… Israel has an enormous amount to gain.”

Bodine added that Abdullah’s sense of urgency is easily understood. “Compare the Middle East in 2000 to what we have today, and it is not good,” she said. “In addition to our change in administration and possible time lost, the government in Israel is very unstable and [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas is in a precarious position as well. The king probably sees how close we all were to a resolution in 2000 and while that did not come through, rather than build on it, the Bush administration simply abandoned the process. The king is concerned, looking at history and patterns, that the same could happen again.”

In his introduction of President Tilghman, WWS Acting Dean Nolan McCarty observed that the School “is a fitting host for King Abdullah’s remarks on the current challenges facing the Middle East,” noting “the School’s ongoing teaching and research takes a rigorous and interdisciplinary approach to some of the most serious issues in public and international affairs. Policy issues that challenge all of us—in the academy, in government, at home, and abroad.”

After his policy address, the king attended a private reception with WWS and other Princeton students, faculty, and special guests.