Volume 35, Number 15 · October 13, 1988
The Turning Point?
By Arthur Hertzberg
On Sunday night, July 31, Israelis throughout the country were watching Jordanian television. King Hussein's speech was broadcast twice, once in Arabic and again with a voice-over in English. I watched and listened with special interest, for just a few hours before I had crossed the Allenby Bridge to Israel after a three-day visit in Jordan. Immediately after the speech Israeli commentators outdid one another in finding hidden political ploys in the king's declarations. By the following weekend the analysis had become less clever, and more somber. The most serious newspaper commentators had come to understand that King Hussein had not made just another move in a continuing game of simultaneous chess with Israel, the PLO, the United States, and the many forces in the Arab world.
Feature, 8007 words
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