Jordan’s King Says Peace Will Continue First Arab Leader To Support New Israeli Prime Minister

King Hussein of Jordan Saturday became the first Arab leader to publicly proclaim support for Israeli Prime Minister-elect Binyamin Netanyahu, expressing confidence that the conservative Likud party leader would continue to push for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.

In an interview, Hussein said he had been “taken aback” by suggestions throughout the Arab world and elsewhere that Netanyahu’s victory over the Labor Party government of Prime Minister Shimon Peres was “indicative of a move against peace.”

On the contrary, he said, “I believe that the peace process has every possibility of continuing. It has a dynamic of its own. It is irreversible. … I have every confidence and every faith that the future is bright in terms of the cause of peace.”

Hussein’s upbeat tone was at odds with prevailing Arab views that Netanyahu’s hard line - on security and other issues - does not bode well for Arab-Israeli relations. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has privately expressed dismay at the prospect of losing Peres as his negotiating partner, given Netanyahu’s opposition to Palestinian statehood and declared intention to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Although Hussein scrupulously avoided any involvement in the Israeli campaign, Jordanian officials privately expressed their preference for Peres, whose Labor Party government made peace with Jordan under Peres’s predecessor, Yitzhak Rabin, in 1994. Jordan has pursued a “warm” peace with Israel that has included agreements on trade, tourism, water rights and other areas.

But in an interview Saturday evening at Nadwa Palace, Hussein said it would be a mistake to prejudge the prime minister-elect on the basis of statements made in the heat of a political campaign. “I think we’d better all give him a chance to put his house in order and assume his responsibilities.”

The king rejected suggestions that the election had been a referendum on the peace process and that peace lost. The king said he is convinced that Israelis still support the search for a comprehensive settlement based on territorial compromise, while acknowledging that security concerns - particularly in the wake of suicide bombings that claimed 59 victims in January and February - apparently had carried the day for Peres’s conservative challenger.

Hussein spoke with Netanyahu on Friday, when the Likud leader telephoned after the election results became final.

“He wanted me to be among the first he contacted,” Hussein said. “I was very touched by that. … He assured me that he is committed to the cause of peace.”