Israeli-Jordanian peace

The initialing of a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan is no less welcome for having been expected for some time. Again and usefully, it has been shown that bloody disruptions, such as the weekend shootout in the West Bank, cannot slow the region's inexorable march toward accommodation.

At the White House last July, King Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had shaken hands on an end to their state of belligerency. Now, in a week or so a peace treaty is to be signed that will terminate the formal state of war between them and put a full structure of ties in place. President Clinton, who helped make it happen, will be there.

To be sure, Jordan was always special. Not just the king's personal inclination but strategic necessity -- the requirement for protection chiefly from Arab foes -- rendered Jordan "moderate" and open to a close connection with the United States and also, when it became possible, with Israel.

By hundreds of hours of secret summit talks over the years, the two ostensibly hostile countries managed a measure of coexistence that Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres dubbed "a state of war with a wink."

The virtually simultaneous decline in the regional reach of the Soviet Union and Iraq is what liberated Jordan and Israel alike to move forward as honest partners. Until then, only Egypt had had the courage publicly to embrace peace with the Jewish state.

Once the Palestinians stepped forward to speak for the West Bank, the single largest source of contention between Israel and Jordan evaporated. The two of them could then get to work on the lesser though far from simple issues, including border and water, that they seem now to be resolving.

Israel, addressing the Palestine Liberation Organization as well as Jordan, has been engaged in a form of three-cornered bargaining. This is how Israel came last summer to acknowledge explicitly Jordan's "special" and "historic" responsibility for Muslim shrines in Jerusalem, the better to diminish the PLO's claim to the city as capital of a prospective Palestinian state.

But of course if Israelis hope for a reliable peace with Palestinians, they must deal with Palestinian aspirations on the ever more crucial Jerusalem issue too. Peace with Jordan offers important rewards and takes Israel to the hard question of peace with a future Palestine.

-- The Washington Post