Word: hussein
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...that the U.S. is talking to Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, what should the next step be? For Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Hussein, two moderates whose unofficial alliance is seen by the U.S. as a key to peace in the region, the answer is obvious -- and familiar: get the U.S. to budge Israel...
...sympathy for those Arafat called "the children of the stones." The best way to exploit that sentiment and further isolate Israel was for the P.L.O. to move toward a more moderate, reasonable role. Arafat was strongly urged to do so by Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan's King Hussein and, after the cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. For the U.S., which sharply criticized Israel's heavy use of force against the intifadeh, an overly close relationship with Israel became a liability in its relations with nearly every other nation...
Ronald Reagan, meanwhile, had been getting a fusillade of transatlantic telephone calls urging him to be more sensitive to Arafat's position and readier to accept his concessions. Repeated pleas came from Egypt's Mubarak, Jordan's Hussein, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd. Just as important, such close U.S. friends as Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, France's President Francois Mitterrand and West Germany's Chancellor Helmut Kohl joined the persistent chorus...
Persistent as ever, Thatcher, Mitterrand, Mubarak and Hussein were back on the White House telephones urging Reagan to reassess the speech. Using a colorful metaphor, Mubarak told Shultz that Arafat had already taken off his shirt and that the U.S. was asking for his trousers...
...little to lose in testing the P.L.O.'s sincerity. The Jordanian option, the long-favored attempt by the U.S. and Peres to make King Hussein the surrogate peacemaker for the Palestinians, withered away last July when the King gave up all responsibility for the occupied West Bank. Washington's stubborn holdout in the face of Arafat's peace offensive had bound Uncle Sam in the unaccustomed straitjacket of the spoiler. Shultz's announcement not only ended months of intense criticism from West European and Arab friends but also restored U.S. credibility and influence as an honest broker in the Middle...