Reflecting on the historic Israel-Jordan peace agreement — “Doing the right thing may be hard, but necessary”
Mara Rudman served as a deputy national security advisor to President Clinton and currently serves as a senior vice president at Business Executives for National Security.
This week, watching the C-SPAN clip of the July 25, 1994, Washington Declaration signing, ending the 46-year state of war between Israel and Jordan, my eyes filled.
It wasn’t just seeing King Hussein robust, healthy and so brave, speaking of his pride in the people of Jordan, and “their maturity, and their courage.” It wasn’t only Prime Minister Rabin, who would be killed by an Israeli assassin’s bullet by that November, wanting “to tell children on both sides of the border: We hope and pray that your life will be different than ours.”
It was not even being reminded of the clear highest regard that President Clinton had for both, and the genuine warmth and respect they all had for each other.
I saw three statesmen show what is possible when leaders of goodwill build trust, display courage, use their authority, and extend their personal and political capital to seek the best for their countries.
Within days of the Washington Declaration White House ceremony, Congress had taken steps to reduce Jordan’s debt to the U.S. by up to $220 million. This would not only reverse the negative trajectory that had been Jordan’s U.S. relationship since its antagonistic position on the 1990 Iraq war but also would lead to one of the warmest relationships that any country has with the United States.
In 1994, I was House Foreign Affairs Committee chief counsel, three years away from working for President Clinton at the White House National Security Council. In that House committee staff role, I lived the struggle to help members of Congress support the president’s Middle East policy and to gain winning margins for those positions.
July 25 at the White House and Prime Minister Rabin’s and King Hussein’s joint address to Congress the following day became my textbook lessons on how good ideas and smart policy become reality. Having leaders who are willing to explain publicly why doing the right thing may be hard, but necessary — and to make that case standing next to a lifelong opponent — that is how progress can be made.
These three leaders appreciated that Prime Minister Rabin and King Hussein had sufficient private rapport in 1994 to reach agreement on a peace treaty by the fall, likely absent a public White House declaration. But they all recognized that to put such agreement on the firmest foundation, embraced by Jordanians, Israelis, and Americans, and to restore and repair Jordan’s relationship with the United States, they should come together on the most public stage, the White House lawn.
They made the case, and their countries, peoples, and the world were the better for it. It brought me to tears 25 years later.
President Clinton’s words then ring as true today. “Now, as we go forward, we must guard against illusions. Dark forces of hatred and violence will stalk your lands. We must not let them succeed.”
