Jordan's Mohamed Kamal

Like millions of other Palestinians Mohamed Kamal has been thrown about by the turbulent storms engulfing Palestine. Indeed his personal life so parallels the ups and downs of Palestinian developments that he might be seen as a symbol of his native land. Like so many other Palestinians he has accomplished much against serious obstacles, and as the new Ambassador of Jordan to the United States he has been signally honored. Yet he still cannot rest easy because he sees so clearly that further delay in settling the Palestine Problem only increases the danger of further violence and tragedy in the Middle East.

Born in Ottoman Palestine the year before Britain issued the fateful Balfour Declaration promising a "national home" for Jews in Palestine, the young Mohamed Kamal completed his secondary education in what several years earlier had become the British Mandate of Palestine. He then studied at the American University of Beirut with other bright, ambitious students from Palestine and elsewhere in the Middle East. He concentrated on political science and economics, graduating in the late 1930's.

At A.U.B. he was influenced by such towering Americans as Dr. Bayard Dodge, President of the University and grandson of its founder, Dr. Daniel Bliss. These and other great American educators and healers had over many decades earned the United States an enviable reputation for providing disinterested help to Middle Easterners with no strings attached. Like other Arabs today, Ambassador Kamal finds it painfully difficult to reconcile this vision of a magnanimous earlier America with the current reality of unquestioning U.S. favoritism towards Israel.

After completing his education in Lebanon, young Kamal returned to Palestine where he was Superintendent of Press of the (British) Mandatory Government. Here he brought his command of both the Arabic and English languages to the point of complete mastery. In 1948, however, his successful career came to a halt with an eruption of the Palestinian volcano. Britain had decided to abandon Palestine and the Arab Israeli War of 1948-49 broke out.

Mohamed Kamal went back to Beirut to start life anew. Over the next 18 years he established another successful career in business and economic research. He and his wife Bahira raised a family of six children. He might have lived comfortably into the future but it was not to be. King Hussein asked him in 1966 to establish a television service for Jordan.

As Director General of Jordanian television from 1966 to 1984 the future Ambassador to Washington created a first class system that is well regarded world wide. Jordanian TV now broadcasts in four languages: Arabic, English, French and Hebrew. Programming is imaginative, with a wide selection of special features. News broadcasts gained a reputation for accuracy and balance. One measure of Mohamed Kamal's success is that his TV programs had thousands of viewers in Israel and the occupied West Bank.

A dramatic success for Jordanian TV occurred last fall when it broadcast from Amman the 17th meeting of the Palestine National Council. In the West Bank Palestinians naturally watched with avid interest, especially as Council members from Israeli occupied territory had not been allowed to go to Amman. Israeli Jews also viewed the sessions with interest, and for once the wall of hostility between Israel and the Palestinians was breached, if only electronically.

Ambassador Kamal "retired" in 1984 and returned once more to Beirut, this time to head up a media consultancy company. Then one day in 1985 King Hussein telephoned to ask him to go to Washington as Jordan's Ambassador. Here he presides over a competent professional staff of diplomats. His own specialized media experience harmonizes nicely with a keen instinct for the proper timing and the gracious gesture. For instance, he was midwife to a touching letter of sympathy from King Hussein to President Reagan when our astronauts were killed recently, and gave the President an elegant poem translated from Arabic expressing the sense of loss.

A handsome six footer who looks ten years younger than his actual age, Ambassador Kamal has never used tobacco or drunk alcohol. Combining courtly manners with an austere restraint, he has an intense desire to help achieve Middle East peace. He recognizes King Hussein as a great man and applauds the King's agreement with PLO leader Yassir Arafat to work together toward peace with Israel.

Ambassador Kamal is deeply concerned over the faltering Middle East "peace process, "which he knows cannot really succeed unless the U.S. pushes it along more wholeheartedly. Yet he is not one to despair. His vision of a benevolent and exemplary America was formed fifty years ago at the American University of Beirut. Despite all disappointments he still sees the United States as basically espousing the same great principles of freedom, self determination of peoples and human rights with which we launched our nation 210 years ago. He has faith that we will eventually advance them in the Middle East.

Ambassador Kamal has never permitted personal disappointments or quirks of fate to undermine his determination to reach goals he aspires to. The greatest goal of all, but also the hardest to reach, is Middle East peace. He will continue to work towards that goal with intense dedication.

—Andrew I. Killgore