What Jordanians Say About Israelis and the Peace Agreement

By Richard H. Curtiss

How do the Jordanians feel about a land-for-peace agreement in which their king became the first Arab sovereign to extend full diplomatic relations to Israel since the late President Anwar Sadat of Egypt took that momentous step in 1979? In return, Egypt eventually got back every inch of the occupied Sinai. By contrast, Jordan's flag was raised over its much smaller swatch of occupied territory, but Israeli farmers continue to cultivate it on lease, and continue to draw water from its wells. In the eyes of his people, by entering into an agreement with Israel before its forces withdraw from the much larger Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese areas they occupy, is King Hussein leading the pack, or out on a limb?

Asked that question during his March visit to the United States, the Jordanian monarch said that if he had waited until all of the others had made peace, no one would have cared what Jordan did. That, of course, means that there would have been little chance of persuading anyone to write off Jordan's $700 million debt to the U.S., as President Bill Clinton has agreed to do, or to start giving Jordan something approximating the generous aid the U.S. provides Egypt for keeping the peace with Israel—which may or may not happen.

A two-day visit to Jordan in April gave me a chance to hear for myself what Jordanians were saying six months after the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty was signed. I started with the taxi driver who drove me the 15 miles from the airport. "The peace is very good," he said without hesitation. "We're very happy with the peace."

Skeptically, I calculated that he was old, a native Jordanian from Irbid where people like the king, and possibly alert to the chance to ingratiate himself with a visiting American. But I had to rule out the latter factor when instead of asking for more, he tried to give me change for the 8 Jordanian dinars plus 2 dinar tip I give him for the ride to my hotel (with JD.I worth about U.S. $1.30, the ride and tip were $13).

His final words, however, were prophetic, not about his opinion but about my plight in tourist-jammed Jordan. "Do you have a reservation?" he asked. "I can wait if you don't." I assured him I was okay, and he left.

The Amman Marriott lobby was packed with what seemed like hundreds of people and I was thankful I had asked for a reservation through the Jeddah Marriott the previous night. My smugness was shattered when the harried desk clerk asked, "Did you receive confirmation of your request?

"Well, no," I admitted. "They told me the reservation center didn't open until seven and I had to go to the airport before that. I'm a regular customer. Surely you have something?"

Arabs don't like to say no. Without directly answering my question, and while directing departing guests from various tour groups to the appropriate waiting buses, the clerk methodically began calling other hotels. Finally she informed me she had found a single for me at the Philadelphia Hotel, but at twice the rate the Marriott charges.

Civilization began in the Middle East, and the suave Arabs are the original spinmasters.

Remembering the limestone building across the street from Amman's Roman amphitheater that was too grand for me to afford when I first visited Amman in 1962, and too shabby to attract me when I last saw it in 1984, I hesitated. "He'll take it," she said into the telephone, "but at the same rate we charge, no more!" She slammed down the phone authoritatively. "You have it for one night," she said with pride. "If they can't put you up a second night call us and we'll try to find something else for you."

Philadelphia was Amman's name during the Roman era when it and Petra, one of Jordan's major tourist attractions, were stops along the caravan route that connected the incense producers of "Arabia Felix," modern Yemen and Oman, with the Mediterranean cities of the Roman and Byzantine empires. En route to the hotel bearing the illustrious name, I resumed my survey. This driver was a Palestinian who had left Jenin as a child, but he assured me that he, too, was happy with the peace. "We could have had it long ago," he added. "We would have been much better off."

I began to wonder if the accolades for peace had something to do with the presence of more uniformed police on the streets and around the hotels than I ever had seen before. My ruminations ended abruptly when we pulled into a modern hotel perched on a hillside and bearing no resemblance to the turn-of-the century downtown hostelry I remembered. The Philadelphia's owners, it turned out, had bought and then transferred the proud name to a former Holiday Inn just as modern and well-managed as the Marriott and the always-crowded Amman Intercontinental.

Ubiquitous Tour Groups

The Philadelphia, too, was jammed with people, but I was accepted for one night only at the standard rate (about $130 a night with all services but no meals included).

"Who," I asked the bell boy, "are all these people filling every room in the hotel?"

"Tour groups," he explained. "From Italy, France, Germany, America, England, Israel."

"Israel?" I interrupted. "Tour groups?"

"Yes, yes," he said happily. "We're very busy."

The hotel was within walking distance of some of my old haunts around the former U.S. Embassy and Intercontinental Hotel. At a shop operated to raise funds for a Palestinian orphanage and vocational school, the name had been changed from the "Musa Al-Alami Foundation" to "Boys' Town." There a man and woman were bargaining aggressively for a beautifully embroidered Palestinian woman's jacket. It was marked at JD. 100—20 dinars less than I had paid for one just like it a year earlier. After harder bargaining than I'd ever heard in the Middle East, they took it for JD. 90 and left.

"Who were those people?" I asked the shopkeeper. "They spoke in Arabic, but didn't act like any Arabs I've ever known."

The shopkeeper, the son of Palestinian refugees who hopes to go to a small college in Pennsylvania next fall to take a B.A. in business administration, smiled. "They are Palestinians from Israel," he explained in English, but giving it the Arabic pronunciation—Is-rah-EEL.

Do many come here? I ask.

"Yes, hundreds, and so do the Israeli Jews. And we go there. It's good for everyone." Then, realizing that I'd been listening to the whole transaction, and remembering what I'd bought there last year, he explained hastily: "These Palestinian jackets sell for less now. There's much more competition now. Every shop has them. But I don't ever sell them so cheaply as I did that one. That man and his wife have been back twice in two days and I just wanted to get rid of them."

"Do the Israelis also bargain that hard?" I asked wonderingly.

"Yes, they like to ask the price of everything and then they always say they can get things cheaper downtown. So I tell them to go downtown, and they go away. The Palestinians from Is-rah-EEL do the same thing, but the difference is that later they come back and buy the things. So it's worth my trouble."

In an adjacent shop I asked about Israeli customers, but the shopkeeper was non-committal. "We get 800 or 900 every day," he answered.

"In this shop?"

"No, no. In Jordan. This time of year business always is good, but this year it's the best we've ever had."

The next morning, when I asked if they could keep me another night until my plane flew, the desk clerk began the telephone routine again. It shouldn't be difficult to find me a place in another hotel, he assured me between turndowns, since the profit margin is much greater on a visitor like me than on the participants in the group tours who again were swirling around us in the lobby.

I'd already figured that out from the incredible service I had received. The Philadelphia had brought me a tray piled with cookies, a liter bottle of Jordanian red wine, and a heaping basket of fruit. The truth of the matter is that the only meal I'd paid for in the hotel was breakfast that morning.

I realized he had connected when I heard him berating someone on the other end of the line: "That's the same amount we charge and we're a five-star hotel and you're a four-star hotel." Not realizing that I understood the conversation he then gave me his less than literal translation: "You're lucky. The Amra is a very nice hotel and they will give you the same rate we did." I recalled that civilization began in the Middle East, and the suave Arabs are the original spinmasters.

The taxi driver again said he was a Jordanian from Irbid. Pressed, he said his father was from Palestine and his mother from Jordan. Everyone was happy with the peace. Business was very good.

The Amra was huge, and jammed with tour groups. By now I'd figured out that it was the week after Western Easter, and just before Orthodox Easter. Jordan was getting not only its own heavy tourist traffic for this time of year, but also foreign tour groups primarily visiting the holy places in Jerusalem. No one nationality predominates in these hotels, and the Israelis were neither more nor less visible than the ubiquitous Germans, French and Americans. One group of young boys and girls even seemed to be conversing noisily both in Arabic and Hebrew.

My head was spinning as I realized that the only people who could be identified with certainty were the Jordanians. Unlike the casually dressed tourists in their bush jackets and running shoes, the Jordanian men were wearing coats and ties and the Jordanian women were attired in svelte dresses or slacks with jewelry and high heels.

More traditional garb was visible on the streets outside, but in the late mornings and from 5 to 8 p.m. the hotel lounges, coffee shops and outdoor terraces were filled with prosperous-looking Jordanians chatting animatedly or reading newspapers over coffee or a beer.

Clever People

Here the gift shop owner put his own spin on my questions about Israeli customers. "We are all human beings under God," he said, rolling his eyes heavenward. "So of course we welcome them. But they don't like to listen to good advice. When I try to tell them that there are 1,000 fils to our dinar, they always say 'I know, I know.' But sometimes they don't know. Most of all I think they don't know that not all the clever people are Israelis. We have clever people too." Suddenly remembering he was talking to an American, he added hastily, "There also are clever Americans. I think the Israelis forget this when they talk to other people. We are not all stupid."

In fact the Israelis probably do know about fils and dinars, I reflected as I got into another taxi for a last foray downtown. My experience had been that in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, at least, merchants seemed to prefer dinars to Israeli shekels—perhaps because Jordan's rate of inflation generally is lower than that of Israel.

I cringed when my young driver turned for instructions and I realized he was wearing the long beard marking an Islamist. His name was Omar, he was from Jerusalem, and he said that by the time he finishes paying for his cab rental and gasoline, he's lucky to take home one dinar in wages. He already was driving too fast, so I prudently decided not to ask him what he thought of the peace. When he offered to take me to Petra I assured him I was leaving the next morning. What time and for where? he wanted to know.

I knew he was just looking for business, but for the first and only time in two days of wandering alone around Amman I suddenly felt uneasy. When we reached my destination, Omar insisted that he would wait to drive me back to the hotel after I finished my errands. I insisted just as vehemently that I was going to walk back. Finally, he took my money. Instead of offering change, which I in turn would wave away, he insisted I was underpaying him since he would have to drive back empty. By that time I didn't care. What a difference a beard, and what it seems to represent in Jordan, makes!

The crisp sunny weather was beautiful and I did start to walk the three or four miles back, but after an hour I realized that hilly Amman is a city where all of the roads leading out of the city center seem to go uphill. Finally I hailed a battered cab just as the sun was setting in a glorious orange glow. The elderly Palestinian driver talked non-stop in a colorful blend of mostly English. He had worked for the Kuwait oil company for more than 30 years. He had sent both of his sons to the U.S. for university educations and had hoped they would stay there. However, both had returned to Kuwait and married fellow Palestinians. While holding their jobs in Kuwait, he and his sons had begun building a family business in Amman. Now all was lost.

"That (expletive) Saddam," the driver said, yelling by now. "If I had him right here in this car..." He drew the edge of his hand across his throat. "I would cut his neck. He's a crazy man." He repeated his statement, with gesture, to make sure I understood.

Then, almost without pause, he continued. "Those (expletive) Muslims." He drew his hand across his face. "If I had them right here in this car I would cut their beards."

"Why?" I asked. But I thought I knew. The early reports from Oklahoma City had been in the morning paper and on CNN, but this was the first time anyone had mentioned the subject to me that day.

"For what they did in America. Before it was a clean country. Now they have messed it up, just like they have messed up the Middle East." We were pulling into the hotel driveway but I purposely fumbled with the money until I had determined through questions that he came from a Muslim town in Palestine. People in America were not the only ones who jumped to the wrong conclusion during the first 15 hours after the deadly explosion.

Back in the hotel, there was a huge plate of Arabic pastries and more fruit, "on the house." I skipped the buffet in the dining room and settled for a cheese sandwich in the coffee shop. Anyone who thinks man cannot live by bakhlava alone hasn't tried it.

The next morning the ride back to the airport (everyone was happy with the peace—business was good) almost completed my survey. I'd arrived thinking many Jordanians, whether from the East or West Bank, would be expressing some of the same reservations about the peace treaty reflected in the press. Undoubtedly some were, but those I talked to (all of whom were engaged, one way or another, in the tourist industry) were riding the crest of a tangible peace dividend, and thankful for every bit of it.

As my Royal Jordanian airliner departed, it took an item labeled "warning to journalists" in the Amman Star, an English-language weekly newspaper more critical of the government than the daily Jordan Times, to make me think again. It reported that Israelis now are visiting Jordan in their own cars, something I certainly hadn't known. However, the Star reported, the Jordanian government was putting a yellow Jordanian license plate over the Israeli plates to conceal them. Yellow, the paper noted, also is the color of the license plates issued to journalists, meaning that journalists should be aware that from now on "they have a target on the back of their automobiles."

The "warning," which perhaps was as close as the newspaper dared to come to criticizing the peace treaty, explained the police so visible around the four- and five-star hotels, and in downtown Amman. The Israeli media also report that stones have been thrown at buses containing Israeli tourists. The reports are not confirmed, only quoted, in the Jordanian media.

Someday there will be an ugly incident, of course. But the fact that at present 900 Israelis are visiting Jordan every day, and that so many Jordanians seem happy about it, indicates that such an incident can remain an isolated one, and not a harbinger of the future. As in Egypt, a visit to Jordan gives sensible Israelis a view of what's possible in the entire Middle East if their government deals sincerely with the root of the problem—sharing the land of Palestine with the Palestinians.

If, on the other hand, the Jordanians, at least 70 percent of whom have Palestinian roots, decide the Israeli government never had any intention of accommodating their Palestinian brothers, they are going to reach some conclusions. One is that perhaps all people aren't equal in God's sight after all. The other is that perhaps the Israelis aren't clever at all. If the Israelis miss this chance, that latter conclusion will be proven right.

Richard H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report.