More than any other Arab leader apart from the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, King Hussein of Jordan has worked for a negotiated settlement of the explosive Arab-Israeli conflict. Last week, drained after months of unsuccessful efforts to enlist Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, into the peace process, Hussein announced that he had reached "an end to another chapter in the search for peace."
Hussein made the announcement in an emotional 3 1/2-hour speech over Jordanian television, addressed to 1.3 million Palestinians in the Israeli- occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as to his own 2.8...