would that all believed as he does

King Abdullah II of Jordan put his name to a wonderful op-ed piece in today's Washington Post. According to Abdullah, the values of Islam are "compassion, goodwill and respect for others". He further notes that "[o]ur religion calls us to live and work for justice and to promote tolerance". Would that were so; would that the rest of the Islamic world lived up to this creed. Sadly, anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear knows this is not the case. For a more objective and hence more sharply focused approach, please see the article linked in my post here.

Getting back to the good King (meant without the usual sarcasm or irony), Abdullah, a Hashemite, is considered a lineal descendant of the Prophet. As such, he and his family by rights should be ruling in the Arabian Peninsula, hijacked by the Saud family. More to the point, Abdullah, with his modern, pro-Western views, just might be the linchpin around which an enduring peace in the Middle East might be crafted.

How to start? Perhaps by Abdullah's taking a forceful, unequivocal stand against the racist press and media that is the norm in virtually every Arab nation. How about going to Jerusalem to broker a peace with Israel that includes Jordan taking full control over the West Bank as a Palestinian canton in a federal system within Jordan? How about vocally expressing and broadcasting his views, so well-expressed in English, in Arabic over any and every Arab-language newspaper, radio program, television broadcast?

I do not mean to be negative; merely a realist. The King, one man, albeit powerful, can only do so much. It would be refreshing for his views to be fully endorsed by other Arab rulers; but it is almost certain that even within Jordan a majority would not endorse what he has published in English this day.