KING Hussein of Jordan and Mr Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Prime Minister, warmly shook each other's hands in Washington yesterday and signed a peace declaration ending decades of hostility between their countries.
The meeting clears away another serious obstacle to a comprehensive peace settlement in the Middle East.
President Bill Clinton, hosting the event, declared: "A new era of peace opens before us in ancient lands as brave men choose reconciliation over conflict."
The encounter was a friendlier affair than last September's between Mr Rabin and Mr Yasser Arafat, Palestine Liberation Organisation chairman. Then, Mr Clinton almost had to drag the two men together for a public handshake, and the Israeli leader appeared sick at the sight of the PLO chief's outstretched hand.
Yesterday, King Hussein and Mr Rabin, who had met secretly several times over the years, greeted each other warmly and without apparent inhibition on their first public encounter, shaking hands repeatedly in the course of formal ceremonies on the White House lawn.
To seal the declarations of good intent, the two leaders will address a joint session of the US Congress today.
Mr Clinton said the world was a witness as Israel and Jordan solemnly swore to end their state of belligerency, dating back to 1948. The declaration does not amount to a formal peace treaty, which will take a few months of further negotiation, according to United States officials. But it takes relations between the two sides to a different plane.
The King appeared emotional after formally pledging to work peacefully with his country's long-time foe. He recalled the assassination in 1951 of his grandfather, King Abdullah, a leader who had sought better relations with Israel. He hailed the agreement with Mr Rabin as one step in "a new future in our region for all our peoples and all mankind".
Mr Rabin looked serious, yet full of pride and delight. He said: "Millions of eyes all over the world are watching us with great relief and great joy. Another nightmare of war may be over."
He concluded by turning graciously to the Jordanian King, and saying: "Your majesty, the entire state of Israel is shaking your hand."
The day may have lacked the sense of expectation and tension of last September's famous handshake, but the agreement is seen as a crucial breakthrough.
The Clinton administration, which has lacked other foreign policy triumphs, now sees a wider, comprehensive peace in the region as attainable. The focus of the diplomatic effort is already shifting to the biggest challenge - settling the differences between Israel and Syria over the former's withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
Mr Warren Christopher, US Secretary of State, said: "The walls are coming down in the
Middle East."
The momentum towards the formal acceptance of Israel by the Arab world now seems unstoppable.
Most of the five-page "Washington Declaration" signed yesterday relates to technical co-operation over trade, border crossings, and telephone and electricity services. It requires talks over the allocation of water from the Jordan and Yarmuk rivers. And Jordan pledges to work towards an end of the Arab boycott of Israel.
The declaration also grants Jordan a "special role" in overseeing Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, a fiercely contested issue, as the PLO sees control of holy sites such as the Dome of the Rock as central to its claim to east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Yesterday's affinity between Mr Rabin and the King was all the more surprising given what they had both been through as younger men. It was King Hussein who threw his Arab Legion into the 1967 War with Egypt and Syria against Israel, whose victorious forces were led by Mr Rabin , then chief of staff. Since then, Mr Rabin has been regarded as a hawk, exhorting the army to contain the Palestinian uprising of 1987 with "force, might, beatings".
That was forgotten yesterday, on a day of Middle East optimism, although there is recognition that hopes have been dashed before.
One cause for concern might be the outlook for King Hussein, who did not look to be in good health, and seemed older than his 59 years. Recent cancer surgery seems to have taken its toll.
