Encounter at Sea With Yachting Hussein : Israeli Has Try at Speedboat Diplomacy

An Israeli family cruising aboard a speedboat in the Gulf of Aqaba came upon King Hussein’s royal yacht and invited the Jordanian monarch to visit the Israeli resort of Eilat.

The king reportedly answered that he will visit “one day, God willing.”

“I think he is a very nice guy,” said Meir Zamzelig, 37, of Eilat, who today recalled the Sunday afternoon encounter in the gulf’s international waters near the Coral Islands, about 10 miles from Eilat.

Photographs Zamzelig snapped of a waving Hussein, clad in swim trunks, were splashed across Israeli newspapers today with his story.

“I didn’t see him for a second as an enemy,” Zamzelig said. “I think our area in Israel needs peace.”

The impromptu attempt at amateur diplomacy comes amid efforts to convene an international conference on the Middle East, particularly one bringing Hussein and Israel together.

Zamzelig, who owns a water sports concession in Eilat, said he, his wife and four daughters were on a pleasure trip in the gulf when he spotted Hussein’s 50- to 60-foot fishing boat.

“When I came closer . . . I saw his wife (Queen Noor) and children. He was on the flying bridge and when I approached he waved hello.

“He didn’t know yet that I am Israeli,” Zamzelig said.

Zamzelig said he called to Hussein from a distance of about five feet that he operates a water sports business at a hotel in Eilat that features parachute-sailing, which he said “I know you like and I invite you to do.”

He quoted Hussein as saying he hoped to come “one day, inshallah, “ an Arabic expression that means, “God willing.”