Jordan King Sees War on All Arabs : Mideast: He supports the people of Iraq, criticizes the U.N. and urges an immediate cease-fire.

Blasting the allied assault on neighboring Iraq as a “savage” war on all Arabs and Muslims, Jordan’s King Hussein on Wednesday expressed strong support for the people of Iraq, a land that he said has become “the arena of the third world war.”

But in reflecting the growing outrage of his nation of nearly 4 million largely pro-Iraqi Jordanians and Palestinians, the king made it clear that Jordan continues to walk a tightrope of neutrality in the Persian Gulf War.

Not once in his half-hour nationwide address, his first since the allied air war began over Baghdad three weeks ago, did the king mention the name of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. And he reiterated that his nation remains “unwilling to dance to the tune others play.”

The monarch also repeated an impassioned appeal to all sides for an immediate cease-fire.

“The opportunity for peace still exists,” he said in a speech punctuated with passionate rhetoric. “The voices of millions can be heard in every country, including those of the alliance. They all call for peace and an end to the killing of children, the destruction of homes and the withholding of medicine from the sick.

“Which voices will win in the end? The voices of reason, peace and justice, or the voices of war, hatred and insanity?”

The king attempted to play the role of go-between during the five-month crisis preceding the war, and his country remains technically neutral. But by importing Iraqi oil, Jordan has openly circumvented the United Nations-imposed economic embargo on Iraq, and many Jordanian officials have voiced opposition to the U.S.-led military campaign against Iraq.

In his speech Wednesday, King Hussein sharply criticized the United Nations for its silence during the weeks since the war erupted.

“So where is the United Nations now?” he asked.

“If this is an example of the future role of the United Nations in the ‘new world order,’ what an ominous future lies before all nations,” he said.

The king made no mention of Iraq’s brutal occupation of Kuwait, calling only for Iraqi-American and Arab-to-Arab dialogues under the umbrella of a cease-fire to settle all disputes behind the conflict.

At one point, the king condemned the allied role in the ongoing dispute about Jordan’s sole source of crude oil, tanker truck shipments from Iraq that have come under heavy and sometimes fatal fire from allied aircraft on the highway from Baghdad to the Jordanian border.

“These punishments are the price we must pay because we tried to avert the disaster which was planned and premeditated in the dark,” he said. “As a new form of punishment, there are now attempts to deprive us of our basic needs, even oil . . . for no other reason than our principled stand.”

But the king, who has continually tried to balance the overwhelmingly pro-Iraqi sentiments of his people with the devastation Jordan would endure if it openly backed Iraq militarily, reserved his most emotional rhetoric for the human toll the war is taking on the Iraqi people, whom he praised for their steadfastness.

“The world has known cruel wars, but never one like this that is waged against Iraq,” Hussein said.

“Fire rains down upon Iraq from airplanes, from battleships, from submarines and rockets, destroying mosques, churches, schools, museums, hospitals, powdered milk factories, residential areas, Bedouin tents, electricity-generating stations and water works.

“How shamed will be the Arabs who let Arab blood be spilled in this unjust war,” Hussein said.

Stressing that the military alliance ranged against Iraq enjoys the open support of Israel, the king concluded, “It becomes easy to realize that this war is a war against all Arabs and Muslims, not only against Iraq.”

President Bush, responding to Hussein’s comment that the war against Iraq is unjust, said Wednesday night: “I have a major disagreement with him on that. It’s not true.

“I think they’ve made a mistake to align themselves so closely with Saddam Hussein against the rest of the world,” Bush said of the Jordanians. “But on the other hand, I have tried to understand the pressure that King Hussein is under. So we will obviously try to keep open lines of communication.”

Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to a speech in New York, Bush said, “There will be no cease-fire. There will be nothing of that nature until this man (Saddam Hussein) commences a credible, unilateral withdrawal, and then we’ll see what happens.”

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in New York contributed to this report.