Queen Noor : She Defends Embattled Jordan, With Justifiably Royal Conviction

Sitting on the garden patio of her suite at the Bel Air Hotel, dressed in jeans and a casual white summer top, Lisa Najeeb Halaby, 40, still looks like a stunning debutante--but she sounds like a veteran of the State Department’s Middle East desk. In conversation, she proves to be extremely well-informed, easily ranges through centuries of the region’s history and contemporary issues without benefit of advisers or briefing books and obviously enjoys debate. Indeed, it is necessary to remind yourself that this is Her Majesty Queen Noor-al Hussein, or “Light of Hussein,” the wife of Jordan’s king.

She avoids the play-acting of royalty and appears far less stuffy than one might expect of a Princetonian, class of 1974. But she is also all business, as a representative of Jordan, since her 1978 marriage into the more than 1,000-year-old Hashemite Kingdom, carefully picking her phrases and ever alert to diplomatic nuance. Queen Noor is aware her words are taken to reflect her husband’s views and measures her responses accordingly.

The daughter of a prominent Lebanese-American businessman, the former chairman of Pan Am, and a mother of Swedish ancestry, she is fluent in Arabic and French, and trained in architecture and urban planning. In Jordan, when she is not with her four young children, Queen Noor works on numerous educational and development projects--most recently she was active in assisting Gulf War refugees who had sought refuge in her country.

A devout Muslim, she insists her religion’s tenets are consistent with fundamental human rights--including those of women. She grew passionate when she challenged Western stereotypes that denigrate Muslim life as inconsistent with the independence sought by modern women. Throughout her conversation, she pointedly avoided the appearance of meddling in the continuing diplomatic search for a Middle East peace, and she later refused to comment about her husband’s alleged opening to one-on-one negotiations with Israel. Her spokesman said the king’s remarks were misconstrued.

In her meetings during her stay, Queen Noor seemed eager to display an open, humorous and yet committed version of the Arab woman. She managed to impress, among others, Westside power brokers, including the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee. Queen Noor, who first cut her political teeth as a college activist in the civil-rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, is obviously their kind of queen.

Question: You and your husband, King Hussein, were against military action in the Gulf and urged a negotiated Arab solution. Do you have second thoughts about that?

Answer: Well, circumstances built upon themselves. We were all led into a tragic confrontation. At the outset, my husband, along with a majority of other Arab leaders, opposed the invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi forces and he began to work, within hours of the invasion, to reverse the actions of Iraq--to achieve an Iraqi commitment to withdraw its forces. He was asked to do that by President Bush, by (Egyptian) President Mubarak and the Saudi king when he met in Alexandria on the first day of the invasion and was in touch with these leaders face-to-face. He then left the next day to try to secure a commitment to withdrawal--which he did achieve.

Q: Would it have been honored?

A: He felt at that time that there would be no reason why it would not be honored. Today, we will never know. Today, we see the true consequences of the war in terms of human suffering in the region and the displacement of almost 5 million people, the continuing deaths, starvation and disease. Health problems have been generated--not only by the damaged infrastructure in Kuwait and Iraq, but by the damage to the environment, the displacement of so many people. There are lessons that can help us avoid this and perhaps see in the future the need for pursuing diplomacy and dialogue.

Q: You are implying Saddam Hussein was a rational enough leader to negotiate--not the conventional view in this country.

A: I think one of the mistakes that is made in the United States and other countries is overemphasis on personality. I think it simplifies the issues . . . .

Saddam Hussein was seen among many in the region as someone who had demonstrated a greater sense of responsibility--and don’t quote me out of context on this--and an awareness of sharing the wealth, if you will. He was a leader of an oil-producing country that laid emphasis in his public statements, and even in his actions, on the importance of economic integration and resource-sharing in the region for the benefit of all. He’s only one man, capable of doing so much, and he was also recovering from a war. These are principles that he set out that had a great appeal in a region that suffers very much, among other things, this inequitable distribution of resources and this gross disparity in annual incomes and quality of life. There is also his championing the Palestinian cause.

Q: But wasn’t he using rather than championing the Palestinian cause?

A: That’s another issue. The perceptions are extremely important, perceptions in the United States as well as perceptions in the Middle East--not necessarily based in every case on facts.

Q: Some people argue that the Palestinians don’t need a state because they already have one--Jordan. Why can’t Jordan just absorb the Palestinians?

A: How does this really resolve the problem? These people are generations of families that have grown up cultivating their own land. We can’t offer them any substitute for their lands, for their homes.

Q: I’m sure the more enlightened position would be that their lands would be returned to--

A: --If you’re talking about the final status of the occupied territories and its relationship with Jordan--that has yet to be resolved. I think that both Jordanians and Palestinians have shown a great deal of flexibility and openness to discussing it. The priority for Jordan and for the Palestinians, as I understand it, is to achieve the objectives that President Bush laid out in his March 6 speech but as we have also laid them out over a long period of time in somewhat more detail. The final status, I don’t think, is much of an issue.

Q: Do you really think leaders of the Arab world want to solve this problem or do they want it around at their convenience?

A: I can only speak for my husband and for the people of Jordan. We can only see the advantages and the absolute essential need for peace and resolution of this problem to ensure our own future. That is true for every other dispute in the region as well. In particular, for us, peace is essential. It’s not a tactic--it is a commitment and it always has been. It is today more than ever.

Q: What about the irrational and other anti-peace forces at work in the region?

A: Well, there are always going to be irrational forces. The forces of moderation are the forces that we need to bolster . . . . The forces of extremism and lack of reason and logic, if you will, are forces that breed, or live off political instability and economic pressure. You find that in Israel as well as in some other Arab countries. The most important thing is the message of God in whatever religion we might be discussing, and that message can become easily obscured.

Q: Is there a message of God about what happens to Jerusalem? All sides there seem to think they have a message of God.

A: Jerusalem is, by definition, or by translation, the City of Peace. It should be a city of peace. It should unite the followers of the three great monotheistic religions that were essentially born, or nurtured, in our region. It should unite them in peace and brotherhood and harmony. There’s no question in my mind what Jerusalem ought to be, and that’s God’s message to all of us.

Q: What about the tensions produced by religious fundamentalism?

A: It’s not an endemic problem of the region. It is a symptom of problems that people feel from frustrations, of political and economic inequities that have driven so many people in the region to the point of absolute despair. They’ve looked in the material and secular world for answers; they haven’t found them, so where do they look? Just as people in this country, or in other countries--in Israel as well--they tend to move toward the most simplistic solutions.

Q: As a convert to the Muslim religion, do you think the West tends to be too simplistic in stressing fundamentalism and ignoring its complexities?

A: I think it’s probably been very hard for people in the non-Muslim world to read the signals coming out of the Muslim world in recent decades. The political face of Islam that has been featured in most of the coverage of our region now for well over a decade has very much confused, for many, the essentially humane and tolerant message of Islam. It’s confused many aspects of Islam concerning the roles of men and women and their obligations and responsibilities to their society, to their own individual self-development as well as their responsibilities to contribute.

Q: Why don’t you enlighten us a bit? For instance, during the Gulf War, many Americans were shocked when Saudi women had a demonstration to be able to drive a car.

A: I know more about Jordanian women. Jordanian women are involved in all levels of development of our society, which is a conservative Muslim society, primarily--it’s a Christian and Muslim society. Jordanian women, even from the most conservative families and communities of the country, drive cars and work alongside men in all sectors of society. They fly airplanes, they serve in the government, they run factories and industry, they teach and there really are no barriers. They have full political rights.

Q: What is the future of royalty? Isn’t there something absurd about being a queen in the modern world and having a kingdom, or is this necessary to have stability and is this a viable and enduring institution?

A: In Jordan, to date, the monarchy has served an essential and, I believe, desired role by the majority of people. We are servants of the people of Jordan and of the region in any way that we can serve the best interests. That is the role that the family will play as long as it is wanted and needed to play that role. I do not see the monarchy in Jordan as an end in itself, but as a means to ever-improving quality of life and opportunity for Jordan contributing peace to the region.

I expect that from every single member of my family--and I am raising my children to be able to fulfill their responsibilities and take advantage of any opportunities that may be presented to them to contribute to these objectives. It doesn’t matter whether it is as members of the ruling royal family or as members of the Hashemite family who have a special heritage, and from that heritage a special moral responsibility to advance the cause of peace and the welfare of people in Jordan and in the region.

Q: Is it true President Bush used to have your husband’s picture on his mantle?

A: As far as I know, he still does.

Q: But wasn’t your husband one of the people that Bush was particularly close to?

A: They’re old friends. My husband goes back nine American administrations--so do his relations with many of the people, like President Bush, who served in more than one Administration.

Q: Well, Jordan’s support of Saddam Hussein was a shock, because here was Syria, which used to be regarded as the major backer of terrorism, suddenly an ally of the United States, and Jordan--which most of us had long considered the big pro-Western ally, the most reliable outside of Israel perhaps--seemed to be in the role of betrayer.

A: What you’re referring to shocked, frustrated and disturbed me greatly because it seemed so unnatural and illogical to turn on Jordan--which so many people here recognize as one of the United States’ most natural and logical partners in the Middle East and has been persistent over all the time with its relations with the United States.

If you ask me if it bothered me--yes, I found it very disturbing. But we also kept the perspective. We knew that our position would be vindicated ultimately and better understood by those seeking to understand what’s going on in the region.

Q: I think the prevalent attitude in this country was that your husband had done something blatantly opportunistic in that, perhaps because of a large Palestinian population, he had sided with Hussein, the person he thought would be a winner, or that would cause him the least trouble.

A: Well, those were the perceptions created by the media and the misrepresenting statements of officials and others in various places. Jordan opposed the invasion and the annexation from the beginning. There was so much misinformation; the stories about the arms shipments and the embargo, the allegations of breaking the embargo--so many stories that were fed into the media that were not true at all.

They were subsequently stated to be incorrect in congressional hearings, State Department hearings, etc. But it was usually weeks after the damage had been done. Those are stories that I hope will be corrected over time. The official sources in this country, who ultimately had access and could confirm that these stories were not true, somehow seemed to eventually confirm them--but usually only after the damage had been done. No one ever seems to notice the correction either.