Hussein’s Death Felt by Many in O.C.

The death of King Hussein in Jordan has many in Orange County mourning a monarch who left a legacy of being a visionary in the Middle East peace process during his 47-year reign.

“He’s a man who held our country together, and his departure will affect our country and the whole region,” said Haitham Ahmed Bundakji, vice chairman of the Islamic Society of Orange County, a native of Jordan who lived there for 19 years.

When Bundakji learned that Hussein had died, he said, he “couldn’t help but cry like a baby.”

Others had more restrained reactions.

“There’s no consensus on how to feel about King Hussein,” said Hussam Ayloush, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Anaheim. “He has admirers and he has foes.”

Ayloush said that detractors believe Hussein compromised the rights of Palestinians to ensure the well-being of Jordan, and that some think Hussein was concerned with his worldwide image at the expense of regional unity.

“This is a ruler who brought mixed feelings to the Arab world, the population of Jordan and everyone concerned,” said Michel Shehadeh, the Western regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Garden Grove.

“I felt that the first concern of the king was always to preserve the Hashemite regime,” he said.

Despite complaints about his priorities, many agree that Hussein was a stabilizing factor in the Middle East.

“He was an integral part of the peace process,” said Rabbi Johanna Hershenson of Temple Beth El in Mission Viejo. “My hope is that [his son] Abdullah continues in his father’s tradition.”

Abdullah’s youth and inexperience is indeed worrisome to some peace activists who cite Hussein’s diplomacy as a linchpin of the peace progress.

“We don’t know much about the young man who has replaced King Hussein,” said Ruth Shapin, a member of the Cousins Club of Orange County, an organization devoted to achieving a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Others worry that Abdullah doesn’t have his father’s political savvy.

“He lived most of his life in England and in the United States,” Ayloush said. “He’s not familiar with the Arab customs and the Middle Eastern culture and doesn’t have the contacts that his father had. It will affect his leadership in the area.”

The 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the death of King Hussein removed two widely respected key players in a volatile geography.

“Without having King Hussein on that side of the world, it’s hard to see if things will go in a positive way,” Ayloush said of the peace process.

“We lost two great men during this critical time of forging peace,” said Bundakji, who as a 9-year-old boy first met King Hussein at an ice-skating rink in Amman, and had many encounters with Queen Noor and King Hussein, most recently in 1984 in Jordan.

“We’ve invested so much time coming to the state we’re in today,” he said. “The world can’t afford to go back.”