Saturday, March 30, 2013

The Body Language Of A King In A Press Conference.


By Sodium

The king to whom the title of this essay refers is King Abdallah II of The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The press conference had taken place in Amman, the capital city of Jordan. The King was at the right podium and President Obama at the left podium of the conference hall, facing mainly journalists/reporters who poured into Amman from across the globe. It was an interesting conference.

The writer of this essay usually writes down notes, in similar press conferences, with regards to the questions asked by journalists/reporters and the responses provided by the Heads of States, but not in this particular press conference, because of the unexpected surprise he had noticed, as he watched the body language of King Abdallah II and to a lesser extent the body language of President Obama:

* The face of the King was clearly full of anguish. He looked like a man who was carrying all the burdens of the complex problems of the Middle East on his shoulder.

* As Obama responded to questions, raised by some reporters/journalists, the King looked straight at him, like trying to size-up every word and every sentence President Obama had made. In similar manner, so did Obama to the King, as the King responded to questions addressed to him by some attendees of the conference.

* President Obama kept his cool, as he usually does in almost all circumstances, including press conferences.

* In comparison to the coolness of Obama, it was so clear to the writer of this essay that the King was deeply worrying about "something or somthings "

Based on the foregoing, a sensible question to raise is:

What could have been that " something or somethings " that had anguished the King, as he appeared in the press conference ?

To attempt to give an exact answer to the above question would be an exercise in analytical futility. What one can do is to read or rather cite the trends of events that had taken place prior to the press conference in which the King clearly appeared in a state of anguish. Although all the events or trends, related to the Middle East problems were important, the most important ones that had taken place within two months,at the most, before this conference was held, were the following ones:

~ President Obama announced that he would make a visit to Israel to " LISTEN. "  The question here is: to listen to whom ?  Netanyahu ?  Well, he has been listening to Netanyahu for the last four years and nothing has been accomplished in the road  to peace.

~  King Abdallah II  made a quick visit to Turkey and met privately with Rajab Tayib Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey. The question here: why Turkey now and after Obama had announced his plan to pay a visit to Israel ?

~ After visiting Israel, Obama dropped by the State of Palestine and met with its President Mahmoud Abbas ( Abu Mazen ), and after that, Obama paid a visit to Jordan..

~ In Amman, Jordan, Obama met privately, and all alone, with King Abdallah of Jordan for five hours. The question here: why so long and alone ?  sign of disagreement ?  Yes, most likely.

~ Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, announced publiclly that he apologized to Turkey, while Obama was finalizing his visit to the Middle East, in sight-seeing, in the antiquity of  the ancient city of Petra in southern Jordan.

 It is interesting to observe that after President Obama arrived back to the White House,The Arab League had given the seat of the Syrian Arab Republic, within the body of the league, to the opposion that has been in a bloody conflict with the government of the Syrian Arab Republic.

These are the political trends that one must consider in order to reach a sensible comprehension of what is really going on in the profoundly complex political circumstances in the Middle East.

Connecting the dots, from one event to the next, provides trend or trends. The difficulty is in ASSUMING what will happen, let alone KNOWING what will happen, with an acceptable degree of confidence. Hence, the apparent anguish of the King is, perhaps, due to the fact that he knows well how difficult it is to navegate through such a complex situation, in a region characterized with the most political instability in the world, especially if he was asked to do more than he could possibly deliver, in the name of peace, when others gave lip-service to peace.

END.
 

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