Hussein's fatalism could hardly have been anything else. On July 20, 1951, he accompanied his grandfather King Abdullah to Jerusalem to pray at the revered al-Aqsa Mosque. As they entered the enclosure, an assassin shot and killed the King, narrowly missing Hussein. He would survive at least 17 more murder attempts, coup plots, army insurrections and a civil war. Such was his generous nature that he would later laugh about some of the more outlandish conspiracies, like the time he discovered that a bottle supposedly containing his nose drops was filled with lethal acid. Even when the plotters were arrested, they didn't pay with their lives, reflecting a unique spirit of forgiveness in a region where the rule is an eye for an eye.

For a man gifted with grace and charm Hussein seldom had an easy family life. His childhood was humble for a member of a royal family that, according to tradition, descended directly from the Prophet Muhammad. In his 1962 memoir Hussein wrote that a sister had died of pneumonia because their home lacked heat in the "bitter cold of an Amman winter." His father reigned briefly but was forced to abdicate because of schizophrenia.

In the 1967 Six-Day War, Hussein made his biggest mistake. He signed a defense treaty with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, then the strongman of Arab nationalism, and when the fighting broke out, launched an artillery attack on Israeli forces. Within 72 hours, Israel had captured the West Bank and taken East Jerusalem, ruled by Jordan since the 1948 creation of Israel.

The King was not invited to join President Jimmy Carter's 1978 Camp David negotiations, which produced the landmark Israeli-Egyptian peace accord. But for many years afterward, Hussein played a pivotal role, often behind the scenes, in diplomacy to achieve a comprehensive peace. Besides conducting secret negotiations with Israeli leaders for years, he became a crucial partner of the Palestinians at the 1991 Madrid talks that led to the 1993 Oslo accords. In 1994 he fulfilled a long-standing ambition by negotiating Jordan's peace treaty with Israel.

Despite an infusion of international aid, the agreement failed to bring broader peace or local prosperity. Hussein's refusal to join the gulf coalition against Saddam Hussein, for fear of provoking his pro-Iraq citizenry, angered lifelong Western and Arab friends, and the embargo imposed on a defeated Saddam has savaged Jordan's economy as well. The King deeply mourned the assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, with whom he had hoped to mold a Palestinian state, and many Jordanians grew embittered at the hard-line policies of Benjamin Netanyahu. In Hussein's lifetime, when Jordan may have had its best chance, the country never developed into a constitutional democracy. Without his father around for some tutoring, Abdullah will find the going tough as he grapples with Jordan's blighted economy, disenchantment with Israel, and Saddam's dangerous regime. The biggest fear is that in times of trouble the son will lack the authority and skill that enabled his father to straddle the divides.

1. How is the late King Hussein likely to be remembered?

2. What traits does Abdullah share with his father? What are the main challenges facing Abdullah?Answers

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