For me, I am left leaning when it comes to health and education, on the right when it comes to defense. So I don't know where I come on the political spectrum. And I think this the challenge that a lot of Jordanians have to deal with.

Over the past few years, the road to confrontation has shown its consequences: loss of innocent lives, destruction and fear. Most costly, however, was the loss of hope. The most precious gift that you can present to your peoples over the coming weeks is renewed hope born out of tangible progress on the ground.

Our response has been, "Well, let's then make an effort to get the Israelis and the Palestinians to sit around the table." That hasn't happened. So we only have ourselves to blame for this crisis.

The Arab World is writing a new future; the pen is in our own hands.

I'm just very wary that once you start military operations in any country, it's very difficult to predict what the outcome is.

When you get billions in aid and your weapons resupplied and your ammunition stock resupplied, you don't learn the lesson that war is bad and nobody wins.

No matter what's happening in the Middle East - the Arab Spring, et cetera, the economic challenges, high rates of unemployment - the emotional, critical issue is always the Israeli-Palestinian one.