Jordanian king calls for 'Marshall Plan'

Jordan’s King Abdullah II wants a program for the Middle East modelled after the Marshall Plan, which is credited with saving post-war Europe from economic and political disarray.

In an address yesterday to business leaders, the king said he had approached US leaders about such a project before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

He says the attacks and subsequent problems they triggered overseas make it all the more pertinent.

“The plan is needed now more than ever, to give people hope and offer them an alternative to hate and division,” he told 500 people at a hotel in Chicago.

“I’m talking about a Marshall Plan, as it were, for the recovery of the Middle East.”

Abdullah didn’t say if the United States alone should take part in putting together such a plan, nor did he say how much it might cost.

The four-year Marshall Plan helped rebuild Germany as well as 14 other war-damaged European nations after the Second World War.

Abdullah said bringing stability to Iraq is crucial to any Middle East revival, but that it is secondary to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Terrorists, he argued, were using the Palestinian issue to woo recruits.

“If we solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, 90% of the battle is over,” he said.

King Abdullah was in the United States to attend the G-8 economic summit in Georgia. Earlier, he attended President Ronald Reagan’s funeral in Washington, D.C.