Colonel Kisch, member of the Jewish Agency Executive, and Dr. David Yellin, former President of the Vaad Leumi, left to-day for Amman, the capital of Transjordan, to have lunch there on Friday with the Emir Abdullah, the Ruler of Transjordan, and his octagenarian father, the ex-King Hussein of the Hedjaz, who is staying there now as the guest of his son.
Ex-King Hussein was the central figure in the Pan-Arab movement which sought to include Palestine in a Confederation of Arab States under his rule, and in the long-drawn discussions in Parliemant and elsewhere as to the exact nature of the oromises made to him in the MacMahon Correspondence which brought the Arabs into the War on the British side.
In 1924, after the Turkish Republic abolished the Caliphate, King Hussein, as he was then, was proclaimed Caliph by the Moslems of Hedjaz, Iraq (where his son, the Emir Feisal is King) Transjordan and Palestine. For a short while he was the outstanding figure in the Arab world.
After his deposition, following his defeat by the Sultan Ibn Saud, the Ruler of the Wahabis, who is now King of Hedjaz, Hussein went to live in Cyprus. Last November, he was reported to be critically ill there, and in view of his 81 years of age, it was believed that he was dying. He recovered, however, and the British Government gave him permission to go to Amman, to stay with his son, the Emir Abdullah.
Colonel Kisch and Dr. Yellin, and also Chief Rabbi Jacob Meir, who is not accompanying them this time, went to Amman in 1924, to meet the then King Hussein, who was on a visit there immediately after his proclamation as Caliph, to convey to him “respectful greeting and to express the belief that the two great Semitic peoples united of yore by the bonds of common creative civilisation will not fail in the hour of their national regeneration to apprehend the need of combining their vital interests in common endeavour.”
The delegation was cordially received by King Hussein, and a dinner was given in their honour. King Hussein conferred on Chief Rabbi Jacob Meir the highest Order of the Hedjaz Kingdom. A few days later, King Hussein sent an invitation to Chief Rabbi Jacob Meir and Dr. Yellin to visit him again at Amman, to discuss an Arab-Jewish understanding, but soon after the Wahabis started their victorious march into Hedjaz and King Hussein was driven from his throne.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
