Hussein, King of Jordan, has left us. Everyone who loves peace should be grieving. Tomorrow will be time enough for politics. Today we mourn a friend and a brother. No doubt, King Hussein was different things to different people in the Middle East. I can only write as an Israeli, expressing my own personal feelings and grief.

 King Hussein had become a symbol of the will for peace in the Middle East more than any other single leader. We can hope that he chose wisely, and that his son, Abdullah, has the same intentions as his father, but shaping a great leader takes many years - as it did in the case of Yitzhak Rabin and of King Hussein.

For non-Arabs, especially Israelis, King Hussein was the epitome of the wisdom, courage, bravery, chivalry and manly warmth that any people would like to believe are their national characteristics. He was, if you will, the good-will ambassador of the Arab people. His greatness was expressed above all in his ability to project his own personal warmth and commitment into the peace process - to demonstrate the willingness and ability to turn the scraps of paper into a living reality.

We Israelis will remember his brave acts for peace and the humanity he radiated. Beyond the peace treaty which was his doing, his genuine shock at the murder of Rabin, his visit to Jerusalem for the funeral, his consolation visits to families in Beit Shemesh after the Naqoora shooting, his appearance at Wye Plantation, his many speeches and efforts on behalf of peace and of the peace process have made a deep and lasting impression. It is a pity that like Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin, King Hussein will not live to see the day we all await, when his peace efforts, and those of others, will finally come to fruition.

Perhaps nobody is irreplaceable. But the Middle East sorely needs leaders with the bravery and wisdom that King Hussein applied to the making of peace. There are so few voices raised for peace, on both sides, so few brave fighters for peace, that each one is surely precious. In recent years King Hussein fought long and hard to attract people - everyone - to the cause of peace and reconciliation, and we must admire him for it.

Many in Israel fear the future, and the pressures that are being put, and will be put, on the new king. It would have been better for us if our government had made a greater effort to actively promote economic and cultural ties with Jordan, to ensure that everyone sees the benefits of peace, during the lifetime of King Hussein. Now perhaps the debt that was owed to the father will be paid to the son, and King Abdullah II will reciprocate. We can only hope that the new government will be good for Jordan, good for the Palestinians, and as firm a friend of peace and of Israel as was King Hussein.

Today Abdullah said that his father was father and brother to all Jordanians. When King Hussein came to Israel for Yitchak Rabin’s funeral he called him ‘my brother.’ In so doing, he surely made everyone in Israel his brothers, a worthy achievement. In the midst of our mourning, he gave hope that one day, all people in our region will really live as brothers. Everyone in the Middle East should be proud to have called this man a brother.