KING Hussein of Jordan warned Mr Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday not to destroy Middle East peace hopes by establishing new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The king issued the warning to the Israeli Prime Minister at a joint news conference with Mr Netanyahu, on the completion of his first visit to Jordan since winning Israel's May elections.
But he" also pleased Mr Netanyahu by stating publicly that he had no desire to see Jerusalem redivided - and that the city had to serve as a symbol of peace and of faith, common to all religions.
Israel claims the whole of Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians want the eastern sector as the capital of a state of their own.
Reacting to Mr Netanyahu's decision last week to lift a four-year government freeze on Jewish building in the West Bank, King Hussein urged the new Israeli government to create opportunities rather than obstacles.
"I hope and I trust," he added drily, "that the Israeli government will act prudently."
Coming from Mr Netanyahu's warmest ally in the Arab world, the warning was particularly stark.
King Hussein is known to have tolerated rather than liked the defeated Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres. He refused Mr Peres permission to visit Jordan just before the elections on what would have been a blatant campaigning exercise.
Since Mr Netanyahu's victory, he has signalled a readiness to try to broker improved relations between Israel and other Arab states. Indeed, late last month the king secretly met Mr Netanyahu in London, and then flew to Damascus at the Israeli premier's request to deliver an Israeli peace overture.
Israeli sources claimed last night that King Hussein had brought back a "positive message" from Syrian President Hafez a Assad to Mr Netanyahu. Certainly Mr Netanyahu sounded more flexible than previously in discussing Israel's attitude to negotiations with Damascus.
"We are prepared to engage in peace negotiations on all outstanding matters," he said - a deceptively bland articulation of what is something of a departure.
In the past Mr Netanyahu has sought to win President Assad's consent to talks concentrating on resolving the violence on the Israeli-Lebanon border; the new readiness to discuss "all outstanding matters" effectively means that the future of the Golan Heights could now be discussed.
Mr Netanyahu's desire for a "Lebanon first" solution is understandable. Two more Israeli soldiers were injured in south Lebanon yesterday, in the latest confrontation with Hizbullah gunmen who are armed by Iran but allowed to operate by the 35,000 Syrian troops permanently stationed in Lebanon.
But President Assad has flatly refused to limit negotiations to this issue alone, and now seems to have forced Mr Netanyahu to reconsider his approach.
Aware that the king's enthusiastically pro-Israel stance is growing more unpopular in his increasingly cash and water-strapped country, Mr Netanyahu took several leading businessmen with him yesterday, made economic co-operation a focus of his talks, and announced that 5,000 more Palestinians would be allowed to work in Israel.
He made no commitment, however, on the issue regarded as the test-case for his peacemaking intentions the timing of an Israeli withdrawal from Hebron.
And back in Israel his defence minister, Mr Yitzhak Mordechai, firmly denied that the pullout is scheduled for the end of this month.