"Do you want to understand Jordan?" I was asked by the senior official. "I will teach you all there is to know in five minutes!" And indeed, in the following five minutes I learned more than from dozens of books and hundreds of articles, including articles by some of our own "experts," civilian and military, who know so much and understand so little.

This took place 13 years ago. I was the first person registered in Jordan as Israeli. The background: A European diplomat had told me that the head of the king's court had invited me to come to Amman. Prime Minister Shimon Peres granted me an official permit, imprinted in my passport. I arrived in Amman from Cairo, and during the flight, I had an opportunity to converse with Abu-Jihad, who happened to be on the same plane. I spent the following week sitting in the lobby of a central hotel in Amman, meeting with various officials and giving numerous interviews to local and international newspapers, while waiting for the invitation for a meeting with the king or with his brother, the Crown Prince. The invitation wouldn't come, and the senior official invited me to dinner, apparently as a consolation prize. (In the meantime, amid rumors that I had come as an unofficial emissary from the Israeli Prime Minister, the king decided that my presence in Amman was becoming an embarrassment, and thus, after one week, I was politely asked to leave the kingdom at my earliest convenience, namely NOW.)

To go back to the conversation: We were sitting in an elegant French restaurant in the heart of Amman. My companion -- a Beduin, like all the leadership of the Jordan regime -- took a paper napkin and drew the map of Jordan on it.

"Look at our borders," he explained, while moving his finger around the napkin-map. "To the north we have a border with Syria, a secular, nationalistic and Pan-Arab state. To the south, it is Saudi-Arabia, a conservative and religious kingdom, straight out of the Middle Ages. Across from it, the Gulf emirates, run by backward Sheiks. To the east is Iraq, an aggressive, nationalistic dictatorship. To the west, we abut Egypt, a large but poor country, with a western orientation, aiming to lead the Arab world. We have a long border with Israel which, if you forgive me, is a foreign body in the region, a modern, western state with expansionist objectives. In the West Bank there is the Palestinian people, fighting for independence, with radical elements. To the north-west, not too far off from our border, is the conflict-ridden, unstable Lebanon, with many dangerous elements."

And in conclusion: "Influences from all of these neighbors -- ideas, refugees, agents -- penetrate our tiny country. All converge on our land. We try to moderate and absorb them. Our very existence depends on balancing these neighbors. All pose a danger to us. We can't afford to maintain a hostile relationship with any of them for very long."

He gazed at the portrait of the king hanging on the wall. "Hussein is a master at this game. Today, when he supports Iraq, which is engaged in a war with Iran, he knows that tomorrow he will have to placate its enemy, Syria. When next he establishes rapport with Syria, he will have to follow it with a gesture towards Israel. The gesture towards Israel he must balance with a statement in favor of the Palestinians. Do not forget that half of our population is Palestinian. Next he has to calm Saudi fears of Iraq and the Palestinians. All this without incurring the wrath of Saddam."

And this, my friends, is the entire analysis standing on one foot. Napoleon once said: "If you want to understand the policies of a state, just look at the map." He was not necessarily thinking of a map drawn on a paper napkin in a French restaurant across the Jordan river from Israel. And yet: King Hussein lived within this map. He never liked Israel, just as he never liked Iraq or Syria. He has always been a consummate survivor, a geopolitical dancer. When he kissed Rabin, he was thinking of Arafat, and when he embraced Saddam, he was glancing at Assad with one eye and at Fahd of Saudi Arabia with the other. This is why the king made peace with us only after Arafat had signed the Oslo Accords, making it okay for others to follow. Sadat and Arafat had dared and took the risk; Hussein followed them gingerly.

Now we are trying to guess: Will the next king be "a lover of Israel" like his father? Will he embrace Netanyahu? Will he maintain the "warm" and "intimate" relations? Intelligence reports are drafted, individuals who have met him on occasion are interviewed, scholarly researches are conducted. With all due respect -- what nonsense.

The next king will do exactly as all his predecessors did, like his great-grandfather Abdallah, like his father Hussein, neither more nor less. His true sentiments have absolutely no bearing on the matter. If he secretly despises Ariel Sharon, the man behind the massacres of Kibyeh and Shatilla, he will, nevertheless, kiss him warmly on both cheeks, thinking about his Palestinian wife. If he despises Saddam, he will make heartfelt pronouncements about the suffering of the Iraqi people. This is the name of the game called Jordan.

Kings come and go. But the map remains.