Queen Rania’s Speech at the One Young World Summit - Belfast, UK

It’s wonderful to be with you today, and a privilege to celebrate the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement here in Belfast.

When I think back to 1998, the year the Agreement was signed, I think of my late father-in-law, His Majesty King Hussein.

His face was weathered from more than 45 years leading in a troubled part of the world—a region where we, like the people of Northern Ireland, had endured too many decades of bloodshed.

I distinctly remember when the Good Friday Agreement was signed. I happened to be with His Majesty that day, having a casual conversation over dinner with the TV in the background. I remember how his face just lit up at the news! 

 “If they can do it in Northern Ireland, then we in the Middle East can too,” he said.

King Hussein’s hope defied the violence and loss that marked his own life.

When he was only 15, he saw his beloved grandfather shot dead at the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. One of the assassin’s bullets struck him, too, but was deflected by a medal on his chest.

I’ve always wondered if that’s why King Hussein lived the rest of his years so fully; he saw our time on earth for what it is: finite, fragile, and never to be taken for granted.

In 1998, the year of the Good Friday Agreement, His Majesty King Hussein was battling cancer. That fall, he was undergoing chemotherapy.

But when he was called to help salvage talks for a milestone agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians, my father-in-law didn’t hesitate. He unhooked his IV, left his hospital bed, and flew to Wye River, Maryland to support the parties in their negotiations.

And when, after nine days, they reached an agreement, His Majesty spoke at the signing.

He started by joking that the peace process had made the American envoy’s hair turn grey.

And then he said, “I’ve lost all mine—even my eyebrows. But this is part of the life in which we live. [...] And no matter what...if I had an ounce of strength, I would have done my utmost to be here, and to help in any way I can.”

Cancer reminded King Hussein once again of how limited time can be. And once again, he chose to live in the fullness of that time... to give meaning to every moment he had so that future generations could live in peace.

I know that one of the themes of this Summit is “peace and reconciliation.” And today I want to talk to you about that from the prism of time: How limited it is… how hope can endure the test of time… and how we can expand what time we have by using it well.

I’d guess that you—as young activists—feel the weight of urgency more than most.

Everywhere we turn, the warning lights on the dashboard are flashing red. Polarized politics. Old and new conflicts. Global corridors overflowing with refugees. Glaciers slipping into the sea.

Meanwhile, age-old challenges refuse to give way – even in the world’s greatest democracies!

At a time when we’re talking about advanced technologies like AI, it is preposterous that many still fall back on the primitive thinking that the color of one’s complexion determines their worth. And it’s shameful that gender equality is still a goal, not a reality.

Yet knowing our problems are urgent doesn’t always make us more effective at solving them. Overwhelmed with anxiety that time is running out, we thrash around in the shallows, unable to dive deep... Or, worse yet, exhaust ourselves before we see progress, or just give up altogether.

25 years after the Wye River Memorandum, that’s what has happened in Palestine.

For many, it seems, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has become an abstraction. A metaphor for intractable hatred—a place the world would rather forget.

But time marches on.

In fact, already in 2023, more Palestinians have died at the hands of Israelis than in any of the past 15 years. And every second of every minute of every day, millions of Palestinians are being robbed of their freedom… their rights… their very identity. Even as we watch.

Palestinian families are being uprooted from their land. Worshippers at Al-Aqsa are attacked and brutalized. Families are buried under homes reduced to rubble—while 12-year-olds are jailed just for throwing stones. Even as we watch.

Israeli citizens, too, need peace. The cruelty of occupation fuels perpetual instability and fear for all.

There will always be those who fight against peace, but the rest of us must create the momentum for it. And that is not the work of a day, or even a summit. It is a lifelong mission.

So, as you gather as One Young World, here’s what I want you to remember: To make lasting progress against the problems we face, we must devote not only every ounce of our strength, but every ounce of our time.

Sometimes, we’ll feel that time is on our side... and sometimes, that it’s working against us. But time only moves in one direction, and moments lost can never be regained.

Despite strong headwinds, my husband, His Majesty King Abdullah, continues to walk the hard, and often lonely, path of peace.

It is time we populate that path. It is time that Israeli and Palestinian leaders alike do justice by their own people. And that leaders everywhere snap out of complacency and put in the hard work that lasting peace requires—in the Middle East and elsewhere.  

Sure, it isn’t as easy as snapping our fingers – and I wouldn’t blame you guys if you’re cynical. You’ve endured financial crises… public health crises… climate crises… all in your formative years.

But as Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish once said, “we suffer from an incurable malady: hope.” And I believe, if you’re in this hall, then you’re likely infected with hope’s malady, too.

Hope is a choice—a decision we make, irrespective of the circumstances. And we have seen, in our own lifetimes, that “the arc of the moral universe” can be bent.

Nelson Mandela was jailed for 27 years... yet all that time did not erode his resolve and resilience—because he made a choice each day to stand for something greater than himself.

If we accept that premise—that all of us are part of a greater humanity—then we must give every ounce of our time so that someone else can have the future they deserve.

Making peace is hard. We’ll never have the perfect conditions walking into a negotiation.

But anything worth achieving starts with simply showing up. Even when walking into the room means facing our fiercest rivals.

Sometimes, the hatreds are deeply entrenched. And sometimes we’ll walk in with grief… like Ireland’s former Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, who flew from the Good Friday talks to his mother’s funeral and back again.

But we must make do with what we have and walk into the room anyway, because no time will ever be perfect but this time right now that we have at hand.

And we must hold fast to our hope when walking out of the negotiation room, too. Because more often than not, we will leave with disappointments, and with unfinished business on the table. Working through these realities will take time and patience as well.

After the Good Friday Agreement was signed, there were nine more years of negotiations to create the power-sharing government the agreement set in motion. And just steps away from that finish line, the parties nearly stumbled again.

Here was the dilemma: When the two leaders sat down to announce the final agreement, would they sit next to each other like allies, or across from each other like adversaries?

Think about it: After all they’d been through, they were nearly derailed over a seating chart.

Fortunately, someone had an idea: They found a diamond-shaped table, so the leaders could be sitting next to each other and across from each other at the same time.

And look, there was no great change of heart that day. Not even a handshake. But these leaders were more aligned than they’d been the day before. And isn’t that some kind of miracle?

Still, miracles don’t happen overnight. Complex problems defy hasty fixes. That defining moment at the diamond-shaped table had been in the making for nearly a decade. Similarly, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was the work of many years.

You cannot secure peace with the stroke of a pen any more than heal a bullet with a Band-Aid. The truth is, we have to take our time in order to use it well.

So, we face a paradox: In order to make peace, we know there isn’t a moment to waste. And yet, though problems are pressing, durable solutions can’t be rushed.

That’s why using every ounce of our time means embracing time in all its dimensions—simultaneously seizing the here and now, while plowing the ground for the future.

Yes, our time is finite, but how we spend it… that’s up to us. When we’re putting it to good use, it appears to expand before us. But when we’re chasing every new distraction, we never seem to have enough, and it contracts to nothingness.

So, in the moment, you have to be all in. During the actual Good Friday Agreement negotiations, leaders hardly left the negotiation room for 58 hours—the better part of three days.

They weren’t taking a minute-by-minute pulse of public opinion. They weren’t checking their phones or social media feeds! They were fully inhabiting time.

But let me be blunt. Today, many political leaders cater to the now; they care more about the next election cycle than the next generation. And many seem more inclined to break treaties than broker them.

And it’s ironic that those most affected by conflict – the women and young people who endure its consequences day in and day out – have historically been absent from conversations around peace, even though they have the greatest motivation to find the creative compromises that genuine peace demands. 

In my view, we don’t need more diamond-shaped tables – we need bigger ones, with lots more chairs!

And this is why I am so inspired to be here.

Young people like you already understand the power of collective action. And the work you are doing as One Young World Ambassadors is proof that determined people can have impact.

Every project you undertake, in a way, is its own peace process. Each is cause for just a little bit of awe. A hope kept flickering for a better tomorrow. A miracle in the making.

And there will be moments when that feeling of awe casts a shining light over everything, and gives us the fulfillment we need to fight another day.

One adviser to the Good Friday negotiations described the last few hours as “magical.”

They were so close to peace—and so tired—that one person walked into a wall – like, literally, walked into an actual wall!

Well, we all may hit the wall now and then. We all may sometimes grow weary. And sometimes we may feel that, however far we travel, all we see is the long road ahead.

But look around you and remember: You will never be alone.

What binds us is that we are all inhabiting this time. This moment. This is our lap to run. There are those who came before us, and others who will come after us. But right now, as long as we live and breathe, we’ve been entrusted with humanity’s baton.

And, if we apply every ounce of our time, we can push through every headwind... finish our race... and pass on a better world for those who follow.

Thank you all very much.