[Published 30 November 2016]
Former US President Jimmy Carter has urged current President Barack Obama to:
1. betray another former President - George Bush,In an op-ed piece in the New York Times Carter has proffered the following advice to Obama as his eight year term of office is ending:
2. destroy America’s reputation for integrity and trustworthiness and
3. thwart President-elect Donald Trump in attempting to resolve the 100 years old conflict between Arabs and Jews
“The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, as 137 countries have already done, and help it achieve full United Nations membership.”
The following calamitous consequences for American foreign policy would ensue should Obama accept Carter’s irresponsible advice:
1. President Bush’s 2003 Roadmap and 13 years of American diplomacy would be trashed.
Endorsed by the United Nations, European Union and Russia and accepted by Israel (with 14 reservations) and the then Palestinian Authority (since disbanded on 3 January 2013) - the Roadmap provides for:
“A settlement, negotiated between the parties,” that “will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors”
2. Obama would break Bush’s following written commitment made to Israel on 14 April 2004:
“The United States remains committed to my vision and to its implementation as described in the roadmap. The United States will do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan.”
Any such State would not be “democratic” - its current “President” now being in the 11th year of a four year term - whilst two separate claimants - the PLO and Hamas - engage in a bitter internecine struggle to become the recognised Government of the Palestinian Arabs despite elections not having been held to legitimise the authority of either since 2007.
3. Carter’s following call in May 2015 will remain unimplemented and a distant pipe dream:
“We hope that sometime we’ll see elections all over the Palestinian area and east Jerusalem and Gaza and also in the West Bank,”
4. Obama will break his pledge to Israel to require any such State to first recognise Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.
5. Obama would be recognising a State which has no legal basis for existence in international law since it fails to comply with the provisions of customary international law as expressed in the Montevideo Convention 1934.
6. Full United Nations membership under Article 4 of the UN Charter is only open to peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter.
7. No such State is “peace loving” nor would it ever accept the obligations contained in article 80 of the Charter preserving the rights vested in the Jewish people under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in PalestineIronically Carter hit upon the clue to finally resolving the conflict when addressing Jordan and Jordan’s late monarch King Hussein in another op-ed in Time Magazine on 11 October 1982:
“Hussein is personally courageous but an extremely timid man in political matters. That timidity derives almost inevitably from the inherent weakness of Jordan. As a nation it is a contrivance, arbitrarily devised by a few strokes of the pen”
Jordan - 78% of former Palestine - originally designated as part of the location for the Jewish National Home - still remains the key to resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict.
Obama should reject Carter’s latest disastrous advice and leave Trump to try and end the long-running conflict which has eluded all American Presidents.
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