Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine key to end conflict in Middle East

 

Visits to Saudi Arabia this past week by Jordan’s King Abdullah, PLO President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh could be the prelude to negotiations with Israel to implement the Saudi-based 2022 Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (Saudi Solution) and end 100 years of unresolved conflict between Jews and Arabs.

These three visits - coming within days of each other - have taken place amidst dizzying diplomatic and economic activity over the last six weeks that have seen an easing of tension in the Middle East - including:

• Saudi Arabia and Iran agreeing in March to re-establish diplomatic relations after a 7 years break - promising:

“keenness to exert all efforts towards enhancing regional and international peace and security”

• Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on April 18  - coming days after Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad visited Saudi Arabia on the first such trip since the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011.

• Qatar and Bahrain announcing on April 12 that they would resume diplomatic relations

• Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launching four new special economic zones in Saudi Arabia on April 14 - offering opportunities for knowledge-sharing and creating tens of thousands of jobs.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu believes these Abbas and Haniyeh visits to Saudi Arabia and the rapprochement with Syria and Iran are:

“Maybe to tell them they are going to have to prepare themselves - maybe to try to tell them to stop doing the kind of terror they foment”

The Saudi Solution achieves that outcome - calling for:

• The merger of Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into one territorial unit under Hashemite rule to be called The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - with its capital to be Amman - not Jerusalem.

• Citizenship in the new entity being granted to all stateless Palestinian Arabs no matter where they presently reside.

• Jerusalem being recognised as Israel’s sole capital and

• Sovereignty in part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) being vested in the Jewish people for the first time in 3500 years.

The common denominator existing between King Abdullah, Abbas, Haniyeh and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) since the publication of the Saudi Solution on June 8, 2022 has been their failure to expressly reject the Saudi Solution - even though it trashes separate policies and agendas espoused by each one of them for decades.

For MBS in particular - the Saudi Solution:

• Shreds Saudi policy pursued since 2002 and adopted as the Arab Peace Initiative: Creating an independent Palestinian State between Israel and Jordan with its capital located in East Jerusalem (two-state solution)

• Terminates Saudi Arabia’s endorsement of United Nations Security Council resolution 2334 in 2016 seeking a two-state solution.

Successfully implementing the Saudi Solution will establish a conflict-free zone in Israel, Gaza and Judea and Samaria (West Bank)  - complementing MBS’s amazing economic plans for Saudi Arabia -dubbed Vision 2030 - including trillion-dollar investments in mega-developments Neom and Diriyah.

King Abdullah, Abbas and Haniyeh have also unsuccessfully pursued the two-state solution since the 1993 Oslo Accords. Implementing the Saudi solution offers them a return to what actually existed  - and worked - between 1950 and 1967.

Three major hurdles to implementing the Saudi Solution have been resolved in principle in the Saudi Solution:

• Who governs the newly-merged entity
• Where the capital of that new entity will be located
• Recognition of Israeli sovereignty claims to part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank)

Security control of all the territory west of the Jordan River is the last major issue requiring resolution.

Ending conflict in the Middle East - not perpetuating it - has become Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic agenda.

Please join my Facebook Page: “Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine supporters”

Author’s note: The cartoon--commissioned exclusively for this article--is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”--one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators--whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades