Chinese President Xi Jinping has joined USA President Biden in disqualifying both their countries from playing any mediating role in ending more than 100 years of conflict between Arabs and Jews over the territory once called Palestine.
Both Biden and Xi refuse to jettison the failed - Saudi Arabian-inspired - two-state solution unsuccessfully pursued by the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative:
- Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.
- Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.
- The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital
Biden made his position clear on December 29, 2022:
“And as we have throughout my Administration, the United States will continue to support the two state solution and to oppose policies that endanger its viability or contradict our mutual interests and values.”
Xi has now joined Biden--according to Chinese state media – stating on June 14, 2023:
“The fundamental solution to the Palestinian issue lies in the establishment of an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,”
Biden and XI have clearly rejected an alternative solution – The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (HKOPS) – which emanated from Saudi Arabia on 8 June 2022.
HKOPS (as subsequently amended) calls for Jordan, Gaza and part of the West Bank to be merged into one territorial entity called “The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine”--to be ruled by the Hashemites--with its capital in Amman – not Jerusalem--which will be recognized as Israel’s capital only.
Custodianship of the Islamic Holy sites in Jerusalem will remain vested in the Hashemites as currently exists.
Biden and Xi’s support for the failed Arab Peace Initiative--and not HKOPS--will encourage fellow HKOPS-deniers--the United Nations and the European Union--to continue pushing a solution whose use by date has long expired.
HKOPS author--Ali Shihabi--is a confidant of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) and member of the Board advising MBS on building the US$500 billion mega-city Neom.
MBS has not rejected HKOPS since its publication – even though its successful implementation will shred the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.
MBS wants the Jewish-Arab conflict ended – as he transforms Saudi Arabia under his Vision 2030 to become an integral driver of international trade connecting three continents: Africa, Asia and Europe
This requires a new solution to replace the failed Arab Peace Initiative – which HKOPS delivers.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his position clear on the Arab Peace Initiative and Vision 2030 in Al Arabiya News on 15 December 2022:
“Look, the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 was an indication that there is a willingness, in those days, to think about how to get out of the straitjacket and to get to a comprehensive peace. I think things have changed, things have moved. But the need to have this kind of new thinking is important. And again, if we stick to the old grooves, we’ll be stuck in the old groove. If we think about new ways, then I think the sky’s the limit.”
Current Secret MBS-Netanyahu negotiations could see this decades-old straitjacket cast aside – averting a major humanitarian crisis threatening to envelop the West Bank and Gaza.
HKOPS-deniers – Biden, Xi, UN and EU - should hang their collective heads in shame.
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.
