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

Secret talks paving way for Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine

 

The bombshell revelation that senior aides of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have been holding secret talks for almost two months further confirms the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) acceptance of the Saudi-based Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (Saudi Solution) as the basis for negotiating an end to 100 years of conflict between Arabs and Jews.

Such talks indicate the PLO has seemingly returned to its 1964 founding-Charter’s roots by no longer claiming sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) - a position the PLO only reversed in 1968 after Jordan’s loss of that territory to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

The Saudi Solution is breathtaking in the outcomes it promises - if implemented:

• Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) will be merged into one territorial entity governed by the current Hashemite rulers of Jordan - with its capital being located in Amman -not Jerusalem
• The total shredding of the failed two-state solution adopted by the United Nations since the passage of Security Council Resolution 2334 on December 23, 2016
• The end of the 2002 Saudi Arabian proposal announced by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and subsequently adopted as the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative - calling for full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since June 1967 and Israel's acceptance of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital - in return for the establishment of normal relations in the context of a comprehensive peace with Israel
• Recognition of Israeli sovereignty in part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) for the first time in 3000 years.

Since its publication on June 8, 2022 in the Saudi Government-controlled Al Arabiya News - the Saudi Solution - authored by Ali Shihabi - a confidant of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman - has not been rated newsworthy or significant enough to be mentioned by:

• the international media,
• only two other political analysts - one of them after my urging
• any international think tanks and
• the United Nations

Amazingly - Jordan’s King Abdullah, Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, PLO Leader Mahmoud Abbas and Saudi Crown Prince - now Prime Minister - Mohammed Bin Salman - have not rejected the Saudi Solution in the last nine months - even though it clearly departs from the policies each of them has been espousing for decades.

These secret back-channel talks appear to have been deliberately leaked at this particular point of time for one reason: The threat posed to Netanyahu and Abbas concluding successful negotiations on implementing the Saudi Solution caused by Israel’s High Court of Justice demanding the Israeli Government produce a plan by April 2 for the demolition and evacuation of Khan al-Ahmar - an illegal Bedouin herding encampment in Area C of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) presently under Israel’s full security and administrative control.

Demolition of thousands of other illegally built Arab structures in Area C could follow - triggering violent PLO-Arab outrage causing a complete breakdown in negotiations to implement the Saudi Solution.

Netanyahu needs to persuade the Court to extend its April 2nd deadline to free himself from the negotiating straightjacket into which the Court has placed him.

The tenth adjournment of the Khan al-Ahmar case since 2018 will be easier for Netanyahu to obtain when the Court is informed that negotiations are being held with Abbas to prevent the demolition and evacuation of Khan al-Ahmar. 

PLO-Arab fears will also have been publicly assuaged.

Allocating sovereignty in part of Area C to the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine would spare most of those presently-illegal Arab buildings from demolition.

The Saudi Solution remains on track … the media and the UN remain dumbstruck

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

New two-state solution: Israel & Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine

 

Indications that a new-two state solution - Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - continues to progress towards its successful implementation - were in evidence again this past week.

The demise of the two-state solution dominating the political discourse for the last 30 years - creating a new Palestinian Arab State between Israel and Jordan - was summed up beautifully by veteran New York Times Opinion Columnist Thomas Friedman last December:

“A week of reporting from Israel and the West Bank has left me feeling that the prospect for a two-state solution has all but vanished. But no one wants to formally declare it dead and buried - because categorically ruling it out would have enormous ramifications. So, diplomats, politicians and liberal Jewish organizations pretend that it still has a faint heartbeat. I do as well. But we all know that the two-state option is not in a hospital. It’s in hospice. Only a miracle cure could save it now.”

Friedman has surprisingly failed to consider a new plan to replace it - published on June 8, 2022 and emanating from Saudi Arabia: Merging Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into one new territorial entity to be called the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine.

This new entity will be governed by the current Hashemite rulers of Jordan and have its capital in Amman - not Jerusalem.

Friedman’s attitude is very puzzling since it was Friedman who first brought the 1993 two-state solution to the West from Saudi Arabia in an Op Ed article he wrote in the New York Times on February 17, 2002 headlined: "An Intriguing Signal From the Saudi Crown Prince".

Instead Friedman has concluded that the “most likely outcome" of the demise of the 1993 two-state solution will be:

“ a total mess that will leave Israel no longer being a bedrock of stability for the region and for its American ally, but instead, a cauldron of instability and a source of anxiety for the U.S. government.”

The following developments during the past week indicate Friedman has got it completely wrong - as implementation of the Saudi-based 2022 Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution - begun on January 24th with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s surprise visit to Jordan’s King Abdullah - continues to take root.

United Nations, international media, analysts and think tanks continue to fail to even acknowledge the existence of the 2022 two state solution:

• Abdullah and US Vice President Kamala Harris met in the White House but made no mention of their countries joint affirmation of the 1993 two-state solution.
• Abdullah met with representatives of international and US Jewish organisations in Washington when he again failed to affirm his support for the 1993 two-state solution.
• Netanyahu discussed with investors during his three-day visit to Paris the possibility of building a network of underground highway systems across Judea and Samaria (West Bank) to enable the maintenance of territorial contiguity for both Israeli settlements and Palestinian Arab towns.

Friedman is in good company - as the United Nations, international media, analysts and think tanks continue to fail to even acknowledge the existence of the 2022 two state solution.

I asked 124596 members of the International Relations (IR) & Affairs Group and 6492 members of the International Relations and Diplomacy Group on Linked In this identical question:

"Have any members of this group published an analysis of the Saudi-based Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution published on 8 June 2022?"

Their total silence has been deafening.

The High Court of Justice’s refusal to grant Israel’s Government a four month’s extension to formulate a plan to evacuate the illegal Khan al-Ahmar Bedouin encampment Court-ordered to be demolished in the West Bank may be just the catalyst needed to expedite the implementation of the 2022 two-state solution.

Amazing times indeed...

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

Security Council should adopt Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine

 

The United Nations Security Council needs to urgently consider adopting  the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution - following the warning delivered on December 19th by Tor Wennesland – UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Process. 

Addressing the Security Council Wennesland advised:

“Clashes, protests, attacks, Israeli security operations, including in Area A, and settler-related violence have continued. In 2022 to date, over one hundred and fifty Palestinians and more than twenty Israelis have been killed in the West Bank and Israel, the highest numbers of fatalities in years”

Wennesland was concerned that  Security Council Resolution 2334 passed on December 23, 2016 had failed to achieve its objective six years later: the creation of an independent Palestinian Arab State between Israel and Jordan (two-State solution).

 Wennesland unwisely chose to blame Israel:

“Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, remains deeply concerning. Settlements constitute a flagrant violation of United Nations resolutions and international law. They undermine the prospects of achieving a two-State solution by systematically eroding the possibility of establishing a contiguous, independent, viable and sovereign Palestinian State.”

He reminded the Security Council:

"As I told the Council in my briefing last month, seeking to freeze this conflict or manage it in perpetuity are not viable options. There is no substitute for a legitimate political process that will resolve the core issues driving the conflict."

Wennesland was correct but his proposed recommendation for “a legitimate political process” fell far short of what is required:

“In line with the recommendations that I made to this Council in November, I urge the parties, along with regional States and the broader international community to take concrete steps that will change the negative trajectory on the ground and have an immediate impact on Palestinian and Israeli lives, while, at the same time, ensuring these steps are anchored in a political framework that moves the parties forward towards the establishment of two States.”

Clinging to the failed two-State solution 6 years after its endorsement by Security Council Resolution 2334 and 20 years after first being proposed by the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative – is a futile exercise.  

Wennesland’s recommendation will only see the conflict being indefinitely perpetuated – not ended.  

The Saudi-based Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution published on June 8, 2022 (Saudi Solution) has amazingly never been mentioned or discussed in the Security Council. 

It will dramatically  “change the negative trajectory on the ground “:

• It challenges the Security Council’s pointless pursuit of the two-State  solution by calling for the merger of Jordan, Gaza and part of the West Bank into one territorial entity to be called the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine having its capital in Amman and being ruled by Jordan’s current Hashemite ruler – King Abdullah
• The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative and 2003 Oslo Accords are superseded.
• Arab populations living in Gaza, the West Bank and the refugee camps in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon will become citizens of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine.
• Sovereignty in the West Bank will be divided between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine
• Its author – Ali Shihabi – is a confidant of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and Prime Minister – Mohammed Bin Salman.
• Publication of the plan in the Saudi Government–controlled Al-Arabiya News overrules current Saudi policy - strongly suggesting Mohammed Bin Salman’s approval was first obtained.
• King Abdullah (Jordan), Mahmoud Abbas (Palestinian Authority), Ismail Haniyeh (Hamas) Mohammed Bin Salman (Saudi Arabia) and Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel) have not expressly rejected the solution in the six months since its publication.
• Its successful implementation can end the 100 years-old Arab -Jewish conflict.

Adopting the Saudi Solution to replace the failed two-State solution is needed to arrest this worsening humanitarian nightmare. 

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.

Israel set to uncork Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine genie at UN

 

Israel is readying to uncork the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine genie at the United Nations - ending UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Process Torr Wennesland’s efforts to keep the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine Solution (Saudi Solution) from being discussed as a replacement for the failed UN 20 years-old two state solution. 

The Saudi Solution was published on 8 June 2022 in the Saudi Government-controlled Al Arabiya News. Its author - Ali Shihabi - advises Saudi Arabia’s King-designate, Crown Prince and Prime Minister - Mohammed Bin Salman - on the development of Neom - a new $500 billion mega city the size of Israel

The Saudi Solution calls for the merger of Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into one territorial entity to be called The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - having its capital in Amman -not Jerusalem. 

It supersedes the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative - spawned by Saudi Arabia and embraced by the UN -which calls for:

"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."

The UN stands to become totally irrelevant if it continues to refuse to discuss the Saudi Solution following Danny Danon - Israel's former ambassador to the United Nations - claiming at the first Abraham Accords Global Leadership Summit - that Saudi Arabia may be one of the next nations to normalize relations with Israel.  

Danon stated:

"We have been in contact with the Saudis for years. I worked personally with them at the United Nations on matters of regional stability and security. It’s just a matter of time before courageous leaders step out of the shadows and full peace is achieved between all the children of Abraham. .. I expect we’ll see an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia this year"

This was good news for those seeking an end to the 100 years-old Jewish/Arab conflict - but bad news for the UN which continues to stubbornly support the two-state solution whilst refusing to even acknowledge the existence of the game-changing Saudi Solution since its publication six months ago.  

It beggars belief that on 30 November the UN General Assembly adopted five resolutions on the questions of Palestine and the Middle East without one speaker uttering the words - "Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine Solution" - whose successful implementation would see the Arab populations in Gaza, part of the West Bank and the wretched UNRWA camps in Lebanon and Syria becoming citizens of that newly-created territorial entity. 

Cheikh Niang (Senegal)- Chair of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People - introduced its annual report containing developments relating to the question of Palestine between 1 September 2021 and 31 August 2022 - which contained not one reference to the Saudi Solution in its 27 pages. 

Israeli Prime Minister designate Bibi Netanyahu has made his intentions crystal-clear:

"I think the big prize is peace with Saudi Arabia, which I intend to achieve if I go back into office… The rise of Israeli power facilitated the Abraham Accords, and the continual nurturing of Israeli power will also nurture a broader peace with Saudi Arabia and nearly all of the rest of the Arab world. I intend to bring the Arab-Israeli conflict to a close."

The 2022 Saudi Solution offers Israel:

• sole sovereignty in Jerusalem, 
• sovereignty in part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and 
• abandonment of the 74 years-old Arab claim to return to Israel

The UN must respond to the hope of peace offered by the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine genie.  

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.

Netanyahu victory paves way for Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine

Bibi Netanyahu’s triumphal return as Israel’s next Prime Minister affords him the opportunity to fulfil one of his major election promises: Ending the 100-years old unresolved Arab-Jewish conflict. 

It has been a long and arduous road for Netanyahu to travel since he told the United Nations on December 11, 1984:

“Those who accept the notion of a Palestinian people must therefore wonder: how many Palestinian Arab peoples are there? Is there a western Palestinian Arab people and, just across that narrow stream known as the Jordan River an eastern Palestinian Arab people? How many Arab States in Palestine does Palestinian self-determination require? Clearly, in eastern and western Palestine there are only two peoples, the Arabs and the Jews; and, just as clearly, there are only two States in that area, Jordan and Israel. The Arab State of Jordan, containing some 3 million Arabs, does not allow a single Jew 10 live there. It contains four fifths of the territory originally allocated by the predecessor of the United Nations. the League of Nations, for the Jewish national home. The other State, Israel, has a population of a little over 4 million, of which one sixth IS Arab. It contains less than one fifth of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate. The claim of self-determination, then, is misleading, for the inhabitants of Jordan which,  incidentally, Hussein's grandfather, King Abdullah, wanted originally to call the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - are largely Palestinian Arabs, and within that population, western Palestinian Arabs are the majority. It cannot be said, therefore, that the Arabs of Palestine are lacking a State or their own, the ultimate expression of self-determination. The demand for a second Palestinian Arab State in western Palestine, and the twenty-second Arab State in the world, is merely the latest attempt to push Israel back into the hopelessly vulnerable armistice lines of 1949.”

The United Nations rejected Netanyahu’s warning  - pushing ahead instead to try and create that 22nd Arab state between Israel and Jordan in territories allocated to the Jews to reconstitute the Jewish National Home under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter.  

Both the Security Council and General Assembly subsequently passed a plethora of anti-Israel resolutions using  highly-inflammatory language such as  “Occupied Palestinian Territories” and recognising two separate peoples in the process - “Jordanians” and “Palestinians” – even granting observer status to the non-existent “State of Palestine”

This 22nd Arab state still remains a figment of the UN’s warped imagination today – whilst various UN  organs seek to delegitimise and isolate Israel as an international pariah. 

A new Saudi-based proposal published on 8 June finally debunks these heinous anti-Israel longstanding UN positions :

“Jordanians and Palestinians are as similar as any people can be. They are Sunni Arabs from the same neighborhood. Merging them will not create any long-term ethnic or sectarian fault lines.” 

This Saudi-based proposal – calling for Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) to be merged into one territorial entity called The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine with its capital in Amman – not Jerusalem - shreds the UN’s failed 22nd Arab state solution.

“The transition to an expanded Palestinian–Jordanian kingdom will then be relatively straightforward since it will simply involve the current kingdom of Jordan’s widening its writ to cover the Palestinian territories and the diaspora in a step recognized by all relevant countries”

Netanyahu’s long trek - begun in 1984 in the face of UN hostility - can hopefully soon be ended with the successful creation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine and an end to a conflict that the UN has shamefully mismanaged.

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.

Netanyahu gives nod to Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution

 

Israel's Leader of the Opposition Benjamin Netanyahu has finally broken his silence - giving his nod of approval to adopting the Saudi-proposed Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (Saudi Solution) :

"I think the big prize is peace with Saudi Arabia, which I intend to achieve if I go back into office… The rise of Israeli power facilitated the Abraham Accords, and the continual nurturing of Israeli power will also nurture a broader peace with Saudi Arabia and nearly all of the rest of the Arab world. I intend to bring the Arab-Israeli conflict to a close."

Peace with Saudi Arabia and ending the Arab-Israeli conflict will require Netanyahu to successfully  implement the Saudi Solution - published in June - that would see:

• Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) being merged into one territorial entity to be called The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - with its capital in Amman - not Jerusalem 
• Abandonment of the 74 years-old Palestinian Arab demand to return and live in Israel 
• Recognition of  Jewish sovereignty in part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) for the first time in 3000 years
• No new Palestinian Arab state between Israel and Jordan

Yesh Atid Party Leader - Yair Lapid,  Blue and White Party Leader - Benny Gantz - and Labor Party Leader - Merav Michaeli - have all rejected the Saudi Solution - aligning their respective parties policies with President Biden's to continue pursuing the failed two-state solution first dreamt up by the European Union in 1980 and endorsed by the United Nations in 2003. 

The leaders of all other Israeli political parties have yet to comment on the Saudi Solution.

Netanyahu indicated his thinking was clearly in sync with the Saudi Solution's game-changing proposals.

On the touchy question of Israeli sovereignty in part only of Judea and Samaria (West Bank)--Netanyahu said:

"The reality is that a third, which includes biblical sites, strategic sites, and Jewish suburbs of our major cities, they're going to stay in Israel no matter what. We'd like more—possibly everything—but that's not the point. The point is everybody recognized this part will stay, so why not recognize it the way Trump recognized Jerusalem as our capital? And it's been that way for 3,000 years since King David; so why not recognize this reality too?" 

On the sensitive issue of Jerusalem remaining solely the capital of Israel - Netanyahu declared:

"As long as [the Palestinians] cling to the unrealistic assumption that we're going to dismantle half of Jerusalem and dismantle these suburbs, you ain't gonna get peace. You're going to get nothing. You cannot build peace in the Middle East on fantasy. Any peace built on lies and fantasy will founder on the rocks of Middle Eastern realities. It's about time to recognize what is going to be. What is [currently] there, and what is going to be."

The Saudi Solution maintains the current reality of Jerusalem remaining the capital of Israel only. 

So do Hamas and the PLO - as their four-months self-imposed silence in failing to oppose or reject  the Saudi Solution testifies. 

The main remaining issue to be negotiated is security control over the newly merged entity – where Netanyahu told Ben Shapiro in an earlier interview:

"...West of the Jordan River ... Israel and Israel alone controls security. We control the airspace, we control the ground security, underground security in case they want to do tunnels... We're not going to commit suicide for a favourable op-ed in the New York Times"

If Netanyahu becomes Israel's next Prime Minister – the end of the 100 years old Arab-Israeli conflict and peace with Saudi Arabia could well be realised.

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.

UN must evaluate Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution

 

The General Debate of the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly to be held from 20 to 26 September will not be hearing the words “Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine” mentioned even once by the Heads of State and Government meeting at the UN Headquarters for their annual talkfest to discuss world issues. 

All these high-powered speakers will continue to bury any discussion of the peace proposal emanating from Saudi Arabia and published in Al-Arabiya News on 8 June 2022 calling for:

• Jordan, Gaza, and part of the West Bank to be merged into one separate territorial entity to be called the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine 
• The capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine to be Amman – not Jerusalem
• The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine to grant Citizenship to all stateless Palestinian Arabs 
• Jewish sovereignty being established in part of the West Bank for the first time in 3000 years

This Saudi proposal offers a new two-State solution: Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine –with Israel sovereign in about 20% of former Palestine and the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine sovereign in about the remaining 80%. 

Saudi Plan author – Ali Shihabi – was brutally frank in explaining why it was time to look at this possibly game-changing solution:

“We have seen from recent experience that state building is a virtually impossible task, particularly in a polarized environment so creating a “Palestinian State” from scratch is a fool's errand...  Yes, a false separate “Jordanian” identity has developed over the last decades from what is really a people with zero differences, ethnic or religious that have been one people since time immemorial..." 

The Annual Report of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People highlights the UN's continuing failure to progress its two-State solution:

“Throughout the reporting period, [2 September 2021 to 31 August 2022] the realization of the two-State solution, as per the relevant United Nations and the prevailing international consensus, failed to advance. The Middle East Peace Process (MEPP) did not resume, and the Middle East Quartet did not create opportunities for negotiations between Israel and the State of Palestine”

The Report misleadingly states:

“The stalled MEPP and the lack of new initiatives to benefit the Palestinian people's quest for self-determination have highlighted the need for enhanced global cooperation to reinvigorate negotiations and provide a political horizon leading to a just solution to the Question of Palestine and lasting peace”.

A new initiative and political horizon for a just solution to the Question of Palestine has emerged: The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution. 

This latest initiative seriously challenges the two-State solution unsuccessfully pursued by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland during their respective tenures - and by the UN for the last 19 years: Creating a brand-new Palestinian Arab state between Israel and Jordan for the first time in recorded history 

Both Guterres and Wennesland have stubbornly refused to present this Saudi initiative to the Security Council for evaluation since its publication. Regrettably hubris has prevented them doing so. It is hard to admit that there might be an alternative solution to the one you have been claiming for years is the only solution.

Ending the 100 years-old conflict between Jews and Arabs - rather than perpetuating that conflict by continuing to pursue a decades-old failed solution – should be Guterres' and Wennesland's joint mantra. 

Guterres and Wennesland: Relent and recognise that the UN two-State solution is dead – that the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution to replace it needs to be evaluated by the Security Council. 

Doing so could change the course of history. 

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.

Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine: Lapid No Guts No Vision

 

Israel's Prime Minister and candidate for re-election following the November 1, 2022 elections -Yair Lapid - refuses to make any comment on the Saudi Peace Plan published on June 8, 2022 calling for the merger of Jordan, Gaza and part of the West Bank into one territorial entity to be called The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine.

It is unclear whether Lapid had any actual knowledge or appreciation of the Saudi Plan when--as Israel's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister - he told 26 European Union Foreign Ministers at the European Union Foreign Affairs Council on 11 July that:

"It is no secret that I support a two-state solution. Unfortunately, there is no current plan for this. However, there is one thing we all need to remember. If there is eventually a Palestinian state, it must be a peace-loving democracy".

The Saudi Plan clearly consigns the idea of any Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan to the diplomatic graveyard for burial by its sponsors - the United Nations and the European Union - after forty years of failed attempts to see its creation.  

The Saudi plan also promises the following outcomes:

• It would supersede two previous Saudi peace proposals in 1981 and 2002 calling for Israel to withdraw completely from the West Bank
• Amman - not Jerusalem - will be the capital of The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine
• The right of return to Israel is abandoned.
• Palestinians in the 'West Bank', Gaza and stateless refugees get full citizenship in the merged Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine with all the elements of sovereignty applicable to those Territories that belonging to a fully recognized state in the UN entail.

It beggars belief that not 1 of the 120 members of Israel's current Parliament has uttered one word that I can find anywhere supporting or rejecting the Saudi Plan.

The Saudi Plan's author - Ali Shihabi - a confidant of Saudi Arabia's next King - Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman - expressed his own feelings to me at this veil of silence that had descended over every one of Israel's politicians:

"Israel is the key factor. It holds most of the cards and its military, economic and political success since 1948 has made its leaders arrogant and contemptuous of the Arabs generally since the Israelis have imposed their terms on the region despite all Arab efforts and noise made in decades past. This arrogance is clouding Israeli judgement and blinding them to the opportunity that presents itself today for them to drive a sustainable peace process. They can get a lot of what they want but have to give a bit to get a sustainable solution that will integrate them into the region permanently, but this will require an Israeli De Gaulle with guts and vision, and I don't see one on the horizon unfortunately"

Confident I could meet Shihabi's challenge - I asked Lapid, Defence Minister Gantz and Opposition Leader Netanyahu the following questions:

• When he first became aware of the Saudi plan?
• Has he commented on the Saudi plan since its release on 8 June 2022?
• If so--when and where were such comments published?
• If he has made no comment - would he like to make any comment on the Saudi plan that I can publish verbatim and attribute to him?
• Is he prepared to promise Israeli voters that he will use his best endeavours to implement the Saudi plan if he becomes Israel's next Prime Minister?

Lapid - like Gantz – failed to respond. 

Netanyahu wants an assurance of complete Israeli security control west of the Jordan River - not presently promised in Shihabi's plan. 

Over to you for your considered response Mr. Shihabi 

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.

Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine: Gantz - de Gaulle or de Goose?

 

Two statements made this past week by Israel’s current Defence Minister – Benny Gantz - could see his run for Israel’s next Prime Minister ended after it has just started. 

Gantz told Kan Reshet Bet:

"Those who, in a clear left-wing position, consider 'two states for two peoples' as a solution are living in an illusion, and those who, in a radical right-wing position, think of a state without Arabs in the West Bank, are living in a greater illusion," 

Gantz has apparently not heard of or read the 2022 Saudi Peace Plan published on June 8th - which provides for the merger of Jordan, Gaza and parts of the West Bank into one territorial entity to be called The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine. 

Implementation of the Saudi plan in the West Bank could possibly see:

• The State of Israel - sovereign in about 30% (designated green and yellow) on this leaked map -where 1% of the West Bank Arab population live.

• The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - sovereign in about the remaining 70% (designated red) -where 99% of the West Bank Arab population resides.

Constructing a network of tunnels and roads will enable this subdivision. 

Gantz committed an even bigger gaffe--telling 103 FM Radio:

"I repeat and insist that Jerusalem is the unified capital of the State of Israel ... And I do not see how we can continue towards an arrangement [with the Palestinians] in the coming years, but we must begin by initiating processes to reduce the conflict and strengthen security ... There are villages in the east that the Palestinians call Jerusalem, and they are not in the metropolitan area of Jerusalem. It is possible to define them as a capital."

These comments indicate that Gantz is totally clueless about the Saudi Plan’s following features:

• The capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine will be Amman - not Jerusalem
• Implementing the Saudi plan can be successfully concluded in months - not years – requiring negotiations to determine:
• who exercises security control in the territory of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine west of the Jordan River 
• the demarcation line between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine
• custodianship of the Islamic Holy Sites in Jerusalem

Gantz is ignorant of the Saudi Plan’s promised further outcomes:

• Abandonment of the 74 years-old claim to the right of return 
• Consigning a separate Palestinian Arab State between Jordan and Israel to the diplomatic graveyard - promoted unsuccessfully by the United Nations for the last 29 years 
• Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and stateless refugees get full citizenship in the merged Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine with all the elements of sovereignty applicable to those Territories that belonging to a fully recognized state in the UN entail.

I have written to Gantz asking him to answer 5 questions for inclusion in this article:

1. When he first became aware of the Saudi plan?
2. Has he commented on the Saudi plan since its release on June 8, 2022?
3. If so - when and where were such comments published?
4. If he has made no comment - would he like to make any comment on the Saudi plan that I can publish verbatim and attribute to him?
5. Is he prepared to promise Israeli voters that he will use his best endeavours to implement the Saudi plan if he becomes Israel's next Prime Minister?

No response has been received. 

The Saudi Plan’s author - Ali Shihabi - sees no Israeli politician with the guts and vision of General de Gaulle to implement the Saudi Plan. 

Gantz is certainly not that de Gaulle - he is de Goose - a fool.

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.

Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - Interviewing author Ali Shihabi

 

A plan proposed by Ali Shihabi  - a Saudi author and commentator on Middle Eastern Politics -proposing the merger of Jordan, Gaza and part of the West Bank into one single territorial entity to be called "The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine" - has received little attention in the Israeli media or been commented on by Israeli politicians since its release on 8 June.

Yet the plan contains the following features which should excite Israel’s reluctant media to be seeking responses from its political leaders:

• It would supersede two previous Saudi peace proposals in 1981 and 2002 calling for Israel to withdraw completely from the West Bank
• The two-state solution – the creation of a separate Palestinian Arab State between Jordan and Israel -  promoted unsuccessfully by the United Nations for the last 29 years – is consigned to the diplomatic graveyard 
• Amman – not Jerusalem - will be the capital of The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine
• The right of return to Israel is abandoned. 
• Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and stateless refugees get full citizenship in the merged Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine with all the elements of sovereignty applicable to those Territories that belonging to a fully recognized state in the UN entail.

I reached out to the author Ali Shihabi – who kindly gave me the following interview:  

1. What was your idea behind this paper?:  I see a failure of Israeli imagination in looking for a solution to the Palestine tragedy. This combined with a lack of realism dominating Palestinian thinking has provided multiple opportunities for political entrepreneurs like the Iranians to use and misuse the cause. Israelis want to perpetuate this inertia by kicking the can continuously down the road while looking for every excuse to do nothing substantive to solve this problem. Israel sees time to be on its side (and so far it has been proven right) but fundamentals like 7 million Arabs living between the river and the sea are a time bomb that eventually will blow up in their face one way or another
2. Why Jordan?: We have seen from recent experience that state building is a virtually impossible task, particularly in a polarized environment so creating a "Palestinian State" from scratch is a fool’s errand. At the same time Jordan is a decently run country by regional standards and hence its government infrastructure can be used to incorporate Palestine which will instantly have a globally recognized and respected government with all the basics like security, government bureaucracy etc. 
3. But many Jordanians don’t want anything to do with this?: Yes, a false separate "Jordanian" identity has developed over the last decades from what is really a people with zero differences, ethnic or religious that have been one people since time immemorial so that is a problem. That difference has been pushed by some Jordanian elites in a quest to perpetuate their dominance. This formula however does not eliminate Jordanian elites and preserves the monarchy and all its institutions and makes Jordan/Palestine a much more viable and strategically important state with a substantial footprint on the Mediterranean and a state critically important for regional stability, so it is really in their long-term interest. In any event if a consensus among the powers that be decides on this formula Jordanian elites can be convinced. They are a minor obstacle once you separate the noise from the substance.
4. Well, many Palestinians don’t want it also it seems: That is the million-dollar question and is one that should be decided by extensive polling and then confirmed by a plebiscite. My guess is that a majority of Palestinians defined as those that are paying the price daily for the status quo, i.e. those in Gaza, West Bank and the refugee camps in Lebanon Syria and Jordan would vote for it once it is explained clearly to them. It is important that only they should decide and not Palestinians comfortable in the diaspora with citizenships in other countries or other Arabs and Muslims who pay no price for taking an absolutist position. It easy to sit sipping your cappuccino at a Starbucks in Dubai or L.A and demand unrealistic solutions since its no skin off your and your family’s back while the people suffering from the status quo continue to pay the heavy price.
5. So, what is required here to get this process going?: Israel is the key factor. It holds most of the cards and its military, economic and political success since 1948 has made its leaders arrogant and contemptuous of the Arabs generally since the Israelis have imposed their terms on the region despite all Arab efforts and noise made in decades past. This arrogance is clouding Israeli judgement and blinding them to the opportunity that presents itself today for them to drive a sustainable peace process. They can get a lot of what they want but have to give a bit to get a sustainable solution that will integrate them into the region permanently, but this will require an Israeli De Gaulle with guts and vision, and I don’t see one on the horizon unfortunately,

Will an Israeli De Gaulle emerge to endorse Mr Shihabi’s plan as part of his platform in the upcoming Israeli elections on 1 November? 

I hope the media ask the politicians for their answers before Election Day. 

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.

Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine vote winner for Lapid, Gantz, Bibi

 

With Israeli elections due in October--the major players vying to become Israel's next Prime Minister--current caretaker PM -Yair Lapid, current Minister of Defence - Benny Gantz and current Opposition Leader - Bibi Netanyahu have yet to issue any statement on the Saudi plan released on June 8, 2022 to merge Jordan, Gaza and part of the West Bank into a single territorial entity to be called The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine. 

The Plan's author - Ali Shihabi - is a confidante of Saudi Arabia's next King - Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and a member of the Advisory Council appointed by Bin Salman advising him on his personally-driven initiative - a $500 billion development called NEOM - a megacity of the future like none other on this planet - to be built in Northern Saudi Arabia on an expanse of land equal to the size of Israel.

The Saudi Solution offers a lot to excite Lapid, Gantz, Netanyahu and their respective political parties with these game-changing features:

• The plan reverses two previous Saudi peace proposals in 1981 and 2002 calling for Israel to withdraw completely from the West Bank.
• The two-state solution - the creation of a separate Palestinian Arab State between Jordan and Israel - pushed unsuccessfully by the United Nations for the last 29 years and by the European Union since 1980- is consigned to the diplomatic graveyard
• Jerusalem will not be claimed as the capital of The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - whose capital would be Amman.
• The right of return to Israel is abandoned
• Citizenship would be offered in the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine to Palestinian Arab refugees living outside the boundaries of the new entity.

Promising voters to negotiate with Jordan on implementing this Saudi Plan is an assured vote winner. 

The most contentious issues in such Israel-Jordan negotiations would be:

• Israel's security concerns in relation to the territory of the new entity West of the Jordan River -where demilitarization and responsibility for maintaining security control would be issues on the negotiating table 
• the carve up of the West Bank and Gaza - where Israel and Jordan would have a good map to focus on for starters: President Trump's 2020 Conceptual Maps "Vision for Peace" (See following diagrams)

The areas designated as "A future State of Palestine" would be the starting point for Jordan's negotiators. 

The areas designated as "The State of Israel" would be the starting point for Israel's negotiators. 

Armed only with sharp pencils, erasers and liquid paper - and motivated to emulate the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty - these negotiators could agree on the new international border between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine in literally a matter of months as well as the terms of the new peace treaty that would replace the 1994 one. 

Netanyahu and Gantz have already agreed to Israel's starting point - having approved the Trump subdivision in 2020 and the formation of a joint Mapping Committee comprising three members each from Israel and America to define the new border with greater precision.  

One could reasonably assume this would also be Lapid's starting point.

 With Operation Breaking Dawn still fresh in their minds - Lapid, Gantz and Netanyahu need to get off their high horses and break their months-long silence by:

• commenting on the Saudi Plan 
• announcing without any further delay whether negotiations with Jordan on this Saudi plan will be part of each of their parties' election platforms.

Making the Saudi Plan an election issue should not be missed by Lapid, Gantz and Netanyahu. 

If they think otherwise - they risk seeing their party being thrashed at the polling booths. 

Israel's media army needs to confront them for their urgent response. 

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.

Trump readies to dump PLO for Jordan-Israel negotiations

[Published 28 January 2018]


President Trump and America’s UN Ambassador Nikki Haley - virtually within hours of each other - have laid the groundwork for Jordan to replace the PLO as Israel’s negotiating partner under President Bush’s 2003 Roadmap — endorsed by the United Nations, European Union, and Russia - and Bush’s 2004 Congress-endorsed commitments to Israel.

Haley told the UN Security Council:

1. Real peace requires leaders who are willing to step forward, acknowledge hard truths, and make compromises. It requires leaders who look to the future, rather than dwell on past resentments. Above all, such leaders require courage.

2. Abbas’s two-hour speech to the PLO Central Council on 14 January

(i) Declared the landmark Oslo Peace Accords dead.

(ii) Rejected any American role in peace talks.

(iii) Insulted President Trump

(iv) Called for suspending recognition of Israel.

(v) Invoked an ugly and fictional past, reaching back to the 17th century to paint Israel as a colonialist project engineered by European powers.

Such a speech indulging in outrageous and discredited conspiracy theories is not the speech of a person with the courage and the will to seek peace.

3. King Hussein of Jordan was a leader with courage. In 1994, he ended 46 years of war and entered into a peace agreement with Israel that holds to this day. When King Hussein signed the peace treaty, he said:

“These are the moments in which we live, the past and the future. When we come to live next to each other, as never before, we will be doing so, Israelis and Jordanians, together, without the need for any to observe our actions or supervise our endeavors. This is peace with dignity; this is peace with commitment.”

Abbas’s recent actions demonstrate Abbas is the total opposite of King Hussein.

Haley certainly pulled no punches.

Trump — attending the World Economic Forum in Davos — had some additional dismissive remarks to make about the PLO:

(i) The PLO disrespected America by not allowing America’s great Vice- President Mike Pence to see them.

(ii) Money was never on the table. America gives the Palestinian Arabs tremendous amounts, hundreds of millions of dollars a year. That money is on the table. Because why should America do that as a country if they’re doing nothing for America?

(iii) Trump doesn’t know whether Israel-PLO negotiations will ever take place.

Trump and Haley have clearly indicated that the ground is rapidly shifting under a corrupt PLO edifice that:

1. unashamedly continues to fund murderers of Israelis and non-Israelis

2. is not yet tired and disgusted of such killing

Replacing Abbas will not solve the PLO’s dilemma. Abbas’s speech to the PLO Central Council was frequently interrupted by loud applause from the entire PLO leadership gathered in Ramallah.

Trump ominously remarked that Israel would have to pay for Jerusalem being taken off the table as the toughest issue requiring resolution in any negotiations.

Israeli concessions can be more easily negotiated if Jordan — not the PLO - is Israel’s negotiating partner — because:

(i) Amman is Jordan’s long-established capital

(ii) Jordan also enjoys negotiating rights on Jerusalem’s future under article 9 (2) of the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty:

“In this regard [freedom of access to places of religious and historical significance] in accordance with the Washington Declaration, Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines.”

Israel-Jordan negotiations indeed represent the best opportunity to end the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

The PLO has seemingly done its dash — and hundreds of millions in cash — in defiantly taking on Trump.

Palestine - Netanyahu's Knockout Narrative

[Published March 2009]


As Benjamin Netanyahu struggles to form Israel’s next Government there are many politicians around the world hoping against hope that he fails in the mission entrusted to him by President Shimon Peres.

Mr Netanyahu is not cast in the mould of Israel’s current caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who clings to power without a party or a base of political support.

Netanyahu will come to the job - if he succeeds - with a firm parliamentary majority and a party solidly behind him that will enable him to attempt weave his own magic in trying to bring peace between Jews and Arabs.

He has a very different story and narrative to tell that has not been heard for a long time.

He does not favour the “two state solution” which would see the creation of a new Arab state between Israel and Jordan. He has seen 15 years of wasted effort trying to create such a state disappear down the diplomatic drain. This solution was always a fiction based on nothing in history, geography or demography to support or justify its creation.

Pursuing such a solution involved the creation of another fiction - the Palestinian Authority -which has mutated and produced the son of fiction - Hamas - and any multitude of offspring with any and every name one can dream up to glorify death, martyrdom and the end of Israel as the one and only Jewish state in the world.

Netanyahu favours a different kind of “two state solution” based on the allocation of sovereignty of the West Bank between Israel and Jordan - a de facto position that existed between 1948-1967 until Jordan foolishly joined its Arab compatriots to wipe Israel off the face of the map and got soundly trounced in the process.

Israel has enjoyed a signed peace treaty with Jordan since 1994, That peace treaty has survived many pressures that could have easily seen it torn up and trashed. That it hasn’t is a tribute to both countries and demonstrates that Jews and Arabs can live at peace with each other even in the most difficult of circumstances.

Netahyahu’s narrative is neither novel nor new. However it is a narrative whose revival has become vitally urgent for one simple reason - there is no other solution that can break the current impasse short of war.

Netanyahu best encapsulated his views when he made the following statement to the United Nations on 11 December 1984.

"Clearly, in Eastern and Western Palestine, there are only two peoples, the Arabs and the Jews. Just as clearly, there are only two states in that area, Jordan and Israel. The Arab State of Jordan, containing some three million Arabs, does not allow a single Jew to live there. It also contains 4/5 of the territory originally allocated by this body’s predecessor, the League of Nations, for the Jewish National Home. The other State, Israel, has a population of over four million, of which one sixth is Arab. It contains less than 1/5 of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate…. It cannot be said, therefore, that the Arabs of Palestine are lacking a state of their own. The demand for a second Palestinian Arab State in Western Palestine, and a 22nd Arab State in the world, is merely the latest attempt to push Israel back into the hopelessly vulnerable armistice lines of 1949."

The demography may have changed in the last 25 years but the history and geography haven’t

No amount of diplomatic doublespeak can gloss over the fact that in 1946 Jordan became an independent sovereign Arab State in 77% of historic Palestine - whilst Israel became an independent sovereign Jewish state in 17% of historic Palestine in 1948.

The remaining 6% - West Bank and Gaza - belongs to neither Jordan nor Israel. Dividing these last pockets of Palestine between Israel and Jordan {and possibly Egypt with whom Israel also has had a peace treaty since 1979) seems to have reasonable prospects of succeeding if the parties negotiate in good faith having regard to the existing populations of both Jews and Arabs living there at present.

Politicians are notorious for changing their minds but they don’t easily foresake basic historical and geographical realities.

Netanyahu will hopefully challenge the flawed logic of the Quartet - America- Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - in swallowing hook line and sinker the absurd notion that an Arab living in Ramallah is somehow religiously, ethnically, socially and culturally different from an Arab living in Amman - just one hour's drive away.

Why each needs a separate state to thrive and prosper in, to be independent and to exercise self determination remains unexplained. Why do they need two armies, two arsenals two governments and two bureaucracies? Why they can’t live together under the banner of one unified State where they presently reside and work- as they did between 1948-1967?

Arab spokesmen from Jordan’s King Hussein to PLO leader Abu Iyad endorsed the view decades ago that these Arabs were one people with one history and one fate.

Trying to quarantine Jordan from playing any active role in resolving the issue of sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza - and the return of Jordan to occupy the pre-eminent position it once possessed there - has been pure folly and resulted in death, injury and trauma for both Jews and Arabs over the past 40 years - and one could argue even longer - that could have been avoided.

Allowing Jordan to ignore or escape its responsibilities as one of the two successor State to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine has allowed a firm political base in international law to be undermined with the shallow thinking that has led to the collapse of the “two state solution” heralded with such fanfare by President Bush in 2003.

Diplomats with egg on their face are now readying themselves to push an equally irrational and fictitious plan - the Arab League Peace Initiative - to create the illusion and the mirage of peace.

They all need to be challenged - and Netanyahu has the knockout narrative to sock it to them.