Morocco backing Trump Peace Plan can help end Arab-Jewish conflict

 [Published 29 December 2020]

Morocco’s Prime Minister, Saad-Eddine El Othmani, has cast a shadow over Morocco’s newly emerging diplomatic ties with Israel as his Government rejects President Trump’s peace plan providing for a demilitarized Palestinian Arab state in Gaza and 70% of Judea and Samaria (Peace Plan).

Following the White House announcement on December 11th that Trump had brokered an agreement between Israel and Morocco to make peace, normalize their relations, and resume full diplomatic relations—Othmani said that King Mohammed VI had phoned PLO President Mahmoud Abbas:

“to tell him that His Majesty’s position in support of the Palestinian cause remains unshakeable, and that Morocco places it at the same level of Sahara issue”

The Sahara issue Othmani referred to was the historic Proclamation signed by Trump on December 4, 2020:

“I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim that, the United States recognizes that the entire Western Sahara territory is part of the Kingdom of Morocco.”

In justifying his Proclamation — Trump stated:

“The United States affirms, as stated by previous Administrations, its support for Morocco’s autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute over the Western Sahara territory. Therefore, as of today, the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara territory and reaffirms its support for Morocco’s serious, credible, and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute over the Western Sahara territory. The United States believes that an independent Sahrawi State is not a realistic option for resolving the conflict and that genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only feasible solution”

Othmani - who heads the conservative Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) — after revealing the King’s phone call to Abbas — then lashed out at Trump’s Peace Plan, his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his recognition that Israel had legal rights to claim sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and the Golan Heights:

“We also adopt this principle [in the government], with our constant emphasis on rejecting the Deal of the Century, and all violations of the Israeli occupation authorities, especially the recent attempts to Judaize Jerusalem,”

Supporting Trump’s two-state-solution as espoused in Trump’s Peace Plan is not inconsistent with supporting the “Palestinian cause”.

Othmani is no supporter of the Morocco-Israel peace deal as he made clear in August:

“We refuse any normalisation with the Zionist entity because this emboldens it to go further in breaching the rights of the Palestinian people.”

Othmani was clearly over-ruled by the King — as the pace of peace between Israel and Morocco quickens.

A three-person delegation landed in Israel this past Sunday to handle logistics ahead of reopening the Moroccan liaison office in Tel Aviv - which it has maintained for the past 20 years since Morocco cut official ties.

Israel had also retained its closed office in Morocco.

Last week White House Special Adviser Jared Kushner led an Israeli-US delegation to Morocco when both countries committed to reopening these offices within two weeks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invited Morocco’s King Mohammed VI to visit Israel —reportedly telling him — quoting from the film Casablanca.

“This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,”

It certainly will be if the King:

• endorses Trump’s Peace Plan,
• calls on Abbas to begin negotiations with Israel on Trump’s plan and
• disassociates himself unreservedly from Othmani’s inflammatory anti-Israel views

Trump’s Peace Plan — with Morocco’s backing — can help end the 100 years-old unresolved Arab-Jewish conflict.


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. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog

Britain backs Jordan and Israel to end the Arab-Jewish conflict

[Published 7 November 2017]


Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has acknowledged that Jordan and Israel represent the only viable “two state solution” that can end the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph on 29 October — ahead of the centenary of the Balfour Declaration on 2 November — the Foreign Secretary stated:

“I have no doubt that the only viable solution to the conflict resembles the one first set down on paper by another Briton, Lord Peel, in the report of the Royal Commission on Palestine in 1937, and that is the vision of two states for two peoples.”

The Royal Commission had been authorised by Royal Warrant dated 7 August 1936:

”... to enquire into the manner in which the Mandate for Palestine is being implemented in relation to Our obligations as Mandatory towards the Arabs and the Jews respectively; and to ascertain whether, upon a proper construction of the terms of the Mandate, either the Arabs or the Jews have any legitimate grievances upon account of the way in which the Mandate has been, or is being implemented;”

Significantly the Royal Warrant did not mention or identify the “Palestinians” as being a party to the dispute. There were only two parties— the “Arabs” and the “Jews” — not three.

The “two-state solution” - one Jewish, one Arab — first envisioned in article 25 of the 1922 Mandate for Palestine (Mandate) — had restricted Jewish rights to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in just 22% of the territory covered by the Mandate. The Jews had accepted that proposal but the Arabs had rejected it.

The Peel Commission after a lengthy and detailed Inquiry confirmed that the “two-state solution” contemplated by the Mandate — one Jewish, one Arab —remained the only solution to end the grievances between Arabs and Jews — concluding that:

“two sovereign independent States would be established - the one an Arab State, consisting of Trans-Jordan united with that part of Palestine which lies to the east and south of a frontier such as we suggest in Section 3 below; the other a Jewish State consisting of that part of Palestine which lies to the north and west of that frontier.”

Transjordan — renamed Jordan in 1950 - comprised the remaining 78% of the territory contained in the Mandate for Palestine closed to Jewish settlement under the Mandate. Britain still retained full responsibility for Transjordan as Mandatory Power until Transjordan was finally granted independence by Britain in 1946.

The Peel Commission’s “two-state solution” is shown on this map:

The Arabs rejected partition and the creation of any Jewish State. The Jews accepted the principle of partition - but not the borders designated on the map.

Boris Johnson has advanced the resolution of the Arab-Jewish conflict by highlighting that:

1. the only viable “two-state solution” is the partition proposed by the Peel Commission with newly-negotiated borders agreed between Jordan and Israel

2. Jordan remains the Arab key to resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict - which a naive and gullible world continues to ignore.

Trying to create two Arab States and one Jewish State in an area where only one Arab state and one Jewish state is warranted by history, geography and demography has been a diplomatic disaster with horrendous consequences for Arabs and Jews.

Jordan and Israel - the two successor States to the Mandate - currently exercising sovereignty in 95% of former Palestine - need to sit down and resolve Jewish and Arab claims to the remaining 5%.

Britain’s reaffirmation of Peel’s proposed “two-state solution” is long overdue.

The “two-state solution” posited in 1922 and 1937 — Jordan and Israel — still remains the only viable solution to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict in 2017.