Abdullah-Biden meeting will not help resolve Jewish-Arab conflict

 

The meeting between Jordan’s King Abdullah and President Biden at the White House on 19 July seems set to achieve absolutely nothing towards resolving the 100 years-old conflict between Jews and Arabs.

Biden’s Press Secretary — Jen Psaki – has claimed:

“It will be an opportunity to discuss the many challenges facing the Middle East and showcase Jordan’s leadership role in promoting peace and stability in the region.”

The King has shown no leadership in resolving the conflict between Jews and Arabs over sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) [“Disputed Territory”] and Gaza – comprising the remaining 5% of the territory of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine where sovereignty still remains unallocated (“Unallocated Territories”).

Sovereignty in the remaining 95% of the Mandate territory was divided between:

• Jordan—78% – upon the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946
• Israel—17% – upon its establishment in 1948.

Concerted attempts over the last 25 years to create an additional Arab State in the Unallocated Territories for the first time in recorded history (“two-state solution”) have all failed. Abdullah has been a principal protagonist for this solution.

Jordan’s failure to take a leadership role in agreeing to an alternative solution — division of the Unallocated Territories between Jordan and Israel within the framework of their existing 1994 Peace Treaty – has gone begging during Abdullah’s 22 year reign.

The following historic, geographic and demographic realities bind Jordan with the Disputed Territory:

• Transjordan in 1948 conquered and occupied the Disputed Territory until 1967 – renaming the newly-merged territorial entity “Jordan” in 1950.
• The Arab residents of the Disputed Territory were Jordanian citizens between 1950 and 1988 and elected their own representatives to the Jordanian Parliament in Amman.
• Statements made by Arab leaders over decades have attested to the territorial and population ties between Jordan and the Disputed Territory

“Jordan and Palestine until 1945 were one state, actually. After the Second World War Churchill himself said ‘This is Transjordan and this is Palestine’. Before that, Jordan was an emirate, completely part of Palestine.” – Yasser Arafat New York Review of Books 25 June 1987

“Jordanians and Palestinians are indeed one people. No one can divide us. We have the same fate.”—Yasser Arafat Der Spiegel 1986

“The Jordanians and Palestinians are now one people, and no political loyalty, however strong, will separate them permanently… Small as Jordan is, our country is politically, socially, economically, militarily and historically inseparable from the Palestinian issue” - Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan Foreign Affairs Spring 1982

“Palestine and Jordan were both under British Mandate, but as my grandfather pointed out in his memoirs, they were hardly separate countries. Trans-Jordan, being to the east of the River Jordan, it formed in a sense, the interior of Palestine” – King Hussein of Jordan Uneasy Lies the Head, New York 1962 p. 118

“This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area” – Article 24 Palestine Liberation Organisation Charter 1964

Jewish settlement — prohibited under article 25 of the 1922 Mandate document in what is today’s Jordan – was encouraged under article 6 in the Disputed Territory on State land and waste land not required for public purposes. That right is preserved until today under Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Jordan’s return to such part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as is agreed with Israel in direct negotiations remains the key to ending the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Jordan — part of the problem — must be part of the solution.

Abdullah will continue to hide behind the two-state solution in his meeting with Biden.

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.

Israeli Right does not seek overthrow of Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy

[Published 15 January 2020]

The claim that:

“The Israeli right has no solution for civil rights for Palestinians after annexation, except for overthrowing Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy”

— is a canard that must be totally rejected.

This defamation of the Israeli right needs to be debunked before it is allowed to become accepted fact in the run up to Israel’s elections on 2 March.

I feel qualified to call out this baseless allegation as the founder of the “Jordan is Palestine Committee” (JIP) 40 years ago.

JIP was formed to inform public opinion that:

1. Jordan comprised 76.9% of the territory once called Palestine

2 The key to ending the conflict between Jews and Arabs required direct negotiations between Israel — 17.1% of former Palestine — and Jordan — to allocate sovereignty of the remaining 6% of former Palestine — Judea, Samaria and Gaza – between their two respective States

3. Jordan’s population alone should determine who Jordan’s ruler should be.

JIP constantly pointed out the role the Hashemite monarchy had played for 60 years in preserving the major part of Palestine as an exclusively Arab State in which Jews were not permitted to live. JIP contrasted this with the failed efforts of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to secure sovereignty in one square metre of territory attempting to wipe Israel off the map.

JIP’s stated policy was actually challenged by one member who sought its replacement with a new policy calling for the overthrow of the Hashemites by replacing King Hussein with PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

JIP members rejected this argument and the disgruntled member quit the organisation.

However he did more — registering JIP in his name in Israel — then seeking to restrain my organisation using the name in Israel in connection with an international conference. This necessitated my taking Court proceedings in Israel at considerable expense. The judge ruled in my favour.

Further sensational claims have also been made that:

1. “the annexation the right plans has no chance of success without overthrowing the government in Amman and turning Jordan into Palestine."

2. “Destabilising the regime in Jordan can be expected to be a joint project of the settlers, the ayatollahs and the evangelists who support Trump.”

Extension of Israel’s sovereignty into Judea and Samaria can occur incrementally — starting in parts of Area C designated in the Oslo Accords which covers 60% of Judea and Samaria.

Area C is under Israel’s full administrative and security control and 50000 - 70000 Arabs live there. No Arab or Jew would have to move from his current house in Area C. Israeli residency or citizenship could be offered to those Arabs affected by Israel’s extension of sovereignty.

Israel could unilaterally extend its sovereignty to all of Area C and offer Israeli residency or citizenship to the Arabs affected — greatly enhancing their civil rights to those currently existing.

None of the above proposals requires the overthrow of Jordan’s King Abdullah or Jordan’s participation in negotiations with Israel.

However Jordan needs to negotiate with Israel on Judea and Samaria’s future after 40 years of refusing to take up the JIP solution to resolve a conflict now in its 100th year — if it wishes to regain any part of Judea and Samaria that was unified with Transjordan in 1950 and then renamed Jordan - with its Arab residents enjoying Jordanian citizenship until 1988.

Overthrowing the Hashemites is not the stated policy of any of Israel’s major political parties although some individuals and groups espoused it at a conference in 2017 — which I strongly opposed.

Jordan is the Arab State in former Palestine — and no amount of double talk can alter this historic, geographic and demographic fact.

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

PLO suicide note leaves Jordan to decide fate of West Bank…

[Published 30 July 2019]

President Trump has been given the clearest notice that his deal of the century will be stillborn if he designates any role for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in its implementation.

In a remarkable outburst that can best be described as his “suicide note” — PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared on 25 July:

“I reiterate that we will not surrender, we will not coexist with the occupation and we will not deal with the deal of deal of the century, or the slap of the century or the deal of shame - all names for one title. Palestine and Jerusalem are not for sale and bargain. They are not a real estate deal in a real estate company.”

Yet for the last 25 years the PLO — aided and abetted by Jordan — has refused to yield its claim to sovereignty over every square meter of West Bank real estate — when compromise could possibly have resolved the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

Two days prior to Abbas’ suicide note - the US Congress in a rare show of bipartisanship had offered the PLO a lifeline to enable it to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s yet-to-be-released proposals — overwhelmingly passing House Resolution 246 by a vote of 398-17 with 5 voting ‘present’.

Resolution 246:

Urged: Israelis and Palestinians to return to direct negotiations as the only way to achieve an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Reaffirmed: its strong support for a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resulting in two states — a democratic Jewish State of Israel, and a viable, democratic Palestinian state — living side-by-side in peace, security, and mutual recognition.

48 hours later Abbas’s suicide note had trashed Congress’s Resolution.

So where to from here?

First some indisputable facts:

1.Jews have the legal right to settle in the West Bank under Article 6 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (Mandate) and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

2. Jordan and Israel are the two successor States to the Mandate: Jordan being sovereign in 78% of the Mandate territory and Israel sovereign in 17%.

3. 4% of the Mandate’s remaining real estate — Judea and Samaria — was unified with Transjordan between 1950 and 1967 and renamed Jordan — whilst Judea and Samaria were renamed the West Bank….

4. The 1964 PLO Charter made no claim to territorial sovereignty “over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan”...

5. The revised 1968 PLO Charter declared the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the Mandate and everything based on them null and void....

6. West Bank Arabs were Jordanian citizens between 1950 and 1988.

7. Abbas and Arafat have acknowledged Jordanians and Palestinians are one people.

Reunifying parts of the West Bank with Jordan in direct negotiations between Jordan and Israel should now be Trump’s objective, recognising the following resolution passed at the 8th meeting of the Palestinian National Council in February-March 1971:

...“Jordan is linked to Palestine by a national relationship and a national unity forged by history and culture from the earliest times. The creation of one political entity in Transjordan and another in Palestine would have no basis either in legality or as to the elements universally accepted as fundamental to a political entity. .. In raising the slogan of the liberation of Palestine and presenting the problem of the Palestine revolution, it was not the intention of the Palestine revolution to separate the east of the River from the West, nor did it believe the struggle of the Palestinian people can be separated from the struggle of the masses in Jordan…”

Abbas has written his suicide note .... Trump shouldn’t demean himself begging Abbas to reconsider.

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

Burying the PLO and resurrecting Jordan in the West Bank

[Published 16 July 2019]

President Trump’s “deal of the century” — aimed at ending 100 years of conflict between Jews and Arabs over the territory once called “Palestine” — continues to flounder in the face of:

1. The PLO’s outright rejection of Trump’s deal—even before its details have been published

2.Jordan’s continuing refusal to agree to negotiate with Israel when the deal is released

Jordan comprises 78% of former Palestine and is the only sovereign Arab state to have ever occupied (albeit illegally) the West Bank — 4% of former Palestine — between 1948 and 1967.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proposed his own deal in 1992.

Sharon warned against granting autonomy to West Bank Arab‚ something that occurred in 1993 after Oslo Accord I was signed and 95% of the West Bank Arabs came under PLO administrative control:

“We must face a simple fact. Autonomy will inevitably lead to Palestinian statehood. The self-governing Authority will enjoy international recognition and command universal attention. Every self-respecting state will open a mission there.

Journalists will coo over keffiyeh-wrapped PLO murderers glowing with a romantic halo. The chairman of the Authority will sit in his office adorned with a wall to wall picture of another chairman, arch-murderer Yasser Arafat. And there will be a PLO flag in the front of the building.”

27 years later autonomy has not translated into statehood — due to the PLO’s racist policy of refusing to accept the right of Jews to live in the West Bank — the ancient biblical, historic and legally-designated heartland of the Jewish people.

Sharon posited instead:

”... The true solution is to recognize that Jordan is the Palestinian state. Only with Jordan should we discuss the future of the Arab inhabitants of Judea and Samaria, all of whom are Jordanian citizens. And it is with Jordan that we should discuss granting this kind of citizenship to Gaza residents.

We must also talk about how they will vote for and get elected to the Palestinian parliament in Amman, how they will pay taxes, and how they will be able to use Haifa and Ashkelon harbors and reciprocally, how we can use Akaba.

And we should talk of a common market in the Middle East, and about water projects and the mutual development of the Dead Sea resources and of a common front against Arab terrorism. Whether King Hussein or anyone else heads the Palestinian State, Jordan, is their decision."

Sharon continued:

“What I suggested in the past and I suggest again, is that there be autonomic regions without territorial contiguity. Their local police will act strictly within these regions. Non-Jews, after all, have no problem traveling on roads under Jewish control: the problem exists only for Jews under non-Jewish control.

Israeli sovereignty will then begin in all the zones in which Jews are settled. This will affect contiguity of Jewish areas from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River in Judea and Samaria, and from the Sea to the Western Negev in the Gaza district.

Thus all Jewish communities will be under Israeli sovereignty, while most of the Arab population will live in autonomous districts.”

Trump’s US$28 billion economic plan for the West Bank and Gaza has been rejected by the PLO and received with little enthusiasm by Jordan.

Jewish ethics provides sage advice to Trump to present his political plan without further delay — irrespective of how the PLO and Jordan might receive it:

“It is not your responsibility to finish the work, but you are not free to desist from it either.”

Will Trump’s proposals — like Sharon’s — also bury the PLO and resurrect Jordan in the West Bank?

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

Trump's PLO shutdown paves way for Jordan-West Bank reunification

[Published 27 September 2018]

President Trump’s decision to close the PLO mission in Washington, cancel the visas of the Palestinian Ambassador and his family and order their bank accounts be closed - mark the PLO’s final humiliation for condemning Trump’s proposed peace plan before its contents have even been published.

Strangely however the United States still maintains that direct negotiations between Israel and the PLO are the only way forward.

The PLO will be fortified by this latest statement – mistakenly believing it:

• remains in the box seat to stymie any peace plan Trump wheels out,

• can blunt Trump’s reputation as a highly-successful deal maker and

• reinforces the PLO’s right to continue as sole spokesman for the Palestinian Arabs although Hamas governs Gaza and Jordan exercises sovereignty in 78% of former Palestine.

Direct Israel-PLO negotiations on Trump’s peace proposals are a pipedream.

Jordan remains the key to resolving - with Israel - Trump’s plans involving the future of the West Bank for the following reasons:

• Transjordan occupied the West Bank from 1948 to 1967.

• Transjordan and the West Bank were unified in 1950, the new entity was renamed “Jordan” and Jordanian citizenship was extended to the West Bank Arab population

• Jordan continued to retain legal and administrative control and extend citizenship between 1967 and 1988 until King Hussein announced Jordan’s termination of its role in the West Bank in the PLO’s favour for the following reasons:

“Lately, it has transpired that there is a general Palestinian and Arab orientation which believes in the need to highlight the Palestinian identity in full in all efforts and activities that are related to the Palestine question and its developments. It has also become clear that there is a general conviction that maintaining the legal and administrative links with the West Bank, and the ensuing Jordanian interaction with our Palestinian brothers under occupation through Jordanian institutions in the occupied territories, contradicts this orientation. It is also viewed that these links hamper the Palestinian struggle to gain international support for the Palestinian cause of a people struggling against foreign occupation.

In view of this line of thought, which is certainly inspired by genuine Palestinian will, and Arab determination to support the Palestinian cause, it becomes our duty to be part of this direction, and to respond to its requirements…” …

• Jordan’s retirement from the West Bank moved Abu Iyad – PLO-leader Yassar Arafat’s deputy – to declare on 15 December 1989:

“I say that on the day immediately following the establishment of the Palestinian State, we will begin unity with Jordan. I am not concerned what kind of unity this may be, because we are one people and have the same history. You cannot make a distinction between a Jordanian and a Palestinian. It is true that we encourage unity between Arab peoples, but the relation between Jordan and Palestine in particular is clearly distinctive; all those who tried in the past and are still trying to create divisions between the Jordanian and Palestinian people have failed. We indeed constitute one people… when the Palestinian state and unity is established … The Jordanian will be a Palestinian and the Palestinian a Jordanian”

Reunification of the West Bank with Jordan never required the creation of a second Palestinian Arab State in the West Bank - in addition to Jordan.

Reunification of a large part of the West Bank with Jordan is now once again tantalisingly within Jordan’s grasp following Trump’s spectacular undermining of the PLO after it defiantly refused to negotiate on Trump’s still-unannounced peace plan.

Trump will not be pandering to the PLO and repeating the same mistakes made by former American Presidents.

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

Trump pressure pushes Jordan to choose Israel or PLO

[Published 15 April 2018]

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) — refusing to bow to pressure by President Trump to cease payments to terrorists and their families currently exceeding US$400 million annually — is looming as a potential threat to end 96 years of unbroken Hashemite rule in Jordan.

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas - addressing the ninth annual Islamic Beit al-Maqdes International Conference in Ramallah last week — has sent a veiled message of the PLO’s intention to challenge Jordan’s ruling Hashemite family if PLO demands for a State in the West Bank with Jerusalem as its capital are not met.

Jordan comprised almost 77% of Palestine between 1920 and 1946 until granted independence by Great Britain and being renamed The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan — subsequently being renamed Jordan in 1950 following Transjordan’s illegal annexation of Judea and Samaria in 1948 (redesignated the West Bank).

This semantic sleight of hand could never change the historic and demographic reality that Jordan formed part of the territory comprised in the 1922 Mandate for Palestine — Jordan’s Crown Prince Hassan declaring in the Foreign Affairs Review in 1982:

“the Jordanians and Palestinians are now one people, and no political loyalty, however strong, will separate them permanently.”

Abbas told the Ramallah Conference:

“In Palestine and Jordan, we are one people in two states and we will never accept an alternative homeland.”

Abbas’s statement mirrored PLO founder Yasser Arafat’s in Der Spiegel in 1986:

“Jordanians and Palestinians are indeed one people. No one can divide us. We have the same fate.”

Farouk Kadoumi - the Head of the Political Department of the PLO - told Newsweek on 14 March 1977:

“Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people.”

Alleging flagrant bias towards Israel by the Trump Administration — Abbas defiantly declared:

“We are not expecting anything from them. We won’t accept anything from them.”

Abbas is being incredibly naïve if he believes he can now convince the international community into accepting that one people needs two states — and that pursuing that goal should be internationally supported at the expense of achieving an end to a conflict that originated with the 1917 Balfour Declaration.

Abbas’s categorical rejection of an American role in ending the conflict by calling on the international community to help create a second Arab state in former Palestine — in addition to Jordan—has little chance of success.

Jordan’s King Abdullah should by now be under no illusion that the PLO’s quest to create a PLO-ruled State is doomed to failure. Abdullah should view with apprehension that Abbas’s remarks at the Ramallah Conference could again be laying the groundwork for another PLO attempt to overthrow Hashemite rule in Jordan — as unsuccessfully occurred in September 1970 and is prescribed by article 2 of the PLO Charter.

The solution proposed by Israel’s late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in The Australian on 27 May 1985 now takes on added significance:

“the Palestinians should have a sovereign State which includes most of the Palestinians. It should be Jordan with a considerable part of the West Bank and Gaza. East of the Jordan River there is enough room to settle the Palestinian refugees”

Such a solution - negotiated between Israel and Jordan under the framework of their 1994 Peace Treaty — would see continuing Hashemite rule in Jordan being backed by Israel and America - stability sadly lacking presently in many failed Arab States such as Syria and Libya.

Abbas’s Ramallah statement has presented Jordan with a stark choice - negotiate with Israel or continue supporting the PLO and face the prospect of another attempt to overthrow Jordan’s ruling Hashemite dynasty.

Jordan’s decision should be a no-brainer.

Israel-Jordan negotiations could follow PLO threat to boycott Trump

[Published 15 January 2018]


The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) threat to refuse to negotiate with Israel unless President Trump withdraws his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel could see Jordan replacing the PLO as Israel’s negotiating partner to end the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

This threat — unless unconditionally revoked — would give Trump the opportunity to consign the PLO to the political wilderness by inviting Jordan to step in and negotiate with Israel over Trump’s eagerly-anticipated “ultimate deal‚”.

Jordan-Israel negotiations would offer Jordan the opportunity to recover a substantial part of Judea and Samaria (“West Bank‚”) annexed by Jordan in 1950 — albeit illegally — but subsequently lost to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War (“disputed territory‚”).

Should Jordan buck at entering into such negotiations — some 60% of the disputed territory - under Israel’s full administrative and security control since the 1995 Oslo Accords and containing just 5% of the West Bank’s entire Arab population (“Area C‚”) - could be annexed by Israel.

PLO-Israel negotiations over the last twenty-five years — with United Nations, UNESCO and European Union backing — aimed at creating a 22nd Arab state in the disputed territory for the first time ever in recorded history - have failed abysmally.

Such a State was an artificially-contrived creation that could never be justified on historic, geographic or demographic grounds. It had actually been rejected by successive Arab leaderships on many occasions since first being proposed by the 1937 Peel Commission.

Joint 1994 Nobel Peace Prize winners — Israeli leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzchak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat — all understood Jordan’s pivotal role in ending the Jewish-Arab conflict:

1. Jordan is the major part (78%) of the Palestinian Arabs’ homeland according to article 2 of the PLO Charter.

Farouk Kadoumi - Head of the Political Department of the PLO — reinforced this reality - telling Newsweek on 14 March 1977:

“Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people.”

2. Peres declared on 31 August 1978:

“Jordan is also Palestine… I’m against two Arab countries and against another Palestinian country, against an Arafat state. Today 50 percent of the inhabitants of Jordan are Palestinians and that is the Palestinian state…

Peres backed this up - telling the Jewish Telegraph on April 19, 1991:

“It is not obstinacy to regard the populations of Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza as having greater similarities than differences. The Jordan River is not deep enough to turn into a knife blade serving to cut one piece of territory into three slices. Most of Jordan’s population are Palestinians: the residents of the West Bank are Jordanian citizens and Jordan has distributed tens of thousands of passports to residents in the Gaza Strip. Jordan is therefore an existing State. It has an army. There is therefore no need to set up another State, another army."

3. Yitzchak Rabin told The Australian newspaper on May 27, 1985:

“One tiny State between Israel and Jordan will solve nothing. It will be a time bomb.”

Rabin’s solution to end the conflict:

”... the Palestinians should have a sovereign State which includes most of the Palestinians. It should be Jordan with a considerable part of the West Bank and Gaza. East of the Jordan River there is enough room to settle the Palestinian refugees.”

Jordan-Israel negotiations on the political future of the disputed territory open up options to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict never before considered. If Trump’s Jerusalem Declaration helps bring such negotiations about - then Trump could well succeed where all other American Presidents before him have failed.

Taking on Trump could herald the PLO’s political demise after 54 years of failed leadership.

PLO-Hamas referendum could boost Trump peace plans

[Published 10 October 2017]


There is little hope that reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah will end a decade of bitter internecine feuding which has seen a parallel entrenchment of territorial divisions between them in Gaza and the West Bank.

Gazan and West Bank Arab populations will continue to be the victims of this ongoing power play as both groups remain bitterly opposed to recognising Israel as the Jewish National Home.

Elections have not been held since January 2006 when Hamas won a large majority in the new Palestinian parliament trouncing the governing Fatah party.
Since then – conflict between Hamas and Fatah has seen any prospect of the peaceful creation of a second Arab State – in addition to Jordan – in the territory encompassed by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – consigned to the diplomatic scrapheap.

Now it seems that Hamas and Fatah are seeking yet again to come to some form of reconciliation - which will only be about preserving their own organisations and retaining their current powers and privileges and have nothing to do with giving their long-suffering populations any say in their own future.

Clearly whatever game of musical chairs they intend to play – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made Israel’s position very clear - reportedly stating that as part of any reconciliation Hamas must:

1. Recognize Israel

2. Dismantle Hamas’s military wing and

3. Break off ties with Iran.

Any hope of these conditions being met is a pipe dream.

Netanyahu also declared:

“We expect everyone who talks about a peace process to recognize the State of Israel and, of course, the Jewish state. We cannot accept fake reconciliation on the Palestinian side that comes at the expense of our existence.”

Again this is simply not going to happen.

Whatever window dressing occurs between Hamas and Fatah will therefore be of no consequence in resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict or in influencing President Trump to believe that such steps are capable of contributing to the President successfully brokering an end to that 100 years old conflict.

The absence of elections for eleven years has created a void that has had disastrous consequences for the Gazan and West Bank Arab populations - impacting the lives of every single Gazan and West Bank Arab.

The likelihood of free and fair elections continues to be a distant dream.

PLO leader Yasser Arafat – perhaps in an unguarded moment - made the following promise back in May 1983 when interviewed in Middle East Review:

“When the occupied territories are liberated, we will move towards a referendum that will set up constitutionally a framework for special relations between Jordan and liberated Palestine.”

That referendum has failed to materialise despite the fact that since 2007:

1. Hamas has controlled 100% of Gaza and its entire population

2. The PLO – of which Fatah is the major member – has controlled 40% of the West Bank within which 95% of the total West Bank Arab population currently reside.

Arafat’s referendum proposal should be implemented - if elections are once again denied.

Holding this referendum would indicate a willingness by both Hamas and Fatah to work towards a peaceful resolution of the Jewish-Arab conflict - working arm in arm with Jordan – rather than continuing their belligerent confrontation with Israel – both militarily and diplomatically - that has marked the last 10 years.

Such a referendum would send a clear signal to President Trump that there could indeed be some possible light at the end of the Gazan terrorist-tunnels - that a framework involving Jordan represents the best possible way forward out of the current impasse.

Seeing the referendum realised remains the challenge for Trump to pursue.

Trump, Israel, Jordan and PLO need to define Palestine’s boundaries

[Published 14 August 2017]


President Trump’s attempt to end the Jewish-Arab conflict could well hinge on Israel, Jordan, the PLO and Trump defining the boundaries of former Palestine under the 1922 Mandate for Palestine (Mandate territory).

Defining the territory within which the competing claims of Jews and Arabs must be resolved is a first prerequisite to ending a conflict that has raged for the last 100 years.

False claims still continue to be made that Israel comprises more than 75% of the Mandate territory whilst Judea and Samaria (West Bank), East Jerusalem and Gaza comprise the remaining 25%.

The latest such misleading claim appeared in the following article :

“On the 14 of May 1948, the state of Israel was declared. By the time Israel and the Arab States signed the Armistice agreement in 1948, Israel had gained control over 75% of mandate Palestine.”

The article further asserts that the 1967 Six Day War was:

“the beginning of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and annexation of East Jerusalem, territories which together made up the remaining 22% of Mandate Palestine.”

The article fails to inform readers that:

1. in 1946 - 78% of the Mandate territory became a sovereign independent Arabs-only, Jew-free State called the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan — renamed Jordan in 1950

Israel is only 17% of the Mandate territory

2. Judea and Samaria (West Bank), East Jerusalem and Gaza comprise the remaining 5% of the Mandate territory.

3. Israel, the PLO and Jordan have each separately acknowledged this geographically-accurate territorial subdivision of former Palestine- as the following statements make clear:

(i) Abba Eban - Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations - said in Newsweek on 2 December 1974:

“Palestine comes into modern history as a region extending on both sides of the Jordan, comprising the present sovereign territories of Israel and Jordan and the administered areas of the West Bank and Gaza. Of this original Palestine, 80 per cent became an exclusively Arab domain through the separation of Trans-Jordan from Palestine.”

(ii) Yasser Arafat — the first PLO Chairman told the New York Review of Books on 25 June 1987:

” Jordan and Palestine until 1945 were one State, actually. After the Second World War, Churchill himself said, “This is Transjordan, and this is Palestine. Before that Jordan was an emirate ...completely part of Palestine”

(iii) Transjordan’s King Abdullah addressed the Arab League meeting in Cairo on 12 April 1948:

“Palestine and Transjordan are one, for Palestine is the coastline and Transjordan the hinterland of the same country”

Many more similar statements exist from Jewish, Arab and other sources.

If Trump concludes that a second Arab State — in addition to Jordan — is required in the Mandate territory - then Jordan - not only Israel, Judea and Samaria (West Bank), East Jerusalem and Gaza — should be included in determining that third State’s possible location.

However such a second Arab State — if governed by the PLO - the sole spokesman for the Palestinian Arabs since 1974 - would pose an existential threat to the continued existence of both Jordan and Israel as sovereign independent States - since article 2 of the PLO Charter expressly states:

“Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”

One Jewish State and two Arab States in the territory of the Mandate will exacerbate — not resolve — the conflict.

Jordan — 78% of the Mandate territory — must be part of any territorial resolution.

Territorial negotiations — like gridiron and basketball — can only be played out within clearly designated boundaries.

Defining Palestine’s boundaries is indeed the key to Trump succeeding where all others have failed.

Palestine - Russia Following France On Diplomatic Journey To Nowhere

[Published 24 August 2016]


The media has gone into overdrive after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited President Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu to Moscow for direct talks.

Al-Sisi broke the news during an interview on 22 August with the chief editors of state-run newspapers Al-Ahram, Al-Akhbar and Al-Gomhouriya:

“The Russian president has informed me that he has invited Palestinian President [Abbas] and Prime Minister Netanyahu for a meeting in Moscow.
Egypt supports these efforts and both sides are urged to participate and respond positively to the initiative for the sake of finding light at the end of the tunnel for Palestinians and establishing their state alongside Israel.”

The Russian invitation has not yet been confirmed by Putin.

However even assuming the meeting was indeed to eventuate — it must be crystal clear to any impartial observer that such a Moscow talkfest will end up in the garbage bin of history - like so many similar meetings over the last 20 years that have failed to resolve the 100 years-old Jewish-Arab conflict.

Peace negotiations between Netanyahu and Abbas remain deadlocked on one perennial and fundamental Israeli demand - that Israel be recognised as the Jewish State.

Abbas made his rejection of this demand very clear on 30 November 2014 when speaking to leaders of the Arab world in Cairo:

“We will never recognize the Jewishness of the state of Israel.”

Abbas has now backed up this statement by threatening to sue Britain for issuing the Balfour Declaration in 1917 — which ultimately led to the League of Nations unanimously approving the Mandate for Palestine in 1922 calling for the “reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine.”

Abbas has been emboldened in taking this stance after the Obama administration wavered in America’s previous long-standing commitment to support this Israeli non-negotiable demand.

US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared to downplay supporting Israel’s position when he told a Senate panel in March 2014:

“'Jewish state’ was resolved in 1947 in Resolution 181 where there are more than 40-30 mentions of ‘Jewish state’. In addition, chairman Arafat in 1988 and again in 2004 confirmed that he agreed it would be a Jewish state. And there are any other number of mentions.”

Any Arafat declarations are meaningless - having been replaced with statements of outright rejection by Abbas. Arafat cannot rule from the grave.

Obama will soon be political history and his successor — either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump - have both made clear that the Obama-Kerry position will be reversed.

Hillary Clinton declared on 4 November 2015

“I am deeply committed to Israel’s future as a secure and democratic Jewish state,”

Donald Trump stated on 26 March 2016:

“Basically I support a two-state solution on Israel. But the Palestinian Authority has to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Have to do that.”

France’s attempt to convene an international conference later this year has been apparently undertaken without first attempting to get Abbas to moderate his stance by finally acknowledging and accepting the decisions of the international community expressed in the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Indeed Abbas’s threat to sue Britain is a diplomatic kick below the belt for France’s efforts to broker a solution.

Putin would be politically naïve if he failed to sound out Abbas before facilitating any Moscow meeting.

Laying on the vodka, caviar and a Kremlin guard of honour whilst hosting talks that must inevitably lead to nowhere is the last photo-op Putin surely needs.

Strong man being derided with egg on face is not a pretty sight.

Palestine - End The West Bank Refugee Gravy Train

[Published 28 February 2016]


With more than three million Syrians fleeing war-torn Syria seeking safe havens in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Europe — scarce United Nations resources continue to be used supporting and maintaining about 760000 Palestinian Arabs currently living in the West Bank and registered as “refugees” with the United Nations Relief And Works Agency (UNRWA).

Their refugee categorization and status was changed on 3 January 2013 when PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas replaced the “Palestinian Authority” with the “State of Palestine” by this decree:

“Official documents, seals, signs and letterheads of the Palestinian National Authority official and national institutions shall be amended by replacing the name ‘Palestinian National Authority’ whenever it appears by the name ‘State of Palestine’ and by adopting the emblem of the State of Palestine.”

John Whitbeck - a legal advisor to the Palestinian team in negotiations with Israel — has written on the significance of this name change:

“In his correspondence, Yasser Arafat used to list all three of his titles under his signature — President of the State of Palestine, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and President of the Palestinian Authority (in that order of precedence). It is both legally and politically noteworthy that, in signing this decree, Mahmoud Abbas has listed only the first two titles. The Trojan horse called the “Palestinian Authority” in accordance with the Oslo interim agreements and the “Palestinian National Authority” by Palestinians has served its purpose by introducing the institutions of the State of Palestine on the soil of Palestine and has now ceased to exist.”

Abbas’s semantic ploy had left Israel without its designated negotiating partner under the Oslo Accords and had effectively ended negotiations for the creation a Palestinian State under the Bush Roadmap.

The institutions of the so-called “State of Palestine” had replaced the “Palestinian Authority” in some 40% of the West Bank designated under the Oslo Accords as Areas “A” and B” — assuming full administrative control over 95% of the entire West Bank Arab population - including about 190000 Palestinian Arab refugees living in 19 camps - whilst the remaining 570000 lived in towns and villages.

UNRWA funds:

1. 97schools with 51,327pupils
2. 2 vocational and technical training centres
3. 42 primary health centres
4. 15 community rehabilitation centres
5. 18 women’s programme centres

UNRWA explains:

“UNRWA is unique in terms of its long-standing commitment to one group of refugees. It has contributed to the welfare and human development of four generations of Palestine refugees,defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.” The descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children, are also eligible for registration.

UNRWA services are available to all those living in its areas of operations who meet this definition, who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance.”

As of 14 September 2015 - 136 of the 193 United Nations member states have been playing the PLO name-game change and recognised the “State of Palestine”.

These 136 States now need to answer two questions:

1. How can any person living in his own country still be classified as a refugee?

2. Shouldn’t the 760000 registered Palestinian Arab refugees living in the West Bank have their refugee status revoked and be resettled and fully integrated among their fellow Palestinian Arabs?

Claiming the trappings of Statehood — whilst segregating its citizens into two different classes — is a recipe for continuing tension and future conflict.

Change the name — change the game — but be prepared to accept the consequences.

Palestine Mandate Legally Triumphs Over Discredited PLO Charter

[Published 2 May 2014]


The 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine - and international law - have finally emerged as triumphant victors over the 1964 PLO Charter following the collapse of 50 years of failed attempts by the PLO to arbitrarily void the vote of the 51 members of the League of Nations unanimously endorsing the legal right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in 23% of former Palestine.

This significant PLO defeat and loss of face follows the ignominious end - on 29 April 2014 - of the nine months negotiating deadline period imposed on Israel and the PLO by US Secretary of State - John Kerry - designed to achieve the “two- state solution” - the creation of a second Jew-free Arab State - in addition to Jordan - in former Palestine for the first time ever in recorded history.

The American and PLO failure to achieve the “two-state solution” after 20 years of fruitless negotiations represents a lost opportunity not likely to return for a long time - leaving the political prestige influence and credibility of those much vaunted negotiators in total disarray in the rapidly growing silent and abandoned diplomatic graveyard.

The PLO - since its formation in 1964 - had arrogantly strode the world stage claiming Palestine as the sole property of the Arab nation whilst simultaneously denying the Jewish people any right to live in their 3000 years old Jewish ancient, legally sanctioned and biblical homeland.

Article 18 of the 1964 PLO Charter had brazenly declared:

” The Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate System, and all that has been based on them are considered null and void. The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the true basis of sound statehood. Judaism, because it is a divine religion, is not a nationality with independent existence. Furthermore, the Jews are not one people with an independent personality because they are citizens to their states.”

Four years later article 18 had been replaced with a more strident, equally dismissive article 20:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.”

This outright rejection of international law by the PLO has never been questioned by the League of Nations compliant successor - the United Nations - which - acting in clear breach of Article 80 of the UN Charter knowingly collaborated to prolong the Arab-Jewish conflict in violation of international law when welcoming the PLO purveyor of Jew-hatred -Yasser Arafat - into its midst with adulation and enthusiastic applause on 13 November 1974.

The acceptance of this terrorist organisation into the realm of civilised political discourse by the United Nations whilst the PLO simultaneously continued to assert that the League of Nations had no power to make any legally binding decisions - must surely rank among the most shameful episodes and low points in United Nations history.

Lecturing to Israel on international law whilst allowing the PLO to reject international law was breathtaking hypocrisy on the United Nations part.

The principle of respect for the law was cast aside by United Nations members as they trashed the original and noble principles enunciated in the Mandate on the altar of expediency and national self- interest

Adopting countless condemnatory General Assembly resolutions of non - binding validity - those spineless members lined up with the the automatic majority represented by Arab Islamic and third world member States to sell out their souls to appease an organisation of terrorists, law-deniers and Jew-haters.

Former UN Secretaries General stood by in silence as anti-Israel resolutions denigrating and delegitimising Israel were ramped up with ever increasing hatred.

The legal commitments enshrined in the Mandate had previously stood resolutely firm against this Arab assault on the Jewish National Home since 1922 - as partition proposals by the Peel Commission in 1937 and a newly created United Nations in 1947 were contemptuously shredded into the garbage bin of history by an Arab leadership that would not brook any compromise or reconciliation with the Jewish people.

The advent of major wars including the 1948 War of Independence, the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War brought staggering losses and suffering for both Arabs and Jews as the Arab League armies still vainly attempted to eliminate the Jewish State and the consequences of the Mandate.

Whilst the PLO fails to recognise Israel as the Jewish State - no peace between Jews and Arabs is realistically likely to occur.

The Arab League and Kerry have the power to create a breakthrough - pressuring Jordan and Israel to redraw the internationally recognised boundary between their respective countries as successor States to the Mandate for Palestine

In view of their loss of political clout do these neutered politicians and the United Nations really possess the diplomatic ability to make peace finally happen?

Using the wisdom and political sagacity of their League of Nations ancestors - the miracle created by the Mandate for Palestine 92 years ago is hopefully set to resurface as attempts to rescue the peace process are started once again,

Palestine - Abbas Unilaterally Resurrects Palestinian Authority

[Published 23 April 2014]


Easter 2014 will be remembered as the time when PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas tried to resurrect the Palestinian Authority (PA) that he himself had declared dead and buried on 3 January 2013.

Adopting US Secretary of State Kerry’s terminology - “Poof - that was the day that signalled the end of the Oslo Accords”

The demise of the PA had been announced by John Whitbeck - an international lawyer who served as a legal advisor to the Palestinian team negotiating with Israel - in an article published on 10 January 2013 in Al Jazeera English and also the Huffington Post:

“On January 3 Mahmoud Abbas, acting in his capacities as President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, signed “Decree No. 1 for the year 2013.” While he did so with minimal ceremony or fanfare, and while the change formalized by this decree should surprise no one after the UN General Assembly’s overwhelming vote on November 29 to upgrade Palestine’s status at the United Nations to “observer state,” this change is potentially historic.

By this decree, the Palestinian Authority, created for a five-year interim period pursuant to the Oslo Declaration of Principles signed on the White House lawn in September 1993, has been absorbed and replaced by the State of Palestine, proclaimed in November 1988, recognized diplomatically by 131 of the 193 UN member states and supported in the recent General Assembly vote by an additional 28 states which have not yet formally recognized it diplomatically.

After citing the November 29 General Assembly Resolution, Article 1 of the decree states: “Official documents, seals, signs and letterheads of the Palestinian National Authority official and national institutions shall be amended by replacing the name ‘Palestinian National Authority’ whenever it appears by the name ‘State of Palestine’ and by adopting the emblem of the State of Palestine.” Concluding Article 4 states: “All competent authorities, each in their respective area, shall implement this Decree starting from its date.”

Did none of the thousands of US State Department and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs minions read Whitbeck’s article and realise its significance?

Surely those who did should have been concerned at Whitbeck’s further following comments:

“Perhaps due, at least in part, to the low-key manner in which this change has been effected, it has attracted remarkably little attention from the international media or reaction from other governments, even the Israeli and American governments. This is not necessarily disappointing, since passive acceptance is clearly preferable to furious rejection.

The relatively few and brief media reports of the change have tended to characterize it as “symbolic.” It could—and should—be much more than that. If the Palestinian leadership plays its cards wisely, it could—and should—represent a turning point toward a better future.

In his correspondence, Yasser Arafat used to list all three of his titles under his signature—President of the State of Palestine, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and President of the Palestinian Authority (in that order of precedence). It is both legally and politically noteworthy that, in signing this decree, Mahmoud Abbas has listed only the first two titles.

The Trojan horse called the “Palestinian Authority” in accordance with the Oslo interim agreements and the “Palestinian National Authority” by Palestinians has served its purpose by introducing the institutions of the State of Palestine on the soil of Palestine and has now ceased to exist.”

Abbas had dissolved the Palestinian Authority with the stroke of a pen - creating a situation where further negotiations under the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap were nugatory.

America and Israel - at their peril - apparently preferred to negotiate with ghosts and turn a blind eye to this extremely significant development.

Now 15 months down the track - with negotiations begun in July 2013 now on their last legs - news that Abbas is contemplating dismantling the PA for a second time has brought forth the following response from State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki:

“Of course [the PA disbanding] will have serious consequences. Obviously this is not in the interest of the Palestinian people,and all that has been achieved will be lost.”

“The US has made tremendous efforts to build Palestinian institutions in the PA, and so has the international community, The move will seriously harm the US-PA relationship, including in terms of financial aid.”

Ignoring Abbas’s 2013 decree has certainly cost the US dearly - about US $500 million in financial aid reportedly paid to an organization over the last 15 months that had ceased to exist.

Has America ever suffered a more blatant financial scam of such massive proportions?

Suddenly the State Department is now also concerned about “the interest of the Palestinian people” after having connived to allow Abbas to lead them down a negotiating blind alley with no possible light at the end of the tunnel following the PA demise.

Israel also needs to explain its role in perpetuating the fiction of the PA’s existence for the last nine months

Kerry’s desperate efforts to keep these Mickey Mouse negotiations alive has been exposed by Abbas’s last ditch threat to dismantle the non-existent PA.

Kerry needs to answer how any signed agreement could ever be achieved with a party whose existence Abbas can turn on and off like a tap.

Abbas’s pathetic bluff and bluster should for once be exposed and rejected by America and Israel.

Palestine - Kerry's Credibility Crashes As Abbas's Intransigence Increases

[Published 28 March 2014]


US Secretary of State John Kerry has seen his reputation and prestige shredded to tatters over the past few weeks.

On 13 March Kerry told members of the House Foreign Relations committee that:

1. international law has already declared Israel a Jewish state, and

2. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s insistence on a public declaration of Israel’s Jewish character from the PLO was “a mistake” in the diplomatic process.

Kerry also told a Senate panel:

“‘Jewish state’ was resolved in 1947 in Resolution 181 where there are more than 40-30 mentions of ‘Jewish state’. In addition, chairman Arafat in 1988 and again in 2004 confirmed that he agreed it would be a Jewish state. And there are any other number of mentions.”

PLO Chairman and President of the State of Palestine—Mahmoud Abbas - was unimpressed with Kerry’s knowledge of international law.

On 16 March the New York Times reported:

“.. Mr. Abbas, speaking before a meeting in the Oval Office, made clear that he was no closer to uttering the words that are a litmus test for the Israelis: that he recognizes Israel as a Jewish state.

“Since 1988, we have recognized international legitimacy resolutions” on Israel, Mr. Abbas said as Mr. Obama looked on, a hand on his chin. “And in 1993, we recognized the State of Israel.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that the Palestinians go further and recognize Israel as a nation-state for the Jewish people in order to get a peace deal. Mr. Abbas has flatly refused, and his comments on Monday suggested he had gone as far as he would.”

On 19 March Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science at The City University of New York - Peter Beinart - provided this advice to Abbas:

“I have a suggestion for Mahmoud Abbas. The next time Benjamin Netanyahu demands that you recognize Israel as a “Jewish state,” tell him that you’ll agree on one condition. The Israeli cabinet must first agree on what “Jewish state” means. That should get you off the hook for a good long while.

Israel has never been able to define the term “Jewish state.”

The good Professor was obviously unaware that the term “Jewish State” had been defined for the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine in evidence given by David Ben-Gurion on 7 July 1947:

“What is the meaning of a Jewish State? As I told you before, a Jewish State does not mean one has to be a Jew. It means merely a State-where the Jews are in the majority, otherwise all the citizens have the same status. If the State were called by the name “Palestine,” - I said if - then all would be Palestinian citizens If the State would be given, another name - I think it would be given another name - because Palestine is neither a Jewish nor an Arab name. As far as the Arabs are concerned, and we have the evidence of the Arab historian, Hitti, that there was no such a thing as “Palestine” at all: Palestine is not an Arab name. Palestine is also not a Jewish name. When the Greeks were our enemies, in order not to annoy the Jews, they gave different names to the streets. So, maybe the name of Palestine will be changed. But whatever the name of the country, every citizen of the country will be a citizen. This is what we mean. This is what we have to mean. We cannot conceive that in a State where we are not in a minority, where we have the main responsibilities as the majority of the country, there should be the slightest discrimination between a Jew and a non-Jew.”

Abbas rejected Beinart’s unsolicited advice for one simple reason—any state that contained the word “Jewish” or any suggestion of being Jewish would never be acceptable to Abbas.

As Pinhas Inbari reported:

“On March 22, 2014, Abbas spoke before the Central Committee of the Fatah Movement. According to Nabil Abu Rodena, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority presidency, the Fatah body supported Abbas’ position of “non-recognition of Israel being a Jewish state.” The Palestinians did not release a complete text of Abbas’ Fatah speech.

At the Arab League summit in Kuwait on March 25, Abbas took this a step further. The official Arabic transcript of his speech before reveals how he has moved toward a more uncompromising diplomatic posture, opposing Israel’s stand that it be recognized as the nation-state of the Jewish people, just as it recognizes the Palestinian state as the nation-state of the Palestinian people:

“Israel has invented new conditions that it did not raise before, like recognizing it as a Jewish state. This we oppose as well as even holding a discussion on this matter.”

The Arab League was more than happy to oblige Abbas and rebuff Kerry - its final communiqué at the summit’s close stating:

“We express our absolute and decisive rejection to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.”

Kerry - left high and dry by this united show of Arab opposition to accepting what Kerry had trumpeted just 12 days earlier - was suddenly forced to fly to Amman on 26 March to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah in the afternoon and Abbas in the evening.

As Kerry’s credibility crashes - Abbas’s intransigence in refusing to recognize Israel as the Jewish State increases—a certain recipe for diplomatic disaster.

Palestine - Kerry Confronts Ghosts In State Of Confusion

[Published 17 February 2014]

The semantic circus that first created a people known as the “Palestinians” in 1964 - who now claim an entitlement to their own independent State in ” the occupied Palestinian Territories” - reached absurd heights with the following bizarre news item this week:

“The Israeli authorities have blocked 70 patients from Gaza from entering Israel to receive medical treatment because their transfer documents were marked “State of Palestine,” officials told AFP on Wednesday

Until recently, official stationery has used the term “Palestinian territories.”

But the logo was changed in mid-December, a year after the Palestinians won recognition as a UN observer state, despite fierce Israeli opposition.”

This “War of the Letterheads” adds a new dimension to the conflict between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

The “State of Palestine” was admitted as a member State of UNESCO on 31 October 2011 by a vote of 107/14 and as a non-observer State at the United Nations (UN) on 29 November 2012 by a vote of 138/9.

Those States voting in favour ignored the legal requirements of article 1 of the Montevideo Convention 1933 which declares:

“The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications:
(a) a permanent population;
(b) a defined territory;
(c) government; and
(d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states”

Those States dissenting or abstaining took the view that any State of Palestine to be created for the first time ever in recorded history could only arise as a result of negotiations conducted under the 1993 Oslo Accords, the 2003 Bush Roadmap and the 2007 Annapolis conference between the designated parties - Israel and the Palestinian Authority - (“the agreed negotiating framework”)

John V Whitbeck - an international lawyer and advisor to the Palestinian team negotiating with Israel - had flagged the likelihood of this latest War of the Letterheads in an article written in the Cyprus Mail on 13 January 2013.

Whitbeck revealed that the Palestinian Authority “had been absorbed and replaced by the “State of Palestine” in a decree issued by Mahmoud Abbas on 3 January 2013 and signed by him acting in his capacities as president of the State of Palestine and chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO.

Whitbeck’s confirmation of the demise of the “Palestinian Authority” with the newly declared “State of Palestine” should surely have signalled the end of further negotiations under the agreed negotiating framework - specifically designed to achieve the birth of that very State.

How could further negotiations on creating the State of Palestine be necessary once that State had been declared by the party demanding its creation?

To make sure the message was fully understood - Whitbeck stated unequivocally:

“The Trojan horse called the “Palestinian Authority” in accordance with the Oslo interim agreements and the “Palestinian National Authority” by Palestinians, having served its purpose by introducing the institutions of the State of Palestine on the soil of Palestine, has now ceased to exist.”

Whitbeck left no room for doubt:

“In his correspondence, Yasser Arafat used to list all three of his titles under his signature - president of the State of Palestine, chairman of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and president of the Palestinian National Authority (in that order of precedence). It is both legally and politically noteworthy that, in signing this decree, Mahmoud Abbas has listed only the first two titles… There is no further need for a Palestinian leader to be three-headed or three-hatted.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry and the US State Department apparently missed - or deliberately ignored - the demise of the Palestinian Authority.

A meeting held by Kerry on 4 January 2014 is headlined on the State Department web site:

“Remarks with lead negotiator for the Palestinian Authority Saeb Erekat after meeting with Palestinian Authority President Abbas”

Kerry obviously believes he has been involved in negotiations under the agreed negotiating framework with a Palestinian Authority President, a Palestinian Authority negotiator and a Palestinian Authority - that clearly no longer exist.

The War of the Letterheads should serve as a clear signal to Kerry that he is negotiating with ghosts - not a legally constituted and accountable entity under the agreed negotiating framework.

Kerry - in preparing his own eagerly awaited framework agreement - needs to take notice of this fundamental change wrought by Abbas - who no longer wears a hat or name tag designated “Palestinian Authority”.

If Abbas is to be believed - there are now three existing states in former Palestine - Israel, Jordan and Palestine - who need to define their final borders and resolve any other contentious issues they might want to raise.

Erekat himself added another semantic whopper recently with this classic statement:

“I am the son of Jericho. I am 10,000 years old … I am the proud son of the Netufians and the Canaanites. I’ve been there for 5,500 years before Joshua Bin Nun came and burned my hometown Jericho. I’m not going to change my narrative,”

Yet under the PLO charter:

“Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.”

Shock horror - Erekat and all other descendants of the non-Arab Netufians and Canaanites aren’t “Palestinians”.

Kerry needs to sort out this confusing claptrap if he wants to make any headway in resolving a conflict that keeps being continually punctuated by Arab fiction on Arab fiction.

Palestine - Jordan Not Jumping For Joy

[Published 10 February 2014]


Jordan is becoming increasingly unhappy at the role US Secretary of State John Kerry might be planning for it in his eagerly anticipated framework agreement designed to end the 130 years old Jewish-Arab conflict.

The Jordan Times reported on 28 January:

“Figures representing professional unions and political parties are planning to hold a national conference to “protect Jordan and Palestine and repulse Kerry’s peace plan”. And a number of lawmakers signed a memorandum to convene a special Lower House session to discuss Kerry’s controversial proposals.

Jordan’s main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, issued a communiqué last week warning of an impending plan to liquidate the Palestinian cause, which, it said, threatens both Jordanians and Palestinians.

It said that the current regional situation will encourage the US and Israel to impose their conditions on the Palestinians and put pressure on Jordan.

One Islamist leader, Salem Al Falahat, told a local news website that while detailed information on Kerry’s proposals is scarce, it is clear that current negotiations will not serve the interests of Palestinians or Jordanians.”

Jordan’s central role in bringing Kerry’s push for peace to fruition arises from the following facts:

1. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Charter claims that “Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”
2. Jordan and Israel are the two successor States to the British Mandate—Jordan exercising sovereignty in 78% of the territory covered by the Mandate - and Israel in a further 17%.
3. Stuck between them is the West Bank—4% of the Mandate territory—which was:

(i) conquered and occupied by Transjordan in 1948 after having being called “Judea and Samaria” from biblical times until United Nations Resolution 181 (II) in 1947
(ii) then renamed “the West Bank” after being unified with Transjordan in 1950 to create a new territorial entity renamed “Jordan”
(iii)lost to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

“West Bank” Arabs became “Jordanians” with Jordanian citizenship and passports between 1950 and 1988.

Abu Iyad—deputy chief and head of intelligence for the PLO - ranking second after Yasser Arafat in Fatah - the major faction within the PLO—told the Kuwaiti News Agency on 15 December 1989:

“You cannot make a distinction between a Jordanian and a Palestinian. It is true that we encourage unity between Arab peoples, but the relationship between Jordan and Palestine in particular is clearly distinctive; all those who tried in the past and are still trying to create divisions between the Jordanian and Palestinian people have failed. We indeed constitute one people…When the Palestinian state and unity is established…the Jordanian will be a Palestinian and the Palestinian a Jordanian”

Jordan’s Prince Hassan Bin Talal - an uncle of Jordan’s current King Abdullah II—succinctly summed up Jordan’s pivotal position in 1982:

“Small as Jordan is, our country is politically, socially, economically, militarily and historically inseparable from the Palestinian issue.”

Small as Jordan might be — Israel is much smaller - fitting into Jordan almost five times.

Jordan’s land mass could help resolve two thorny issues by:

1. Making land grants to the PLO to compensate it for land retained by Israel in the West Bank
2. Assisting in resettling Palestinian Arab refugees from other Arab countries.

Kerry’s predecessor — Condoleezza Rice - had envisaged Jordan’s involvement in the long running negotiations — as the following extract from the WikiLeaks Palestine Papers makes clear:

“... negotiators tried to resolve disagreements by offering in earnest what, to some, might sound like outlandish suggestions. Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was the source of one such proposal during a meeting on July 30, 2008 at the State Department. Rice kicked off the session by asking for a progress report on the points of agreement between the parties. After a quick update from Qurei and Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, the latter said that some major decisions had not been reached as far as how a future state of Palestine would look. “We need to know how it is going to work,” she said, “The Airport and Seaport.”

Addressing the Palestinians, Rice then dropped this bombshell: “[Y]our airspace is so small - put it in Jordan.” The Palestinian negotiators appeared shocked at the suggestion that they use a sovereign country’s airspace as their own. Just under Rice’s comment, the Palestinian note taker wrote in brackets: “Discussion on whether this is a joke or a real option. Tzipi Livni and Condoleezza Rice clearly think it is realistic as an option.”

Jordan’s likely inclusion in Kerry’s framework agreement has been raised by US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki and Jordan’s Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh in Lebanon’s Daily Star:

“... the only goal of the final status agreement is to bring peace and prosperity to not only the Israeli and the Palestinian people, but to the region,” adding that “throughout every point in the process the United States has been engaged in consultations with the government of Jordan.”

“Seeking to allay parliamentary fears, Judeh told lawmakers that Jordan, which shares the longest Arab border of 335 kilometers with Israel and the West Bank, had the right to “accept or reject” any point in the negotiations that does not bode well with its interests.”

Kerry appears to understand that Jordan — an integral part of the Jewish-Arab conflict since 1920 - is the lynch pin to achieving any solution.

Jordan is not jumping for joy at the prospect.

Palestine - Obama Utters The Magic Word - "Annapolis"

[Published 25 March 2013]


President Obama’s use of just one word - “Annapolis” - stands out among the thousands he uttered during his three day visit to Jerusalem, Ramallah and Amman.

His highly significant use of this keyword on 21 March at the Jerusalem International Convention Centre constituted a diplomatic milestone in America’s quest to end the long running Jewish-Arab conflict.

"I know Israel has taken risks for peace. Brave leaders – Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin – reached treaties with two of your neighbors. You made credible proposals to the Palestinians at Annapolis. You withdrew from Gaza and Lebanon, and then faced terror and rockets."

What were the “credible proposals” made to the Palestinians at Annapolis?

Why was the mention of “Annapolis” thought far more important to include in President Obama’ speech - rather than “Camp David” and the attempts to broker a two-state solution between Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat by President Clinton in 2000?

The answer is to be found in the following statement made by Israel’s then Prime Minister - Ehud Olmert - at the international conference convened by President Bush on 27 November 2007 in Annapolis in the presence of some 40 world leaders including many from the Arab world:

"The (resumption of) negotiations will be based on previous agreements between us, UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the Roadmap and the April 14th 2004 letter of President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel.

On conclusion of the negotiations, I believe that we will be able to reach an agreement which will fulfill the vision of President Bush: two states for two peoples.

A peace-seeking, viable, strong, democratic and terror-free Palestinian state for the Palestinian people.

A Jewish, democratic State of Israel, living in security and free from the threat of terror – the national home of the Jewish people."

President Obama’s Jerusalem speech is the closest he has come to publicly acknowledging that the following commitments laid out in President Bush’s letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on 14 April 2004 constitute “credible proposals” to end the Jewish-Arab conflict:

1. As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338.

2. The United States is strongly committed to Israel’s security and well-being as a Jewish state.

3. It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.

4. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.

5. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.

Yet President Obama has appeared to have given up one fundamental requirement of President Bush’s Road Map - that any Palestinian Arab state that emerges as part of the two-state solution must be “democratic”

In a carefully worded and crafted speech that spoke in glowing terms of Israel’s vibrant democracy - President Obama was noticeably silent in failing to endorse the same outcome as being necessary for the successful implementation and conclusion of President Bush’s two-state solution.

To this extent President Obama seems to have rejected as unnecessary the express Annapolis commitment made by Prime Minister Olmert to achieve one of President Bush’s most cherished objectives.

The PLO will no doubt see this concession by President Obama as a plus - since it appears to be the inevitable consequence of Hamas and the PLO being unable to end their six years long internecine struggle that has denied the Palestinian Arabs having any say in determining their own future.

America is apparently set on pressuring Israel to give up this demand as a condition of resolving the two-state solution.

Yet in another respect President Obama’s following statement has come down firmly in favour of the commitment made by President Bush in his letter to Prime Minister Sharon - endorsed in specific terms by Prime Minister Olmert at Annapolis - that the Arab world - and Jew-haters around the world - recognize that the Jewish people are entitled to a Jewish state in their ancient, historic and biblically recognized homeland.

"For the Jewish people, the journey to the promise of the State of Israel wound through countless generations. It involved centuries of suffering and exile, prejudice, pogroms and even genocide. Through it all, the Jewish people sustained their unique identity and traditions, as well as a longing to return home. And while Jews achieved extraordinary success in many parts. of the world, the dream of true freedom finally found its full expression in the Zionist idea – to be a free people in your homeland.

That is why I believe that Israel is rooted not just in history and tradition, but also in a simple and profound idea: the idea that people deserve to be free in a land of their own. And over the last 65 years, when Israel has been at its best, Israelis have demonstrated that responsibility does not end when you reach the promised land, it only begins."

President Obama reinforced that message with an unequivocal one liner:

"Palestinians must recognize that Israel will be a Jewish state."

The steadfast refusal by the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab world at large to acknowledge this simple proposition has been the major impediment to peace ever since its possibility was first suggested in 1920 at the San Remo Conference and confirmed in the 1922 Mandate for Palestine - then actually proposed in 1937 by the Peel Commission and endorsed by the United Nations in 1947.

Are the Palestinian Arabs now seriously ready to take up President Obama’s challenge to resolve their conflict with the Jews in accordance with the credible proposals made by Israel at Annapolis in 2007 - tempered with just one important concession by President Obama dispensing with the need for any agreement on the question of democracy?

That is the message President Obama has sent to President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad - persons whom President Obama personally identified as true partners for Israel in achieving the two-state solution during his Jerusalem speech.

I hope we will not have to wait too long for their answer.

Palestine - A Match Made In Heaven

[Published 12 September 2012]

Yasser Arafat and Yitzchak Rabin were reportedly overheard having the following spirited conversation in heaven recently - frankly reflecting on the mistakes they both had made in trying to reach the “Peace of the Brave” for which they and the last surviving member of the trio - Shimon Peres—had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

Yitzchak:

I always thought that the way to peace between the Jews and the Arabs involved re-subdividing Palestine into two States with Jewish Israel sovereign in about 20% of Palestine and Arab Jordan sovereign in about 80% of Palestine.

Shimon persuaded me to pursue a different path by accepting Oslo.

In hindsight this was a terrible error of judgment by me and cost me my life, the lives of thousands of Jews and Arabs and the maiming, wounding and emotional scarring of our respective populations.

Yasser:

Look Yitzchak, I know you weren’t happy with Oslo. I felt it in that famous handshake at the White House. I was aware of your comment in The Australian newspaper on May 27, 1985:

“One tiny State between Israel and Jordan will solve nothing. It will be a time bomb.”

Oslo would have created just such a State.

Yitzchak:

I think my then prediction is more relevant today than ever - considering the collapse of Oslo, 9/11, your 2001 refusal of Barak’s offer, the second Intifada, the failed Roadmap, the 2006 Lebanon War, the 2008 Abbas rejection of Olmert’s offer, the 10000 rockets fired into civilian population centres in Israel from Gaza since 2007, Operation Cast Lead in 2008, what’s happening now in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Jordan, Gaza, the West Bank and Iran’s nuclear threat to wipe out Israel.

The Quartet members are making a big mistake pursuing the two-state solution.

They supposedly respect my memory but not my opinions. They know I also said when making my prediction:

“the Palestinians should have a sovereign State which includes most of the Palestinians. It should be Jordan with a considerable part of the West Bank and Gaza. East of the Jordan River there is enough room to settle the Palestinian refugees.”

Yasser:

On June 25, 1987 I myself told the New York Review of Books that before the Second World War:

“Jordan was an emirate, completely part of Palestine.”

I know my history as well as you, my dear partner in peace. We both agreed that Jordan was part of Palestine - part of the problem and part of the solution…..

Yitzchak:

We really should have built on this common agreement when we finally decided to talk about peace.

Yasser:

I also told Der Spiegel in 1986:

“Jordanians and Palestinians are indeed one people. No one can divide us. We have the same fate.”

Yitzchak:

Even Jordan recognised the historic and demographic reality of what you were saying. As early as Spring 1982 Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan was quoted in the Foreign Affairs Review as endorsing the words of a leading Jordanian social scientist:

“the Jordanians and Palestinians are now one people, and no political loyalty, however strong, will separate them permanently.”

Yasser:

Farouk Kadoumi, the Head of the Political Department of the PLO, told Newsweek on 14 March 1977:

“Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people.”

Farouk stood by my wife Suha during my dying days in hospital in France. Now there is more concern about whether I was poisoned than there is about the failed peace process.

Yitzchak:

So why did you insist on separate Palestinian and Jordanian delegations at the Madrid Conference in 1991 instead of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation?

Yasser:

Come on Yitzchak. You know there had been a power struggle between King Hussein and myself for control of Jordan. Could I ever forget or forgive how my followers and I were driven out of Jordan in September 1970 and the slaughter that was inflicted on us at that time? Do you think it was fun being shunted to Lebanon and thence to Tunisia?

Yitzchak:

But surely you could have resolved your dispute by retaining King Hussein as Jordan’s monarch and appointing yourself as Jordan’s Prime Minister. By burying your differences you could have ended up as Prime Minister of 80% of Palestine instead of President of nothing.

Yasser:

That’s all water under the bridge. Now that I have been removed from the scene is there perhaps something we can do to influence those left behind down there to
re-subdivide Palestine along the lines you suggested 27 years ago?

Yitzchak:

Well I know Shimon is just as aware as you and I are of Jordan’s role in bringing peace to the region. Shimon told the Jewish Telegraph on April 19, 1991:

“It is not obstinacy to regard the populations of Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza as having greater similarities than differences. The Jordan River is not deep enough to turn into a knife blade serving to cut one piece of territory into three slices. Most of Jordan’s population are Palestinians: the residents of the West Bank are Jordanian citizens and Jordan has distributed tens of thousands of passports to residents in the Gaza Strip. Jordan is therefore an existing State. It has an army. There is therefore no need to set up another State, another army.”

Yasser:

Shimon might now be President—but he is not the Israeli Government.

Israel’s Prime Minister - Bibi Netanyahu - needs to endorse Shimon’s view and make it Israeli policy

Yitzchak:

Bibi’s view is very similar to Shimon’s. Bibi told 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…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… contains less than 1/5 of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate‚Ķ. 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."

Bibi eventually changed direction under extreme pressure from President Obama by proposing a demilitarized third state in former Palestine on 14 June 2009. That idea has gone down like a lead balloon.

He and Shimon need to resume enunciating their long held shared vision once again.

Shimon also needs to remind his Presidential confreres what Ariel Sharon - in an induced coma since 2006 - told Time on April 17, 1989:

“Jordan is Palestine! The capital of Palestine is Amman. If Palestinian Arabs want to find their political expression, they will have to do it in Amman.”

Ariel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza and the building of a security fence in the West Bank has effectively divided former Palestine into Jewish and Arab sections - forming the basis for calling an international conference to re-subdivide Palestine along the lines I first suggested in 1985.

Yasser:

That’s all fine, but what about my beloved Jerusalem? Can I ever hope that my mortal remains will be reburied there?

Yitzchak:

Yes. It is possible. East Jerusalem was part of Jordan between 1948-1967 and would have been so today had King Hussein kept out of the Six Day War. The Holy Places are specifically to be dealt with in the Peace Treaty I signed with King Hussein in 1994.

We can’t solve all the problems from here. Those on earth are charged with negotiating the final outcomes. Now is a propitious time for them to attempt to do so.

Yasser:

How can we get the Quartet to abandon its plans to continue pursuing the impossible? Visions have a habit of turning into the worst nightmares.

Yitzchak:

The Quartet should heed the above things we said whilst on earth, but which we unfortunately failed to try to put into practice. This will be the finest tribute they can pay to our memories and will merit the Nobel Prize that we were in truth prematurely awarded. This will be the real peace of the brave. Pressure must be put on Jordan to
re-subdivide Palestine, the same kind of pressure that is being put on Israel to accept the badly flawed and thoroughly discredited Road Map. Then perhaps the peace we all desire will be attainable.

Yasser:

Shalom Yitzchak

Yitzchak:

Salaam Yasser.

It is hard to believe that I first published this conversation in 2004. Everything said then still remains true today in this updated version.

Re-subdivide Palestine into two states - one Jewish - one Arab. Two people need two states - not three.

Hopefully another update will not be necessary in 2020