Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine can avoid humanitarian disaster

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestine Liberation Organisation President Mahmoud Abbas need to break their silence and confirm or deny whether two of their senior officials have been discussing implementing the Saudi-based Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution or alternative solutions in secret back channel meetings for the last two months.

Answering this question undercuts Netanyahu’s predilection for secret negotiations articulated by him on December 15, 2022:

“You know, I’m sort of a champion of a slight twist in what Woodrow Wilson said in the Versailles Peace Conference. He said he believed in open covenants, openly arrived at. I believe in open covenants, secretly arrived at or discreetly arrived at...

…"I don’t need the public fanfare, I don’t need it. You know, if you come to an agreement, it will be publicized. If you don’t come to an agreement, nothing happens. I think we can come to amazing agreements.”

That luxury is no longer available - nor is responding to reporters’ questions by “neither confirming nor denying” good enough at this critical juncture--having regard to:

• the rapidly deteriorating political, legal and security situations in Israel, Gaza and Judea/ Samaria (West Bank) and
• the reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran
• Israelis in their hundreds of thousands - demonstrating for the last 10 weeks to protect Israel’s High Court of Justice from the reforming zeal of the current Government - are probably unaware of the Court’s inexplicable intrusion into decisions properly the Government’s to make - placing these protestors own lives in jeopardy.

The High Court of Justice on May 24, 2018 rejected a final appeal by 200 residents of an illegally constructed Bedouin encampment - Khan Al Ahmar - when three judges unanimously decided the Government had the right “under the letter of the law” to demolish and evacuate its residents.

Nine adjournments had been granted since then until 1 February  this year when these three Judges refused to grant the newly-installed Netanyahu Government a tenth adjournment for a further four months - creating an immediate political crisis by ordering the Government to come up with a plan of evacuation by April 2, 2023 and relisting the matter for final hearing on May 1, 2023.

This act of judicial petulance placed the Government in an intolerable political bind that could have been avoided by simply granting the further adjournment.

Court dates are deadlines that cannot be ignored.

The Judges clearly had had enough of these adjournments - oblivious apparently to the political ramifications of what they were causing by refusing another.

Successive Governments grappling with the 2018 decision had clearly indicated the Court’s order was too controversial and inflammatory to deal with - to be put off to another date and time.

Netanyahu and Abbas now need to neutralize the April 2nd and May 1st Court-imposed deadlines.

Thousands of other illegal Arab structures similarly face demolition in Area C. Any perceived threat that they might be demolished could trigger a chain of violent protests and reactions causing a major humanitarian disaster.

Netanyahu and Abbas need to come clean and persuade the Court on 1 May — whether a plan of evacuation of Khan Al-Ahmar has been filed by 2 April  or not - that negotiations have been commenced between them to find a solution whose successful implementation will render the demolition of virtually all illegal Arab structures in Area C unnecessary.

The Saudi-based plan - calling for Judea and Samaria (West Bank) to be divided between Israel and the newly-created Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - provides such a solution.

The High Court of Justice needs to climb down from its impetuous incursion into making political decisions clearly the province of Government - by granting another adjournment.

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

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

Secret talks paving way for Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PLO-Arab fears will also have been publicly assuaged.

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

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

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

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

Jordan PLO & Hamas revise Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine Plan

 

The Saudi-based Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine plan (Saudi Plan) - initially published in Al Arabiya News on 8 June 2022 - has been revised in a later document containing amendments that appear to have been made at the request of and agreed to by Jordan, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Hamas - the three parties most affected if the Saudi Plan is successfully implemented. 

The revised version has not been published in Al Arabiya News or on any other news site. It is written in Arabic - but an English translation - a copy of which is in the writer’s possession - is very informative in clarifying certain parts of the original version which were apparently vague or unacceptable to Jordan, the PLO and Hamas.

The Saudi Plan calls for Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) to be merged into one territorial entity to be called the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine. This plan trashes the creation of an independent Palestinian Arab State between Israel and Jordan - the solution proposed by:

• The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, 
• The United Nations - after adopting Security Council Resolution 2334 in 2016, 
• The 2020 Trump Peace Plan - and 
• Jordan and the PLO since the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords

The major changes to the published version of the Saudi Plan made in the revised version are:

• The area of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) to be included in the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - approximately 70% in the published version - has been reduced to about 30% in the revised version. 

This concession would purportedly weaken Israel’s claim to sovereignty in the Jordan Valley - 87% of which is situated in Area C - currently under Israel’s full administrative and security control.

The possibility that Israel could regain sovereignty in up to 90% of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) for the first time in 3000 years - with Jordan, PLO and Hamas consensus - is a potential game changer.

• The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - will be under Hashemite rule. The original version did not designate who would be its ruler. 

• Important changes have been made in relation to Jerusalem:

The original version states: 

"The formal relinquishment of any claims to Jerusalem (with an appropriate arrangement for the holy places)" will be "a key bargaining chip in Palestinian hands".

The revised version states:

"The formal renunciation of Jerusalem (while giving the Holy Places special status)" will be a major bargaining chip in the hands of the Palestinians."

Sole Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem is now promised - if agreement on all other issues can be resolved. 

Under the radar contact already commenced between Israel and Saudi Arabia will certainly focus on implementing the revised version - not the published version. 

I reached out to the author of both the original and revised versions - Ali Shihabi - asking him to explain why his original published plan was substantially revised and not published. 

I offered to publish his reasons verbatim in an article which I would submit to him to approve before publication. Shihabi has not replied to my request. 

Shihabi might be more forthcoming if contacted by any of the following - who have not even acknowledged the existence of the Saudi Plan since its original publication:

• Joe Biden, 
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, 
• New York Times Op Ed writer Thomas Friedman 
• Any reporter with Shihabi’s cell phone number.
• Private think tanks, 
• Israeli Non-Government Organisations, 
• Investigative journalists 

The failure of Jordan, the PLO or Hamas to reject the Saudi Plan since its initial publication seven months ago is explained by their agreement to the changes made in the revised version.

Please join my Facebook Page: "Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine supporters"

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

Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine sinks UN failed two-state solution

 

UK Labour Friends of Israel (UKLFI) has sunk any possibility of a new Palestinian Arab state being created between Israel and Jordan - unsuccessfully promoted by the United Nations for the last 29 years - detailing 30 steps considered necessary before negotiations can even be resumed. 

These steps are:

Step 1: Tackle the humanitarian crisis in Gaza 

Step 2:  Freeze settlement building 

Step 3: End the Palestinian Authority's payment of salaries to convicted terrorists and the payment of rewards to the families of “martyrs” 

Step 4: Support the establishment of an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace and re-establish UK support for peace-building work 

Step 5: Encourage Arab states to normalise relations with Israel and deepen the Abraham Accords 

Step 6: Increase work permits for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Jeru

Step 7: Ensure transportational contiguity for Palestinians 

Step 8: Support Jerusalem as capital of Israel and future Palestinian state 

Step 9: Ensure enforcement of UNSCR 1701, international action to prevent Hezbollah's precision-missile project and attacks on Israel 

Step 10: Demand Hamas renounce the use of violence and terrorism

Step 11: Demand Hamas releases hostages 

Step 12: Pressure the Palestinian Authority to stop human rights abuses 

Step 13: Support the development of Rawabi 

Step 14: Ensure Palestinians can travel abroad more freely 

Step 15: Support construction of a Gaza seaport 

Step 16: Support steps towards a permanent Gaza ceasefire 

Step 17: International action to curb Iran's malign activities 

Step 18: Oppose unilateral actions by either side 

Step 19: Pressure Egypt to permanently open the Rafah crossing 

Step 20: Support free elections in the West Bank and Gaza 

Step 21: Preserve the Temple Mount status quo 

Step 22: Expand Palestinian autonomous zones and issue building permits for Area C 

Step 23: Support a reformed UNRWA 

Step 24: Support the reunification of the West Bank and Gaza under PA authority 

Step 25: Support Palestinian economic independence 

Step 26: End incitement in the Palestinian school curriculum 

Step 27: Increase exit permits to allow Gaza residents to study abroad 

Step 28: Action by international donors to improve Palestinian governance 

Step 29: Support a Palestinian seaport at Haifa 

Step 30: Allocate territory in Area C for Palestinian economic development“

Amazingly UKLFI still faithfully continues to repeat the UN's false mantra:

“The two-state solution is the only means by which to guarantee Israel's security and to preserve its identity as a Jewish and democratic state, as well as to satisfy the legitimate demand of the Palestinian people for self-determination and national sovereignty.”

Really? 

Is UKLFI unaware of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution emanating from Saudi Arabia on June 8, 2022 offering  a real alternative to replace the failed UN two-state solution? Calling for the merger of Jordan, Gaza and part of the West Bank into one territorial entity to be called the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine  - this Saudi Plan needs only 2 steps - not 30 - for its successful implementation:

Step 1: 

Redrawing the internationally recognised boundary between Israel and Jordan

Armed only with pencils and erasers negotiators should be capable of designating the border between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine in a matter of months.

Step 2: 

Determining who controls security of the territory of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine west of the Jordan River.

Israel would probably demand total security control over all the territory west of the Jordan River - and if not agreed - the negotiations on this issue could take longer to conclude. 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres continues to ignore the existence of the Saudi Solution or call for any discussion of its merits in the Security Council.  

Perpetuating the Jewish-Arab conflict - not trying to end it - has become the UN's shocking agenda. 

The Saudi Plan beckons…

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.

Antisemitic EU & ECRI policies on Israel cannot be whitewashed

 

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) - in attempting to whitewash European Union (EU) policies directed against Israel in Judea and Samaria being labelled as “antisemitic” – is engaging in similar antisemitic conduct in denying Israel’s right to claim sovereignty there.

Antisemitic EU anti-Israel policies:

• Require goods produced by Israelis living in Judea and Samaria to be distinctively labelled for sale in the EU: “Product from West Bank (Israeli settlement)” 
• Facilitate and finance illegal Arab building in Area C of Judea and Samaria  - totally under Israeli control pursuant to the Oslo Accords – without the EU seeking Israel’s approval

ECRI’s 47 members – one from each Council of Europe member state – are appointed:

“on the basis of their independence, impartiality, moral authority and expertise in dealing with issues of racism, discrimination, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance.”

ECRI – in a recent report - clarified when it considers criticism of Israel to be antisemitic:

“Contemporary forms of antisemitism can differ from traditional forms of prejudice against Jewish people, but both forms can also exist in parallel. Nowadays, antisemitism can also be expressed in certain criticism of Israel that is baseless. For example, denying Jews their right to a national homeland, holding the State of Israel to a different standard of behaviour than other states, or demonising the State of Israel and viewing it and its people as inherently evil or racist, may be regarded as antisemitic.” 

Under these guidelines:

• Textbooks used in Palestinian Arab and Saudi Arabian schools depicting hundreds of maps without “Israel” being designated on them - are antisemitic 
• The Palestine Liberation Organisation and Hamas - whose respective Charters deny Jews have any right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in their ancient and biblical homeland – are antisemitic organisations and their leaders are antisemites.
• EU criticism of Israel for its responses in protecting Israel’s citizens from rockets fired from Gaza indiscriminately into Israeli population centres - is antisemitic - since European States would act similarly were their countries so confronted 

ECRI however shoots itself in the foot when stating what criticism of Israel is not antisemitic:

“However, ECRI strongly emphasises that any attempts to stifle, or stigmatise as antisemitic, legitimate criticism of Israel and its policies, in particular towards the Palestinian people and in the context of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, will jeopardise efforts to combat antisemitism and should therefore be rejected.”

ECRI’s choice of the phrase “Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories” is itself a manifestation of antisemitism – denying Jews have the right to reconstitute their national homeland in any part of Judea and Samaria – even though their right to do so was legally mandated - indeed encouraged - by:

• The San Remo conference and Treaty of Sevres in 1920
• Article 6 and Article 25 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine
• Article 80 of the United Nations Charter

Labelling these territories “Palestinian territories” – rather than “disputed territories” – denies Israel’s right to establish the Jewish national homeland in these territories and asserts that only the “Palestinian people” – not the “Jewish people” - has such a right. 

ECRI’s stated position is antisemitic under its own guidelines.

EU criticism of Israel’s settlement policy in Judea and Samaria also ignores Israel’s right to pursue that policy under the above internationally agreed consensus and is also antisemitic.

EU and ECRI – by their policies, statements and criticism of Israel in Judea and Samaria - are helping to fuel rapidly increasing antisemitism in Europe. 

Antisemitism - wherever and whenever it appears – needs to be exposed, condemned and eradicated. Organizations and their leaders – including the EU and ECRI - who propagate antisemitic criticism of Israel need to be named and shamed.

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.

Bennett kowtows to Biden and jettisons Trump

 

It has taken just two months for Israel’s Prime Minister – Naftali Bennett - to abandon implementing his 10 years old policy calling for Israel to unilaterally extend its sovereignty into 60% of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) - dubbed Area C under the Oslo Accords.

Bennett’s backdown was made in the New York Times on 24 August:

“This government will neither annex nor form a Palestinian state, everyone gets that”

Bennett told the Knesset exactly the opposite on the occasion of his swearing in as Prime Minister on 13 June:

“We will ensure Israel’s national interests in Area C – and we will increase standards to that end after much neglect in this area.”

Bennett articulated Israel’s national interests in Area C when presenting his comprehensive Israel Stability Initiative in February 2012:

• Israel unilaterally extending sovereignty over Area C:

“Through this initiative, Israel will secure vital interests: providing security to Jerusalem and the Gush Dan Region, protecting Israeli communities, and maintaining sovereignty over our National Heritage Sites. The world will not recognize our claim to sovereignty, as it does not recognize our sovereignty over the Western Wall, the Ramot and Gilo neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Yet eventually the world will adjust to the de facto reality. Further, the areas coming under Israel’s sovereignty will create territorial contiguity and will include the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea, Ariel, Maale Adumim, the mountains above Ben Gurion Airport, and all of the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. As a result, residents of Tel Aviv, the Gush Dan Region, Jerusalem, and Israel will live in full security, protected against threats from the east.”

• Full naturalization of the 50,000 Arabs living in Area C:

“This will counter any claims of apartheid. Currently there are 350,000 Jewish residents, and only 50,000 Arab residents of Area C. Irrespective of religion, all residents of the area will receive full citizenship. Based on this outline, no Arabs or Jews will be evicted or expelled from their properties.”

• A full Israeli security umbrella for all of Judea and Samaria:

“The success of the initiative is conditional on keeping the territories peaceful and quiet. Peace can only be achieved with the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] maintaining a strong presence in, and complete security control over, Judea and Samaria. If the IDF leaves, Hamas will rapidly infiltrate the area. This is how Hamas took control of Gaza, and how Hizballah took control of southern Lebanon”

Abandonment of these objectives by Israel’s present Government for the next four years can only be regarded as:

• an attempt to curry favour with Biden and his administration
• a missed opportunity to advance President Trump’s detailed peace plan to extend Israeli sovereignty into approximately 50% of Area C (see diagram following)

The mutual backslapping and expressions of self-admiration by Bennett and Biden for each other at their White House meeting on 27 August took place as the US was reeling from the deaths of 13 US military personnel, 18 more wounded and at least 169 Afghani citizens killed in two suicide-bombing attacks following Biden’s disastrous decision to unilaterally withdraw from Afghanistan.

Forgotten was Bennett’s own assessment of Trump in May 2020:

“Israel has never had a friend like Donald Trump. But it cannot guarantee that of his successors. His bold peace vision creates new possibilities that we believe should be pursued—but not at any price.”

Taking flight from – rather than fighting for – Bennett’s own and Trump’s carefully crafted proposals to provide Israel with secure, defensible and recognized borders – is not in Israel’s national interests.

Kowtowing to Biden and jettisoning Trump does not augur well for Bennett’s coalition Government or Israel.

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

Israel signals end to EU-funded unauthorised building in West Bank

 

Israel’s decision to evict all 53 Jewish families from the unauthorised settlement of Evyatar in the West Bank this week should send a clear signal to the European Union (EU) that its days of financing and facilitating the building of unauthorised Arab structures in Area C of the West Bank are over.

Area C comprises about 60% of the West Bank and has been under Israel’s full security and administrative control since the 1995 Oslo Accords were signed.

The following Table shows the annual number of targeted structures funded by the EU and EU member states up to July-December 2019 including information about incurred financial losses:

According to the Daily Mail: (See Chart Below)

• Locally, the villages are known as the ‘EU Settlements’, and can be found in 17 locations around the West Bank.

• They fly the EU flag and display hundreds of EU stickers and signs. Some also bear the logos of Oxfam and other NGOs, which have assisted in the projects.”

Relief Web reported in February:

• So far in 2021, the targeting of EU funded aid structures tripled compared with the monthly average in 2020
• 47 EU-funded structures were targeted in February.

Professor Hillel Frisch in 2019 summarised what the EU has been up to:

“Ever since a decision in January 2012, the EU has been expressly committed to the expansion of illegal Palestinian settlement in Area C in conjunction with the PA [ed: Palestinian Authority]. This is in blatant disregard of the Oslo accords, which the EU purports to uphold. The object is to create continuous Palestinian settlement throughout the West Bank and thereby isolate and strangle Israeli communities.”

Professor Frisch detailed the genesis of the EU’s unlawful involvement in the West Bank:

“In July 2011, a report entitled “Area C and Palestinian State Building” was produced by the EU. It was then brought to the European Parliament in December and approved by the European Commission in early January 2012…

In April 2012, the PA’s Ministry of Local Government (MoLG) published a strategic action plan entitled “Planning Support for Palestinian Communities in Area C.” The EU announced its support for this plan in an official document published in 2012 called “Land Development and Access to Basic Infrastructure in Area C.”

By 2016, the European Community had spent a total of 10.5 million euros to draw up and implement zoning plans for 90 Palestinian settlements and support land development projects in Area C in conjunction with the MoLG.”

Buildings — mainly modular in form — were transported to various areas during the night and erected by the next morning.

An apparently unauthorised Palestinian school located near Adam Junction in Area C - funded by the EU and flying the EU flag - is pictured below:

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s declaration in January 2020 — made before he was elected Israel’s Prime Minister — should now set off alarm bells in the EU:

“Our objective is that within a short amount of time, and we will work for it, we will apply [Israeli] sovereignty to all of Area C, not just the settlements, not just this bloc or another… We are embarking on a real and immediate battle for the future of the land of Israel and the future of Area C”

The EU then responded:

“Demolitions and seizures of humanitarian assets are contrary to Israel’s obligations under international law”.

Representing these EU-funded structures as “humanitarian assets” was deceptive and misleading. They are ”political structures aimed at stopping Israeli sovereignty being applied in Area C “.

EU intervention and meddling in Area C of the West Bank over the last ten years will seemingly no longer be tolerated by Israel’s new Government.


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

Trump, Netanyahu and Gantz can end in 2020 what began in 1920

[Published 9 December 2019]

Designating the territory for reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine – begun with the San Remo Convention and Treaty of Sevres in April and August 1920 respectively – could finally be completed 100 years later in 2020.

Achieving this long-overdue outcome will require Israel to form a Government of National Unity by 11 December 2019 - headed initially by Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister for a minimum term of six months - enabling the new Parliament to ratify those areas of Judea and Samaria to which Israeli sovereignty will be extended as delineated by the Government.

This Unity Government should ideally hold at least 80 of the 120 seats in the Knesset so that there is an overwhelming majority of Israel’s elected politicians supporting any determinative decisions made by the Knesset in relation to Judea and Samaria.

Israel has been presented with this amazing opportunity following President Trump’s Secretary for State - Mike Pompeo - issuing this declaration on 19 November 2019:

“After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, this administration agrees with President Reagan. The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.”

Pompeo’s statement followed US Ambassador to Israel – David Friedman – stating on 8 June 2019:

“Under certain circumstances I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.”

Friedman had then cautioned:

“We really don’t have a view until we understand how much, on what terms, why does it make sense, why is it good for Israel, why is it good for the region, why does it not create more problems than it solves. These are all things that we’d want to understand, and I don’t want to prejudge.”

Friedman will get the answers with the formation of Israel’s Government of National Unity – which hangs delicately by a thread and can vanish into thin air if it does not gain some oxygen by midnight on 11 December. Fresh elections on 3 March 2020 - for the third time in a year - will then become mandatory and this wonderful opportunity will have flown out the window.

It would be a national disgrace and betrayal of Israelis and Jews worldwide if Israel’s political parties allowed their political differences and personal rivalries to stymie the opportunity to determine the area within which the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home will be mandated after 100 years of fighting many wars and diplomatic battles.

Israel’s extended boundaries would be determined in coordination with President Trump and ratified over the next 6 months.

The fact that no Arab interlocutors will participate in any such decision-making process is regrettable. However continuing Arab intransigence in refusing to commit to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s still unreleased deal of the century - despite Trump’s best efforts to involve their participation in such decision-making with Israel – leaves Trump with no other option.

A Unity Government could be reasonably expected to agree to extend Israel’s sovereignty to about 75% of Area C – about 45% of Judea and Samaria.

Gantz reportedly told close associates he is:

“ready to make tough decisions in the coming days”

Hopefully Gantz as Deputy Prime Minister can rise to the occasion and allow Netanyahu – enjoying a unique relationship with Trump - to head a Government of National Unity to grab this once in a hundred years opportunity.

An unprecedented – almost miraculous - confluence of events has emerged since Israel’s second-deadlocked September elections - that cries out for a national consensus and historic response by Trump, Netanyahu and Gantz.

Seize the moment – seize the day….

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

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.

Israel Ensures European Union Swallows Poison Pill

[Published 30 November 2015]


The European Union’s (EU) discriminatory and racist labelling requirements for Jewish goods and products originating from Judea and Samaria has now seen Israel effectively label the EU as “persona non grata” in the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs under the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap.

The EU finds itself in this sorry position following Israel’s decision to reassess the involvement of EU bodies in that diplomatic process and to suspend contacts with the EU and its representatives until that reassessment is completed.

The labelling requirements reflect the EU’s political position that settlement by Jews in Judea and Samaria is illegal in international law. This claim has never been the subject of any binding authoritative legal decision.

The International Court of Justice decision on 9 July 2004 was only an advisory opinion sought by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and not a legally binding precedent.

That opinion was itself deficient since the Court was never asked by the Secretary-General to consider the legal effect of two territory-specific pieces of international law applicable to Judea and Samaria. Those provisions - article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter - vested and preserved the legal right to “close settlement by Jews” in Judea and Samaria for the purposes of reconstituting the Jewish National Home.

At best the EU’s longstanding position - that influenced its labelling laws - is only an opinion — and nothing more.

The EU should think very carefully before imposing any retaliatory trade action against Israel for freezing the EU out of the peace process — since Israel still has some more bitter medicine for the EU to swallow:

1. Forbidding the transfer of EU funds to non-government organisations in Israel engaged in activities designed to advance the interests of the Israeli Arab population and to interfere in the internal affairs of a member State of the United Nations.

2. Ending all co-operation with the EU in Area C in Judea and Samaria by terminating existing development and infrastructure programs for the benefit of the Arab population and forbidding any such EU activities there in the future.

The EU’s labelling laws contravene the joint statement issued by the Quartet — America, Russia, The European Union and the United Nations - on 10 April 2002:

“We reiterate that there is no military solution to the conflict and call on the parties to move towards a political resolution of their disputes based on UNSCR 242 and 338, and the principle of land for peace‚ which formed the basis for the Madrid Conference of 1991. We reaffirm our support for the objective expressed by President Bush and spelled out in UNSCR 1397, of two States, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side within secure and recognized borders.”

Attempting to influence any political resolution regarding secure and recognized boundaries - using its labelling requirements to pressure Israeli territorial concessions - could spell the death knell for President Bush’s Roadmap and its “two-state solution"

The EU is free to pursue any policy it wants — but also must take full responsibility for the consequences of its reprehensible labelling laws and Israel’s rapid response.

Should the EU now gracefully bow out of the Quartet due to its clearly revealed conflict of interest and one-sided bias — or does it have to be told to go packing by the other members of the Quartet if their impartiality in the peace process is to be maintained?

The EU cannot remain a member of the Quartet whilst implementing labelling requirements that favour Arab claims over Jewish claims.

The EU now faces swallowing a poison pill of its own making.

European Union declares diplomatic war on Israel

[Published 6 April 2017]


Ambassadors to Israel representing 28 European Union States (EU) behaved most undiplomatically in ambushing the recently appointed Director of Israel’s Foreign Ministry and former Ambassador to Australia - Yuval Rotem - at a meet and greet function Rotem had organised at the Dan Hotel in Tel Aviv last week.

Instead of the pleasant banter over drinks and canapes usually associated with such events on the diplomatic cocktail circuit - the function erupted into an explosive EU protest against Israel’s plans to evict Arab squatters from 42 structures that had been illegally erected between Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem at the strategically narrowest point in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) known as E1.

Lars Faarburg-Andersen - the EU Ambassador to Israel — took the opportunity to read out to Rotem the following one-page document which had been approved by the EU political-security committee - in which all 28 member states are represented.

This gauche and uncivilised behaviour was certainly uncalled for and not conduct that one would ever expect to come from refined and cultured Europeans.

Reading this carefully-crafted statement at the function was a cavalier action aggravating the already strained relationship between the EU and Israel following the EU’s introduction on 11 November 2015 of labelling requirements for goods produced in Judea and Samaria entering Europe.

The statement revealingly exposes the hypocrisy of the EU for the following reasons:

It was presented as a “demarche” — a diplomatic or official initiative — a protest normally delivered through diplomatic channels — not at a cocktail function.

The statement confirms EU members were involved — without Israel’s approval - in the funding of these particular illegal structures located in Area C of Judea and Samaria — where Israel has sole administrative and security control under the 1993 Oslo Accords.

This is not the first occasion the EU has sought to impose itself in Area C by supporting illegal Arab building activities where it has no legal right to be present or involved.

On 13 December 2016 the EU Representative and the EU Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah issued a statement acknowledging that humanitarian structures provided by the EU and EU Member States in 2016 worth approximately EUR 536,000 had been either destroyed or confiscated.

The EU then claimed that its activities were humanitarian and carried out in full accordance with International Humanitarian Law - with the “sole aim” of providing humanitarian support to the most vulnerable population.

Yet this pious claim has exploded in its face with its own admission in the demarche that:

“The EU and EU member States are united in the view that Area C is of critical importance for the viability of a future Palestinian State”

What the EU has really been doing under the guise of humanitarian aid is financing illegal Arab structures designed to create irreversible facts on the ground favouring the claims of the Palestine Liberation Organisation over the national and security interests of Israel. The EU has been outed engaging in such reprehensible actions tainted by illegality outside diplomatic norms.

Israel’s response to this unprecedented ambush and illegal misconduct has been remarkably restrained.

Avivit Bar-Ilan director of the Israel Foreign Ministry’s European Union Department has told EU Deputy Ambassador to Israel Mark Gallagher:

“In Israel, illegal construction is dealt with according to the law.”

Bar-Ilan wryly observed:

“There are 32 humanitarian crises around the world, but the European Union opts to deal disproportionately only with what happens in Area C, which undoubtedly isn’t in a humanitarian crisis,”

The 28 Ambassadors — carrying their demarche between their tails - should be sent packing to Europe for a period of reflection and introspection.

Palestine - Anti-Israel Security Council Resolution 2334 violates UN Charter

[Published 5 January 2017]


United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 violates article 80 of the United Nations Charter and accordingly is illegal in international law.

Any attempt by the Security Council to enforce Resolution 2334 or to pass any new Resolutions based on Resolution 2334 will also be illegal.

Article 80 preserves the legal rights vested in the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home within 22% of the territory comprised in the 1922 Mandate for Palestine (“Mandate”). That territory includes what is known today as Area “C” located in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and East Jerusalem (“disputed areas”).

Resolution 2334 seeks to erase and annul — not preserve — those vested Jewish legal rights in the disputed areas by:

1. Claiming that Jews now presently living — or seeking in the future to live - in the disputed areas constitutes “a flagrant violation under international law” - when in fact their right to live there is sanctioned by Article 6 of the Mandate and Article 80.

2. Alleging that the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in the disputed areas requires the consent of any other party.

3. Calling on all States to discriminate between Jews living in the disputed areas and Jews living in Israel.

4. Discouraging Jews from living in the disputed areas when article 6 of the Mandate specifically encourages close Jewish settlement in the disputed areas.

The questionable legality of Resolution 2334 needs to be urgently resolved by the Security Council itself seeking an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) under article 96(a) of the United Nations Charter.

The General Assembly so acted when it sought an advisory opinion in 2003 from the ICJ on the legality of the security barrier erected by Israel.

That decision was fundamentally flawed because contrary to Article 65 (2) of the ICJ Statute - two vital documents — the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 — were not included in the dossier of documents submitted to the ICJ for consideration by then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan — an omission never explained until today.

Give the ICJ half the documents and you will only get half a judgement.

Indeed the Egyptian Judge sitting on that case — Justice El Araby - cautioned in his judgement:

“The international legal status of the Palestinian Territory (paras. 70-71 of the Advisory Opinion), in my view, merits more comprehensive treatment. A historical survey is relevant to the question posed by the General Assembly, for it serves as the background to understanding the legal status of the Palestinian Territory on the one hand and underlines the special and continuing responsibility of the General Assembly on the other. This may appear as academic, without relevance to the present events. The present is however determined by the accumulation of past events and no reasonable and fair concern for the future can possibly disregard a firm grasp of past events. In particular, when on more than one occasion, the rule of law was consistently side-stepped. The point of departure, or one can say in legal jargon, the critical date, is the League of Nations Mandate which was entrusted to Great Britain.”

The Security Council needs to ensure that this time round the Mandate and article 80 are put centre stage before the ICJ to consider when ruling on the legality of Resolution 2334. Justice for the Jewish people — and the standing, integrity and reputation of the United Nations — demands nothing less.

The Security Council cannot act in violation of the UN Charter — nor countenance any suggestion of illegality in its dealings with member States.

That is a certain recipe for absolute disaster.

Palestine: Correcting canards concerning Israel and vested Jewish legal rights

[Published 28 December 2016]


Australia’s former Foreign Minister and former head of Labor Friends of Israel — Bob Carr - has entered the debate concerning Security Council Resolution 2334 passed on 23 December with his article in the Sydney Morning Herald “The Genius of the UN’s Resolution on Israeli settlements” (December 27)

His contribution is riddled with the following errors that cannot be allowed to stand unanswered and uncorrected and need to be rectified.

I. He states that Levi Eshkol’s chief legal advisor Theodor Meron advised the Prime Minister in 1967 that the Geneva Convention says no nation may settle its own population on land it wins in war.

What Mr Carr omits to tell readers is that Mr Meron changed his opinion on the applicability of the Geneva Convention in 1968 when he co-signed the following advice to Israel’s then Ambassador to the United States — Yitzchak Rabin:

“to tell the Americans that there are unique aspects to the status of the territories and to our status in the territories. Before the Six-Day War, the Gaza Strip wasn’t Egyptian territory, and the West Bank, too, was territory that had been occupied and annexed by Jordan without international recognition. Given this ambiguous, indeterminate territorial situation, the question of the convention’s applicability is complex and unclear prior to a peace agreement that includes setting secure and recognized borders.”

2. Carr claims Meron is alive today, an eminent international jurist. He says he was right then and is right now.

No evidence is supplied by Carr to substantiate that claim — which is obviously rebutted by Meron’s revised 1968 opinion to Rabin. Why did Carr fail to mention Meron’s 1968 epiphany?

3. Carr claims all settlements in the West Bank are illegal.

Wrong — all those settlements are legal under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter—territory-specific legislation dating back to 1922 that is still valid today.

4. Carr claims that Israel has been spreading settlements as fast as possible to render it impossible to achieve a two-state solution.

Wrong — the settlements cover only 5% of the West Bank territory. Israel made offers to cede its claims to 90% of the West Bank in 2000/1 and 95% in 2008.

There has been no settlement because the Arabs want 100%.

5. Carr claims Israeli Governments have gifted settlers the best land.

Wrong — the land given to settlers for which they pay has been land that has mainly remained unsettled and undeveloped for the last 3000 years. It comprises State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes as prescribed under Article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine.

6. Carr claims that if the Palestinian Arabs throw up a granny flat without approval in Area C it is promptly demolished by army bulldozers.

Wrong — the granny flats are being thrown up by the European Union without approval to create facts on the ground. Yes — they are being demolished as happens to any illegal structures built anywhere in the World.

The European Union has no legal right to charge in without authorisation.

7. Carr asks - If Israel is really open to giving the land back in a peace deal why allow settlements in the first place?

Because the Arabs refused to negotiate with Israel between 1967 and 1993 and Israel was legally entitled to settle there.

Israel did the same in Gaza and unilaterally disengaged from every square inch of land there as well as a part of the West Bank in 2005 to advance the two-state solution.

8. Carr relies on Obama’s envoy and former Ambassador Martin Indyk to confirm settlements destroyed the deal.

Yet between 1948 and 1967 there were no settlements - after all the Jews living in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza had been driven out by the invading Transjordanian and Egyptian armies. The Arabs could have had their state at any time during those 20 years with the stroke of an Arab League pen in precisely the same area they now claim for themselves.

They could have had an even greater area had they not rejected the 1947 UN Partition Plan

Carr finally twigs when he states that historically the aged and corrupt Palestinian leadership has to bear some responsibility and that they’ve let their people down.

Too many offers have gone begging and will not return again given the horrendous events being played out in the Middle East right now.

9. Carr claims the Palestinians are offering a demilitarised state — a Palestine without an army and Western peacekeepers within their borders. It is hard to imagine more explicit security guarantees.

Mr Carr provides no source for this very important information — which is new to me.

10. Carr claims the 83% Arab population of the West Bank is being ruled by a racial and religious minority of 17%.

Wrong — 95% of the Arab population live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are completely ruled by the PLO. Only 5% of the Arabs live in Area C under Israeli rule.

Bob Carr — like the United Nations Security Council - relying on these and similar incorrect and unsubstantiated facts — are in a state of complete denial about Jewish rights to settle in the West Bank and the legality of Jewish settlements.

Both should take the time to better acquaint themselves with fact — not fiction - if they ever want to be believed.

United Nations Must End Hamas and PLO Stranglehold On Power

[Published 9 September 2016]


The United Nations effort to create a second Arab State in former Palestine — in addition to Jordan — has suffered another death blow following the Palestinian Supreme Court ordering the suspension of local elections in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and the Gaza Strip scheduled for October 8.

No parliamentary elections have been held since the 2006 - which Hamas won — but which the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) refused to accept. A bitter internecine struggle saw Hamas end up governing the Gaza Strip and the PLO controlling areas “A” and “B” in Judea and Samaria.

No Palestinian presidential election has been held since PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was elected in 2005.

Hamas boycotted the last Palestinian municipal elections in 2012 - but was due to participate this year.

In the absence of a popularly elected Government exercising complete authoritative and legislative control over the Gazan and West Bank Arab populations — any prospects of reaching a binding agreement with Israel in relation to Gaza and Judea and Samaria remains an impossible pipedream.

Both the PLO and Hamas have used the slogan “End the Occupation” to demand that Israel totally withdraw from Area “C” in Judea and Samaria over which Israel exercises complete administrative and security control under the Oslo Accords.

The United Nations has repeatedly reinforced that slogan by maintaining its flawed position that building in Area “C” by Israel is illegal in international law — completely ignoring that Jews have the legal right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Judea and Samaria under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations very own Charter.

The United Nations has allowed the conflict between Hamas and the PLO to career out of control for the last 10 years — allowing Hamas and the PLO to:

1. consolidate their power structures and political dominance within their own separate fiefdoms

2. allow corruption and nepotism to become entrenched and

3. pursue policies of confrontation with Israel that have proved disastrous for their respective long-suffering populations.

The United Nations has failed to insist that elections be held to enable such stranglehold on power to end and allow the people to have their say on who should govern them — the “self-determination” the United Nations has long been demanding but is being denied by Hamas and the PLO.

Ramzy Baroud - editor of PalestineChronicle.com - summed up the hopelessness of the political stalemate between Hamas and the PLO as long ago as 12 November 2013:

“In an initially pointless exercise that lasted nearly an hour, I flipped between two Palestinian television channels, Al Aqsa TV of Hamas in Gaza and Palestine TV of Fatah in the West Bank. While both purported to represent Palestine and the Palestinians, each seemed to represent some other place and some other people. It was all very disappointing.

Hamas’ world is fixated on their hate of Fatah and other factional personal business. Fatah TV is stuck between several worlds of archaic language of phony revolutions, factional rivalry and unmatched self-adoration. The two narratives are growingly alien and will unlikely ever move beyond their immediate sense of self-gratification and utter absurdity.”

Nothing has changed.

These irreconcilable differences between Fatah - the dominant faction in the PLO - and Hamas - not a member of the PLO — are still omnipresent in 2016.

The United Nations should be demanding that Hamas and the PLO end their decade-long occupation of power by allowing their respective populations the right to vote in internationally supervised elections.

“End the occupation” would then become a meaningful metaphor rather than a meaningless signpost that continues to lead to nowhere.

Palestine - Politics Precede Humanity In Brussels Bombings

[Published 3 April 2016]


The European Union has been increasingly expressing its growing antagonism towards Israel by

1. imposing specific labelling laws for goods produced by Jews emanating from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank)

2. building structures in Area C of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) without consent or authorisation by Israel - which exercises full administrative and security control over this area under the Oslo Accords to which the European Union is a signatory.

Positions such as these taken by the European Union – coupled with a growing tide of Jew-hatred in Europe during the past decade - create an atmosphere of hostility towards the Jewish State and can legitimise public expressions of opinion in Europe that would otherwise have been deemed politically incorrect and subjected to widespread criticism.

A case in point seems most likely to have occurred following the tragic events in Brussels on March 22 when 32 people were killed and 340 wounded in two terrorist attacks at Brussels Zaventem airport terminal and the city’s underground metro system.

Belgium’s federal hotline - set up by the Belgian Interior Ministry to take calls after these attacks - has fired an operator who told a caller that Israel does not exist and should be called Palestine instead.

The caller told the operator that he was a volunteer for the city of Antwerp’s Jewish Coordination Committee.

Their message was recorded and the full English translated transcript follows:

XXX: Good afternoon, my name is XXX, I am a volunteer in the Jewish coordination committee of Antwerp. We are contacted by persons… we have 2 persons of the Jewish community that were hurt in the attacks in the airport



Crisis Centre: Yes sir



XXX: They are prepared to be transported back to Israel. Our volunteers are busy with it and take care of everything but we received information from the hospital that we need special papers from the police that they can be released. Is this correct and to who should we ask that? Can you tell me more about that?



CC: That is effectively.. I will take a look. So … they go back to Palestine.

XXX: Not Palestine, Israel.



CC: Yes, but that was before Palestine, of course. OK



XXX: Could you repeat that again, please? What is the name?



CC: That … Palestine.



XXX: Can I get your name, please?



CC: Of course, Zakaria.

XXX: And you know only Palestine?

CC: Sorry?



XXX: You don’t know Israel, only Palestine?



CC: I know the Jews went to there, that Palestine received (opvangen) them and that there is a war between Israel and Palestine, of course. And the occupation… that’s what’s on the news of course.



XXX: Can you help me with the question I have, or not?



CC: Naturally, of course. Thus they go back to Palestine and ask that they could get an attestation. Voila, it is noted.



XXX: Can I have you name again, I didn’t understand it well.



CC: Zakaria



XXX: Zakaria?



CC: That is correct.



XXX: Zakaria what? What is your last name?



CC: I am not obliged to give it.



XXX: OK



XXX; Thank you very much.



CC: You’re welcome. Bye

Jac Vermeer – CEO of IPG - the company which had the contract to run the hotline for the Belgian Interior Ministry - issued this pathetic apology:

“We wish to apologize to all members of the Jewish community and to the victims and their families in Israel,”

No expression of outrage has been issued by the Belgian Interior Ministry or the Belgian Government.

Not a peep from the European Union or European Commission.

The PLO and Hamas must be overjoyed.

European Union Becomes Irrelevant In Resolving The Jewish-Arab Conflict

[Published 25 January 2016]


The Council of the European Union (EU) has disqualified itself from influencing any resolution of the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict following the release of its “Council conclusions on the Middle East Peace Process” on 18 January.

Continuing its partisan support of Arab demands the EU has reaffirmed its July 2014 position:

“The EU recalls its willingness to engage further with regional partners on the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative which provides key elements for the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict as well as the opportunity for building a regional security framework.”

Key elements of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative included:

1. “Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights to the lines of June 4, 1967 as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.”

2. “The acceptance of the establishment of a Sovereign Independent Palestinian State on the Palestinian territories occupied since the 4th of June 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza strip, with east Jerusalem as its capital”

Israel’s agreement to negotiate with the PLO on the basis of the 2003 Bush Roadmap was contingent on the removal of all references to the Arab Peace Initiative from the Roadmap along with 13 other detailed reservations.

American Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice gave the following assurances to Israel on 23 May 2003:

“The roadmap was presented to the Government of Israel with a request from the President that it respond with contributions to this document to advance true peace. The United States Government received a response from the Government of Israel, explaining its significant concerns about the roadmap. The United States shares the view of the Government of Israel that these are real concerns and will address them fully and seriously in the implementation of the roadmap to fulfil the President’s vision of June 24, 2002.”

This fundamental disconnect between the EU and Israel over the Arab Peace Initiative continues to detrimentally impact on their relationship.

Full Israeli withdrawal from these territories - or even equivalent land swaps as suggested by the EU in its July 2014 manifesto - is a pipe dream - given that the creation of Islamic State since then has seen it:

1. conquer an area of Syria and Iraq larger than Great Britain - resulting in millions of Arabs being brutally slayed, injured, traumatised and physically displaced into Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and even the EU.

2. become a distinct security threat to Israel and its Arab neighbours

The Arab Peace Initiative has been effectively consigned to the dustbin of history as a result.

Stubbornly continuing to support these key elements of the Arab Peace Initiative has led a clearly frustrated EU to take action to unilaterally end Israel’s total lawful control of Area “C” in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) by instigating the following intemperate actions:

1. Requiring Israel to specifically identify goods, products and services originating from Jewish settlements in Judea,Samaria,the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem

2. Funding and actively supporting illegal Arab housing construction in Area “C”

Israel reportedly considers that such actions by the EU give the Palestinian Arabs false hope that if they just hold out long enough - the EU will somehow be able to “deliver” Israel.

EU policy and its conduct since July 2014 has exacerbated the Jewish-Arab conflict rather than playing a constructive role in its resolution.

In reaffirming that policy in 2016 - despite total chaos occurring among Arab States in the region - the EU has clearly become irrelevant and can no longer have any meaningful role in resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict.

European Union Suffers Continuing Backlash Over Racist Labelling Laws

[Published 23 December 2015]


The Czech Parliament’s lower House — by an overwhelming majority with all parties except the Communists supporting it — has joined fellow European Union (EU) members – Greece and Hungary – in urging the Czech Government to refuse implementing EU racist and discriminatory labelling laws for Jewish goods produced in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

Czech Culture Minister Daniel Herman said that it was:

“absolutely necessary to reject the efforts to discriminate against the only democracy in the Middle East.”

Another Czech politician Frantisek Laudat argued that the guidelines:

“may evoke awkward reminiscence of marking Jewish people during World War II.”

The Czech Assembly declared the new EU guidelines were:

“motivated by a political positioning versus the State of Israel.”

That political positioning has seen the EU:

1. Claim that settlement by Jews in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem is illegal in international law despite the provisions of article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter specifically authorising and preserving the rights of Jews to live there for the purpose of reconstituting the Jewish National Home.

2. Engage in supporting unauthorised, unapproved and surreptitious Arab building projects in Area “C” in Judea and Samaria where administrative and security control is solely vested in Israel under the Oslo Accords.

3. Ignore that Jews lived in these self-same designated areas for generations before being driven out and ethnically cleansed by six Arab armies in 1948 — resulting in these areas being illegally annexed and occupied by Jordan between 1948 and 1967.

To add to the EU’s current woes and expose the hypocrisy of these labelling regulations – the EU’s second highest judicial body — the General Court – has determined that the 2012 fishing agreement between the EU and Morocco must be annulled because it also applied to the Western Sahara — disputed territory under Morocco’s control since 1976.

The court cited United Nations resolutions classifying the Western Sahara as occupied — faulting the EU for pursuing its agreement with Morocco without making any distinction concerning products manufactured in the Western Sahara.

Although there are some 200 areas of disputed territory around the world – the EU has seen fit to only require special labelling laws for Jewish goods originating from territories disputed between Jews and Arabs.

The EU is considering an appeal.

The ire of the US Congress has now also been raised.

Representative Nita Lowey (Democrat) sponsored the introduction of the following resolution into the House of Representatives on 16 December – which has now been referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee:

“H.Res. 567: Expressing opposition to the European Commission interpretive notice regarding labeling Israeli products and goods manufactured in the West Bank and other areas, as such actions undermine efforts to achieve a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”

Numerous attempts by Secretary of State John Kerry to bring about a negotiated “two state solution” — first laid out in the 2003 Bush Roadmap — have come to nought.

These discriminatory labelling regulations must materially affect any future negotiations and the opportunity for the first time in recorded history to create a second Arab State – in addition to Jordan – within the territory covered by the Mandate for Palestine.

The EU cannot realistically cancel these regulations – given the anger and resentment such back down would engender in the Arab world.

Such blatant anti-Jewish bias ends the EU playing a constructive role in influencing any division of these territories between their Arab and Jewish claimants.

The EU instead finds itself being increasingly labelled with a particular odium and tainted reputation because of these malicious regulations.

Palestine - World Bank Exposes PLO's Disastrous Miscalculations

[Published 13 October 2013]


The failure by the PLO to accept two offers made by Israel in 2000/1 and 2008 ceding Israel’s claims in more than 90% of the West Bank have been political and economic catastrophes for West Bank Arabs - as substantiated by a World Bank Report published this week titled “West Bank and Gaza , Area C and the Future of the Palestinian Economy”.

Whilst Israel and the PLO are once again engaged in negotiations behind closed doors for the next eight months - any prospect for their successful conclusion seems destined to founder for the same reasons that led to the collapse of the negotiations in 2000/2001 and 2008 namely:

1. The PLO refusal to recognise Israel as the national home of the Jewish people
2. The PLO insistence that any Palestinian State not be demilitarised
3. The PLO rejection of the right of Jews to live in the West Bank under any circumstances
4. The PLO objection to abandoning the claimed right for millions of Palestinian Arabs to emigrate and settle in Israel.

The World Bank Report has highlighted the following disastrous economic outcomes suffered by the West Bank Arab population - because the PLO failed to grab those two political lifelines thrown to it by Israel:

1. Private investment has averaged a mere 15 percent of GDP over the past seven years, compared with rates of over 25 percent in vigorous middle income countries.
2. The manufacturing sector, usually a key driver of export-led growth, has stagnated since 1994, its share in GDP falling from 19 percent to 10 percent by 2011.
3. Manufacturing been not been replaced by high value-added service exports like Information Technology (IT) or tourism, as might have been expected.
4. Much of the meager investment has been channeled into internal trade and real estate development, neither of which generates significant employment.
5. Consequently, unemployment rates have remained very high in the Palestinian territories and are currently about 22 percent - with almost a quarter of the workforce employed by the Palestinian Authority - an unhealthy proportion that reflects the lack of dynamism in the private sector.

The World Bank has concluded:

“Whilst the unsettled political environment and internal Palestinian political divisions have contributed to investor aversion to the Palestinian territories, Israeli restrictions on trade, movement and access have been seen as the dominant deterrent.”

Accepting the Report’s conclusion - the fastest way to end these Israeli restrictions would be a signed peace treaty between the PLO and Israel.

In Area C - 61% of the West Bank where Israel exercises complete administrative and security control under the Oslo Accords - the World Bank report states:

”Area C is particularly important because it is either off limits for Palestinian economic activity, or only accessible with considerable difficulty and often at prohibitive cost. Since Area C is where the majority of the West Bank’s natural resources lie, the impact of these restrictions on the Palestinian economy has been considerable. Thus, the key to Palestinian prosperity continues to lie in the removal of these restrictions with due regard for Israel’s security.”

Realistically these restrictions in Area C are not going to disappear until the signing of a peace treaty that guarantees Israel’s security.

Yet the PLO stubbornly maintains its intransigent and rejectionist demands - whilst simultaneously encouraging economic, divestment and sanctions boycotts and public relations campaigns undertaken with funds supplied by foreign Governments and wealthy private foundations - designed to denigrate and delegitimise Israel and erode Israel’s legal rights negotiated under the Oslo Accords with the PLO.

That is the PLO’s prerogative - but it has come at a heavy political and economic cost.

The World Bank report confirms this gloomy assessment:

“Access to Area C will not cure all Palestinian economic problems - but the alternative is bleak. Without the ability to conduct purposeful economic activity in Area C, the economic space of the West Bank will remain crowded and stunted, inhabited by people whose daily interactions with the State of Israel are characterized by inconvenience, expense and frustration.”

Regrettably those affected by the PLO’s political stance - the West Bank Arab population - are denied any say in determining whether changes need to take place that would improve their economic and political fortunes.

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas refuses to hold elections in the West Bank - preferring to continue with failed policies that threaten the future aspirations of the people he claims to represent - so clearly exposed in this damning World Bank Report.

Abbas continues to travel the world’s capitols unsuccessfully seeking financial support whilst an ailing economy collapses before his very eyes - as the World Bank Report makes ominously clear:

” Recent growth rates are proving unsustainable, however. Growth in recent years has been driven largely by extraordinary levels of donor budget support, which amounted to USD 1.8 billion, or 29 percent of GDP, in 2008. This fuelled a significant expansion in consumption, particularly the consumption of valuable public services such as policing, education and health (the share of public administration, education, and healthcare in GDP increased from 19 to 26 percent between 1994 and 2011). By 2012, however, budget support had decreased by more than half, and growth rates had declined from 9 percent in 2008-11 to 5.9 percent by 2012 and 1.9 percent in the first half of 2013 (-0.1 percent in the West Bank).”

International donors financial support is running out - as is PLO peace treaty signing time - as is the continuing disenfranchisement of the West Bank Arabs.

An explosive cocktail indeed.

Palestine - Suspending Disbelief Is An Unbelievable Hoax

[Published 10 March 2013]


Beware failed negotiators like Dennis Ross when they continue to pontificate on the possibility of the two-state solution.

Formerly the United States chief negotiator for the Arab-Israeli conflict from 1993 to 2001 and a special assistant to the president for the Middle East and South Asia from 2009 to 2011 - Dennis Ross is now a distinguished fellow and counselor to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In his recent article in the New York Times entitled -“To Achieve Mideast Peace,Suspend Disbelief” - Mr Ross concludes that neither side believes the other side is committed to the two-state solution but that cannot be an argument for doing nothing.

He further states that if the two-state solution is discredited as an outcome - something and someone will fill the void.

Ross speculates that the Islamists of Hamas, with their rejection of two-states, seem primed to fill the void - when he says the conflict will be transformed from a nationalist into a religious one and at that point it may not be possible to resolve.

One can only shake one’s head in amazement that Mr Ross actually believes this is a nationalist conflict and not a religious conflict.

The continuing refusal by the PLO, Hamas and the Arab League to recognise Israel as the Jewish National Home - first decreed with the unanimous consent of the League of Nations in 1922 and incorporated into the United Nations Charter under article 80 in 1945 - indicates that Mr Ross learnt nothing after 8 years in the hot seat as the United States chief negotiator.

Mr Ross asks - so what can be done?

His proposal is one taken right out of fairyland:

"I propose a 14-point agenda for discussions. Twelve of the points — six on the Israeli side and six on the Palestinian side — would be coordinated unilateral moves that each party would be willing to discuss and implement provided that the other side would do its part. The final points would be mutual steps taken concurrently by both sides. The goal would be to chip away at the sources of each side’s disbelief about the other’s commitment to a genuine two-state solution."

In a remarkably contrived display of evenhandedness - 6 discussion points apiece - Mr Ross has gone back to the failed formula of pressing Israel to make concrete commitments in return for PLO commitments that - apart from one - amount to nothing more than sheer hot air.

Israel six-point list is as follows:

1. Only build new housing in settlement blocks and in areas west of the security barrier. This means that Israel would build only in about 8 percent of the West Bank and no longer in the remaining 92 percent.

2. Offer compensation to any Jews to relocate to Israel or the designated blocks.

3. Consent to begin construction of housing within Israel or the designated blocks for all those settlers ready to relocate.

4. In “Area C,” which represents 60.1 percent of the West Bank’s territory and in which Israel retains civil and security responsibility, Palestinians would be permitted economic access, activity and ownership.

5. In “Area B,” which covers 21.7 percent of the West Bank and in which Palestinians have responsibility for civil affairs and for law and order — but not for dealing with terrorism — the presence of Palestinian police and security forces, and their duties, would be allowed to increase.

6. In “Area A,” which accounts for 18.2 percent of the West Bank’s territory and in which the Palestinians have civil and security responsibility, the I.D.F. could specify clear security criteria, which, if met by the Palestinian Authority, would end the incursions.

Mr Ross lists the following six agenda items for the Palestinian side to commit to:

1. Be willing to speak of two states for two peoples and to acknowledge there are two national movements and two national identities.

2. Pledge to put Israel on Palestinian maps

3. Make clear the commitment to building the state of Palestine, without encroaching on Israel, with a particular focus on the rule of law.

4. Commit to ending incitement; stop glorifying as martyrs those who kill Israelis; stop blaming Israel for every evil; stop denying the Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

5. Prepare the Palestinian public for peace.

6. Build permanent housing in refugee camps and allow those families who wish to move out of the camps to be permitted to do so

Apart from the last item on the agenda - and since the PLO has shown itself incapable of bringing about these changes of attitude during the last 20 years of failed negotiations - there is little point in including them.

Perhaps it is time for Mr Ross and others in the international community to consider the principle of reciprocity in negotiations.

To induce Israel to accept Mr Ross’s six point agenda - he needs to propose something far more concrete on the Arab side - something along the lines of the following:

1. The Arab League is to nominate two more of its members to recognise Israel and open embassies between their respective countries.

2. The Arab League and the PLO agree to recognise Israel in its final agreed-upon designated borders as the reconstituted Jewish National Home in accordance with international law

3. Offer compensation to Arabs willing to relocate from Area C to Area A or Area B

4. Consent to begin construction of housing in Area A and Area B to house those Arabs willing to relocate from Area C

5. Hold free and fair elections in the West Bank and Gaza within twelve months irrespective of the state of the negotiations

6. Build permanent housing in existing refugee camps

In the words of Mr Ross:

"These 12 points represent an agenda for discussion that could lead to coordinated actions and change the dynamic between Israelis and Palestinians — and maybe, by restoring hope, show that the government of Mr. Abbas still offers a pathway for Palestinian national aspirations.

These points could, for once, create a virtuous cycle. Such progress is vital if there is to be any hope that the two sides will actually address the core issues of the conflict.

We don’t need more dead ends. It is time to show Israelis and Palestinians that something is possible other than stalemate. Otherwise disbelief and failure will become a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Mr Ross - despite your best efforts - your proposal does nothing to reverse the generally held belief that the two-state solution is terminal and has been dead and buried for more than eighteen months.

To propose that your 12 point agenda can suspend that belief by proposing yet another talkfest based on vague intangible commitments by the Arabs is quite frankly unbelievable.