Palestine: PLO humiliated for denying free speech and elections

[Published 9 March 2017]


Frustration with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has surfaced at a Conference in Istanbul on 25 and 26 February attended by 6000 Palestinian Arabs living abroad in more than 50 countries.

The organisers established a new political entity to represent Palestinian Arab diaspora communities.

The new organisation — as yet unnamed and to be based in Beirut - called for:

1. the end of the Oslo agreement signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993,
2. the restructuring of the PLO on a more representative basis for all Palestinians, and
3. the formation of a democratically elected Palestinian National Council - the PLO’s legislative body in exile.

The conference established a General Commission headed by Palestinian historian Salman abu Sitta and Majed al-Zeer, a Britain-based activist, Naela al-Waari, a scholar and women’s rights activist, and Saif Abu Kishah, a youth activist, as his three deputies.

The new organisation does not aim to replace the PLO — which has been representing the Palestinian Arabs since 1964 and been their sole spokesman since 1974.

Ribhi Halloum — a former PLO Ambassador stressed:

“We are trying here to create a supporting structure to be an asset to the PLO, not against it,”

Fatah — the main faction in the PLO did not agree — issuing a statement attacking the conference and accusing it of being an:

“attempt to divide the Palestinian people.”

PLO member Ahmad al-Majdalani said that the motives behind the conference were “suspicious” - echoing accusations that the event was organized to export internal Palestinian political divisions abroad.

A member of Hamas’ politburo Izzat al-Rashq expressed support for the conference on behalf of Hamas - adding that:

“those who claim that Hamas is behind the conference are mistaken.”

No matter whose viewpoint one believes — the Conference is surely evidence that the Palestinian Arabs living abroad want to have a say in their own future and have formed an organisation that will allow them to do so — because they consider that the PLO as presently structured is not meeting their aspirations.

Conference spokesman Said Ziyad al Aloul supports this conclusion:

“We as Palestinian diaspora have the right to organise and tell the traditional Palestinian leaders what we think is the best way forward,”

Anees Fawzi Kassem - the head of the conference - said the Oslo Accords were the worst deal possible and had resulted in Palestinians being unable to represent Palestinians.

“We are gathered here today to demand that we the people of Palestine be given our voice back,”

Khalid Turaani, another spokesperson for the conference reportedly claimed:

“It is high time that Palestinians come together to ensure that a weak donor-bondaged [PLO] doesn’t give away any more of our legal historic and moral rights in Palestine,”

Kassem’s and Turanni’s sentiments will resonate with those Palestinian Arabs living under PLO rule whose voices have been silenced whilst being denied free, fair and transparent elections since 2006.

Negotiations between Israel and the PLO under the Oslo Accords were always destined to founder since the PLO Charter states that:

1 Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan are:

(i). An indivisible territorial unit and
(ii). An indivisible part of the Arab homeland

2. The 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and everything based on them since then are null and void.

3. Jews do not constitute a single nation with an identity of its own

Jordan and Israel’s 1994 Peace Treaty rejected these PLO deal-breakers.

Oslo’s demise opens the possibility of Jordan and Israel redrawing their existing international boundary to mutually divide the West Bank between their respective States.

President Trump should jump to seal the deal.

Palestine - Unearthing Past Remains Key To Resolving Future

[Published 29 August 2014]


The cease fire agreement ending hostilities in the Fifty Day War between Israel and Hamas marks yet another milestone attesting to the failure of Jews and Arabs to peacefully resolve their claims to sovereignty and self-determination in the territory once called “Palestine”.

Amazingly - the continuing inability of the parties - and the international community — to reach consensus on identifying when this long running conflict actually commenced —ensures it will continue to remain unresolved.

Emeritus Professor Richard Falk — formerly United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights in the West Bank — still claims in his latest article that the conflict started in 1947.

“Israel was born in 1948. Resolution 181 of the United Nations General Assembly [dated 29 November 1947 — Ed] is widely regarded as the most convincing legal basis for founding the State of Israel.”

Falk gave the following reasons for his viewpoint on 1 August 2012:

“I regard the Balfour Declaration and the mandatory system as classic colonial moves that have lost whatever legitimacy that they possessed at the time of their utterance, and prefer to view the competing claims to land and rights on the basis either of the 1948 partition proposal or the 1967 boundaries, although if there was diplomatic parity, I would respect whatever accommodation the parties reached, but without such parity, it seems necessary to invoke the allocation of rights as per settled international law.”

Falk’s opinion mirrors article 20 of the Palestine Liberation Organization Charter:

”The Balfour Declaration [1917], the Mandate for Palestine [1922], and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void.”

Falk’s opinion is not shared by Matti Friedman — who in his latest article identifies the starting date as being much earlier than 1947:

“The Israel story is framed in the same terms that have been in use since the early 1990s — the quest for a “two-state solution.” It is accepted that the conflict is “Israeli-Palestinian,” meaning that it is a conflict taking place on land that Israel controls — 0.2 percent of the Arab world — in which Jews are a majority and Arabs a minority. The conflict is more accurately described as “Israel-Arab,” or “Jewish-Arab” — that is, a conflict between the 6 million Jews of Israel and 300 million Arabs in surrounding countries. (Perhaps “Israel-Muslim” would be more accurate, to take into account the enmity of non-Arab states like Iran and Turkey, and, more broadly, 1 billion Muslims worldwide.) This is the conflict that has been playing out in different forms for a century, before Israel existed, before Israel captured the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank, and before the term “Palestinian” was in use.

The “Israeli-Palestinian” framing allows the Jews, a tiny minority in the Middle East, to be depicted as the stronger party. It also includes the implicit assumption that if the Palestinian problem is somehow solved the conflict will be over, though no informed person today believes this to be true. This definition also allows the Israeli settlement project, which I believe is a serious moral and strategic error on Israel’s part, to be described not as what it is — one more destructive symptom of the conflict — Sanbut rather as its cause.”

Adopting Friedman’s viewpoint over Falk’s - one can confidently nominate the 1920 San Remo Conference as the legal basis for founding the State of Israel — when England, France, Italy, and Japan agreed to divide the areas of the 400 years old Ottoman Empire conquered by them in World War 1 into three mandates — Mesopotamia (now Iraq), Syria/Lebanon and Palestine.

This carve up was intended to see Arab self-determination eventually achieved in 99.99% of the conquered Ottoman territory and Jewish self-determination in the remaining 0.01%.

These proposals were unanimously endorsed by all 51 member States of the League of Nations in 1922.

But they proved to be temporary only in relation to Palestine—because three months later the provisions of Article 25 of the Mandate for Palestine enabled Great Britain to restrict the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home to within 23% of the tiny area of land originally set aside to achieve that objective at San Remo — with the remaining 77% of Mandatory Palestine eventually becoming an independent Palestinian Arab state in 1946 — that is today called Jordan.

The period 1920-1947 without doubt covers a host of critically important legal and historical signposts that cannot be forgotten or buried.

Whilst the two-state solution ultimately created between 1946-1948 as a result of the San Remo Conference is ignored - attempts to resolve sovereignty in today’s highly volatile West Bank and Gaza are destined to certain failure and renewed conflict.

The two-state solution posited by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap creating a 22nd independent sovereign Arab State in the West Bank and Gaza between Jordan and Israel for the first time ever in recorded history has failed to materialize - despite twenty years of intensive political and diplomatic efforts by the international community.

The PLO (founded in 1964) and Hamas (founded in 1987) both seek to unravel the decisions made at San Remo in 1920.

They need to be replaced as Israel’s Arab negotiating partners by the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine - Jordan and Israel - and possibly Egypt — to determine and allocate sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza between their respective States.

Unearthing the past still remains the key to peacefully resolving the future.

Palestine - Kerry Destined For Political Scrapheap

[Published 13 November 2013]


US Secretary of State - John Kerry - has again succeeded in muddying the waters with the following headline-grabbing sentence uttered by him after meeting PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem this week:

“Let me emphasise that the position of the United States is that we consider now, and have always considered, the settlements to be illegitimate”

Abbas would have been squirming at Kerry’s use of the word “illegitimate” - rather than the word “illegal” - the term used by Abbas to deny Jews their claimed legal right to live in the West Bank.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - on the other hand - would have been shaking his head in disbelief at Kerry’s claim that the United States has “always” considered the settlements to be illegitimate.

The word “illegitimate” has several meanings in most dictionaries including -“illegal, unlawful, forbidden by law” - or alternatively - “incorrect, contrary to logic, unsound”.

Only Kerry himself can explain which meaning he intended to convey.

Jewish settlement in the West Bank is not illegal, unlawful or forbidden by law - having been legally sanctioned and expressly enshrined in international law under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter

The PLO in 1964 considered the Balfour Declaration, Mandate for Palestine and everything based on them to be “fraud”. In 1968 the PLO deemed these documents to be “null and void”.

Kerry in my view was not flagging America’s opinion on these Jewish and PLO claims.

He was emphasising that Israel’s settlements policy in the West Bank was incorrect, contrary to logic, unsound - notwithstanding any claimed legal entitlement to so act.

Israel obviously does not agree with Kerry’s viewpoint - and continues to build and plan new houses in the West Bank in the belief these programs should not provide any justified excuse for Abbas to abandon the current negotiations.

A unilateral ten month building freeze by Israel in 2010-2011 brought no end to the conflict. Another similar freeze now could reasonably be expected to have very little impact - if any - in achieving a successful breakthrough.

The parties reportedly still remain apart on many substantive and sensitive issues far more serious than building houses over the next six months within heavily populated and decades-long established Jewish cities, villages and towns.

More alarming than trying to interpret Kerry’s ambiguous use of the word “illegitimate”- is his unambiguous claim that America has “always” considered the settlements to be illegitimate.

Kerry’s predecessor Hillary Clinton would be the first to disagree with Kerry - telling Christiane Armanpour on ABC in February 2011:

“I think it is absolutely clear to say, number one, that it’s been American policy for many years that settlements were illegitimate and it is the continuing goal and highest priority of the Obama administration to keep working toward a two-state solution with both Israelis and Palestinians",

“Many years” is clearly not “always”.

History also incontrovertibly denies Kerry’s claim.

President Woodrow Wilson said on 3 March 1919:

“I am persuaded that the Allied nations, with the fullest concurrence of our own Government and people, are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundation of a Jewish Commonwealth.”

On 30 June 1922 - both Houses of Congress of the United States - then not a member of the League of Nations - unanimously endorsed the following joint resolution - which was signed by President Warren Harding on 21 September 1922:

“Favoring the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled - That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected.”

The first Report of the High Commissioner on the Administration of Palestine (1920-1925) acknowledged America’s invaluable support for reconstituting the Jewish National Home in Palestine:

“The [Balfour] Declaration was endorsed at the time by several of the Allied Governments; it was reaffirmed by the Conference of the Principal Allied Powers at San Remo in 1920; it was subsequently endorsed by unanimous resolutions of both Houses of the Congress of the United States; it was embodied in the Mandate for Palestine approved by the League of Nations in 1922; it was declared, in a formal statement of policy issued by the Colonial Secretary in the same year, ‘not to be susceptible of change’. ... The policy was fixed and internationally guaranteed”

Jewish settlement in the West Bank between 1927 -1948 was never declared “illegitimate” or “illegal” by America.

President Bush acknowledged in his 14 April 2004 letter to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that it would be unrealistic to expect that all Jewish settlements built in the West Bank after 1967 would have to be uprooted.

Historical amnesia - Kerry-style - has been - and apparently still is - a potent factor in failed American attempts to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Such ignorance has clouded the thinking of many former well-intentioned Secretaries of State - who became ticking time bombs destined to end up on the political scrap heap because they tried to undo what was internationally guaranteed in former Palestine ninety years ago.

Kerry seems destined to join his failed predecessors.

Palestine - UN Farce Promises Theatre Of The Absurd

[Published 26 September 2011]


The appearance of Mahmoud Abbas at the podium of the United Nations General Assembly on 23 September was reportedly met with “rapturous applause” by those present to witness this latest farce in the ongoing efforts to create a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan for the first time ever in recorded history.

UN Secretary General Ban KI - moon was presented with a letter signed by Mr Abbas as “President of the State of Palestine, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization“.

Mr Abbas’s letter stated that he had:

“the profound honor, on behalf of the Palestinian people to submit this application of the State of Palestine for admission to membership in the United Nations.”

He continued:

“This application for membership is being submitted on the Palestinian people’s natural, legal and historic rights and based on United Nations General Assembly resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947 as well as the Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine of 15 November 1988 and the acknowledgement by the General Assembly of this declaration in resolution 43/177 of 15 December 1988.

“In this connection, the state of Palestine affirms its commitment to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the vision of two states living side by side in peace and security, as endorsed by the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly and the international community as a whole and based on international law and all relevant United Nations resolutions.”

Those joining in the rapturous applause should now digest what Mr Abbas is asking for - and reflect on his standing to do so.

When they do - the application should be rejected by both the Security Council and the General Assembly for the following reasons:

1. Mr Abbas falsely continues to use the title “President of Palestine” although his term of office expired on 1 January 2010 pursuant to Article 36 of the Basic Law 2003 (as amended).
2. The application does not identify the territorial boundaries of Palestine and thus would preclude any action by the UN against such a member - should the provisions of the UN Charter be breached by it in the future.
3. No State can be admitted as a member of the UN that fails to comply with the preconditions necessary for the declaration of Statehood pursuant to the Montevideo Convention 1933. The Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine on 15 November 1988 is similarly deficient.
4. Basing the application on UN General Assembly Resolution 181(11) of 29 November 1947 is meaningless since this Resolution was rejected in 1947 and has become extant. General Assembly resolutions in any event are not binding in international law.
5. As Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) - Mr Abbas is committed to maintaining the territorial indivisibility of Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan under Article 2 of the PLO Charter. The current application contains no mention of his intention to revoke this provision in the Charter or to forgo any claims to any other parts of this territory from either Israel or Jordan.
6. Claiming that the application is based on international law and all relevant UN resolutions is contradicted by the fact that the PLO considers all such law null and void under article 20 of the PLO Charter which states:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void.“

No commitment has been made by Chairman Abbas to revoke this provision of the PLO Charter as a condition of the UN approving his application for membership.
7. The PLO is no longer the sole spokesman for the Palestinian Arabs and Mr Abbas is deceiving the UN in claiming to be speaking:

“on behalf of the Palestinian people”

An unconstitutional President claiming to be the sole spokesman for the Palestinian Arabs when he clearly is not - as his unresolved power struggle with Hamas shows - applying for membership of the United Nations for a country within undefined boundaries that is not controlled by the PLO whilst claiming to respect and observe international law when the opposite is demonstrably evident - is indeed the theater of the absurd into which the UN finds itself being propelled once again..

Israel’s Prime Minister - Benjamin Netanyahu - followed Mr Abbas to the podium and was quick to point out how automatic majorities at the UN had been used to incite institutionalized hatred against Israel.

“After all, it was here in 1975 that the age-old yearning of my people to restore our national life in our ancient biblical homeland—it was then that this was braided—branded, rather — shamefully, as racism. And it was here in 1980, right here, that the historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt wasn’t praised; it was denounced! And it’s here year after year that Israel is unjustly singled out for condemnation. It’s singled out for condemnation more often than all the nations of the world combined. Twenty-one out of the 27 General Assembly resolutions condemn Israel—the one true democracy in the Middle East.

Well, this is an unfortunate part of the UN institution. It’s the—the theater of the absurd. It doesn’t only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi’s Libya chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights; Saddam’s Iraq headed the UN Committee on Disarmament.

You might say: That’s the past. Well, here’s what’s happening now—right now, today. Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon now presides over the UN Security Council. This means, in effect, that a terror organization presides over the body entrusted with guaranteeing the world’s security.

You couldn’t make this thing up.

So here in the UN, automatic majorities can decide anything. They can decide that the sun sets in the west or rises in the west. I think the first has already been pre-ordained. But they can also decide—they have decided that the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest place, is occupied Palestinian territory.”

The theater of the absurd is definitely set to swing into action once again at the UN over the next few weeks. As it does so - the authority and standing of the UN is set to sink into further disrepute.

Palestine - Will The UN Endorse Ethnic Cleansing?

[Published 5 September 2011]


Two of the many intriguing matters facing the United Nations in dealing with any proposal to seek recognition of a Palestinian Arab State along the 1967 lines - are:

1. Who will make such application on behalf of the Palestinian Arabs?
2. What conditions will the United Nations demand to ensure that up to 500000 Jews living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem will not ultimately face arbitrary expulsion as a result of its decision?

Palestinian Authority President and PLO Chairman - Mahmoud Abbas - has stated that the PLO - not the Palestinian Authority - will be making the approach to the UN - telling a press conference:

“ Going to the UN does not mean the end of the PLO. It’s the PLO that will submit the application to the UN for recognition of a Palestinian state. The PLO will remain the protector of the rights of the Palestinians until the establishment of a Palestinian state and the complete end of occupation.”

Hamas is not a member of the PLO - but both are sworn to eliminating the State of Israel - the former by jihad, the latter by acquiring territory in stages as a prelude to a final assault on the Jewish State.

The PLO has made it abundantly clear that it is not prepared to accept the rule of international law - openly declaring in Article 20 of its Charter:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void.”

Will United Nations members support such blatant and continuing disregard of international law by the PLO and fail to demand the PLO amend its Charter?

The PLO has also refused to acknowledge the connection of the Jewish people with their ancient biblical and legally sanctioned homeland by stating in Article 20 of its Charter:

“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."

Will the United Nations endorse any PLO approach whilst it exhibits Jew-hatred on such a scale?

The “complete end of the occupation” referred to by Abbas - even in the context of any two-state solution - means the ethnic cleansing of all Jews living in the newly recognized Palestinian State by forcibly expelling them from their homes where tens of thousands have lived for more than thirty years.

Their right to live there has been sanctioned in international law by Article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Member States of the United Nations cannot close their ears or avert their eyes to what Abbas has made very clear:

“We have frankly said, and always will say: If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it,”

Like Hitler - he is being truthful. Will the world be listening and responding this time round?

To make sure there was no misunderstanding or misinterpretation Abbas repeated his blunt warning:

“But when a Palestinian state is established, it would have no Israeli presence in it.”

Jews were ethnically cleansed from the West Bank and East Jerusalem following Jordan’s conquest of both areas in 1948 - until their return after the Six Day War in 1967.

Abbas has made it clear that he wants to return to the 1948 position - by doing as the Jordanians did - eliminating all signs of Jewish life in East Jerusalem and the West Bank by ethnic cleansing and by destroying Synagogues, desecrating holy sites and trashing Jewish cemeteries.

As the United Nations deliberates on a Palestinian State along the 1967 lines - it might do well to remember what happened the last time the Arabs occupied East Jerusalem from 1948-1967:

“After the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem was captured, the destruction, desecration and systematic looting of Jewish sites began and continued. 57 ancient synagogues (the oldest dated to the 13th century), libraries and centers of religious study were ransacked and 12 were totally and deliberately destroyed. Those that remained standing were defaced, used for housing of both people and animals. The city’s foremost Jewish shrine, the Western Wall, became a slum. Appeals were made to the United Nations and in the international community to declare the Old City to be an ‘open city’ and stop this destruction, but there was no response. This condition continued until Jordan lost control of Jerusalem in June 1967.

On the Mount of Olives, the Jordanian Arabs removed 38,000 tombstones from the ancient cemetery and used them as paving stones for roads and as construction material in Jordanian Army camps, including use as latrines. When the area was recaptured by Israel in 1967, graves were found open with the bones scattered. Parts of the cemetery were converted into parking lots, a filling station, and an asphalt road was built to cut through it…

The Hurva Synagogue, attributed to Rabbi Moses Ben Nahman (Ramban), was the main synagogue in Jerusalem in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (and possibly much earlier), until the Ottomans closed it in 1589 because of Muslim incitement. It was burned by Arabs in 1721 (Hurva = destruction in Hebrew), but again rebuilt by Zionists in the 19th century, becoming the most prominent synagogue on the Jerusalem skyline. For that reason, when it was captured by the Arab Legion during the battle for Old Jerusalem in 1948, they dynamited it to show that they controlled the Jewish Quarter. When the Jews in New Jerusalem saw the Hurva burning, they knew that Jewish life in the Quarter had ended (again).”

The Hurva Synagogoue has now been rebuilt - and Israel is certainly not going to allow it to fall into hands that would seek to destroy it once again.

The United Nations faces yet another moment of truth as it is asked to replace direct negotiations by passing a resolution that does not have the approval of the conflicting parties - as last occurred in 1947.

Is the United Nations prepared to signal its willingness to endorse the expulsion of Jews from their current homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in flagrant violation of the decisions of the League of Nations and the United Nations Charter?

Those in the United Nations who would support such an outcome should hang their heads in shame.

Palestine - Duping The United Nations

[Published 12 August 2011]


Dr Ghassan Khatib, the Special Envoy of the unelected and unconstitutional Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, last week addressed the Capital Jewish Forum in the Victorian Parliament House. He was introduced by Mr Izzat Abdulhadi, Palestinian Authority Head of Delegation to Australia.

Dr Khatib told his audience he was in Australia to lobby the Australian Government:

“ to start off the Palestinian official initiative that is bringing several Palestinians to several parts of the world.”

Hamas was apparently not part of this “Palestinian official initiative” as Dr Khatib later clarified when he said:

“the Palestinian Authority have decided to go the United Nations some time in the coming month, or few months,”

Interestingly, too - Dr Khatib seemed to be flagging that September might not necessarily be a firm date.

Dr Khatib is well aware that the person who sent him to Australia - Mahmoud Abbas- is not only President of the PA but is also Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its largest factional member - Fatah.

The PLO makes it clear in Article 3 of its Charter that it is not interested in acquiring only a State in the West Bank and Gaza:

“The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland and have the right to determine their destiny after achieving the liberation of their country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of their own accord and will.”

Article 9 indicates that any approach to the United Nations is secondary to the PLO’s main objective:

“Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. Thus it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it. They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it.“

The Fatah constitution is equally strident in its terms declaring:

Article 5 - Liberating Palestine is a national obligation which necessities the materialistic and human support of the Arab Nation.

Article 6 - UN projects, accords and resolutions, or those of any individual which undermine the Palestinian people’s right in their homeland are illegal and rejected.

The PLO Charter echoes these sentiments in refusing to be bound by international law:

Article 19 - The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time,

Article 20: - The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void.

So Dr Khatib’s boss wears many hats - which focus on the liberation of all of Palestine.

Yet Dr Khatib continued by stating that the first and main objective of the approach to the United Nations:

“is to try to ask the international community to have more direct and more effective (inaudible) in helping the Palestinians and Israelis achieving peace in the region.”

Given the above written objectives of the PLO and Fatah - one can only conclude Dr Khatib was being less than honest with his Australian audience.

The approach to the UN is without doubt the first step towards the stated goal of these organizations and Hamas - the elimination of the State of Israel - not the achievement of peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

Dr Khatib made it clear that the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap would be jettisoned when he said:

“But we think that the international community is invited to help launching different kind of a peace process—a peace process that has specific and that has agreed on terms of reference, including negotiating a two-state solution on the borders of 1967, and also a peace process that would enjoy a different level and kind of attention by the United Nation of the international community, whether it is the Security Council, whether it is the GA, or whatever that can be decided by the international community.”

Abandoning Oslo and the Roadmap by seeking the support of the United Nations and proposing a resolution that would circumvent Security Council Resolution 242 is a recipe for disaster that will exacerbate rather than help to end the conflict between Arabs and Jews that has gone on for the last 130 years.

Dr Khatib then expressed this view:

“I think that we over-negotiated this conflict. 19-20 years are not a short period.”

He is wrong - there is no alternative to continuing those negotiations - no matter how long they take - if a real peace is to be achieved and the threat of future war is to be averted.

If peace cannot be achieved by continuing these long running negotiations (which seems to be the PA view) then there is another alternative proposal to the two-state solution that can be readily achieved in the absence of peace - restoring the status quo as far as possible as existed at 5 June 1967 between Israel and Jordan.

Dr Khatib’s righteous indignation at alleged breaches of international law by Israel (which laws his own people are obviously free to reject) was delivered in the following manner:

“… the continued Israeli unilateral illegal activities in the Palestinian occupied territories of the kind that is violating the rights of the Palestinians, violating the international law, and more importantly, pre-empting the two-state solution, and I’m referring here particularly to the continued to the Israeli illegal settlement activities whereby the Palestinian land is being confiscated and the illegal Jewish settlements are being expanded.”

Somehow he overlooked informing his audience that:

1. The West Bank and Gaza are not “Palestinian occupied territories” or “Palestinian lands“. They are lands in which sovereignty is as yet undetermined

2. The two-state solution was rejected by the PA in 2000 and 2008 when Israel agreed to cede its claim to more than 90% of the West Bank and Gaza

3. Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza is legally sanctioned by article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter.

The road ahead is strewn with potholes. The United Nations is incapable of repairing them - only making them deeper.

Direct face-to-face negotiations between the PA and Israel - or the replacement of the PA by Jordan - remain the only ways forward.

A Palestinian State - Not A Priority

[Published 23 May 2014]

By Yoram Ettinger

The Palestinian issue has benefited from the Arab/Muslim talk, but — due to the Palestinian record of intra-Arab subversion — has never been supported by the Arab/Muslim walk. Arab/Muslim policy makers have never considered the Palestinian issue a strategic interest, but rather a tactical instrument to advance intra-Arab or Muslim interests and to annihilate the Jewish state.

Irrespective of this, Palestine has been a geographic, not a national, concept, as evidenced by the lack of distinct, cohesive national character of its Arab inhabitants. This lack of cohesion has been intensified by the violent internal fragmentation along various lines: cultural (such as Bedouin vs. rural vs. urban sectors), geographic (e.g. mountain vs. coastal Arabs, southern vs. northern, Hebron vs. Bethlehem, Nablus vs. Ramallah, Nablus vs. Hebron), ethnic, ideological, political (pro- or anti-Jordan), historical and tribal identity. Such turbulent fragmentation was fueled by the multitude of Arab or Muslim migration waves from Bosnia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula, Syria and Lebanon.

The establishment of a Palestinian state was not on the agenda of the non-Arab Muslim Ottoman Empire, which ruled the area from 1517 through 1917. The Ottomans linked the area, defined by most Arabs as a region within Southern Syria or the Levant, to the Damascus and Beirut provinces.

The British Empire, which dominated the Middle East from 1917 until the end of World War II, did not contemplate a Palestinian Arab state, while establishing a series of Arab countries throughout the Middle East. Moreover, the 1917 Balfour Declaration dedicated Palestine, including Jordan, to the Jewish homeland. The 1920 San Remo Resolution, formulated by the principal Allied Powers, formalized the Balfour Declaration-based British Mandate for Palestine, which was ratified on Aug. 12, 1922, by the League of Nations, eventually transferring 77 percent of Palestine (Jordan) to the Arabs. The U.S. House and Senate approved it unanimously on June 30, 1922. In 1945, the Mandate for Palestine was integrated into the U.N. Charter via Article 80, which precludes alterations, and is still legally binding.

Jordan and Egypt occupied Judea and Samaria and Gaza from 1949 through 1967, but did not ponder the establishment of a Palestinian state; nor did the Arab League.

According to Dr. Yuval Arnon-Ohanna of Ariel University, who headed the Palestinian Desk at the Mossad Research Division, the secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, stated in September 1947 that the core problem was not a Palestinian state or Jewish expansionism. The only priority was the duty to uproot the Jewish presence from Palestine, which was defined by Muslims as “Waqf” — an area divinely endowed to Islam and not to the “infidel.”

The elimination of Jews was the top priority of the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the founder and president of the (Palestinian) Arab Higher Committee and a collaborator with Nazi Germany. In September 1941, he submitted a memo to Adolf Hitler on “the resolution of the Jewish problem in the Middle East in the same manner it is resolved in Europe,” planning the construction of Auschwitz-like crematoriums in the Dothan Valley, adjacent to Nablus in Samaria. In fact, Mahmoud Abbas recently expressed his admiration for al-Husseini as a hero and martyr. Abbas appointed the current grand mufti of Jerusalem, who continues al-Husseini’s anti-Jewish hate education.

The limited role of the Palestinian issue was highlighted during the 1948 War of Independence. Jordan launched the war to eliminate the Jewish state, expand to the Mediterranean and advance the goal to dominate Greater Syria. Egypt and Saudi Arabia entered the war despite their inadequate military infrastructure, in order to abort Jordan’s imperialistic strategy. Iraq joined the war, aiming to control the oil pipeline from Iraq to Haifa. Syria assumed that the destruction of the Jewish state would facilitate the reassertion of Greater Syria. On Sept. 20, 1948, the Arab League recognized the Arab government of the whole of Palestine, but ignored it, declaring it null and void in 1951-1952, causing the U.N. to refuse Palestinian participation in the General Assembly proceedings.

None of the Arab countries fought on behalf of, or due to, Palestinian Arab aspirations. They did not share with the Palestinian Arabs the spoils of war. Iraq occupied Samaria and transferred it to Jordan, which occupied Judea. In April 1950, Jordan annexed Judea and Samaria to the east bank of the Jordan River, naming it the West Bank. Egypt occupied Gaza and, just like Jordan, did not allow Palestinian nationalistic activities. None of the ensuing Arab-Israeli wars (1956, 1967, 1969-70 and 1973) were Palestinian-driven.

Furthermore, the Israel-Palestinian/PLO wars of 1982 (in Lebanon), 1987-1991 (the First Intifada) and 2000-2004 (the Second Intifada) and Israel’s wars with Hamas in 2009 and 2012 (in Gaza) did not engage the Arab states militarily or financially.

During the October 1994 Israel-Jordan peace signing ceremony, top Jordanian military leaders told their Israeli counterparts that “a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the Hashemite kingdom east of the river.”

The Arab League and the U.N. did not raise the issue of a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza until 1967, when the issue was raised as a means to undermine the survival of the Jewish state.

In fact, the Palestinian issue has never been a chief axis of U.S.-Israel relations. While the two administrations have never agreed on the Palestinian issue, their strategic cooperation has surged dramatically due to joint interests, mutual threats and shared values, which significantly transcend the Palestinian issue and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

However, ignoring reality, Western policy makers consider the Palestinian issue the crown jewel of Arab policy-making, the core cause of Middle Eastern developments and the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict. An erroneous underlying, Palestinian-driven assumption has produced an erroneous policy, radicalizing Arab and Palestinian expectations, fueling terrorism and inherent Middle Eastern instability, distancing the parties from peace and bringing them closer to war, and undermining Western national security and vital economic interests.

Palestine - Change Israel's Name And Change The Game

[Published 13 October 2011]

Israel’s plea to be recognised as the Jewish State in return for the implementation of a new building freeze in the West Bank very quickly got the thumbs down from the Palestinian Authority.

Israel’s Prime Minister - Benjamin Netanyahu - was surely clutching at straws in expecting a positive response when he told Israel’s Parliament on 10 October:

“If the Palestinian leadership will say unequivocally to its people that it recognizes Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, I will be ready to convene my government and request a further suspension,”

Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said that such a demand could never be accepted. He was only repeating what he has said over and over again for many years. Erekat has been consistent during this period in his unrelenting objection to the Jews having a country where they will always constitute the majority.

America - however - made it perfectly clear that Israel’s request to be recognized by the Palestinian Authority as the homeland of the Jewish people was non-negotiable when State Department spokesman P J Crowley declared:

“I’m not making any news here, We have recognized the special nature of the Israeli state. It is a state for the Jewish people. It is a state for other citizens of other faiths as well. But this is the aspiration of the – what Prime Minister [Binyamin] Netanyahu said yesterday is, in essence, the – a core demand of the Israeli government, which we support, is a recognition that Israel is a part of the region, acceptance by the region of the existence of the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish People and that is what they want to see through this negotiation.”

What then is the purpose of continuing the façade of negotiations in the face of this irreconcilable impasse between Jewish expectations and a continuing Arab state of denial?

Israel needs to introduce a circuit breaker - one that places the ball firmly in the Arab court. The Arabs can then decide whether to negotiate with the Jews or not on the final allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank and the acceptance of each other‘s right to exist.

Such a result can be swiftly and effectively achieved by Israel renaming itself officially as “THE DEMOCRATIC JEWISH REPUBLIC OF ISRAEL" - or some other suitable name.

This would in one fell swoop create the appropriate description of what the Jewish State actually is and what it actually represents in the eyes of the world and its own citizens.

Ironically Israel’s bitterest Arab enemies and some of its Arab treaty partners have no problems in so describing the character of their own States in their official titles.

Some examples of those countries and their official names are:

1. Libya - “The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya”

2. Jordan - “The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan”

3 Syria - “The Syrian Arab Republic”

4. Egypt - “The Arab Republic of Egypt”

5. Iran - “The Islamic Republic of Iran”

6. Emirates - “The United Arab Emirates”

Had Israel’s founding fathers been influenced to go beyond the bland title of “The State of Israel” perhaps the political situation would have been entirely different today.

David Ben Gurion - then the representative of the Jewish Agency - had made an impassioned appeal to the United Nations Special Committee On Palestine on 4 July 1947 when he stated:

“And here we are, not only we the Jews of Palestine, but the Jews throughout the world the small remnant of European Jewry and Jews in other countries. We claim our rightful place under the sun as human beings and as a people, the same right as other human beings and peoples possess, the right to security, freedom, equality, statehood and membership in the United Nations. No individual Jew can be really free, secure and equal anywhere in the world as long as the Jewish people as a people is not again rooted in its own country as an equal and independent nation.

An international undertaking was given to the Jewish people some thirty years ago in the Balfour Declaration and in the Mandate for Palestine, to reconstitute our national home in our ancient homeland. This undertaking originated with the British people and the British Government. It was supported and confirmed by 52 nations and embodied in an international instrument known as the Mandate for Palestine. The Charter of the United Nations seeks to maintain “justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law.” Is it too presumptuous on our part to expect that the United Nations will see that obligations to the Jewish people too are respected and faithfully carried out in the spirit and the letter? “

The United Nations indeed heeded this appeal when recommending the partition of western Palestine into an “Arab” state and a “Jewish” state. The Arabs rejected Ben Gurion’s plea and their view still remains unchanged in 2010.

Rejection of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine is writ large in the Covenant of the Palestine Liberation Organization whose current Chairman is Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

However, the same Mr. Abbas also gave his blessing to Israel changing its name when he said on 27 April 2009 in Ramallah - in response to Mr Netanyahu then calling on the Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel as the Jewish State:

“I do not accept it. It is not my job to give a description of the state. Name yourself the Hebrew Socialist Republic — it is none of my business,”

Israel should now take up Mr Abbas’s suggestion and gauge the Palestinian Authority’s reaction to such a re-branding.

Playing the name game - or the shame game - will surely end the current standoff in the stalled negotiations.

The Palestinian Authority can continue to negotiate with Israel - but in the knowledge that in signing any agreements it will be doing so with the Democratic Jewish State of Israel.

Abbas has said he can live with such a proposal. He should now be asked to rise to the challenge or be put out to pasture if he fails to do so.

Netanyahu And Obama On Talkfest To Nowhere

[Published 6 July 2010]


As Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu jets out to Washington for his much anticipated meeting with President Obama one thing is certain - no statement will be issued that will call for Arab concessions on the two critical issues that have been deal breakers for Israel and the Palestinian Authority for the last seven years.

In the absence of any such breakthrough all the photo ops, joint communiques, guards of honour, press conferences, gestures, winks and nods and lavish meals will be of little use in advancing an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The meeting will continue to demonstrate the proven failure of trying to resolve the hardest issues at the end of the negotiations rather than confronting them face on at the beginning of those negotiations.

The two critical - and apparently -insoluble issues relate to :

(i) the recognition by the Palestinian Authority (PA) of Israel as the Jewish National Home - a Jewish state with a Jewish majority open to Jews from all over the world in this and future generations.

(ii)The waiver of the right of millions of Arab refugees and their descendants to return and live in Israel.

Israel made its position on both these issues very clear when it accepted President Bush’s Roadmap in 2003 stating:

“In connection to both the introductory statements and the final settlement, declared references must be made to Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and to the waiver of any right of return for Palestinian refugees to the State of Israel. “

President Bush accepted the strength of Israel’s arguments when President Bush advised Israel’s then Prime Minister of America’s position on these two issues on 14 April 2004:

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

The PA has been unwilling to accept Israel - and America’s - position on these critical issues.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat made this clear just two weeks ago when addressing a meeting organized by the International Peace Institute in New York.

On recognizing Israel as the Jewish State - Mr Erekat declared:

“Look, we were asked to recognize the state of Israel. When I go to Washington, and I see the embassy, it says in front of the embassy of Israel, it says, “State of Israel.” In London, in Paris, in Cairo, in Amman, wherever you go. If Israel will go to the UN and register its name as the Biblical, 5,700 years Hebrew history of Biblical, united, and call themselves whatever they want, we recognize you as you register your name at the UN. But why do I need to define your character?”

Mr Erekat knows full well that to define Israel as the Jewish State is to give recognition and Arab legitimacy to the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo conference, the Treaty of Sevres and the Mandate for Palestine which 90 years ago called for the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine.

Mr Erekat is aware that the PA’s political puppet master - the Palestine Liberation Organization - still contains the following provision in its Charter:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void.”

It is incredible that the existence of a Jewish state among 21 Arab States can still today evoke a response like Mr Erekat’s.

What is the point of continuing negotiations with this Arab mindset so defiant, unyielding and uncompromising.

On the issue of the return of refugees to Israel - Mr Erekat declared:

“.. international law doesn’t give governments the right to solve refugee problems. It’s the choice of the refugee. They have to choose whether they are going to go back to 1948 Palestine, stay where they are, third party. But then at the end of the day it is going to be agreed with you. We are not going to force an agreement with you, but you cannot cancel my rights on refugees and trade me with another issue.”

These remarks brought a swift response from Mr Erekat’s co-panellist - Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor:

“This is why I said that the refugees problem is the crux of the matter. This is why I was quite concerned, not to use a tougher term, when I hear from my friend Saeb, and I read from what he said, that he has no right to negotiate the right of refugees. So with whom should I negotiate it? Will it stay hanging over me after there is the agreement? Do we go back to an agreed two-state solution? And then the main problem that brought everything will stay alive? I thought the PLO has a right to say for the refugees what the solution is, and they will be bound by it. If not, we are in deep trouble here. So this is a major issue, and because the whole story began there, when they did not accept ‘48, not ‘67. The very existence of Israel was not acceptable. This is why the PLO was built. And if this is not over, then I find something that I didn’t know when I came to New York two days ago. I hope I didn’t read correctly.”

One would have to be a total fool to fail to realize that with statements being made such as these by the PA - any negotiations to conclude the Roadmap are dead and buried.

Mr Netanyahu should make it clear to President Obama that no further concessions such as extending the moratorium on residential building in the West Bank can be contemplated by Israel until:

(i) Mr Obama publicly affirms the contents of the letter dated 14 April 2004 given by President Bush to Prime Minister Sharon and

(ii) The PA at the very least acknowledges that Mr Erekat’s remarks were his own personal views and do not represent those of the PA.

It is time to stop playing diplomatic games and demand real movement in the negotiations or look to alternative options that can transform the lives of the Arab population living in the West Bank.

If the cat looks dead and smells dead - it is dead. Trying to revive it is a waste of time

Liberating the Palestine Liberation Organization

[Published December 2007]


For better or for worse Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) are the parties that will - for the next 12 months - be negotiating the resolution of sovereignty in the West Bank with a view to ultimately creating a new independent Arab State between Israel and Jordan. These identical parties have been negotiating on the same issue for the last 14 years without the slightest sign of success.

One major reason has been the inability of the PLO to seriously change its mindset and specifically revoke or amend the offending provisions of the PLO Covenant that call for the destruction of Israel and that prevent the creation of this new State as envisioned by Oslo, former President Bill Clinton, President George Bush and his Quartet partners - Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

On 9 September 1993, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had made that written commitment to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin as the quid pro quo for the Oslo negotiating process to commence between Israel and the PLO and for the historic handshake between them on the White House lawns just four days later.

A long and tortuous process by Israel and America then followed to ensure Arafat’s total compliance with that commitment. On 14 December 1998 President Clinton stated:

“I thank you for your rejection—fully, finally and forever—of the passages in the Palestinian Charter calling for the destruction of Israel. For they were the ideological underpinnings of a struggle renounced at Oslo. By revoking them once and for all, you have sent, I say again, a powerful message not to the government, but to the people of Israel. You will touch people on the street there. You will reach their hearts there.”

Yet despite this declaration not one article of the Covenant has been revised or revoked to this very day nor has that message touched the Palestinian Arabs or reached their hearts.

The Chairman of the Palestine National Council charged with making those changes - Salim Za’anoun - stated on 3 February 2001, in the official Palestinian Authority newspaper, that the Covenant remained unchanged and was still in force [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida as translated by MEMRI]

A look at just three of the thirty three Articles in the PLO Covenant shows why it is essential that every Article be reviewed and altered if any meaningful negotiations can possibly be undertaken post Annapolis.

Article 1

"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.”

This article ignores any Jewish rights in Palestine. Why not amend it to read as follows:

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

Article 2:

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

This article absolutely prohibits President Bush’s two state solution and could be changed as follows:

“Palestine comprises the land contained within the boundaries that existed during the British Mandate from 1920-1948 and has now ceased to comprise an indivisible territorial unit. For purposes of clarification Palestine includes the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan which comprised part of the British Mandate until 1946.”

Article 15:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine and everything that has been based on 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 divine 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 article ignores the binding effect of international law and is racist, discriminatory and offensive in the extreme. It needs to be redrawn to perhaps read as follows:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed legal and binding. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are compatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism is both a divine religion and an independent nationality. Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they can like Palestinian Arabs be citizens of the states to which they otherwise belong”

How can successful negotiations be concluded whilst this current unclear and confusing mindset confronts the PLO and Israeli negotiators? How have these provisions been specifically rejected by the PLO ?

The PLO needs to immediately face these demons and excise them unequivocally and indisputably from its thinking if the ongoing negotiations are to have any prospect of success.

This is not a question of semantic pettiness or nit picking. It goes to the very bona fides of Israel’s negotiating partner and the sincerity and seriousness with which it intends to conduct these negotiations.

Perhaps the first indication of this troubling mindset - and the effect it can have on the negotiations - was the following remarkable statement recently made by the PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat :

"One of the more pressing problems is the Zionist regime's insistence on being recognized as a Jewish state... Israel could call itself whatever it wanted, but the PA would never acknowledge Israel's Jewish identity." [ Jerusalem Post, 14 November 2007]

Sweeping this - and similar recent statements by leading Arab spokesmen - under the carpet will only guarantee the failure of future negotiations. They will be difficult and complex enough - without such institutionalised mind blocks to reconciliation and recognition that had supposedly been dead and buried with President Clinton‘s declaration on 14 December 1998.

The PLO needs to liberate itself first before it can hope to liberate any land. Failure to do so over the last 14 years has seen its continuing decline in influence. It is now time to get serious and stop playing games.