Trump must question Abbas-PLO commitment to peace with Israel

[Published 21 August 2017]


The planned visit to the Middle East at the end of August by President Trump’s Senior Advisor Jared Kushner, Special Envoy for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt and Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategy Dina Powell – presents a wonderful opportunity for them to test the commitment of the PLO and its leader Mahmoud Abbas to concluding a peace treaty with Israel.

Abbas needs to confirm or reject his following remarks reported on 11 January 2014:

“Referring to Israeli demands to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Abbas said, “This is a story that we have heard only in the last two years. We won’t recognize and accept the Jewishness of Israel. We have many excuses and reasons that prevent us from doing so.” Abbas was speaking during a meeting in his office with dozens of east Jerusalem residents. Israel’s problem is that the Palestinians know more than the Israelis about history and geography, he said. “We talk about what we know,” he said. “We won’t accept the Jewishness of Israel. We are asking for the 1967 borders.”

Abbas and the PLO should be asked to amplify these remarks by written responses to the following questions:

I. On the Jewishness of Israel:

What excuses and reasons do you have for refusing to recognize and accept the Jewishness of Israel?

II. On the history of Palestine:

Do you accept the historical accuracy of the following statements in Israel’s Declaration of Independence?

“The land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world.

Exiled from Palestine, the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and the restoration of their national freedom.”

III. On the geography of Palestine:

Do you still claim that:

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

Did the boundaries of Palestine during the British Mandate encompass what is known today as Israel, Jordan, Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza?

Did 78% of the British Mandate territory become the sovereign independent Arab State called ”The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan” in 1946?

IV. On asking for the 1967 borders:

Are you aware that:
(i) the “1967 borders” are in fact the “1949 Armistice Demarcation Lines” delineated under an agreement signed on 3 April 1949 between The Government of the Hashemite Jordan Kingdom and the Government of Israel (Armistice Agreement)
(ii) Article VI (9) of the Armistice Agreement provided:

“The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined in articles V and VI of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto”.

If Abbas and the PLO can’t provide satisfactory answers – then Trump will be wasting his time trying to jumpstart negotiations – stalled since April 2014 - between Israel and the PLO - since those negotiations will assuredly end up going nowhere like previous PLO - Israel negotiations conducted during the last 24 years.

Jailed PLO terrorists and families of deceased terrorists still receive life-time payments for murdering Jews - rebuffing Trump’s demand they cease.

Trump has shown no compunction jettisoning poor performers like Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, and Anthony Scaramucci, who failed to deliver.

Abbas and the PLO could suffer the same fate if they show no genuine commitment to resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict after 50 years of relentless rejectionism.

Palestine - Abbas Dismantles Kerry's Framework Agreement

[Published 13 January 2014]


PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has wasted no time dismantling US Secretary of State John Kerry’s proposed framework agreement with an intemperate outburst affirming the PLO will never recognise Israel as the Jewish State.

Jerusalem Post reporter Khaled Abu Toameh quotes Abbas as stating on 11 January:

“We won’t recognize and accept the Jewishness of Israel. We have many excuses and reasons that prevent us from doing.

Israel’s problem is that the Palestinians know more than the Israelis about history and geography, he said. “We talk about what we know,” he said.

Kerry had alluded to the daunting problems he faced producing his framework agreement as the basis for ongoing negotiations between Israel and the PLO at a joint press conference with chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat in Ramallah on 4 January.

“There are narrative issues; difficult, complicated years of mistrust that have been built up, all of which has to be worked through and undone, and a pathway has to be laid down in which the parties can have confidence that they know what is happening and that the road ahead is real, not illusory.”

The narrative issues raised by Abbas’s latest comments underscore the two very different Jewish and Arab perspectives of their 130 years old conflict which appear certain to continue to remain irreconcilable.

These issues goes to the very heart of the conflict - and short of a complete retraction by Abbas - will continue to be the quicksand into which Kerry’s framework agreement will collapse into political oblivion.

Abbas has clearly signalled the continuing refusal of the PLO to accept the unanimous decision of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922 legally sanctioning the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in its ancient and biblical homeland - as promulgated in the Mandate for Palestine.

The site for the Jewish National Home - originally intended to be established within 100% of the Mandate territory - was restricted to being created within just 22% of that area (now Israel and the West Bank) by virtue of the application of article 25 of the Palestine Mandate on 23 September 1922.

The “two state” solution now being pursued by Kerry had its actual genesis in this decision - when the remaining 78% of Palestine (now Jordan) was set aside for Arab self determination.

The League of Nations found no identifiable indigenous people then existing in Palestine - referring only to

1. the ” civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”

2. “safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion”

3. “The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration… and shall encourage ... close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.”

In 1964 - when the PLO was formed - article 18 of its founding Charter consigned the Mandate and all subsequent decisions of the League of Nations and its successor - the United Nations - to the garbage bin - considering them all to be “fraud”.

These longstanding international legally binding commitments were dismissed with even more contempt when the Charter was revised in 1968 - article 20 unequivocally declaring:

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

Palestine had also been miraculously transformed by the PLO Charter to become:

1. “the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people”

2. “an indivisible part of the Arab homeland

3. “the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation”

4. “an indivisible territorial unit with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate”

This amazing metamorphosis has been the driver seeking to delegitimise and denigrate the Jewish people’s legal right to establish a state of their own sitting alongside 57 Arab and Moslem nations in the United Nations on equal terms and with mutual diplomatic recognition.

This narrative has resulted in the majority of those Arab and Moslem States - and regretfully many other UN member States - seeking to subvert the legal right of Jews to reconstitute their national home in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) as laid down by article 6 of the Mandate and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Having become members of the United Nations - thereby having agreed to accept the obligations set out in the Charter - including article 80 - these rejectionist States have become involved in a concerted Arab and Moslem campaign to relegate the Jewish State from world atlases back into the Bible - where its birth and history was first recorded.

No amount of doublespeak, winks or nudges will enable Kerry to present a framework agreement that has any chance of a diplomatic breakthrough unless this disingenuous Abbas narrative is abandoned.

Abbas’s knowledge of history and geography is demonstrably false and misleading.

Entrapped by a fictitious narrative that rejects binding international law, history and geography whilst maintaining an illusory belief they can be re-written - the Arab League and the PLO will surely miss yet another historic opportunity to end their conflict with the Jewish people.

So will Kerry.

Palestine - Buy Up or Sell Out?

[Published September 2008]

The West Bank - known only as Judea and Samaria until 1950 - is indisputably the biblical heartland of the Jews.

The purported offer by Israel’s Prime Minister -Ehud Olmert - to cede 93.5% of that area in fulfilment of President George Bush’s “two state solution” was therefore a very difficult and heart rending decision to make. Yet it has been rejected by the Palestinian Authority after five years of fruitless negotiations.

Little useful purpose can now really be served in trying to analyse the reasons why these negotiations ended so ignominiously or who should be blamed for their failure. It is time to move on.

Suffice to say a piece of land just 5860 square miles in area - less than 5% of the original territory of Palestine - still continues to be designated as “no man’s land” - under the sovereignty of no nation.

Like so many missed opportunities in the past, President Bush’s Roadmap will become an addition to - not the final chapter in - the long history of international efforts to resolve the 130 years old conflict.

As a result Israel has now been given a very real window of opportunity to buy up tracts of West Bank land occupied by Arab residents - rather than being forced to sell out Israel’s heritage by compensating 500,000 Jewish residents to vacate their West Bank homes to enable the creation of President Bush’s new Arabs-only State in the West Bank.

The compensation scheme to achieve the President’s objective was to be presented to Israel’s Cabinet last week but discussion on it was deferred.

Labour Party leader and Defence Minister - Ehud Barak - had described the evacuation-compensation bill as

“part of a master plan to advance the final-status agreement. It is a step in the right direction.”

(Jerusalem Post September 7).

Transportation Minister - Shaul Mofaz - said in the same article that he was

“adamantly” opposed to the law, as it “weakens Israel, and weakens its position in the negotiations, and I will not support it.”

Any consideration of such a compensation scheme now appears totally irrelevant given the dead end reached in the Roadmap negotiations.

However Israel would do well to consider whether the money should now be used to offer compensation to 70000 Arab residents in West Bank settlements adjoining or in close proximity to Jewish settlements to enable their voluntary resettlement in one of the twenty one Arab States of the Arab League or any other countries around the world willing to grant them citizenship.

Reclaiming the Jews’ birthright in this manner - rather than selling it off as had been proposed - would garner far greater support in Israel and from Jews world wide.

International financial and diplomatic support - together with Arab League endorsement - for such a program could see perhaps hundreds of thousands more West Bank Arabs being voluntarily resettled in similar fashion.

There is a general international consensus that the daily lives and commercial activities of the resident Arab population in the West Bank have been subjected to grave hardship as Israel has battled to control the growth of terrorism and the movement of terrorists throughout the West Bank - even as Israel was negotiating to divide the West Bank with the very adversaries that seek Israel’s destruction.

With all hopes now ended for a sovereign Arab state being created there, the lives of these West Bank Arabs are likely to worsen as already flagged Arab demands for the creation of a bi-national state and for the right of millions of Arabs to emigrate to Israel raise the spectre of the conflict escalating in intensity.

The migrating Arabs would come to their new host countries not as refugees or mendicants but as persons of self sufficient means. They would at last be able to live free of Israeli control. The occupation for them would have been ended.

Whilst West Bank Arabs were being compensated to move, the refugees living in the surrounding Arab states would be compensated to stay. The setting up of an appropriate international compensation Tribunal to deal with their claims would hopefully see an end to the disgraceful living conditions they have had to endure for up to sixty years, the end of UNWRA and the eventual diversion of the funds and resources of that organisation to deal with the large and growing numbers of refugees world wide.

The successful implementation of this program could eventually persuade Jordan to enter negotiations with Israel to divide sovereignty of the West Bank between Israel and Jordan. As the two successor states to the League of Nations Mandate - together already possessing sovereignty in some 94% of former Palestine - they are the natural parties to negotiate the future sovereignty of the West Bank.

Jordan - the last Arab occupier of the West Bank between 1948-1967 - finally renounced all claims to the West Bank in 1988 in favour of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

However the PLO has proved itself incapable of negotiating the creation of an independent State in the West Bank since then - despite substantial international financial and diplomatic support running into tens of billions of dollars supported by hundreds of resolutions passed at the United Nations.

Jordan has indicated no desire to return to the West Bank and clearly needs to be subjected to international pressure to make it happen or be told that it risks losing the goodwill of the international community if it refuses to accept the challenge.

The voluntary resettlement of West Bank Arabs would make division of the land between Jordan and Israel much easier to achieve, remove a substantial proportion of the Arab population from the arena of conflict and would also relieve the pressure on the scarce water resources that are available there.

The Arab dream to return to Haifa, Acre and Jaffa would not disappear - nor would their claims on Jerusalem. Neither the PLO nor Hamas would go away. Terror would still continue. Israel would still continue to confront these life and death issues.

But the suffering and hardship of perhaps millions of West Bank Arabs and refugees who have been held captive to the conflict would be ended.

The land of the Bible has seen many visions, prophecies and dreams translate into reality. Could this vision be another that could succeed if supported by the international community?

The Six Day War, Gaza, the West Bank - and Fairy Tales

[First published June 2007]

The failure by editors of supposedly impartial and respected newspapers to correct inaccuracies in media articles regarding the West Bank and Gaza prior to their publication, gives continuing credence to total Arab denial of any Jewish rights in those areas - and also seriously misleads and misinforms their trusting readers as to the nature of the conflict that is taking place.

Letters written to the editors requesting corrections are usually consigned to the waste paper basket and even if printed, are too late to undo the damage - allowing gross distortion of facts to be perpetuated and in many cases repeated by the same and other journalists.

A classic case in point is the article - “War over, but the fight goes on” - written by Ed O’Loughlin, which appeared in two of Australia’s most respected newspapers - the Sydney Morning Herald and the Brisbane Times - on 2 June 2007 to mark the 40th Anniversary of the Six Day War in 1967. http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/war-over-but-fight-goes-on/2007/06/01/1180205513190.html

Consider these five gems (and there are many more) in Mr O’Loughlin’s article:

1. “ A native of New Jersey, he is one of several hundred Jews who live under heavy military protection in the first and most extreme of all Jewish settlements on the West Bank, carved out of the historic heart of the Palestinian city of Hebron.”

The author fails to mention that “the historic heart of the Palestinian city of Hebron” happens to include the ancient Jewish Quarter of Hebron built on land purchased by Jews in 1540.

Jews lived there until 24 August 1929 when 67 Jewish men women and children were slaughtered by a crowd of rampaging Arabs . The remaining Jewish population of 750 were forced to flee. Some returned in 1931 but were forced to leave when the Arabs rioted again in 1936. Jews returned to the Jewish Quarter after the Six Day War to a very hostile welcome from the Arab residents.

Hebron contains the traditional burial place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Leah and Rebecca - one of Jewry’s holiest sites - which the Bible records was purchased by Abraham in 1753BC.

Hebron is therefore more than just a Palestinian city. It has a far longer Jewish history - one of great religious significance for Jews.

Any editor worth his salt should have taken steps to have the author correct this statement.

2. “Of all the territories captured by Israel in the Six-Day war, only the Sinai Peninsula has been returned to its former owner, Egypt, thanks to the 1978 Camp David Accords of the then US president Jimmy Carter.”

The inference is that the Sinai Peninsula is only a small part of all the territories captured by Israel.

In fact the Sinai Peninsula comprised 90% of all the territories captured by Israel. It was returned to Egypt as part of the historic Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt along with the Alma oil field discovered and developed there by Israel and reportedly worth $100 billion as well as strategic military airfields and early warning installations built by Israel. 7000 Jews were also expelled from Sinai as part of the agreement.

Why this misleading statement was allowed to go to print beggars belief.

3. “In the West Bank and East Jerusalem tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers and paramilitary police are needed to control 2.5 million indigenous Palestinians and to protect the 450000 Jewish settlers planted in their midst since the war”

Describing the Palestinians as “indigenous” is very disingenuous.

Weren’t the Jews given the right by the League of Nations under the Mandate for Palestine to “reconstitute” their former national home in these very areas after 2000years of dispersal throughout the world. Has this right not been preserved to this very day by Article 80 of the United Nations Charter?

Who are the indigenous people then - the descendants of Jews who were driven from their country 2000 years ago or the descendants of Arabs who occupied it by conquest seven centuries later?

Mr O’Loughlin’s use of the word “indigenous” is inflammatory, judgemental, totally irrelevant in relation to the context and should have been simply edited out.

4. “Gaza’s air space, sea access and border crossings are all under tight Israeli military control …”

The Rafah border crossing is under Egypt’s control - not Israel’s.

Why was this incorrect statement let through?

5. ”The Six-Day War might have appeared to be a decisive victory for Israel but its outcome was never transformed into a workable political peace settlement”

Aren’t Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) workable political peace settlements ?

If Mr O’Loughlin intended this statement to only refer to the West Bank and Gaza, then he should have made that clear in his article. However that would have created a little problem for him.

Both Gaza and the West Bank had been continuously occupied by Egypt and Jordan respectively from 1948 until 1967. Not one Jew lived there during all that time - although many had been driven out by six invading Arab armies in the 1948 War.

The Arab League could have created another Arab State in those areas at the drop of a hat at any time during those 19 years. What they demand now in the Arab League Peace Initiative was theirs for the creating until 1967.

Israel is now being pressured to make this happen 40 years later and remove 450000 Jews who have, since 1967, gone to live in the West Bank - an area that is part of their ancestral homeland and has been internationally designated and sanctioned for the Jewish National Home.

Perhaps Mr O’Loughlin should use his privileged access to these prestigious newspapers to canvas why another Arab State in the West Bank and Gaza is now thought necessary, why all the Jews must move out and how this will end the conflict between Jews and Arabs.

It might just give the editors the chance to rectify the damage caused to the reputation of their papers by allowing the publication of this article in its present form.

Fairy tales are no substitute for truth and accuracy - especially when it relates to the Arab-Jewish conflict.