Israel's next election must focus on Judea and Samaria – not Bibi

[Published 8 January 2020]

Israel’s next election due on March 2, 2020 must focus on the future of Judea and Samaria – not the future of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi).

A window of opportunity has been granted to allow Israel to extend its sovereignty into Judea and Samaria following US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement on November 19, 2019:

“Turning now to Israel, the Trump administration is reversing the Obama administration’s approach towards Israeli settlements.

US public statements on settlement activities in the West Bank have been inconsistent over decades. In 1978, the Carter administration categorically concluded that Israel’s establishment of civilian settlements was inconsistent with international law. However, in 1981, President Reagan disagreed with that conclusion and stated that he didn’t believe that the settlements were inherently illegal.

Subsequent administrations recognized that unrestrained settlement activity could be an obstacle to peace, but they wisely and prudently recognized that dwelling on legal positions didn’t advance peace. However, in December 2016, at the very end of the previous administration, Secretary Kerry changed decades of this careful, bipartisan approach by publicly reaffirming the supposed illegality of settlements.

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.”

The United Nations General Assembly will object to any such unilateral extension of Israel’s sovereignty. However it will unequivocally delineate the minimum area in Judea and Samaria which Israel will be claiming in any future negotiations with Arab interlocutors to end the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict.

For these outcomes to occur — all political parties contesting Israel’s next election need to bring before the electorate their respective parties detailed proposals on the extension of Israeli sovereignty into:

1. the whole,

2. part or

3.none

of Judea and Samaria — accompanied by a map designating the areas in which Israeli sovereignty will be extended if they form part of Israel’s next Government.

For far too long Israelis have been at loggerheads with each other as to the extension of Israeli sovereignty into Judea and Samaria. The opportunity to resolve this political logjam during Donald Trump’s Presidency must not be lost.

Should another election deadlock occur for the third time in twelve months — the proposals presented by the respective parties for Judea and Samaria can be the basis for negotiations to form a Government of National Unity.

There will be critics who claim that Israel should not reveal its cards before negotiations actually begin with Arab interlocutors — that by doing so Israel will stymie itself from demanding more of Judea and Samaria.

All proposals should therefore include a rider that the area proposed is the minimum area of Judea and Samaria willing to be accepted in future negotiations and may be increased should changed circumstances to those now prevailing exist when negotiations are undertaken.

Political parties not prepared to inform voters of their proposals can expect to be given the thumbs down by the Israeli electorate. Those who are open and frank in presenting their proposals should find themselves rewarded by the electorate.

Politicians need to resist the temptation to focus their major attention on targeting Bibi — Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister — from becoming Israel’s next Prime Minister as he personally grapples with three indictments laid against him by Attorney General Mandelblit.

Israel’s national interest must incontrovertibly prevail.

Crunch time for Judea and Samaria has arrived — 100 years after reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine was first proposed internationally at the 1920 San Remo Conference.

Realising that 100 year old dream should be Israel’s paramount objective.


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 and Egypt must hop on Trump bandwagon to peace

[Published 21 November 2019]

President Trump has now delivered the missing piece in his plan to end the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict - providing the incentive necessary for Israel’s warring political parties to bury their hatchets and form a new Israeli Government within the next 21 days.

This unique opportunity for peace trumps the domestic differences that have prevented Israel’s political parties forming that new Government following the elections in April and September 2019.

Trump has been progressively signposting his roadmap for the last two years:

1. Moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem

2. Declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

3. Closing down the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Offices in Washington

4. Withdrawing American funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)

5. Giving a substantial aid package to Jordan

6. Recognising Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights

7. Having Bahrain host the “Peace to Prosperity” workshop to discuss the economic part of Trump’s “deal of the century”

8. Flagging Israel’s right to retain at least some - but “unlikely all” - of the West Bank

Now Trump has made the end goal of his “deal of the century” very clear with the following statement issued by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo:

“Turning now to Israel, the Trump administration is reversing the Obama administration’s approach towards Israeli settlements.

US public statements on settlement activities in the West Bank have been inconsistent over decades. In 1978, the Carter administration categorically concluded that Israel’s establishment of civilian settlements was inconsistent with international law. However, in 1981, President Reagan disagreed with that conclusion and stated that he didn’t believe that the settlements were inherently illegal.

Subsequent administrations recognized that unrestrained settlement activity could be an obstacle to peace, but they wisely and prudently recognized that dwelling on legal positions didn’t advance peace. However, in December 2016, at the very end of the previous administration, Secretary Kerry changed decades of this careful, bipartisan approach by publicly reaffirming the supposed illegality of settlements.

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.”

The right of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) for the purposes of reconstituting the Jewish National Home there has been enshrined in international law under article 6 of the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the 1945 United Nations Charter.

The United Nations, the European Union and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have denied the legitimacy of these Jewish claims — emboldening the Arabs to claim 100% of these territories. Pompeo’s statement has quashed the Arabs’ claims.

One roadblock still remaining requires Trump to identify the Arab interlocutors prepared to stand up and negotiate with Israel on Trump’s plan.

Pompeo has given the PLO one last opportunity to join the negotiations with Israel.

“The United States encourages the Israelis and the Palestinians to resolve the status of Israeli settlements in the West Bank in any final status negotiations.”

The PLO had already unequivocally refused to negotiate on Trump’s plan and will continue to do so.

Trump should focus on Jordan and Egypt — the last two Arab States to have occupied Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza respectively between 1948 and 1967 — to fill the void.

Israel needs a new Government within the next 21 days or face another expensive and debilitating election in March 2020 — just as Trump is bidding for re-election — when he might consider it inopportune to release his plan.

Israel, Jordan and Egypt must hop on the Trump bandwagon now.

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

United Nations Fabricated Arab Narrative Deceives Academics

[Published 3 May 2017]

The United Nations publication “The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem 1917-1988” (“Study”) has deliberately misrepresented the actual wording of General Assembly Resolution 181 passed on 29 November 1947 - deceiving many academics who have disseminated the Study’s false message.

The Study has been published by the Division for Palestinian Rights of the United Nations Secretariat for, and under the guidance of, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

The offending statement in the Study misleadingly declares:

“After investigating various alternatives the United Nations proposed the partitioning of Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalized.”

The actual wording of Resolution 181 stated:

“Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in Part III of this Plan, shall come into existence in Palestine…."

The Study omits to mention that 78% of Palestine had already become an independent Arab State in 1946 and been renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan

The Study’s claim that Resolution 181 called for an "independent Palestinian Arab State” was not accidental but deliberately done to deceive and mislead.

Resolution 181 had denied the existence of any distinctly identifiable Palestinian people in 1947.

The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine had also only spoken of the “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” in 1922.

“Palestinians” were first defined in the 1964 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Charter to mean Arab citizens normally resident in Palestine in 1947 and their descendants. Jewish and non-Arab Christian residents were excluded under this racist and apartheid definition.

The PLO also claimed that Palestine was the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people - even though Resolution 181 clearly did not.

That the Study deliberately changed the actual wording of Resolution 181 to advance these fictitious PLO claims — or perhaps others unknown - for spurious reasons - is scandalous.

This false rendition of Resolution 181 has been repeated verbatim in many books including:

1. Handbook of Ethnic Conflict: International Perspectives - Dan Landis and Rosita D Albert

2. Youth Citizenship and the Politics of Belonging - Madeleine Arnot and Sharlene Swartz

3. Bridges Over Troubled Waters - Dahlia Moore and Salem Aweiss

Richard Cummings PhD propagated this false statement during a lecture to the Arab Society of Princeton University on 21 February 2002.

This falsehood again appears in “Shaping Foreign Policy in Times of Crisis: The Role of International Law and the State Department Legal Adviser written by Michael Scharf and Paul Williams.

Their book grew out of a series of meetings with all ten of the living former U.S. State Department legal advisers from the Carter administration to that of George W. Bush.

Both authors are law professors and formerly served in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the US Department of State.

That two such eminent lawyers apparently accepted this official United Nations document as being unerringly accurate speaks volumes for those who have been similarly deceived because they didn’t take the time to verify what they were disseminating.

Many other academics have swallowed this duplicitous Study hook line and sinker to form hostile anti-Israel views - especially regarding Israel’s claims in Judea and Samaria - geographical place names actually used in Resolution 181 and for 3000 years continuously until the Arabs renamed those areas the “West Bank” in 1950.

The Roman Empire used the same ploy in 135 AD — changing the name of its conquered province from “Syria Judaea” to “Syria Palestina”.

Change the name - change the game.

Correcting this fabricated United Nations Arab narrative is urgently required.

Palestine - Carter Threatens Chaos For Obama, Trump and US Foreign Policy

[Published 30 November 2016]


Former US President Jimmy Carter has urged current President Barack Obama to:

1. betray another former President - George Bush,

2. destroy America’s reputation for integrity and trustworthiness and

3. thwart President-elect Donald Trump in attempting to resolve the 100 years old conflict between Arabs and Jews

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times Carter has proffered the following advice to Obama as his eight year term of office is ending:

“The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, as 137 countries have already done, and help it achieve full United Nations membership.”

The following calamitous consequences for American foreign policy would ensue should Obama accept Carter’s irresponsible advice:

1. President Bush’s 2003 Roadmap and 13 years of American diplomacy would be trashed.

Endorsed by the United Nations, European Union and Russia and accepted by Israel (with 14 reservations) and the then Palestinian Authority (since disbanded on 3 January 2013) - the Roadmap provides for:

“A settlement, negotiated between the parties,” that “will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors”

2. Obama would break Bush’s following written commitment made to Israel on 14 April 2004:

“The United States remains committed to my vision and to its implementation as described in the roadmap. The United States will do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan.”

Any such State would not be “democratic” - its current “President” now being in the 11th year of a four year term - whilst two separate claimants - the PLO and Hamas - engage in a bitter internecine struggle to become the recognised Government of the Palestinian Arabs despite elections not having been held to legitimise the authority of either since 2007.

3. Carter’s following call in May 2015 will remain unimplemented and a distant pipe dream:

“We hope that sometime we’ll see elections all over the Palestinian area and east Jerusalem and Gaza and also in the West Bank,”

4. Obama will break his pledge to Israel to require any such State to first recognise Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.

5. Obama would be recognising a State which has no legal basis for existence in international law since it fails to comply with the provisions of customary international law as expressed in the Montevideo Convention 1934.

6. Full United Nations membership under Article 4 of the UN Charter is only open to peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter.

7. No such State is “peace loving” nor would it ever accept the obligations contained in article 80 of the Charter preserving the rights vested in the Jewish people under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine

Ironically Carter hit upon the clue to finally resolving the conflict when addressing Jordan and Jordan’s late monarch King Hussein in another op-ed in Time Magazine on 11 October 1982:

“Hussein is personally courageous but an extremely timid man in political matters. That timidity derives almost inevitably from the inherent weakness of Jordan. As a nation it is a contrivance, arbitrarily devised by a few strokes of the pen”

Jordan - 78% of former Palestine - originally designated as part of the location for the Jewish National Home - still remains the key to resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Obama should reject Carter’s latest disastrous advice and leave Trump to try and end the long-running conflict which has eluded all American Presidents.

Obama's Islamic State Policy Threatens Clinton Election Victory

[Published 27 October 2016]


President Obama’s decision to agree to Iraqi and Peshmerga forces attacking Mosul to degrade and destroy the Islamic State just three weeks before the US elections sounds alarm bells for the prospects of Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump on 8 November.

Secretary of Defence Ash Carter confirmed Obama’s decision on 17 October.

The timing of the attack is very concerning.

Obama’s decision accords with his policy enunciated as far back as 10 September 2014:

“But this is not our fight alone. American power can make a decisive difference, but we cannot do for Iraqis what they must do for themselves, nor can we take the place of Arab partners in securing their region.”

Obama had then further elaborated:

”...we will increase our support to forces fighting these terrorists on the ground…

... As I have said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission — we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq. But they are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment.”

The same day as Carter issued his statement - General Stephen Townsend, Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve - reportedly acknowledged the presence of
“forward air controllers” amongst the US “advisory” contributions to the battle.

Those American “advisory” contributions now appear to have included an explosive ordnance disposal technician - Jason Finan - working with a Navy SEAL team near Mosul who was killed by an Islamic State bomb on October 20.

Both Carter and Townsend were meeting together in Irbil on 23 October when Townsend stated:

“Our investigation is still underway, but as I understand the event right now, they had moved to a position on the battlefield behind the Iraqi front lines with a headquarters element….

...These guys said you know what, we probably need to move back a terrain and gain a little bit more stand-off. And they were in the process of that when they struck an IED.”

Such direct involvement of American troops on the ground - leading to the death of an American soldier - seems a distinct departure from Obama’s 2014 policy.

Entrusting Iraqi and Peshmerga troops to defeat the Islamic State - declared a threat to world peace and security by the United Nations Security Council - was always a high risk Obama policy.

Now that attack has started - Hillary Clinton has been effectively lumbered with Obama’s policy if she becomes America’s next President.

Any suggestion of abandoning Obama’s policy now would send a bad signal to American voters.

Clinton’s situation has been further complicated by Carter indicating at the same press conference:

”... we want to see isolation operations begin, oriented at Raqqa as soon as possible. We’re working with our partners there to do that. And so there will be some simultaneity to these two operations. We’ve long anticipated that.”

This contradicts what Clinton said in the third Presidential debate:

“The goal here is to take back Mosul. It’s going to be a hard fight. I’ve got no illusions about that. And then continue to press into Syria to begin to take back and move on Raqqa, which is the ISIS headquarters.”

The IBD/TIPP poll finds widespread dissatisfaction with America’s direction - 62% of the public saying it’s headed in the wrong direction.

Obama’s decision could not have come at a worse time for Clinton.

Joseph Chamberlain said in 1886:

“‘In politics, there is no use in looking beyond the next fortnight.'”

Pollsters beware.

Pictures of body bags returning dead American soldiers, never-ending TV reports of murdered and injured civilians and people fleeing Mosul could certainly cause a huge voter backlash.

Palestine - Netanyahu Goes For Gold In Shoot-Off With Obama

[Published 28 May 2015]


Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s appointment of former United Nations ambassador Dore Gold to head up Israel’s Foreign Ministry - ensures that Israel will be confronting President Obama as he continues attempting to deviate from the commitments made to Israel by his predecessor President Bush in a letter dated 14 April 2004 to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (Bush Commitments).

The Bush Commitments acknowledged the risks involved in Israel unilaterally disengaging from Gaza and evacuating the 8000 Jews who had established 21 settlements there over the preceding 35 years whilst additionally agreeing to remove another four settlements in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).

President Bush assured Israel of the following:

1. the United States remained committed to President Bush’s vision and to its implementation as described in the roadmap.

2.The United States would do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan.

3. Palestinians would have to undertake a comprehensive and fundamental political reform that included a strong parliamentary democracy and an empowered prime minister.

4. The United States reiterated its steadfast commitment to Israel’s security, including secure, defensible borders, and to preserve and strengthen Israel’s capability to deter and defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats.

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

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

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

8. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it would be unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations would be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It was realistic to expect that any final status agreement would only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.

President Obama has attempted to subvert the Bush Commitments by proposing Israel withdraw from part of the West Bank and cede part of its own sovereign territory to the Palestine Liberation Organisation in exchange for the area of the West Bank to be retained by Israel - as announced by President Obama in May 2011:

”... the United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps - so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”

President Obama seems to have given up on the strong parliamentary democracy demanded by President Bush being established in the West Bank and Gaza - having failed to back up a recent call by another former American President - Jimmy Carter - for such elections to be held in the West Bank and Gaza - which would be the first held there since 2005.

Until such a democracy is established America should not expect any negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation to lead to anywhere but the dustbin of history.

Dore Gold well appreciates the significance of these Bush Commitments and the obligation of Obama to remain bound by them - stating in debriefing.org on 9 June 2009 -

“For example, it still needs to be clarified whether the Obama administration feels bound by the April 14, 2004, Bush letter to Sharon on defensible borders and settlement blocs, which was subsequently ratified by large bipartisan majorities in both the U.S. Senate (95-3) and the House of Representatives (407-9) on June 23-24, 2004. Disturbingly, on June 1, 2009, the State Department spokesman, Robert Wood, refused to answer repeated questions about whether the Obama administration viewed itself as legally bound by the Bush letter. It would be better to obtain earlier clarification of that point, rather than having both countries expend their energies over an issue that may not be the real underlying source of their dispute.”

Writing in Jewish Current Issues on 3 June 2009 Rick Richman noted that the State Department had refused to confirm the Bush Commitments on 21 occasions during the previous week.

Richman then asserted:

“Since Israel met its obligations under the disengagement deal, the U.S. can no more rescind its agreement and commitment than it can restore the lost world of Gush Katif, or the lost security of southern Israel, or the lives that thousands of rockets traumatized, or the property that was destroyed.

Israel ended up having to fight a war in Gaza because of the disengagement. The least the United States can do is meet its own obligations.”

Michael Oren - former Israeli Ambassador in Washington and now a newly elected member of Israel’s governing coalition - called for the resuscitation of these Bush Commitments during his election campaign in January.

The Obama administration needs to clear the air and remove any doubts or concerns that it is trying to surreptitiously vary the Bush Commitments.

Let the shoot-off with the reluctant and recalcitrant Obama administration begin.

Carter Causes Consternation With Election Call For Palestinian Arabs

[Published 7 May 2015]


Former US president Jimmy Carter has created a stir with his call for Palestinian Arabs to hold elections to end the internecine struggle between Hamas and the PLO in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza.

Speaking at a joint news conference with PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah - after cancelling his stop in Gaza where he was supposed to meet Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh – Carter – now a member of the independent Elders Group of global leaders - declared:.

“We hope that sometime we’ll see elections all over the Palestinian area and east Jerusalem and Gaza and also in the West Bank,”

No Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections have been held in over a decade - even though Abbas’s term in office as President expired in January 2009 – a position he continues to fill without any constitutional authority to do so.

In 2006 - a year after Abbas was elected as President - Hamas overwhelmingly won the one and only election ever held in Judea and Samaria. The PLO refused to accept its electoral defeat and a year afterwards Hamas violently ousted Abbas’s Fatah faction from Gaza and seized control there.

Carter’s call can be seen as timely – given the current stalemate in the negotiations between Israel and the PLO and the distinct likelihood they will not be resumed.

Indeed one could see Carter’s election call as the most constructive contribution he has made to peace in the Middle East since his following statement in Time Magazine on 11 October 1982 concerning Jordan and Jordan’s late monarch - King Hussein:

“Hussein is personally courageous but an extremely timid man in political matters. That timidity derives almost inevitably from the inherent weakness of Jordan. As a nation it is a contrivance, arbitrarily devised by a few strokes of the pen”

This viewpoint would be just as applicable in 2015 to Jordan’s current monarch - King Abdullah – who is trying to distance himself from any involvement in the future of Judea and Samaria even though Jordan was the last Arab country to occupy those territories between 1948-1967..

Elections would enable the long-suffering Arab populations in Gaza, Judea and Samaria to have a say in their future after having been under the tyrannical dictatorships of Hamas and the PLO for almost ten years.

Ironically there are those who argue against holding such elections because they are worried that Hamas will again be triumphant – resulting in greater upheaval and unrest than currently exists.

Respected commentator Khaled Abu Toameh puts it thus:

“Free and democratic elections are the last thing the Palestinians need now. Such elections would only pave the way for a Hamas takeover of the Palestinian Authority and plunge the region into chaos and violence. As long as Abbas’s Fatah faction is not seen as a better alternative to Hamas, it would be too risky to ask Palestinians to head to the ballot boxes.”

Toameh presumes that only Hamas and the PLO will contest any such new elections.

Given their woeful performances over the last ten years - any such new elections would hopefully spawn the emergence of political parties other than Hamas and the PLO with markedly differing viewpoints and policies – perhaps even parties calling for Jordan to enter into negotiations with Israel to allocate sovereignty of Judea and Samaria and even Gaza between their respective States.

Keeping people in a perpetual state of silence by denying them any say in their future is a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

When people vote – they bear the consequences of the Government they elect.

Carter the Elder has spoken. What says Obama the Younger?

Palestine - Bandar Candour Can Help End Arab-Jewish Conflict

[Published 27 October 2013]


Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief - Prince Bandar bin Sultan - made a secret visit to Jordan this week - according to a report in Ammon News dated 25 October - reportedly meeting with Jordanian officials to discuss recent developments in the region - especially the Syrian file.

It would be inconceivable that they did not also discuss the Palestinian file - where any prospect of achieving a “two-state solution” for the first time ever in recorded history involving the creation of a second Arab state in former Palestine - in addition to Jordan - seems destined to certain failure after twenty years of fruitless negotiations trying to procure such an outcome.

Bandar’s visit to Jordan came hard on the heels of a conference held in Israel - where Israel’s lead negotiator in current secret two-state negotiations with the PLO - Tzipi Livni - is reported by the Jerusalem Post to have made the following remarks:

“Livni said she supported an ideological debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But what really bothers her, she said, is that the opponents of a two-state solution have failed to put forward a legitimate alternative that is consistent with Jewish values and that would allow Israel to continue its relations with the international community.

She warned that failure to finalize an agreement with the Palestinians puts Israel at risk of having an unfavorable solution imposed upon it.

There are only two options facing Israel, she said, a one -state solution or a two-state solution, and only a two-state solution ensures a Jewish and democratic state. She noted that the goal of the nine months negotiating process begun almost three months ago is a final-status agreement to end all claims by both sides.”

Livni is wrong - and Bandar would be the first to castigate her for her unpardonable error.

There are three possible one-state solutions that would ensure a Jewish and democratic state - which involve merging the West Bank and Gaza:

1. Entirely with Jordan or
2. Dividing between Israel and Jordan or
3. Dividing between Israel, Jordan and Egypt

Twenty-three years ago in an Open Letter published in the Washington Times on 30 September 1990 - Bandar - then Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador in America - had publicly criticised Jordan’s King Hussein for his failure to create a Palestinian Arab State in the West Bank between 1948-1967.

Bandar made the following three very pertinent comments:

“Your Majesty, you claimed to defend the Palestinian people`s right to self-determination and a state of their own. And I support you in that. But you were responsible for the Palestinian homeland on the West Bank from 1948 to 1967. Why in all that period did you not give them their rights and statehood?

You are a very intelligent man, Your Majesty. And you have a fine memory. You say the Kuwait-Iraqi border is disputed and based on a historical record created by the colonial British. Your Majesty, you should be the last one to say that. Not only all your borders, but your whole country was created by the same colonial British.

Tell us, Your Majesty, what you have done to safeguard the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that you lost to the Israelis in 1967, almost a quarter of a century ago?"

Bandar was right in sheeting home the blame on Jordan - but he also failed to acknowledge that the Arab League shared a major part of the responsibility for failing to have achieved that “two-state solution” during 1948-1967 - when not one Jew lived in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem after they had all been permanently driven from their homes by six invading Arab-League members’ armies in 1948,

Bandar correctly identified that the conflict did not begin in 1948 - but started with the “colonial British” - who in 1922 planted the seeds enabling the ultimate creation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946 - thus denying the Jews the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in 76.9% of the territory originally intended for that purpose by the San Remo Conference as confirmed in the Treaty of Sevres in 1920.

Former US President Jimmy Carter neatly summed up this British decision in Time on 11 October 1982:

“As a nation it (Jordan) is a contrivance, arbitrarily devised by a few strokes of the pen”

With the two-state solution now in tatters - Jordan must resolutely face up to the responsibility incumbent on it to end the Arab-Jewish conflict by negotiating with Israel to achieve the most realistic one-state solution presently attainable - dividing the West Bank between Israel and Jordan.

Jordan’s opportunity to belatedly rectify the errors committed by it between 1948-1967 would have almost certainly been aired in the secret discussions this week in Jordan with Bandar.

Jordan’s King Abdullah would be well aware of the words of his father - the late King Hussein - who stated in his Autobiography - Uneasy Lies The Head:

“Palestine and Transjordan were both under British Mandate, but as my grandfather pointed out in his memoirs, they were hardly separate countries. Trans-Jordan being to the east of the river Jordan, it formed in a sense, the interior of Palestine”

The idea that Saudi Arabia could actually be encouraging Jordan to help end - if not finally terminate - the Arab-Jewish conflict within the context of secret discussions - is fascinating to contemplate.

The PLO has undeniably botched its chances.

Palestine - Jerusalem Challenges The United Nations

[Published 19 August 2011]


Jerusalem’s continued existence as an undivided city will remain unaffected by any United Nations (UN) decision recognizing a Palestinian Arab State based on the June 1967 armistice lines.

This has been made very clear in a statement issued on 16 August by the Quartet - America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations itself - which declares:

“Jerusalem in particular is one of the core issues that must be resolved through negotiations between the parties, which underscores the urgent need for the parties to resume serious and substantive talks.”

Should the UN member States disregard the Quartet’s warning, the likelihood of Israel agreeing to any subsequent negotiations over Jerusalem - or indeed any future Palestinian Arab state - would almost certainly evaporate.

The Quartet also affirmed:

“that unilateral action by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community.”

This is a clear warning to the Palestinian Authority that its unilateral quest to seek UN recognition of a State would be in breach of - and could well end any further negotiations under - the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap endorsed and fully supported by the Quartet for the last eight years.

International law is a primary concern of the UN.

The mandate for its activities in this field emanates from the Charter of the United Nations which, in its Preamble, sets the goal :

“to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”.

There are three competing claims relating to Jerusalem that can only be resolved by direct negotiations - not unilaterally determined by the UN - if justice and respect for international law is to have any real meaning.

The three potential claimants are:

1. The Palestinian Arabs - who have never in recorded history exercised sovereign control in or over any parts of Jerusalem. They had a window of opportunity to do so between 1948-1967 - but did not make any claim during those 19 years.
2. Jordan - the last Arab occupier in Jerusalem between 1948-1967 - which relinquished all claims in 1988 - but whose 1994 peace treaty with Israel allows for a continuing Jordanian role in the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem.
3. The Jewish people - who are legally entitled to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Jerusalem pursuant to article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter.

On 30 July 1980 Israel’s Parliament passed a law declaring ” Complete and united Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.”

Israel’s declaration was subsequently declared “null and void” by the UN.

Jerusalem also opens up an additional legal minefield for the UN - since Jerusalem was never included in Security Council Resolution 242.

This was confirmed in a letter published in the New York Times on 12 March 1980 - written by the former US Ambassador to the UN Arthur Goldberg at the time Resolution 242 was passed - in which he stated:

“Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem, and this omission was deliberate. I wanted to make clear that Jerusalem was a discrete matter, not linked to the West Bank”

Goldberg also clarified in his letter that President Johnson’s policy at that time did not regard Jerusalem as occupied territory. That position was adopted at a later date under President Nixon at a time when there had been a change of Ambassadors at the United Nations.

“The facts are that I never described Jerusalem as occupied territory. Ambassador Yost did in his speech on July 1, 1969 under instructions from President Nixon, and his statement represented a departure from policy I, President Johnson and the Department of State pursued with respect to Jerusalem during the period of my tenure…”

Security Council Resolution 242 - calls for:

“Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;”

Even if the UN wants to dispute Goldberg’s claim and insist that Jerusalem was indeed included in Resolution 242 - then negotiations are still required to determine such secure and recognized boundaries - not unilateral declarations or resolutions by the United Nations.

Whilst America’s policy on Jerusalem and that of the Palestinian Arabs may change from time to time - Israel’s position remains unchanged.

Israel maintains that Jerusalem is - and will remain - the eternal and undivided capitol of Israel with free access to it - and all three monotheistic religions will enjoy complete freedom of worship.

President Carter’s decision to issue Sadat with a letter stating that America’s position was that East Jerusalem was occupied territory and thus the Fourth Geneva Convention would apply - almost wrecked the 1978 Camp David Accords - causing Moshe Dayan to tell President Carter:

“How could the Americans and the Egyptians argue that the Western Wall, the Hebrew University, the Hadassah Hospital, the Mount of Olives and Mount Scopus belonged to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan? Why was the Jewish Quarter of the Old City regarded as “conquered territory” held by us in contravention of international law? Simply because the Jordanian Arab Legion conquered it in 1948, destroyed its synagogues, killed or took captive the Jewish civilians who lived there? What was holy about the military conquest by the Jordanian army in 1948, and profane about our victory in the 1967 war - a war which was also started with Jordan’s attack on Israel? ( Professor Shlomo Slonim - “The Camp David Accords - A Collection of Articles and Lectures”)

Carter recanted and never issued his letter to Sadat. Instead three letters were appended to the Accords stating the respective positions of America, Israel and Egypt.

Dayan’s stirring words to President Carter and Goldberg’s revelations could become very relevant during the September sittings of the United Nations - should any attempt be made -without Israel’s agreement - to unilaterally unravel the unity of Jerusalem which has remained united and undivided since 1967.

The Quartet’s statement is therefore very timely and is to be applauded.

There is no alternative to negotiations over Jerusalem’s future - no matter how long, difficult and protracted they might be.

Risking the end of any such further negotiations by embarking on a unilateral journey to nowhere may prove once again that the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Will the UN rise to the challenge and defend the unity of Jerusalem against the latest attempt to divide it again? That is the pressing decision each of the member States of the UN will be forced to publicly declare should the matter come before the UN in September.

Palestine - Jimmy Carter Caught In Court Disaster

[Published 3 February 2011]


Former US president Jimmy Carter faces the prospect of paying damages exceeding five million dollars if he is unsuccessful in defending legal proceedings against himself and his publisher Simon & Schuster Inc resulting from the publication of Carter’s book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid - which had an initial print run of 300,000 copies.

A class action instituted by five disgruntled readers of Carter’s controversial book was commenced this week in the United States District Court. The law suit appears set to attract more readers of the book to add their names to the litigation. The complainants have requested a jury to hear the case.

The Complainants are very clear in declaring what the case is - and is not - about:

“Plaintiffs wish to be clear about what this lawsuit is not about. It is not in any way an attempt to challenge Defendant JIMMY CARTER’S right to write a book, or Defendant SIMON & SCHUSTER’S right to publish a book which serves as a forum for Carter to put forward his virulently ant-Israeli bias or any other agenda he or his financial backers wish to put forward. Nor do Plaintiffs challenge his right to use falsehood, misrepresentations and omissions, misleading statements, or outright lies, all of which characterize this book, to further his agenda. Indeed, Plaintiffs fully recognize that, such an agenda from Defendant JIMMY CARTER should come as no surprise, given his well known bias against Israel and the interests of Israel’s sworn enemies who have given millions of dollars to support the Carter Center and Defendant JIMMY CARTER’S work.

Rather, Plaintiffs bring this action to challenge Defendants’ actions in deceiving the public by promoting and selling this Book as a factually accurate account in all regards of the events its purports to depict, rather than truthfully and accurately promoting and selling it as the anti-Israel screed that it is, intentionally presenting untrue and inaccurate accounts of historically recorded events, as witnesses to and participants in such events pointedly have come forward to declare. This lawsuit challenges the Defendants actions in attempting to capitalize on Carter’s status as a former President of the United States to mislead unsuspecting members of the reading public who thought they could trust their former President to tell the truth”

Factual Accuracy Under Legal Challenge

The Complainants allege several representations were made by Carter as to the accuracy of the book including:

1. the “Larry King Live” program on CNN on December 8, 2006, when Carter declared:

“Everything in the book, I might say, is completely accurate.”

2. the same day, December 8, 2006, when Carter wrote in the Los Angeles Times that:

“I used maps, text and documents to describe the situation accurately…"

3. an interview with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien on December 13, 2006 when Carter insisted:

“I know what I’m talking about and the book is completely accurate.”

A number of factual inaccuracies in Carter’s book are specified in the Complaint including claims that:

1. U.N. Security Resolution 242 - enacted on November 22, 1967, - requires Israel to completely withdraw from all territories acquired in the 1967 war.
2. Israel’s eastern border with the Palestinian Territories has been established and internationally recognized.
3. a map represented as “the Palestinian interpretation of Clinton’s 2000 proposal” in December 2000 is in fact a map presented by Israel during the Camp David Summit in July 2000
4. The Israelis have never granted any appreciable autonomy to the Palestinians.
5. The security barrier has been erected entirely within Palestinian territory and is at least three and a half times longer than Israel’s internationally recognized border
6. Hamas offered to exchange the abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for the release of 95 women and 313 children who are among some 8,500 Palestinians in Israeli prisons

The Complaint foreshadows many more inaccuracies will be presented at the hearing.

A former close aide and adviser to Carter - Professor Kenneth Stein - has been very outspoken in his criticism of the book:

” It contains egregious errors of both commission and omission. To suit his desired ends, he manipulates information, redefines facts, and exaggerates conclusions. Falsehoods, when repeated and backed by the prestige of Carter’s credentials, can comprise an erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and policymaking. Rather than bring peace, they can further fuel hostilities, encourage retrenchment, and hamper peacemaking.”

Professor Alan Dershowitz has been as equally scathing claiming:

“Mr. Carter’s book is so filled with simple mistakes of fact and deliberate omissions that were it a brief filed in a court of law, it would be struck and its author sanctioned for misleading the court. Mr. Carter too is guilty of misleading the court of public opinion. A mere listing of all of Mr. Carter’s mistakes and omissions would fill a volume the size of his book.”

The Complainants do not appear to base their claim on any omissions of fact from the book - relying only on inaccuracies in the facts allegedly appearing in the book.

Adam Rothberg, a spokesman for Simon & Schuster, issued a statement calling the action:

“frivolous [and] without merit”

Rothberg said that the suit:

“is a transparent attempt by the plaintiffs, despite their contentions, to punish the author, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and world-renowned statesman, and his publisher, for writing and publishing a book with which the plaintiffs simply disagree, It is a chilling attack on free speech that we intend to defend vigorously.”

Rothberg apparently has failed to grasp that the case is not about free speech - but rather that it is about representing a work as factually accurate and non-fiction when it is not.

The Complainants allege:

“SIMON & SCHUSTER, Inc. steadfastly has refused to make any corrections of such false, misleading, and deceptive provisions in the book and both Defendants continue unabashedly to promote the sale of this deceptive product as a work of non-fiction filled only with a truthful account all matters depicted in it, denying all claims by those well respected officials that Carter has fabricated things in the book which he claims to be true.”

Those interested in ensuring the unquestionable accuracy of facts published in relation to the Jewish-Arab conflict - indeed any conflict - will certainly watch the progress of this case with great interest.

Palestine - Mandela's Elders Malign And Vilify Jews And Israel

[Published 18 October 2010]

The Elders - an independent group of eminent global leaders founded in 2007 by airline mogul Sir Richard Branson and co-founder of Genesis Peter Gabriel - has sent four of its members - including Mary Robinson and Jimmy Carter - on its second visit to the Middle East this week.

As The Elders web site explains:

“Inspired by the role that elders play in traditional societies, as a source of advice, wisdom and experience, they [Branson and Gabriel] took the idea to Nelson Mandela and were thrilled when he agreed to help bring a group of ‘global elders’ together… The Elders comprises ten visionary leaders including Graça Machel, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan and President Carter. They work both publicly and behind the scenes, collectively and individually, in areas of conflict such as; Kenya, Cyprus, Darfur and Zimbabwe and also work on a number of global issues, such as health and gender equality."

No mention is made of The Elders becoming involved in the Arab-Jewish conflict which still remains unresolved after 130 years of bitter confrontation.

One would have thought that was a wise decision - given that an established negotiating process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority - the Roadmap - sponsored by America, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union has been ongoing for the last seven years.

Yet the Elders have been unable to resist the temptation to interfere. Their website separately claims that The Elders also wish to promote

“a just and secure peace for all that embraces human rights principles under international law,and guarantees the right to live in equality, dignity and security to all Palestinians and Israelis."

In failing to recognize that the conflict is one between “Arabs” and “Jews” - not “Palestinians” and “Israelis“ - this group of sage elders has found itself unable to rise above Arab propaganda - which seeks to deny the Jewish people the right to their own independent State in their ancient and biblical homeland as legally envisioned for them by the League of Nations and the United Nations.

Mary Robinson herself told the Conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention on 5 December 2001:

“Each of us knows that it is a difficult time, and that words matter and will be noted."

Words do matter - especially in the Arab-Jewish conflict which has been turned on its head from being an existential struggle for Jewish independence and survival to one represented as a dispute between two groups of people - Palestinians and Israelis - competing for the same piece of land.

As they embark on their latest visit - statements emanating from The Elders have already invoked memories of the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion - the most notorious and widely distributed anti-semitic publication of modern times. Its lies about Jews, which have been repeatedly discredited, continue to circulate today, especially on the Internet and can be freely purchased in many Arab capitals.

In 1921, the London Times presented conclusive proof that the Protocols was a “clumsy plagiarism.” The Times confirmed that the Protocols had been copied in large part from a French political satire that never mentioned Jews — Maurice Joly’s Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu (1864). Other investigations revealed that one chapter of a Prussian novel, Hermann Goedsche’s Biarritz (1868), also “inspired” the Protocols.

The current Elders are not anti-Semites.

However, their statements need to be critically analyzed and carefully scrutinized since the weight they carry has the power to materially influence public opinion at a time when campaigns to delegitimize Israel and threats to eradicate the Jewish State are on the rise.

Jimmy Carter was interviewed prior to setting out on his current tour and the following exchange appeared in an article written by Akiva Eldar in Ha’Aretz on 15 October:

QUESTION: Did you ever encounter an Israeli demand that the Arabs recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people?

ANSWER: This demand is completely new. The first time I heard of it, I was in East Jerusalem after Obama’s Cairo speech [on 4 June 2009], to which Netanyahu responded with a call for the Arabs and Palestinians to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state - which was a move probably initiated by Lieberman and his party. I don’t see how it’s possible - there are 1.5 million Arab citizens in Israel, and 320,000 who are neither Jews nor Muslims - so I don’t know if it will be possible. For the Arabs to acknowledge that the Arabs who live in Israel are Jewish will be very difficult.

Granted, Jimmy Carter is now 86.

However is he so ill-informed that he is unaware that Israel’s demand is not “completely new” - that:

1. Israel raised this demand in the Reservations it raised to the Roadmap on 27 May 2003 stating “declared references must be made to Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state”

2. America made the following written commitment to Israel on 14 April 2004:

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

3. Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reiterated this demand as the basis for further negotiations with the Palestinian Authority in a speech to the international community assembled in Annapolis on 27 November 2007.

If Mr Carter is that uninformed or seeks to claim memory loss for his otherwise inexplicable lapse then he should retire gracefully rather than making misleading statements that have the capacity to persuade public opinion that the Jews are attempting to subvert the negotiating process by raising belated demands.

Mary Robinson is no better. After visiting Gaza on 16 October, she declared:

“It is unconscionable and unacceptable that Israel and the international community have not lifted the blockade fully to allow Gazans to rebuild their lives and be part of the interconnected world that we take for granted.”

The blockade is also being imposed by Egypt.

Why would Mary Robinson fail to mention that salient fact? How many readers will be quick to blame the Jews alone for imposing the blockade and exonerate Egypt from any similar criticism?

If The Elders are to make any worthwhile contribution to resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict they need to quickly disavow themselves of such irresponsible and highly inflammatory statements or become known as the purveyors of canards and falsehoods whose effect is to malign and vilify the Jewish people.

Yes - Mary Robinson and Jimmy Carter - words do certainly count.

Just make sure you use them in a manner that is not unfair, deceptive or misleading.

America, Israel And Jordan - Nobel Peace Prize Up For Grabs

[Published 27 July 2010]

America’s President Obama , Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Abdullah could well become leading candidates for the joint award of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas continues to resist calls by President Obama to enter into direct negotiations with Israel.

Associated Press claims it has sighted a Palestinian internal document stating that America may not help set up a Palestinian state if President Abbas does not enter direct negotiations with Israel soon.

Palestinian Authority Chief Negotiatior Saeb Erekat has confirmed that U.S. officials told Abbas that:

“if he wants Obama to help, then he needs to go to direct talks.”

President Abbas has disingenuously attempted to quash such reports telling reporters after meeting King Abdullah in Amman:

“We are ready to hold direct peace negotiations with Israel. We have negotiated with Israeli governments before, more than once. Why would we avoid such talks? We are not.”

Any such meeting or subsequent meetings would in any event be a complete waste of time and not have the slightest chance of progressing the earlier failed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Continuing to hold out for 100% of your territorial demands is an Arab negotiating position that has remained unchanged for the last 43 years. It has proved a guaranteed recipe for failure - especially in the last 7 years since the Roadmap was first proposed by President Bush.

Such an intransigent negotiating stance indicates that there has been no sincere effort by the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League to end the conflict between Jews and Arabs by dividing sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza and creating a new Arab state between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

The territorial division is the easiest part of the equation - yet it has proved to be and continues to be an insurmountable barrier for the Palestinian Authority to negotiate.

Dividing sovereignty of the West Bank was acknowledged by President Bush as being the only realistic option when he wrote to Israel’s then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on 14 April 2004:

“As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.”

The Palestinian Authority however is simply not prepared to accept these realities.

Perhaps President Abbas should heed the words spoken by Gunnar Berge of the Norwegian Nobel Committee on the occasion of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Jimmy Carter on 10 December 2002:

“Not all his [Carter’s] efforts have been equally successful. But, as Carter himself has said, and taken as his motto: “The worst thing that you can do is not to try.” Few people, if any, have tried harder. This year’s Laureate does the opposite of what his countryman Mark Twain once wrote about forgetting where you bury the peace-pipe, but not where the battle-axe is. Carter never mislays the peace-pipe.”

President Abbas has mislaid the peace-pipe choosing confrontation rather than negotiation - intransigence rather than compromise - whilst keeping his hand firmly in readiness on the battle-axe.

In the midst of the continuing turmoil caused by such Palestinian Authority rejectionism - Israel and Jordan long ago buried the battle-axe and chose to smoke the peace pipe.

The Washington Declaration signed by Israel and Jordan on 25 July 1994 stated:

“His Majesty King Hussein and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin believe that steps must be taken both to overcome psychological barriers and to break with the legacy of war. By working with optimism towards the dividends of peace for all the people in the region, Jordan and Israel are determined to shoulder their responsibilities towards the human dimension of peace making.”

The subsequent signing of a Peace Treaty in October 1994 between Israel and Jordan and the enduring nature of that Treaty in the face of some very difficult political events is testimony to the ability of Jordan to continue the human dimension of peace making with Israel - a quality that the Palestinian Authority has lacked ever since its birth in 1993.

President Obama might well take a leaf from the Washington Declaration and invite Israel and Jordan back to discuss the division of the sovereignty of the West Bank between their respective States and to sign a second Declaration which could closely follow the wording of the first Declaration by stating:

“After generations of hostility, blood and tears and in the wake of years of pain and wars, His Majesty King Abdullah 11 and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are determined to bring an end to bloodshed and sorrow arising from the unresolved allocation of sovereignty of the territories captured by Israel in 1967. It is in this spirit that His Majesty King Abdullah 11 of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Prime Minister Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, met in Washington today at the invitation of President Barack H. Obama of the United States of America. This initiative of President Barack H Obama constitutes an historic landmark in the United States’ untiring efforts in promoting peace and stability in the Middle East. The personal involvement of the President has made it possible to realise agreement on the content of this historic declaration.”

Judging by President Obama’s growing impatience with President Abbas - such an invitation to King Abdullah and Prime Minister Netanyahu to come to Washington might now not seem that impossible to contemplate. They could well find inspiration from Kolbein Falkeid’s poem read out at the presentation of the Nobel peace Prize to President Carter:

Do not hang splendid
moments up on the walls
in your thoughts
and gild them
with your longing.
Drive your crowbar
hard under scarred
working days
and force them up.
One by one.
That is why
life has you
on its muster roll.

President Obama , King Abdullah and Prime Minister Netanyahu could most decidedly be on life’s muster roll for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize if they seize the opportunity that is rapidly emerging as a result of continuing Palestinian Authority recalcitrance.

Realities Of The Middle East

[Published October 2009]

Now that Palestinian Authority intransigence and the Jordanian monarch’s cold feet have frozen President Bush’s Middle East peace plan, we are again facing that time honoured lament of Western liberalism:

“why doesn’t the US put more pressure on Israel, why cannot Israel be forced into more concessions?”

But in any event do Mr Abbas and his internationally cosseted entourage really want a peace settlement? A new term is creeping into the Middle East lexicon: Palestinian Authority Incorporated.

This label stems from a growing realisation that the Palestinian leadership has never had it so good, flitting from one capital to another by private jet, with conference-to-conference limousines, police escorts, top hotels and guest palaces, and everything else that goes with the jet-setting potentate. Running a neighbourhood “entity” after this would seem very dull indeed - assuming Mr. Abbas would make the grade in an open election.

But would he? The Wall Street Journal’s Karen Elliott House reported after a Middle East tour last month:

"Almost no one … believes the self appointed President for the Palestinian cause will ever be the directly re-elected leader of the Palestinian people”

She quotes a Jordanian official in Amman:

” The Palestinian Authority isn’t a revolution. It’s a corporation. After all these years, the pay cheques keep coming and the life is good . The Palestinian Authority cares more about preserving its privileges than helping ordinary Palestinians.”

To which Joseph Kraft of the Los Angeles Times syndicate adds the charge that the Abbas Palestinian Authority is:

“ a bureaucracy dedicated to its own survival. Far from being willing to take risks for political goals, Mr Abbas and Co, in this view, prefer to wander from country to country and from summit meeting to summit meeting, selling the cause of Palestine to Arab leaders who need legitimization. The rulers pay out subsidies. In return Mr Abbas gives them the Palestinian Authority seal of fidelity to Arab nationalism.”

What practical good does this do for the average Palestinian Arabs? As the New York Times remarked last November during a peak of Palestinian Authority negativism:

“Let reality now sink in. If those who claim Palestinian leadership cannot contemplate co-existence and persist in preventing King Abdullah and the residents of the West Bank from negotiating a true peace with Israel, then even this territory will soon be out of reach”

And how.

Israeli Government statisticians and demographers predict that within 30 years the Jewish population of Judea and Samaria will reach parity with the projected Arab population of 1.3 million. Long range settlement plans are in hand. The implications of delayed negotiations require no explanation.

..... AND NOW FOR MY CONFESSION...

The above article was written by Michael Barnard under the title “Realities of the Middle East” and published in the Age Newspaper in Melbourne Australia on Tuesday 26 April 1983 …. 26 years ago !!!!

My contribution to updating the article lies solely in substituting a few words to reflect the different parties.

I could have even left in the acronym for the Palestine Liberation Organization - “PLO” - used by Barnard in his article instead of replacing it with “Palestinian Authority” since the latter is just the reincarnation of the former disguised under a different name.

But essentially nothing has changed for the ordinary West Bank Arab in the last quarter of a century as their leaders have missed countless opportunities to resolve the conflicting Arab and Jewish claims to sovereignty in the West Bank.

Abbas clings to power as unelected President although his term expired last January. Calls for his removal have been mounting because he dared to postpone debate on the Goldstone Report at the behest of President Obama. This was only the latest of his woes as he has to answer questions about his relative silence during Israel’s invasion of Gaza last December and January and his alleged tacit - if not collaborative - approval of Israel’s action to destroy his Hamas challengers for supreme political control of the Palestinian Arabs.

Urged on by well intended but policy deficient “do-gooders” such as Presidents Reagan, Carter, Clinton and Bush, the Quartet and a Moslem dominated UN General Assembly, the Palestinian Authority power brokers have chalked up hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer points, have enjoyed the best food and wines in some of the most expensive hotels and restaurants in the world and collected photo albums full of snapshots with the most famous political and celebrity personages.

Surely a quarter of a century later it is time to heed Barnard’s article (as updated by me):

“Let reality now sink in. If those who claim Palestinian leadership cannot contemplate co-existence and persist in preventing King Abdullah and the residents of the West Bank from negotiating a true peace with Israel, then even this territory will soon be out of reach”

The sooner Jordan is brought into negotiations with Israel to determine Arab and Jewish claims to sovereignty in the West Bank the sooner these junkets and excesses by the Palestinian Authority will be ended.

More importantly the West Bank Arabs will be able to go about their work and raise their children free of war and conflict as fully fledged citizens of Jordan - as they were between 1948-1967 until Jordan’s fatal involvement in the Six Day War saw the loss of this territory to Israel.

Israel will not be returning to the armistice lines that existed between Israel and Jordan on the 6th June 1967 - UN Security Council resolution 242 makes that abundantly clear. It will not agree - in the national interest of preserving Israel as the only Jewish state in the world - to millions of Arabs flooding into its country as migrants.

That is best left to welcoming countries like England, France, Holland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The world is a big place and opportunities to settle outside one’s country of birth have never been so easy as millions of Arabs leave their existing 21 Arab States for greener pastures.

Will an article like this still be written in 2035? I certainly hope not.

Palestine - Obama And Netanyahu On Journey To Nowhere

[Published June 2009]

President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu appear on the surface to have found common ground in agreeing on the need to end the 120 years old conflict between Arabs and Jews by creating a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan.

However any basis for optimism on this score following their major speeches within ten days of each other is sorely misplaced.

Their apparent unanimity of purpose must be compared to the euphoria greeting similar expeditions undertaken by former President Clinton and Prime Minister Barak in 2000-2001 and President Bush with Prime Ministers Sharon and Olmert between 2003-2008 in concert with the Palestinian Authority - an artificial entity created by the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Both sets of negotiations went nowhere and got nowhere. Those negotiations occurred for the most part under far more favourable political conditions than now exist.

The current power struggle for control of the Palestinian Authority between Hamas and Fatah,the division of power in Gaza and the West Bank between these two foes and their seeming inability to bury their differences represent major obstacles to the successful conclusion of any negotiating process between the Palestinian Authority and Israel and its subsequent maintenance and enforcement.

Even if Hamas and Fatah were to suddenly overcome their differences tomorrow Israel would not want to deal with a unified West Bank/Gaza government in which Hamas was a member.

Mr. Netanyahu’s conditions for agreeing to the creation of this additional Arab state require that it

(i) be demilitarized ,
(ii) have to accept Jerusalem remaining the united capital of Israel
(iii) have to agree to Israel having defensible borders
(iv) have to recognise Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people
(v) have to settle the problem of the Palestinian refugees outside the borders of Israel.
(vi) have no control over air space or sea lanes

It didn’t take long for senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat to express his disbelief at this shopping list when he declared:

“Netanyahu will have to wait 1000 years for someone to agree to talk to him”

There was anger in the Arab world that Netanyahu should be publicly laying down his conditions in advance in an attempt to define the parameters of any future negotiations.

Yet the Arabs had publicly laid down their conditions for the acceptance of such a state in 1967 and haven’t changed or varied their negotiating position since then in demanding that

(i) such state be established on the entire area of land lost by Jordan and Egypt to Israel in 1967
(ii) Jerusalem be its capitol
(iii) millions of Arabs and their descendants be permitted to migrate to Israel.

Refusing to accept anything less has been the root cause of the breakdown of the previous two negotiating processes.

With the parties even further apart in their demands now in the face of Mr Netanyahu’s stated position - President Obama risks the real danger of failing to get the parties to the negotiating table at all.

In attempting to coax the Palestinian Authority to the negotiating table Obama tersely told Israel:

“The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”

No attempt was made by President Obama to explain the basis for his making this statement.

He surely could not be ignorant of the provisions of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine 1922 which gave recognition to the right of close settlement by Jews in the West Bank This internationally sanctioned legal right did not die with the League of Nations but was expressly preserved by Article 80 of the United Nations Charter and remains as legitimate today as when it was first promulgated in 1922 .

Indeed the right to settle in the West Bank was exercised by Jews prior to 1948 and was only then abruptly halted after those Jews still living there were driven out following Jordan’s occupation of the West Bank during the War of Independence. Jewish settlement in the West Bank was not resumed until Jordan lost the West Bank to Israel in the Six Day War in 1967.

United Nations records attest to the critical importance of Article 80.

On 8 May 1947, Rabbi Abba Silver representing the Jewish Agency addressed the First (Political) Committee of the United Nations and he had this to say about Article 80:

“The Mandate [for Palestine], in its preamble, recognises “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” and “the grounds for reconstituting” - I call your attention to the word “reconstituting” -“their national home in that country”.

These international commitments of a quarter of a century ago, which flowed from the recognition of historic rights and present needs, and upon which so much has already been built in Palestine by the Jewish people, cannot now be erased. You cannot turn back the hands of the clock of history.

Certainly, the United Nations, guided by the great principle proclaimed in its Charter, “to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”, can never sanction the violation of treaties and of international law.

With this situation and similar situations in mind, a specific provision, you will recall, was written into the chapter of the Charter of the United Nations which deals with territories which might become trusteeship territories, and which is therefore especially applicable to territories now under mandate. This is Article 80 of the Charter…”

In evidence given to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine on 7 July 1947, David Ben Gurion as a representative of the Jewish Agency said of Article 80:

“This is the special Article of the Charter which applies to Palestine. It was introduced only because of Palestine.”

President Obama’s claim denying the legitimacy of the settlements therefore flies in the face of the Mandate and the United Nations Charter. He needs to justify his stance with a statement far more explanatory and detailed than his one line throwaway.

American Presidents never seem to learn from the failure of their predecessors. President Obama appears hell bent on joining them in pursing their failed goal of creating a new Arab state between Jordan and Israel.

That has proved for past Presidents - and will continue to prove for President Obama- to be simply unachievable.

Palestine - Some Home Truths And Missed Opportunities

[Published June 2009]

Jews and Arabs are destined to become engaged in many years of further fighting, trauma and suffering unless President Obama does a complete backflip by adopting a different stance to that he expressed in his long awaited speech at Cairo University on 4 June 2009.

The President has jumped head first into a bottomless hole in unequivocally proposing to his Cairo audience that the two state solution - the creation of a new Arab state between Israel and Jordan - remains the “only resolution” to end the 130 years conflict between Jews and Arabs in relation to the territory once known as Palestine.

President Obama has conveniently chosen to ignore that 94% of former Palestine has already been divided into two states - the Jewish State of Israel (17%) and the Arab State of Jordan (77%) - with both of those States being parties to a peace treaty executed by them in 1994.

Sovereignty in the remaining 6% of former Palestine - the West Bank and Gaza - still remains unallocated between Jews and Arabs.

The idea that sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza be divided other than between Jordan and Israel (and possibly Egypt) has resulted in a journey to nowhere for the last 62 years. President Obama has now joined former American Presidents Carter, Clinton and Bush in embroiling himself in brokering a solution that has no possible chance of succeeding.

This has not been for want of trying by the international community or President Obama’s presidential predecessors.

Missed opportunities by the Arabs to create a separate independent sovereign Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza have been squandered on at least six notable occasions in the past 62 years:

1. When offered by the United Nations in 1947
2. During the 19 years between 1948-1967 that Jordan occupied the West Bank and Egypt occupied Gaza - where not one Jew or Jewish town or village was located following the expulsion of all Jews living there as a consequence of the 1948 War of Independence
3. Between 1967-1988 when the Arabs refused to deal with or negotiate with Israel on the future of the West Bank and Gaza
4. Following the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1993
5. In 2000 at Camp David in negotiations brokered by President Clinton between PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israel’s then Prime Minister Ehud Barak
6. During negotiations conducted under President Bush’s Roadmap between 2003-2007 and under the Annapolis process between 2007-2008.

The failure to create a new Arab state between Jordan and Israel has been the result of the following intransigent and uncompromising Arab demands:

1. Their inability to accept the existence of a Jewish State in any part of former Palestine
2. Their refusal to receive anything less than 100% of the West Bank and Gaza
3. Their unwillingness to abandon their demand that millions of Arabs and their descendants be allowed to return and live in what is now Israel.

What magic formula President Obama intends to use to remove these barriers to achieving his two state solution was not articulated by him in Cairo.

Until he does so he is merely posturing and grandstanding, saying what the Arabs want to hear but remaining silent on what the Arabs need to do to make the President’s two state solution have any chance of getting off the ground.

President Obama’s approach to Jews living in the West Bank was hasty and ill considered as he told his applauding audience in Cairo:

“The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. (Applause.) This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop. (Applause.)”

The Jews possess the entitlement in international law to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in the West Bank under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine - an international trust that has been preserved under Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Anyone suggesting therefore that Jews do not have the inalienable right to live in the West Bank and reconstitute their National Home in areas designated by the Mandate where international sovereignty is yet to be determined is sliding on very thin ice. President Obama’s call to Israel to halt what has been conferred on the Jews by international law needs to be firmly resisted.

Whether that right should be exercised at this particular moment is a different issue. Denying that such a right exists does not help one iota in ending the conflict. In fact it exacerbates and fuels Arab intransigence in seeking sovereignty in every square centimetre of the West Bank and Gaza to the total exclusion of any Jewish claims.

President Obama failed to mention United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 337 and President Bush’s letter dated 14 April 2004 to Israel’s then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. These documents make it clear that Israel cannot be expected to return to the fragile armistice lines that existed in 1967.

Security remains the overriding concern for Israel as it seeks to protect its citizens from armed organizations and States that refuse and will never concede that Jews are entitled to have a state in their biblical ancestral and internationally recognised homeland.

Israel will not be returning to the 1967 armistice lines now or in the future. Until the Arabs accept this reality President Obama’s speech in Cairo will become just the latest in a long list of required reading by diplomats and university students enrolled in international relations courses trying to fathom out why it has been impossible to determine sovereignty in an area of land the size of Delaware for the last 62 years.

Well may they all shake their heads in disbelief.

Contrary to President Obama’s prescription the only solution that now has any chance of working is the division of sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza between Israel, Jordan and Egypt determined in direct trilateral negotiations between those three states.

The sooner President Obama focuses his thoughts on this solution the sooner we might see an American President who will succeed where others before him have so ignominiously failed.

Palestine - Jordan Jittery But Not To Worry

[Published May 2009]

King Abdullah of Jordan has obviously got a bad attack of the jitters as Israeli politicians now focus their attention on Jordan returning to re-occupy the heavily Arab populated areas of the West Bank - as Jordan had previously done so successfully between 1948-1967.

The hysteria emanating from Jordan at such a suggestion indicates that Israel’s politicians have touched a raw nerve that Jordan has long tried to gloss over - the fact that Jordan comprises 77% of former Palestine and has a pivotal role to play in the West Bank if there is ever to be any hope of peace between Arabs and Jews.

Sixteen years of negotiations since 1993 aimed at creating a new Arab state between Israel and Jordan in the West Bank have proved a total failure. Yet the delusion that such a State could ever be created continues to be perpetuated by a very carefully scripted and media managed performance by King Abdullah that has apparently seduced President Obama into believing he will be able to succeed where others before him have ignominiously failed.

President Obama will be in for a rude shock and end up in the same state of disbelief and disillusionment that befell his predecessors Presidents Carter, Clinton and Bush

Jordan’s Foreign Minister was concerned enough at the debate in the Knesset this week to summons Israel’s Ambassador and issue him with a strong protest:

“on a motion on a so-called two states for two peoples on the two banks of the Jordan River”

His concern might be well justified if he were reacting to the following statement made by Lebanese writer Farid Salman on OTV on 6 May 2009 as reported by Middle East Media Research Institute:

“Jordan is an invention. Transjordan, which was an emirate, and later became the Hashemite Kingdom, is part of Palestine. Britain created it in order to crown one of the sons of Hussein,from the Arabian Peninsula, over part of Greater Syria - over Palestine. This continues to be the perpetual reason… Without removing it, the Palestinian issue will not be resolved. It’s impossible.”

Farid Salman’s statement contains within it the call for the overthrow and removal of King Abdullah and an end to Hashemite rule.

President Jimmy Carter was moved to point out as long ago as 11 October 1982 in Time that Jordan as a nation was

“a contrivance arbitrarily devised by a few strokes of the pen.”

Again one could argue that Carter would not have been sorry to see Jordan’s Hashemite rulers disappear and the country be renamed Palestine.

However the current furor in Jordan over this week’s debate in the Knesset is an over reaction by a nervous Hashemite regime that sees the sword of Damocles hanging over the Hashemites every time someone mentions the origins and history of Jordan.

Jordan’s response has been topped by a remarkable outburst by Israel’s President Shimon Peres who has called the idea of two states for two peoples a

“baseless hallucination”

(Haartez 27 May)
The proposal that Jordan step in to fill the void left by the collapse of the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is sound and represents the only alternative option now open to be pursued in trying to end the conflict between Jews and Arabs that has continued for the last 120 years.

There have been countless statements made by Arab leaders attesting to the fact that Jordan forms part of Palestine and that there is no distinction between a Palestinian and a Jordanian.

Abu Iyad was able to tell the Near East Report on 8 January 1990:

“When the Palestinian State and unity is established the Jordanian will be a Palestinian and the Palestinian a Jordanian”

Even Yasser Arafat was moved to admit in Der Spiegel in 1986:

“Indeed Palestinians and Jordanians are one people. No one can divide us”

It is clearly in Israel’s national interest that Jordan’s entry into the West Bank not result in the Hashemite regime being replaced by a rogue leadership. Jordan would have to be given security guarantees by Israel to prevent any such eventuality happening, which given the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan would surely be forthcoming.

A massive injection of international funds flowing to Jordan to enable the rehabilitation of the West Bank and advance the interests of the Arabs living there would revitalise the area and offer hope for real peace and co-operation between Jews and Arabs who would continue to live where they are without having to move or sell up.

The creation of Jordan may have been an invention or a contrivance but it exists as fact today and has survived to become the homeland of the Arabs of former Palestine. Extending its borders to embrace the heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank is the master key to separating Jews and Arabs and removing the barriers and roadblocks that currently impede normal communication and contact between the Arab residents of the West Bank. Extending Jordanian citizenship will give them the right of self determination they have long sought to obtain.

The creation of the Palestinian Authority was another invention or contrivance that proved to be a total failure and now needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history. Jordan is a success story and the Hashemites are entitled to take full credit for what has been achieved since independence was granted in 1946.

The creation of a new Arab state between Jordan and Israel in the West Bank would be another invention or contrivance with no basis to support it historically, geographically or demographically. Rather than advance the cause of peace it would represent a threat to the continued existence of both Israel and Jordan.

King Abdullah might not relish being thrown into the spotlight. However he better get used to it.

Jordan’s role in resolving the conflict won’t go away.

Palestine And Obama - Ego Trip Or Meaningful Journey?

[Published December 2008]

Hillary Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State will afford many future opportunities to compare her performance with her predecessor Condoleezza Rice in bringing finality to the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza - where no internationally recognised sovereign ruler has reigned supreme since Britain left in haste in 1948 with its lion’s tail firmly planted between its legs.

To be fair to Ms Rice her failure to resolve the status of the West Bank and Gaza was due to the flawed objectives of President Bush’s 2003 Roadmap - popularly termed the “two state solution”.

President Bush misguidedly envisioned the Palestinian Arabs accepting a democratic, contiguous, viable - - and 22nd Arab Moslem - state in the major part of the West Bank and Gaza between Jordan, Egypt and Israel - living in peace and harmony alongside an expanded Jewish State whose boundaries would incorporate a substantial majority of the 200000 Jews then living in the West Bank and Gaza.

President Bush also believed the Arabs would abandon their 70 years old demand for millions of Arabs to be granted permission to emigrate to Israel - opting instead to engage in the business of nation building in their own newly created state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Not only he genuinely believed this laudable and idealistic goal was achievable. The President was able to convince the European Union, Russia and the United Nations to join him in negotiating such an outcome.

He - and they - have been proved sorely wrong on all counts.

Ms Rice became the most frequent - and frustrated - foreign emissary to the region since the Roadmap’s formulation yet failed to achieve even the slightest change in the Arabs’ negotiating stance - first formulated in 1967 - which totally rejected the President’s vision and its desired result.

Israel had been prepared to make concessions in settling its claims in the West Bank and Gaza in accordance with the rights accruing to the Jewish people under Article 80 of the United Nations Charter. However in the face of entrenched Arab opposition to recognising any Jewish claims of any sort whatsoever in the West Bank and Gaza those concessions were always bound to be rejected.

President Bush’s belief that he could solve the Arab - Jewish conflict has come crashing to the ground joining the failed attempts of President Carter and President Clinton - who also thought they too had the power prestige and standing to do exactly the same.

Now President-elect Obama stands ready to follow their footsteps. He needs to be very careful in believing he has the answers to finally end the Arab -Jewish conflict where distinguished former Presidents - and even the League of Nations and United Nations before them - have failed so abysmally.

Unverified reports that President-elect Obama intends to pursue the two-state solution or perhaps even embrace the 2002 Arab League Peace Initiative will inevitably land him in the same cavernous potholes that President Bush - and those who resolutely accompanied him - encountered in their six year trip to nowhere.

The Arab League Initiative is a sugar coated pill that merely repeats the 40 years old Arab demands that have caused the Roadmap to be taken off the best seller list. Put to the Jewish people as a “take it or leave it” proposal the Initiative will be rejected - as no major political party in Israel could possibly embrace its terms unconditionally and hope to gain Government when the next elections are held in February 2009.

Peace between Jews and Arabs will not be achieved in one trip. There will need to be frequent garage stops to refuel the vehicle and even a few oil and grease changes. It is a very long journey that will require patient and very careful navigation around all kinds of obstacles and pot holes.

The overly-ambitious objective of totally solving the conflict should now give way to genuine attempts to manage and moderate the conflict - rather than bring it to a triumphant and permanent end - since Jews and Arabs remain as far apart as they were when the division of Palestine was first proposed between them by the Peel Commission in 1937.

President-elect Obama needs to prepare for his journey armed with the Congressional Resolution dated 21 September 1922 (42 Stat. 1012 PART 1, 1922) signed by the 29th President Warren G. Harding which stated:

“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled THAT the United States of America favours the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may 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 President-elect should unequivocally affirm his support for this resolution and its clear intent.

He needs to understand where the territorial boundaries of “Palestine” were located in 1922 and what has since happened to the allocation of sovereignty between Arabs and Jews in the length and breadth of that territory.

He has to recognise that the Jews now exercise sovereignty in 17% of Palestine, the Arabs exercise sovereignty in 77% of Palestine and that sovereignty remains unallocated between either Jews or Arabs in the remaining 6% now called the West Bank and Gaza.

He must appreciate that the history of Palestine did not start in 1948, that it was part of the territorial division of the Ottoman Empire after the defeat of Turkey in World War 1 - offering the Arab nation self determination in 99.99% of that liberated land and the Jewish people self determination in just 0.01% of such land.

He must acknowledge the body of international law that exists in relation to Palestine - starting with the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 - which the Arabs now need to finally accept since continuing rejection prevents any possible prospect of a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Armed with this body of information President-elect Obama will understand why the two state solution and the Arab League Initiative never did, never could, and never will succeed. He should be able to conclude that changes in the Arab negotiating stance are necessary since pressing for 100% of your demands can never lead to a concluded agreement with your adversary.

President-elect Obama must carefully plan for the journey that awaits him before he turns the engine on.