UN action on Trump Peace Plan can deter Iran-Israel conflict

 

The United Nations Security Council needs to urgently adopt former US President Donald Trump’s 2020 Peace Plan to end the Jewish-Arab conflict and call on Israel, Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to commence negotiations under Trump’s Plan to deter conflict between Iran and Israel.

Trump’s Plan (see maps following) – already endorsed by Israel - provides for:

• The creation of a future demilitarised State of Palestine in about 60% of Judea and Samaria (West Bank), Gaza, and parts of Israel and  

• The extension of Israeli sovereignty in the remaining 40% of Judea and Samaria (West Bank)

The territory involved is small - comprising the remaining  5% of former Palestine in which sovereignty remains unallocated between Arabs and Jews – approximating America’s third-smallest State  – Delaware.

Israel (17%) and Jordan (78%) currently exercise sovereignty in the other 95%.

The PLO has rejected Trump’s very detailed and comprehensive proposals. 

The UN continues to pursue a nebulous two-democratic-states solution based on Security Council Resolution 2334  -  achieving no progress since its adoption in 2016.

Emboldened by the Security Council’s failure to successfully implement Resolution 2334 and the antagonistic attitude towards Israel and the Jewish People expressed in a growing number of General Assembly resolutions – 17 in 2020 compared to 7 for  the rest of the world - Iran continues to demonise and threaten the elimination of Israel as Iran expands its nuclear weapons program. 

Iranian Armed Forces spokesman - Brig.-Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi - recently told the Iranian Students News Agency:

“We will not back off from the annihilation of Israel, even one millimetre. We want to destroy Zionism in the world”

Rather than:

• condemning Iran’s threats to destroy another UN member state and 
•  defending Israel’s right to exist in secure and recognised boundaries as stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 242 

The General Assembly has been engaging in its own demonisation of the Jewish People – recycling a Security Council Press Statement dated September 17, 2015 (Press Statement ) which only referred to the Temple Mount by its Arabic name “Haram al-Sharif” and not its Hebrew name  “Har HaBayit”.

General Assembly Resolution A/76/L.16 (Resolution) - passed on December 1 – repeated this highly-offensive canard:

“Recalling the Security Council press statement on Jerusalem of September 17, 2015, in which the Council called, inter alia, for the exercise of restraint, refraining from provocative actions and rhetoric and upholding unchanged the historic status quo at the Haram al-Sharif – in word and in practice, as well as for full respect for international law, including international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as may be applicable in Jerusalem”

The Press Statement and Resolution both failed to acknowledge the special role of Jordan – not Israel - as custodian of all the Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem  - recognized in the 1994 Jordan-Israel  Washington Declaration and Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty.

If the Security Council and General Assembly can both brazenly ignore these two highly-significant binding international commitments whilst simultaneously denying the Jewish People’s connection with Judaism’s holiest religious site in Jerusalem – what message does this send to Israel, Jordan and Iran? 

Israel’s President Herzog has provided Israel’s response:

“Israel will welcome a comprehensive, diplomatic solution which permanently solves the Iranian nuclear threat.”

“In the case of a failure to achieve such a solution, Israel is keeping all options on the table and it must be said that if the international community does not take a vigorous stance on this issue — Israel will do so. Israel will protect itself”

 Overt UN bias against Israel and the Jewish People should not preclude the UN from embracing Trump’s Plan to end the 100 years-old Jewish-Arab conflict and avert conflict between Iran and Israel.

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

Trump increases pressure on Jordan to negotiate with Israel

[Published 9 July 2019]

President Trump seems set to increase the pressure on Jordan to negotiate with Israel on the future of the West Bank and Gazan Arabs.

This has become increasingly more likely following Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) rejecting US$6.238 billion in grants and US$12.911 in concessional loans proposed by President Trump to be expended as part of US$27.813 billion in Gaza and the West Bank.

Added to these grants and concessional loans totalling US$19.149 billion is a minimum additional US$1.275 billion per annum until Financial Year 2022 under the non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed on 14 February 2018 between the USA and Jordan.

The USA has also provided nearly $1.1 billion in humanitarian assistance to support Syrian refugees in Jordan (in addition to funding provided at the regional level for other refugee populations in the Kingdom). This funding does not fall under the MOU and could also be withdrawn.

This large treasure chest is likely to be offered to Jordan’s King Abdullah if he is prepared to sit down and negotiate with Israel on Trump’s as yet unpublished “deal of the century” for ending the 100 years conflict between the Arabs and Jews in relation to the territory once called “Palestine”.

The West Bank and Gaza comprise the last 5% of the territory of “Palestine” where sovereignty remains unresolved – Israel being sovereign in 17% and Jordan being sovereign in 78%.

Expending US$27.813 billion on projects in the West Bank and Gaza – approximately the size of the State of Delaware – seemed an odd Trump approach – since confrontation and conflict with Israel is set to continue whilst the PLO and Hamas refuse to surrender their power and control over the hapless and suffering populations they have governed since 2007.

It makes far better sense to use the $19.149 billion in freed up funds to encourage the legal, voluntary and financially-assisted migration of West Bank and Gazan Arabs to Jordan and Egypt and the provision of infrastructure and upgrading of services in both countries. This would be additional to the US$7.365 billion and US$9.167 billion for projects in Jordan and Egypt respectively already designated in Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” Proposal.

Gazan and West Bank Arabs are no different to the millions of people currently emigrating from their countries of birth seeking a better life for themselves and their families.

The exodus of Gazan Arabs has already begun with 35000 reported to have left in 2018 seeking a better future for themselves and their families. In the West Bank the Net migration rate estimated in 2018 was -4.4 migrant(s)/1,000 population.

Encouraging voluntary migration using the moneys rejected by the PLO and Hamas could be expected to result in a surge of emigration from both the West Bank and Gaza. Emigration would ease the demand for food, services and housing in the West Bank and Gaza for those choosing to stay.

Jordan has a special connection with Arabs of West Bank origin who were Jordanian citizens and held Jordanian passports between 1954 and 1988.
Extending Jordanian citizenship and passports once again to the West Bank Arab population – whether they remain in the West Bank or not – could be another important outcome from direct negotiations with Israel.

Jordan will not welcome Trump’s attempt to get direct negotiations started between Israel and Jordan. However Hamas and the PLO’s total rejection of Trump and any peace proposals he puts forward – even before they are published - makes it imperative that those negotiations take place.

Billions of infrastructure dollars and the hopes of hundreds of thousands of potential West Bank and Gazan emigrants are riding on Jordan’s decision.

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

Will President Trump say “West Bank” or “Judea and Samaria”?

[14 November 2018]

President Trump - having rejected a barrage of criticism since describing himself as a “nationalist” - faces a further torrent of invective should he choose to say “Judea and Samaria” rather than “West Bank” in his soon to-be-released peace proposals.

Arab propaganda has used “West Bank” since 1949 to obliterate any Jewish connection to one of the two remaining pieces of land under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine where sovereignty still remains undetermined between Jews and Arabs.

Even worse — the United Nations and US State Department have continued using this deceptive and misleading terminology since 1967.

The media and political commentators have sought to relegate the historical-geographical term “Judea and Samaria” to some ancient biblical anachronism that fell into disuse centuries ago — yet that term appears in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica and the UN 1947 Partition Plan resolution.

Incontrovertible Jewish claims to this hotly-disputed territory – about the size of Delaware – were eloquently summarised in the Forward on 12 July 1991:

“As for “Judea” and “Samaria”, they are indeed ancient names, but the notion that they had become “archaic” prior to 1967 is totally false for both English and Hebrew. Indeed, unlike their Moslem counterparts, not only Jewish, but Christian geographers too, from Roman times onward, always considered the mountainous regions north and south of Jerusalem to be discrete entities, since this is how the Old and New Testaments speak of them because of the separate Judean and Israelite kingdoms that existed there. As late as many 18th-, 19th- and early 20th-century atlases, it is possible to find accurate maps of Palestine with the major Arab towns and villages appearing beside the words “Judea” and “Samaria” in large print.

The Hebrew terms, yehuda and shomron have had a slightly more complex history — rather, shomron has had, since yehuda, “Judah” which was originally the name of the tribe that occupied the southern hill country of the Land of Israel, has been in uninterrupted use as a geographical term since the Book of Deuteronomy. We find it and it alone in the Mishnah and the Talmud; in the account of the famous 12th-century Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela; in Kaftor u-Ferach, a 16th-century halakhic geography of Palestine composed by the Italian Rabbi Ishtori Haparhi; in all the 19t- and 20th-century literature of Zionist settlement in Palestine; and in thousands of other Hebrew sources from every period of Jewish history as well.

The case of “shomron”, “Samaria”, is somewhat different. The oldest Hebrew name for the mountains north of Jerusalem is not shomron but efrayim, after the tribe whose territory it was. Shomron was originally a site in Efrayim that, in the reign of King Omri, became the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel, which eventually began to bear its name. Thus, in the Hebrew Bible we find shomron, efrayim, and yisra’el used interchangeably, while in rabbinic literature they are joined by a fourth term: eretz ha-kutim, “the Land of the Cuthites”—a reference to the Samaritans, a population originally transferred from the Babylonian region of Kutu to take the place of the “ten lost” tribes of Israel deported by the Assyrians in 721 B.C.E.

Subsequently, all four of these terms were used by Jewish sources, although the last two dropped out in the Middle Ages; it was not however, until the conquest of the area in 1967 that “Shomron” was finally recognized instead of “Efrayim”.

President Trump should use “Judea and Samaria” to end 70 years of fraudulent Arab propaganda — aided and abetted by the United Nations, the US State Department and the President’s oft designated“fake media".

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

Trump must reject Abbas claims at UN on size of Palestine

[Published 3 July 2017]


President Trump cannot begin to resolve the Jewish-Arab conflict unless he first rejects the claims made by Mahmoud Abbas at the United Nations in 2012 and 2013 concerning the territorial dimensions of former Palestine.

Abbas told the United Nations on 27 September 2012:

“The two-State solution, i.e. the State of Palestine coexisting alongside the State of Israel, represents the spirit and essence of the historic compromise embodied in the Oslo Declaration of Principles, the agreement signed 19 years ago between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Government of Israel under the auspices of the United States of America on the White House Lawn, a compromise by which the Palestinian people accepted to establish their State on only 22% of the territory of historic Palestine for the sake of making peace.”

Abbas repeated this claim at the United Nations on 26 September 2013:

“However, as representatives of the Palestinian people, we have long been aware of our responsibilities towards our people and had the necessary courage to accept a two-State solution: Palestine and Israel on the borders of 4 June 1967, establishing a Palestinian State on 22% of the land of historic Palestine”

On 11 January 2014 Abbas stated:

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

Abbas was talking through his keffiyeh

Abbas’s twice-repeated claim contradicted article 2 of the 1968 PLO Charter – which organisation Abbas heads:

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

The boundaries of the British Mandate - created in 1922 under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – encompassed the territory that is today called Israel, Jordan, Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza.

Article 25 of the Mandate restricted the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home to an area extending to the Jordan River - 22% of the territory comprised in the Mandate.

The Mandate – administered by Great Britain until 1948 – saw the creation of:

1. one Arab State in 78% – Jordan - in 1946

2. one Jewish State in 17% - Israel - in 1948

3.sovereignty remaining unallocated in the remaining 5% - Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza

Abbas’s claim at the UN in 2012 and 2013:

1. is deceptive and misleading

2. amounts to intellectual fraud and

3. rejects international law as established by the Mandate

Trump’s acknowledgement that Jordan – not Israel - comprises 78% of historic Palestine would greatly enlarge the territorial field within which Trump could hope to resolve the long running conflict which now hinges on who should exercise sovereignty over a piece of land no larger than Delaware.

Jordan’s inclusion in any negotiations would create alternative solutions to end the conflict other than the creation of another Arab State between Israel and Jordan – a proposal first floated by the United Nations in 1947 and rejected many times since then by the Arabs.

That is a prospect that should excite Trump as he seeks to find a way to end a conflict whose solution eluded Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama over the last 23 years. Those Presidents had the best of intentions yet stumbled badly in failing to reach the finishing line because they shied away from insisting Jordan be a party to any negotiations with Israel.

Jordan - part of the conflict in Palestine since 1922 - must be part of any solution in 2017.

Trump – the consummate deal maker – must involve Jordan in any further negotiations to avoid following in the footsteps of his failed predecessors.

In the case of “Palestine” size can really make a big difference.

Palestine - United Nations Perfidy Exposed

[Published 20 July 2012]



The canard - supported by countless United Nations General Assembly Resolutions - that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal in international law - has been dealt a crushing blow with the the recent release of the Levy Committee Report in Israel rebutting that claim.

The Committee comprised a retired Supreme Court Judge - Edmund Levy - a Tel Aviv District Court Judge - Tchia Shapira - and a former Foreign Ministry legal adviser Alan Baker. They were appointed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January 2012 to consider among other matters the legality of Jewish settlements established in the West Bank.

The San Remo Conference held in Italy in April 1920 was the Committee’s starting point.

That Conference had laid the grounds for the eventual creation of the Mandate for Palestine as part of a Mandate system involving the disposition of vast tracts of territory held by the Ottoman Empire for 400 years - but lost by it following its defeat in World War I.

Whilst Arab self-determination was to occur in 99.99% of the captured territory - the right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home was limited to the remaining 0.01%. of that territory.

The Levy Report elaborates:

“In August 1922 the League of Nations approved the Mandate which was given to Britain, and thus the Jewish people’s right to settle in the Land of Israel, their historic homeland, and to establish their state there, was recognized in international law.

To complete the picture, we’ll add that with the establishment of the United Nations in 1945, the principle of recognizing the validity of existing rights of states acquired under various mandates, including of course the rights of Jews to settle in the Land of Israel by virtue of the above documents, was determined in article 80 of its charter”

The International Court of Justice had failed to consider the Mandate and article 80 when it delivered its non-binding advisory opinion on 9 July 2004 that Israel had no legal right to erect part of Israel’s security barrier in the West Bank.

That decision has since been used by the United Nations and detractors of Israel to repeatedly discredit and delegitimise Israel’s right to maintain its claim to sovereignty in any part of the West Bank and for Jews to live there.

Surprisingly it was Egyptian appointee to the International Court - Judge El-Araby - who in fact had cautioned the other 14 Justices against ignoring an examination of the legal effect of the Mandate:

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

Regrettably Judge El-Araby’s sage advice was ignored - as the Levy Report now makes very clear.

In one respect the International Court could be excused for failing to consider the Mandate and Article 80 - since the then Secretary General of the United Nations - Kofi Annan - had failed to include these vital documents in the dossier of 88 documents he was required to submit to the Court that were “likely to throw light upon the question” - as he was legally required to do under Article 65 of the Court‘s statute.

The International Court’s decision was fatally flawed as a result.

If you only submit half the relevant documents - you are sure to get only half an answer.

Those persons who prepared the dossier of documents and Mr Annan himself now need explain how documents - deemed so relevant by the Levy Committee - were omitted from the dossier submitted to the International Court.

The Levy Committee - after having considered the Mandate and Article 80 - concluded:

“.. we have no doubt that from the perspective of international law, the establishment of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria is legal”

The Levy Committee dismissed the opinion of the International Court that the legal status of this tiny sliver of land between Jordan and Israel - the size of Delaware - was solely governed by the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention 1949 - when stating:.

“We do not believe that one can draw an analogy between this legal provision and those who sought to settle in Judea and Samaria not as a result of them being “deported” or “transferred” but because of their world view - to settle the Land of Israel.

We did not ignore the view of those who think that one should interpret the Fourth Geneva Convention as also prohibiting the occupying state to encourage or support the transfer of parts of its population to the occupied territory, even if it did not initiate it

But even if this interpretation is correct, we would not change our conclusion that no analogy should be drawn between Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria, in light of the status of the territory under international law”

It would surely be the height of folly for the United Nations and Israel’s denigrators to continue to categorically spruik that Israel’s presence in the West Bank is illegal following the release of the Levy Report.

The United Nations needs to come clean and investigate why highly relevant documents to support the legal claim of Jews to settle in the West Bank were withheld from the International Court.

Will the egg splattered all over the United Nations following the release of the reasoned and considered Levy Report deter it from conducting such an investigation?

The continuing use of the International Court decision and the Fourth Geneva Convention to assert that Israel has no legal right to remain in even one square meter of the West Bank must now be seriously questioned.

Ironically Judge El-Araby is now the Secretary General of the Arab League and meets with Mr Annan frequently in Mr Annan’s new job with the United Nations trying to stop the slaughter in Syria.

Maybe Mr Annan can explain the cover up to Judge El-Araby over a cup of Turkish coffee.

Don’t hold your breath waiting

Hillary Huffs,Arab League Puffs,Abbas Blows The House Down

[Published March 2010]

It may seem discourteous to Jews and Arabs to refer to their current spat in the same breath as the tale of the three little pigs.

There is rare unanimity between Jews and Arabs when it comes to pigs - both religions forbid the eating of pig or any product derived from pig.

However this common bond has been trashed into pig swill when it comes to Jews and Arabs living within cooee of each other on a postage sized piece of land comprising 5% of historic Palestine with an area approximating the size of Delaware.

The squeals and snorts emanating from the Arab side at the thought of Israel building 1600 housing units in East Jerusalem to accommodate the burgeoning population growth among religious Jewish families averaging 5-6 children continues with ever piercing ferocity. It is almost certain to erupt in a frenzy of demonstrations and stone throwing.

You would think the Arabs were being led to the slaughter and were being pushed out of their existing residences to make way for the Jews. Certainly there have been Court ordered evictions of Arab squatters on Jewish owned properties in East Jerusalem but the 1600 planned units were not slated to be built on the site of those disputed properties.

Israel certainly did commit a huge PR gaffe in announcing its intention to build those 1600 housing units in East Jerusalem for a group of religious Jews who do not even support the existence of Israel as a Jewish State.

To make that announcement was extremely naïve and provocative at precisely the time that the Vice President of the United States - Joseph Biden - was visiting Jerusalem - with an entourage that had booked out 200 hotel rooms - to launch the beginning of proximity negotiations to supposedly advance the resolution of competing Arab and Jewish claims to sovereignty in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The Arab League - believing it could now renege on giving its blessing to those negotiations commencing - - then promptly committed its own PR gaffe in withdrawing its consent to those proximity talks being held - - just two days after agreeing those talks should go ahead .

The American Vice President however appeared to accept Israel’s apology unreservedly.

There the matter should have ended and the proximity talks begun but for the intervention of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who roundly condemned Israel for spoiling what would have been seen as a triumph of American diplomacy in bringing a recalcitrant Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas back to the negotiating pen.

Clinton’s verbal onslaught on Israel encouraged Abbas to believe he could now get America to demand Israel halt all building activity in East Jerusalem before the proximity talks were begun.

America - albeit reluctantly - had accepted Israel’s position almost four months ago that there would be no such halt as a condition to the resumption of any negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas now mistakenly sniffed a new opportunity to wheedle out of the proximity negotiations with an enraged Hillary Clinton’s backing.

The Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator - Saeb Erekat - certainly conveyed that impression when making the following statement:

“The PA “welcomes the statements from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Quartet condemning the Israeli government decision to build settlements in the eastern sector of Jerusalem…

We want these positions to become binding and for Israel to scrap its settlement decisions, especially its plan to build 1600 homes in Jerusalem…

We want a total halt… we want to stop this Israeli policy that is useless and destructive for the peace process, especially for the US administration’s honest efforts to relaunch real and serious negotiations.”

Hillary Clinton’s huff however had more to do with something ingrained in Arab culture - the loss of face and the need to regain face as soon as possible.

Abbas already had found himself suffering a distinct loss of face when he agreed to commence proximity negotiations - and only after the Arab League provided him with the face saving cover to do so.

His political opponents - Hamas - and other radical Palestinian Arab groups had ridiculed his decision and denigrated his authority when commenting on Abbas’s decision:

“This decision will have serious repercussions for the Palestinians and their cause,” said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip. “This decision will help Israel in ending the state of isolation it has been in because of its war crimes against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

Another Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, condemned the decision to resume the negotiations as a “crime” against the Palestinians.

“We consider these negotiations, which will take place in the wake of Israeli escalation against our people and holy sites, a national crime,” he said. “Anyone who negotiates with the occupation is a criminal against our people.”

Abbas was feeling decidedly threatened by his own brethren until Israel’s intemperate announcement provided the Arab League and himself with what he thought was an opportunity for another opportunity to miss an opportunity and regain the loss of face he had sustained by bending to American pressure to agree to proximity negotiations in the first place.

Vice President Biden’s immediate acceptance of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s apology however left the Arab League and Abbas high and dry yet again and subject to even further loss of face if Abbas limply crawled back to the negotiating table in the face of Israel’s provocative announcement to build those 1600 units in East Jerusalem. Hamas would have had a real field day in denouncing Abbas.

Hillary’s attempt to play piggy in the middle by rapping Israel severely over the knuckles thereby restoring Abbas’s loss of face among his own power base, saving his bacon and enabling him to once again agree to conducting proximity negotiations - had backfired.

Abbas misinterpreted Hillary’s huff as a signal that America would now pressure Israel to cease all building activity in East Jerusalem before he was required to commence any proximity negotiations.

If Abbas believes that America will insist Israel do that - then pigs might really fly.

Palestine - Mountains And Molehills

[Published November 2009]

Judging by the fuss and flurry over the past week you would think that the world was in meltdown unless a resolution was found to finalising claims of sovereignty by Jews and Arabs to a piece of land 280 square kilometres in area (equal to just 5% of the size of Delaware) - forming part of the 5640 square kilometre territory called the “West Bank“.

Everyone involved needs to take a deep breath, calm down and review where this dispute is now at and put it in its proper perspective in the light of the events of the last seven days.

Continuing Palestinian Authority intransigence to concede even one square kilometre of this territory to Israel led to a breakdown in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority 12 months ago. Since then there have been large changes in the political landscape including the invasion of Gaza by Israel, the election of a new Government in Israel, the publication of the Goldstone Report and the continuing unresolved division of governance in the West Bank and Gaza between Fatah and Hamas.

The West Bank holds deep emotional and religious ties for the Jews - since it is the biblical heartland of the Jewish people - and is part of the territory within which the Jewish National Home was to be reconstituted under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

430000 Jews also happen to live in these 280 square kilometres pursuant to legal rights conferred on them by the Mandate for Palestine and the UN Charter. Israel also considers retention of this area to be absolutely essential for its security because of its strategic location.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 predicated that an area of the West Bank would be retained under Israel’s sovereignty as part of its secure and recognized borders in any negotiations.

In a fit of pique the Palestinian Authority has now refused to resume negotiations with Israel - ostensibly because Israel refuses to stop building houses and public buildings in the cities and population centres in the West Bank already designated and established for Jewish development - the so-called “settlements“.

For the Arabs, their interest in continuing to reject Israel’s claim to this 280 square kilometres is directed at driving out its Jewish residents and reducing the security of Israel in pursuit of a policy aimed at eventually destroying Israel by creating yet another Arab state - the 22nd - in the world.

The President of the Palestinian Authority - Mahmoud Abbas - threatened this week not to stand for President at the next elections supposedly to be held in January. Such elections are unlikely since his political opponent - Hamas - has the power to stymie the elections and has indicated it will do so.

Abbas is presently holding on to power illegitimately since his term expired last January. The vacancy caused should have been filled by the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council - Aziz Dweik - but Mr Abbas refuses to yield.

Notwithstanding his political impotence - Mr Abbas hoped his threatened resignation would bring forth cries to rethink his resignation because a Hamas nominee might become President.

Some in Israel rose to the bait.

Israel’s ceremonial President Shimon Peres and the failed politician Yossi Beilin headed the Israeli chorus calling on Abbas to recant.

Peres recalled that along with Rabin, he and Abbas were among signatories to the 1993 Oslo peace accord and he appealed to Abbas by name not to quit.

“We both signed the Oslo agreement, I turn to you as a colleague, don’t let go.”

Beilin told the Lebanon Daily Star:

“The resignation threat presents a real danger because there is no other Palestinian leader on the horizon who can enjoy the same international prestige and try to lead his public to an agreement with Israel. If Abbas tells US President Barack Obama he is considering resigning, the American leader should not consider this an empty threat. It would constitute a blow to his administration’s regional policies, following long months of wasted time and empty maneuvers.”

Apparently President Obama was unmoved by such pleas as his Secretary of State reportedly accepted Mr Abbas’s resignation. Abbas had clearly lost the poker game on this score.

Abbas will now no doubt try to hold on to the reins of power in the absence of any elections. However he is a spent force incapable of delivering anything he signs or agrees to.

Statements and contradicting statements were also made by various Arab spokesmen during the week threatening to dismantle the Palestinian Authority. This was yet another attempt to pressure Israel to stop all building activity in the “settlements“ as the price for the resumption of negotiations.

As a tactic it could not possibly work. Israel had already made concessions in this area that Secretary of State Clinton had acknowledged to be “unprecedented” .

In a November 4 interview with Jackie Northam of National Public Radio Clinton said:

“What is so clear is that once borders are decided, the settlement issue goes away. The Israelis build whatever they want in their territory, the Palestinians build whatever they want in theirs,”

America had again spoken to clear the air in an attempt to make Abbas see sense and resolve the issue of borders without delay. Her advice seems certain to be ignored. He is in no position to concede any land without bringing the wrath of Hamas on him.

Just in case Abbas was not listening to Clinton - President Obama had the following to say in a taped video played at the Rabin Memorial Commemoration on 8 November:

"Palestinian dreams of statehood will be deferred unless Israelis are assured of their own safety and security”

The abject surrender of control in Gaza to Hamas has destroyed the credibility and effectiveness of the Palestinian Authority to govern any area of the West Bank in a way that could possibly meet Israel’s security requirements.

There is only one Arab State that can possibly do that - Jordan - the last Arab state to occupy the West Bank from 1948-1967 - and with whom Israel has a signed peace treaty that has stood the test of time and many pressures faced by both countries since the treaty was signed in 1994.

A trial balloon was also floated this week suggesting Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Fayyad was seeking a new Security Council resolution to replace Resolution 242 in a bid to win the international community’s support for the borders of a Palestinian state. The move was said to be designed to bring stronger pressure on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.

This idea is doomed to failure in the Security Council.

All the Arab huff and puff of the past week should be viewed as failed and desperate attempts by the Palestinian Authority to make mountains out of molehills so as to avoid making decisions on borders and to try and shore up support for its rapid decline in political influence.

The Authority and Abbas have jumped head first into the abyss leaving Israel with no reliable or credible negotiating partner. They should both be replaced by Jordan as Israel‘s Arab partner for negotiations on the future sovereignty of the West Bank.

Until this change occurs President Obama should turn his attention and efforts to resolving the really serious problems that presently confront him - Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, climate change, his own domestic economy, universal health care and terrorism within the military.

Leave the Arabs and Jews alone to first sort out this minimalist territorial issue over a sliver of land.

The agreement on borders still remains the first mountain to be climbed by Arab negotiators. There are others to follow but if this - the easiest to climb - cannot be achieved then it is pointless trying to scale the much higher peaks - refugees, water,Jerusalem, demilitarization - that still remain to be conquered.

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.

No Drama From Obama

[Published July 2008]

Barack Obama’s visit to Jordan and Israel this week turned out to be one very big yawn as he endorsed President Bush’s fundamentally flawed and totally failed plan - the so called “two state solution” - designed to create a new Arab State between Jordan and Israel - where none has ever existed before.

Hailed as the shining light for change on America’s political horizon Mr Obama showed himself to be completely bereft of any new ideas to end the territorial conflict between Jews and Arabs over this tiny piece of land the size of Delaware.

This was clearly evident as he told a press conference in Amman:

“I do believe that an ultimate resolution is going to involve two states standing side by side in peace and security, and that the Israelis and the Palestinians are going to both have to make compromises in order to arrive at that two-state solution.”

What Mr Obama ignores is the fact that 5 years of the most intense diplomatic pressure by America, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations - the Quartet - has failed to bring even the slightest hint of any breakthrough in realising the Bush solution that Mr Obama still so seriously espouses.

Mr Obama sought to explain away the failure to achieve this “ultimate resolution” by asserting to the assembled media:

“Now, one of the difficulties that we have right now is that in order to make those compromises you have to have strong support from your people, and the Israeli government right now is unsettled. You know, the Palestinians are divided between Fatah and Hamas. And so it’s difficult for either side to make the bold move that would bring about peace the way, for example, the peace between Israel and Egypt was brought about. Those leaders were in a much stronger position to initiate that kind of peace.”

This statement is a complete furphy for three major reasons:

1. Israel’s Government is not unsettled - unless you call threats to flee the coalition unsettling, which is a constant fact of life in all democracies. Whilst its Prime Minister is almost out on his knees, the democratically elected Government continues to maintain a parliamentary majority and the confidence of the Knesset to ensure that any compromises an Israeli Government makes will be honoured and enforced .

2. The objectives of Fatah and Hamas are identical - the elimination of the existence of Israel as the Jewish State - as both their constitutions frankly and openly declare. Hamas says this can only be achieved by armed struggle whilst Fatah thinks it can happen via the diplomatic route.

No matter which one of them the Palestinians choose - or even if they reconcile and reunite to form a government of national unity - how then can there ever be any bold move for peace whilst this joint mind set continues to persist and what is the point of any further negotiations with either of them until such racist ideology is first removed from their respective platforms?

3. The peace between Israel and Egypt concerned sovereign territory that belonged to Egypt prior to its loss to Israel in 1967. This then became a far easier conflict to resolve than the West Bank and Gaza - territory in which sovereignty has remained undetermined since 1920 but to which Israel claims superior title over any other claimants under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, article 80 of the United Nations Charter and Security Council resolutions 242 and 337.

Mr Obama cannot be that ignorant, naïve or poorly advised to be unaware of these basic contradictions to his statement to the media

He himself has given Hamas and Fatah notice of his stance on their policy to eliminate Israel telling a meeting of the American and Israel Public Affairs Committee just last month :

“[A]ny agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.”

In doing so Mr Obama has given his wholehearted endorsement to a similar statement made by President Bush to Israel in 2004 - sounding the death knell then - and now - for President Bush’s vision ever coming to fruition.

This is the ultimate deal breaker that neither Hamas nor Fatah will ever be prepared to relinquish and which America has quite rightly said is totally abhorrent and must be rejected.

Mr Obama has now also affirmed to the Jerusalem Post in an interview this week that there will have to be some “give and take” in the West Bank - knowing full well that the Palestinian Authority has refused to give even one square metre for the last five years. He also made it clear in the same interview that Israel cannot be expected to return to the armistice lines that existed prior to the Six Day War in June 1967.

So why is Mr Obama still endorsing President Bush’s two state solution when he knows it can never eventuate?

Is this how he seeks to establish his leadership and foreign policy credentials - by continuing to engage in a diplomatic process begun by the incumbent American President that has been a total diplomatic disaster since it was first articulated?

Why would Mr Obama want to be associated with this clear policy failure by - and humiliation of - the world’s only superpower to bring about the division of a tiny piece of real estate between two competing parties to end the conflict between them?

In continuing to endorse Mr Bush’s failed vision, Mr Obama has made it clear that he is more interested in not rocking the American political boat by giving his opponents any sniff that he might contemplate a different direction in resolving the Arab-Israeli dispute.

In doing so he has aligned himself with a failed President - obviously deciding this is less of a political risk than formulating his own bold move for trying to achieve what so many past American Presidents have wanted to do - but also failed to achieve.

That might be smart politics - but it has merely confirmed that on this issue he lacks the sincerity and conviction to be the architect for change and to break the unbridgeable deadlock that has spelt doom for the current negotiations and will continue to plague them until they are finally disbanded.

Meanwhile the killing and carnage will continue followed by the usual condemnations and recriminations.

Mr Obama’s visit to the Middle East this week has shown he is just your ordinary politician after all.