Abbas runs rings around Biden & Bennett

 It didn’t take long for President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to be shown up as inept political leaders following the much-publicised visit by President of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Chairman of Fatah its largest faction – Mahmoud Abbas - to the home of Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz. 

Their two-and-a-half hour’s meeting was Abbas’s first in Israel since meeting then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Jerusalem in 2010.

Whilst Bennett privately criticized Gantz’s intention to hold the meeting and expressed resentment about the hosting of Abbas in Gantz’s home – he did nothing to prevent it occurring. 

Some Ministers in Bennett’s Government were not so circumspect. 

Housing Minister Ze’ev Elkin said: 

“I wouldn’t have invited to my home someone who pays salaries to murderers of Israelis and also wants to put senior IDF officers in prison in The Hague, including the host himself.” 

Elkin was referring to Abbas’s:

• Pay for slay policy: paying monthly stipends to terrorists in Israeli jails and the families of slain terrorists killed while committing terror attacks. These annual payments now total over US$300 million – about 8% of Abbas’s budget.
• Campaign to see Israeli security officials - including Gantz — a former Israeli chief of staff — being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court as war criminals.

Israel’s Communications Minister - Yoaz Hendel – said he:

 “personally wouldn’t have met” with Abbas, who “in my eyes is still a Holocaust denier and is playing a very strange double game.”

However Abbas’s visit brought this effusive response from US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price:

“The US is very pleased Defense Minister Gantz hosted PA President Abbas at his home in Israel. We hope confidence-building measures discussed will accelerate momentum to further advance freedom, security, and prosperity for Palestinians and Israelis alike in 2022.” 

Abbas walked away with a bag of goodies - but Gantz got nothing in return.

Among the benefits bestowed by Gantz on Abbas were:

• A NIS 100 million loan (US$32.2 million) on tax revenues Israel collects on Abbas’s behalf. 

Gantz had handed Abbas a similar NIS 500 million advance (US$160 million) last August – after meeting with Abbas in Ramallah following the formation of the current Israeli government in June 2021.

No doubt these moneys will come in very handy in maintaining Abbas’s pay for slay policy – which also runs counter to America’s Taylor Force Act which declares:

“The Palestinian Authority’s practice of paying salaries to terrorists serving in Israeli prisons, as well as to the families of deceased terrorists, is an incentive to commit acts of terror.”

• Legalizing the status of 9,500 Palestinians and foreigners living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza who are there without proper documentation.

Just three days later whilst speaking on the 57th anniversary of Fatah’s first-ever attack in Israel – the unsuccessful targeting of Israel’s National Water Carrier – Abbas did not even mention his meeting with Gantz – but delivered this blistering tirade against Israel: 

“The anniversary of the launch of our revolution comes under extremely critical and difficult circumstances due to the continuation of the heinous Israeli occupation, the escalation of its repressive practices and persecution of our people, the theft of our land and natural resources, the stifling of our economy, the withholding of our tax funds, and racial discrimination,” 

Abbas praised Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli jails for their “sacrifices and patience” stressing that the Palestinian government would not abandon them or their families.

Biden and Bennett’s overtures had been rejected by Abbas - an unrepentant supporter of terrorism.

How much longer will Biden and Bennett let Abbas run rings around them before they pull the rug out from under his feet?

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 

Two-state solution sinks as Biden tries to resurrect it

 

Postponement of the upcoming Palestinian elections on May 22nd for the 132 member Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) seems virtually assured with the report from an “unnamed US source” that Washington would not object to any such postponement.

The potential boost to Hamas’s power in winning this election at the expense of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) would spell the death knell for the creation of an independent Palestinian State located in all of Gaza, Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and East Jerusalem (“target area”).

Amazingly this failed solution still continues to be pushed by the international community 40 years after the Venice Declaration first embraced it.

President Trump’s plan to create another Arab State in about 70%—rather than 100% — of the target area — was effectively discarded by President Biden from the day he became President — rewarding the PLO for its unequivocal rejection of Trump’s proposal by resuming much of America’s financial largesse to the PLO and international organisations withdrawn by Trump.

Particularly noteworthy has been Biden’s failure to demand that the PLO end its “pay for slay policy” that rewards the killing and maiming of Jews with substantial payments to the perpetrators or their families — currently running in excess of $300 million per annum.

In agreeing to postpone the May 22 PLC elections — Biden is trying to keep alive the failed 40 years-old “two-state solution” that realistically has never had any chance of succeeding.

The PLC first met on March 7, 1996. Under the 1995 Oslo II Accord, the powers and responsibilities of the PLC are restricted to civil matters and internal security in Area A of the West Bank and Gaza, while in Area B they are restricted to civil affairs with security matters being shared with Israel. In Area C, Israel has full control.

The 2006 election for the second PLC was the last PLC election held. Hamas and Hamas-affiliated members won 74 of the 132 seats — whilst its main rival — Fatah — the dominant faction in the PLO— won 43 of the remaining 58 seats.

There seems little prospect of Hamas being overhauled if the May elections are held.

The PLO refusal to accept the 2006 election result saw the bitter internecine Hamas–Fatah split in 2007 with the PLC ceasing to function ever since.

The logos adopted by both Hamas and Fatah for the upcoming PLC elections indicate Hamas and the PLO — and many others — are still not prepared to abandon their claims to wipe Israel off the map –Palestine Media Watch pointing out:.

“The logos that are being used by the 36 parties in the PA parliamentary elections are a window to aspects of Palestinian ideology and goals. 11 of the lists include in their logos the PA map of “Palestine” that erases all of the State of Israel and includes it in “Palestine.” The two dominant Palestinian political movements, Fatah of Mahmoud Abbas that is the major party ruling the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, that rules the Gaza Strip, include the map of “Palestine” that erases Israel. Fatah’s logo also includes two rifles and a grenade, indicating that the goal of liberation of “Palestine,” i.e., the destruction of Israel, will be through military means. The Future party of Muhammad Dahlan — a Fatah breakaway — likewise uses the map.

The following are the names of the 11 political parties and logos that include the PA map of “Palestine” that erases Israel and includes it in “Palestine.”

A picture is worth a 1000 words.

Biden’s foray into resolving the 100-years old Arab-Jewish conflict has got off to a disastrous start.


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 and Israel dabble in Hamas and PLO quicksand

[Published 8 August 2018]

President Trump’s attempt to see a five-year Gaza ceasefire negotiated between Hamas and Israel seems to be an exercise in futility destined to failure.

America’s involvement first surfaced on 7 July when “an unnamed senior Trump administration official” stated:

“We definitely have a Gaza focus right now because the situation is the way it is, and we want to try to help. But it’s not as though we think we need to fix Gaza first before we would air the peace plan.”

If it sounds like a cop-out and looks like a cop-out — it is a cop-out.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) had made it very clear months ago it would have nothing to do with Trump’s yet to-be-released peace plan — no matter when it is aired.

Arab States supportive of Trump’s plan were wavering.

Leaving those small technicalities aside - any negotiations between Israel and Hamas over Gaza would be anathema to the PLO - which has been engaged in an internecine struggle with Hamas to govern Gaza since 2007.

Indeed Fatah spokesman Osama Qawasmeh has already reportedly said the number one priority should be achieving Palestinian unity on the basis of previous agreements signed between Hamas and Fatah - and not a truce with Israel in return for humanitarian aid.

Trump’s “ultimate deal” was initially foreshadowed back in 2016 — before Trump was even sworn in as President:

“I believe that my administration can play a significant role in helping the parties to achieve a just, lasting peace — which must be negotiated between the parties themselves, and not imposed on them by others. Israel and the Jewish people deserve no less”

Trump did not then define who he meant by “the parties”.

Given the developments in the Middle East generally since 2016 - and in Gaza and the West Bank specifically - both Hamas and the PLO seem to have disqualified themselves from possibly participating in negotiating Trump’s peace plan. This leaves the way open for Jordan and Egypt — the last two Arab States to occupy the West Bank and Gaza respectively between 1948 and 1967 — to fill the empty Hamas and PLO chairs at the negotiating table with Israel.

Trump’s new Gaza approach is conditioned upon the following observation made by his three negotiating emissaries — Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman — in their op-ed article in the Washington Post on 20 July:

“For far too long, Gaza has lurched from crisis to crisis, sustained by emergency appeals and one-time caravans of aid, without dealing with the root cause: Hamas leadership is holding the Palestinians of Gaza captive. This problem must be recognized and resolved or we will witness yet another disastrous cycle.”

Hamas is not going to suddenly disappear or allow free and fair elections in Gaza to determine who shall govern Gaza’s population. Any reconciliation by Hamas with the PLO seems most unlikely to occur.

Israel appears to be going along with this Gaza trial balloon being floated by Trump.

Realistically however — ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas will be fatuous unless the following provision in the 1988 Hamas Covenant is shredded:

“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. ...

Trump needs to persuade previously-supportive but now-wavering Arab States to back his peace plan being released without delay.

For Trump to contemplate being dragged into the Hamas and PLO quicksand that has claimed so many sincerely-intentioned do-gooders preceding him is incomprehensible.

PLO-Hamas referendum could boost Trump peace plans

[Published 10 October 2017]


There is little hope that reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah will end a decade of bitter internecine feuding which has seen a parallel entrenchment of territorial divisions between them in Gaza and the West Bank.

Gazan and West Bank Arab populations will continue to be the victims of this ongoing power play as both groups remain bitterly opposed to recognising Israel as the Jewish National Home.

Elections have not been held since January 2006 when Hamas won a large majority in the new Palestinian parliament trouncing the governing Fatah party.
Since then – conflict between Hamas and Fatah has seen any prospect of the peaceful creation of a second Arab State – in addition to Jordan – in the territory encompassed by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – consigned to the diplomatic scrapheap.

Now it seems that Hamas and Fatah are seeking yet again to come to some form of reconciliation - which will only be about preserving their own organisations and retaining their current powers and privileges and have nothing to do with giving their long-suffering populations any say in their own future.

Clearly whatever game of musical chairs they intend to play – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made Israel’s position very clear - reportedly stating that as part of any reconciliation Hamas must:

1. Recognize Israel

2. Dismantle Hamas’s military wing and

3. Break off ties with Iran.

Any hope of these conditions being met is a pipe dream.

Netanyahu also declared:

“We expect everyone who talks about a peace process to recognize the State of Israel and, of course, the Jewish state. We cannot accept fake reconciliation on the Palestinian side that comes at the expense of our existence.”

Again this is simply not going to happen.

Whatever window dressing occurs between Hamas and Fatah will therefore be of no consequence in resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict or in influencing President Trump to believe that such steps are capable of contributing to the President successfully brokering an end to that 100 years old conflict.

The absence of elections for eleven years has created a void that has had disastrous consequences for the Gazan and West Bank Arab populations - impacting the lives of every single Gazan and West Bank Arab.

The likelihood of free and fair elections continues to be a distant dream.

PLO leader Yasser Arafat – perhaps in an unguarded moment - made the following promise back in May 1983 when interviewed in Middle East Review:

“When the occupied territories are liberated, we will move towards a referendum that will set up constitutionally a framework for special relations between Jordan and liberated Palestine.”

That referendum has failed to materialise despite the fact that since 2007:

1. Hamas has controlled 100% of Gaza and its entire population

2. The PLO – of which Fatah is the major member – has controlled 40% of the West Bank within which 95% of the total West Bank Arab population currently reside.

Arafat’s referendum proposal should be implemented - if elections are once again denied.

Holding this referendum would indicate a willingness by both Hamas and Fatah to work towards a peaceful resolution of the Jewish-Arab conflict - working arm in arm with Jordan – rather than continuing their belligerent confrontation with Israel – both militarily and diplomatically - that has marked the last 10 years.

Such a referendum would send a clear signal to President Trump that there could indeed be some possible light at the end of the Gazan terrorist-tunnels - that a framework involving Jordan represents the best possible way forward out of the current impasse.

Seeing the referendum realised remains the challenge for Trump to pursue.

Abbas concessions kick-start Trump attempt to resolve Israel-Arab conflict

[Published 12 June 2017]

Three concessions made by Mahmoud Abbas - following pressure placed on him by President Trump - open the way to possible negotiations between Israel, the Palestinian Arabs, Egypt and Jordan to resolve the 100 years old Israel-Arab conflict.

Abbas has agreed to:

1. Withdraw his 2014 demand that Israel first agree to freeze building within Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as a precondition to resuming negotiations with Israel.

2. Tone down his campaign to prosecute Israel for alleged war crimes and rallying condemnation of the Jewish state at the United Nations.

3. Cease paying salaries to 277 released Hamas prisoners including Director of Hamas’s Political Bureau in the Gaza Strip - Yahya Al-Sinwar.

Israel sentenced Al-Sinwar to four life terms in the late 1980s but released him after 23 years imprisonment in a swap of 1,047 Palestinian prisoners for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006. Al-Sinwar headed Hamas’s first security unit responsible for tracking and killing Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.

Abbas’s spectacular capitulation comes just two weeks after his reportedly fiery meeting with President Trump in Bethlehem on 23 May — when Trump had stressed:

”.. the importance of creating an environment consistent with the desire for peace”

Trump had then warned Abbas at their subsequent media conference:

“Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded. We must be resolute in condemning such acts in a single, unified voice.”

These three Abbas concessions may sufficiently satisfy Trump to pressure Netanyahu to resume negotiations.

However such negotiations — if conducted only between Abbas and Netanyahu - will assuredly fail and end up in the garbage bin of history - joining other unsuccessful negotiations conducted between them over the last ten years - for the following reasons:

1. Whilst Hamas and Fatah continue their internecine struggle for political control of the Gazan and West Bank Arab populations and refuse to countenance the holding of elections for the first time since 2006 — no permanent peace agreement can emerge from such resumed negotiations.

2. Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation will not abandon their campaigns to wipe Israel off the face of the map — as clearly stated in their respective Charters.

Trump will need to unscramble the following seemingly intractable demands being made by Netanyahu and Abbas if he wants to succeed where so many before him have abjectly failed:

1. Israel being recognised as the national home of the Jewish people

2. Israel retaining military and security control in and over Judea and Samaria (West Bank)

3. Any Palestinian State being demilitarised

4. Jerusalem remaining united as the capital of Israel

5. A second Arab State - in addition to Jordan — being created in the territory of the Mandate for Palestine and the capital of that State being located in Jerusalem

6. Israel withdrawing totally from the territories lost by Jordan to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War

7. Palestinian Arabs retaining their claimed right of return to Israel.

Trump may well intend trying to resolve these demands by including other Arab States in any new round of negotiations — as this White House Press Office Readout of Trump’s 23rd May meeting with Abbas tantalisingly suggests:

“The two leaders discussed ways to advance negotiations and considered how Arab states might support those negotiations.”

Egypt and Jordan — enjoying signed peace treaties with Israel since 1979 and 1994 respectively - could be just those States.

Such four-party negotiations - conducted under Trump’s oversight and using his proven skills in successfully negotiating and concluding deals - could be the key to ending the logjam of failed negotiations since 1993.

Hope springs eternal.

Palestine: PLO humiliated for denying free speech and elections

[Published 9 March 2017]


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

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

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

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

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

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

Ribhi Halloum — a former PLO Ambassador stressed:

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

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

“attempt to divide the Palestinian people.”

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

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

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

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

Conference spokesman Said Ziyad al Aloul supports this conclusion:

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

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

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

Khalid Turaani, another spokesperson for the conference reportedly claimed:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

President Trump should jump to seal the deal.

United Nations Must End Hamas and PLO Stranglehold On Power

[Published 9 September 2016]


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. allow corruption and nepotism to become entrenched and

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing has changed.

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

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

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

Palestine – Abbas Emasculates Quartet, Humiliates United Nations and European Union

[Published 21 July 2016]


PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s failure to accept the recent Quartet Report has effectively emasculated the role of the Quartet and humiliated the United Nations and European Union in their efforts to resolve the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict.

The Quartet website points out:

“Established in 2002, the Quartet consists of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia. Its mandate is to help mediate Middle East peace negotiations and to support Palestinian economic development and institution building. It meets regularly at the level of the Quartet Principals (United Nations Secretary General, United States Secretary of State, Foreign Minister of Russia, and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy) and at the Special Envoy level as well.”

Given the Quartet’s crucial role – Abbas should have accepted the Report with equanimity and pledged his readiness to stamp out reprehensible conduct identified in the Report:

“Palestinians who commit terrorist attacks are often glorified publicly as “heroic martyrs.” Many widely circulated images depict individuals committing terrorist acts with slogans encouraging violence. The spreading of incitement to violence on social media has gained momentum since October 2015, and is particularly affecting the youth.”

As Chairman of Fatah – the dominant faction in the PLO – Abbas would not have enjoyed reading the Quartet’s following condemnation of his failed leadership:

“Some members of Fatah have publicly supported attacks and their perpetrators, as well as encouraged violent confrontation. In the midst of this recent wave of violence, a senior Fatah official referred to perpetrators as “heroes and a crown on the head of every Palestinian.” Fatah social media has shown attackers superimposed next to Palestinian leaders following terrorist attacks”

Abbas was subjected to the following further criticism:

“Regrettably, however, Palestinian leaders have not consistently and clearly condemned specific terrorist attacks. And streets, squares and schools have been named after Palestinians who have committed acts of terrorism.”

Abbas’s pathetic response was to claim that the Report:

"does not further the cause for peace… We hope that the Security Council does not support this report,"

Abbas can’t be serious. Asking the United Nations to reject a Report to which it is a contributing party is incomprehensible. Expecting the European Union to act likewise would be irrational.

Abbas joins a long list of Arab leaders who rejected offers made possible by the efforts of the international community to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict in 1922, 1937, 1947, 2000/1 and 2007.

The conflict could have been ended between 1948 and 1967 with the stroke of an Arab League pen - after six of its member-State armies invaded Palestine in 1948 and forcibly expelled every single Jew living in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), Gaza and East Jerusalem.

United Nations and European Union calls for the creation of a second Arab State in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan – since the 1980 Venice Declaration have been mistakenly construed by the PLO as a license to unrealistically demand:

• The return of millions of “refugees” to Israel
• Establishment of the prospective State of Palestine in all of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital
• Non-recognition of Israel as the Jewish National Home

The United Nations and the European Union have gone to extraordinary lengths to continue supporting the PLO despite the continuing terror, hatred and incitement now identified in the Quartet Report.

Abbas fumes and fulminates whilst illegally clinging to power.

Attacking the Quartet – and by association - the United Nations and European Union - are acts of unbelievable ingratitude and incredible political stupidity.

Abbas has sown the seeds for his own political demise.

Palestine - Elections Key To Ending Senseless Acts Of Self-Destruction

[Published 28 December 2015]


Elections in the West Bank and Gaza – last held in 2006 - increasingly appear to be the key to ending the past three months of random Arab stabbing and car ramming attacks on Israel’s Jewish civilian population, armed forces, border police and security guards.

97 stabbings were recorded – including at least 14 committed by Arab children aged between 11 and 16 and another 16 between ages 17 and 21. 19 cars were deliberately driven off the roads into crowds of people waiting at bus stops or assembly points.

These attacks occurred both in Israel and the West Bank.

Most of the perpetrators were killed or apprehended committing such acts – whilst a few remain at large.

Israel explains these latest tactics as forming part of the strategy of “popular resistance” adopted at the Sixth Fatah Conference in August 2009 by the Palestinian Authority (defunct since 2013) and Fatah – the dominant party in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

Such call to action resulted from continuing frustration that negotiations between Israel and the PLO under the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2003 Bush Roadmap had failed to create a Jew-free Palestinian Arab State throughout the entire West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

The reality is that such a negotiated solution has always been an impossible pipedream that could never happen.

500000 Jews will not voluntarily vacate their homes nor abandon their livelihoods in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to satisfy these racist and totally unacceptable PLO territorial demands – a major stumbling block to successfully concluding any negotiated agreement.

At present:

1. The PLO exercises exclusive administrative control over 95% of the existing West Bank Arab population who live within about 40% of the West Bank (Areas “A” and “B”)

2. The PLO exercises exclusive security control in Area “A” and shares security control with Israel in Area “B”

3. Israel exercises exclusive administrative and security control over Area “C” – 60% of the West Bank - where 350000 Jews and 50000 Arabs currently reside

4. Hamas exercises complete administrative and security control in all of Gaza

5. East Jerusalem has been unilaterally declared to be part of Israel’s capital

6. The PLO and Hamas are still engaged in an internecine struggle extending over the last eight years to achieve complete political dominance over the other in the West Bank and Gaza whilst denying their long-suffering populations any say on who they want to govern them.

Given these unresolved political stalemates – between Israel/PLO and PLO/Hamas - one must legitimately question why those Arabs presently sacrificing their lives murdering Jews do not choose to vent their wrath against the PLO and Hamas by demanding long overdue elections.

The PLO and Hamas – like all previous Palestinian Arab leaders over the last 100 years - have refused any compromises with the Jewish people – inciting their own people to murder Jews and kill themselves in the process to advance their documented political objective of wiping Israel off the map.

Palestinian Arabs denied a vote for the last 10 years need the opportunity to express their continuing support or rejection of these policies.

Elections enabling fresh political parties to emerge with alternative leaderships offering new ideas on making peace with Israel appear as far away as ever.

The sorry story begun with the PLO in 1964 and Hamas in 1987 drags on with no hope for change.

“Popular resistance” in the West Bank and Gaza demanding long-overdue elections can achieve far better results than the spate of utterly futile and senseless acts of self-destruction directed against Jews during the last three months.

Casting a live vote always beats a dead end.

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 - Kerry's Credibility Crashes As Abbas's Intransigence Increases

[Published 28 March 2014]


US Secretary of State John Kerry has seen his reputation and prestige shredded to tatters over the past few weeks.

On 13 March Kerry told members of the House Foreign Relations committee that:

1. international law has already declared Israel a Jewish state, and

2. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s insistence on a public declaration of Israel’s Jewish character from the PLO was “a mistake” in the diplomatic process.

Kerry also told a Senate panel:

“‘Jewish state’ was resolved in 1947 in Resolution 181 where there are more than 40-30 mentions of ‘Jewish state’. In addition, chairman Arafat in 1988 and again in 2004 confirmed that he agreed it would be a Jewish state. And there are any other number of mentions.”

PLO Chairman and President of the State of Palestine—Mahmoud Abbas - was unimpressed with Kerry’s knowledge of international law.

On 16 March the New York Times reported:

“.. Mr. Abbas, speaking before a meeting in the Oval Office, made clear that he was no closer to uttering the words that are a litmus test for the Israelis: that he recognizes Israel as a Jewish state.

“Since 1988, we have recognized international legitimacy resolutions” on Israel, Mr. Abbas said as Mr. Obama looked on, a hand on his chin. “And in 1993, we recognized the State of Israel.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that the Palestinians go further and recognize Israel as a nation-state for the Jewish people in order to get a peace deal. Mr. Abbas has flatly refused, and his comments on Monday suggested he had gone as far as he would.”

On 19 March Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science at The City University of New York - Peter Beinart - provided this advice to Abbas:

“I have a suggestion for Mahmoud Abbas. The next time Benjamin Netanyahu demands that you recognize Israel as a “Jewish state,” tell him that you’ll agree on one condition. The Israeli cabinet must first agree on what “Jewish state” means. That should get you off the hook for a good long while.

Israel has never been able to define the term “Jewish state.”

The good Professor was obviously unaware that the term “Jewish State” had been defined for the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine in evidence given by David Ben-Gurion on 7 July 1947:

“What is the meaning of a Jewish State? As I told you before, a Jewish State does not mean one has to be a Jew. It means merely a State-where the Jews are in the majority, otherwise all the citizens have the same status. If the State were called by the name “Palestine,” - I said if - then all would be Palestinian citizens If the State would be given, another name - I think it would be given another name - because Palestine is neither a Jewish nor an Arab name. As far as the Arabs are concerned, and we have the evidence of the Arab historian, Hitti, that there was no such a thing as “Palestine” at all: Palestine is not an Arab name. Palestine is also not a Jewish name. When the Greeks were our enemies, in order not to annoy the Jews, they gave different names to the streets. So, maybe the name of Palestine will be changed. But whatever the name of the country, every citizen of the country will be a citizen. This is what we mean. This is what we have to mean. We cannot conceive that in a State where we are not in a minority, where we have the main responsibilities as the majority of the country, there should be the slightest discrimination between a Jew and a non-Jew.”

Abbas rejected Beinart’s unsolicited advice for one simple reason—any state that contained the word “Jewish” or any suggestion of being Jewish would never be acceptable to Abbas.

As Pinhas Inbari reported:

“On March 22, 2014, Abbas spoke before the Central Committee of the Fatah Movement. According to Nabil Abu Rodena, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority presidency, the Fatah body supported Abbas’ position of “non-recognition of Israel being a Jewish state.” The Palestinians did not release a complete text of Abbas’ Fatah speech.

At the Arab League summit in Kuwait on March 25, Abbas took this a step further. The official Arabic transcript of his speech before reveals how he has moved toward a more uncompromising diplomatic posture, opposing Israel’s stand that it be recognized as the nation-state of the Jewish people, just as it recognizes the Palestinian state as the nation-state of the Palestinian people:

“Israel has invented new conditions that it did not raise before, like recognizing it as a Jewish state. This we oppose as well as even holding a discussion on this matter.”

The Arab League was more than happy to oblige Abbas and rebuff Kerry - its final communiqué at the summit’s close stating:

“We express our absolute and decisive rejection to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.”

Kerry - left high and dry by this united show of Arab opposition to accepting what Kerry had trumpeted just 12 days earlier - was suddenly forced to fly to Amman on 26 March to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah in the afternoon and Abbas in the evening.

As Kerry’s credibility crashes - Abbas’s intransigence in refusing to recognize Israel as the Jewish State increases—a certain recipe for diplomatic disaster.

Palestine - No Elections No Solution

[Published 18 November 2013]


The PLO negotiating team - headed by perennial negotiator Saeb Erekat - resigned this week in the middle of a nine month period set aside for intense and secret negotiations with Israel to achieve the creation of a second Arab state - in addition to Jordan - in former Mandatory Palestine.

PLO Chairman, head of Fatah, unconstitutional self-styled President of the defunct Palestinian Authority and unelected President of the “State of Palestine” - Mahmoud Abbas - was quick to point out on Egyptian TV:

“Either we can convince it to return, and we’re trying with them, or we form a new delegation.”.

Either way - it will be a waste of time.

The “two state solution” posited by these currently stalled negotiations is doomed to failure.

Ramzy Baroud - a Palestinian-American journalist, author and editor who taught Mass Communication at Australia’s Curtin University of Technology, and is Editor-in-Chief of the Palestine Chronicle - explains the futility of further negotiations with the PLO in his article “Why a winning Palestinian narrative is hard to find”:

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

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

These irreconcilable differences between Fatah - the dominant faction in the PLO - and Hamas - not a member of the PLO - have remained unresolved since 2007.

In the absence of any unified representation for the Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza - how can any agreement between Israel and the PLO ever bring about a final end to the Arab-Jewish conflict that has raged unresolved for the last 130 years?

Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a Hamas official based in Gaza, told his movement’s daily newspaper - Al-Resalah - in August this year that Hamas should act to isolate Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and strip him of any representative capacity over his decision to negotiate with Israel.

“The PA has dealt the final blow to reconciliation talks, and Hamas will never accept the negotiation track and its result.”

CBN News confirmed Hamas’s stance on 30 September in its article “Hamas: No Agreement That Includes Israel’s Right to Exist”:

“We will not recognize any agreements at the expense of our land, rights and religious sites,” Asharq al-Awsat quoted Hamas officials on Sunday. “Palestine—the whole of Palestine from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river [i.e., Israel]—is the property Palestinian people and our nation, and no usurper has any right to a speck of dust of its territory.”

A spokesman for the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the so-called military wing of Hamas, promised to be “at the heart of the new intifada.”

And Islamic Jihad member Ahmed al-Mudallal said, “Resistance in Palestine is the spearhead in the confrontation with the Zionist project, which targets Jerusalem, al-Aksa [mosque on the Temple Mount] and the whole of Palestine.”

Hamas vowed never to accept any agreement that includes recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

“Negotiations and security coordination with the Zionist enemy form a cover for the continuation of the occupation’s crimes against our territory, our people and our religious sites,” the statement continued.

“We call upon all Palestinian forces and factions to reject the path of these wasteful negotiations, which have proved their failure to achieve our people’s dreams and only brought them more waste, loss and division in the face of the occupation’s crimes and plans.”

Hamas called on the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah faction “to end negotiations and security coordination with the enemy and to return to resistance, national reconciliation and Palestinian unity.”

Fatah responded by saying it “will remain committed to Palestinian unity and will continue to work for the unity of the people, territory and the Palestinian leadership, which is represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization,” Asharq al-Awsat reported.”

US Secretary of State - John Kerry - showed once again how little he understands about the Jewish-Arab conflict he is spending so much time trying to resolve - telling TV audiences in Israel and the West Bank:

“The alternative to getting back to the talks is the potential of chaos. I mean, does Israel want a third intifada?"

Kerry obviously fails to appreciate that it is Hamas and its backers that will instigate a third intifada - especially if Israel and the PLO look like miraculously agreeing on anything.

Kerry should be focusing on the common denominator that has virtually guaranteed the failure of negotiations during the last seven years - the refusal of both Hamas and the PLO to allow the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank to hold fair and transparent triennial elections to determine who should represent them in final status negotiations with Israel.

Elections will end the culture of political impotency which has proved an impenetrable barrier to the Palestinian Arabs claimed right to self determination.

Without such elections - no final and binding agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs is possible.

Palestine - Bring On The Elections

[Published 7 February 2013]


Democracy continues to be seen nowhere in “the State of Palestine” - whilst Israel’s choice for next Prime Minister - Benjamin Netanyahu - is engaged in the usual machinations involved in putting a coalition together to govern Israel for the next four years.

Such political comings and goings are being eagerly followed by a free press commenting with gay abandon on every twist and turn in the daily developments - as their avid readership devours the opinions of dozens of different commentators in newspapers and on radio, television and the internet with very different political viewpoints.

The 2003 Bush Roadmap For Peace - supposedly still the basis on which the long -stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (defunct since 3 January 2013) were being conducted - was uncompromising in its final destination:

“A two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty, and through Israel’s readiness to do what is necessary for a democratic Palestinian state to be established, and a clear, unambiguous acceptance by both parties of the goal of a negotiated settlement as described below.”

Any attempt by the “Palestinian people” to have any say in electing a leadership that will act decisively against terror and ending violence and terrorism has been silenced since 25 January 2006 - when their votes elected Hamas as winner of the elections with 74 seats to Fatah’s 45 - providing Hamas with the majority of the 132 available seats and the ability to form a majority government of its own.

The people chose the wrong horse if they expected violence and terrorism would end - but then they have to live with their choice until they get another chance to change their minds.

That is surely the essence of democracy - that there is an “out” - the ability of the people to regularly express their confidence or otherwise in the people they have elected.

However the people have not been given this opportunity since 2006.

The elected Prime Minister - Ismail Haniya - was unceremoniously dumped by Palestinian Authority President - Mahmoud Abbas - on 15 June 2007 on the basis of “national emergency”.

This has resulted in bitter internecine strife between Hamas and Fatah ever since - that has seen the human rights of hundreds of thousands of the electorate abused in an orgy of violence, killing and detention without trial.

Frequent attempts to effect a reconciliation have failed - and will continue to fail - as both pursue very different political goals and objectives.

The people need to be the circuit breakers in this long running dispute - but indications are they will not be allowed to have their say.

Meantime - President Mahmoud Abbas continues to hold the reins of power as an unelected and unconstitutional President - whose term expired on 9 January 2009.

Due to the conflict he had created by dismissing Haniya in 2007 - Abbas unilaterally extended his term for another year and still continues in office in 2013 even after that second deadline expired.

As a result - Hamas announced that it would not recognise the extension or view Abbas as rightful president.

Yet Abbas is still given the full Presidential treatment internationally wherever he travels.

Following Abbas’s election as President on 9 January 2005 - David Carroll, acting director of the Democracy Program and an active member of the Carter Center -NDI observer delegation to that election - discussed the election process, its outcome and the wider implications for Middle East Peace.

He was asked the following question and gave the following response

"What does this election mean to democracy in the region?"

Carroll: "Many people see the Jan. 9 presidential election as an opportunity for a new leader to recommit to the peace process and make real progress in negotiations with Israel. In addition, however, the election sets an important example for the Arab world; it shows Arab peoples and leaders that citizens’ yearnings for democracy can and should be met, and that democratic renewal strengthens political legitimacy. Further, like the recent elections in Indonesia, the Palestinian election is a reminder that Islam and democracy are not incompatible"

Carroll may indeed be proved right if events of the past few years in Yemen, Libya, Egypt and Syria are indicators.

The real test of democracy however is not the first election - it is the second election.

Sadly - any such moves to allow citizen yearnings for democracy continue to be denied in the one Islamic area where it is essential they be allowed - the West Bank and Gaza.

Whilst this sorry state of affairs continues the following words of the Bush Road Map remain meaningless:

"A settlement, negotiated between the parties, 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 neighbours."

Those non-democratic states supporting a fictitious “State of Palestine” - headed by an unconstitutional President, an unelected Government with an unelected Prime Minister and a far from free press - will certainly be unable to grasp the importance of elections to allow the people to have their say after seven years of enforced silence.

The world’s democracies should know better.

“Bring on the elections” should be their unified and rallying demand.

Perhaps President Obama should whisper such words in Abbas’s ear when he meets with him next month.

Whilst the democracies remain silent - Jews and Arabs will continue to bear the scars of war and conflict.

Palestine - Abbas, Attitude and Annexation

[Published 10 January 2013]


Annexation of large areas of the West Bank by Israel has now become a distinct possibility with the unilateral decision this week to scrap any trace of the existence of the Palestinian Authority by its President Mahmoud Abbas.

In a “Presidential decree” Abbas has called for all official documents - including passports, drivers’ licenses, postage stamps and car number plates - to now bear the name ‘State of Palestine’, instead of the generally used ‘Palestinian National Authority’.

Abbas has also ordered foreign ministries and embassies around the world to start using the title.

Abbas’s decree comes just a few days after he had reportedly told an Israeli politician that if there was no progress in the peace talks:

“I will take the phone and call Netanyahu and tell him: ‘Sit in the chair instead of me; take the keys and you will be responsible for the Palestinian Authority.”

His remark prompted this angry response from senior Hamas official Abu Marzouk, in a posting on Facebook:

“Why does Abbas want to hand the keys over to Netanyahu? Why not hand it over to Hamas?”

Abu Marzouk - who turned 62 on January 9 and is slated to replace Khaled Mashaal as head of Hamas - said it would have been:

“better and more effective had Abbas threatened to hand the West Bank to Hamas.”

In a fearless riposte - Jamal Muheisen, a member of the Fatah Central Council, said the Palestinians should first hold presidential and legislative elections to choose their leaders:

“Whoever wins in the elections will be handed the keys of the entire Palestinian Authority, be it Hamas or Fatah or any other Palestinian faction,”

Now it seems the keys to control of the entire Palestinian Authority have been thrown down the drain by its own President just days later - as have any hopes of negotiating a two-state solution as prescribed by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap.

This solution has simply vanished into thin air after being flavour of the month for the last twenty years - with one of the two principal negotiating parties having gone missing in action.

We are now being subjected to the following delusional garbage being spouted on Al - Jazzera on 8 January by the now defunct chief negotiator of the now defunct Palestinian Authority - Saeb Erekat:

“Palestine is a country under occupation. What was Norway, Finland, Holland, France, Korea, Philippines between 1939 and 1945 - nation states under occupation. Today, the state of Palestine is officially a state under occupation. It has 192 member countries that recognise this and a nation state, Israel, which is the occupying power; these are the new realities.”

The comparison is totally fictitious and Erekat’s arrogance is unbounded.

Comparing States that had existed for centuries to a State that has never existed in recorded history whilst claiming statehood in an area it has never controlled is mind blowing.

Demonstrably all 192 “member countries” in the United Nations do not recognise Erekat’s outrageous statement.

Purporting to draw many of those countries into what is increasingly appearing to be a continuation of the Fatah-Hamas rivalry for control of the hearts and minds of the long suffering Palestinian Arabs is political madness.

Certainly 50 of those countries did nothing of the sort - 9 rejecting and 41 abstaining from supporting the General Assembly resolution on 29 November last granting Palestine the status of a non-member observer State at its meetings.

Abbas and Erekat should have heeded the explanations given by Singapore and Germany for abstaining - before embarking on their new flight into unreality

A summary of these two countries views was issued in a release from the United Nations Department of Public Information News and Media Division

Germany’s vote against the Resolution was summarised as follows:

“The delegate of Germany said his nation firmed believed in “two States for two peoples” and shared the goal of a Palestinian State. However, such status must be achieved only through direct negotiations. There was doubt that today’s action would be helpful for the peace process at this point in time. “It might lead to further hardening of positions instead of improving chances of a two-State solution through direct negotiations,” he said. He explicitly welcomed that today’s resolution called for a two-State solution and, hence, recognized the right of Israel to exist in peace. However, Israel’s legitimate security concern had to be addressed in a credible manner.”

To say Germany was spot on in its predictions would be an understatement.

Singapore was even more circumspect in its sober assessment made against the baying cries from those 138 states who could not see the wood for the trees.

“The representative of Singapore said that his delegation supported the right of the Palestinian people to a homeland and had, in the past, supported relevant Assembly resolutions. However, his country had abstained from today’s vote because only a negotiated settlement, consistent with Security Council resolution 242 (1967), could provide the basis for a viable, long-term solution. Both sides had legitimate rights and shared responsibilities and must be prepared to make compromises to achieve the larger good of a lasting peace. Because of those interlinked rights and responsibilities, no unilateral move could result in a just and durable outcome.”

The preparadness of especially the democratic states to vote for the General Assembly Resolution on 29 November and abandon Security Council Resolution 242 - the only internationally accepted United Nations resolution binding both Jews and Arabs to ending their conflict - was shameful.

Those democracies must now rue the day that their votes could be interpreted as giving aid and comfort to the state of utter confusion that now exists following Abbas’s Presidential decree and Erekat’s involvement of them in his latest statement.

Israel will hold elections on 22 January.

A new political party - Bayit Hayehudi - the Jewish homeland party - could possibly end up exercising a controlling vote in the next Parliament.

It’s leader Naftali Bennett has already made clear that he will be calling for Israel to annex at least 60% of the West Bank - adding in an interview in Haaretz on 28 December:

“And in the end, Jordan will be Palestine. There is no chance that, between the river and the sea, a Palestinian state will arise. The two-state solution is dead. There is no need to bury the two-state solution because it is already buried.”

Abbas has helped advance this possible outcome because of his inane Presidential decree consigning the Palestinian Authority to the dustbin of history.

Ave atque vale - Palestinian Authority.

Others less charitable might say - “good riddance”.

Palestine - Reunification Trumps Confederation

[Published 20 December 2012]


Reunification of the Arab populated areas of the West Bank with Jordan - as existed between 1948-1967 - has again emerged as the most viable solution to the Jewish-Arab conflict.

This follows revelations in the London- based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper that Palestinian Authority (PA) President and PLO Chairman - Mahmoud Abbas - has asked senior Fatah leaders to prepare for the formation of a confederation between a Palestinian State and Jordan.

Abbas has reportedly instructed his advisors to provide him with detailed strategic reports about the best way to conduct negotiations with Jordan to revive the confederation plan - first discussed in 1988 under very different political circumstances to those now existing.

Abbas’s spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, has told the Jerusalem Post (“Abbas mulls forming confederation with Jordan” - December 13) that the confederation idea would be discussed with Jordan - but only after the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

PLO Executive Committee member Wasel Abu Yusef has also told the Jerusalem Post that any talk about the confederation plan now would hinder efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state within the pre-1967 lines “because Israel is hoping that a Palestinian state would be part of Jordan.”

The creation of such a state will not occur.

Jordan appears to have been positioning itself to replace the Palestinian Authority as Israel’s negotiating partner - as indicated by the following recent events:

1. King Abdullah’s uncle - Prince Hassan - stated in October that the West Bank was part of Jordan.

2. PLO heavyweight Farouk Kaddumi followed by pointing to the advantages that could follow Jordan’s return to the West Bank.

3. The Jordanian Education Department produced a map in a text book not showing the West Bank as a separate territorial entity.

4. Prince Hassan gave a public address to the Board of Deputies of British Jews at a gala black tie affair in London seven days before Abbas took to the podium at the United Nations on 29 November.

Jordan’s return to centre stage has been further strengthened by Abbas’s decision to proceed with unilateral action to have the “State of Palestine” admitted as a non-observer State at the United Nations with its claim to sovereignty in 100% of the West Bank being recognised at the same time.

Abbas has already paid dearly for his precipitate action in abandoning negotiations with Israel and going it alone to the United Nations - unleashing the following consequences:

1. Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal defiantly opposing a Palestinian State being created anywhere but on the ashes of Israel.

2. Four hundred million dollars in taxation revenues collected by Israel for the Palestinian Authority being withheld over the next four months to meet unpaid water and electricity bills owed by the PA to Israeli utility companies.

3. Israel announcing plans to revive building another 3000 housing units - kept on hold since 2004 to placate and induce the PA to continue negotiations with Israel

4. Abbas being forced to go cap in hand to Arab countries begging to be helped out to the tune of One hundred million dollars a month to stay afloat

Many of those 138 Nations that voted to admit the State of Palestine as a non-observer state must now be shaking their heads in amazement at the latest announcement by Abbas of a possible confederation of that state with Jordan once statehood has been achieved.

It makes a mockery of their decision to grant non-observer status to a state whose chief proponent has now admitted still does not exist.

Even worse Abbas is now flagging that this State - when it achieves its independence - will immediately be prepared to surrender that independence and enter into a confederation with Jordan.

The two-state solution to the Jewish-Arab conflict proposed under the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap is rapidly turning out to be nothing but a chimera

Abbas’s confederation proposal is unlikely to resonate with Jordan - which is well aware of the provision in the PLO Charter proclaiming that Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan is “an indivisible territorial unit”. Confederation would give the PLO a foothold and possible opportunity to repeat its 1970 attempt to overthrow the Hashemite monarchy in pursuit of this stated objective.

The King would also be cognisant of the following resolution supporting reunification of the West Bank and Jordan passed at the 8th meeting of the Palestinian National Council in February- March 1971:

“Jordan is linked to Palestine by a national relationship and a national unity forged by history and culture from the earliest times. The creation of one political entity in Transjordan and another in Palestine would have no basis either in legality or as to the elements universally accepted as fundamental to a political entity. .. In raising the slogan of the liberation of Palestine and presenting the problem of the Palestine revolution, it was not the intention of the Palestine revolution to separate the east of the River from the West, nor did it believe the struggle of the Palestinian people can be separated from the struggle of the masses in Jordan…”

This resolution - unlike the November 29 General Assembly resolution - still has relevance and meaning 41 years later for both Jordan and the PLO.

King Abdullah could do worse than reaffirm his agreement with this resolution and rebuff any attempts at confederation - making it clear at the same time that he is prepared to enter into negotiations with Israel to reunify the West Bank with Jordan and restore the status quo so far as is now possible since Jordan occupied the West Bank 45 years ago.

The Hashemites by their astute and diplomatic rule in Jordan for the last 93 years have preserved 78% of former Palestine as an exclusive Arab State in an area originally proposed by the League of Nations for the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home.

The peace treaty signed between Jordan and Israel in 1994 has survived intact despite, many occasions when Jordan may have been tempted to end it.This peace treaty already contains negotiating parameters for dealing with such thorny issues in the West Bank as water, refugees and Jerusalem.

Hopefully Israel and Jordan could successfully conclude negotiations where no one - Jew or Arab - would have to leave his present home or business in the West Bank.

Abbas’s provocation of both Israel and Hamas in approaching the United Nations has clearly backfired and his proposal to confederate with Jordan can only have further embarrassed and disaffected many countries that supported him.

In the upcoming diplomatic manoeuvring that is now being undertaken regarding the future of the West Bank there is no doubt that reunification with Jordan certainly trumps confederation.

Palestine - Narrowing The Great Divide

[Published 7 September 2012]


The political rift between Hamas and Fatah arising from their struggle to control the minds and the hearts of the Palestinian Arabs has continued unabated and unresolved for the last six years.

Gaza and the West Bank have become two separate and distinct political fiefdoms that have materially contributed to making the attainment of the “two-state” solution envisaged in the Oslo Accords and the Bush Road Map impossible to achieve.

The divide is so wide that the areas themselves have been dubbed “Hamastan” and “Fatahland” - signifying the utter hopelessness of reconciliation between two very polarized forces.

Political commentators Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff have succinctly summed up the position in their recent article - “Palestinian unity can wait - discord still growing between Hamas and Fatah”-

“Both entities – the West Bank (Fatahland) and the Gaza Strip (Hamastan) - continue their bizarre dance: endless negotiations on the need for unity with zero actions or results, and a reality that only proves how wide the internal Palestinian divide is.”

The results of a recent survey indicate that there is also deep division between the “1948 Arabs” - those who did not flee the 1948 War between the Jews and six invading Arab armies - and those Arabs who did - identified as the “1967 Arabs.”

The survey was undertaken by Professor Shifra Sagy, director of the Conflict Management and Resolution Program at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev - with funding from the German research foundation DFG.

The study came at the initiative of some of Professor Sagy’s Palestinian students. It was co-directed with her postdoctoral student Dr. Adi Mana, and PhD students Anan Srour and Serene Madjali.

The survey was taken among 1104 Israeli Arabs and 948 West Bank Arabs - who were all personally interviewed.

Views were expressed by each group on the following matters - and commented on by Professor Sagy:

1. Loyalty to the land:

“We asked Arabs of ’48 about their narrative, which is that they were loyal to their land when they didn’t desert it and stayed. The ’67 people look at the same issue, and they say the ’48 Arabs stayed on their land because they gave up and succumbed to the occupation without any resistance,”

2. The relative well-being of the 1948 Arabs as compared to the 1967 Arabs

“The ‘48 Arabs say this is our right as citizens of Israel, but in the West Bank, the popular narrative is that this relative affluence is because Israel co-opted them into being loyal,”

3. On marrying each other

60 percent of Israeli Arabs surveyed said they would not want their daughter to marry a West Bank Arab, while 41% of West Bankers had the same attitude to their daughter marrying an Arab with Israeli citizenship.

Prof. Sagy concludes that:

“Both groups think of themselves as Palestinians, but narratives are different regarding very crucial issues. What it reveals here is that over the past 60 years, this has really become two distinctly different groups.”

One does not have to look very far to ascertain the reasons - which can be put down to the following:

1. the unification of the West Bank with Jordan and the granting of Jordanian nationality to the West Bank Arabs between 1950-1967 - with Jordanian citizenship continuing to be enjoyed until 1988,

2. the West Bank Arabs being under Israeli occupation between 1967-1993 and

3. the grant of civil administrative autonomy to the Palestinian Authority bringing 95% of the West Bank Arab population under its control since 1993

Researcher Anan Srour commented:

“Perhaps there are some radicals who see this survey and will think it’s too controversial. We heard this occasionally in comments from the participants, in both directions. Some said that it’s really an issue, that we are two groups.”

Professor Sagy further noted:

“It is possible that the ’48 Arabs’ status as a small minority, at times threatened, both within Israeli society and the Arab world, has strengthened their group cohesion and their need to protect their unique collective narrative. Despite feeling that their common connection and identity with the ’67 Arabs is very important and significant, that connection could come at a heavy price, according to respondents, by bringing into doubt their connection to Israeli society. It is possible that it is for this reason that they distance themselves from the ’67 Arabs more than the ’67 Arabs do, and stress their unique potential as a “bridge” between the two nations,”

Gazan Arabs were not included in the survey because it was deemed too risky an undertaking. One suspects that their viewpoint would be very different to each of the two groups surveyed.

Indeed it would be very interesting if the same survey was conducted among Palestinian Arabs living in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon - where their experiences have been entirely different to those of the three Arab populations in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

The results of this research herald the need for both Hamas and the PLO to give up their declared political aim of wiping Israel off the face of the map - the only thread they have had to unite Palestinian Arabs since the formation of the PLO in 1964.

Are we indeed witnessing the genesis of a people movement not marching in step with the declared political aims of either Hamas or the PLO - as evidenced by the easing of entry restrictions enabling 120000 West Bank Arabs to visit Israel during the holy month of Ramadan?

Israel’s decision last month elicited the following comment from Daoud Kuttab:

“Naturally, Palestinians were delighted to be able to pray in Jerusalem’s Aqsa Mosque and visit relatives and friends in Jerusalem and inside the Green Line. Many had not been in Jerusalem for decades. Parents took their children (some teenagers) to see a Jerusalem they had never seen. Many flooded West Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and other locations.

Palestinians shopped (the Malha mall is said to have sold goods worth 2 million shekels in one weekend). They hit the beaches and stores, enjoying a rare occasion to get out of the closed area of the West Bank.”

Denied any vote for six years - the West Bank Arabs had voted with their feet - indicating to their political masters that the time had come to narrow the divide between the 1948 Arabs and the 1967 Arabs - not by trying to eliminate the State of Israel but co-existing peacefully with it.

Palestine In Tatters - Obama's Obsolescent Opinion Hardly Matters

[Published 15 March 2012]


The much vaunted reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah has become yet another missed opportunity and non-event following revelations by the Palestinian Central Elections Commission (CEC) chief electoral officer - Hisham Kuhail - that the May 4 date set for presidential and parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza will not eventuate.

There has been no parliamentary poll in Gaza since 2006 - and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has continued in the role of President illegally after the expiration of his term in 2009.

In an interview with The National - Mr Kuhail said the commission cannot stage the elections primarily because Hamas will not allow it to make the necessary preparations in Gaza - such as updating the voting registry and installing voting centres. The West Bank voter register was updated last August.

Mr Kuhail reportedly said his team was denied permission to do this in Gaza during a meeting there last month with aides to Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza - Ismail Haniyeh

Mr Kuhail said the problem could only be resolved by real reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.

Under Palestinian law - Palestinian Authority President - Mahmoud Abbas - must issue a decree instructing the CEC to begin preparing for the elections. This process takes 90 days.

Mr Kuhail said:

“But to this moment, that has not happened, The earliest feasible date to organize an election would be after June”

A Hamas-Fatah agreement signed in Cairo last year was supposed to have led to an interim government that would govern both Gaza and the West Bank until elections took place. This has yet to materialise.

Islamic Jihad’s Secretary-General - Ramadan Abdullah Shallah - has lamented on the continuing differences of opinion between Hamas and Fatah that have prevented the implementation of any deal:

“Each side has its defense and pretexts, but the loser is our people because its interests are being ignored ... “

Regrettably those interests have been ignored for the last 75 years since the Peel Committee first recommended the partition of Palestine into an Arab State and a Jewish State.

Meanwhile American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - speaking in New York after a meeting of the impotent Quartet - America, Russia, The European Union and the United Nations - could only repeat the following tired mantra repeatedly invoked by President Obama:

“President Obama and I have been consistent in our belief that the Palestinian people – like their Arab neighbors, Israelis, and all people – deserve dignity, liberty and the right to decide their own futures. They deserve a viable,independent Palestine,alongside a secure Israel.”

Clearly the idea of creating such a new Arab state between Israel and Jordan for the first time in recorded history - and the threats any such state would pose to Israel’s security - has become passé.

This solution - which may have looked attractive when recycled in 1993 with the signing of the Oslo Accords - has been fatally impacted by events in the region and in Iran during the past twelve months - not to mention the 200 rockets fired from Gaza into Israeli civilian population centres this past week.

Even if Hamas and Fatah were to miraculously embrace in a genuine show of fraternal respect - how could Israel be expected to deal with any Government in which Hamas is a member - when Haniyeh openly declared on 14 December last:

“Today, we say, in a clear and unambiguous fashion: The armed resistance and armed struggle are our strategic choice and our path to liberate the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, and to drive the usurping invaders out of the blessed land of Palestine.”

This battle cry is overshadowed by Fatah and the PLO’s more strident demand - that Jordan be included in the Palestinian Arab State it seeks to create.

Time waits for no man - and in the case of the Palestinian Arabs they have spurned many opportunities to gain for themselves - in the West Bank and Gaza - a second independent and exclusively Arab state in former Palestine - in addition to Jordan - in

(i) 1947
(ii) Between 1948-1967
(iii) 2000
(iv) 2008

President Obama needs to fully comprehend what well known Israeli dove Yossi Alpher recently wrote:

“The Israeli-Palestinian peace process, as we have known it since the 1993 signing of the Oslo accords, essentially died more than three years ago with the demise of the final status talks between then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas”

Continuing to pretend there is any life left in the Oslo Accords and President Bush’s 2002 Roadmap is the height of folly and recklessness. Believing it can ever be implemented is with respect - gross stupidity.

Maybe President Obama might find it easier to adopt a new mantra based on the following remark recently made by an apparently intelligent 18-year-old girl from Ramallah - who told the person interviewing her for a scholarship to a college in America:

“... the [Jewish] “settlers” [in the West Bank] are really refugees. They, too, are returning to their ancestral homelands. It wouldn’t be fair to tell them to leave.”>

Maybe there is a message for President Obama in these few well chosen words - stop engaging in fiction - come back into the real world - and face the following facts:

1. The Jewish-Arab conflict over Palestine has been ongoing for 130 years - long before there were “Israelis”, Palestinians”, “Transjordanians” and “Jordanians”.

2. Jews have their sovereign State in 17% of former Palestine - now called Israel.

3. Arabs have their sovereign state in 77% of former Palestine.- now called Jordan

4. Just 6% of former Palestine - the West Bank and Gaza - remains to be allocated between Jews and Arabs - who both are claiming sovereignty in these areas.

5. Attempts between Israel and the PLO to resolve sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza have irretrievably broken down.

6. New Arab negotiating partners are now needed to replace the PLO and sit down with Israel to try and resolve the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza.

7. Those Arab partners should be Jordan and Egypt - the only two Arab States to have signed peace treaties with Israel and the last Arab occupiers of Gaza and the West Bank between 1948-1967.

Facing up to these realities is necessary - if President Obama and America is to become relevant in advancing the resolution of this long-running conflict.

President Obama does not have the luxury of time - because even this window of opportunity - which has remained open since 6 June 1967 - is fast being slammed in his face.

Palestine - "End The Occupation" And "Right The Wrongs"

[Published 8 December 2011]


I don’t think there has ever been any Arab propaganda slogan as powerful and successful as “End The Occupation”.

These three little words have managed to turn Israel’s miraculous victory in the 1967 Six Day War and its triumphal return to parts of the biblical and ancestral land of its forefathers - as something to be reviled and reversed.

Those mouthing the slogan have not sought to have the “occupation” ended in favour of Jordan - the previous Arab occupant during the period 1948-1967.

Rather they are insisting it all be given - albeit with mutually agreed land swaps - to another group - the “Palestinians” - who did not exist

(i) in 1937 - when the Peel Commission issued its Report
(ii) in 1947 - when the United Nations recommended the partition of western Palestine into an Arab State and a Jewish State.
(iii) Between 1948-1964 - when no claim was made by any such group to territory that any Arab claimant could have gained by the stroke of an Arab League pen - after such territory had been ethnically cleansed of every single Jew who had been living there prior to 1948

The “Palestinians” only first saw the light of day in 1964 when the PLO Charter was promulgated and Article 1 declared:

"Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation"

Article 5 went on to elaborate:

"The Palestinians are those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or have stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father - whether inside Palestine or outside it - is also a Palestinian."

No recognition was given to the fact that groups other than Arabs had lived in Palestine from time immemorial - long before the Arabs had ever conquered and occupied the area.

Ten years later - on 13 November 1974 - the leader of this newly created entity - Yasser Arafat - told the United Nations General Assembly:

"The PLO has earned its legitimacy because of the sacrifice inherent in its pioneering role, and also because of its dedicated leadership of the struggle. It has also been granted this legitimacy by the Palestinian masses, which in harmony with it have chosen it to lead the struggle according to its directives. The PLO has also gained its legitimacy by representing every faction, union or group as well as every Palestinian talent, either in the National Council or in people’s institutions. This legitimacy was further strengthened by the support of the entire Arab nation, and it was consecrated during the last Arab Summit Conference, which reiterated the right of the PLO, in its capacity as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, to establish an independent national State on all liberated Palestinian territory."

In 2011 the legitimacy of the PLO leadership role is in tatters. A new boy on the block- Hamas - has emerged to challenge the PLO’s claim and reconciliation between these two competing power bases is still not in prospect after six years of bitter internecine conflict.

The effort to reach a resolution of the 130 years old Arab-Jewish conflict has been stymied by the refusal of the PLO to sit down in direct face to face negotiations with Israel - but even if this were to occur tomorrow the prospects of any successful outcome would be extremely unlikely to eventuate.

Jordan sits on the sideline having abandoned any claim to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and East Jerusalem in 1988. Jordan shows no interest in attempting to try and restore - as far as is now possible - the status quo existing in these areas at 4 June 1967.

Israel’s attempts to “end the occupation” of these areas in 2000/2001 and 2008 were rebuffed by the PLO.

Perhaps it is time for a new slogan - “Right the Wrongs” - to enter into the lexicon of international diplomacy in the Middle East.

The wrongs involve the failure of the United Nations to acknowledge the following incontrovertible facts:

(i) that the provisions of Article 80 of the United Nations Charter reserve to the Jewish people the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem in accordance with the provisions laid down in article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine
(ii) that Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 remain the only internationally accepted basis for resolving the conflict in former Palestine

The failure of the United Nations to insist on these basic tenets of international law being implemented, respected and observed has proved to be the main stumbling block to resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Yasser Arafat himself declared before the United Nations on 13 December 1988:

"Our people do not want any right to which they are not entitled and which is not compatible with international legality and laws. They are not seeking any freedom that encroaches upon the freedom of others or any destiny that negates the destiny of another people"

Bowing to extreme pressure from the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference - the United Nations has succumbed to a myriad of General Assembly resolutions since then that have virtually buried such “international legality and laws”.

It is time for international law to be resurrected, debated and enforced as the only basis for ending the conflict in former Palestine.

The sooner this process is begun - the sooner some sanity will return to the Middle East.