Roth confounds UN, USA & Australia: Two-State solution 'is gone'

 

Kenneth Roth – recently retired Executive Director of Human Rights Watch – has undermined the continuation of the policy espoused by the UN, USA and Australia for the last 20 years supporting the the creation of a new Palestinian Arab State between Israel and Jordan for the first time in recorded history (two-state solution). 

Addressing a recent discussion hosted by the Washington-based think-tank - Arab Center - Roth declared:

"The two-state solution is great but it's gone”

Roth’s bombshell admission was followed by this statement made by Hady Amr - US deputy assistant secretary for Israeli and Palestinian affairs: 

"We remain committed to rebuilding our bilateral relationship with the Palestinian people, with the US president's goal of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict along the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps," 

In reversing Australia’s decision to recognise West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said:

“Australia is committed to a two-state solution in which Israel and a future Palestinian state coexist, in peace and security, within internationally recognised borders. We will not support an approach that undermines this prospect.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been repeating this mantra since 2017:

“A two-state solution that will end the occupation and, with the creation of conditions, also the suffering even to the Palestinian people, is in my opinion the only way to guarantee that peace is established and, at the same time, that two states can live together in security and in mutual recognition,”

This blinkered approach by the UN, USA and Australia has seen each of them refusing to acknowledge – let alone discuss – the merits of a new alternative solution emanating from Saudi Arabia in June: Shredding the failed two-state solution and calling for the merger of Jordan, Gaza and part of the West Bank into one territorial entity to be called The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - whose capital will be Amman – not Jerusalem (Saudi Solution). 

The Saudi Solution supersedes the 1981 and 2002 Saudi Peace Plans – subsequently incorporated in the Arab Peace Initiative adopted in Beirut in 2002. 

Significantly – no rejection of the Saudi Solution has been expressed since its release by:

• Saudi Arabia’s recently appointed Prime Minister: Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman
• Jordan’s King Abdullah 
• PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas
• Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh
• The Arab League

Roth’s reality call sees the UN, US and Australia exposed as three Emperors with no clothes – paddling furiously against a growing tide of opinion that is destined to consign the two-state solution to the diplomatic graveyard with other failed plans proposed over the last 74 years.

The Saudi Solution is the lifeline the UN, US and Australia need to grab if they wish to see the 100-years old conflict between Arabs and Jews finally resolved. 

The Saudi Solution points the new way forward:

“The Palestinian problem can only be solved today if it is redefined. The issue in this day and age for people should be not so much the ownership of ancestral land but more the critical need to have a legal identity—a globally respected citizenship that allows a person to operate in the modern world. Labor in this day and age is mobile and having citizenship in a country that facilitates such mobility is critical to human development.”

Israeli Prime Minister – Yair Lapid – continues to support the two-state solution. 

With Israeli elections set for 1 November - no other Israeli politician has yet told Israeli voters whether they:

• agree with Lapid 
• would back exploring the Saudi Solution and its implementation or 
• what their alternative policy would be for ending the long running conflict.

Flogging a dead horse is in no one’s interest.

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.

Al Jazeera and AP cover up destruction of Hamas media mouthpiece

Al Jazeera and Associated Press (AP) reports on Israel’s demolition of the 14 storey building in which their respective offices were located - illustrates media anti-Israel bias that seeks to denigrate and delegitimise the Jewish State in much of the media reporting coming from the Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera’s report claimed:

“A building that housed international media offices including Al Jazeera’s in the Gaza Strip has been hit by an Israeli air raid that demolished the structure… The building also housed The Associated Press news agency bureau.”

AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt released the following statement:

“We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza. They have long known the location of our bureau and knew journalists were there. We received a warning that the building would be hit.

The Israeli government says the building contained Hamas military intelligence assets. We have called on the Israeli government to put forward the evidence. AP’s bureau has been in this building for 15 years. We have had no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building. This is something we actively check to the best of our ability. We would never knowingly put our journalists at risk.”

Both these media outlets failed to report that one of the other media offices located in the building was Middle East Eye (MEE) – exposed as the alleged media mouthpiece for Hamas in this 2017 report:

“Middle East Eye (MEE) — an increasingly prominent web portal — often obscures its finances, but it increasingly fills the gap as Qatar’s chief agent of influence. Groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International incorporate MEE stories, as do newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Delving into the details of MEE, however, show that it acts far less as a traditional journalistic outlet and far more as an English-language front for Qatari-supported groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. British corporate records, for example, show that Jamal Awn Jamal Bessasso, a former official for both Al Jazeera in Qatar and the Hamas-affiliated al-Quds TV in Lebanon, owns and operates MEE through M.E.E. Ltd.  A CV for Jamal Bessasso, since scrubbed from the internet, shows previous stints as director of planning and human resources for the Al Jazeera satellite network in Qatar and director of Human Resources for the Samalink Television Production Company in Lebanon. Samalink is the registered agent for Al Quds TV’s website. While David Hearst, MEE editor-in-chief, told the United Arab Emirates’ The National paper that Bessasso was “a colleague and the head of human resources and the legal director,” he denied that Bessasso was the MEE owner, despite his listings on corporate records. Neither Hearst, former news editor Rori Donaghy (in a tweet now deleted), nor other MEE employees, however, would identify who owned MEE if not Bessasso…

… The Hamas links run as deep. A former official of Interpal, a United Kingdom-based charity designated by the US Treasury Department as a financial supporter of Hamas, registered the Middle East Eye website. Prior to joining MEE, Donaghy worked for organizations founded by Hamas (such as the House of Wisdom in Gaza) and the Muslim Brotherhood (Emirates Center for Human Rights, which was set up with financing and assistance from the Cordoba Foundation, a Muslim Brotherhood entity).”

David Hearst – in an apparent brain explosion – has just published a virulent anti-Israel article in MEE conveniently omitting to include MEE’s location:

“Its [Israel’s] air force may bomb the building housing AP and Al Jazeera.”

Designed to whip up anti-Israel hatred? You be the judge.

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.

PLO blocks West Bank Arabs leaving for a better life

[Published 23 July 2019]

Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) — Saeb Erekat — has told a political symposium in Jericho that West Bank Arabs would not be allowed to voluntarily leave — virtually holding them captives against their will.

Erekat stated:

“We will not allow resettlement or formation of refugee committees for that aim, while holding on to the settlement of their cause in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions.”

Michael Lynk - the United Nations Human Rights Council’s “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967” had issued a statement on June 28 endorsing the right to freedom of movement — enshrined in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Erekat’s outrageous threat was not responding to Lynk’s comments — but to leaked reports claiming the United States might be seeking the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in at least five Arab neighboring countries.

If confirmed, West Bank Arabs could well be prepared to voluntarily leave the West Bank in large numbers — especially if offered the opportunity to legally enter other Arab countries and receive financial assistance for rehousing and resettlement there.

President Trump has a massive US$28.7 billion possibly available to aid West Bank Arabs who want to emigrate, being the money he wanted to plough into revitalising the West Bank and Gaza — which both the PLO and Hamas unbelievably rejected.

Given the state of relationships between Israel, the PLO and Hamas — spending that money earmarked for projects within the West Bank and Gaza was a highly questionable exercise that could have seen the destruction of such projects in future conflicts between these three long-time enemies.

Helping those desperate to emigrate who have suffered the perverse decisions of the PLO during the last 25 years is a much more targeted use of the money — guaranteeing a far better outcome for West Bank Arabs and their families.

The 2019 Human Rights Watch Report evidences the toxic nature of the West Bank:

1. The PLO arrested activists who criticized their leaders, security forces, or policies, and mistreated and tortured some in their custody.

2. The Independent Commission for Human Rights in Palestine (ICHR), a statutory commission charged with monitoring human rights compliance by the Palestinian authorities, received 205 complaints of torture and ill-treatment by West Bank security forces as of October 31, 2018.

3. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israeli security forces fatally shot 27 Palestinians and wounded at least 5,444,

4. Attacks by Israeli settlers injured 61 Palestinians and damaged property in 147 incidents.

5. Palestinians killed 10 Israelis, including six civilians, and wounded at least 58 in the same period in the West Bank.

Since the 1993 Oslo Accords — 95% of the West Bank Arab population has been under total PLO administrative control.

Real growth declined to around 2 percent in 2018 — lower than its average in previous years. The 2018 unemployment rate was 17.6 percent. Youth unemployment between ages 15-24 is 29.8 percent.

The World Bank has concluded that lack of progress towards peace and reconciliation creates an unsustainable economic situation. The PLO has refused to negotiate with Israel since April 2014 and has failed to call elections since 2007.

The only media outlet to report Erekat’s incendiary statement was the Chinese news agency Xinhua.

The remaining media’s failure to report — and the UN Special Rapporteur’s failure to condemn — Erekat’s controversial announcement — are despicable.

Hopefully President Trump will pressure the PLO to reverse its position and offer a window of opportunity for those to leave who wish to do so.

Offering West Bank Arabs a lifeline to a better future elsewhere is long overdue.

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

Palestine - Abbas Facing Prosecution For Aiding And Abetting War Crimes

[Published 13 July 2014]


Mahmoud Abbas — Head of the Government of National Consensus in Gaza since 2 June — faces prosecution in the international criminal justice system for aiding and abetting war crimes involving the indiscriminate firing of 384 rockets and missiles from Gaza into Israeli population centres reaching as far away as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem over the past four days.

This latest barrage — which sees no signs of ending—comes after more than 10000 similar rocket attacks on Israeli civilians from Gaza - then governed by Hamas - following Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza in 2005.

Abbas and his Government now however bear primary responsibility for preventing war crimes emanating from Gazan soil.

In a prerecorded message aired on Palestine TV - Abbas said the new government was transitional. This lame excuse cannot enable Abbas to abdicate his responsibility to prevent war crimes being committed in Gaza.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch stated in December 2012:

“There is simply no legal justification for launching rockets at populated areas.”

Human Rights Watch makes it clear that under international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, civilians and civilian structures may not be subject to deliberate attacks or attacks that do not discriminate between civilians and military targets. Anyone who commits serious laws-of-war violations intentionally or recklessly is responsible for war crimes.

Locating rocket launchers within or near densely populated civilian areas is also a war crime.

There is abundant evidence that this is occurring in Gaza right now.

Belligerents are also prohibited from using civilians to shield military objectives or operations from attack. “Shielding” refers to purposefully using the presence of civilians to render military forces or areas immune from attack.

This too is occurring in Gaza under the watchful gaze of Abbas’s Government.

Abbas as head of the ruling Government in Gaza, is obligated to uphold the laws of war and should appropriately punish those responsible for these serious violations.

Abbas is making no effort to restrain or end the commission of these war crimes.

There appears to have been no effort by Abbas or the security or police forces that he now controls in Gaza to take action to prevent the further commission of these war crimes.

Abbas has not attempted to travel to Gaza to take control of the rapidly deteriorating position Gaza finds itself in as rockets continue to be fired indiscriminately into Israeli population centres with what appears to be ever increasing intensity — inviting retaliation by Israel to defend its civilian population under article 51 of the United Nations Charter.

Abbas was clearly aware of the danger of provoking such an Israeli response to rockets being launched into Israel - as this report on 6 July made clear:

“Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas spoke to the chairman of the Hamas political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, on Sunday, and asked him to calm the situation in Gaza. Abbas asked Meshaal to avoid escalation of the situation, which would give Israel an excuse to launch an operation in Gaza.

Meshaal reportedly told Abbas that he would not act to stop the rocket fire unless the PA met its financial obligations to Hamas, including paying the overdue salaries of several Hamas officials.

The PA is currently embroiled in a conflict over wages with Hamas; some 40,000 Hamas employees are not being paid backlogged wages by the newly established unity government, even while the PA’s 70,000 employees in Gaza continue to be paid.”

Abbas’s plea was made after Hamas ignored Israel’s ultimatum - made on 3 July - which called for the rocket fire to stop within 48 hours or face war.

At least fifteen rockets were fired on Israel in a 12-hour period on 5 July including two at Be’er Sheva.

Abbas clearly exercises control over the public servants in Gaza. He must immediately assert control over those presently in Gaza committing these heinous war crimes.

Abbas’s inaction in using his security and police forces to forcibly intervene to:

1. Remove rocket launchers from populated civilian areas

2. Destroy supplies of rockets

3. Prevent the manufacture of rockets

4. Prevent the importation of rockets

5. Confront, arrest and try those found launching rockets into Israel

6. End the use of “human shields”

- could result in Abbas and his Government colleagues having to face charges before the International Criminal Courts including:

1. Committing war crimes by omission

2. Aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes

3. Substantial contribution to the commission of war crimes

4. Tacit approval and encouragement of war crimes

5. Aiding and abetting war crimes by omission

6. Ending the use of “human shields”

Abbas could well follow in the footsteps of former Liberian President Charles Taylor who was found guilty on 26 April 2012 on 11 counts including aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Taylor’s appeal was dismissed by the Court of The Hague on 26 September 2013.

Taylor’s case was the first concluded by an international court against a head of state since the Nazi trials at Nuremberg in 1946 convicted Admiral Karl Doenitz - who became President of Germany briefly after Adolf Hitler’s suicide.

Will the international community end its love affair with Abbas by calling for his prosecution for aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes being perpetrated in Gaza at this very moment?

The silence presently coming from the United Nations condemning Abbas is deafening.

Justice will hopefully prevail.

Revisiting the Jordan Option

The following article appeared on Y Net on 23 April 2011.

Jordan's involvement in resolving the issue of sovereignty in the West Bank and East Jerusalem continues to be more likely as the two-state solution continues to go nowhere.

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Revisiting the Jordan option

Op-ed: With hopes fading for two-state solution, ‘Jordan is Palestine’ option may be best alternative

Asaf Romirowsky
Published: 04.23.11, 14:21 / Israel Opinion

Amid the unrest now sweeping the Middle East, Israeli government and security officials are quietly discussing an unusual strategy that would pass the Palestinians’ political future off to Jordan. With the odds of a negotiated two-state solution at an all-time low, former Defense Minister Moshe Arens, Knesset Member Arieh Eldad, and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin resurrected the “Jordan is Palestine” model for regional peace.

Israeli officials fear that a Palestinian Intifada could break out on both sides of the Jordan River, and they seek to make it as much a Jordanian problem as an Israeli one.

In February, Human Rights Watch, the world’s self-proclaimed defender of minority rights, produced a 60-page report entitled, “Stateless Again: Palestinian-Origin Jordanians Deprived of their Nationality.” The paper details how Jordan deprives its Palestinian citizens of West Bank origins their basic rights, such education and healthcare. The report received scant attention back then. But the problem of Jordanian Palestinians, amidst growing unrest in the Hashemite Kingdom, has put the issue back on the front burner.

Israeli analysts worry that if the Jordanian government is to become more representative, it is possible that the country’s 72% Palestinian population could effectively take control. Jordan, in effect, could become “Palestine.”

The notion of a Palestinian controlled polity in Jordan is not new. From the war of Israeli independence in 1948 through the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli politicians on the Left and Right advanced a policy of “Jordan is Palestine.” While defending Israel from Arab aggression, they proposed that Jordan become the Palestinian homeland. Israeli officials proposed various scenarios for a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation that fused the East Bank and West Bank of the Jordan River under one administration.

However, it is not as simple as that. Dan Schueftan, author of A Jordanian Option, correctly noted in 1986 that such an arrangement would be dependent on Israeli-Jordanian relations and how the two parties view potential threats from the Palestinian populations in their midst.

Inseparable security needs

To be sure, in the years after the Six-Day War, the Jordanian monarchy was wary of the Palestinians. Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat challenged the sovereignty of the country in 1970. After that, the kingdom had blocked the flow of Palestinians from the West Bank into the East Bank in order to preserve the kingdom’s Hashemite political structure. To a certain extent, the Jordanians renounced all claims to the West Bank in 1988, backed the creation of the Palestinian Authority in the early 1990s, and then made peace with Israel in 1994 in an attempt to prevent further flooding of Palestinians into their country.


To a certain extent Jerusalem has long looked to the Hashemite monarchy to maintain stability and security on both sides of the river. Both Amman and Jerusalem, in fact, recognize that their security needs are inseparable. Jordan has benefited from the periods of relative quiet and prosperity in Israel. Accordingly, Jordanian security forces have been increasingly involved in the West Bank, where they conduct joint training sessions with Palestinian forces. It has been a win-win-win situation for Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians.

The problem now is that Jordan’s traditional power centers are unhappy with the rise of Palestinian influence in the country. Tribal leaders resent Jordan’s Queen Rania, born in Kuwait to a family with roots in the West Bank, for her vocal advocacy of the Palestinian cause. In fact, 36 tribal leaders recently published their objections to Rania’s position, fearing that it will accelerate a slow Palestinian takeover of the kingdom.

With hopes fading for a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, this seemingly far-flung notion may become the last, best option. The problem is that it could embolden Palestinian radical groups, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood, which derive much of their power from disillusioned Palestinians in the West and East Banks. With the rise of such groups in Jordan, the peace agreement between Amman and Jerusalem would be in peril.

Nevertheless, as uncomfortable as it might be for Palestinians, Israelis and Jordanians to admit, the Jordanian option might be the best one they have.

Asaf Romirowsky is an adjunct scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former liaison officer from the Israeli Defense Forces to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan