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

Trump meets with Abbas and a phantom Palestinian Authority

[Published 24 September 2017]


It is hard to believe that a White House meeting between President Trump and Mahmoud Abbas could be headlined in an official White House Statement as:

“Readout of President Donald J. Trump’s Meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority”

To ram home this was no oversight or mischaracterisation of whom President Trump was meeting - the White House Statement continues:

“President Donald J. Trump and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority met yesterday in New York to continue working toward an enduring Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.”

The Palestinian Authority has not existed since 3 January 2013 following Abbas issuing this decree:

“Official documents, seals, signs and letterheads of the Palestinian National Authority official and national institutions shall be amended by replacing the name ‘Palestinian National Authority’ whenever it appears by the name ‘State of Palestine’ and by adopting the emblem of the State of Palestine.”

The Palestinian Authority was created pursuant to the “Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area” dated 4 May 1994 signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) - Article V providing:

STRUCTURE AND COMPOSITION OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
The Palestinian Authority will consist of one body of 24 members which shall carry out and be responsible for all the legislative and executive powers and responsibilities transferred to it under this Agreement, in accordance with this Article, and shall be responsible for the exercise of judicial functions in accordance with Article VI, subparagraph 1.b. of this Agreement.

The Palestinian Authority shall administer the departments transferred to it and may establish, within its jurisdiction, other departments and subordinate administrative units as necessary for the fulfillment of its responsibilities. It shall determine its own internal procedures.

The PLO shall inform the Government of Israel of the names of the members of the Palestinian Authority and any change of members. Changes in the membership of the Palestinian Authority will take effect upon an exchange of letters between the PLO and the Government of Israel.

Each member of the Palestinian Authority shall enter into office upon undertaking to act in accordance with this Agreement.

Abbas’s unilateral action was surprisingly received with little reaction by Israel.

Robbie Sabel — a former adviser to Israel’s Foreign Ministry was moved to declare:

“Israel won’t be happy about it because anything that undermines the peace process, any unilateral act, is not helpful."

Unilaterally erasing the identity of Israel’s negotiating partner under the Oslo Accords and renaming it “the State of Palestine” is part of the semantic warfare engaged in by the PLO as it continues to create a false narrative of the Jewish-Arab conflict.

The Palestinian Authority’s demise has enabled PLO Chief Negotiator — Saeb Erekat — to assert:

“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 farce continues — as President Trump gives his apparent imprimatur to meeting with the phantom head of a phantom non-existent Palestinian Authority.

President Trump is sorely mistaken if he believes that maintaining this facade will advance his efforts to end the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Abbas needs to be called out by Trump for abandoning the Oslo Accords and pursuing a policy that will not lead to resolving the long-running conflict — but rather exacerbate it and make it more difficult to resolve.

Trump needs to replace the deceased Palestinian Authority with living Arab negotiating partners.

Trump, Kushner, Greenblatt flirt with phantom Palestinian Authority

[Published 26 June 2017]


President Trump has made a poor start in attempting to broker an end to the Jewish-Arab conflict by initially engaging with the “Palestinian Authority” —an entity that no longer legally exists.

Trump’s White House communique on 21 June highlights his glaring tactical error:

“Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner, Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt, and United States Consul General in Jerusalem Donald Blome met today in Ramallah with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and his senior advisors.”

The Office of the Historian in the State Department faithfully records the creation of the Palestinian Authority under “Milestones in the History of US Foreign Relations” (Milestones):

“On September 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Negotiator Mahmoud Abbas signed a Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, commonly referred to as the “Oslo Accord,” at the White House. Israel accepted the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians, and the PLO renounced terrorism and recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace. Both sides agreed that a Palestinian Authority (PA) would be established and assume governing responsibilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over a five-year period.”

However on 3 January 2013 Abbas unilaterally signed the Palestinian Authority’s death certificate when issuing the following Decree:

“Official documents, seals, signs and letterheads of the Palestinian National Authority official and national institutions shall be amended by replacing the name ‘Palestinian National Authority’ whenever it appears by the name ‘State of Palestine’ and by adopting the emblem of the State of Palestine.”

Quite bizarrely — the Palestinian Authority’s 2013 demise was never recorded in Milestones.

The reason was only made clear on 9 May 2017 when the Office of the Historian reported it had retired Milestones which was no longer being maintained or expanded. The Office explained that it had completed a review of its online offerings in Milestones and concluded that extensive resources would be needed to revise and expand its publication of any further developments in the subject matters dealt with up to 2000 to meet the Office’s standards for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

The timing of this announcement came just six days after the White House visit by “President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority”.

Indeed the full terms of the Abbas Decree - introduced with “minimal ceremony or fanfare” - can only be found to my knowledge in an article written by John Whitbeck - identified as having been:

“in Madrid in October 1991 to contribute ideas for the Palestinian speeches delivered at the conference which launched the “peace process,” in Cairo in April/May 1994 as a legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team which negotiated the Gaza/Jericho Withdrawal Agreement (the first “post-Oslo” agreement) with Israel and near Camp David in July 2000, when the “peace process” effectively ended, to be available to provide legal advice on any documents which emerged from the Arafat/Barak/Clinton summit.”

Whitbeck summarises the effect of the Abbas Decree:

“By this decree, the Palestinian Authority, created for a five-year interim period pursuant to the Oslo Declaration of Principles signed on the White House lawn in September 1993, has been absorbed and replaced by the State of Palestine, proclaimed in November 1988, recognized diplomatically by 131 of the 193 UN member states and supported in the recent General Assembly vote by an additional 28 states which have not yet formally recognized it diplomatically.”

Whitbeck’s article does not smack of “fake news”.

Either the Palestinian Authority was absorbed and replaced in 2013 or it still exists in 2017.

Flirting with phantoms is the height of folly and extremely foolish.

Palestine - Merging Banks Can Reap Huge Dividends

[Published 19 October 2012]


Prince Hassan Bin Talal - Jordan’s former Crown Prince and the uncle of Jordan’s current ruler - King Abdullah - has floated a possible new diplomatic initiative by reminding the world that the West Bank was once part of Jordan.

Prince Hassan pointed out this very important historic and geographic fact whilst addressing a meeting of the Ebal charity organization in Nablus on 9 October.

That meeting had been organised by Jordanian Senate President Taher Al-Masri - indicating that the King in all likelihood would have been given advance notice and approved what Prince Hassan intended saying.

The Jordanian website Almustaqbal-a.com reported that Prince Hassan told the meeting:

”the West Bank is part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which included both banks of the [Jordan] River”

The report added:

“The attendees understood that Prince [Hassan] is working to reunite both banks of the [Jordan] River, and commended him for it.”

The West Bank and Transjordan had existed as one territorial entity between 1950-1967 following Transjordan’s occupation of the West Bank in 1948 after the newly declared State of Israel had been attacked by six invading Arab armies.

Transjordan - as a result - changed its name to “Jordan” and named the territory west of the Jordan River as the “West Bank”. Until then - the West Bank had been known for thousands of years as “Judea and Samaria” - the biblical and ancestral homeland of the Jewish people.

These decisions were not taken in isolation by a victorious occupier against the wishes of a defeated and dispirited population - but at the request and urging of the exclusively Arab population living in Judea and Samaria. All the Jews who had been living there prior to the 1948 war had been dispossessed and forcefully driven from the area conquered by Transjordan.

A conference was held in Jericho on 1 December 1948 - attended by several thousand people including the mayors of the towns of Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah, the Arab Legion Military Governor General and military governors from districts in Judea and Samaria, and other notables.

The meeting resolved:

“Palestine Arabs desire unity between Transjordan and Arab Palestine and therefore make known their wish that Arab Palestine be annexed immediately to Transjordan. They also recognize Abdullah as their King and request him proclaim himself King of the new territory.”

Wells Stabler - America’s charge d’affaires in Transjordan - reported to the Acting Secretary for State in a confidential cable dated 4 December 1948 that following the meeting - a large delegation proceeded to the King’s winter quarters at Shuneh to present the resolution to the King and request his acceptance. The King had replied that the matter must be referred to his government and that he must also ascertain the views of other Arab states. Although usual jealousies and frictions had been apparent during the meeting, the King believed it to be of significance and might be regarded by him as his mandate from Palestine Arabs.

On 6 December 1948 Stabler sent a secret cable to the Acting Secretary for State in which he reported that UN Acting Mediator Ralph Bunche had met with the King - when the following matters had been discussed:

1. The King believed that annexation of Arab Palestine to Transjordan would be an “actual help” in reaching a final settlement.

2. Arab Palestine was then in a vacuum which needed to be filled and Transjordan was in best position to do it.

3. Basically any Palestine settlement rested with Egypt, Transjordan and Israel. Egypt and Transjordan could overcome any opposition from other Arab states.

4. Emir Abdel Majid Haidar, Transjordan observer at the United Nations General Assembly had held talks with Egyptians in Paris but without result.

5. Bunche had hinted to His Majesty that the annexation of Arab Palestine by Transjordan would probably be accepted as fait accompli in view of Transjordan’s present position in Arab Palestine.

The subsequent annexation of the West Bank by Transjordan two years later was only recognised by Great Britain and Pakistan. The failure of other members of the United Nations to recognise such annexation has prolonged a conflict that with a little bit of give and take could have been resolved more than 60 years ago by negotiations between Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

Jordan lost the West Bank to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War and renounced any claims to the West Bank in 1988.

After 19 years of fruitless negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization since 1993 - the settlement of competing claims by Jews and Arabs to sovereignty in the West Bank still remains undetermined.

Prince Hassan’s statement on 9 October clearly attempts to resuscitate Jordan’s territorial claim to the West Bank.

Writing in the 1982 Spring issue of the quarterly publication “Foreign Affairs” - Prince Hassan had asserted:

“We Jordanians must add that practically speaking a settlement must also take into account our perceptions. Small as Jordan is, our country is politically, socially, economically, militarily and historically inseparable from the Palestinian issue”

Indeed the fate of Jordan and the West Bank has been tied together ever since both these areas of the former Ottoman Empire were included in the territory covered by the 1922 Mandate for Palestine within which the Jewish National Home was to be reconstituted.

The attempt over the last 19 years to divide Jordan and the West Bank into two independent Arab states for the first time ever in recorded history has proved an abject failure - leading Prince Hassan to observe that whilst he did not personally oppose the two state solution - that solution was irrelevant at this stage since:

“both sides, Arab and Israeli, no longer speak of a political solution to the Palestinian problem.”

The vacuum existing in 1948 has returned - and once again Jordan is the party that can fill it by opening negotiations with Israel to end the the Jewish-Arab conflict by reunifying the two banks of the Jordan River - taking into account the vastly changed circumstances to those existing 64 years ago.

The dividends could be immense including:

1. The return to Jordan of a very substantial part of the West Bank lost by Jordan in the Six Day War

2. No residents of the West Bank - either Jew or Arab - having to move from his present home

3. The restoration of Jordanian citizenship to the West Bank Arab population

4. The resolution of the competing claims by both Jews and Arabs to sovereignty in the West Bank

5. Placing a political solution to the Palestinian problem in the hands of the Arabs

Seizing this rare opportunity should not be missed.