Netanyahu victory paves way for Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine

Bibi Netanyahu’s triumphal return as Israel’s next Prime Minister affords him the opportunity to fulfil one of his major election promises: Ending the 100-years old unresolved Arab-Jewish conflict. 

It has been a long and arduous road for Netanyahu to travel since he told the United Nations on December 11, 1984:

“Those who accept the notion of a Palestinian people must therefore wonder: how many Palestinian Arab peoples are there? Is there a western Palestinian Arab people and, just across that narrow stream known as the Jordan River an eastern Palestinian Arab people? How many Arab States in Palestine does Palestinian self-determination require? Clearly, in eastern and western Palestine there are only two peoples, the Arabs and the Jews; and, just as clearly, there are only two States in that area, Jordan and Israel. The Arab State of Jordan, containing some 3 million Arabs, does not allow a single Jew 10 live there. It contains four fifths of the territory originally allocated by the predecessor of the United Nations. the League of Nations, for the Jewish national home. The other State, Israel, has a population of a little over 4 million, of which one sixth IS Arab. It contains less than one fifth of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate. The claim of self-determination, then, is misleading, for the inhabitants of Jordan which,  incidentally, Hussein's grandfather, King Abdullah, wanted originally to call the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - are largely Palestinian Arabs, and within that population, western Palestinian Arabs are the majority. It cannot be said, therefore, that the Arabs of Palestine are lacking a State or their own, the ultimate expression of self-determination. The demand for a second Palestinian Arab State in western Palestine, and the twenty-second Arab State in the world, is merely the latest attempt to push Israel back into the hopelessly vulnerable armistice lines of 1949.”

The United Nations rejected Netanyahu’s warning  - pushing ahead instead to try and create that 22nd Arab state between Israel and Jordan in territories allocated to the Jews to reconstitute the Jewish National Home under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter.  

Both the Security Council and General Assembly subsequently passed a plethora of anti-Israel resolutions using  highly-inflammatory language such as  “Occupied Palestinian Territories” and recognising two separate peoples in the process - “Jordanians” and “Palestinians” – even granting observer status to the non-existent “State of Palestine”

This 22nd Arab state still remains a figment of the UN’s warped imagination today – whilst various UN  organs seek to delegitimise and isolate Israel as an international pariah. 

A new Saudi-based proposal published on 8 June finally debunks these heinous anti-Israel longstanding UN positions :

“Jordanians and Palestinians are as similar as any people can be. They are Sunni Arabs from the same neighborhood. Merging them will not create any long-term ethnic or sectarian fault lines.” 

This Saudi-based proposal – calling for Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) to be merged into one territorial entity called The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine with its capital in Amman – not Jerusalem - shreds the UN’s failed 22nd Arab state solution.

“The transition to an expanded Palestinian–Jordanian kingdom will then be relatively straightforward since it will simply involve the current kingdom of Jordan’s widening its writ to cover the Palestinian territories and the diaspora in a step recognized by all relevant countries”

Netanyahu’s long trek - begun in 1984 in the face of UN hostility - can hopefully soon be ended with the successful creation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine and an end to a conflict that the UN has shamefully mismanaged.

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 & Hamas give silent nod to Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine

 

The first meeting in six years between PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Algeria this week saw these two protagonists for leadership of the Palestinian Arabs failing to take the opportunity to condemn a Saudi Arabian proposal to unify Jordan, Gaza and parts of the West Bank into one territorial entity.

 The justification for this ground- breaking merger was eloquently expressed by its author – Ali Shihabi – a close confidante of Saudi Arabia's next King – Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman – in a recent article headlined " The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine" published in Al Arabiya News - owned by the Saudi Royal Family:

"Jordanians and Palestinians are as similar as any people can be. They are Sunni Arabs from the same neighbourhood. Merging them will not create any long-term ethnic or sectarian fault lines."

The Saudi proposal made the following hard-hitting truths that would have previously attracted outright condemnation and rejection by both the PLO and Hamas:

• "Israel is a reality firmly implanted on the ground that has to be accepted, however grudgingly, by the region around it
• Justice, however, does not make history; hard power does—and Palestinians must reconcile themselves to this painful reality and move forward with their lives without being held back by false hopes and illusions.
• [The] illusion of "return" has served some Arab regimes' interests by giving them a  powerful excuse to avoid integrating Palestinian refugees as citizens, particularly in Lebanon and even Jordan, both of which have millions of disenfranchised Palestinians in their camps. These regimes feared that these refugees-cum-citizens would alter their demographics and threaten their ruling order. Consequently, the excuse given was that since the Palestinians would eventually return to Palestine, giving them citizenship would technically undermine their "right of return" and hence they should be denied citizenship. Palestinian leaders actively colluded in perpetuating this tragedy.
• 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."

It seems truly amazing that such accusations pulling out the rug from under both the PLO and Hamas should have been allowed to pass unmentioned and unchallenged by both Abbas and Haniyeh in Algeria. 

Their silence was indeed palpable and can – in the absence of any express denials - be construed as PLO and Hamas acceptance of the Saudi way forward - that could see any newly-created Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine: 

• Being demilitarized west of the Jordan River and in Gaza – adopting similar parliamentary and governance systems there used by Jordan when it occupied the West Bank between 1950 and 1967.
• The PLO and Hamas Charters calling for Israel's destruction revoked and their organisations being disarmed under international supervision 
• A new peace treaty with Israel replacing the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty
• The tunnels under Gaza leading into Israel being redirected to unite Gaza with other parts of the new State
• All citizens of the newly-created State enjoying common citizenship and freedom of  movement within the State
• The refugee camps in Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza and neighbouring Arab States being closed and their occupants offered citizenship in the new State or other host Arab states.

Abbas and Haniyeh's silence could indeed be the catalyst for the commencement of Jordan-Israel negotiations to make the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine a reality.

Author's note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — was hand-drawn from his COVID sick bed  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.

UN, EU, Jordan & USA keep mum on Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine

 

The United Nations (UN), European Union (EU) Jordan and America (USA) continue to keep mum by refusing to comment on the Saudi Arabian proposal to unify Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into one territorial entity to be named "The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine"  

The detailed Saudi proposal was set out in an article published on 8 June written by Ali Shihabi – a confidante of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman - designated to be Saudi Arabia's next King.

The Saudi plan directly challenges UN, EU, Jordan and US positions argued for decades that the only solution to ending the conflict between Arabs and Jews is the creation for the first time in history of a 23rd Arab State between Israel and Jordan.  

Despite their unrelenting and determined efforts to bring this solution to fruition since its adoption by the EU at the Venice Summit on 13 June 1980 – that goal has proved incapable of being achieved. 

On 31 July 1988 Jordan's King Hussein hopped on the EU bandwagon and:

• Terminated Jordanian citizenship enjoyed by all West Bank Arab residents for the previous 38 years. 
• Renounced all Jordanian claims to the West Bank annexed by Jordan between 1950 and 1967

• Dissolved the Jordanian parliament (half of whose members were West Bank representatives), 
• Ceased salary payments to 21,000 West Bank civil servants, and 
• Ordered that West Bank Palestinian passports be converted to two-year travel documents. 

Jordan left the fate of the West Bank and its abandoned Jordanian-citizen population in the hands of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). 

The PLO subsequently rejected offers of a separate state proposed by the: 

• 1993 Oslo Accords
• 2003 Bush Roadmap 
• 2020 Trump Plan and 
• Israel in July 2000, September 2008 and June 2009

The EU and Jordan push for this separate-state solution between Israel and Jordan was made as recently as 2 June 2022:

"[The EU and Jordan] reiterated that the only path to a just, lasting and comprehensive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the two-state solution that ends occupation and leads to the establishment, of an independent contiguous, sovereign and viable Palestinian State, on the lines of 4 June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side with the State of Israel in peace, in accordance with international law and UN Security Council resolutions"

Their failure to address the Saudi initiative - made 6 days later - could see the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution being renamed the State of Palestine solution – with the Hashemites possibly losing their custodianship of the Islamic Holy sites in Jerusalem. 

President Biden has followed the EU and Jordan - Deputy Ambassador Richard Mills telling the UN Security Council on 27 June 2022 – without mentioning the Saudi proposal: 

"The current U.S. administration continues to affirm its strong support for a two-state solution, which remains the best way to ensure Israel's future as a democratic and Jewish state alongside a sovereign, viable Palestinian state." 

The UN and its agencies repeat this failed mantra ad nauseum.

Not one of these four major players has yet uttered one word specifically addressing Shihabi's plan to unify Jordan, Gaza and part of the West Bank – which Shihabi justifies on one indisputable fact: 

"Jordanians and Palestinians are as similar as any people can be. They are Sunni Arabs from the same neighbourhood. Merging them will not create any long-term ethnic or sectarian fault lines." 

No groups were defined and identified as:

• "Jordanians": Before 1950.
• "Palestinians": Until 1964.

Two States – Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - not three states – is the Saudi key that can finally bring peace to the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia tells Biden & UN: No State between Israel & Jordan

 

Saudi Arabia has sent US President Joe Biden and the United Nations (UN) a clear message to abandon the idea of creating a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan in an article published in Al-Arabiya News on 8 June headlined: The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine  

Its author - Ali Shihabi - is not your ordinary run-of-the mill journalist. He supports and has the ear of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) - the controversial next successor to the Saudi throne.

MBS is the driving force behind NEOM--a brand new US$500 billion megacity to be built on 26500km² in northern Saudi Arabia - an area larger than Israel - powered by 100% renewable energy. The project includes a bridge spanning the Red Sea - connecting NEOM to Africa. NEOM will be close to the borders of Jordan, Egypt and Israel. Shihabi has been a member of NEOM’s Advisory Board since 2020. 

MBS has not sought to publically distance himself from Shihabi’s article. 

Shihabi lays the groundwork for his proposal:

"The basically insurmountable power imbalance between the Arabs and Israelis, let alone between the Palestinians and Israelis, argues for a radical rethinking of the approach to solving the Palestine problem. Israel is a reality firmly implanted on the ground that has to be accepted, however grudgingly, by the region around it"

Shihabi then proposes his solution:

"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. The most logical vehicle for this redefinition and hence for the solution to the Palestine problem is the kingdom of Jordan. Over the last seventy-five years, Jordan has developed into a relatively well-governed state, although the impact of regional political turmoil has caused it to fail economically and become heavily reliant on foreign aid for its survival. It is this Jordanian governance infrastructure that needs to be captured and put to productive use in integrating the millions of Palestinians and Jordanians into a modern, reasonably well-functioning state that would, in an era of real peace and economic integration with Jordan’s neighbors, have a much higher chance of growth and prosperity. This proposed enlarged kingdom would include present-day Jordan, Gaza, and the West Bank (areas populated by Palestinians attached in a contiguous manner and physically connected to Jordan, i.e., not broken up into islands)."

Shihabi dismisses Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Jordan claims to be separate entities:

"Jordanians and Palestinians are as similar as any people can be. They are Sunni Arabs from the same neighbourhood. Merging them will not create any long-term ethnic or sectarian fault lines." 

Significantly Shihabi’s proposal does not call for Saudi Arabia to replace Jordan as Custodian of the Islamic Holy Sites in Jerusalem - a fear long-held by Jordan. This Saudi concession should help embolden Jordan to begin negotiations with Israel on this Saudi Arabian initiative - that could see:

• The 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty extended to 100% of the territory of former Palestine - instead of the 95% currently covered
• The two-state solution contemplated by article 6 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the 1945 UN Charter finally brought to fruition

Endorsement of this Saudi initiative by Biden and the UN will greatly advance the prospect of finally ending the 100 years-old unresolved Jewish-Arab conflict.

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.

Israel, PLO, Jordan, EU and UN must agree on boundaries of Palestine

[Published 13 February 2019]

Ending the Arab-Jewish conflict over the territory called “historic Palestine” has little chance of success until its territorial boundaries are first agreed between Israel, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Jordan, the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN).

Rima Najjar — a retired professor of English literature at Al-Quds University - claims in a recent article that the territory of “historic Palestine” has been subdivided into Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but is effectively controlled by the Jewish State.

The following facts contradict her assertions:

1. Jordan comprises 78% of the territory of Palestine under the League of Nations 1922 Mandate for Palestine - and Jews were denied the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in any part of that area of Palestine under article 25 of the Mandate

2. The Old Testament records that two and a half of the twelve tribes of Israel settled in Jordan and cities of refuge were established by the Israelites in Golan, Ramoth, and Bosor - on the eastern side of the Jordan River - and Kedesh, Nablus, and Hebron - on the western side.

3. Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza form one indivisible territorial unit under Article 2 of the PLO Charter.

4. Under the 1993 Oslo Accords and following Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2006 - the PLO effectively controls 40% of the West Bank and Hamas effectively controls all of Gaza.

5. Many leading PLO, Jordanian, Arab and Israeli leaders have acknowledged that Jordan formed part of Palestine and that Jordanians and Palestinians are one people — not two.

Najjar’s intention is clear: to misleadingly and deceptively allege that Israel effectively controls 100% of historic Palestine - when Jordan effectively controls 78%.

In fact:

1. Israel currently exercises sovereignty in only 17% of historic Palestine whilst Jordan exercises sovereignty in 78% - leaving competing Arab and Jewish claims to sovereignty in the remaining 5% of historic Palestine — the West Bank and Gaza - to be resolved.

2. The Palestinian Arabs already have their own State in 78% of historic Palestine where not one Jew lives.

Najjar has claimed in an earlier article:

“How deep is the historical illiteracy of Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic Party and Donald Trump and his party?

It is so deep, they are even immune to déjà vu, also known as “cryptomnesia”, which is where history is forgotten but nevertheless stored in the brain.”

Najjar, the UN, EU, even Mahmoud Abbas, are the historical illiterates suffering from cryptomnesia when it comes to determining the boundaries of historic Palestine - having written off the biblical history of “Eretz Yisrael” and the modern day history of “Palestine” between 1917 and 1947.

Najjar has form — having falsely stated in 2017:

“Israel now has sovereignty over all of mandate Palestine.”

Najjar also uttered her historic Palestine canard when calling for Israel’s elimination in 2018:

“The Palestinians have never held the bargaining chips in their tragedy and might as well go for broke — ending the Apartheid Zionist colonial regime in all of historic Palestine.”

Najjar lamented in 2017:

“I don’t know what it means to be Palestinian Jordanian, which is how I began my life ...”

Najjar’s identity crisis disappears once she recognizes that Jordan is 78% of historic Palestine.

Until Israel, the PLO, Jordan, the UN and EU all agree on the boundaries of historic Palestine — any hope for ending the 100-years conflict between Arabs and Jews remains a mirage.

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 pressure pushes Jordan to choose Israel or PLO

[Published 15 April 2018]

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) — refusing to bow to pressure by President Trump to cease payments to terrorists and their families currently exceeding US$400 million annually — is looming as a potential threat to end 96 years of unbroken Hashemite rule in Jordan.

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas - addressing the ninth annual Islamic Beit al-Maqdes International Conference in Ramallah last week — has sent a veiled message of the PLO’s intention to challenge Jordan’s ruling Hashemite family if PLO demands for a State in the West Bank with Jerusalem as its capital are not met.

Jordan comprised almost 77% of Palestine between 1920 and 1946 until granted independence by Great Britain and being renamed The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan — subsequently being renamed Jordan in 1950 following Transjordan’s illegal annexation of Judea and Samaria in 1948 (redesignated the West Bank).

This semantic sleight of hand could never change the historic and demographic reality that Jordan formed part of the territory comprised in the 1922 Mandate for Palestine — Jordan’s Crown Prince Hassan declaring in the Foreign Affairs Review in 1982:

“the Jordanians and Palestinians are now one people, and no political loyalty, however strong, will separate them permanently.”

Abbas told the Ramallah Conference:

“In Palestine and Jordan, we are one people in two states and we will never accept an alternative homeland.”

Abbas’s statement mirrored PLO founder Yasser Arafat’s in Der Spiegel in 1986:

“Jordanians and Palestinians are indeed one people. No one can divide us. We have the same fate.”

Farouk Kadoumi - the Head of the Political Department of the PLO - told Newsweek on 14 March 1977:

“Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people.”

Alleging flagrant bias towards Israel by the Trump Administration — Abbas defiantly declared:

“We are not expecting anything from them. We won’t accept anything from them.”

Abbas is being incredibly naïve if he believes he can now convince the international community into accepting that one people needs two states — and that pursuing that goal should be internationally supported at the expense of achieving an end to a conflict that originated with the 1917 Balfour Declaration.

Abbas’s categorical rejection of an American role in ending the conflict by calling on the international community to help create a second Arab state in former Palestine — in addition to Jordan—has little chance of success.

Jordan’s King Abdullah should by now be under no illusion that the PLO’s quest to create a PLO-ruled State is doomed to failure. Abdullah should view with apprehension that Abbas’s remarks at the Ramallah Conference could again be laying the groundwork for another PLO attempt to overthrow Hashemite rule in Jordan — as unsuccessfully occurred in September 1970 and is prescribed by article 2 of the PLO Charter.

The solution proposed by Israel’s late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in The Australian on 27 May 1985 now takes on added significance:

“the Palestinians should have a sovereign State which includes most of the Palestinians. It should be Jordan with a considerable part of the West Bank and Gaza. East of the Jordan River there is enough room to settle the Palestinian refugees”

Such a solution - negotiated between Israel and Jordan under the framework of their 1994 Peace Treaty — would see continuing Hashemite rule in Jordan being backed by Israel and America - stability sadly lacking presently in many failed Arab States such as Syria and Libya.

Abbas’s Ramallah statement has presented Jordan with a stark choice - negotiate with Israel or continue supporting the PLO and face the prospect of another attempt to overthrow Jordan’s ruling Hashemite dynasty.

Jordan’s decision should be a no-brainer.