Macron, Merkel and May should adopt Trump Policy on Jerusalem

[Published 13 May 2018]

The opening of the American Embassy on 14 May in Israel’s capital — Jerusalem — should be replicated by fellow-democracies France, Germany and The United Kingdom (“the Democratic Trio”) without delay.

President Trump’s policy on Jerusalem was set out by him on 6 December 2017 (“the Trump Declaration”):

“STATUS OF JERUSALEM: President Trump recognizes that specific boundaries of sovereignty in Jerusalem is highly sensitive and subject to final status negotiations.

President Trump recognizes that the status of Jerusalem is a highly-sensitive issue, but he does not think the peace process is aided by ignoring the simple truth that Jerusalem is home to Israel’s legislature, supreme court, President, and Prime Minister.

President Trump recognizes that the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem are subject to final status negotiations between the parties.

President Trump reaffirms United States support for the status quo at the Temple Mount, also known as Haram al Sharif.”

This policy should be perfectly acceptable to the Democratic Trio — yet they have so far baulked at following Trump’s principled stance.

French President Emmanuel Macron has adopted the following position:

“The status of Jerusalem is a question of international security that concerns the entire international community. The status of Jerusalem must be determined by Israelis and Palestinians in the framework of negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations,”

Waiting for these stars to align is like hoping to win the lottery.The Trump Declaration provides sufficient guarantees to ensure that should Macron’s wish-list ever eventuate - the United Nations will be sufficiently seized of the situation to ensure the status of Jerusalem is finally determined between Arabs and Jews.

Refusing to move the French Embassy to Israel’s designated capital now - whilst negotiations to determine Jerusalem’s future have been suspended by the Palestine Liberation Organization since April 2014 - is bowing to the dictates and diplomatic blackmail of an illegal and undemocratic entity.

France — a bastion of democracy — is being incredibly naïve in not following in the footsteps of the Trump Declaration.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has issued a public statement assuring Germany will not relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem:

“We have to work for the two-state solution, and according to that, the status of Jerusalem should be clarified.”

The “two-state solution” has been the subject of unsuccessful negotiations for the last 25 years.

East Jerusalem was never suggested or declared as the capital of Jordan or another independent Arab state during the years between 1948 and 1967 when East Jerusalem was:

1. illegally occupied by Jordan

2. all Jews living there were forcibly expelled from their homes

3. centuries-old Synagogues and Jewish cemeteries were desecrated and destroyed

4.Jews were denied access to their remaining holy sites

Merkel needs to reject this dark period in Jerusalem’s history by adopting the reality expressed in the Trump Declaration.

Britain’s prime minister Theresa May has stated:

“We disagree with the US decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem and recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital before a final status agreement. The British Embassy to Israel is based in Tel Aviv, and we have no plans to move”

Moving the United Kingdom’s Embassy to West Jerusalem on the identical basis enunciated by Trump will not prejudice future negotiations between Jews and Arabs to resolve East Jerusalem’s final status.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom need to get on the Trump bandwagon and move their Embassies to Israel’s declared capital — Jerusalem — following their own worldwide well-established diplomatic practices and precedents.

Disagreements between democracies play into the hands of unelected and unaccountable regimes.Bowing to these regimes’ unjust and unreasonable demands is a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

Palestine: Netanyahu sends clear message to Trump, Putin, May and UN

[Published 16 March 2017]


Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has had a busy week meeting with UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson in Jerusalem, President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and then back to Jerusalem for a five hour meeting with President Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations — Jason Greenblatt.

The framework for these meetings was set by Netanyahu — who told Johnson:

“It’s evident that we agree on most things, but not on all things. And one of the things, I think the source of it when you analyze a problem, get to its roots and reason that we haven’t had peace for a hundred years is not the settlements, but the persistent refusal to recognize a nation-state for the Jewish people in any boundary. I think if you want to solve a problem, go to the core of the problem, and that is something I look forward to discussing with you further.”

Netanyahu’s claim is substantiated by the following facts:

1.Settlements were not the problem when the first two-state solution was proposed by article 25 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922.

That solution - which envisaged allocating the Arabs 78% of Mandatory Palestine [Transjordan] and the Jews the remaining 22% - was rejected by the Arabs but accepted by the Jews.

Iran - one of the 51 States then unanimously endorsing the Jewish people’s legal right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine — now seeks to destroy the Jewish State in 2017.

2. Settlements were not the problem in 1937 when the Peel Commission recommended partition of the territory of the Mandate into one Jewish State and one Arab State —again rejected by the Arabs but accepted by the Jews.

3. Transjordan remained part of the Mandate for Palestine until Great Britain granted it independence on 22 March 1946. 78% of the Mandate territory was thus irrevocably transformed into an exclusive Arabs-only State contrary to article 5 of the Mandate.

4. The United Nations recommendation to partition the remaining 22 % of the Mandate territory into one Arab State and one Jewish State in November 1947 was again rejected by the Arabs and accepted by the Jews — culminating in Western Palestine being invaded in May 1948 by six Arab armies and the forcible eviction of all Jews living in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

5. Settlements were not the problem between 1948 and 1967 when another Arab State could have been created with the stroke of an Arab League pen in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza whilst not one Jew lived there.

6. Offers by Israel in 2000/2001 and 2008 to another Arab State being created in Gaza and the West Bank were rejected by the Arabs.

7. In December 2016 UN Security Council Resolution 2334 declared that the Jewish Quarter and Kotel in East Jerusalem, the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem were “occupied Palestinian territory”.

UK and Russia shamefully failed to veto this Resolution.

8. Gaza is ruled by Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization governs Areas A and B of the West Bank. Both have held onto power without holding elections since 2006. Both refuse to recognize a Jewish nation-state in any boundaries.

Johnson told Netanyahu:
“I first visited [Israel] when I was — as I never tire of telling you — when I was 18.”

Netanyahu should never tire of telling world leaders that the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict will not be resolved until the Arabs recognise the right of the Jewish people to their own independent State.

Trump and May must circumvent Security Council Resolution 2334

[Published 25 January 2017]


President Trump’s meeting with UK Prime Minister Theresa May this coming Friday affords them a perfect opportunity to discuss reaffirming their countries commitments to the Jewish People made by America in 2004 and Great Britain in 1922 — which were seriously undermined when neither country vetoed Security Council Resolution 2334 on 23 December 2016.

America’s commitments were given in a letter from President George Bush to then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dated 14 April 2004 to:

1. encourage Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza and part of the West Bank and

2. give the Bush-Quartet Roadmap (“Roadmap”) every chance of ending a conflict that had raged unresolved for about 85 years.

Bush’s commitments included:

(i) Preventing any attempt by anyone to impose any plan other than the Roadmap.

(ii) Acknowledging that Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between Israel and the PLO in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338.

(iii) Agreeing in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, that it was unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations would be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.

These commitments were overwhelmingly endorsed by the Congress by 502 votes 12.

President Obama actively attempted to subvert these commitments during his eight years in office - culminating in Obama’s failure to veto Resolution 2334 in the dying days of his Presidency — which trashed the above commitments and made them meaningless.

Great Britain had pledged to the Jewish People in 1922 that the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine would take place within 23% of the territory designated in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine — today called Israel, East Jerusalem, Gaza and Judea and Samaria (West Bank) — whilst the remaining 77% would become an Arab homeland — today called Jordan.

This 23/77 division was embodied in Article 25 of the Mandate - after violent Arab riots in 1920-1921 accompanied by strident and strenuous Palestinian Arab political opposition to any idea of a Jewish National Home in Palestine had led to the British White Paper in June 1922 declaring that Arab apprehensions were partly based on exaggerated interpretations of the meaning of the Balfour Declaration.

The White Paper stated:

"Unauthorized statements have been made to the effect that the purpose in view [of the Balfour Declaration - ed] is to create a wholly Jewish Palestine. Phrases have been used such as that Palestine is to become “as Jewish as England is English.” His Majesty’s Government regard any such expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in view. Nor have they at any time contemplated, as appears to be feared by the Arab delegation, the disappearance or the subordination of the Arabic population, language, or culture in Palestine. They would draw attention to the fact that the terms of the Declaration referred to do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded ‘in Palestine'.”

Resolution 2334 has now declared as illegal the rights vested by the Mandate in the Jewish People to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in East Jerusalem, Gaza and Judea and Samaria (West Bank) - despite such rights having been preserved by article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Vetoing Resolution 2334 would have averted America and the UK betraying their commitments to the Jewish People.

Reaffirming those commitments will do more to resolve the Jewish-Arab conflict than moving the American embassy to Jerusalem.

Commitments when made by States should never be shredded without mutual agreement.

Palestine: Britain rebuffs Abbas call to apologise for Balfour Declaration

[Published 22 December 2016]


Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s demand that Britain apologise for the Balfour Declaration has been rebuffed by British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Addressing the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) on 12 December — May responded:

”... we are entering the centenary year of the Balfour Declaration.

On the 2nd of November 1917, the then Foreign Secretary — a Conservative Foreign Secretary — Arthur James Balfour wrote:

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

It is one of the most important letters in history.

It demonstrates Britain’s vital role in creating a homeland for the Jewish people.

And it is an anniversary we will be marking with pride.”

The Balfour Declaration became established international law after being incorporated into the Mandate for Palestine on 24 July 1922 - all 51 Member States of the League of Nations unanimously agreeing that:

“recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country;”

The Mandate further affirmed that Britain would be responsible for:

“placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.”

The use of the terms

1. “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” in the Balfour Declaration and

2. “all the inhabitants of Palestine” in the Mandate document rather than the term “Palestinians”

clearly refutes the existence of any identifiable “Palestinian people” in Palestine in 1917 or 1922.

However fake news stories repetitively dealing with the “stateless Palestinians” may have influenced Ms May into also telling the CFI meeting:

“Of course, people are correct when they say that securing the rights of Palestinians and Palestinian statehood have not yet been achieved.”

The Prime Minister has ignored the following pertinent facts:

1. The term “Palestinians” was not defined until 1964 when article 6 of the PLO Charter stipulated:

“The Palestinians are those Arab citizens who were living normally in Palestine up to 1947, whether they remained or were expelled. Every child who was born to a Palestinian parent after this date whether in Palestine or outside is a Palestinian.”

2. The “Palestinian people” was declared to be an integral part of the Arab Nation under Article 1 of the revised 1968 PLO Charter — not a separate and distinct people.

3. The rights of the Arab citizens of Palestine were secured in 1922 by articles 2 and 25 of the Mandate.

4. On 13 September 1922 - a Note communicated to the League of Nations by the Secretary General contained a Memorandum by the British Representative limiting the site designated for the Jewish National Home to just 22% of the mandate territory.

5. The other 78% was designated for the Arab citizens of Palestine — where Statehood was finally declared on 25 May 1946 when the area was renamed the “Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan”. Another name change to “Jordan” in 1950 followed Transjordan’s illegal occupation of Judea and Samaria in 1948.

A second Arab State in former Palestine — in addition to Jordan - remains a fatuous and unrealistically attainable goal.