Bennett set to shake-up global consensus on two-state solution

 

Israeli Prime Minister — Naftali Bennett — seems set to challenge the decades-long failure by the international community to achieve its called-for two-state solution: Creating a second Palestinian Arab state, in addition to Jordan, for the first time in recorded history.

Bennett made his intention very clear when introducing Israel’s next Government — presumably with his new coalition partners’ unanimous approval:

“We will ensure Israel’s national interests in Area C — and we will increase standards to that end after much neglect in this area.”

Bennett — anointed as “Prime Minister and Minister for Settlement Affairs” — is now uniquely placed to promote his “Israel Stability Initiative — February 2012” (Stability Plan)  —  summarised by him in 2017:

“The main idea of The Stability Plan is to provide full civilian self-governance to the Palestinians so they can elect themselves, pay their taxes, and control those areas that are theirs. We should apply sovereignty in Israeli-controlled areas—known as Area C—and Palestinians living there will become part and parcel of the State of Israel. And since within the State of Israel you cannot have two levels of people, those Palestinians living in Area C—approximately 80,000 people—will be offered full Israeli citizenship, including voting rights. I think most will opt for residency rather than citizenship (like in East Jerusalem) but it’s up to them. They can be Israeli citizens, Israeli residents or Palestinian citizens.

Those living in the Palestinian-controlled areas (Areas A and B) will govern themselves in all aspects barring two elements: overall security responsibility and not being able to allow the return of decedents [sic] of Palestinians refugees. We can’t have an inflow of millions of great grandchildren of 1948 refugees coming across the Jordan River because in one swoop that would distort the demography of the area, and within a few weeks of their arrival, the local Palestinians in Judea and Samaria would tell them to ‘go back to Jaffa’ which would subsequently create pressure on Israel that could lead to a third intifada inside ‘Smaller Israel’.

My option is that Palestinians have an ‘autonomy on steroids,’ and I’m open to ideas about how this materialises; it could be a confederation with Jordan, or local municipalities, or a central government. It would encompass full freedom of movement, massive infrastructure investment, the creation of a tourism zone so Christians can enter Haifa, Nazareth, Nablus, Ramallah, Jerusalem and Hebron without going through road blocks. We would have joint industrial centres, and we’d be able to create a land port governed by the Palestinians in Jenin that would be connected to Haifa.”

Bennett continued:

“I understand there is global consensus around the two-state solution, but what the world thinks is no proof for the correctness of a plan. The world gets it wrong a lot.

I’d say to those in the international community who are so entrenched in the idea of a Palestinian state that (a) the Palestinians have a state in Gaza and they blew it, and (b) after 50 years, at what time do we need to rethink? In the high tech world where I come from, if my employees tried the same solution and failed again and again I’d fire them as I’d expect them to have tried to tackle the challenge from a different angle by now! There is an industry around this topic—think-tanks, journals, professionals and academics who keep on chewing on the same old failed solution. We’re not in Europe, we live in a region with very few democracies, and when we tried this idea out it blew up in our faces and no one showed us any sympathy.”

Global consensus needs to positively respond to Bennett’s challenge.

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 now needs miracle to set secure and recognized boundaries

[Published 17 December 2019]

History will not kindly recall Israel’s power-hungry politicians who have forced a third election within twelve months on Israeli voters at a direct cost of another US$135 million.

The politicians’ inability to form a Government of National Unity is derelict — especially after Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin entreated them to do so.

The Jewish calendar is replete with both happy and sad times in the history of the Jewish people spanning thousands of years — faithfully remembered on each anniversary.

The period between 18 November 2019 and 11 December 2019 — which I call The Time of Missed Opportunity — could qualify for inclusion in that calendar.

November 18 marks the day US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that the US did not regard Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as being inconsistent with international law.

December 11 marks the last day a Government of National Unity could have been formed to finally set Israel’s secure and recognized boundaries under Security Council Resolution 242 — within which the Jewish people would reconstitute the Jewish National Home 100 years after the San Remo Convention laid the groundwork on April 25, 1920.

Israel and the Jewish World have been divided as to where those boundaries should be — particularly since Judea and Samaria (the disputed territories) were conquered by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War enabling Jews to return and live there after having been expelled and driven out in 1948 by six invading Arab armies.

Israelis espouse views ranging from extending Israeli sovereignty to all the disputed territories to sovereignty over none. Compromise somewhere in between could have possibly been found with a Government of National Unity making consensus decisions acceptable to the overwhelming majority of Israel’s population.

Two deadlocked Israeli elections in April and September 2019 have exposed a very disturbing political rift among Israeli voters as Israel confronts its Arab neighbours who seek to destroy it — and its international enemies at the United Nations who seek to deny that Jews have any legal right to live in the disputed territories guaranteed by article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

This Jewish divisiveness has a bitter parallel in Jewish history — the Bible recounting that on the succession of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, around 930 BCE, the land of Israel split into two kingdoms: the Kingdom of Israel (including the cities of Nablus and Samaria) in the north and the Kingdom of Judah (containing Jerusalem) in the south. These kingdoms remained separate states for over two hundred years.

Yuval Diskin, Israel’s former internal security chief, warned in 2015 that this could happen again:

“The two-state solution is becoming true for the Jews: The State of Judea is being built de facto side by side with the State of Israel. These are two nations whose differences are eclipsing their commonalities, a condition that is growing irreversible.

The State of Judea has different standards, different approaches to democracy, and it has two justice systems, one for Jews (Israeli law) and the other for Palestinians (martial law). Whether we want it or not, these two justice systems have divergent measures to adjudicate identical offenses”.

Israel’s politicians — in rejecting a Government of National Unity and opting for a third election — have not acted in the national interest. They have chosen to continue political division and pursue personal ambition to achieve political power — rather than seeking national unity.

A third deadlocked election is the miracle and opportunity Israel needs to enable a Government of National Unity to set Israel’s boundaries.

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 - Negotiating Semantic Minefield Becomes Pressing Necessity

[Published 14 June 2014]


Two former Australian Foreign Ministers—Bob Carr (2012-2013) and Gareth Evans (1988-1996)—have published an article this past week engaging in a semantic tug of war with Australia’s current Foreign Minister—Julie Bishop - over Australia’s recently declared policy of refusing to describe East Jerusalem as “occupied territory”.

East Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria were conquered in 1948 by Transjordan and illegally annexed in 1950 - when Transjordan then changed its name to “Jordan” and the 3000 years old geographic designation of “Judea and Samaria” to the “West Bank”.

East Jerusalem and the West Bank were lost by Jordan to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

In 1980, the Israeli Knesset passed a Basic Law declaring reunified Jerusalem the eternal capital of Israel, while providing for freedom of access to each religion’s holy sites—a decision not sanctioned by the United Nations.

“Occupied territory” carries the clear connotation that such territory indisputably belongs to someone else. Yet East Jerusalem and the West Bank have not been under any internationally recognised sovereignty or control since Great Britain handed back its administration of the Mandate for Palestine to the United Nations in 1948.

Israel refers to the West Bank as “disputed territory”:

“The West Bank and Gaza Strip are disputed territories whose status can only be determined through negotiations. Occupied territories are territories captured in war from an established and recognized sovereign. As the West Bank and Gaza Strip were not under the legitimate and recognized sovereignty of any state prior to the Six Day War, they should not be considered occupied territories.

The people of Israel have ancient ties to the territories, as well as a continuous centuries-old presence there. These areas were the cradle of Jewish civilization. Israel has rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, rights that the Palestinians deliberately disregard.”

Australia’s Prime Minister - Tony Abbott - agrees:

“It is important, as far as you can, not to use loaded terms, not to use pejorative terms, not to use terms which suggest that matters have been prejudged and that is a freighted term.

The truth is they’re disputed territories.”

Carr and Evans conveniently overlook mentioning or rebutting Israel’s position—indicating a level of intellectual dishonesty which is disappointing coming from persons with such distinguished backgrounds.

Instead - Carr and Evans ring the alarm bells - attempting to incite a state of international hysteria when claiming:

“If East Jerusalem is not to be referred to as “occupied”, why not Nablus or Bethlehem? If the Australian government can say “occupied East Jerusalem” is fraught with “pejorative implications” what is to stop Ms Bishop applying this to the occupied West Bank as a whole? It is a short step away for the Coalition government to declare that all the West Bank, with its population of more than 2 million Arabs, is no more than a “disputed” territory."

Are they really unaware that 40% of the West Bank—including Nablus and Bethlehem - contains 96% of the West Bank Arab population—and has been under the total administrative control of the Palestine Liberation Organisation since 1995?

Have they forgotten that Israel offered to cede its claims to sovereignty in more than 90% of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority in 2000/2001 and 2008—and that both offers were rejected.

Carr and Evans aren’t averse in misleading their readership when they assert:

“The International Court of Justice in 2004 declared not only that the West Bank was occupied but that this was illegal.”

It is unseemly that they forget to mention that this decision was an Advisory Opinion only and has no binding legal effect.

What is completely inexcusable is that Carr and Evans relied only on this International Court of Justice decision—whilst apparently failing to consider the following established international law with specific application to the West Bank—namely:

1. The Mandate for Palestine 1922 - especially article 6 - and article 80 of the United Nations Charter and

2. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338

These provisions provide the legal basis for Israel using the term “disputed territory” and Australia rejecting the pejorative term “occupied territory” used in countless UN Resolutions - misleadingly suggesting an Arab entitlement to 100% exclusive sovereignty.

The Arab-Jewish conflict has been an ongoing battle of words as much as a series of real live battles fought by the Jews against its Palestinian Arab neighbours, the armies of six Arab States and a myriad number of terrorist groups over the last 130 years.

Notable semantic battles that have influenced the political debate include:

1. Do the words “in Palestine” as used in the Mandate for Palestine mean “all of Palestine”?

2. Do the words “Withdraw from territories” used in Security Council Resolution 242 mean “all the territories”?

3. Are there “1967 borders” or only “1967 armistice lines”?

4. Did the words “Reconstitute the Jewish National Home” as used in the Mandate for Palestine preclude the creation of a Jewish State?

5. Does “Palestine” include what is today called “Jordan”?

Whilst one side talks “occupied territory” and the other “disputed territory”—negotiations will continue to go nowhere.

A pathway through this semantic minefield needs to be found which leads to the parties using commonly agreed and understood language.

If not—this minefield could blow up with disastrous consequences for everyone—not just the disputants.

Another Syria or Iraq is the last thing the world needs now.

Palestine - Imminent Breakthrough Or Lost Opportunity?

[26 May 2014]


The publication of “A Palestinian State - Not A Priority” in the Palestine Telegraph on May 23 offers the tantalising prospect of a possible breakthrough in resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Three reasons support such optimism:
Firstly - the Palestine Telegraph is published in Gaza - its web site declaring:

“The PT is a non-profit project that depends totally on donations from people of good will committed to freedom of speech for all people. Our success will come from the commitment of our volunteer reporters and the interest of people of good will seeking true change in our world; one where all people are respected and indeed have equal human rights…

...The Palestine Telegraph/PT is the first Electronic Newspaper based in the Gaza Strip, Palestine, staffed by Palestinians and international volunteers; professional journalists and members of the New Fourth Estate—citizen journalists who do not take assignments from editors or paychecks from corporate controlled media.”

Secondly - the article’s editor - Yoram Ettinger - is a distinguished Israeli whose CV includes:

“(Since 1993) Consultant to Israel’s Cabinet Members, to Israeli legislators and to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on US-Israel bilateral projects, US policy and Mideast politics.

Executive Director of “Second Thought—A U.S. Israel Initiative,” dedicated to generate out-of-the-box thinking on US-Israel relations, Middle East politics, the Palestinian issue, Jewish-Arab demographics, Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.”

Thirdly - Ettinger’s article contains the following powerful message for Gaza’s readers to digest - indeed for all who seek to end this conflict that has raged unresolved for the last 130 years.

“The Palestinian issue has benefited from the Arab/Muslim talk, but—due to the Palestinian record of intra-Arab subversion—has never been supported by the Arab/Muslim walk. Arab/Muslim policy makers have never considered the Palestinian issue a strategic interest, but rather a tactical instrument to advance intra-Arab or Muslim interests and to annihilate the Jewish state.

Irrespective of this, Palestine has been a geographic, not a national, concept, as evidenced by the lack of distinct, cohesive national character of its Arab inhabitants. This lack of cohesion has been intensified by the violent internal fragmentation along various lines: cultural (such as Bedouin vs. rural vs. urban sectors), geographic (e.g. mountain vs. coastal Arabs, southern vs. northern, Hebron vs. Bethlehem, Nablus vs. Ramallah, Nablus vs. Hebron), ethnic, ideological, political (pro- or anti-Jordan), historical and tribal identity. Such turbulent fragmentation was fueled by the multitude of Arab or Muslim migration waves from Bosnia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula, Syria and Lebanon.

The establishment of a Palestinian state was not on the agenda of the non-Arab Muslim Ottoman Empire, which ruled the area from 1517 through 1917. The Ottomans linked the area, defined by most Arabs as a region within Southern Syria or the Levant, to the Damascus and Beirut provinces.

The British Empire, which dominated the Middle East from 1917 until the end of World War II, did not contemplate a Palestinian Arab state, while establishing a series of Arab countries throughout the Middle East. Moreover, the 1917 Balfour Declaration dedicated Palestine, including Jordan, to the Jewish homeland. The 1920 San Remo Resolution, formulated by the principal Allied Powers, formalized the Balfour Declaration-based British Mandate for Palestine, which was ratified on Aug. 12, 1922, by the League of Nations, eventually transferring 77 percent of Palestine (Jordan) to the Arabs. The U.S. House and Senate approved it unanimously on June 30, 1922. In 1945, the Mandate for Palestine was integrated into the U.N. Charter via Article 80, which precludes alterations, and is still legally binding.

Jordan and Egypt occupied Judea and Samaria and Gaza from 1949 through 1967, but did not ponder the establishment of a Palestinian state; nor did the Arab League.

According to Dr. Yuval Arnon-Ohanna of Ariel University, who headed the Palestinian Desk at the Mossad Research Division, the secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, stated in September 1947 that the core problem was not a Palestinian state or Jewish expansionism. The only priority was the duty to uproot the Jewish presence from Palestine, which was defined by Muslims as “Waqf”—an area divinely endowed to Islam and not to the “infidel.”

Such an article appearing in a Gaza Electronic Newspaper written by so eminent an Israeli with such close links to the Israeli Government would have been unthinkable just one month ago.

Did the publication of this article somehow accidentally slip through the Hamas Government censor’s scrutiny or does it signify the willingness of Hamas to engage in negotiations whose agenda for the first time would be based on the facts presented so succinctly by Ettinger?

Until now the PLO has dismissed the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and everything that has happened since then as being null and void.

However three weeks ago Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told MIddle East Monitor:

“Both nations, Jordan and Palestine, share the same history and present,”

Jordan and Palestine’s joint modern history commenced with the Balfour Declaration and Mandate for Palestine - and subsequently unfolded as accurately recounted in Ettinger’s article.

As negotiations to effect a reconciliation between Hamas and the PLO reportedly gain momentum - the beginnings of a commonly-agreed Jewish and Arab narrative based on fact - not fiction - could hopefully become the basis for resuming future negotiations,

Imminent breakthrough or yet another lost opportunity?

Palestine - Jews Will Not Be Played For Suckers Anymore

[Published 1 February 2013]


Amos Oz represents the perfect example of a writer of stories and tales who should stick to writing and not trade on his unrivalled excellence and international recognition in that field to try and influence the course of Israeli politics.

This becomes embarrassingly evident when considering his political opinions disclosed in an article written for the New York Times by Roger Cohen on 28 January.

His introductory remarks to Cohen are indeed promising:

“Most Israelis would wave goodbye to the West Bank but they don’t want to be suckers, they don’t want the Gaza scenario to repeat itself”

Israelis were really taken for suckers after unilaterally evacuating Gaza in 2005 - receiving in return the indiscriminate firing of thousands of rockets into Israeli civilian population centres as thank you presents since then.

Israelis will not be suckered into suffering a repeat performance of such war crimes emanating from any areas of the West Bank ceded by them to the Arabs.

Oz maintains that there is:

“a silent consensus that the occupied territories do not matter that much. Israelis are no longer interested. They vote with their feet. They don’t go there, except for the settlers and right-wing extremists. This means that if Israelis can be reassured that by renouncing the West Bank they are not going to get a lousy deal - they are quietly ready to do it.”

Israel offered to renounce its claims to more than 90% of the West Bank in 2000/2001 and 2008 - but the Palestinian Authority insisted that millions of Arabs be given the right to emigrate to Israel and that any newly created state not be demilitarised.

This was the kind of lousy deal that Oz must have had in mind when talking to Cohen.

Oz insisted that at the end of the day some 70 percent on both sides — kicking and screaming and crying injustice — were ready for two states.

“If I may use a metaphor - I would say that the patient, Israeli and Palestinian, is unhappily ready for surgery, while the doctors are cowards.”

The Palestinian patient seems strangely disinterested in submitting to such surgery - still insisting after 20 years of negotiations that such surgery requires cutting up the Israeli patient for spare parts.

Oz is quite prepared to brand Israel’s recently elected Prime Minister a coward.

“Yes I think Netanyahu is a coward,” he declared. But the victory of the center in the election could alter the equation. “It means,” Oz said, “that there will be more pressure on Netanyahu from the dovish side in Israel and from the outside world, so that his cowardice may work the other way.”

Since the dovish side in Israel managed to gain only 21 out of 120 seats in Israel’s next Parliament - Oz’s hopes seem more like fiction than fact.

Oz makes no mention of the Palestinian cowards who have refused to hold elections in the West Bank and Gaza since 2007.

Oz then turns his attention to:

“a political novice, the telegenic Yair Lapid, a mystery wrapped in good looks at the head of a party with a reassuring-disquieting name: There Is A Future”

”I don’t know if Lapid has ideas and I’m not sure he knows. What Lapid will do is a mystery not just to me — it is probably a mystery to him!”

Obviously - according to the wizardry of Oz - it must also be a mystery to 549000 Israelis who voted for Lapid as well. This political slap in the face to their supposed lack of intelligence is insulting.

Oz’s political credo is very outdated:

“There cannot be one state because Israelis and Palestinians cannot become one happy family (“they are not one and they are not happy.”) So “the only solution is turning the house into two smaller apartments.” Two states, absolutely, are the only answer.”

The Peel Report had the same credo in 1937 - as did the United Nations in 1947. This credo was rejected by the Palestinian Arabs on both occasions.

That credo was spurned by the Palestinian Arabs between 1948-1967 when not a Jew lived in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem after six invading Arab armies had driven them from their homes - choosing instead to unify the West Bank with Jordan and not take the opportunity afforded to them in those 19 years to create the independent state they now so fervently call for.

Israelis will not now be suckered into doing what the Palestinian Arabs and their Arab brethren have so clearly rejected during the past 75 years. Twenty years of being played for suckers since 1993 has taken its toll on Israelis.

And what of Hamas?

“At least what we can do is solve the conflict with the Palestine Liberation Organization and reduce the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an Israel-Gaza conflict. This will be a big step forward. Then we will see. Hamas may change as the P.L.O. did. The Palestinian Authority is ready for a state in the West Bank, unhappy about it, sure, but ready. They will go on dreaming of Haifa and Jaffa just as we will dream of Hebron and Nablus. There is no censorship on dreams.”

Trouble is there is no longer any Palestinian Authority. It was decreed out of existence by “President” Mahmoud Abbas and buried on 3 January 2013 alongside the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap.

Will Israelis be suckered into believing that Hamas may change - that Hamas will never end up taking over the West Bank as happened in Gaza in 2007?

Conquering Haifa and Jaffa by getting rid of the Jews living there is a very different dream to occupying Hebron and Nablus by living alongside the Arabs - as currently occurs in Haifa and Jaffa.

And the Palestinian right of return?

"The right of return is a euphemism for the liquidation of Israel. Even for a dove like myself this is out of the question. Refugees must be resettled in the future state of Palestine, not Israel.”

This plea will continue to fall on deaf ears.

Cohen was obviously impressed by what he heard from Oz - concluding

“Sit down with Oz. That is my advice to the next Israeli government — and to all the deluded absolutists, Arab and Jew, of this unnecessary conflict whose unhappy but peaceful ending is not beyond the scope of open-ended human imagination.”

Cohen must have had the title of one of Oz’s books in mind - The Hill of Evil Counsel - when penning this gem of gratuitous advice.

Stick to writing fiction, Amos.

This latest effort could be the basis for another best seller.