Israel-Jordan negotiations could follow PLO threat to boycott Trump

[Published 15 January 2018]


The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) threat to refuse to negotiate with Israel unless President Trump withdraws his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel could see Jordan replacing the PLO as Israel’s negotiating partner to end the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

This threat — unless unconditionally revoked — would give Trump the opportunity to consign the PLO to the political wilderness by inviting Jordan to step in and negotiate with Israel over Trump’s eagerly-anticipated “ultimate deal‚”.

Jordan-Israel negotiations would offer Jordan the opportunity to recover a substantial part of Judea and Samaria (“West Bank‚”) annexed by Jordan in 1950 — albeit illegally — but subsequently lost to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War (“disputed territory‚”).

Should Jordan buck at entering into such negotiations — some 60% of the disputed territory - under Israel’s full administrative and security control since the 1995 Oslo Accords and containing just 5% of the West Bank’s entire Arab population (“Area C‚”) - could be annexed by Israel.

PLO-Israel negotiations over the last twenty-five years — with United Nations, UNESCO and European Union backing — aimed at creating a 22nd Arab state in the disputed territory for the first time ever in recorded history - have failed abysmally.

Such a State was an artificially-contrived creation that could never be justified on historic, geographic or demographic grounds. It had actually been rejected by successive Arab leaderships on many occasions since first being proposed by the 1937 Peel Commission.

Joint 1994 Nobel Peace Prize winners — Israeli leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzchak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat — all understood Jordan’s pivotal role in ending the Jewish-Arab conflict:

1. Jordan is the major part (78%) of the Palestinian Arabs’ homeland according to article 2 of the PLO Charter.

Farouk Kadoumi - Head of the Political Department of the PLO — reinforced this reality - telling Newsweek on 14 March 1977:

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

2. Peres declared on 31 August 1978:

“Jordan is also Palestine… I’m against two Arab countries and against another Palestinian country, against an Arafat state. Today 50 percent of the inhabitants of Jordan are Palestinians and that is the Palestinian state…

Peres backed this up - telling the Jewish Telegraph on April 19, 1991:

“It is not obstinacy to regard the populations of Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza as having greater similarities than differences. The Jordan River is not deep enough to turn into a knife blade serving to cut one piece of territory into three slices. Most of Jordan’s population are Palestinians: the residents of the West Bank are Jordanian citizens and Jordan has distributed tens of thousands of passports to residents in the Gaza Strip. Jordan is therefore an existing State. It has an army. There is therefore no need to set up another State, another army."

3. Yitzchak Rabin told The Australian newspaper on May 27, 1985:

“One tiny State between Israel and Jordan will solve nothing. It will be a time bomb.”

Rabin’s solution to end the conflict:

”... 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.”

Jordan-Israel negotiations on the political future of the disputed territory open up options to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict never before considered. If Trump’s Jerusalem Declaration helps bring such negotiations about - then Trump could well succeed where all other American Presidents before him have failed.

Taking on Trump could herald the PLO’s political demise after 54 years of failed leadership.

Palestine - A Match Made In Heaven

[Published 12 September 2012]

Yasser Arafat and Yitzchak Rabin were reportedly overheard having the following spirited conversation in heaven recently - frankly reflecting on the mistakes they both had made in trying to reach the “Peace of the Brave” for which they and the last surviving member of the trio - Shimon Peres—had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

Yitzchak:

I always thought that the way to peace between the Jews and the Arabs involved re-subdividing Palestine into two States with Jewish Israel sovereign in about 20% of Palestine and Arab Jordan sovereign in about 80% of Palestine.

Shimon persuaded me to pursue a different path by accepting Oslo.

In hindsight this was a terrible error of judgment by me and cost me my life, the lives of thousands of Jews and Arabs and the maiming, wounding and emotional scarring of our respective populations.

Yasser:

Look Yitzchak, I know you weren’t happy with Oslo. I felt it in that famous handshake at the White House. I was aware of your comment in The Australian newspaper on May 27, 1985:

“One tiny State between Israel and Jordan will solve nothing. It will be a time bomb.”

Oslo would have created just such a State.

Yitzchak:

I think my then prediction is more relevant today than ever - considering the collapse of Oslo, 9/11, your 2001 refusal of Barak’s offer, the second Intifada, the failed Roadmap, the 2006 Lebanon War, the 2008 Abbas rejection of Olmert’s offer, the 10000 rockets fired into civilian population centres in Israel from Gaza since 2007, Operation Cast Lead in 2008, what’s happening now in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Jordan, Gaza, the West Bank and Iran’s nuclear threat to wipe out Israel.

The Quartet members are making a big mistake pursuing the two-state solution.

They supposedly respect my memory but not my opinions. They know I also said when making my prediction:

“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.”

Yasser:

On June 25, 1987 I myself told the New York Review of Books that before the Second World War:

“Jordan was an emirate, completely part of Palestine.”

I know my history as well as you, my dear partner in peace. We both agreed that Jordan was part of Palestine - part of the problem and part of the solution…..

Yitzchak:

We really should have built on this common agreement when we finally decided to talk about peace.

Yasser:

I also told Der Spiegel in 1986:

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

Yitzchak:

Even Jordan recognised the historic and demographic reality of what you were saying. As early as Spring 1982 Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan was quoted in the Foreign Affairs Review as endorsing the words of a leading Jordanian social scientist:

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

Yasser:

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.”

Farouk stood by my wife Suha during my dying days in hospital in France. Now there is more concern about whether I was poisoned than there is about the failed peace process.

Yitzchak:

So why did you insist on separate Palestinian and Jordanian delegations at the Madrid Conference in 1991 instead of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation?

Yasser:

Come on Yitzchak. You know there had been a power struggle between King Hussein and myself for control of Jordan. Could I ever forget or forgive how my followers and I were driven out of Jordan in September 1970 and the slaughter that was inflicted on us at that time? Do you think it was fun being shunted to Lebanon and thence to Tunisia?

Yitzchak:

But surely you could have resolved your dispute by retaining King Hussein as Jordan’s monarch and appointing yourself as Jordan’s Prime Minister. By burying your differences you could have ended up as Prime Minister of 80% of Palestine instead of President of nothing.

Yasser:

That’s all water under the bridge. Now that I have been removed from the scene is there perhaps something we can do to influence those left behind down there to
re-subdivide Palestine along the lines you suggested 27 years ago?

Yitzchak:

Well I know Shimon is just as aware as you and I are of Jordan’s role in bringing peace to the region. Shimon told the Jewish Telegraph on April 19, 1991:

“It is not obstinacy to regard the populations of Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza as having greater similarities than differences. The Jordan River is not deep enough to turn into a knife blade serving to cut one piece of territory into three slices. Most of Jordan’s population are Palestinians: the residents of the West Bank are Jordanian citizens and Jordan has distributed tens of thousands of passports to residents in the Gaza Strip. Jordan is therefore an existing State. It has an army. There is therefore no need to set up another State, another army.”

Yasser:

Shimon might now be President—but he is not the Israeli Government.

Israel’s Prime Minister - Bibi Netanyahu - needs to endorse Shimon’s view and make it Israeli policy

Yitzchak:

Bibi’s view is very similar to Shimon’s. Bibi told the United Nations on 11 December 1984:

“Clearly, in Eastern and Western Palestine, there are only two peoples, the Arabs and the Jews. Just as clearly, there are only two states in that area, Jordan and Israel. The Arab State of Jordan…does not allow a single Jew to live there…It also contains 4/5 of the territory originally allocated by this body’s predecessor, the League of Nations, for the Jewish National Home. The other State, Israel… contains less than 1/5 of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate‚Ķ. It cannot be said, therefore, that the Arabs of Palestine are lacking a state of their own. The demand for a second Palestinian Arab State in Western Palestine, and a 22nd Arab State in the world, is merely the latest attempt to push Israel back into the hopelessly vulnerable armistice lines of 1949."

Bibi eventually changed direction under extreme pressure from President Obama by proposing a demilitarized third state in former Palestine on 14 June 2009. That idea has gone down like a lead balloon.

He and Shimon need to resume enunciating their long held shared vision once again.

Shimon also needs to remind his Presidential confreres what Ariel Sharon - in an induced coma since 2006 - told Time on April 17, 1989:

“Jordan is Palestine! The capital of Palestine is Amman. If Palestinian Arabs want to find their political expression, they will have to do it in Amman.”

Ariel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza and the building of a security fence in the West Bank has effectively divided former Palestine into Jewish and Arab sections - forming the basis for calling an international conference to re-subdivide Palestine along the lines I first suggested in 1985.

Yasser:

That’s all fine, but what about my beloved Jerusalem? Can I ever hope that my mortal remains will be reburied there?

Yitzchak:

Yes. It is possible. East Jerusalem was part of Jordan between 1948-1967 and would have been so today had King Hussein kept out of the Six Day War. The Holy Places are specifically to be dealt with in the Peace Treaty I signed with King Hussein in 1994.

We can’t solve all the problems from here. Those on earth are charged with negotiating the final outcomes. Now is a propitious time for them to attempt to do so.

Yasser:

How can we get the Quartet to abandon its plans to continue pursuing the impossible? Visions have a habit of turning into the worst nightmares.

Yitzchak:

The Quartet should heed the above things we said whilst on earth, but which we unfortunately failed to try to put into practice. This will be the finest tribute they can pay to our memories and will merit the Nobel Prize that we were in truth prematurely awarded. This will be the real peace of the brave. Pressure must be put on Jordan to
re-subdivide Palestine, the same kind of pressure that is being put on Israel to accept the badly flawed and thoroughly discredited Road Map. Then perhaps the peace we all desire will be attainable.

Yasser:

Shalom Yitzchak

Yitzchak:

Salaam Yasser.

It is hard to believe that I first published this conversation in 2004. Everything said then still remains true today in this updated version.

Re-subdivide Palestine into two states - one Jewish - one Arab. Two people need two states - not three.

Hopefully another update will not be necessary in 2020

Palestine - Bye Bye Oslo, Hello Jordan and Egypt

[Published 29 December 2011]


Veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk may have been a little premature when he stated on 20 September:

"It’s over: the “peace process”, the “road map”, the “Oslo agreement”; the whole fandango is history. Personally, I think “Palestine” is a fantasy state, impossible to create now that the Israelis have stolen so much of the Arabs’ land for their colonial projects."

Fisk - in attributing this simplistic reason for signing Oslo’s death certificate - totally ignored the two offers made by Israel in 2001 and 2008 to cede its claims under the Mandate for Palestine and the United Nations Charter in more than 90% of the land won from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War.

The real reasons for Oslo’s demise are far deeper and more complex - revealing unbridgeable gaps between Israel and the PLO in reaching any agreement with regard to the following issues after failed on and off negotiations extending over the last 19 years:

1.Israel’s demands that
(i) Israel be recognized as the Jewish State
(ii) Any Palestinian State be demilitarized
(iii)The final borders determined between it and a Palestinian State be secure and recognized boundaries as stipulated by United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338

2.The PLO’s demands that
(i) Israel cede its claims in 100% of the territory won from Jordan in the 1967 War - with possibly equivalent land swaps to negate the removal of Jews from their homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem
(ii) Israel agree to accept millions of Palestinian Arabs - and their descendants - who became refugees as a result of the 1948 War

Fisk’s prediction has however been given added weight with the news this week that Hamas has agreed to join the PLO.

If this was to actually occur Israel’s Prime Minister made his government’s position very clear when Israel Radio reportedly quoted him as saying that if Hamas joins the Palestinian government, he would refuse to conduct peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

Little comfort can be taken from the news that the Palestinian Authority might now be prepared to resume the long stalled peace negotiations with Israel if it released 100 prisoners. The parties can talk till the cows come in. But after 19 fruitless years - can sufficient pressure be put on both sides to come to an agreement on all their outstanding demands?

The Oslo Accords - and the Palestinian Authority - were born amid great enthusiasm in 1993.

The Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee - Francis Sejersted - expressed the following hopes of the Committee when awarding the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzchak Rabin:

"In the committee’s view, the so-called Oslo Accords concluded last year between Israel and the PLO meant that developments in the Middle East had taken a new turning. What was revolutionary about them was the de facto mutual recognition by the two parties. Not least by virtue of that recognition, the accords opened up a possible way out of the vicious circle of violence breeding violence, and towards peaceful co-existence."

The Nobel Committee’s optimism was misplaced.

Yasser Arafat had signed a side letter dated 9 September 1993 - nine days prior to signing the Declaration of Principles in which he assured Yitzchak Rabin:

"The signing of the Declaration of Principles marks a new era… I would like to confirm the following PLO commitments: The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security. The PLO accepts United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. The PLO commits itself…to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations…the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators…the PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel’s right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid. Consequently, the PLO undertakes to submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval the necessary changes in regard to the Palestinian Covenant."

In breach of those commitments:

1. The PLO Covenant still remains unchanged and unrevised in 2011.
2. The PLO has rejected the idea of Israel being entitled to secure and recognized borders as required under Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338
3. The PLO has unilaterally sought to gain statehood - not through negotiations - but by seeking recognition and admission to the United Nations and UNESCO.
4. The PLO is demanding pre-conditions for resuming the stalled negotiations with Israel.

Indeed one would be unable to find any improvement in the relationship between Israel and the PLO in 2011 to that which existed in 1994 when Mr Serjested declared:

"The situation is still full of tension, marked by violence, killings, and insecurity, and stability is still far to seek"

The PLO has been given its opportunity for the last 19 years to create a second Arab state in former Palestine - in addition to Jordan - but quite frankly has missed the boat.

Martin Sherman has summed up the current situation in these terms:

"For almost two decades after the Oslo Accords—despite massive financial aid and political support—they have produced nothing but a deeply divided entity, crippled by corruption and cronyism.

The result is a dysfunctional polity unable to conduct even the semblance of timely elections, and a puny economy, comprising a minuscule private sector and a bloated public one, totally unsustainable without massive infusions of foreign funds."

Sherman’s prescription to abandon Oslo and the two-state solution predicated by the Bush Roadmap is described by him as follows :

"Since the geography is immutable, the focus must be on the demography.

It is thus no more than “elementary” that the long-term preservation of the Jewish state must involve the relocation of the non-Israeli Arabs between the river and the sea. Any other option is self-deluded wishful thinking—or at least the burden of proof to show otherwise is on the proponents of such an option, especially in view of the post-Oslo/post-disengagement experiences."

I beg to differ.

Restoring the status quo at 4 June 1967 - as far as can now be done in direct negotiations between Israel and Jordan (and possibly Egypt) and within the framework of Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and their existing peace treaties - will involve no-one - Arab or Jew - having to leave his current home unless he voluntarily wishes to do so.

This is not self-deluded wishful thinking - but It will need some pressure by the Quartet - America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - to be placed on Jordan and Egypt to sit down and negotiate with Israel if they refuse to do so voluntarily.

The alternative - continued tension, violence, insecurity, killings and instability - cannot be allowed to deteriorate into an inevitable slide into open warfare.

To hope for anything else as we usher in 2012 is pure folly.

America, Israel And Jordan - Nobel Peace Prize Up For Grabs

[Published 27 July 2010]

America’s President Obama , Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Abdullah could well become leading candidates for the joint award of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas continues to resist calls by President Obama to enter into direct negotiations with Israel.

Associated Press claims it has sighted a Palestinian internal document stating that America may not help set up a Palestinian state if President Abbas does not enter direct negotiations with Israel soon.

Palestinian Authority Chief Negotiatior Saeb Erekat has confirmed that U.S. officials told Abbas that:

“if he wants Obama to help, then he needs to go to direct talks.”

President Abbas has disingenuously attempted to quash such reports telling reporters after meeting King Abdullah in Amman:

“We are ready to hold direct peace negotiations with Israel. We have negotiated with Israeli governments before, more than once. Why would we avoid such talks? We are not.”

Any such meeting or subsequent meetings would in any event be a complete waste of time and not have the slightest chance of progressing the earlier failed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Continuing to hold out for 100% of your territorial demands is an Arab negotiating position that has remained unchanged for the last 43 years. It has proved a guaranteed recipe for failure - especially in the last 7 years since the Roadmap was first proposed by President Bush.

Such an intransigent negotiating stance indicates that there has been no sincere effort by the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League to end the conflict between Jews and Arabs by dividing sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza and creating a new Arab state between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

The territorial division is the easiest part of the equation - yet it has proved to be and continues to be an insurmountable barrier for the Palestinian Authority to negotiate.

Dividing sovereignty of the West Bank was acknowledged by President Bush as being the only realistic option when he wrote to Israel’s then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on 14 April 2004:

“As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.”

The Palestinian Authority however is simply not prepared to accept these realities.

Perhaps President Abbas should heed the words spoken by Gunnar Berge of the Norwegian Nobel Committee on the occasion of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Jimmy Carter on 10 December 2002:

“Not all his [Carter’s] efforts have been equally successful. But, as Carter himself has said, and taken as his motto: “The worst thing that you can do is not to try.” Few people, if any, have tried harder. This year’s Laureate does the opposite of what his countryman Mark Twain once wrote about forgetting where you bury the peace-pipe, but not where the battle-axe is. Carter never mislays the peace-pipe.”

President Abbas has mislaid the peace-pipe choosing confrontation rather than negotiation - intransigence rather than compromise - whilst keeping his hand firmly in readiness on the battle-axe.

In the midst of the continuing turmoil caused by such Palestinian Authority rejectionism - Israel and Jordan long ago buried the battle-axe and chose to smoke the peace pipe.

The Washington Declaration signed by Israel and Jordan on 25 July 1994 stated:

“His Majesty King Hussein and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin believe that steps must be taken both to overcome psychological barriers and to break with the legacy of war. By working with optimism towards the dividends of peace for all the people in the region, Jordan and Israel are determined to shoulder their responsibilities towards the human dimension of peace making.”

The subsequent signing of a Peace Treaty in October 1994 between Israel and Jordan and the enduring nature of that Treaty in the face of some very difficult political events is testimony to the ability of Jordan to continue the human dimension of peace making with Israel - a quality that the Palestinian Authority has lacked ever since its birth in 1993.

President Obama might well take a leaf from the Washington Declaration and invite Israel and Jordan back to discuss the division of the sovereignty of the West Bank between their respective States and to sign a second Declaration which could closely follow the wording of the first Declaration by stating:

“After generations of hostility, blood and tears and in the wake of years of pain and wars, His Majesty King Abdullah 11 and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are determined to bring an end to bloodshed and sorrow arising from the unresolved allocation of sovereignty of the territories captured by Israel in 1967. It is in this spirit that His Majesty King Abdullah 11 of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Prime Minister Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, met in Washington today at the invitation of President Barack H. Obama of the United States of America. This initiative of President Barack H Obama constitutes an historic landmark in the United States’ untiring efforts in promoting peace and stability in the Middle East. The personal involvement of the President has made it possible to realise agreement on the content of this historic declaration.”

Judging by President Obama’s growing impatience with President Abbas - such an invitation to King Abdullah and Prime Minister Netanyahu to come to Washington might now not seem that impossible to contemplate. They could well find inspiration from Kolbein Falkeid’s poem read out at the presentation of the Nobel peace Prize to President Carter:

Do not hang splendid
moments up on the walls
in your thoughts
and gild them
with your longing.
Drive your crowbar
hard under scarred
working days
and force them up.
One by one.
That is why
life has you
on its muster roll.

President Obama , King Abdullah and Prime Minister Netanyahu could most decidedly be on life’s muster roll for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize if they seize the opportunity that is rapidly emerging as a result of continuing Palestinian Authority recalcitrance.

President Bush Presses The Palestine Panic Button

[PublishedJuly 2007]

President George Bush is having a panic attack as his five year old vision of implanting an Arab state between Israel and Jordan in 6% of historic Palestine - the Bush Dream - has turned into a nightmare.

The President has been exposed as totally powerless and lacking in influence to resolve what seemed to him to be so readily achievable in 2002.

The Bush Dream has yet to get off the ground in the slightest detail and still remains only a distant mirage on the political horizon despite intense diplomacy over the last four years by America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - the Quartet - to transform it into a reality.

A desperate President Bush has now fallen back on three old chestnuts - an international conference, providing lots of weapons and throwing $190 million at the problem - in a last ditch effort to salvage something from the wreckage of his Middle East policy that is in tatters and utter disarray

The recipient of this largesse is Palestinian Authority President and PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas who has been unceremoniously and ignominiously removed from control of Gaza and its 1.5 million inhabitants and who has no power to make any agreement with Israel that can possibly bind the Arab residents of the West Bank and Gaza.

President Bush is simply wasting his time and needlessly squandering his country's resources in thinking that Mr Abbas can ever deliver on the Bush Dream for the following further reasons:

1. No meaningful negotiations can even begin until the repeal of those provisions of the Palestine Liberation Organisation Covenant which

(a) call for the State of Israel to be eliminated by armed military struggle and

(b) deny the legality of existing international agreements in relation to the former territory of Palestine - including the Mandate for Palestine, article 80 of the United Nations Charter and Security Council Resolution 242.

These provisions in the PLO Covenant are the very antithesis of the Bush Dream.

Creating a climate conducive to a peaceful resolution of the conflict can only be achieved by first erasing these offensive provisions.

President Bush has erred badly in not conditioning his further diplomatic and financial support on these provisions being immediately repealed.

2. President Bush's latest statement makes it clear that any negotiations "must lead to a territorial settlement with mutually agreed borders reflecting previous lines and current realities, and mutually agreed adjustments."

However Mr Abbas is unwilling to concede one square metre of the West Bank to Israel and requires Israel to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines -a sure fire recipe for sinking any negotiations.

How can the Bush Dream ever eventuate given this totally uncompromising stance by Mr Abbas?

Furthermore "the current realities" are that

(a) Mr Abbas is demanding that 450000 Jews be uprooted from their existing homes for the Bush Dream to come to fruition.

(b) Mr Bush has already signalled this is not acceptable in a letter dated 14 April 2004 to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declaring:.

"In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities. "

How then can President Bush contemplate the successful conclusion of a final status agreement to which Mr Abbas is a party given his intransigent stance on these basic issues?

3. Remarkably Mr. Bush's latest statement makes no mention of a very sensitive issue - the demand by Mr Abbas that millions of Arabs be allowed to go and live in Israel. Mr Abbas has never indicated the slightest interest in modifying this demand - which is totally unacceptable to Israel.

However President Bush's letter to Mr Sharon makes America's position very clear:

" It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel."

This is a deal breaker on its own. No wonder President Bush seeks to gloss it over. His reticence indicates an unwillingness by him to come to grips with recognising that further negotiations with Mr Abbas are doomed before they begin.

The Bush Dream - as well intentioned and heartfelt as it was when it was first proposed in 2002 - has failed and has now joined many other similar proposals that have fallen by the wayside over the last 70 years.

Prolonging the agony and raising false expectations can only be the end result of this latest effort to resuscitate a process that has realistically never had a chance of succeeding since it was first announced.

The adage - "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" - succinctly describes President Bush's failure to get the Arabs to genuinely negotiate with Israel in resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict. He joins many other famous statesmen and diplomats whose efforts went unrewarded for the same reason.

Better he wakes up to the reality now than suffer the indignity of further rebuffs.

Humility is far preferable to humiliation - and there is plenty of that in store for President Bush if he continues down the road to nowhere.

Israel's next President?

[Published October 2006]


Elie Wiesel's decision to turn down the offer to become Israel's next President is to be deeply regretted.

Mr Wiesel, 77, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a

"messenger to mankind,"

noting that through his struggle to come to terms with

"his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps,"

as well as his

"practical work in the cause of peace,"

he had delivered a powerful message

"of peace, atonement and human dignity"

to humanity.

Mr. Wiesel lives in America where he teaches at Boston University. He became an American citizen in 1963. He has recently received an honorary knighthood from the Queen of England.

Hopefully it is not too late to have Mr Wiesel rethink his decision.

The position of President is ceremonial only and carries no political power. However it offers the holder the opportunity to come into contact with all sectors of Israeli society and Jews worldwide and to represent Israel on State visits to other countries.

The President is the public persona of Israel and the Jewish people.

It was an inspired decision that led Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, to offer the Presidency to a non-Israeli at this time.

It recognised that 9 million of the world's Jewish population of 14 million do not live in Israel yet could still aspire to be appointed to the most prestigious and honourable position in the country.

Such an appointment would acknowledge the close relationship and mutual dependency between Jews in Israel and outside Israel and emphasise that the fate of each is bound up with and affects the fate of the other.

Many Jews living outside Israel have children and grandchildren who have migrated to and settled, in Israel. Others have business interests that lead to them spending extensive periods of time in Israel. A large number make frequent visits particularly at times of high religious significance.

Programs for young people attract tens of thousands annually to spend many weeks, months and even years in Israel reinforcing their Jewish identity resulting, in many cases, in their migrating to Israel permanently. All Jewish educational programs outside Israel involve the teaching of the history and geography of Israel from biblical times to the present day.

The appointment of a non-Israeli Jew as President would give renewed meaning to the Mandate for Palestine created by the League of Nations in 1922.

The Mandate endorsed

"the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people"

thereby giving recognition

"to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country"

without prejudice to

"the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".

The international community confirmed this commitment in 1946 by inserting Article 80 into the United Nations Charter giving Jews living anywhere in the World at that time or future generations the entitlement in international law to take up residence there at any time of their own choosing.

Israel is going through one of the most difficult periods since its establishment in 1948 as it now faces

(i) internal political scandals involving its current President, Moshe Katsav, Prime Minister Olmert, other politicians and military leaders,

(ii) calls for its total destruction by Iranian President Ahmadinijad and the Hamas led Government in Gaza

(iii) demands from the European Union and the 22 Arab States making up the Arab League that Israel withdraw to insecure and indefensible boundaries notwithstanding the provisions of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242.

A non-Israeli President could well serve as the rallying point for Jews in Israel and elsewhere to overcome the malaise that appears to have settled upon the Jewish people. This is encouraging Arab enemies of the Jewish State to believe that the time is fast coming for another all out attack to eliminate this thriving democratic State from among the nations of the world.

Israel desperately needs to stir the World's conscience and memory of its decisions to allow the Jews to return to the tiny country from whence they were expelled more than 2000 years ago, to ensure they will never be driven out again, and to guarantee that Israel will have sufficient space to absorb future generations of Jews who may wish to migrate and settle there.

Appointing an eminent and distinguished non-Israeli as the next President of the State of Israel could indeed be the catalyst that will help achieve these objectives.

Resubdividing Palestine

[Published November 2004]

Yasser Arafat has finally joined Yitzchak Rabin in the next world.

Freed now from all pressures, internal and external, perhaps they might be able to frankly reflect on the mistakes they both made in trying to reach the "Peace of the Brave" for which they and last surviving member of the trio, Shimon Peres received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Perhaps their conversation would go something like this:

Yitzchak: Welcome to our eternal home Yasser. I always thought that the way to peace between the Jews and the Arabs was the resubdivision of Palestine into two States with Jewish Israel being sovereign in about 20% of Palestine and Arab Jordan sovereign in about 80% of Palestine. Shimon persuaded me to pursue a different path by accepting Oslo. In hindsight this was a terrible error of judgement by me and cost me my life, the lives of thousands of Jews and Arabs and the maiming, wounding and emotional scarring of our respective populations.

Yasser: Look Yitzchak, I know you weren't happy with Oslo. I felt it in that famous handshake at the White House. I was aware of your comment in The Australian newspaper on May 27, 1985 that "One tiny State between Israel and Jordan will solve nothing. It will be a time bomb." Oslo would have created just such a State.

Yitzchak: And after the collapse of Oslo, 9/11, your refusal of Barak's offer, the second Intifada and what's happening now in Iraq, I think my prediction is still relevant today. The Quartet are making a big mistake pursuing this failed policy after your death. They supposedly respect my memory but not my opinions. They know I also said at that time that "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."

Yasser: On June 25, 1987 I myself told the New York Review of Books that before the Second World War "Jordan was an emirate, completely part of Palestine." I know my history as well as you, my dear partner in peace. We both agreed that Jordan was part of Palestine, part of the problem and part of the solution.

Yitzchak: We really should have built on this common agreement when we finally decided to talk about peace.

Yasser: You obviously were aware that I had also told Der Spiegel in 1986 that "Jordanians and Palestinians are indeed one people. No one can divide us. We have the same fate."

Yitzchak: Sure. Even Jordan recognised the historic and demographic reality of what you were saying. As early as Spring 1982 Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan was quoted in the Foreign Affairs Review as endorsing the words of a leading Jordanian social scientist that "the Jordanians and Palestinians are now one people, and no political loyalty, however strong, will separate them permanently.

Yasser: And Farouk Kadoumi, the Head of the Political Department of the PLO, told Newsweek on 14 March 1977 that "Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people." Farouk stood by my wife Suha during my dying days in hospital in France.

Yitzchak: So why did you insist on separate Palestinian and Jordanian delegations at the Madrid Conference in 1991 instead of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation?

Yasser: Come on Yitzchak. You know there had been a power struggle between King Hussein and myself for control of Jordan. Could I ever forget or forgive how my followers and I were driven out of Jordan in September 1970 and the slaughter that was inflicted on us at that time? Do you think it was fun being shunted to Lebanon and thence to Tunisia?

Yitzchak: But surely you could have resolved your dispute with King Hussein. Jordan would have had King Hussein as its monarch and you as its Prime Minister. By burying your differences you could have ended up as Prime Minister of 80% of Palestine instead of President of nothing. Your funeral would have been a vastly different ceremony to what I saw today.

Yasser: That's all water under the bridge. Now that I have been removed from the scene is there perhaps something we can do to influence those left behind down there to resubdivide Palestine along the lines you suggested 19 years ago?

Yitzchak: Well I know Shimon is just as aware as you and I are of Jordan's role in bringing peace to the region. Shimon told the Jewish Telegraph on April 19, 1991 that "It is not obstinacy to regard the populations of Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza as having greater similarities than differences. The Jordan River is not deep enough to turn into a knife blade serving to cut one piece of territory into three slices. Most of Jordan's population are Palestinians: the residents of the West Bank are Jordanian citizens and Jordan has distributed tens of thousands of passports to residents in the Gaza Strip. Jordan is therefore an existing State. It has an army. There is therefore no need to set up another State, another army."

Yasser: True, but Shimon is not at this moment in the Israeli Government. It will need the concurrence of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to make these views Israeli policy.

Yitzchak: That shouldn't be difficult. Ariel told Time on April 17, 1989, that "Jordan is Palestine! The capital of Palestine is Amman. If Palestinian Arabs want to find their political expression, they will have to do it in Amman." Couple those thoughts with his Disengagement Plan for Gaza and the building of a security fence in the West Bank, which has effectively divided the region into Jewish and Arab sections, and you have the basis for calling an international conference whose object is to resubdivide Palestine along the lines I first suggested in 1985.

Yasser: That's all fine, but what about my beloved Jerusalem? Can I ever hope that my mortal remains will be reburied there?

Yitzchak: Yes. It is possible. East Jerusalem was part of Jordan between 1948-1967 and would have been so today had King Hussein kept out of the six day War. The Holy Places are specifically to be dealt with in the Peace Treaty I signed with King Hussein in 1994. We can't solve all the problems from here. Those on earth are charged with negotiating the final outcomes. Now is a propitious time for them to attempt to do so.

Yasser: How can we get the Quartet to abandon their plans to continue pursuing the impossible? Visions have a habit of turning into the worst nightmares.

Yitzchak: The Quartet should heed the above things we said whilst on earth, but which we unfortunately failed to try to put into practice. This will be the finest tribute they can pay to our memories and will merit the Nobel Prize that we were in truth prematurely awarded. This will be the real peace of the brave. Pressure must be put on Jordan to resubdivide Palestine, the same kind of pressure that is being put on Israel to accept the badly flawed and thoroughly discredited Road Map. Then perhaps the peace we all desire will be attainable.

Yasser: Shalom Yitzchak

Yitzchak: Salaam Yasser.