UN abandons moral compass in waging semantic warfare on Israel

 

The language being used by the United Nations (UN) and its officials to characterise the unresolved 100-years old conflict between Jews and Arabs disqualifies the UN from having any meaningful role to play in ending that long-running dispute.

The Report to the Security Council on November 30,2021 by Tor Wennesland — Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process – is the latest in the ongoing saga of semantic warfare being waged against Israel. 

Wennesland’s Report is peppered with the following terminology that reeks of prejudice against Jewish claims but is heavily-biased in favour of Arab claims:

1. “Occupied Palestinian Territory”

“Occupied Palestinian Territory” is in fact “Disputed Territory”: Territory which is claimed by both Jews and Arabs.  

Use of “Occupied Palestinian Territory” rather than “Disputed Territory” signals that the UN does not accept Jewish claims to any of this “Disputed Territory ” – notwithstanding that article 80 of the UN’s own Charter preserves the right of Jews to live in that Territory for the purposes of reconstituting the Jewish National Home there under the terms of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

2. “West Bank”

The term “West Bank” was coined in 1950 to designate 4% of the territory of former Palestine west of the Jordan River - called “Judea and Samaria” for the previous 3000 years - which was unified with an additional 78% of the territory of former Palestine east of the Jordan River - called Transjordan — to form a new territorial entity renamed “Jordan”.

Wennesland’s use of the stand-alone term “West Bank” without any reference to its 3000 years old historic name indicates the immoral depths to which the UN and its officials have sunk.

After all — the UN itself had used the term “Judea and Samaria” in Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947:

“The boundary of the hill country of Samaria and Judea starts on the Jordan River at the Wadi Malih south-east of Beisan”

The UN Special Commission on Palestine also used the term “Judea and Samaria” in its 1947 Report:

”...the interior of the country is very mountainous with the hills of Judea and Samaria in the centre” 

Removing any possible identification with Jews and Jewish history by expunging any reference to “Judea and Samaria” –-the Jewish People’s ancient and biblical heartland – exposes the UN’s anti-Jewish bias in papering over Jewish claims to this disputed territory in favour of an invented fake pro-Arab claim made for the first time in history in the 1964 PLO Charter.

3. “The Palestinian Authority”

On January 3, 2013 - the term “Palestinian Authority” was replaced by the term “State of Palestine” - when Mahmoud Abbas, acting in his capacities as President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, signed “Decree No. 1 for the year 2013.” 

 Article 1 of the decree states:

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

Article 4 states: 

“All competent authorities, each in their respective area, shall implement this Decree starting from its date.”

What motivates the UN and its officials to still turn a blind eye to this official name change after almost 9 years?

The UN continues to lose its credibility, neutrality and impartiality as it and its officials use language and terminology which is antithetical to seeking an end to the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Sticks and stones won’t break the UN’s bones – but waging semantic warfare against Israel is certainly doing just that.

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.

Jordan’s King Abdullah tries to torpedo Trump peace plan

[Published 17 May 2020]

King Abdullah of Jordan has attempted to torpedo President Trump’s peace plan by falsely suggesting it could lead to a one-state solution — not the two-state solution Trump clearly envisages.

Abdullah’s intent became apparent in this interview with Der Spiegel:

DER SPIEGEL: In a few weeks’ time, the Israeli parliament plans to discuss U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, which includes the annexation of the West Bank by Israel. What would it mean for Jordan if Trump’s plan for the Middle East were to be implemented?

The question was false in its content and framed in the language of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) — using the term “annexation of the West Bank” instead of “restoring Jewish sovereignty in 30% of the West Bank after 3000 years”.

Abdullah responded to this canard:

King Abdullah II: Is now, in the midst of the corona pandemic, really the time to discuss whether we want a one - or two - state solution for Israel and Palestine? Or should we be discussing how we can fight the pandemic together? The two-state solution is the only way for us to be able to move forward.

Why gratuitously throw in a one-state solution? Why no mention by Abdullah that the two-state solution could not move forward because the PLO has absolutely refused to negotiate with Israel?

The interviewer’s next question corrected his first — asking about Israel annexing “large parts of the Palestinian territories.”

DER SPIEGEL: Politicians like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu want to take advantage of the opportunity presented by Trump and annex large parts of the Palestinian territories.

Abdullah ignored the correction — repeating his false one-state allegation:

King Abdullah II: Leaders who advocate a one-state solution do not understand what that would mean. What would happen if the Palestinian National Authority collapsed? There would be more chaos and extremism in the region. If Israel really annexes the West Bank in July, it would lead to a massive conflict with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Neither Trump nor Netanyahu has advocated a one-state solution.

The “Palestinian Authority” no longer exists — Mahmoud Abbas having changed its name to the “State of Palestine” by decree on January 3, 2013.

Maybe a massive conflict if Israel “annexed” the West Bank — but 30% - an area of 1697 km??

The interviewer did not query Abdullah — but blithely continued:

DER SPIEGEL: You would suspend the peace treaty with Israel?

King Abdullah II: I don’t want to make threats and create a loggerheads atmosphere, but we are considering all options. We agree with many countries in Europe and the international community that the law of the strongest should not apply in the Middle East.

Empty posturing.

The Hashemites have controlled Jordan since 1920.

The PLO has controlled Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria since 2004 and allowed its hapless residents only one vote in 2006.

The law of the strongest is alive and kicking in the Middle East.

Abdullah faces Trump calling on him to fill the negotiating void left by the PLO jettisoning Trump’s plan — because:

1. Transjordan invaded Judea and Samaria in 1948 driving out every Jew living there

2. Transjordan and Judea and Samaria were merged into one territorial entity in 1950 and renamed “Jordan” whilst “Judea and Samaria” was renamed “West Bank”

3. “West Bank” Arab residents were granted Jordanian citizenship between 1954 and 1988

4. PLO made no claims to territorial sovereignty until Jordan lost Judea and Samaria to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

The one-state solution is a desperate Abdullah ploy to remain uninvolved.

The realistic two-state solution — Jordan and Israel — is coming.

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 reverses Obama-UN treachery on West Bank and East Jerusalem

[Published 19 June 2019]

President Trump’s decision to back Israel’s claims to sovereignty in the West Bank and Jerusalem has resurrected America’s commitment to the Jewish people made by President Bush and Congress in 2004 after that commitment had been subsequently repudiated by President Obama in the last month of his Presidency in December 2016.

Bush’s Congress-endorsed commitment was given to Israel in a letter from President Bush to then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on 14 April 2004. Bush confirmed that America regarded it as unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority would see Israel withdraw from all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

President Bush’s commitment was overwhelmingly endorsed by Congress by 502 votes to 12.

Bush’s commitment procured Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza and part of the West Bank in 2005 involving the forcible removal of 8000 Jews living there — a decision which has had disastrous consequences for both Israel's and Gaza's civilian populations after Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 from the Palestine Liberation Organization.

President Obama shredded this Bush Congress-endorsed commitment when he abstained - rather than vetoed Security Council Resolution 2334 on 23 December 2016 - which declared:

“the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;”

Secretary of State John Kerry offered this pathetic explanation on 28 December 2016 for Obama’ failure to veto Resolution 2234:

“the vote in the United Nations was about preserving the two-state solution. That’s what we were standing up for: Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state, living side by side in peace and security with its neighbors. That’s what we are trying to preserve for our sake and for theirs.”

Resolution 2334 however was asserting:

1. The West Bank and East Jerusalem were “Palestinian territory”and

2. 600,000 Jews currently living there had no legal entitlement to do so despite the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations own Charter legally vesting that right in the Jewish people.

Obama and Kerry were knowingly complicit in America not vetoing this overtly-hostile anti-Jewish Security Council resolution. Obama invariably had vetoed similar Security Council resolutions during his eight years as President.

Obama’s then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had misleadingly denied on 6 June 2009 that any such Bush-era commitment existed. Yet she had voted in the Senate to endorse Bush’s commitment on 24 June 2004 when a Senator.

Obama’s refusal to veto Resolution 2334 as he was exiting the White House - leaving this poisoned chalice behind for President Trump - was shameful.

Trump's recognition of Israel’s right to retain portions of the West Bank and East Jerusalem has restored America’s reputation for honouring commitments made by its President and endorsed by its Congress.

Trump’s decision sends a clear message to the United Nations that it needs to act in accordance with its Charter if it is to have any influence or relevance in ending the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Trump has also put the Arab States on notice that America stands strong in its continuing support for Israel and its claims to sovereignty in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The sooner the Arab States understand this change in America’s position post-Obama — the sooner Trump’s yet to be released “deal of the century”has a chance of succeeding.

Obama and the United Nations’ treacherous attempt to entrap Trump has spectacularly failed.

Author’ note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones” - one of Israel’ 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

"State of Palestine" set to confront Trump at United Nations

[Published 22 January 2019]

The bizarre Handover ceremony of Egypt’s Chairmanship of the Group of 77 to the “State of Palestine” for 2019 will enable this non-existent and non-member State of the United Nations to play a leading role in the 74 years old farce — “The Question of Palestine and the United Nations” (PUN).

“The State of Palestine” does not meet the criteria for statehood required under the 1933 Montevideo Convention.

The Group of 77 (“the Bloc”) contains 133 of the 193 member states of the United Nations — ensuring the automatic passage of all United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions they propose.

UNGA Resolution A/RES/73/5 - adopted on 16 October 2018 — put this illusory “State of Palestine” center stage for PUN’s 2019 New York season — recognizing it as the Bloc’s public face in all matters brought before UNGA and at meetings of representatives of other major groups.

146 countries voted for this Resolution whilst only three - Israel, the U.S. and Australia - voted against, 15 countries abstained and the remaining 29 states did not vote.

US Deputy UN Ambassador Jonathan Cohen called out the hypocrisy of the vote:

“We cannot support efforts by the Palestinians to enhance their status outside of direct negotiations. The United States does not recognize that there is a Palestinian state…Only U.N. member states should be entitled to speak and act on behalf of major groups of states at the United Nations.”

Australia’s UN Ambassador Gillian Bird asserted:

“Australia’s decision to vote no on this resolution reflects our long-standing position that Palestinian attempts to seek recognition as a state in international fora are deeply unhelpful to efforts towards a two-state solution.”

The Handover Ceremony took place in the presence of UNGA President Ms. Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, UN Secretary General Mr. António Gutteres, Mahmoud Abbas — the self-styled “President of the State of Palestine” (formerly called “the Palestinian Authority” before Abbas unilaterally changed its name in 2013) and Bloc members.

Mr. Gutteres’ 12 minute speech contained this politically-charged statement:

“Palestine and its citizens have first-hand experience of some of the most challenging and dramatic global issues at force”

Regrettably the Secretary General failed to elaborate on where he believed “Palestine” is located, who he considers are its citizens, its capital, the area it controls and its current government.

The Handover Ceremony included a 1 hour concert featuring live performances of Astor Piazzolla’s “Oblivion”, a Brahms sonata for violin and piano, five works by three Egyptian composers extending over 26 minutes and just 4 minutes of “Palestinian folk songs” whose provenance was not mentioned in the program notes.

One Egyptian composition - “Lessa Faker” — aptly describes the path UNGA needs to take to end this blatant “State of Palestine” fakery that flagrantly violates international law.

“Foreign Minister” of the “State of Palestine” Riyad Malki has impertinently predicted:

”...we are confident that [the Bloc] will support the Palestinians when it [sic] time comes for negotiations and the US will find out that it cannot ignore Palestine.”

Malki’s claim is risible.

America has denied the existence of any State of Palestine for the last seven decades. President Trump has closed the PLO diplomatic offices in Washington and ceased America’s annual payments of $360 million to UNRWA. The PLO refuses to entertain any Trump peace proposals designed to end the Arab-Jewish conflict.

President Trump’s response could well see him consigning the “State of Palestine” to diplomatic oblivion to the accompanying strains of Piazzolla’s Oblivion — with the United Nations left lamenting at the wake that it holds for the phantom State.

This is truly Theatre of the Absurd - Multilateralism gone mad.

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

PLO rejects Trump lifeline on negotiations with Israel

[Published 14 June 2018]

President Trump — still mulling over the release of his ultimate peace deal to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict - has seen the swift rejection of the call by Jason D. Greenblatt — Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations - to have Dr Saeb Erekat replaced as chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in future negotiations with Israel.

Greenblatt raised America’s objection to Erekat in stark and uncompromising terms — alleging Erekat:

1. failed to contribute to an atmosphere conducive to peace

2. used rhetoric and made claims that were in many respects simply inaccurate

3. had baselessly claimed that Trump’s decision to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem was part of a U.S. attempt to force an Israeli-written agreement on the Palestinians.

4. had failed to acknowledge a significant escalation of rockets fired by Hamas and other militant groups into Israel, which clearly represented the danger that Hamas and these groups present.

Greenblatt asserted that the Palestinian leadership need not shackle themselves to Hamas’ failure — in fact, this should be the Palestinian Authority’s opportunity to do the right thing for the people they lead.

Greenblatt called on Erekat and the Palestinian Authority to reject Hamas’ violence and lies and work with America to bring relief to Gaza where America believed real progress could be made that would lay the foundation for a more hopeful future.

Greenblatt’s reference to the “Palestinian Authority” was strange indeed - since it had been disbanded by written decree issued by PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on 3 January 2013.

Greenblatt stressed it was time to stop indulging in overwrought rhetoric and give the Palestinian people something beyond words. Palestinian leadership must create better lives, not sacrifice those lives for Hamas’ grim agenda of terror.

Greenblatt claimed he had heard many Palestinian voices over the past 16 months and many did not agree with Erekat or his approach. Yet, the sad thing is that most would only meet and speak honestly and openly in private because they are afraid to speak publicly.

Greenblatt summed up:

“Dr. Erekat — we have heard your voice for decades and it has not achieved anything close to Palestinian aspirations or anything close to a comprehensive peace agreement. Other Palestinian perspectives might help us finally achieve a comprehensive peace agreement where Palestinian and Israeli lives can be better.

The time for leadership and responsibility is now. The time for meeting after meeting of government officials repeating the same talking points is over. The Palestinian people want real action, and they need honest, realistic and decisive solutions.

The notion that Israel is going away — or that Jerusalem is not its capital — is a mirage. The notion that the United States is not the critical interlocutor for the peace process is a mirage.”

In a stinging, vitriolic reply Erekat immediately responded:

“In dozens of meetings we had with Mr. Greenblatt he refused to discuss substance: no borders, no settlements, and no two-state solution. Today, his role is nothing less than peddling Israeli policies to a skeptical international community, and then becomes upset when he’s reminded of this.”

Erekat will remain in his decades-long position unless pulmonary fibrosis prevents him physically discharging his current role. Erekat’s replacement would undoubtedly continue the same failed tactics adopted by Erekat.

Erekat’s predictable response should be seen as yet one more reason justifying Trump’s emerging strategy to replace the PLO with Jordan, Egypt and possibly Saudi Arabia in negotiations with Israel on the future of Gaza, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and East Jerusalem.

Rejecting Trump’s proffered lifeline ensures the PLO will play no part in future negotiations on Trump’s ultimate deal.

Trump unscrambles UN-EU-PLO misinformation omelette

[Published 29 April 2018]

President Trump has started unscrambling the misinformation omelette first cooked up by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Charter in 1964 and dished out by the United Nations (UN) and European Union (EU) since 1974.

Trump’s intention was revealed when the State Department released its annual “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2017” (“Report”)- renaming its segment previously entitled “Israel and The Occupied Territories” with a new descriptor – “Israel, Golan Heights, West Bank, and Gaza”.

Israel and the Golan Heights are dealt with together in one section of the Report – whilst the West Bank and Gaza are covered in another.

Commas count big time in Middle East diplomacy.

One comma strategically placed in the descriptor - “… West Bank, and Gaza” – identifies them as two separate territorial entities that could involve different solutions.

The Report’s new choice of language signals that resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict extends beyond the West Bank and Gaza to also include the Golan Heights and that any end to the conflict will only eventuate with the allocation of sovereignty in all three of these disputed areas.

This ground-breaking replacement of false statements with factual reality needs to be replicated by Trump in other areas of misinformation maliciously spread by the UN, EU and PLO – including:

1. Recognition that the term “West Bank” was first used in 1950 and that for 3000 years prior thereto that territory had been called “Judea and Samaria”

2. Acknowledgement that the “Palestinian Authority” created by the 1993 Oslo Accords was disbanded by written decree of PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on 3 January 2013.

3. Affirmation of the right of the Jewish People to close settlement on land in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine under the rights vested in them by article 6 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (the 1922 Mandate) – as preserved by article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

4. Ending the fiction that the territory of former Palestine stopped at the Jordan River and agreeing that it included the Hashemite Kingdom of TransJordan – 78% of the territory comprised in the 1922 Mandate - which was granted independence by Great Britain in 1946 and subsequently renamed Jordan in 1950.

5. Confirming that most of the Golan Heights was included within the 1922 Mandate until Britain ceded the area to France in the Franco-British Agreement of 7 March 1923

6. Rebranding the UN and EU designated “Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)” as “The Disputed Territories”

7. Agreement that Security Council Resolution 242 does not require Israel’s total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria (West Bank).

Cracking heads by getting all interested parties to adopt an agreed narrative using terms with agreed meanings is crucial in any communications and negotiations between them - if Trump’s long-awaited “ultimate deal” is to not be still born.

Underestimating Trump’s ability to win the Presidential election race against Hillary Clinton in 2016 has seen those who confidently predicted his defeat subsequently engaged in a vitriolic war of attrition in the media trying to convince the electorate that they voted for the wrong candidate.

Yet Trump continues to confound his detractors with impressive gains in both the American economy and foreign affairs.

The State Department Report – in dumping the use of the nomenclature “The Occupied Territories” – has taken one giant step towards ending the decades-long dishonest semantic warfare waged by the PLO, UN and EU.

Trump has set himself a Herculean task confronting this sorry state of affairs.

Trump has once again dumbfounded his malevolent doomsday-pundits – whisking up an omelette that already promises to taste far better than any ever served up by the PLO, UN and EU.

Trump won’t swallow Erekat’s PLO-Palestine poison pill

[Published 3 October 2017]


Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Secretary-General Saeb Erekat has managed to grab international headlines to promote yet another PLO canard regarding the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict.

Unabashedly and unashamedly Erekat has declared:

“Israel is internationally recognised as the occupying power over 100 percent of Palestine, including in and around occupied East Jerusalem”

Yet according to Article 2 of the PLO Charter - Jordan is the occupying power over 78% of Palestine.

“Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”

The British Mandate for Palestine between 1920 and 1946 encompassed what is today called:

1. Israel (17%),
2. Jordan (78%),
3. Judea and Samaria (West Bank) (4%) and
4. Gaza (1%).

The Hashemite dynasty has been the occupying power in Jordan since 25 May 1946 (having rebuffed the PLO’s attempt to overthrow it in 1970).

Hamas has occupied Gaza since 2007.

40% of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) was occupied by the Palestinian Authority between 1993 and 2013 until the Palestinian Authority was disbanded on 3 January 2013 by decree of Mahmoud Abbas - the PLO assuming occupation thereafter.

Erekat’s claim that Israel occupies 100% of Palestine is therefore utter rubbish.

Erekat has revived one of the greatest travesties perpetrated by the United Nations on the Jewish-Arab conflict in its publication “The Origins and Evolution of the Palestinian problem” (“publication”) – omitting any map of the British Mandate for Palestine.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations - Yehuda Blum – told the UN General Assembly on 30 November 1978:

“At the end of the first part of the publication, ostensibly dealing with the period of the Palestine Mandate, there appear a number of maps. The one map that is conspicuously absent is the official map of the Palestine Mandate which, until 1946, included Transjordan on the east bank of the Jordan River. This map was omitted because it does not fit into the PLO’s own scheme, as it would show too clearly that a Palestinian Arab state has already been in existence for 32 years on more than three quarters of the territory of mandated Palestine - that is, the state now called Jordan. That embarrassment is eliminated in this purportedly scholarly and impartial publication by the simple expedient of eliminating the map.”

Why then has Erekat chosen to follow the UN and delete Jordan from the map of former Palestine?

It has everything to do with the negotiations between Israel and the PLO – conducted with little success since 1993 and having been stalled since April 2014 – and the current concerted effort by President Trump to resolve this long-running conflict that has defied so many other American Presidents.

Jordan can help resolve that conflict – precisely because Jordan is historically, geographically and demographically 78% of Palestine.

Jordan remains the key to Trump ending the conflict between Jews and Arabs in former “Palestine”.

Whilst Jordan was part of the Mandate for Palestine between 1922 and 1946 - the League of Nations had under article 25 restricted the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home within just 22% of Palestine located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

Following Jordan’s independence in the remaining 78% of Palestine in 1946 - Jordan rejected international overtures under the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1982 Reagan Plan to enter into negotiations with Israel.

Erekat’s outburst signals concerns within the PLO that Trump may be looking to bring Jordan into negotiations with Israel to resolve competing Jewish and Arab claims in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) - whose last internationally recognised occupying power was Great Britain in 1948.

Trump won’t be swallowing Erekat's poison pill.

Trump meets with Abbas and a phantom Palestinian Authority

[Published 24 September 2017]


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Palestine is a country under occupation. What was Norway, Finland, Holland, France, Korea, Philippines between 1939 and 1945 - nation states under occupation. Today, the state of Palestine is officially a state under occupation. It has 192 member countries that recognise this and a nation state, Israel, which is the occupying power; these are the new realities.”

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

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

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

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

Trump, Kushner, Greenblatt flirt with phantom Palestinian Authority

[Published 26 June 2017]


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whitbeck summarises the effect of the Abbas Decree:

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

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

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

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

Trump signals Abbas must end indiscriminate slaughter of Jews

[Published 25 May 2017]

The horrific carnage perpetrated in Manchester on 22 May presented an emotion-charged backdrop to two meetings the next day between President Trump and President Abbas in Bethlehem and President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

Trump pointedly told Abbas:

“Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded. We must be resolute in condemning such acts in a single, unified voice. Peace is a choice we must make each day — and the United States is here to help make that dream possible for young Jewish, Christian and Muslim children all across the region.”

Netanyahu did not mince his words telling Trump:

“Terrorism, the deliberate slaughter of innocents, must be equally condemned and equally fought, whether it strikes in Europe, in America or in Israel — or for that matter, anywhere else. And as you said this morning, Mr. President, funding and rewarding terrorism must end.

Standing next to you, President Abbas condemned the horrific attack in Manchester. Well, I hope this heralds a real change, because if the attacker had been Palestinian and the victims had been Israeli children, the suicide bomber’s family would have received a stipend from the Palestinian Authority. That’s Palestinian law. That law must be changed.”

Abbas presides over the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) whose Charter openly promotes a culture of violence and incitement urging Palestinian Arabs to kill Jews.

Article 7 of the Charter provides:

“It is a national duty to bring up individual Palestinians in an Arab revolutionary manner…He must be prepared for the armed struggle and ready to sacrifice his wealth and his life in order to win back his homeland and bring about its liberation.”

Article 9 prescribes:

“Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it”

Article 10 declares:

“Commando action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war. This requires its escalation, comprehensiveness, and the mobilization of all the Palestinian popular and educational efforts and their organization and involvement in the armed Palestinian revolution.”

Every time a Jew is stabbed, run over, murdered in his bed or whilst praying in a Synagogue, blown up dining in a restaurant or attending a nightclub, killed by stones thrown at his car or targeted in drive-by shootings — Palestinian Arabs - radicalised and encouraged by the PLO Charter to perpetrate such heinous crimes — are treated as heroes - many having schools named after them. Their families are rewarded by Abbas paying them monthly pensions which totaled $300 million in 2016.

Abbas declared on 16 September 2015:

“We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every Martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah.”

Trump told the Arab-Islamic-American Summit in Riyadh on 21 May:

“A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and extremists. Drive. Them. Out. DRIVE THEM OUT of your places of worship. DRIVE THEM OUT of your communities. DRIVE THEM OUT of your holy land, and DRIVE THEM OUT OF THIS EARTH.”

Trashing the hate-filled PLO Charter and ending incitement to indiscriminately slaughter Jews are necessary steps in this process.

Abbas will end up in the diplomatic wilderness if he ignores the messages delivered by both Trump and Netanyahu.

Netanyahu needs Trump answer on Bush-Congress Commitments to Israel

[Published 1 February 2017]


Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will be meeting America’s President Trump on 15 February under very different circumstances to those when Netanyahu met President Obama on 20 May 2011.

President Obama had delivered a wide-ranging address on the Middle East just the day before when he dropped the following bombshell on his view of how negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority should proceed:

“The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.‚”

Before boarding his plane for Washington Netanyahu said he:

“expects to hear a reaffirmation from President Obama of American commitments made to Israel in 2004 which were overwhelmingly supported by both Houses of Congress.‚”

Those 2004 commitments to Israel had been made by President Bush in a letter to Israel’s then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dated 14 April 2004 (“the Bush Commitments‚”).

Obama never obliged Netanyahu by reaffirming those Bush Commitments.

Neither did Netanyahu press Obama to do so - though he had opportunities during

1.Remarks by Obama and Netanyahu After their Bilateral Meeting
2.An address by Netanyahu to AIPAC on 23 May 2011
3.An emotion-charged speech Netanyahu gave to a joint sitting of the Congress on 24 May 2011

Netanyahu’s failure to mention the Bush Commitments in his Congress speech was a grievous error of judgment — since those commitments to Israel had been endorsed in:

1. the House - 407 votes to 9 - and
2. the Senate - 95 votes to 3.

Such commitments had been given to support Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza and part of the West Bank - marking real progress in realizing Bush’s Roadmap — and included the following:

“In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population 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.

Bush’s “mutually agreed changes‚” differed markedly from Obama’s “mutually agreed swaps‚” — which required Israel to swap some of its sovereign territory to gain sovereignty over any territory in the West Bank.

Under the Bush Commitments no such land swaps were required.

Obama had repudiated his predecessor’s commitments to Israel with this sneaky turn of phrase - adding insult to injury by demeaning Congress for its enthusiastic and overwhelming endorsement of the Bush Commitments.

In his AIPAC address — Netanyahu made mention of Israel’s:

“terrific Ambassador to the United States, a man who knows a few things about the U.S.-Israel alliance, Michael Oren‚”

Michael Oren — now a Knesset member - made the following call on 5 January 2015:

“The time has come to revive Bush’s letter to Sharon and to act in accordance with it”

As Netanyahu readies for his ground-breaking meeting with Trump he needs to heed Oren’s call and get a definitive answer this time from both Trump and the Congress.

America’s reputation and integrity as a trustworthy ally that honours its commitments is at stake.

Lightning can indeed strike twice in the White House and on Capitol Hill.

Trump Advisor Castigates Clinton Betrayal Of Israel

[Published 10 August 2016]


Donald Trump’s trusted co-advisor on Israel — David Friedman — has castigated Hillary Clinton for her role as Secretary of State in perpetrating one of President Obama’s worst foreign policy failures - trashing the letter from President Bush to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dated 14 April 2004 - its terms having been overwhelmingly endorsed by Congress 502 votes to 12.

Friedman - rumoured to be Trump’s Ambassador to Israel if Trump becomes America’s next President — was recently asked this question in a wide ranging interview:

Hillary Clinton has just about everyone suggesting she is the most qualified person ever to be president. Where did she go wrong with the Middle East — if she did?

Friedman replied:

I don’t think she has made a right decision. I think she said some helpful things when she was the senator from New York when she had a Jewish constituency. As soon as she became secretary of state, the first thing she did was to embrace a unilateral settlement freeze. I think it completely poisoned the environment. I’m not aware of anything she did that is particularly good. I can name off the top of my head things that were nasty, like ripping up the letter from George Bush to Ariel Sharon, which I think was the only thing Israel got from evacuating Gaza.

The Bush letter had acknowledged the risks Israel was taking in unilaterally disengaging from Gaza and part of the West Bank. In return Bush gave Israel written assurances that in final status negotiations with the Palestinian Authority America would support Israel:

1. not returning to the 1949 armistice lines

2. demanding recognition as the Jewish state

3. refusing Palestinian Arab “refugees” being resettled in Israel

In ripping up these assurances Obama had undermined Israel’s security concerns and negotiating positions as agreed with Obama’s immediate predecessor.

Israel’s unilateral disengagement was duly completed in 2005 - with 8000 Israeli civilians leaving their homes and businesses established during the previous 35 years - whilst Israel’s military also completely withdrew.

By any analysis that disengagement has been disastrous - bringing Israel and Gaza no peace - only ongoing and continuing conflict resulting from:

1. Thousands of rockets and projectiles being fired indiscriminately into Israeli population centres from Gaza

2. Terrorist incursions into Israel and

3. The construction of tunnels from Gaza into Israel’s sovereign territory to serve as entry points for future terrorist assaults on Israel by Gaza’s myriad array of terrorist groups

.
To be fair to Clinton - her role in framing Obama’s policy repudiating the Bush Congress-endorsed assurances remains unclarified and unexplained.

Clinton was confirmed as Secretary of State by the full Senate voting 94-2 on 21 January 2009 — having been a Senator since 3 January 2001.

On 24 June 2004 she was part of the Senate majority that voted 95 -3 to endorse the Bush letter.

The fact that Clinton was Secretary of State when the Bush letter was torn up does not necessarily implicate her as the architect of - or personally having agreed to - that appalling decision.

Statements made by Clinton on 17 June 2009 and 25 November 2009 point to her as the lead Obama official charged with implementing Obama’s policy - finally declared by Obama on 19 May 2011. Clinton remained Secretary of State until 1 February 2013.

Critically for Clinton — she now needs to fully explain her role in Obama’s gross act of betrayal of one of America’s staunchest long-standing allies.

Does Clinton avow:

1. Obama’s policy of ripping up the Bush letter in 2011? or

2. Her vote in the Senate endorsing the Bush letter in 2004?

Clinton needs to come clean before voting day.

Palestine - Quartet and Two-State Solution Sink into Political Oblivion

[Published 7 July 2016]


The Quartet — America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — has effectively consigned any negotiated two-state solution to political oblivion with its latest Report.

Two statements in the Report stymie any resumption of negotiations — stalled since April 2014.

1. “The Quartet reiterates that unilateral actions by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community.”

Unilateral actions by the Palestinian Authority - disbanded in January 2013 - have already seen the international community:

(i) Admit “Palestine” as a member State of UNESCO on 29 October 2011 in contravention of UNESCO’s own constitution

(ii) Accord “Palestine” non-member observer State status in the United Nations on 29 November 2012

Such acts of recognition by the international community — over Israel’s strident objections — have hardened Palestinian demands and expectations that their goals can be achieved without negotiations requiring any concessions to Israel.

Reversing these decisions is a Quartet pipe dream.

2. “Gaza and the West Bank should be reunified under a single, legitimate and democratic Palestinian authority on the basis of the PLO platform and Quartet principles and the rule of law, including control over all armed personnel and weapons in accordance with existing agreements.

Reunification under the “PLO platform” sounds the death knell for the Quartet’s mediating role and the two-state solution.

Hamas will certainly not become a willing player in its own extinction.

The Quartet obviously has not considered how such reunification could be achieved whilst Hamas’s own Covenant declares:

“Secularism completely contradicts religious ideology. Attitudes, conduct and decisions stem from ideologies.

That is why, with all our appreciation for The Palestinian Liberation Organization — and what it can develop into - and without belittling its role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, we are unable to exchange the present or future Islamic Palestine with the secular idea. The Islamic nature of Palestine is part of our religion and whoever takes his religion lightly is a loser.

“Who will be adverse to the religion of Abraham, but he whose mind is infatuated? (The Cow - verse 130).

The day The Palestinian Liberation Organization adopts Islam as its way of life, we will become its soldiers, and fuel for its fire that will burn the enemies.

Until such a day, and we pray to Allah that it will be soon, the Islamic Resistance Movement’s stand towards the PLO is that of the son towards his father, the brother towards his brother, and the relative to relative, suffers his pain and supports him in confronting the enemies, wishing him to be wise and well-guided.”

Replacing “secular-democratic Palestine” with “Islamic-autocratic Palestine” is certainly not the Quartet’s prescription for achieving any realistic two-state solution — but this is what Hamas demands and will never abandon.

The Quartet is living in fantasy land if it believes otherwise.

“Democratic Palestinian authority” involves free and fair elections that Hamas and the PLO have both been unwilling to entertain since 2006. Given the rivalries between the PLO and Hamas such elections remain a figment of the Quartet’s imagination.

The Quartet — the most powerful and influential mediator in history — became totally irrelevant after it was restructured in July 2015. This latest Report will become yet another historical document attesting to the failure to achieve the two-state solution as envisaged by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap.

The time has surely arrived for trilateral negotiations to be commenced between Israel, Jordan and Egypt to allocate sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza between their respective sovereign States.

Time for the out-of-tune Quartet to bow out and give this Trio the world stage.

Palestine - European Union Must End PLO Subjugation And Exploitation

[Published 1 June 2016]


The European Union (EU) possesses the financial levers to end 10 years of exploitative rule by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in not holding any elections in the West Bank during that period.

95% of the West Bank Arab population live in Areas “A” and “B” under the total administrative control of the PLO. That population has been subjugated into silence by the PLO and given no opportunity to freely express their support or otherwise for the political and economic decisions taken by the PLO since 2006.

The EU in February 2015 released €130 million in direct financial support to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and a further €82 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn, commented at the time:

“The EU remains committed to the two-state solution and will therefore continue to support the Palestinian Authority in its state-building efforts and in delivering basic social services.”

Hahn’s statement ignored that the PA had:

1. frustrated state-building efforts to bring about the two-state solution during the previous twelve months by refusing to resume negotiations with Israel without preconditions.

2. ceased to exist as a legal entity after President Abbas had disbanded it by Presidential decree on 3 January 2013.

The stated purpose of EU funding — introduced in 2008 - included sustaining the now-defunct PA

“in its effort to pursue the fundamental values of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.”

The PLO spurns these values:

1. continuing to declare international law — the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter - null and void and

2. denying its own citizens the right to free speech and free elections.

Yet despite another 12 months of no negotiations with Israel — the EU directly channelled another €170.5 million to the PA on 1 March 2016 and €82 million to UNRWA.

High Representative/ Vice-President - Federica Mogherini - said:

“The European Union renews its concrete commitment to the Palestinians. Through this package, the EU supports the daily lives of Palestinians in the fields of education and health, protecting the poorest families and also providing the Palestinian refugees with access to essential services. These are tangible steps on the ground that can improve the lives of Palestinian people. But these steps are not enough; Palestinian institutions must continue to grow stronger, become more transparent, more accountable and more democratic. Viable and inclusive institutions, based on respect for the rule of law and human rights, are crucial in view of the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian State. Because what we want to achieve is the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian State living side by side, in peace and security, with the State of Israel and other neighbours.”

Again we hear the same pious platitudes of democracy, respect for the rule of law and human rights uttered by the EU — but ignored by the PLO.

Surely it is time for the EU to demand that President Abbas:

1. Resign his office as President — an office he clings to seven years after his four year term expired — to end growing public perceptions of corruption now held by 81% of the population and curb his escalating autocratic tendencies¬†

2. Hold EU-supervised elections in the West Bank for the first time since 2006

3. End the radicalisation and Jew-hatred being taught in UNRWA schools beginning in Grade 1

4. Resume direct negotiations with Israel without preconditions

How long is the EU going to keep shelling out large sums of money — only to see the implementation of its noble objectives being continually subverted?

Trump Targets Obama And Clinton Betrayal Of Israel

[Published 30 April 2016]


Donald Trump’s foreign policy speech has created expectations that he will match Marco Rubio’s pledge to stand by the commitments made by President Bush to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Bush’s letter dated 14 April 2004.

Rubio made his unequivocal pledge on 3 December 2015 at the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Forum during his unsuccessful race to secure the Republican Party’s endorsement as its Presidential nominee:

“I will revive the common-sense understandings reached in the 2004 Bush-Sharon letter and build on them to help ensure Israel has defensible borders”

President Obama and his then former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did everything in their power to wriggle out of those Bush commitments — despite their having been overwhelmingly endorsed by the Senate 95-3 on 23 June 2004 and by the House of Representatives 407-9 on 24 June 2004.

Trump clearly had Obama and Clinton’s betrayal of Israel in his sights — when stating:

”... your friends need to know that you will stick by the agreements that you have with them. You’ve made that agreement, you have to stand by it and the world will be a better place.”

The Bush-Congress endorsed commitments made in that 2004 letter undoubtedly represent such an agreement.

President Bush’s letter acknowledged the risks Israel’s proposed unilateral disengagement from Gaza represented - and assured Israel that America:

1. Would do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan other than the Roadmap envisioned by President Bush on 24 June 2002.

2. Would maintain its steadfast commitment to Israel’s security, including secure, defensible borders,

3. Was strongly committed to Israel’s well-being as a Jewish state.

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

5. Accepted as part of a final peace settlement that Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338.

6. Acknowledged that in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it would be unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations would be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, that all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution had reached the same conclusion

Sharon’s successor - Ehud Olmert - had neither forgotten nor overlooked the critical significance of Bush’s commitments when agreeing to resume negotiations with the Palestinian Authority - telling an international audience of world leaders at Annapolis on 27 November 2007:

“The negotiations will be based on previous agreements between us, U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the road map and the April 14, 2004 letter of President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel.”

Gaza by then had become a de facto terrorist State with Hamas firmly entrenched as Gaza’s governing authority.

Israel had since its disengagement been subjected to a sustained barrage of thousands of rockets and mortars fired indiscriminately into Israeli population centres from Gaza by a bewildering variety of terrorist groups and sub-groups who would have had no chance of operating so freely from Gaza if the Israeli Army had remained there.

President Obama’s attempt to disavow Bush’s commitments was first orchestrated by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - as this report on 6 June 2009 disclosed:

“Since coming to office in January, President Barack Obama has repeatedly called on Israel to halt all settlement activity in Palestinian areas, a demand rejected by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israelis say they received commitments from the previous US administration of President George W. Bush permitting some growth in existing settlements.
They say the US position was laid out in a 2004 letter from Bush to then Israeli premier Ariel Sharon.”

Clinton rejected that claim, saying any such US stance was informal and

“did not become part of the official position of the United States government.”

Clinton — doubling again as Obama’s attack dog — made Obama’s intentions clearer on 25 November 2009:

“We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.”

Bush’s letter never mentioned “agreed swaps” — signalling trouble for Israel if Obama himself were to confirm Clinton’s latest statement.

Eighteen months later Israel’s worst fears were realised when Obama declared on 19 May 2011:

“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”

Michael Oren — Israel’s Ambassador to Washington between 2009 and 2013 — called for Bush’s commitments to be resuscitated on 15 January 2015:

”... it’s time to revive the Bush-Sharon letter and act according to it.”

Others are making similar demands.

Trump is responding with his clearly articulated message.

Keep agreements made with your allies — don’t ditch them. Loyalty will always trump expediency.

Obama and Clinton’s shameful betrayal of Israel in this sordid affair seems set to be targeted by Trump.

Clinton Silent On Honouring Bush-Congress Commitments To Israel

[Published 20 March 2016]


Marco Rubio’s withdrawal from the Presidential race this week will not relieve Hillary Clinton from affirming or disavowing the following pledge made by Rubio during his failed campaign:

“I will revive the common-sense understandings reached in the 2004 Bush-Sharon letter and build on them to help ensure Israel has defensible borders,”

The terms of Bush’s letter - dated 14 April 2004 - were overwhelmingly endorsed by the House of Representatives 407-9 on 23 June 2004 and the Senate 95-3 on 24 June 2004.

The letter backed Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza and promised to support Israel’s following positions in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority over the previous 11 years:

1. Israel would not cede its claims to all of the territory captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War

2. Millions of Palestinian Arabs would not be resettled in Israel and

3. Israel must be recognised as the state of the Jewish people.

Israel’s insistence on these conditions had been major stumbling blocks in the PLO rejecting Israel’s offer to withdraw from more than 90% of the West Bank during negotiations brokered by President Bill Clinton in 2000/2001.

The Bush Congress-endorsed letter had put America squarely in Israel’s corner.

Elliott Abrams — Middle East Affairs point-man at the National Security Council from 2001 to 2009 — had no qualms about the significance of the Bush letter — when stating in July 2009:

“Not only were there agreements, but the prime minister of Israel relied on them in undertaking a wrenching political reorientation — the dissolution of his government, the removal of every single Israeli citizen, settlement and military position in Gaza, and the removal of four small settlements in the West Bank. This was the first time Israel had ever removed settlements outside the context of a peace treaty, and it was a major step”.

President Obama however sought to change the goal posts laid down in the Bush letter with this statement on 19 May 2011:

“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”

Glenn Kessler pointed out at the time:

“Indeed, Israelis and Palestinians have held several intensive negotiations that involved swapping lands along the Arab-Israeli dividing line that existed before the 1967 war - technically known as the Green Line, or the boundaries established by the 1949 Armistice agreements. (Click here for a visual description of the swaps discussed between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008.)

So, in many ways, it is not news that the eventual borders of a Palestinian state would be based on land swaps from the 1967 dividing line. But it makes a difference when the president of the United States says it, particularly in a carefully staged speech at the State Department. This then is not an off-the-cuff remark, but a carefully considered statement of U.S. policy.”

Given the chaos in Syria since Obama’s statement, the birth of Islamic State in 2014 and the continuing unstable political and security situations in Gaza and the West Bank— mutually agreed land swaps as a concept have become just another missed opportunity whose time has expired.

Michael Oren—Israel’s Ambassador to Washington between 2009 and 2013 was moved to make the following call in January 2015:

".. it’s time to revive the Bush-Sharon letter and act according to it.”

Will Clinton so act — if elected America’s 17th Democratic President — to honour a former Republican President’s commitments to one of America’s longstanding allies that go far beyond personal partisan politics?

Her answer is eagerly awaited.

Palestine - Rubio Challenges Clinton Support For Israel

[Published 6 March 2016]


Marco Rubio has directly challenged Hillary Clinton — and every other Presidential candidate — to honour the commitments given by President Bush to Israel on 14 April 2004.

Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Forum Rubio said:

“I will revive the common-sense understandings reached in the 2004 Bush-Sharon letter and build on them to help ensure Israel has defensible borders,”

President Bush’s letter — overwhelmingly endorsed by the Congress — supported Israel’s proposed unilateral disengagement from Gaza - stating:

“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.”

Israel’s Prime Minister - Ehud Olmert - who succeeded Sharon - had neither forgotten nor overlooked the critical significance of Bush’s commitments when agreeing to resume negotiations with the Palestinian Authority before an international audience of world leaders at Annapolis on 27 November 2007:

“The negotiations will be based on previous agreements between us, U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the road map and the April 14, 2004 letter of President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel.”

It didn’t take too long thereafter for these Presidential commitments to be downplayed by Bush himself and his advisors.

In an editorial - published on 14 May 2008 - former Jerusalem Post editor - David Horovitz - revealed Bush’s shameful efforts to minimize the letter’s significance - following Bush’s meeting with a group of Israeli journalists at the White House:

“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, however, has been known to minimize the significance of this four-year-old letter. Just last week, for instance, she told reporters that the 2004 letter “talked about realities at that time. And there are realities for both sides….”

... Bush’s National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has also given briefings to the effect that Israel had tried to overstate the importance of a rather vague letter…

“Bush did not at first realize that I was referring to the 2004 letter. Hadley, who was also in the Oval Office, had to prompt him. “Okay, the letters,” the president then said, remembering.”

Bush was clearly reneging on his unequivocal commitments to Israel just six months after Olmert sought to rely on them.

Israel by then had already paid a high price - Gaza having become a de facto terrorist State with Hamas firmly entrenched as Gaza’s governing authority. Israel had been subjected to a sustained barrage of thousands of rockets and mortars fired indiscriminately into Israeli population centres from Gaza by a bewildering variety of terrorist groups and sub-groups who would have had no chance of operating so freely from Gaza if the Israeli Army had remained there.

President Obama has also disgracefully attempted to subvert his predecessor’s commitments for the last seven years - aided and abetted by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who reportedly laid the groundwork on 6 June 2009:

“Since coming to office in January, President Barack Obama has repeatedly called on Israel to halt all settlement activity in Palestinian areas, a demand rejected by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israelis say they received commitments from the previous US administration of President George W. Bush permitting some growth in existing settlements.

They say the US position was laid out in a 2004 letter from Bush to then Israeli premier Ariel Sharon.

Clinton rejected that claim, saying any such US stance was informal and “did not become part of the official position of the United States government.”

Clinton — doubling as Obama’s attack dog — made Obama’s sinister intentions clearer on 25 November 2009:

“We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.”

Clinton’s blatant disregard of Bush’s commitments - which had never mentioned “agreed swaps” - signaled trouble for Israel if Obama indeed confirmed Clinton’s statements.

Eighteen months later Israel’s worst fears were realised when Obama declared on 19 May 2011:

“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”

Michael Oren — former Israeli Ambassador to Washington between 2009 and 2013 — has called for Bush’s commitments to be resuscitated:

.. it’s time to revive the Bush-Sharon letter and act according to it.”

Rubio has to his credit so reacted.

Motherhood-statements supporting Israel by the remaining candidates vying to become America’s next President pale into insignificance compared to Rubio’s coming out and pledging to honour Bush’s Congress-endorsed commitments to Israel.

Clinton - and for that matter Sanders, Trump, Cruz and Kasich - must do likewise - or allow America’s reputation as a trustworthy and reliable ally to be forever trashed.

Palestine - End The West Bank Refugee Gravy Train

[Published 28 February 2016]


With more than three million Syrians fleeing war-torn Syria seeking safe havens in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Europe — scarce United Nations resources continue to be used supporting and maintaining about 760000 Palestinian Arabs currently living in the West Bank and registered as “refugees” with the United Nations Relief And Works Agency (UNRWA).

Their refugee categorization and status was changed on 3 January 2013 when PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas replaced the “Palestinian Authority” with the “State of Palestine” by this decree:

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

John Whitbeck - a legal advisor to the Palestinian team in negotiations with Israel — has written on the significance of this name change:

“In his correspondence, Yasser Arafat used to list all three of his titles under his signature — President of the State of Palestine, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and President of the Palestinian Authority (in that order of precedence). It is both legally and politically noteworthy that, in signing this decree, Mahmoud Abbas has listed only the first two titles. The Trojan horse called the “Palestinian Authority” in accordance with the Oslo interim agreements and the “Palestinian National Authority” by Palestinians has served its purpose by introducing the institutions of the State of Palestine on the soil of Palestine and has now ceased to exist.”

Abbas’s semantic ploy had left Israel without its designated negotiating partner under the Oslo Accords and had effectively ended negotiations for the creation a Palestinian State under the Bush Roadmap.

The institutions of the so-called “State of Palestine” had replaced the “Palestinian Authority” in some 40% of the West Bank designated under the Oslo Accords as Areas “A” and B” — assuming full administrative control over 95% of the entire West Bank Arab population - including about 190000 Palestinian Arab refugees living in 19 camps - whilst the remaining 570000 lived in towns and villages.

UNRWA funds:

1. 97schools with 51,327pupils
2. 2 vocational and technical training centres
3. 42 primary health centres
4. 15 community rehabilitation centres
5. 18 women’s programme centres

UNRWA explains:

“UNRWA is unique in terms of its long-standing commitment to one group of refugees. It has contributed to the welfare and human development of four generations of Palestine refugees,defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.” The descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children, are also eligible for registration.

UNRWA services are available to all those living in its areas of operations who meet this definition, who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance.”

As of 14 September 2015 - 136 of the 193 United Nations member states have been playing the PLO name-game change and recognised the “State of Palestine”.

These 136 States now need to answer two questions:

1. How can any person living in his own country still be classified as a refugee?

2. Shouldn’t the 760000 registered Palestinian Arab refugees living in the West Bank have their refugee status revoked and be resettled and fully integrated among their fellow Palestinian Arabs?

Claiming the trappings of Statehood — whilst segregating its citizens into two different classes — is a recipe for continuing tension and future conflict.

Change the name — change the game — but be prepared to accept the consequences.

Palestine - Elections Key To Ending Senseless Acts Of Self-Destruction

[Published 28 December 2015]


Elections in the West Bank and Gaza – last held in 2006 - increasingly appear to be the key to ending the past three months of random Arab stabbing and car ramming attacks on Israel’s Jewish civilian population, armed forces, border police and security guards.

97 stabbings were recorded – including at least 14 committed by Arab children aged between 11 and 16 and another 16 between ages 17 and 21. 19 cars were deliberately driven off the roads into crowds of people waiting at bus stops or assembly points.

These attacks occurred both in Israel and the West Bank.

Most of the perpetrators were killed or apprehended committing such acts – whilst a few remain at large.

Israel explains these latest tactics as forming part of the strategy of “popular resistance” adopted at the Sixth Fatah Conference in August 2009 by the Palestinian Authority (defunct since 2013) and Fatah – the dominant party in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

Such call to action resulted from continuing frustration that negotiations between Israel and the PLO under the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2003 Bush Roadmap had failed to create a Jew-free Palestinian Arab State throughout the entire West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

The reality is that such a negotiated solution has always been an impossible pipedream that could never happen.

500000 Jews will not voluntarily vacate their homes nor abandon their livelihoods in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to satisfy these racist and totally unacceptable PLO territorial demands – a major stumbling block to successfully concluding any negotiated agreement.

At present:

1. The PLO exercises exclusive administrative control over 95% of the existing West Bank Arab population who live within about 40% of the West Bank (Areas “A” and “B”)

2. The PLO exercises exclusive security control in Area “A” and shares security control with Israel in Area “B”

3. Israel exercises exclusive administrative and security control over Area “C” – 60% of the West Bank - where 350000 Jews and 50000 Arabs currently reside

4. Hamas exercises complete administrative and security control in all of Gaza

5. East Jerusalem has been unilaterally declared to be part of Israel’s capital

6. The PLO and Hamas are still engaged in an internecine struggle extending over the last eight years to achieve complete political dominance over the other in the West Bank and Gaza whilst denying their long-suffering populations any say on who they want to govern them.

Given these unresolved political stalemates – between Israel/PLO and PLO/Hamas - one must legitimately question why those Arabs presently sacrificing their lives murdering Jews do not choose to vent their wrath against the PLO and Hamas by demanding long overdue elections.

The PLO and Hamas – like all previous Palestinian Arab leaders over the last 100 years - have refused any compromises with the Jewish people – inciting their own people to murder Jews and kill themselves in the process to advance their documented political objective of wiping Israel off the map.

Palestinian Arabs denied a vote for the last 10 years need the opportunity to express their continuing support or rejection of these policies.

Elections enabling fresh political parties to emerge with alternative leaderships offering new ideas on making peace with Israel appear as far away as ever.

The sorry story begun with the PLO in 1964 and Hamas in 1987 drags on with no hope for change.

“Popular resistance” in the West Bank and Gaza demanding long-overdue elections can achieve far better results than the spate of utterly futile and senseless acts of self-destruction directed against Jews during the last three months.

Casting a live vote always beats a dead end.

Palestine - Obama Gives Up On Bush's Two State Solution

[Published 11 November 2015]


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House this week has confirmed President Obama’s assessment that the much vaunted two-state solution proposed by Obama’s predecessor President George W. Bush on 30 April 2003 (the Roadmap) will not happen whilst Obama is President — or indeed ever.

Obama’s conclusion was announced by White House Middle East Adviser Rob Malley ahead of Netanyahu’s arrival at the White House after an absence of thirteen months.

“The president has reached the conclusion that right now - barring a major shift - the parties are not going to be in a position to negotiate a final status agreement,”

The major shift required — recognition of Israel as the Jewish State - is a pure pipedream.

Speaking the language of diplomatic doublespeak — Netanyahu told Obama that Israel’s negotiating position was immutable:

” I want to make it clear that we have not given up our hope for peace. We’ll never give up the hope for peace. And I remain committed to a vision of peace of two states for two peoples, a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state.“

Israel had flagged demilitarization and Jewish statehood as non-negotiable positions it required for concluding successful negotiations with the Palestinian Authority when Israel listed its 14 Reservations to the Roadmap’s terms twelve years ago.

Israel only agreed to open negotiations under the Roadmap after Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice gave the following assurances from the White House on 23 May 2003:

“The roadmap was presented to the Government of Israel with a request from the President that it respond with contributions to this document to advance true peace. The United States Government received a response from the Government of Israel, explaining its significant concerns about the roadmap. The United States shares the view of the Government of Israel that these are real concerns and will address them fully and seriously in the implementation of the roadmap to fulfil the President’s vision of June 24, 2002.”

America has never wavered from supporting Israel’s position that the Palestinian Authority - itself disbanded on 3 January 2013 — recognize Israel as the Jewish State.

President Bush declared on 14 April 2004:

“The United States is strongly committed to Israel’s security and well-being as a Jewish state.”

Bush’s commitment was subsequently approved by an overwhelming majority of Congress in June 2004.

Obama reaffirmed America’s support on 19 May 2011:

“What America and the international community can do is to state frankly what everyone knows — a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples: Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people, each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace.”

Hamas and the PLO reject Israel’s long-held non-negotiable position on recognition.

PLO head Mahmoud Abbas declared on 11 January 2014:

“We won’t recognize and accept the Jewishness of Israel. We have many excuses and reasons that prevent us from doing…”

Two such reasons are:

1. The PLO Covenant—Article 20:
“Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood.”

2. The Hamas Charter- Article 11:
“Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day.”

These two provisions — oozing unadulterated Jew-hatred — represent a permanent roadblock to ever concluding negotiations with the PLO under the Roadmap.

Negotiations between partners-in-peace Israel and Jordan on the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank still remains the key to ending the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict.