Trashing Trump’s two-state solution would be the height of folly

 [Published 23 December 2020]

A departing President’s ability to make decisions seeking to impact his successor’s future actions —even as he is vacating the White House in the last weeks of his Presidency — was dramatically illustrated on December 23, 2016 when America failed to veto Security Council Resolution 2334.

Then Secretary of State — John Kerry —  explained why the Obama-Biden administration had taken that decision on the eve of handing over to the Trump-Pence administration:

“In the end, we could not in good conscience protect the most extreme elements of the settler movement as it tries to destroy the two-state solution. We could not in good conscience turn a blind eye to Palestinian actions that fan hatred and violence. It is not in U.S. interest to help anyone on either side create a unitary state. And we may not be able to stop them, but we cannot be expected to defend them. And it is certainly not the role of any country to vote against its own policies.

That is why we decided not to block the UN resolution that makes clear both sides have to take steps to save the two-state solution while there is still time. And we did not take this decision lightly.”

Kerry painstakingly pointed out that America had nothing to do with drafting Resolution 2334:

"The United States did not draft or originate this resolution, nor did we put it forward. It was drafted by Egypt—it was drafted and I think introduced by Egypt, which is one of Israel’s closest friends in the region, in coordination with the Palestinians and others… In the end, we did not agree with every word in this resolution. There are important issues that are not sufficiently addressed or even addressed at all. But we could not in good conscience veto a resolution that condemns violence and incitement and reiterates what has been for a long time the overwhelming consensus and international view on settlements and calls for the parties to start taking constructive steps to advance the two-state solution on the ground."

Abstaining on — rather than vetoing — Resolution 2334 — when it did not address or sufficiently address important issues — was irresponsible.

Kerry showed how out of touch the outgoing Obama-Biden administration was with President-elect Trump’s intentions:

“President Obama and I know that the incoming administration has signaled that they may take a different path, and even suggested breaking from the longstanding U.S. policies on settlements, Jerusalem, and the possibility of a two-state solution. That is for them to decide. That’s how we work. But we cannot—in good conscience—do nothing, and say nothing, when we see the hope of peace slipping away… This is a time to stand up for what is right. We have long known what two states living side by side in peace and security looks like. We should not be afraid to say so.”

Kerry specifically recounted Israel’s former Prime Minister Peres telling him:

“The original mandate gave the Palestinians 48 percent, now it’s down to 22 percent. I think 78 percent is enough for us.”

Revisionist rubbish: The original mandate gave the Arabs 78% — now Jordan. The Jews were promised a national home in the remaining 22% — now down to 17% — now Israel. The remaining 5% comprises Gaza, Judea and Samaria.

Trump’s Peace Plan provides a detailed and comprehensive two-state solution:

• Israel: with its current borders extended to include 30% of Judea and Samaria
• A demilitarised Palestinian Arab State: comprising Gaza and 70% of Judea and Samaria.

Trashing Trump’s Plan going forward would be the height of folly.


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

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.

Obama and Kerry open door for Palestine Mandate solution

[Published 30 December 2016]


US Secretary of State John Kerry – perhaps unwittingly – has now opened the door to reviving the solution contained in the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – one homeland for the Jews and one homeland for the Arabs (“Palestine Mandate Solution”)

This solution has already been realised in 95% of the territory of the Mandate with the creation of the Arab State of Jordan in 1946 and the Jewish State of Israel in 1948.

Kerry completely ignored mentioning the Palestine Mandate Solution in his speech whilst reiterating on many occasions that there was no viable alternative to the creation of a second Arab State - in addition to Jordan (“the two state solution”) - in the 5% of the Mandate territory still remaining unallocated – Judea and Samaria (West Bank) Gaza and East Jerusalem (“unallocated Mandate territory”)

The longer Kerry spoke on what was needed to be done to achieve the two-state solution after fruitless negotiations extending over 23 years – the more it became obvious that such a result was totally unrealistic and unachievable.

His prediction that failure would result in the creation of one State between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – is alarmist and simply fanciful.

Why did Kerry avoid any mention of the Palestine Mandate Solution being a viable alternative to the two state solution – especially as Jordan and Egypt occupied the unallocated Mandate territory between 1948 and 1967 – and both have long-standing peace treaties with Israel?

The only reason seems his apparent ignorance of the history of the conflict as evidenced by his two following remarks:

1. Kerry referred to the first Zionist Congress in 1897 called to realise the Jewish dream - but failed to mention the San Remo Conference and Treaty of Sevres in 1920 and the Palestine Mandate in 1922 which set out the framework unanimously agreed to by the international community for the:

“reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine”

The Mandate is legally binding in international law and it cannot be flippantly ignored by Kerry. The benefits conferred by the Mandate on the Jewish people to settle in the unallocated Mandate territory have been preserved by article 80 of the UN Charter – another piece of international law that did not rate a mention by Kerry.

Kerry and Obama have ignored these binding international law provisions to their dying shame.

2. Kerry refers to an intimate, one-on-one dinner with Israel’s Shimon Peres just a few months before he died and quotes Peres as having told him:

“The original mandate gave the Palestinians 48 percent; now it’s down to 22 percent. I think 78 percent is enough for us.”

Peres got it wrong - and so has Kerry in quoting him.

Israel presently constitutes 17% - not 78% - of the original mandate

Peres was talking about the area allocated for a second Arab State in 22% of the original Mandate territory by the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan. The remaining 78% had become an independent Arab State in 1946.

The additional 48% was not enough for the Arabs. They wanted 100% - rejected the UN Plan and saw it whittled down to 22% after the 1948 War of Independence and the 1967 Six Day War.

The Arabs – with Security Council Resolution 2334 and now Obama and Kerry’s backing - demand another Arab State in an area equivalent to the remaining 22% - having rejected offers of 90% in 2000/1 and 95% in 2008.

It won’t happen.

The UN Security Council buried the two-state solution on 23 December 2016. John Kerry delivered the eulogy on 28 December 2016.

The Palestine Mandate Solution beckons….

Palestine - Peres Trashes Rabin's Oslo Accords Vision

[Published 28 October 2015]


Former Israeli President Shimon Peres has pre-empted the memorial rally this Saturday evening to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the assassination on 4 November 1995 of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin - by writing – quite misleadingly - of Rabin’s vision in the Jerusalem Post this week.

Former US president Bill Clinton, Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin and Yitzchak Rabin’s daughter - former deputy defence minister Dalia Rabin - are scheduled to participate in the rally – and hopefully will set the record straight.

Peres claimed that Rabin’s Government – in which Peres was Foreign Minister

“sought peace at the price of a historic compromise: two states for two peoples. For, if there shall not be two countries, there shall be one continues [sic] tragedy for both peoples.”

Rabin never offered any such two-state compromise.

Peres repeated this disingenuous message again in the same article:

“We laid down the foundations for a two-state solution and began building our peace with Jordan.”

Rabin made his vision very clear in his last speech to the Knesset on 5 October 1995 when presenting the 300 page “Israeli - Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip” (Oslo Accords) for approval:

“Members of Knesset,

We are striving for a permanent solution to the unending bloody conflict between us and the Palestinians and the Arab states.

In the framework of the permanent solution, we aspire to reach, first and foremost, the State of Israel as a Jewish state, at least 80% of whose citizens will be, and are, Jews.

At the same time, we also promise that the non-Jewish citizens of Israel — Muslim, Christian, Druze and others — will enjoy full personal, religious and civil rights, like those of any Israeli citizen. Judaism and racism are diametrically opposed.

We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.

And these are the main changes, not all of them, which we envision and want in the permanent solution:

A. First and foremost, united Jerusalem, which will include both Ma’ale Adumim and Givat Ze’ev — as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty, while preserving the rights of the members of the other faiths, Christianity and Islam, to freedom of access and freedom of worship in their holy places, according to the customs of their faiths.

B. The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.

C. Changes which will include the addition of Gush Etzion, Efrat, Beitar and other communities, most of which are in the area east of what was the “Green Line,” prior to the Six Day War.

D. The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.”

The two-state solution was never entertained by Rabin.

Two separate countries - favoured by Peres - is irretrievably dead and buried. Rabin’s legacy should not be coupled with that failed diplomatic initiative.

Rabin’s vision should be faithfully preserved – not trashed.

Palestine - Obama Betrayal Demands Abbas Boycott

[Published 11 May 2014]


The inevitable collapse of the “two-state solution ” has seen last week’s headline grabbers and attention seekers turned from roosters into feather dusters - their credibility reputation and political judgement torn to shreds

Mahmoud Abbas - unelected PLO Chairman and unconstitutional President of :

1. The non-existent “Palestinian Authority” -

2. The artificially invented “Palestinian people”- and

3. The unilaterally declared “state of Palestine”

has confounded world leaders by rushing into the welcoming arms of the terrorist organisation Hamas leaving his personal credibility and reputation indelibly and irreparably stained .

Abbas has been miraculously transformed from being Obama’s buddy, Livni and Indyk’s photo opportunity, Kerry’s dinner guest and Peres’s “partner for peace “within just one week.

He now identifies with and openly espouses the following “humanitarian” Hamas principles adopted by the terrorist group - whom he assures people he will kiss and make up with in just four weeks time:

“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Moslem generations till Judgement Day?”

Hello - Is anyone listening? Should President Obama and Kerry be lining up to greet this man with this mind set who recognises no American President or should this duped American President boycott and give Abbas the cold shoulder?

What about those nothing United Nations countries processing hypocritical requests for accession to international treaties rejected by Abbas for the last 50 years - whilst fawning United Nations Human rights organisations implore this serial destroyer of human rights to take Israel to the International Court of Justice knowing full well his publicly expressed desire to inflict on 8.2 million Arabs and Jews what his Hamas comrades have been doing to millions of Syrians for the last three years?

Will Abbas now denounce his new found Hamas Islamist comrades-in-arms in Gaza for this reprehensible incident reported by Reuters in May 2010:

“Masked gunmen attacked a U.N.-run summer camp for children on Sunday after militants in the Gaza Strip accused the United Nations of promoting immorality in the religiously conservative enclave controlled by Hamas Islamists.

About 20 men, some carrying assault rifles, tore up large plastic tents and burned storage facilities at the site, where tens of thousands of children are due to attend camp sessions, said Ibrahim Elewa, a private guard who was on duty when they struck.

Two days earlier, a previously unknown militant group, “The Free of the Homeland,” issued a statement criticizing the camp’s organizer, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), for, “teaching schoolgirls fitness, dancing and immorality.”

Is Obama comfortable hosting this Trojan horse in the White House - when he knows Abbas also endorses these Jew-hating views:

“For a long time, the enemies have been planning, skillfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. They took into consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.”

“You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.”

Jeff Blankfort concludes his personal analysis of Obama’s next White House visitor :

” By any definition one chooses, Abbas is a traitor, a collaborator with the enemy”

Chief failed US Special Envoy to the Middle East - Martin Indyk - has pathetically attempted to explain Abbas’s aberrant behaviour

” Abbas has been in search of a legacy, in bad health and old age—and sought reconciliation with Hamas for this purpose.”

The White House or the mad house. You choose.

Palestine - The Bi-National State That Can Work

[Published 1 July 2013]


It is a pity that US Secretary for State John Kerry still believes that a two-state solution is possible after 20 years of failed negotiations between Israel and the PLO to achieve such a result under the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap.

While in Kuwait on 26 June - Kerry called on Israel and PLO to renew talks to advance such an outcome before it was too late:

“The time is getting near where we need to make some judgments. Last time I was here, I said it’s time for leaders to make some hard decisions. That stands. It is time. Why is it urgent? It’s urgent because time is the enemy of a peace process.”

This fatuous statement sounds very hollow when considering virtually the same pronouncement made in 2007 by Jordan’s King Abdullah:

“We have a finite amount of time. Physically, there may not be a chance for a future Palestinian state. This is why the urgency is now. Is the situation ideal? Far from it. But we have our backs against the wall and I believe that time is running out. Arabs and Muslims realised that this is our last chance. I think it is beginning to dawn on Israelis and Palestinians. They need to reach out to their brothers and sisters and say, ‘We need to take one step back because if this continues we may lose our final opportunity.’”

Rather than repeating these pointless prognostications of imminent doom - surely it would be better to examine alternatives to the failed two-state solution - which cannot possibly happen because of the entrenched positions of the protagonists to the 130 years old long running Jewish-Arab conflict.

One alternative proposed by the Arabs is the “bi-national State” - one in which the West Bank and Israel are merged into one territorial unit where all its citizens - Jews and Arabs - enjoy equal rights within the one State and rights of each national group are respected and protected.

Such a proposal was rejected this week by Israel’s President - Shimon Peres:

“Peace is a moral foundation of Judaism; it is an existential need of the Jewish state. A binational state contradicts the vision of Herzl; it endangers the Jewish and democratic state of Israel.”

President Peres’s rejection is understandable - given that it would signal the inevitable end of the Jewish National Home prescribed in 1922 by the Mandate for Palestine and preserved in 1945 by article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Indeed it would mean a return to the pre-1948 days of violent confrontation between Arabs and Jews that had led to the Peel Commission in 1937 and the United Nations in 1947 recommending partition of Palestine into one Jewish State and one Arab state - proposals rejected on both occasions by the Arabs.

Anyone believing this proposal to restore the territorial status quo existing before 1948 can happen again in 2013 must have rocks in his head.

There is however a different bi-national state that could work - one in which the West Bank and Jordan are merged into one territorial unit where all its citizens - Jordanians and Palestinians - enjoy equal rights within one State and the national rights of each other are respected and protected.

Such arrangement actually existed successfully between 1948-1967 when the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Transjordan were unified into one territorial unit and renamed Jordan in 1950. During this period not one Jew lived there - all having been driven out by the invading Transjordanian army in 1948.

Now 500,000 Jews live in about 5% of this territory - and therefore a complete return to the status quo existing at 1967 is not possible. Negotiations will need to be undertaken to redraw the international border between Israel and the newly created bi-national state of Jordan.

Will these negotiations succeed?

Certainly the prospects of success are far greater than could ever have been expected for the two- state solution for the following reasons:

1. This territorial structure has already successfully operated between 1948-1967.

2. Both national groups - identifying themselves now as Jordanians and Palestinians - are Arab and overwhelmingly Moslem - sharing a common history and a common heritage.

3. This bi-national Arab state would comprise about 80% of the territorial area of the Mandate for Palestine - whilst its neighbour - Israel - would comprise about 20% of the Mandate.

4. Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 containing within it agreed negotiating parameters to resolve outstanding contentious issues such as refugees, water and Jerusalem.

5. Evidence has already emerged of very close co-operation between the PLO and Jordan culminating in the signing of an agreement on 31 March 2013 recognizing Jordan’s custodianship over Jerusalem’s Holy Places.

6. Not one Jew or Arab would have to leave his current home or existing business.

7. 99% of the entire territory of the Mandate would have been allocated between Arabs and Jews with sovereignty in the remaining 1% - the Gaza district - to be finally determined.

Instead of trying to flog a dead horse to the winning post before the outbreak of another war - wouldn’t it be more prudent for US Secretary of State Kerry, King Abdullah of Jordan, Mahmoud Abbas of the PLO and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu making judgements and hard decisions that could result in their backing a potential winner that could lead to an end to the Jewish-Arab conflict and their possibly sharing the Nobel Peace Prize?

Clinton's $500000 Speech Leaves One Speechless

[Published 21 June 2013]


The thought that anyone was prepared to contribute to paying former American President Bill Clinton $500,000 to deliver a 45 minute speech at the Peres Academic Centre during the festivities marking Israeli President Shimon Peres’s 90th birthday is truly staggering - especially after hearing what he had to say.

He regurgitated the now dead mantra that the only solution to end the conflict between Jews and Arabs was the “two state solution” - claiming:

“I just don’t think that in all these years a credible alternative has been presented that would preserve the essential character of the state of Israel — a Jewish but democratic state.”

That solution had first been formulated in 1922 by the Mandate for Palestine - then proposed in 1937 by the Peel Commission and in 1947 by the United Nations - only to be rejected by the Arabs on all three occasions.

That same solution was available between 1948-1967 when not one Jew lived in the West Bank or Gaza - and again that golden opportunity was not taken up by the Arabs.

Now in 2013 - Clinton was urging Israel to continue pursuing the same solution under the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2003 Bush Roadmap - although such a successful outcome had not been achieved in the last 20 years notwithstanding unprecedented diplomatic pressure being applied by the Quartet - the UN, Russia, America and the European Union.

In a speech singularly lacking in vision - Clinton praised Peres - stating:

“He is one of the great men of vision in the world ... Peres lives in the future, and is always thinking about tomorrow… If you don’t have a vision of where you want to wind up, bad things are going to happen sooner or later… You have a better chance if you are driven by a vision of peace and reconciliation.”

Guest of honor Peres - together with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sitting next to him - would surely have been miffed to think that visionary proposals suggested by each of them more than two decades ago - were not now considered credible alternatives by Clinton to fill the void left by the doomed two state solution.

On 11 December 1984 Netanyahu told the United Nations:

“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, containing some three million Arabs, 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, has a population of over four million, of which one sixth is Arab. It contains less than 1/5 of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate…. 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.”

Peres had expressed similar views to Netanyahu - telling the Jewish Telegraph on 19 April 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.”

Clinton also spoke movingly of his relationship with assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin:

“the saddest day of my presidency was the day prime minister Rabin lost his life ... never a week goes by, even now, that I don’t think of him ...”

Clinton had apparently not thought about Rabin’s vision of peace and reconciliation expressed in the Knesset on 5 October 1995 - just a few weeks before his untimely death.

In presenting the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip for ratification - Rabin declared:

“We are striving for a permanent solution to the unending bloody conflict between us and the Palestinians and the Arab states.

In the framework of the permanent solution, we aspire to reach, first and foremost, the State of Israel as a Jewish state, at least 80% of whose citizens will be, and are, Jews.

At the same time, we also promise that the non-Jewish citizens of Israel—Muslim, Christian, Druze and others—will enjoy full personal, religious and civil rights, like those of any Israeli citizen. Judaism and racism are diametrically opposed.

We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Alas - the visions of Rabin, Peres and Netanyahu were overtaken by the illusions of Oslo and the Roadmap - turning a backroom deal between Israel and the PLO - engineered by Peres - into a diplomatic nightmare and a political disaster.

Clinton still clings to the wreckage of an outdated and rejected proposal Peres helped revive - the creation of a second Arab state in Palestine for the first time ever in recorded history.

Clinton needs to articulate the earlier credible alternatives expressed by his dear friends and visionary heroes - Peres and Rabin - supported by their political opponent - Netayahu.

Jordan needs to become directly involved in turning their long standing visions into reality - if the Jewish-Arab conflict is to be peacefully resolved.

Indeed many Arab leaders including Yasser Arafat, King Abdullah 1, King Hussein and Crown Prince Hassan have expressed similar sentiments to Peres, Rabin and Netanyahu.

All the money in the world would not be enough to pay Clinton if he could turn their combined visions into a permanent agreement.

Palestine - Hawking Needs To Do More Talking

[Published 13 May 2013]


The decision by eminent physicist Stephen Hawking to not attend the Presidential Conference organised by Israel’s President - Shimon Peres - has aroused dismay by his Israeli hosts and applause from the Palestinian academic community.

This year’s Presidential Conference is expected to attract 5,000 attendees from around the world, including academics, artists and former heads of state.

Former US president Bill Clinton, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev, Prince Albert of Monaco and Barbra Streisand have accepted invitations - according to organisers.

Hawking’s reasons for cancelling his earlier acceptance of the invitation were set out in writing to the event organisers:

“I accepted the invitation to the Presidential Conference with the intention that this would not only allow me to express my opinion on the prospects for a peace settlement but also because it would allow me to lecture on the West Bank.

However, I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this, I must withdraw from the conference.

Had I attended, I would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.”

Were the reasons Hawking gave really those that led to his refusing to attend?

What does Hawking mean by stating that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster?

After all the current Israeli Government has reiterated it stands ready to resume negotiations with the PLO without pre-conditions - which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected.

Hawking must surely be aware that Abbas has taken unilateral steps outside the negotiating processes laid down under the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap including:

1. Disbanding the Palestinian Authority - the party designated by the Oslo Accords to negotiate with Israel on a final peace treaty

2. Seeking and gaining admission of Palestine as a member state of UNESCO and a non-member State observer at the UN

3. Declaring himself President of the country of Palestine on 3 January this year and traversing the world’s capitals seeking recognition and the establishing of ambassadors and embassies in the world’s most recently created country.

What steps does Hawking believe Israel must now take to avert disaster?

How can Israel be expected to do anything to advance Oslo and the Roadmap when Abbas has repudiated both signed agreements by proclaiming a country outside the terms of those agreements?

What in the emails from the Palestinian academics persuaded Hawking to not attend the conference?

Samia al-Botmeh of Birzeit University in the West Bank provided a clue when she told the Guardian:

“We tried to communicate two points to him. First, that Israel is a colonial entity that involves violations of the rights of the Palestinians, including academic freedom, and then asking him to stand in solidarity with Palestinian academic colleagues who have called for solidarity from international academics in the form of boycotting Israeli academia and academic institutions,”

Was Hawking persuaded that Israel is a colonialist entity and not entitled to remain a member state of the United Nations?

Does Hawking- like the PLO - regard the decisions of the League of Nations and the United Nations illegal and void?

Does Hawking believe in collective punishment of the entire population of Israel for the decisions of a democratically elected Government that a large segment of that population did not vote for?

Hawking visited Iran in 2007 for the International Physics Olympiad. His conscience was then apparently untroubled by the stoning of adulteresses, imprisonment without trial, torture and the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities — to say nothing of arming terrorists and threatening to wipe countries off the map.

Will Hawking now boycott Chinese academia in the future while China continues to occupy Tibet and repress the Falun Gong?

Has Hawking ever spoken to his academic contacts in the West Bank about the indiscriminate firing of tens of thousands of shells into Israeli population centres - acknowledged as war crimes by his academic colleague UN Special Rapporteur Professor Richard Falk?

Asked by The Jerusalem Post about Hawking’s boycott - Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said:

“He should investigate the truth, he is a scientist. He should study the facts and draw the necessary conclusions: Israel is an island of reason, moderation and a desire for peace.”

Hawking certainly must have made some investigations to come to the decision he has. It would help to understand his position if he were to share the results.

Perhaps Hawking’s conduct was best summed up by analyst Nathan Harden:

“When one’s disagreement with a nation’s political regime justifies the shunning and boycott of that nation’s scientists and scholars, we are on dangerous ground. Hawking and other politically liberal scholars who participate in the academic boycott of Israel are hypocrites. They are quick to profess devotion to tolerance and academic freedom, but they don’t live up to those ideals — not when it comes to Israel, anyway.

If it has become acceptable to support an academic boycott of an entire nationality (all Israelis), we aren’t far off from a future in which it will be acceptable to back an academic boycott of an entire ethnicity (all Jews).”

Every man is entitled to express his opinion - but he should be prepared to justify and defend his decisions with detailed and reasoned arguments when those decisions are challenged.

Hawking’s failure to adequately answer his hosts is regrettable

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 - Israel ReadiesTo Extend Its Sovereignty Into West Bank

[Published 28 June 2012]


A confluence of events is increasingly pointing to Israel taking action in the very near future to extend its sovereignty over a substantial part - if not all - of the 61% of the West Bank it has totally controlled since 1967 - unless Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ends his posturing and submits to considerable loss of face by announcing he is now prepared to resume negotiations with Israel without preconditions of any kind.

Abbas himself only last week declared the negotiating processes begun under the Oslo Accords in 1993 and the Bush Roadmap in 2003 to be “clinically dead” (whatever that means). If he is not prepared to at least try to breathe life into those stalled processes by unconditionally returning to the negotiating table - he will be presiding over the irreversible end of those negotiations. Israel is not going to continue to mark time waiting for Abbas to end his political filibuster.

Abbas’s attempts to procure international pressure to be brought to bear on Israel to freeze building activities in the West Bank as a condition of resuming such negotiations have failed. He has literally been left to hang out to dry.

His meeting with Russian President Putin - during Putin’s visit to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan this week - clearly indicated his desperation and frustration - as revealed in the following press release:

“We assured the president that the way to peace is through negotiations with Israel, and we continue to call for him to hold an international peace conference in Moscow, as we previously agreed. We asked our friends to help us to release our prisoners who were arrested prior to 1994, who it was agreed with Israel would be released, but have not yet been freed, If it (Israel) frees these prisoners, there could be a meeting with Mr Netanyahu for a session of dialogue but that doesn’t mean negotiations,”

Only one person - President Obama - can possibly resuscitate the negotiations by inducing Israel to impose a building freeze for a limited time in the West Bank or release more prisoners than the thousands it has already done so.

This would require Obama to grant a pardon to Jonathan Pollard who has been rotting away in American prisons for the last 26 years for spying for Israel. Since Israeli President - Shimon Peres - tried and failed to secure Pollard’s release in the past two weeks - Abbas would need a miracle for Obama to change his mind and save Abbas from the hole which he has dug for himself.

Another indicator of Israel’s readiness to end the logjam in the West Bank for the last 19 years came with Israel’s response to the suggestion this week by the United Nations Human Rights Council President - Laura Dupuy Lasserre - that a fact-finding mission on West Bank settlements might be despatched as early as July. This news was met with a curt response from Eviatar Manor, deputy director-general for international organizations at Israel’s Foreign Ministry - who stated:

“It is important for us to remind everyone that we are not going to cooperate with this fact-finding mission. They will not be allowed to enter the country or go to the West Bank,”

Any decision to extend Israeli sovereignty into the West Bank will not be harmed by the finalisation of a Report this week by The Committee to Examine the State of Construction in the West Bank.

Chaired by Retired Supreme Court Justice Edmund Levy and including District Court Judge Techiya Shapira and former Ambassador and Foreign Ministry Legal Advisor Allan Baker - this Committee has reportedly found that the West Bank is not under occupation rule,

The Committee is reported to have :

“analyzed the historic and legal background of Judea and Samaria and concludes that the belligerent occupation approach must be discarded as reflecting Israel’s status in those areas. According to the committee’s approach, Judea and Samaria were in a judicial vacuum before the Six Day War. The reason was that the Kingdom of Jordan, which held those territories, did so against the rule of international law, and its sovereignty over them was recognized solely by Great Britain. Since Jordan was not the legal sovereign, the report argues, the territories cannot be defined as occupied in the legal sense of the word.

In addition, the committee offers a string of arguments showing that Israel itself has a legal connection to those territories, which is another reason why it is not an occupier.”

The Report will be a smack in the eye to the international community and many Non Governmental Organizations in Israel which have long held the view that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal in international law. It will however bolster the resolve of one of the strongest National Unity Government’s in Israel’s history to act to end this game of diplomatic ping pong that has raged over the West Bank for the last 45 years by confirming the right of the Jewish people to live in and reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its biblical and ancient homeland as promulgated in the Mandate for Palestine and the United Nations Charter - and acknowledged in Security Council Resolution 242.

Add to this mix the deteriorating political situation and civil unrest in Israel’s immediate neighbours -Syria, Egypt and Jordan - then the strategic position of the West Bank takes on an increasing significance for Israel’s security and national interests ensuring that the generous offers made by Israel to the Palestinian Authority in 2000 and 2008 to cede Israel’s claim to sovereignty in more than 90% of the West Bank are not going to be repeated.

The inability of the international community to do anything to end the slaughter in Syria that has so far reportedly claimed 16000 lives in the last 15 months indicates that any protests at Israel extending its sovereignty into a large part of the West Bank where very few Arabs presently live - would be rhetoric at best and nothing more.

The racist demand - still repeated mantra fashion by the Palestinian Authority and its spokesmen - that 350000 Jews living in the West Bank be dispossessed and removed from their homes - supported by the silence of - and in some cases the active support of - a majority of a morally corrupt international community - could never and can never be acceded to by Israel.

The decision by UNESCO last October to recognize and admit Palestine as its 195th member State effectively ended the claim that the Palestinian Arabs are homeless and stateless. Whilst this decision was both illegal and unconstitutional - the failure by anyone in the international community to urge UNESCO to have its decision confirmed by the International Court of Justice amounts to de facto acceptance by all member states of the UNESCO decision.

Putting all these ingredients together - the issue of resolving sovereignty in a substantial part of the West Bank could be set to undergo a dramatic change in a very short time.

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.

Palestine Recognized - United Nations Delegitimized

[Published 14 April 2011]


Any decision by the United Nations General Assembly to recognize a Palestinian State next September could signal the beginning of the end for the United Nations as a credible organization pledged to uphold the rule of international law in dealings with - and between - member states.

Its current reputation for doing so is under real threat even now - as calls for it to withdraw further consideration of the flawed Goldstone Report are being made following Justice Goldstone’s recent admission that the Report wrongly alleged that Israel had deliberately targeted Gaza’s civilian population during its invasion of Gaza in December 2008.

Goldstone’s Report had been tainted and compromised from the outset because all four Commissioners appointed by the UN Human Rights Council were biased - and in accordance with well established legal principles should have recused themselves from taking part in the Inquiry.

Failing to initially reject any consideration of this biased Report has now landed the General Assembly in its present predicament. Continuing to consider the Goldstone Report will indicate the General Assembly is prepared to ignore the law where it conflicts with a particular political objective. This is a recipe for disaster and inevitably must lead to the total loss of any credibility.

Should the United Nations actively attempt to do another “Goldstone” - by acting in defiance of a well established body of international law - then it could well end up imploding like its predecessor - the League of Nations.

Israel’s President - Shimon Peres - warned this week that whilst Israel believes in a two-state solution - it must be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians, not imposed by the international community.

Failure of the General Assembly to heed this message - by ignoring international law - can only lay the groundwork for another war

Vesting Arab sovereignty for the first time ever in recorded history in the whole or any part of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza - can realistically only happen in direct negotiations to which Israel is a party. Other alternatives to the creation of a new Arab State may have to be considered and negotiated if this currently preferred option cannot be realised.

The UN Documentation Search Guide sets out the following UN objective:

“International law is a primary concern of the United Nations. The mandate for the activities in this field emanates from the Charter of the United Nations which, in its Preamble, sets the goal “to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”.

International law specifically dealing with Palestine that must be respected and upheld by the United Nations includes:

1. The Versailles Peace Conference 1919
2. The San Remo Conference 1920
3. The Treaty of Sevres 1920
4. The Mandate for Palestine 1922
5. Article 80 of the UN Charter 1945
6. Security Council Resolution 242 (1967)

This body of law conclusively establishes that:

1. the Jewish National Home is to be reconstituted in Palestine within secure and recognized boundaries - without prejudice to the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities
2. close settlement by Jews is to be encouraged on the land within such determined boundaries including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes

Any attempt to now deny the Jewish people these vested legal rights - without Israel’s agreement - will indeed be an exercise in futility.

Additionally the provisions of customary international law embodied in the Montevideo Convention 1933 sets out in Article 1 four criteria for statehood :

1. a permanent population;
2. defined territory;
3. government; and
4. capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

Short of a miracle occurring before September - there will not be:

1. any single Arab Government in control of all of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza - reputedly the territory designated to be the subject of the proposed General Assembly resolution
2. any permanent population in the designated territory over which any Arab declarant could claim to exercise control
3. any ability by any Arab government in those areas to enter into relations with other states and honour commitments made with those states.

As it did in 1947 - the General Assembly could examine the current situation and make its own recommendations to the parties. But these would be recommendations only - requiring the consent of both parties before they could be implemented.

Entertaining any other attempt to bring the matter to the General Assembly would undermine and could lead to the repudiation of:

1. the Oslo Accords - whose status even now is very questionable and
2. the Roadmap - to which the United Nations is committed to implementing as part of the four member Quartet comprising itself, the United States, the European Union and Russia
3. Changed circumstances on the ground since such a State was first proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937 and by the United Nations in 1947 make the possibility of the creation of such a State now only possible to achieve in direct negotiations with Israel.

The opportunity that existed between 1948-1967 to unilaterally create such a State with the stroke of an Arab League pen - when all Jews living in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza had been expelled by seven invading Arab Armies - is no longer available.

The reputation and integrity of the United Nations is at stake if efforts continue to procure the passage of a resolution to recognize a Palestinian State by the General Assembly in September.

America has already issued a precautionary warning against such action.

White House Middle East advisor Dennis Ross said this week:

“We have consistently made it clear that the way to produce a Palestinian state is through negotiations, not through unilateral declarations, not through going to the UN. Our position on that has been consistent in opposition.”

UN Secretary General Ban-Ki moon - and the General Assembly - would do well to heed this warning before embarking on this pointless journey to nowhere.

Israel Over The Moon With Ban-Ki

[Published 3 August 2010]


Israel is to be applauded for its agreement to participate in the Inquiry announced yesterday by UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki moon into the aborted attempt on 31 May by a flotilla of six ships to break the naval blockade imposed by Israel on the entry of goods and supplies into Gaza.

This Inquiry - first mooted in a statement by the UN Security Council on 1 June - called for :

” a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards"

The attempt by another United Nations organ - the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) - to hijack such an investigation and inflict as much political damage as it could on Israel has now been effectively terminated by the Secretary-General’s announcement.

The UNHRC on 23 June had indicated it would be initiating an investigation - which promised to be biased and far from independent - one that Israel could not possibly co-operate with.

The UNHRC had already prejudged the issues as was clearly evident in the terms of the resolution that it passed:

“to dispatch an independent, international fact-finding mission to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting from the Israeli attacks on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian assistance;"

Any idea that there might not have been any violations of international law or that the ships might not have been carrying only humanitarian assistance had already been predetermined by the UNHRC in this blatantly worded resolution.

Israel had been effectively hung drawn and quartered by the UNHRC before the members of its Inquiry had even been named.

So far as the UNHRC was concerned it had:

(i) Condemned in the strongest terms the outrageous attack by the Israeli forces against the humanitarian flotilla of ships, which resulted in the killing and injuring of many innocent civilians from different countries;
(ii) Deeply deplored the loss of life of innocent civilians, and expresses its deepest sympathy and condolences to the victims and their families;
(iii) Called upon the occupying Power, Israel, to immediately lift the siege on occupied Gaza and other occupied territories;

without hearing one word from Israel.

This identical pattern of prejudging Israel had been established by the UNHRC when appointing the Goldstone Inquiry into Israel’s invasion of Gaza in December 2008. Israel had no option but to then refuse becoming a sacrificial lamb in such an Inquiry whose outcome had been pre-determined before the Commission had even begun its work and whose Commissioners were totally conflicted by statements they had made before their appointment. Any hope of Israel getting a fair hearing were doomed from the outset.

The UN has proved far more circumspect on this latest occasion and the UNHRC has been sent packing.

Israel’s agreement to now participate in the Secretary-General’s Inquiry - to be co-chaired by New Zealand’s Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Columbia’s Alvaro Uriba with the addition of one representative from Israel and one from Turkey - promises to provide a fair and transparent setting for the determination of the events that lead to the blockade being instituted, the attempts to undermine it and the tragic consequences that followed.

Issues such as the legality of the blockade and its enforcement, provocation, the use of force, disproportionate use of force and acting in self defence will be examined and appropriate judgements made.

The terms of reference are still to be finalised but Sir Jeffrey Palmer has charted an optimistic course stating:

“I can’t say anything of substance on the details of this inquiry or indeed its procedures until I’ve been to New York and discussed the issues with both the Secretary General [Ban Ki-moon] and my colleagues on the inquiry… This is a very sensitive matter. It’s a quasi-judicial inquiry, so it is really very important to maintain a sense of detachment”

Hopefully the details and procedures when released will prove to be fair and balanced and enable Israel and Turkey to appoint representatives to the Committee and allow its deliberations to proceed in an atmosphere of calm. The Inquiry should certainly serve to ease tensions between Israel and Turkey.

Hopes are high that the UN might at last have hit on a path to reducing conflict that will see the last of any flawed and unreliable inquiries such as that conducted by Goldstone.

Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has said - following the announcement of the Inquiry:

“Israel has nothing to hide. Quite the opposite: The State of Israel’s national interest is to ensure that the factual truth on the entire raid incident will be known to the world”

Israel’s President - Shimon Peres - is confident Israel will be exonerated.

In an interview with Benny Morris published on 26 July Peres was asked and responded to the following questions:

“Q: About the Turkish flotilla, do you think we acted correctly?

A: We acted correctly, except in terms of explaining what happened.

Q: We killed nine Turks, they killed no Israelis.

A: There were six boats. Only on one — where they came prepared for violence — was there a clash. There was a long delay in broadcasting our explanation. There is no starvation in Gaza and no siege. If Gaza would agree not to rocket us, we would leave the entry points open.

Q: But we prevented items like cardamom from reaching Gaza.

A: OK, we made some mistakes. [But] we made another mistake—we restrained ourselves for eight years and allowed them to shoot thousands of rockets at us until the rage came out at one go [in the IDF assault on Hamas in Gaza in 2008-2009]. Had we done then what we do now, retaliate each time they fire a rocket — there would have been no problem. In the end, it turned out that restraint was a mistake"

Israel will now be given the chance of fully explaining what happened in a forum that will hopefully act responsibly and carefully without resort to reliance on innuendo and unsubstantiated allegations.

The precedent created by this Inquiry could lead to the UN undertaking similar inquiries into future international incidents between conflicting antagonists.

It serves to end the political grandstanding and double standards of organizations such as the UNHRC and the Arab League - whose member countries include some of the worst abusers of human rights and violators of international law among the international community.

Palestine - Mountains And Molehills

[Published November 2009]

Judging by the fuss and flurry over the past week you would think that the world was in meltdown unless a resolution was found to finalising claims of sovereignty by Jews and Arabs to a piece of land 280 square kilometres in area (equal to just 5% of the size of Delaware) - forming part of the 5640 square kilometre territory called the “West Bank“.

Everyone involved needs to take a deep breath, calm down and review where this dispute is now at and put it in its proper perspective in the light of the events of the last seven days.

Continuing Palestinian Authority intransigence to concede even one square kilometre of this territory to Israel led to a breakdown in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority 12 months ago. Since then there have been large changes in the political landscape including the invasion of Gaza by Israel, the election of a new Government in Israel, the publication of the Goldstone Report and the continuing unresolved division of governance in the West Bank and Gaza between Fatah and Hamas.

The West Bank holds deep emotional and religious ties for the Jews - since it is the biblical heartland of the Jewish people - and is part of the territory within which the Jewish National Home was to be reconstituted under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

430000 Jews also happen to live in these 280 square kilometres pursuant to legal rights conferred on them by the Mandate for Palestine and the UN Charter. Israel also considers retention of this area to be absolutely essential for its security because of its strategic location.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 predicated that an area of the West Bank would be retained under Israel’s sovereignty as part of its secure and recognized borders in any negotiations.

In a fit of pique the Palestinian Authority has now refused to resume negotiations with Israel - ostensibly because Israel refuses to stop building houses and public buildings in the cities and population centres in the West Bank already designated and established for Jewish development - the so-called “settlements“.

For the Arabs, their interest in continuing to reject Israel’s claim to this 280 square kilometres is directed at driving out its Jewish residents and reducing the security of Israel in pursuit of a policy aimed at eventually destroying Israel by creating yet another Arab state - the 22nd - in the world.

The President of the Palestinian Authority - Mahmoud Abbas - threatened this week not to stand for President at the next elections supposedly to be held in January. Such elections are unlikely since his political opponent - Hamas - has the power to stymie the elections and has indicated it will do so.

Abbas is presently holding on to power illegitimately since his term expired last January. The vacancy caused should have been filled by the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council - Aziz Dweik - but Mr Abbas refuses to yield.

Notwithstanding his political impotence - Mr Abbas hoped his threatened resignation would bring forth cries to rethink his resignation because a Hamas nominee might become President.

Some in Israel rose to the bait.

Israel’s ceremonial President Shimon Peres and the failed politician Yossi Beilin headed the Israeli chorus calling on Abbas to recant.

Peres recalled that along with Rabin, he and Abbas were among signatories to the 1993 Oslo peace accord and he appealed to Abbas by name not to quit.

“We both signed the Oslo agreement, I turn to you as a colleague, don’t let go.”

Beilin told the Lebanon Daily Star:

“The resignation threat presents a real danger because there is no other Palestinian leader on the horizon who can enjoy the same international prestige and try to lead his public to an agreement with Israel. If Abbas tells US President Barack Obama he is considering resigning, the American leader should not consider this an empty threat. It would constitute a blow to his administration’s regional policies, following long months of wasted time and empty maneuvers.”

Apparently President Obama was unmoved by such pleas as his Secretary of State reportedly accepted Mr Abbas’s resignation. Abbas had clearly lost the poker game on this score.

Abbas will now no doubt try to hold on to the reins of power in the absence of any elections. However he is a spent force incapable of delivering anything he signs or agrees to.

Statements and contradicting statements were also made by various Arab spokesmen during the week threatening to dismantle the Palestinian Authority. This was yet another attempt to pressure Israel to stop all building activity in the “settlements“ as the price for the resumption of negotiations.

As a tactic it could not possibly work. Israel had already made concessions in this area that Secretary of State Clinton had acknowledged to be “unprecedented” .

In a November 4 interview with Jackie Northam of National Public Radio Clinton said:

“What is so clear is that once borders are decided, the settlement issue goes away. The Israelis build whatever they want in their territory, the Palestinians build whatever they want in theirs,”

America had again spoken to clear the air in an attempt to make Abbas see sense and resolve the issue of borders without delay. Her advice seems certain to be ignored. He is in no position to concede any land without bringing the wrath of Hamas on him.

Just in case Abbas was not listening to Clinton - President Obama had the following to say in a taped video played at the Rabin Memorial Commemoration on 8 November:

"Palestinian dreams of statehood will be deferred unless Israelis are assured of their own safety and security”

The abject surrender of control in Gaza to Hamas has destroyed the credibility and effectiveness of the Palestinian Authority to govern any area of the West Bank in a way that could possibly meet Israel’s security requirements.

There is only one Arab State that can possibly do that - Jordan - the last Arab state to occupy the West Bank from 1948-1967 - and with whom Israel has a signed peace treaty that has stood the test of time and many pressures faced by both countries since the treaty was signed in 1994.

A trial balloon was also floated this week suggesting Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Fayyad was seeking a new Security Council resolution to replace Resolution 242 in a bid to win the international community’s support for the borders of a Palestinian state. The move was said to be designed to bring stronger pressure on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.

This idea is doomed to failure in the Security Council.

All the Arab huff and puff of the past week should be viewed as failed and desperate attempts by the Palestinian Authority to make mountains out of molehills so as to avoid making decisions on borders and to try and shore up support for its rapid decline in political influence.

The Authority and Abbas have jumped head first into the abyss leaving Israel with no reliable or credible negotiating partner. They should both be replaced by Jordan as Israel‘s Arab partner for negotiations on the future sovereignty of the West Bank.

Until this change occurs President Obama should turn his attention and efforts to resolving the really serious problems that presently confront him - Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, climate change, his own domestic economy, universal health care and terrorism within the military.

Leave the Arabs and Jews alone to first sort out this minimalist territorial issue over a sliver of land.

The agreement on borders still remains the first mountain to be climbed by Arab negotiators. There are others to follow but if this - the easiest to climb - cannot be achieved then it is pointless trying to scale the much higher peaks - refugees, water,Jerusalem, demilitarization - that still remain to be conquered.

Palestine - Jordan Jittery But Not To Worry

[Published May 2009]

King Abdullah of Jordan has obviously got a bad attack of the jitters as Israeli politicians now focus their attention on Jordan returning to re-occupy the heavily Arab populated areas of the West Bank - as Jordan had previously done so successfully between 1948-1967.

The hysteria emanating from Jordan at such a suggestion indicates that Israel’s politicians have touched a raw nerve that Jordan has long tried to gloss over - the fact that Jordan comprises 77% of former Palestine and has a pivotal role to play in the West Bank if there is ever to be any hope of peace between Arabs and Jews.

Sixteen years of negotiations since 1993 aimed at creating a new Arab state between Israel and Jordan in the West Bank have proved a total failure. Yet the delusion that such a State could ever be created continues to be perpetuated by a very carefully scripted and media managed performance by King Abdullah that has apparently seduced President Obama into believing he will be able to succeed where others before him have ignominiously failed.

President Obama will be in for a rude shock and end up in the same state of disbelief and disillusionment that befell his predecessors Presidents Carter, Clinton and Bush

Jordan’s Foreign Minister was concerned enough at the debate in the Knesset this week to summons Israel’s Ambassador and issue him with a strong protest:

“on a motion on a so-called two states for two peoples on the two banks of the Jordan River”

His concern might be well justified if he were reacting to the following statement made by Lebanese writer Farid Salman on OTV on 6 May 2009 as reported by Middle East Media Research Institute:

“Jordan is an invention. Transjordan, which was an emirate, and later became the Hashemite Kingdom, is part of Palestine. Britain created it in order to crown one of the sons of Hussein,from the Arabian Peninsula, over part of Greater Syria - over Palestine. This continues to be the perpetual reason… Without removing it, the Palestinian issue will not be resolved. It’s impossible.”

Farid Salman’s statement contains within it the call for the overthrow and removal of King Abdullah and an end to Hashemite rule.

President Jimmy Carter was moved to point out as long ago as 11 October 1982 in Time that Jordan as a nation was

“a contrivance arbitrarily devised by a few strokes of the pen.”

Again one could argue that Carter would not have been sorry to see Jordan’s Hashemite rulers disappear and the country be renamed Palestine.

However the current furor in Jordan over this week’s debate in the Knesset is an over reaction by a nervous Hashemite regime that sees the sword of Damocles hanging over the Hashemites every time someone mentions the origins and history of Jordan.

Jordan’s response has been topped by a remarkable outburst by Israel’s President Shimon Peres who has called the idea of two states for two peoples a

“baseless hallucination”

(Haartez 27 May)
The proposal that Jordan step in to fill the void left by the collapse of the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is sound and represents the only alternative option now open to be pursued in trying to end the conflict between Jews and Arabs that has continued for the last 120 years.

There have been countless statements made by Arab leaders attesting to the fact that Jordan forms part of Palestine and that there is no distinction between a Palestinian and a Jordanian.

Abu Iyad was able to tell the Near East Report on 8 January 1990:

“When the Palestinian State and unity is established the Jordanian will be a Palestinian and the Palestinian a Jordanian”

Even Yasser Arafat was moved to admit in Der Spiegel in 1986:

“Indeed Palestinians and Jordanians are one people. No one can divide us”

It is clearly in Israel’s national interest that Jordan’s entry into the West Bank not result in the Hashemite regime being replaced by a rogue leadership. Jordan would have to be given security guarantees by Israel to prevent any such eventuality happening, which given the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan would surely be forthcoming.

A massive injection of international funds flowing to Jordan to enable the rehabilitation of the West Bank and advance the interests of the Arabs living there would revitalise the area and offer hope for real peace and co-operation between Jews and Arabs who would continue to live where they are without having to move or sell up.

The creation of Jordan may have been an invention or a contrivance but it exists as fact today and has survived to become the homeland of the Arabs of former Palestine. Extending its borders to embrace the heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank is the master key to separating Jews and Arabs and removing the barriers and roadblocks that currently impede normal communication and contact between the Arab residents of the West Bank. Extending Jordanian citizenship will give them the right of self determination they have long sought to obtain.

The creation of the Palestinian Authority was another invention or contrivance that proved to be a total failure and now needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history. Jordan is a success story and the Hashemites are entitled to take full credit for what has been achieved since independence was granted in 1946.

The creation of a new Arab state between Jordan and Israel in the West Bank would be another invention or contrivance with no basis to support it historically, geographically or demographically. Rather than advance the cause of peace it would represent a threat to the continued existence of both Israel and Jordan.

King Abdullah might not relish being thrown into the spotlight. However he better get used to it.

Jordan’s role in resolving the conflict won’t go away.

Palestine - Clinton Comes Calling

[Published March 2009]

It didn’t take long for US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take a running jump into the quicksand which so spectacularly claimed her husband - President Bill Clinton - in 2000.

On her first visit to Israel this week Secretary of State Clinton also nominated President Obama as another candidate for the slippery slide into oblivion when she told Israel’s President Shimon Peres on March 3:

“During the [Sharm el Sheikh] conference, I emphasized President Obama’s and my commitment to working to achieve a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and our support for the Palestinian Authority of President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad.”

The two state solution - involving the creation of a 22nd Arab state between Israel, Jordan and Egypt - has been effectively pronounced dead and buried as a result of:

•the demise of the negotiating process begun in 2003 pursuant to the Roadmap endorsed by America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations
•the failure to achieve the two state solution by the self imposed deadline of 31 December 2008.
•the departure from power of two of its main proponents - former US President George Bush and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
•the loss of political power and control in Gaza by the Palestinian Authority and the PLO and their replacement as governing authority by Hamas.
•the probable formation of a Government in Israel led by Benjamin Netanyahu - which will oppose any two state solution that accepts a fully sovereign and independent Arab state between Israel and Egypt

What rabbit out of the hat does Ms Clinton and her President think they can produce so as to succeed where so many before them have tried and failed abysmally over the last 15 years?

Continued reliance on the Roadmap to achieve the two state solution seems futile. President Obama would be loathe to promote his predecessor’s failed plan. Even he must realise that pursuing a plan that could not even get off the ground after six years of trying is an idea he should continue to pursue any further.

The unyielding and intransigent Arab negotiating demand made during the Roadmap negotiations that Israel cede any claim to 7% of the West Bank means that 500000 Jews would have to be kicked out of their homes for those negotiations to succeed. The Arab demand for 100% of the West Bank and Gaza has been repeated ad nauseam for the last 40 years and has been one of the central issues that has plagued every effort to create the two state solution.

Offers of land swaps between Israel and the West Bank have already been rejected in the Roadmap negotiations. Demographics now make such a two state solution impossible to achieve.

The Arabs must moderate their negotiating stance on this issue. There is no indication they have the slightest intention of doing so.

Perhaps the Secretary of State intends embarking on a romantic cavalcade through the Middle East in pursuit of the adoption of the proposals contained in the Arab League Initiative - dreamt up in 2002 by Saudi Arabia but sidelined as the parties embraced the Roadmap instead.

She will be disappointed. The Arab League Initiative contains a specific demand calling for Israel to cede any claims to even one square metre of the West Bank and Gaza.

The Arab League has made it clear that its proposal is a “take it or leave it” proposal - not subject to negotiation in any respect. Israel will have no choice but to “leave it” - if it does not wish to sign its own death warrant.

Perhaps Ms Clinton is fooling us all and in the best traditions of diplomatic doublespeak is using the term “two state solution” to mean the division of the West Bank between Israel and Jordan. This would see perhaps 90% of the West Bank become part of Jordan and the remaining 10% become part of Israel and represents the only possible breakthrough to end the long running conflict.

Ms Clinton and President Peres both seemed blissfully unaware of the threat posed by Hamas to Israel - and to Palestinian Authority President Abbas who was given the thumbs up by Ms Clinton at her meeting with President Peres.

As Ms Clinton stood side by side with President Peres trying to outdo him in their protestations of undying affection for each other - President Peres observed:

“… even now, they [Hamas] continue to fire. We don’t know the reasons why are they doing it. We don’t know the goals they want to achieve. We know their intentions, which is basically negative—to destroy peace.”

Regrettably the Secretary of State was unable to enlighten President Peres on Hamas’ declared intention to wipe Israel off the map by using Gaza as the forward staging post whilst at the same time undermining Abbas‘ legitimacy to head the Palestinian Authority.

Instead she soothingly replied:

“ … the continued rocket attacks against Israel must cease. I don’t, like Shimon [Peres], understand the provocation that Hamas is determined to present.”

In this scenario of total ignorance billions will be poured into Gaza only to see parts of it razed to the ground in a very short period. Nine hundred million dollars from a cash strapped US economy will disappear without trace as Israel continues to respond to these continuing indiscriminate Hamas rocket assaults on its civilian population centres.

Abbas has been reduced to the status of a political eunuch. US support for his continuing rule seems odd as diplomats from other nations line up to visit Gaza and enter into a dialogue with Hamas.

And so our intrepid Secretary of State had nothing better to say than admire President Peres for his determined efforts to seek peace over his lifetime by saying:

“I always come away from my times with you both inspired and encouraged to think more deeply and more broadly. And I also am silently challenged by your ceaseless optimism about the future.

This is a man for whom the expression “The glass is half full” was invented.”

Perhaps this expression could be equally applied to President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton. Their intentions to pursue peace are without doubt earnest, honourable and sincere.

One thing is certain however - they will need many full glasses to drown their sorrows as they unsuccessfully pursue the two state solution as the path to peace during their respective terms of office.