Trump meets with Abbas and a phantom Palestinian Authority

[Published 24 September 2017]


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

China Can Exploit United Nations Double Standards On Palestine

[Published 14 July 2016]


International support for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) - despite its rejection of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter – could be exploited by China to blunt international action following an unfavourable ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration against China in The Hague.

Having boycotted those proceedings - Chinese President Xi Jinping then immediately dismissed the decision – which denied China had any legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea:

"China will never accept any claim or action based on those awards”

His rejection was as peremptory as that of the PLO – which declared in Article 18 of its original 1964 Charter:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate system and all that has been based upon them are considered fraud.”

This position was revised when the Charter was redrafted in 1968 – article 20 declaring:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void.”

These provisions have been a major contributing factor in preventing a resolution of the Jewish-Arab conflict for the last 52 years.

The international community has not punished the PLO for its unilateral demolition of these international-law building blocks but to the contrary has granted the PLO diplomatic recognition whilst also welcoming the PLO into the United Nations.

Should China be demonised because it also chooses to ignore a determination in international law that it regards as inimical to its national interest?

Does size matter? Can one forgive small players who wilfully shred international law but demand big players conform to legal decisions not to their liking?

The international community has some serious soul-searching to do.

Vietnam may now be ruing its welcoming embrace of the PLO by:

•Establishing ties with the PLO in 1968
•Allowing the PLO to open its resident Representative Office in Vietnam in 1976
•Elevating the PLO's resident Representative Office to the status of Embassy in 1982

Clearly concerned by China’s response to The Hague decision – Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh has declared:

"Vietnam strongly supports the resolution of the disputes ... by peaceful means, including diplomatic and legal processes and refraining from the use or threats to use force, in accordance with international law,"

That response is what one would normally expect – but when you have not demanded the same of the PLO for the last 48 years then such statement amounts to an indefensible double standard.

Other countries vitally affected by the South China Sea ruling include the Philippines – the plaintiff in The Hague proceedings - Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia. They may find their long-standing ties with the PLO similarly embarrassing as they confront an angry China.

China on the other hand can argue that rejecting the South China Sea judgement is consistent with China’s recognition of the law-trashing PLO in 1988 – since International law means nothing to China and the PLO.

The Hague ruling is regarded as legally binding – but there is apparently no mechanism to enforce it.

Boycott Divestment and Sanctions programs against China will have little effect.

Rejecting China’s claim to any historic rights in the South China Sea stands in stark contrast to the acceptance of Jewish historic rights to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) – recognised by the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter – but erroneously claimed by the UN Security Council to be in violation of international law.

Double standards in the international community have a horrible way of coming back to bite those indulging in such dangerous games.