Palestine - Suspending Disbelief Is An Unbelievable Hoax

[Published 10 March 2013]


Beware failed negotiators like Dennis Ross when they continue to pontificate on the possibility of the two-state solution.

Formerly the United States chief negotiator for the Arab-Israeli conflict from 1993 to 2001 and a special assistant to the president for the Middle East and South Asia from 2009 to 2011 - Dennis Ross is now a distinguished fellow and counselor to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In his recent article in the New York Times entitled -“To Achieve Mideast Peace,Suspend Disbelief” - Mr Ross concludes that neither side believes the other side is committed to the two-state solution but that cannot be an argument for doing nothing.

He further states that if the two-state solution is discredited as an outcome - something and someone will fill the void.

Ross speculates that the Islamists of Hamas, with their rejection of two-states, seem primed to fill the void - when he says the conflict will be transformed from a nationalist into a religious one and at that point it may not be possible to resolve.

One can only shake one’s head in amazement that Mr Ross actually believes this is a nationalist conflict and not a religious conflict.

The continuing refusal by the PLO, Hamas and the Arab League to recognise Israel as the Jewish National Home - first decreed with the unanimous consent of the League of Nations in 1922 and incorporated into the United Nations Charter under article 80 in 1945 - indicates that Mr Ross learnt nothing after 8 years in the hot seat as the United States chief negotiator.

Mr Ross asks - so what can be done?

His proposal is one taken right out of fairyland:

"I propose a 14-point agenda for discussions. Twelve of the points — six on the Israeli side and six on the Palestinian side — would be coordinated unilateral moves that each party would be willing to discuss and implement provided that the other side would do its part. The final points would be mutual steps taken concurrently by both sides. The goal would be to chip away at the sources of each side’s disbelief about the other’s commitment to a genuine two-state solution."

In a remarkably contrived display of evenhandedness - 6 discussion points apiece - Mr Ross has gone back to the failed formula of pressing Israel to make concrete commitments in return for PLO commitments that - apart from one - amount to nothing more than sheer hot air.

Israel six-point list is as follows:

1. Only build new housing in settlement blocks and in areas west of the security barrier. This means that Israel would build only in about 8 percent of the West Bank and no longer in the remaining 92 percent.

2. Offer compensation to any Jews to relocate to Israel or the designated blocks.

3. Consent to begin construction of housing within Israel or the designated blocks for all those settlers ready to relocate.

4. In “Area C,” which represents 60.1 percent of the West Bank’s territory and in which Israel retains civil and security responsibility, Palestinians would be permitted economic access, activity and ownership.

5. In “Area B,” which covers 21.7 percent of the West Bank and in which Palestinians have responsibility for civil affairs and for law and order — but not for dealing with terrorism — the presence of Palestinian police and security forces, and their duties, would be allowed to increase.

6. In “Area A,” which accounts for 18.2 percent of the West Bank’s territory and in which the Palestinians have civil and security responsibility, the I.D.F. could specify clear security criteria, which, if met by the Palestinian Authority, would end the incursions.

Mr Ross lists the following six agenda items for the Palestinian side to commit to:

1. Be willing to speak of two states for two peoples and to acknowledge there are two national movements and two national identities.

2. Pledge to put Israel on Palestinian maps

3. Make clear the commitment to building the state of Palestine, without encroaching on Israel, with a particular focus on the rule of law.

4. Commit to ending incitement; stop glorifying as martyrs those who kill Israelis; stop blaming Israel for every evil; stop denying the Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

5. Prepare the Palestinian public for peace.

6. Build permanent housing in refugee camps and allow those families who wish to move out of the camps to be permitted to do so

Apart from the last item on the agenda - and since the PLO has shown itself incapable of bringing about these changes of attitude during the last 20 years of failed negotiations - there is little point in including them.

Perhaps it is time for Mr Ross and others in the international community to consider the principle of reciprocity in negotiations.

To induce Israel to accept Mr Ross’s six point agenda - he needs to propose something far more concrete on the Arab side - something along the lines of the following:

1. The Arab League is to nominate two more of its members to recognise Israel and open embassies between their respective countries.

2. The Arab League and the PLO agree to recognise Israel in its final agreed-upon designated borders as the reconstituted Jewish National Home in accordance with international law

3. Offer compensation to Arabs willing to relocate from Area C to Area A or Area B

4. Consent to begin construction of housing in Area A and Area B to house those Arabs willing to relocate from Area C

5. Hold free and fair elections in the West Bank and Gaza within twelve months irrespective of the state of the negotiations

6. Build permanent housing in existing refugee camps

In the words of Mr Ross:

"These 12 points represent an agenda for discussion that could lead to coordinated actions and change the dynamic between Israelis and Palestinians — and maybe, by restoring hope, show that the government of Mr. Abbas still offers a pathway for Palestinian national aspirations.

These points could, for once, create a virtuous cycle. Such progress is vital if there is to be any hope that the two sides will actually address the core issues of the conflict.

We don’t need more dead ends. It is time to show Israelis and Palestinians that something is possible other than stalemate. Otherwise disbelief and failure will become a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Mr Ross - despite your best efforts - your proposal does nothing to reverse the generally held belief that the two-state solution is terminal and has been dead and buried for more than eighteen months.

To propose that your 12 point agenda can suspend that belief by proposing yet another talkfest based on vague intangible commitments by the Arabs is quite frankly unbelievable.

Palestine - Obama's White House Showing Settlement Cracks

[Published 27 October 2010]


With the mid term Congressional elections only a week away - President Obama is struggling to gain Israel’s agreement to some form of freeze to stop Jews who wish to live in the West Bank or East Jerusalem from building houses there.

The President desperately needs such an Israeli concession to help stem the threatened annihilation of the Democrats prospects in such elections.

The West Bank and East Jerusalem constitute the biblical and ancient homeland of the Jews. Together they form part of the land in which Jews were given the legal right to settle in international law for the purposes of reconstituting the Jewish National Home pursuant to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922 and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Uniquely sovereignty in such territory still remains undetermined or recognized by the international community. It still remains “no man’s land” in the truest sense of that phrase and with the exception of the Antarctic the only place on earth where such a situation prevails.

The legal right to settle and build vested in the Jews has not been – and cannot be – unilaterally abrogated without Israel’s express consent and agreement.

President Obama’s attempt to do so dates back to a press conference given by him jointly with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 18 May 2009 when in answer to a question the President stated:

“Now, Israel is going to have to take some difficult steps as well, and I shared with the Prime Minister the fact that under the roadmap and under Annapolis that there’s a clear understanding that we have to make progress on settlements. Settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward. That’s a difficult issue. I recognize that, but it’s an important one and it has to be addressed.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was quick to reinforce the President’s remarks when she confirmed – following a meeting with Egypt’s Foreign Minister just a few days later:

“With respect to settlements, the president was very clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here. He wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions. We think it is the best interests of the effort we are engaged in that settlement expansion cease.”

Bowing to such Presidential pressure Israel agreed to a limited freeze on residential construction in the West Bank (but not East Jerusalem) for ten months - which was to expire on 26 September 2010 - to enable the PA to resume negotiations with Israel.

Secretary of State Clinton was forced to retreat from her earlier position for a total freeze and pronounce such limited freeze as “unprecedented” – which it certainly was.

Jumping on the bandwagon the PA waited till the death knell to resume negotiations with Israel on 2 September 2010. Emboldened by President Obama’s position the PA are now refusing to directly negotiate with Israel until a new freeze acceptable to the PA is announced by Israel following the expiry of the original freeze.

It is a pity to see the President of reputedly the most powerful nation on earth scrambling to get some new freeze agreed by Israel to get those negotiations resumed whilst also helping his own political fortunes in the United States that have plummeted since his call on the Jews to stop building was made just 18 months ago.

Like the last four Presidents before him – President Obama has had an inflated notion of believing he can solve the Arab-Jewish conflict where the best international efforts over the last 70 years have failed to do so. He is now reaping the results of his own attempt to do so.

Giving comfort and encouragement to the Arab side of the conflict by seeking to stop Jews building on land that presently belongs to no one now must seem a stupid and irrational thing to have done. The President is now paying the price for his off the cuff remark made at a press conference.

If the President wanted to be serious and evenhanded he should have also called for Arabs to stop building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem whilst negotiations were proceeding between Israel and the PA.

It is farcical that Arabs can build with gay abandon in the West Bank but Jews can’t.

Perhaps in seeking a way out of the current impasse President Obama could speak to the President of the PA – Mahmoud Abbas – to seek a reciprocal freeze on building activity corresponding to that he is now requesting from Israel.

If Abbas refuses such a request then Obama should draw the conclusion that the Arabs are not really serious about resuming negotiations with Israel.

Netanyahu has always insisted on reciprocity in the negotiations .

The current frantic Presidential attempt to once again stop only Jews building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is a good example of how the principle of reciprocity is being subverted at great cost to the White House.

Much has been written about the illegality of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Many United Nation General Assembly resolutions have been passed expressing the same viewpoint. All are without foundation or legal basis and completely unsustainable having regard to the clear terms of the Mandate and the United Nations Charter.

The demand that Jews stop building in those areas whilst negotiations are in train to settle Jewish and Arab claims to sovereignty there - is certainly open to discussion. But so is Arab building construction. To deny one and allow the other is to make a determination in favour of one of the claimants to sovereignty in those areas to the detriment of negotiations designed to solve that very issue.

As President Obama struggles to get out of the quicksand into which he has stumbled he should reflect on calling for a mutually agreed building freeze by both Israel and the PA in the West Bank and East Jerusalem for a period to enable negotiations to be resumed and finalized.

No doubt the President now rues his intemperate remarks on 18 May 2009. He will need to call on the Arab League to get him out of his present predicament and agree to an Arab freeze on building in the West Bank and Jerusalem - or be subjected to making significant concessions to Israel to persuade it to maintain the President’s prestige and influence once again.

What is good for the goose must surely be good for the gander.