Trump-Netanyahu Meeting Set To Expose Obama’s Collusion On Resolution 2334

[Published 10 February 2017]


One of the intriguing aspects of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to the White House on 15 February will be the evidence he produces to President Trump to establish former President Obama’s collusion in promoting Security Council Resolution 2334.

America abstained from voting on Resolution 2334 – but the language used in that Resolution was inimical to the national interests of Israel and the Jewish people by declaring that:

1. the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, had no legal validity and constituted a flagrant violation under international law

2. Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem

This language identifies as “Palestinian territory”:

(i) the centuries old Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem,
(ii) the site of the First and Second Temples,
(iii) the Western Wall,
(iv) the Mount of Olives Jewish Cemetery,
(v) Rachel’s Tomb,
(vi) the Machpelah, and
(vii) Judea and Samaria

Resolution 2334 seeks to erase the legal rights vested in the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in these areas under the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

Such language gives credence to the PLO claim that the Mandate — a critical building block in the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict — is null and void.

Resolution 2334 contravenes article 80 of the United Nations Charter - exceeding the Security Council’s powers and condemning the hypocrisy of the Security Council which sanctimoniously professes to be concerned about “legal validity” and “international law”

The Egyptian newspaper Al-Youm Al-Sabea was the first to allege American collusion in promoting Resolution 2334 - claiming to have a transcript of a meeting in December — prior to the passage of Resolution 2334 - between Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, US Secretary of State John Kerry, and US National Security Advisor Susan Rice in which Kerry said the US was prepared to cooperate with the Palestinians at the Security Council.

White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price claimed no such tripartite meeting took place and that the ‘transcript’ was a total fabrication — although he admitted Erekat had met with Kerry and Rice separately.

Netanyahu issued a Press Release on 28 December 2016 declaring:

“We have it on absolutely incontestable evidence that the United States organized, advanced and brought this resolution to the United Nations Security Council. We’ll share that information with the incoming administration. Some of it is sensitive, it’s all true. You saw some of it in the protocol released in an Egyptian paper. There’s plenty more; it’s the tip of the iceberg.”

Netanyahu’s claim that some of the information is sensitive suggests that there has been an interception of emails or other classified American documents emanating from Obama or Kerry’s offices.

America’s cybersecurity record has been appalling - as the hacking of the Democrats web site and Hillary Clinton’s emails and private server has shown.

Netanyahu’s description of the transcript held by the Egyptian newspaper as “the tip of the iceberg” suggests Israel holds a Wiki-style treasure trove of incriminating documents.

Sensational claims of Israel-hacking will doubtless fuel the media.

There appears to be no evidence that this material has yet been given to the Trump Administration. If it had — some leak would surely have emerged by now.

Netanyahu’s visit to the White House presents the perfect opportunity to personally hand his evidence to President Trump - enabling him to decide whether to disclose such evidence publicly or not.

Netanyahu’s moment exposing Obama’s betrayal of Israel is fast approaching.

[Author’s Note: The Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry was asked to confirm or deny some of the facts in this article but no response was received]

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

[Published 11 November 2015]


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

President Bush declared on 14 April 2004:

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

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

Obama reaffirmed America’s support on 19 May 2011:

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

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

PLO head Mahmoud Abbas declared on 11 January 2014:

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

Two such reasons are:

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

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

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

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

Palestine - One Arab, Two States, Three Hats, No Jews

[Published 17 August 2010]

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas continues to vacillate on resuming direct negotiations with Israel to create a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan.

Director of the Palestinian Authority government’s media centre - Ghassan Khatib - has described Abbas’s predicament as follows:

“The Palestinians are looking for either an Israeli commitment to a settlement freeze, or a Quartet [European Union, United States, United Nations, and Russia] statement that would be accepted by both sides as a basis for negotiations. We are looking for a settlement freeze according to the definition of Quartet … road map – adopted by the United Nations Security Council – which called for a settlement freeze in all occupied areas including East Jerusalem.”

Mr Ghatib is living in fantasyland.

Israel never accepted the settlement freeze proposed in the Road Map - having raised the issue as one of 14 reservations it made to President Bush after its initial release.

Reservation 9 made by Israel to President Bush stated :

“There will be no involvement with issues pertaining to the final settlement. Among issues not to be discussed: settlement in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (excluding a settlement freeze and illegal outposts), the status of the Palestinian Authority and its institutions in Jerusalem, and all other matters whose substance relates to the final settlement.”

Israel thus made it clear that whilst it was prepared to discuss a settlement freeze it was not prepared to accept that there be a complete settlement freeze as a binding condition in the Roadmap.

On 23 May 2003, then Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice made the following statement from the White House:

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

On 25 May 2003, the Israeli Cabinet met and by a majority resolved:

“Based on the 23 May 2003 statement of the United States Government, in which the United States committed to fully and seriously address Israel’s comments to the Roadmap during the implementation phase, the Prime Minister announced on 23 May 2003 that Israel has agreed to accept the steps set out in the Roadmap.

The Government of Israel affirms the Prime Minister’s announcement, and resolves that all of Israel’s comments, as addressed in the Administration’s statement, will be implemented in full during the implementation phase of the Roadmap.”

Nothing could be clearer or more unambiguous - President Bush had accepted Israel’s position that there would be no settlement freeze without it first being discussed and agreed by Israel.

Israel’s current limited freeze has resulted from its own sovereign decision and following agreement reached with President Obama as predicated by President Bush‘s earlier commitment.

Abbas cannot hope to delay direct negotiations on the basis of obtaining any further concessions from Israel. He cannot reasonably expect to get Israel to extend the deadline for its current limited freeze beyond its 26 September deadline. Certainly there is no hope of it being extended if Abbas refuses to enter into direct negotiations and great doubt that it will - even if Abbas relents.

The real irony is that Israel should contemplate resuming direct negotiations with Abbas as President of the Palestinian Authority whilst he also continues to occupy the dual positions of Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Chairman of Fatah - the largest faction of the PLO.

As President of the Palestinian Authority Abbas is committed to concluding the “two state solution” accepted both by him and his predecessor the late Yasser Arafat - albeit the uncompromising terms demanded by both of them to date have ensured the failure of this American initiative.

As Chairman of the PLO - Abbas is obligated to observing the provisions of Article 20 of the PLO Covenant which states:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine and everything that has been based on them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism being a divine religion is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own: they are citizens of the states to which they belong”

As Chairman of Fatah - Abbas is also sworn to uphold Article 22 of Fatah’s own separate Charter:

“Opposing any political solution offered as an alternative to demolishing the Zionist occupation in Palestine “

Abbas therefore still continues to head two organizations that are hell bent on consigning the six million Jews now living in Israel into national oblivion whilst heading another organization that seeks to live side by side with the Jews in their own independent state.

Abbas - whilst he wears these three hats - is powerless to distance or disassociate himself from these plans to eliminate Israel as the designated Jewish National Home for all present - and future - generations of Jews no matter where they might happen to be born or now be residing.

Abbas is certainly frank about where his loyalties reside.

On 27 April 2009 he told a preliminary conference of the Palestinian Youth Conference at Ramallah:

“A Jewish State, what is that supposed to mean? You can call yourselves as you like, but I don’t accept it and I say so publicly. All I know is that there is the state of Israel, in the borders of 1967, not one centimeter less. Anything else I don’t accept ” [Y Net - 27 April 2009]

Abbas - after this outburst - had no compunction or embarrassment in accepting a large framed map of “Palestine” covering the entire area of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea . This picture later appeared on the front page of both daily publications of the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas is clearly conflicted - advocating for a “two state solution” whilst heading two organizations that call for the elimination of one of those two states. He heads the third organization - the Palestinian Authority - without any electoral mandate to do so and is powerless to guarantee the performance of - let alone honour and enforce - any agreement with Israel.

Continuing to deal with Abbas whilst he wears three hats has proved to be - and will continue to be - a recipe for disaster.

Abbas Tears Up The Roadmap

[Published May 2008]

President Bush’s Road Map was publicly shredded by PLO Chairman and Palestinian Authority President - Mahmoud Abbas - in Ramallah this week. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was there when it happened.

Ms Rice was making all the right noises and uttering the usual buzzwords and trite phrases designed to impress everyone with the supposed progress of the negotiations. “Trilaterals”, “bilaterals” ,"quantitative metrics”, “ the first really serious discussions on all of the core issues that have taken place between the parties for almost seven years” - were just a few choice terms that she managed to drop when answering questions from the assembled press corps.

However her optimism dissipated as President Abbas dropped the following bombshell at the joint media conference held with the Secretary of State:

“On this occasion we reiterate the need to stress that Gaza and the West Bank are one unified entity. And, therefore, we call up on Hamas to withdraw back from its coup and to accept immediately — and we are ready for that, to accept the calling for immediate Presidential and legislative elections and, therefore, we repeat our — what we mentioned earlier, that we are ready to go for early Presidential and legislative elections.

President Abbas with these few carefully crafted words made it absolutely clear that:

1. Any new State must be established on the whole of the West Bank and Gaza

2. Any talk of dividing the West Bank between Israel and the Palestinian Authority or separating the West Bank from Gaza would not be acceptable

3. Hamas - a declared terrorist organization - would be permitted - after ending its coup - to take part in new elections which could lead to it ending up in control of the new State . This would allow it to then engage in - and continue to implement - its declared policy of trying to destroy Israel using an army and State apparatus set up, trained and financed with American and international aid.

Abbas in making his outrageous remarks was repudiating a cardinal tenet of President Bush’s Road Map which states:

“A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty,”

Israel - in accepting the Road Map - had its own ideas of what ending violence and terrorism meant and expressed it as follows in one of the 14 reservations it stipulated when accepting the Road Map:

“In the first phase of the plan and as a condition for progress to the second phase, the Palestinians will complete the dismantling of terrorist organizations (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front, Al-Aqsa Brigades and other apparatuses) and their infrastructure; collection of all illegal weapons and their transfer to a third party for the sake of being removed from the area and destroyed; cessation of weapons smuggling and weapons production inside the Palestinian Authority; activation of the full prevention apparatus and cessation of incitement.”

Abbas’s failure to dismantle Hamas and the other terror organisations prior to his ouster from Gaza has been the real obstacle to any new State ever having the remotest chance of being created. Whilst these terrorist organisations remain unexpurgated from Palestinian society any negotiations continue to be futile and offer no chance of success.

The Hamas coup in Gaza last year transformed President Abbas into a political eunuch. Yet he still managed to retain the confidence of the international community to progress President Bush’s Road Map to fruition. US$7.4 billion pledged to him in Paris at an international donors’ conference last year indicated the extent to which the international community was prepared to back Abbas.

Many of those donors are now also calling for Israel to negotiate with Hamas - having taken note of the meetings held by former US President Jimmy Carter with Hamas and the ostensible legitimacy that afforded to the terror organization.

In making his most recent comments President Abbas may have just finally tipped the scales enough to lose the support of President Bush and many others who saw him as the light at the end of the tunnel.

President Bush’s Road Map required the elimination - not the legitimisation - of terrorism if there was to be any successful outcome. Embracing terrorists rather than fighting them is the very antithesis of the Road Map provisions.

President Abbas’s remarks have effectively consigned the Road Map to the waste paper basket and ensured the end of any hope of a new Arab State being created between Israel and Jordan.

Ms Rice stood by silently as President Abbas rammed his message home. Hopefully she delivered a stern rebuke to President Abbas in the confines of their private discussions. However the damage has been done and President Abbas will now find it exceedingly difficult to retract his comments. He certainly has indicated he is prepared to embrace - not dismantle - Hamas if the coup is ended in Gaza.

The Executive Council of the PLO was quick to endorse the Abbas remarks just one day later.

To the eternal shame of the press corps gathered there, not one question was put to either Ms Rice or President Abbas as to the impact his ground breaking statement would have on the current negotiations. The reporters present were too busy trotting out the tired old questions on roadblocks and settlements to even comprehend the enormity of President Abbas’s remarks.

President Abbas in those few words once again demonstrated the inability of the Arabs to understand that negotiations mean compromise - not intransigence. The body blow he delivered to the successful implementation of the Road Map is lethal.

Certainly his remarks were the last thing Ms Rice - and President Bush - would have wanted to hear.

Condoleezza's Contortions Can't Create Palestine

[Published April 2008]


US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has expressed her amazement at the scope of the concessions Israel has agreed to make to the Palestinian Authority in a 35 page booklet given to her by Israel’s Defence Minister - Ehud Barak - during her latest visit to Israel this week.

Her back flip in praising Israel for once certainly did not go unnoticed.

Twisting and turning in another direction she also took the opportunity to stress the importance of a final agreement in helping end the debate over “what belongs in Israel and what belongs in Palestine.”

She still fails to comprehend however that no amount of concessions Israel makes will be acceptable to the Palestinian Authority which requires that every square meter of the West Bank and Gaza belong in “Palestine”.

This is not going to occur as Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made crystal clear to Ms Rice when he told her this week that he would continue to allow construction in West Bank settlement blocs and east Jerusalem.

To underline the importance of his message , Mr Olmert told his political party Kadima the same thing as his following remarks were reported by the Jerusalem Post:

“It is not true that we are building in violation of our obligations,” Olmert said at a meeting of the Kadima faction in the Knesset. “We are not building new settlements, everyone must understand this,” said Olmert, who underscored that Betar Illit “is not a new settlement.” Olmert emphasized that building had not been frozen in Jerusalem neighborhoods that are located across the Green Line, and that building in Jerusalem would continue. Any reports to the contrary were false, he said.

“We don’t hide our views on Jerusalem and major settlement blocs, we are being honest about everything throughout the negotiations,” said Olmert.

To term Betar Illit a “settlement” is an understatement. It is Israel’s fastest growing city boasting a population of 35000 religious Jews - estimated to increase to 100000 by the year 2010.

Any thought that the population of this city - located just 5 kilometres from Jerusalem - and many others like it such as Maale Adumim, Efrat, Ramot and Ariel will be included in “Palestine” is pure fantasy and make believe. Any idea that their populations can be forcibly transferred is as racist as suggesting that Israeli Arabs be transferred to “Palestine”.

President Bush has recognised this reality and has already made it clear in written commitments to Israel that these Israeli cities and other Israeli settled areas in the West Bank will belong to Israel in any final agreement.

Condoleezza Rice appears to be studiously ignoring her President’s stated position as she once more took the opportunity on this latest visit to utter her well rehearsed and oft repeated mantra:

“Settlement activity should stop - expansion should stop,”

Such statements may earn her brownie points with the Palestinian Authority but they are an obstacle and a hindrance to any final status agreement ever being reached. They only serve to create false expectations in the Palestinian Authority to continue demanding that every square meter of the West Bank be ceded by Israel.

If Ms Rice’s goal is the creation of a 23rd Arab State between Israel and Jordan by December 2008, then the first hurdle she must jump is to get the Palestinian Authority to acknowledge that “Palestine” will not include a sizeable portion of the West Bank - that Jews - who had lived there for thousands of years before being finally driven out in 1948 but who had returned once again in 1967 - will remain a permanent population in some part of the West Bank that will belong to Israel.

The second hurdle she has to straddle is getting the Palestinian Authority to recognise that it has no legal right to exclusively claim the whole or any part of the West Bank as its sovereign territory. There is another claimant - Israel - that has a far better claim under the League of Nations Mandate and the United Nations Charter.

The West Bank is the Wild West of the Middle East - “no man’s land” in the truest sense of that phrase -until sovereignty has been finally allocated between those who seek to make a claim to it.

If there is to be any final status agreement she needs to spend her time telling the Palestinian Authority that the West Bank will have to be divided between it and Israel. She needs to assert that if this position is not accepted by the Palestinian Authority, then Jordan may well be called upon to step in to effect that partition with Israel as the only means of ending a deadlock that would inevitably see President Bush’s Road Map crashing into oblivion when he leaves the office of President of the United States.

Easing restrictions on the daily lives of the Arab residents of the West Bank will not bring the Palestinian Authority to moderate its demand for the whole of the West Bank. Only the President of the United States or his Secretary of State can ram home the utterly hopeless nature of continuing with that claim. Until they do the Road Map is destined to end up in the shredder - like so many other plans that preceded it over the last 70 years.

No amount of ducking and weaving by Ms Rice can put off her confronting these hurdles any longer. There are many more to be negotiated by Ms Rice before she even gets close to the finishing line.

However if she can’t make it over these first two she should not even be trying to run the race.