Abbas concessions kick-start Trump attempt to resolve Israel-Arab conflict

[Published 12 June 2017]

Three concessions made by Mahmoud Abbas - following pressure placed on him by President Trump - open the way to possible negotiations between Israel, the Palestinian Arabs, Egypt and Jordan to resolve the 100 years old Israel-Arab conflict.

Abbas has agreed to:

1. Withdraw his 2014 demand that Israel first agree to freeze building within Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as a precondition to resuming negotiations with Israel.

2. Tone down his campaign to prosecute Israel for alleged war crimes and rallying condemnation of the Jewish state at the United Nations.

3. Cease paying salaries to 277 released Hamas prisoners including Director of Hamas’s Political Bureau in the Gaza Strip - Yahya Al-Sinwar.

Israel sentenced Al-Sinwar to four life terms in the late 1980s but released him after 23 years imprisonment in a swap of 1,047 Palestinian prisoners for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006. Al-Sinwar headed Hamas’s first security unit responsible for tracking and killing Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.

Abbas’s spectacular capitulation comes just two weeks after his reportedly fiery meeting with President Trump in Bethlehem on 23 May — when Trump had stressed:

”.. the importance of creating an environment consistent with the desire for peace”

Trump had then warned Abbas at their subsequent media conference:

“Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded. We must be resolute in condemning such acts in a single, unified voice.”

These three Abbas concessions may sufficiently satisfy Trump to pressure Netanyahu to resume negotiations.

However such negotiations — if conducted only between Abbas and Netanyahu - will assuredly fail and end up in the garbage bin of history - joining other unsuccessful negotiations conducted between them over the last ten years - for the following reasons:

1. Whilst Hamas and Fatah continue their internecine struggle for political control of the Gazan and West Bank Arab populations and refuse to countenance the holding of elections for the first time since 2006 — no permanent peace agreement can emerge from such resumed negotiations.

2. Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation will not abandon their campaigns to wipe Israel off the face of the map — as clearly stated in their respective Charters.

Trump will need to unscramble the following seemingly intractable demands being made by Netanyahu and Abbas if he wants to succeed where so many before him have abjectly failed:

1. Israel being recognised as the national home of the Jewish people

2. Israel retaining military and security control in and over Judea and Samaria (West Bank)

3. Any Palestinian State being demilitarised

4. Jerusalem remaining united as the capital of Israel

5. A second Arab State - in addition to Jordan — being created in the territory of the Mandate for Palestine and the capital of that State being located in Jerusalem

6. Israel withdrawing totally from the territories lost by Jordan to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War

7. Palestinian Arabs retaining their claimed right of return to Israel.

Trump may well intend trying to resolve these demands by including other Arab States in any new round of negotiations — as this White House Press Office Readout of Trump’s 23rd May meeting with Abbas tantalisingly suggests:

“The two leaders discussed ways to advance negotiations and considered how Arab states might support those negotiations.”

Egypt and Jordan — enjoying signed peace treaties with Israel since 1979 and 1994 respectively - could be just those States.

Such four-party negotiations - conducted under Trump’s oversight and using his proven skills in successfully negotiating and concluding deals - could be the key to ending the logjam of failed negotiations since 1993.

Hope springs eternal.

Palestine - Peace, Petulance, Posturing And Pollard

[Published 25 October 2011]


Two significant - yet seemingly unrelated - events have occurred during the past week within the ongoing Jewish-Arab conflict:

1. Israel’s release of 1027 terrorists for one of its soldiers - Gilad Shalit - with 80% of Israelis reportedly supporting the deal.
2. The PLO’s continuing refusal to resume negotiations with Israel until Israel ceases all building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - despite strenuous efforts by the Quartet to get PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas back to the negotiating table.

The confluence of these two events however now presents an opportunity for the Quartet to get Israel and the PLO talking to each other again.

The Quartet represents probably the strongest diplomatic negotiating team ever assembled in history. Yet it has been made to look impotent in its inability to get the conflicting parties to sit across a table to try and peacefully resolve their differences.

Comprised of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - the Quartet is obviously concerned at the fallout that can occur should Abbas continue to unilaterally forge ahead with his request for UN recognition of Palestinian statehood in breach of UN Security Council Resolution 242, the Oslo Accords and the Bush Road Map.

Yet the Quartet has within its grasp a powerful negotiating card - the ability to pressure America to release and repatriate to Israel the convicted civilian American Naval Intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard in return for:

1. Israel implementing a total building freeze in the West Bank and East Jerusalem for an agreed specified time period and
2. The PLO immediately resuming direct negotiations with Israel

Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment almost 27 years ago for disclosing vital security information to Israel - which Israel was legally entitled to receive anyway according to a 1983 Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries.

The information withheld from Israel included Syrian,Iraqi,Libyan and Iranian nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare capabilities - being developed for use against Israel. It also included information on ballistic missile development by these countries and information on planned terrorist attacks against Israeli civilian targets.

Pollard never had a trial. At the request of both the U.S. and Israeli governments, he entered into a plea agreement fully so-operating with the prosecution, which spared both governments a long, difficult, expensive and potentially embarrassing trial.

Yet he received a life sentence and a recommendation that he never be paroled -in complete violation of the plea agreement he had reached with the government - which promised a far less severe sentence.

Pollard was indicted on only one charge - passing classified information to an ally without intent to harm the United States.

No one else in the history of the United States has ever received a life sentence for passing classified information to an ally - only Pollard. The median sentence for this offence is two to four years. Even agents who have committed far more serious offences on behalf of hostile nations have not received such a harsh sentence.

In November 1995, Israel granted Pollard Israeli citizenship.

On May 12, 1998, the Government of Israel publicly acknowledged Pollard as an Israeli agent and indicated its commitment to securing his release and repatriation to Israel.

It was the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin who, in 1995, first began openly to negotiate for Pollard’s release as part of the peace process.

President Clinton promised Prime Minister Rabin that he would release Pollard as part of a Middle East peace settlement, but the President refused to honor his promise after Rabin was assassinated.

The opportunity presented itself when Israel’s current Prime Minister - Benjamin Netanyahu - went to the Wye River Plantation talks in 1998 with Yasser Arafat - thinking that he would return to Israel with Jonathan Pollard in return for the concessions Israel made at those talks. President Clinton strenuously denied there was any such agreement.

Pollard is now in poor health. Surely he has paid a high enough price for his transgressions. The circumstances leading to his life sentence following the intervention of Secretary of Defence - Caspar Weinberger - remain unexplained.

If the Quartet wants to see Israel and the PLO resume direct negotiations then a decision to release Pollard as part of a deal to bring this about would undoubtedly be received in Israel with the same overwhelming support that greeted the news of Shalit’s release.

A similar proposal was floated by Israel twelve months ago but fell on deaf American ears. The political situation has deteriorated since then and the future appears bleak for both Arabs and Jews - indeed for world security - if negotiations are not resumed..

On the 20th February this year Gilad Shalit’s father made the following plea to President Obama on the occasion of Gilad’s 1,700th day in Hamas captivity in Gaza:

“[Pollard] has served his sentence, and the time has come to free him.”

One week previously a letter from 19 former Soviet Prisoners of Zion was sent to President Obama asking him to grant Pollard clemency - which stated:

“Your silence worries us We, former Prisoners of Zion in Soviet Russia, know the danger of silence. We know the terrible suffering that comes with each passing day in prison. Therefore, we appeal to you with a heartfelt cry - end this Jewish prisoner’s prolonged and terrible ordeal! You are the only one who can do so. Please, Mr. President, free Pollard now!”

Prominent Americans who have recently called for Pollard’s release include former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle, former CIA Director James Woolsey and former U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz.

However any such decision will be difficult for President Obama to make following Vice President Joe Biden’s recently reported remarks:

“President Obama was considering clemency, but I told him, ‘Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time. If it were up to me, he would stay in jail for life.”

Well it is not up to Vice President Biden - it is a decision which only President Obama can make.

The decision to release Pollard in the interests of pursuing peace stands in stark distinction to Netanyahu’s extremely difficult decision to release 1027 terrorists - a decision which almost certainly will cause a further threat to peace - judging by the reported comments of some of those released.

Pursuing peace - not perpetuating petulance or political posturing - should be President Obama’s catch cry at this very critical point of time.

Palestine - Abbas Gets Lost In The Translation

[Published 18 October 2011]


PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been often criticized for making statements in English that are contradicted by other statements made by him in Arabic. Abbas has continued this art of doublespeak first perfected by his predecessor Yasser Arafat - tailoring his views to the audience that he is addressing.

What is equally as sinister - and indeed should perhaps be regarded with even more alarm - is the apparent attempt by some sections of the media to put Abbas in a favorable light by deliberately mis-translating into English what he says in Arabic.

This is illustrated by considering two differing versions of remarks made by Abbas - when greeting some of the convicted terrorists released in exchange for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

The Guardian reported Mr Abbas as saying:

“Your efforts have not been in vain,” he told a crowd of thousands, which included 133 of the freed prisoners. “You have sacrificed, fought and paid the price.”

This identical quote was also carried by such media outlets as UTV News and NewsRack

Sky News, however, reported Mr Abbas’s speech in different terms:

“Your sacrifices and your efforts and your work has not been in vain. You have sacrificed and fought,”

This version was also carried by Lebanon News and The Australian Newspaper.

The discrepancy between both reports is glaring.

The omission of “your work” in the Guardian story cannot be described as “nitpicking” or “inconsequential.” Such omission could not have been purely accidental or due to the Guardian’s translator having less of a grasp of Arabic than the Sky News translator.

If Abbas was to be seen in Western eyes as openly and publicly condoning and praising the “work” of these released terrorists - it could well have an adverse affect on Abbas’s image as a peace-seeking diplomat presently touring world capitals to enlist support for the PLO‘s application for recognition of the State of Palestine and its admission as a member of the United Nations.

In the absence of a satisfactory explanation as to why he chose to use these clearly inflammatory words - or to deny he ever used them - member States of the United Nations would be entitled to take a strong view against acceding to his request to join them in the United Nations as head of a fellow peace-loving state.

Mr Abbas has signed and made the following Declaration to the United Nations as President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation organization:

“In connection with the application of the State of Palestine for admission to membership in the United Nations, I have the honour, in my capacity as the President of the State of Palestine and as the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, to solemnly declare that the State of Palestine is a peace-loving nation and that it accepts the obligations contained in the Charter of the United Nations and solemnly undertakes to fulfill them.”

Can Mr Abbas’s peace loving declaration have any meaning when one considers his praise of the “work” these returning terrorists had done and that he told them had not been in vain - and which remarks the Guardian seems to have been so concerned to conceal from its readers?

The“work” performed by these terrorists included:.

1. Amna Muna - a young woman - who had lured a lovestruck Israeli teenage boy by the name of Ophir Nahum to a Palestinian city over the Internet, only to have him killed by waiting terrorists.

2. Ahlam Tamimi another woman now aged 31 - who was sentenced to 16 consecutive life terms in jail for her involvement in the terrorist attack on the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001 that claimed the lives of 16 innocent victims, amongst them many Jewish children. Tamimi has never expressed remorse and told reporters in 2006:

“I’m not sorry for what I did. I will get out of prison and I refuse to recognize Israel’s existence. Discussions will only take place after Israel recognizes that this is Islamic land.”

Accepting her statement at face value - it appears clear that Tamimi intends continuing to resume her “work” in the future

3. Abdel Hadi Ghneim - the surviving perpetrator of the Tel Aviv Jerusalem bus 405 suicide attack that killed 16 civilians after he drove the bus down a ravine.

4. Abd al-Aziz Yussuf Mustafa Salehi - photographed in 2000 displaying his blood-soaked hands to a jubilant Palestinian mob after lynching an Israeli soldier and beating him to death

Praising this kind of “work” can be expected from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh - not from Abbas.

Abbas’s statement is the very antithesis of seeking peace and reconciliation and makes his declaration to the United Nations a mockery.

Article 9 of the PLO Charter still remains Mr Abbas’s real intention - as his praise of the work done by these terrorists makes clear:

"Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it.They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it."

Murdering innocent civilians and lynching a captured Israeli soldier are still seen by Abbas as not only justifiable - but worthy of praise and commendation.

His peace-loving declaration to the United Nations is not worth the paper it is written on.

Neither is the Guardian’s inaccurate report of what he supposedly said.