Trump flags Israel-Jordan-Egypt subdivision of West Bank and Gaza

[Published 26 March 2018]

President Trump’s appointment of John Bolton as National Security Adviser flags the possibility that the centrepiece of Trump’s eagerly-awaited “ultimate deal” could involve the subdivision of Judea and Samaria (“the West Bank”) and Gaza between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

Such tripartite negotiations would replace the stale-mated Israeli-Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) negotiations - suspended in 2014 following a PLO walk-out when:

1. The PLO was demanding a new Palestinian Arab State with Jerusalem as its capital in 100% of the West Bank and Gaza (“disputed territories”) for the first time in recorded history – which was unacceptable to Israel.

2. Offers by Israel in 2000/2001 and 2007 to cede its claims to sovereignty in about 95% of the disputed territories had been rejected by the PLO.

3. The 1993 Oslo Accords had seen the West Bank divided into three Areas - “A”, “B’ and “C”:

"A" (18%) - under total PLO administrative and security control.
"B" (22%) - under total PLO administrative control and joint Israel-PLO security control
“C” (60%) - under total Israeli administrative and security control

4. Israel and the PLO had been negotiating the final status of the disputed territories under President Bush’s 2003 Roadmap - endorsed by the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.

5. President Bush had given Israel written commitments on 14 April 2004 – overwhelmingly endorsed by the US Congress - to support Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza – which Israel honoured in 2005. America committed it would not expect Israel to withdraw from 100% of the disputed territories.

Now Abbas and the PLO have:

1. Rejected considering any future Trump proposals following Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital last December.

2. Declared the Oslo Accords “dead” in January.

Enter Trump-appointee John Bolton into this Israel-PLO standoff – as President Trump ponders how to fill this negotiating void.

Bolton has an answer - provided with amazing prescience on 5 January 2009 in his Washington Post article headlined “The Three-State Solution”:

“Let’s start by recognizing that trying to create a Palestinian Authority from the old PLO has failed and that any two-state solution based on the PA is stillborn. Hamas has killed the idea, and even the Holy Land is good for only one resurrection. Instead, we should look to a “three-state” approach, where Gaza is returned to Egyptian control and the West Bank in some configuration reverts to Jordanian sovereignty. Among many anomalies, today’s conflict lies within the boundaries of three states nominally at peace. Having the two Arab states re-extend their prior political authority is an authentic way to extend the zone of peace and, more important, build on governments that are providing peace and stability in their own countries. “International observers” or the like cannot come close to what is necessary; we need real states with real security forces.”

John Bolton still retains these views – telling Eric Shawn on 21 January 2018:

“I hope at some point the Administration recognizes and perhaps it is already quietly – that the two-state solution isn’t going anywhere. If anything I would say to King Abdullah of Jordan – “Be prepared to reassert Jordanian sovereignty over part of the West Bank – negotiate with Israel”. I think that’s a far better outcome than the continued pursuit of a mythical – I believe – unattainable viable Palestinian state”

Jordan and Egypt occupied the West Bank and Gaza respectively between 1948 and 1967.

Bolton’s appointment is shaping up as yet another Trump-inspired circuit breaker.

Trump’s decision to accept Bolton’s advice would spell curtains for Abbas and the PLO and give Trump the momentum he needs to get meaningful Israel-Arab negotiations started.

Palestine - Obama Continues To Fudge On America's Commitment To Israel

[Published 23 May 2011]


President Obama in an address to the AIPAC Policy Conference on 22 May has failed to redress the enormous damage done by him to America’s integrity and reputation during his speech three days earlier at the State Department.

Addressing the State Department Obama then stated:

“We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.. “

This statement amounted to the repudiation of an American written commitment given by President George Bush (the Bush Letter) to Israel’s then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on 14 April 2004 which stated:

“As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.”

America’s commitment in the Bush Letter was clear and unambiguous.

1. America would support Israel’s refusal to withdraw from 100% of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - as the Arabs had been demanding since 1967
2. The amount of such land to be retained by Israel would be determined by mutually agreed changes that reflected the realities existing at the time negotiations were completed

No mention was made that those mutually agreed changes would require Israel to make land swaps of Israeli sovereign territory in exchange for land retained by Israel in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

The importance of these American commitments to Israel was stressed in a speech given in the Knesset by Prime Minister Sharon on 22 April 2004 when he stated:

“The political support we received during my visit to the United States is an unprecedented accomplishment for Israel. Since the establishment of the State, we have not received such vast and staunch political support, as was expressed in the President’s letter.”

President Bush’s letter was subsequently approved by the US Senate and House of Representatives on 23 June and 24 June 2004.

Obama’s apparent attempt to abrogate this American commitment in his statement on 19 May resulted in trenchant criticism from Israel and many members of the American Congress forcing him to clarify his position on 22 May.

In doing so President Obama did not climb out of the diplomatic hole he had dug for himself and America three days earlier - but only managed to slide further down it taking America’s integrity and reputation even lower with him.

President Obama told the AIPAC delegates and many Congressmen present and keen to hear his explanation:

“And it was my reference to the 1967 lines—with mutually agreed swaps—that received the lion’s share of the attention, including just now. And since my position has been misrepresented several times, let me reaffirm what “1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps” means. By definition,it means that the parties themselves—Israelis and Palestinians—will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. That’s what mutually agreed- upon swaps means. It is a well-known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation. It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last 44 years. It allows the parties themselves to take account of those changes, including the new demographic realities on the ground, and the needs of both sides. The ultimate goal is two states for two people: 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 in joined self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace”

With the greatest respect the President is talking utter nonsense.

“Agreed upon swaps” surely means an agreed exchange of something for something else.

President Obama clearly was breaching the Bush Letter in stating that his Government’s belief:

”now was that Israeli sovereign territory would have to be swapped for territory retained by Israel in the West Bank or East Jerusalem.

President Obama’s belief in 2011 is totally irrelevant. President Obama is committed in 2011 to supporting whatever decision Israel makes on how much of the West Bank and East Jerusalem it will ultimately withdraw from - nothing more nothing less.

To continue to support the concept of

“mutually agreed swaps”

only makes matters even worse so far as restoring America’s integrity and reputation is concerned.

It is clear President Obama does not like the terms of the Bush Letter. But he - and America - are bound by it if America’s integrity and reputation is to be maintained.

Obama’s explanation smacks of a pathetic attempt to try and retrospectively substitute the words:

“mutually agreed changes” in the Bush Letter with the words “mutually agreed exchanges”.

Surely Congress will react with even greater fury at President Obama’s latest remarks to try and massage the meaning of the Bush Letter to give it a meaning that was never intended.

Israel made a historic - and highly controversial - political decision to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza as a condition of obtaining the Bush Letter. Israel paid dearly for that decision when tens of thousands of its civilian population were subsequently murdered, wounded or traumatized following that disengagement.

It is inconceivable that America should seek in any way to diminish or circumvent the commitments it made under the Bush Letter.

Words have meaning and in this case their meaning brooks only one interpretation.

Obama’s attempt to subvert their meaning must be resisted until he recants and states without qualification or ambiguity that he - as America’s President - and America still stands by what President Bush signed and its Congress ratified.

Palestine - Obama Sinks America's Integrity And Reputation

[Published 21 May 2011]


Remarks made by President Obama at the State Department in Washington on 19 May indicate he is prepared to honour some - but not all - commitments made to Israel by former American President George W Bush in his letter to Israeli Prime Minister Sharon on 14 April 2004 (the Bush Letter)

President Obama first stressed the following points:

"1. It is up to the Israelis and Palestinians to take action. No peace can be imposed upon them—not by the United States; not by anybody else.
2. 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."

President Obama was indeed confirming America’s written commitment to Israel in the Bush Letter

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

This commitment - made now by two American Presidents to Israel - has been repeatedly rejected by the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, the PLO, Hamas and the Arab League. But it is a commitment that America has no intention of abandoning.

However, President Obama ignored another commitment in the Bush Letter when he then told his State Department audience:

“We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.. “

This statement is contrary to the following statement appearing in the Bush Letter:

“As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.”

Bush had clearly committed to back Israel’s position that sovereignty in 100% of the land occupied in the Six Day War by Israel would not be ceded in any ultimate peace settlement.

Obama was obviously trying to wheedle his way out of this Bush commitment by some semantic toe stepping. - suggesting that

1. any loss of such territory to Israel could be compensated by an equivalent swap of existing Israeli sovereign territory and
2. this swap could still lead to the creation of secure borders for Israel.

Israel was certainly not prepared to let Obama back peddle from the terms of the Bush Letter

The Israeli rebuttal was swift and came just one day later when Israel’s Prime Minster told President Obama during a meeting at the White House:

“I think for there to be peace, the Palestinians will have to accept some basic realities. The first is that while Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to the 1967 lines—because these lines are indefensible; because they don’t take into account certain changes that have taken place on the ground, demographic changes that have taken place over the last 44 years.”

Those concerned to ensure that American Presidential commitments made to third parties are honored and upheld by their successors should be as equally worried as Israel at Obama’s apparent attempt to breach such a fundamental Presidential commitment.

The price Israel paid to secure the Bush Letter was its decision to unilaterally disengage from Gaza in 2005. This disengagement exposed Israel’s civilian population living in its southern region to the threat of continuing indiscriminate missile and terrorist attacks from Gaza without any Israeli military forces being retained in Gaza any more to prevent, defend and respond to any such attacks. 8000 Israeli citizens were forced to evacuate their homes and businesses established in Gaza over the preceding 38 years.

This is indeed what happened after Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005 - with disastrous consequences for both civilian populations in Israel and Gaza and for those 8000 Israelis who had evacuated Gaza.

Jeopardizing its security on the entire Gaza front required Israel to be absolutely assured of American commitment to Israel’s security on the West Bank front. That assessment saw the refusal to cede sovereignty in 100% of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as being non-negotiable

America’s decision to stand by and support Israel on this fundamental territorial issue is critical.

Israel’s Government in 2008 had unsuccessfully explored the possibility of land swaps with the Palestinian Authority - but those negotiations ended inconclusively and are now in total lock down.

Exploring land swaps might again be considered by Israel in future negotiations. The current Israeli Government shows no intention to do so. But that will have to be Israel’s decision - not America’s.

America’s view - now or later - regarding land swaps is irrelevant under the Bush Letter.

President Obama’s statement will no doubt be seen by some to indicate a shift in America’s position - perhaps made in an attempt to induce the Palestinian Authority to resume the stalled negotiations with Israel.

Obama’s position will be viewed by Israel and its supporters as a shift that does no honor to America and badly damages its reputation and integrity.

The Bush commitment was made for an Israeli commitment that has resulted in the death, injury and traumatisation of tens of thousands of Israelis.

Obama’s attempt to minimize or modify that commitment in any way must be firmly and publicly resisted by Israel and its supporters in the American Congress - which had voted overwhelmingly in favor of President Bush signing the Bush Letter in the first place.

Doing so will certainly help restore America’s reputation for honesty and transparency in its dealings with third parties - and for standing by and remaining staunchly committed to the decisions of its Presidents.

Aren't these indeed cardinal democratic principles which Obama - as leader of the world’s leading democracy - is sworn to uphold?

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.

Palestine, Israel and Condoleezza - The Crowd Pleaser

[Published August 2007]

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is at it again talking up the prospects of ending the 140 years old Arab-Jewish conflict by the adoption of a two state solution involving the creation of an Arab state between Jordan and Israel - the 23rd Arab State in the world should it ever eventuate.

This crowd pleasing prediction of peace has been made by Ms Rice despite four fruitless years of intense international diplomacy to achieve just that solution by America, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union - the Quartet - under their meticulously detailed and crafted Roadmap first published in 2003.

The United Nations News Service heralded the Roadmap at the time as a:

"performance-based and goal-driven roadmap, with clear phases, timelines, target dates, and benchmarks aiming at progress through reciprocal steps by the two parties in the political, security, economic, humanitarian, and institution-building fields, under the auspices of the Quartet. The destination is a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005, as presented in President Bush’s speech of 24 June, and welcomed by the EU, Russia and the UN in the 16 July and 17 September Quartet Ministerial statements.”

Not one of these goals has been remotely achieved - an abysmal failure by anyone’s standards -especially given the amount of political, financial and diplomatic clout vested in the Quartet"

Yet speaking at a joint media conference on 2 August with Mahmoud Abbas - the Palestinian Authority (PA) President and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Chairman - Ms Rice was decidedly upbeat when she said:

“I want to note that we will have a discussion about the political discussions that you are having on a bilateral basis with [Israel’s] Prime Minister Olmert. The Prime Minister said to me that he looks forward to continued discussions with you and that he is ready to discuss the fundamental issues that will lead to negotiations soon for the creation of a Palestinian state. And I know that that is your desire too, and the United States wants to support that bilateral track.”

When asked by an inquiring reporter as to what those “fundamental issues” might be, Ms Rice gave this remarkable reply:

“ I believe that the word “fundamental” speaks for itself. And the desire to move toward a two- state solution seems to me to be there on both sides, and there are a lot of issues that are going to have to be discussed in order to get to a two-state solution.”

Sorry Ms Rice - every conceivable “fundamental issue” there is - and that you seem even too frightened to specifically identify - was discussed in detail in 2000 at Camp David and Taba in negotiations between President Bill Clinton, then PA and PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israel’s then Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Those negotiations led to the rejection of the two state solution offered by Israel in 90% of the West Bank and Gaza and effectively ended any prospect of the two state solution ever becoming a reality unless there was a total revolution in the thinking of the PA and the PLO.

One of the fundamental issues on which those negotiations foundered was the failure of Mr Arafat to recognise any political rights of the Jews to sovereignty in any part of the West Bank and Gaza - a policy that had been maintained by the PLO without change since 1964, by the PA since its formation in 1994 and by Mr Abbas as head of both organisations to this very day.

Those political rights were recognised by France and Great Britain in 1920, formalised by unanimous vote of all 51 members of the League of Nations in 1922, endorsed by a joint resolution of both Houses of the Congress of the United States in the same year, and preserved by the United Nations Charter in 1945.

The Quartet’s failure to insist on these international agreements being recognised and accepted by the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organisation remains one of the principal causes for the Quartet’s Roadmap collapsing into the total chaos it is today.

Statements such as Ms Rice’s are just diplomatic doublespeak, empty grandstanding and devoid of reality. They only serve to hold those making them open to ridicule and loss of credibility as the objective they so earnestly desire - the Quartet’s two state solution - continues to elude them.

It is surely time for Ms Rice to put the following questions to Mr Abbas to determine whether he is really sincere in his desire for a two state solution.

1. Does the Palestinian Authority accept and recognise the legality of

(i) Article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine giving the Jews the right to closely settle State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes in the West Bank?

(ii) Article 80 of the United Nations Charter which preserves the above right?

(iii) Security Council Resolution 242 - which does not require Israel to withdraw from all the territories occupied in the Six Day War and recognises Israel’s right to live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries?

2. Does the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestinian Authority recognise the existence of the State of Israel and have they abandoned violence and armed struggle against Israel?

3. If the answer to 2 is “yes” - when will Mr Abbas call a meeting of the Palestinian National Council to revoke articles 2, 3, 6-10, 13-23 and 30 of the PLO Charter- all of which are in direct conflict with the principles laid out in question 2.

If Ms Rice can get a positive response from Mr Abbas to these crucial questions, she might well be able to make a meaningful statement on the future of the Quartet’s two state solution.

If she is too embarrassed to put these questions to Mr Abbas or is too afraid to hear the answers, then maybe she can get Mr Olmert to ask them during his “political discussions” with Mr Abbas.

If neither wants to take the plunge then maybe someone in the press corps might be emboldened or even induced to put these questions to Mr Abbas at one of his next media conferences. The answers will certainly create front page headlines no matter what response is evoked.

Until these questions are answered one thing is crystal clear - any hope of the Quartet’s two state solution ever eventuating is doomed to failure.

Jordan's King Abdullah - The Ham In The Sandwich

[Published March 2007]

Jordan's King Abdullah is a desperate man judging by his historic speech to the United States Congress on 7 March 2007 - and with good reason.

The Road Map - designed to create a second Arab state in former Palestine, in addition to Jordan -has unfolded in total disarray.

The Road Map had begun as a vision of President George Bush on 24 June 2002. It was an answer to, and a rejection of, the Arab Peace Initiative endorsed by the Arab League in Beirut just three months earlier.

The detailed provisions of the Road Map were finally endorsed and launched in a blaze of publicity in April 2003 by the strongest negotiating team ever assembled in world history -America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - affectionately dubbed the Quartet.

The Quartet's newly created State was to be born by 2005. But as of today, it is still only a twinkle in the eyes of its' sponsors and any prospects of conception, let alone its' birth, passed long ago.

On the face of it the Road Map was a sure fire winner. However its' failure to predict intransigent Arab negotiating positions was to prove its' downfall.

Only 6000 square kilometres of land known as the West Bank and Gaza was involved - an area about the size of Tokyo or Chicago.

Israel had already agreed to forego its' claims to at least 4000 square kilometres and possibly even more - depending on whose version you accept - in negotiations at Camp David presided over by President Clinton in 2000.

Surely all that was needed was a push and a shove, a tweak here and a tweak there, to divide the remaining 2000 square kilometres between the disputants thus ending what the Quartet seriously claimed to be the most intractable problem facing the world.

This has not occurred for two reasons - the Arabs wanted it all and they demanded that the 400000 Jews living there be thrown out.

Now King Abdullah has appeared before the US Congress to promote the Arab Peace Initiative as the way forward out of the Quartet's dilemma. But this Initiative demands precisely these very same unacceptable outcomes.

One must feel sorry for the predicament of King Abdullah being caught up as the unwilling filling in the Road Map - Arab Peace Initiative sandwich.

Arab unity demands he stand by the Arab Initiative and be seen to be one of its' major sponsors as the Arab world tries to rally international support for this totally flawed and outdated plan.

History and his heart should tell him something else - he needs to give the hapless Quartet the opportunity to re-route its' Road Map by announcing his readiness to negotiate the division of sovereignty of the West Bank between Jordan and Israel.

The reasons for this are compelling:

(i) Jordan was the last sovereign Arab occupier of the West Bank from 1948 -1967 during which time its' Arab residents were Jordanian citizens and subject to Jordanian law.

(ii) Such negotiations would conclude the division of the land contained in the Mandate for Palestine between the two successor States to the Mandate - Jordan and Israel.

(iii) The negotiations would take place within the parameters of the existing peace treaty signed by Israel and Jordan in 1994, where "deal breakers" such as refugees, Jerusalem and water have already been identified and solutions prescribed.

(iv) The negotiations could be concluded within a relatively short period of time based on the general principle that the heavily populated Arab areas would become part of Jordan whilst the heavily populated Jewish areas would become part of Israel

(v) No Arabs or Jews would be forced to leave their present homes. Where Jews or Arabs found themselves on the wrong side of the new border, they could be given the option of staying as citizens or being compensated if they wanted to move.

Jordan clearly does not have the strength to announce and enter into these negotiations of its own volition.

It needs the political, financial, and military support of the Quartet and the endorsement of the Arab League.

King Abdullah's plea to the Congress for "America's leadership in a peace process that delivers results not next year, not in five years, but this year" must be understood in the light of the choices now facing the Quartet, Jordan and the Arab League.

Following the Road Map in the direction of the Arab Peace Initiative can only lead to a dead end and guarantee many more years of death and suffering for the Jewish and Arab inhabitants in the region.

Dividing the West Bank between Jordan and Israel can open a new page in the Road Map that will answer His Majesty's emotional plea before the Congress for all people in the region to be allowed to live in peace and harmony.

Let us hope that the ingredients for the new peace sandwich will include lashings of encouragement and support by the Quartet and the Arab League for Jordan's central role in resolving the conflict.

If it doesn't, who will eat the stale sandwiches and who will be left to pick up the crumbs?