PLO opens door to Jordan returning to Judea and Samaria

[Published 25 May 2020]

Advancing an end to the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict has become a miraculous possibility since the formation of an Israeli Government of National Unity just 7 days ago.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately gave the lie to mounting international opposition claiming that Israel’s intention to restore Jewish sovereignty in 30% of Judea and Samaria amounted to “West Bank annexation”:

“It’s time to apply the Israeli law and write another glorious chapter in the history of Zionism. These territories are where the Jewish nation was born and grew. This will not distance us from peace, it will bring us closer.”

The Jewish People’s right to reconstitute its ancient Jewish National Home in Judea and Samaria — the biblical heartland of the Jewish People - after 3000 years — had been recognized by the international community in:

1920: The San Remo Resolution and the Treaty of Sevres

1922 : The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine

1945 : Article 80 United Nations Charter

Attempts by that international community to deny such vested legal rights in the Jewish People over the past 53 years had exacerbated the long-running conflict — contributing materially to it failing to be resolved. Netanyahu had no compunction in calling out and exposing the continuing travesty of justice that these current protestations represented.

However the roadblock jamming any progress in resolving the conflict was suddenly cleared when days later PLO President Mahmoud Abbas announced:

“The Israeli occupation authority, as of today, has to shoulder all responsibilities and obligations in front of the international community as an occupying power over the territory of the occupied state of Palestine, with all its consequences and repercussions based on international law and international humanitarian law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which holds the occupying power responsible for the protection of the civilian population under occupation and their property, criminalizes collective punishment, bans theft of resources, appropriation and annexation of land, bans forced transfer of the population of the occupied territory and bans transfer of the population of the occupying state (the colonialists) to the land it occupies, which all are grave violations and war crimes,”

Stripped of the lies and false and deceptive claims contained in this statement that have formed part and parcel of the PLO’s propaganda arsenal since its formation in 1964 — Abbas’s message was clear: Abbas was now turning over responsibility for Judea and Samaria to Israel.

The PLO had never claimed “regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” or “on the Gaza Strip” as article 24 of its founding 1964 Charter declared. Its activities were to be “on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields”

This PLO position only changed in 1968 after Jordan — having occupied Judea and Samaria between 1950 and 1967 driving out every Jew living there — lost that territory to Israel in the Six Day War. Gaining sovereignty in 100% of Judea and Samaria by the creation of another Arab State became the focus of the PLO from 1968.

President Trump’s peace plan offering the PLO possibly 70% of Judea and Samaria plus Gaza has been rejected by the PLO.

Abbas — in turning over responsibility for Judea and Samaria to Israel — has opened the door to Jordan replacing the PLO as Israel’s negotiating partner.

Successful negotiations between Jordan and Israel could see Jordan annexing part of Judea and Samaria, Jordanian citizenship being restored for the Arab residents as existed between 1954 and 1988 and a possible end to the Jewish-Arab conflict.

King Abdullah — expect a call from President Trump.

Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones” — one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog

Balfour Declaration Falsehoods Fuel Jew-Hatred and Israel-Bashing

[Published 30 October 2017]


The centenary of the Balfour Declaration issued on 2 November 1917 is being used to unleash a barrage of falsehoods designed to denigrate the Jewish people and delegitimise the Jewish State of Israel.

Among those current egregious falsehoods:

1. Raja Zaatry - an official of the High Follow-up Committee - the Arab community’s leadership body in Israel - has asserted:

“In 1917 less than 10% of the population was Jewish and more than 90% Arab. The British gave to the Jews something that didn’t belong to them,”

The British Government gave nothing to the Jews in 1917 other than its “declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations” expressed in the Balfour Declaration. Palestine in 1917 still remained under Turkey’s rule as part of the 400 years old Ottoman Empire.

2. Vincent Fean - British consul general to Jerusalem between 2010 and 2014 - reportedly said the UK should uphold its commitment to helping achieve a two-state solution promised in the Balfour Declaration - if only to prevent radicalization at home - stating

“I firmly believe that this unresolved issue contributes to radicalization in our own country among the Muslim community and if only for that self-interested reason we should think of doing something about it.”

The Balfour Declaration promised no two-state solution.

Islamic State has caused Muslim radicalization in Britain.

3. The Balfour Apology Campaign and the Palestinian Return Centre — protesting the Royal Albert Hall being used to host a Balfour Declaration Centenary event on 7 November - have urged the public to sign a letter containing the following statement:

“The 1917 Balfour Declaration directly caused the 1948 Arab-Israeli War where Israel ethnically cleansed 750,000 Palestinians and then established a state in Palestine.”

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War was directly caused by six Arab armies from Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq invading Palestine in total violation of international law. No invasion — no war.

4. University of Manchester academic Nick Thoburn grabbed some media space by reportedly saying he was dismayed that the University had allowed a Balfour Declaration commemoration event to take place on its campus - adding for good measure:

“Lord Balfour (declared), chillingly, that Zionism was ‘of far profounder import than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land'"

Chillingly - our news-grabbing academic selectively misquoted what Lord Balfour actually said:

“The Four Great Powers are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land”

Nick appears to have been engaging in deliberate spin.

Nick should be looking for another job outside academia if this is the standard of his intellectual expertise.

5. Ambassador Jonathan Allen - UK deputy permanent representative to the UN told the Security Council on 17 October:

“And let us remember, there are two halves of Balfour, the second half of which has not been fulfilled. There is therefore unfinished business.”

Ambassador Allen was spouting pure unadulterated fiction. There are no two halves of the Balfour Declaration.

There is however “unfinished business”: allocating sovereignty in the last remaining 5% of Palestine between Jordan and Israel — the two successor States in Palestine — as was first envisaged by Article 25 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

The sooner this business is concluded — the sooner the Arab-Jewish conflict can be resolved.

It surely is time to end 100 years of relentlessly hounding 15 million Jews world-wide and falsely and misleadingly lambasting their tiny Jewish State.

Israel Teeters On Cusp Of Security Suicide

[Published 15 March 2015]


Economic issues have been identified as the top issue in the forthcoming Israeli elections to be held on 17 March - with security issues trailing far behind.

The polls are confidently predicting a four seat difference in favour of the Zionist Camp over the current Likud-led Government and the possibility of a new Zionist Camp Government being formed.

Zvi Zhariyha pointed out on 15 January:

“In Israel’s proportional representation system, in which parties are awarded seats in parliament based on the proportion of the vote that they receive, the ranking of the candidates on the slate becomes all-important as seats are filled from the top of the list. Top spots on the Labor list went to MKs with a social-justice and economic agenda, including former journalist Shelly Yacimovich, and Stav Shaffir and Itzik Shmuli, who were both prominent in the 2011 social justice protest movement.

Yacimovich finished first in the party vote, which will place her in the third spot on the slate, behind Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, the leader of Hatnuah, which is running on a joint ticket with Labor. Shaffir finished just behind Yacimovich, granting her the fourth slot .."

"
Two of these top four Zionist Camp candidates have expressed viewpoints that are distinctly anti-Zionist.

Prime Minister—in-waiting - Isaac Herzog — according to respected analyst Sarah Honig — has voiced opposition to the term “Jewish State”:

“The Jewish state expression is entirely mistaken,” he says recurrently (and we have a recording to prove it: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9nHlX19roA) “because it creates the impression of a nationality that enjoys excessive privileges.”

Were US Secretary of State John Kerry somehow able to get Israel and the PLO to the negotiating table again — then this long standing Israeli demand — supported by President Obama - and the Congress since 2004 — would ostensibly fall by the wayside under a Government led by Herzog.

Sarah Honig further points out:

"Stav Shaffir, for example, refused to share a podium with the Likud’s Yoav Kish because he is a reserve fighter pilot. She also thinks that “Hatikva is a racist national anthem.”

It’s not our say-so. Journalist Asher Schechter wrote a book on the 2011 demonstrations in which Shaffir was a key mover (Rothschild — the Chronicle of Protest, published by Kibbutz Hameuhad/Sifriat Hapoalim). On page 96 Schechter describes Shaffir’s vehement opposition to singing Hatikva. She was so emotional about it that “she burst into tears and yelled out that Hatikva is racist.”

Another Zionist Camp likely member of the Knesset—Merav Micaheli - told Galei Zahal

“women should not at all send their kids to the army when there is a continuous occupation for over 40 years. The regime in Israel doesn’t make the effort to solve this in other ways, so it’s necessary to stop being prepared to send children to the army.”

Sarah Honig has identified two other candidates likely to pop up as Zionist Camp representatives in any Zionist Camp Government:

Zoher Bahalul (who declares: “our Palestinian identity is stronger than the Israeli”) or the ultra-leftist Prof. Yossi Yonah (who confessed: “Zionism doesn’t express what I am”).

Veteran Ha’aretz journalist — Gideon Levy — has also delivered a withering attack on the Zionist Camp:

“This camp knows only how to trick and mislead, in the best of its tradition.”

Economic issues also topped security issues by a country mile in the 2013 Israeli election — yet Netanyahu still emerged as Prime Minister.

With 14% of the voters still undecided - they could re-elect Netanyahu again - figuring out that improvements in economic and social justice conditions aren’t worth a shekel if you are not alive to enjoy their undeniable benefits.

Palestine - Obama Chooses Zionism Over Rejectionism

[Published 8 April 2013]


Veteran Israeli peace activist and former Knesset member Uri Avnery points out in his latest article “Obama’s Empathy Deficit in Palestine” that there are two completely divergent Jewish and Arab narratives driving each other’s current claims to the territory once called Palestine.

“Our conflict is tragic, more than most. One of its tragedies is that neither side can be entirely blamed. There is not one narrative, but two. Each side is convinced of the absolute justice of its cause. Each side nurses its overwhelming sense of victimhood.”

Avnery is very upset that President Obama had apparently chosen to empathise with the Jewish narrative during his recent visit to Jerusalem, Ramallah and Amman.

“The trouble with Obama is that he has completely, entirely, totally embraced one narrative, while being almost completely oblivious to the other. Every word he uttered in Israel gave testimony to his deeply-rooted Zionist convictions. Not just the words he said, but the tone, the body language, all bore the marks of honesty. Evidently, he had internalized the Zionist version of every single detail of the conflict.”

The reasons Avnery attributes for Obama empathising with Israel are shallow and misconceived.

“It was really amazing. He must have studied us thoroughly. He knew our strengths and our weaknesses, our paranoias and our idiosyncrasies, our historical memories and dreams about the future.

And no wonder. He is surrounded by Zionist Jews. They are his closest advisors, his friends and his experts on the Middle East. Even from mere contact with them, he obviously absorbed much of our sensitivities.

As far as I know, there is not a single Arab, not to mention Palestinian, in the White House and its surroundings.”

This shabby explanation indicates little understanding of the multitude of advice that is received by any President from a variety of sources and the need for the President to ultimately sort the wheat from the chaff.

Avnery’s outburst regrettably leaves his readers in the dark by failing to actually quote President Obama’s carefully crafted remarks:

“For the Jewish people, the journey to the promise of the State of Israel wound through countless generations. It involved centuries of suffering and exile, prejudice, pogroms and even genocide. Through it all, the Jewish people sustained their unique identity and traditions, as well as a longing to return home. And while Jews achieved extraordinary success in many parts of the world, the dream of true freedom finally found its full expression in the Zionist idea – to be a free people in your homeland.”

It is indeed this Zionist idea that has been rejected both by Avnery personally and by the Palestinian Arabs in their narrative.

The Palestinian Arab narrative ignores Obama’s sweep of history - starting its narrative from 1948 by characterising the conflict as the “Israeli - Palestinian conflict”- thus allowing such narrative to completely ignore a host of critical events that occurred between 1917-1947.

This rejectionism is clearly evident in article 20 of the 1968 PLO Charter:

"Article 20: The Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate, 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 conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of their own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.”

The Palestinian Arab narrative conveniently ignores the fact that the two-state solution was first suggested in 1922 and actually proposed and rejected by the Palestinian Arabs in 1937, 1938 and 1947.

The Palestinian Arab narrative has no memory or remorse for the Arab riots in 1920 and 1929 that targeted and slaughtered Jews or the 1936-1939 Arab revolt which wrought similar havoc on Jews living in Palestine during those turbulent years.

Starting from 1948 the Arab narrative can avoid confronting the reality that Winston Churchill told a delegation of Palestinian Arabs leaders in 1921 urging him to halt Jewish immigration to Palestine:

“It is manifestly right that the Jews,who are scattered all over the world,should have a national centre and a National Home,where some of them may be reunited. and where else could that be but in the land of Palestine, with which for more than three thousand years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?”

The flawed Arab narrative also avoids accepting responsibility for the Arab pressure put on Great Britain to severely curtail Jewish immigration to Palestine between 1939 and 1945 - resulting in hundreds of thousands of Jews perishing at the hands of the Nazis when their lives might have been spared had Great Britain ignored such inhumane Arab demands.

The Arab narrative has always rejected - and will continue to reject - the will of the international community expressed in the 1920 San Remo Conference and the Treaty of Sevres, the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the 1945 United Nations Charter.

Avnery’s dismay at President Obama’s adoption of the “Zionist idea” is explained on Avnery’s own website:

“After some years of sporadic political activity, in 1946 Avnery founded the Eretz Yisrael Hatzira (“Young Palestine”) movement, also known as the “Bamaavak (Struggle) group” from the name of its publication, which he edited. This group provoked an unprecedented uproar because of its contention that the Jewish community in Palestine constituted a “new Hebrew nation” within the Jewish people, and that this nation belongs to Asia and is a natural ally of the Arab national movements.”

From Avnery’s viewpoint the Jewish community in Palestine in 1945 had no biblical or historical connection with Palestine - or any right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine - despite the League of Nations imprimatur to do so.

Avnery’s rejection of the Zionist idea identified with the viewpoint of the Arab population of Palestine in 1945 - whose opposition to Jews immigrating to Palestine had been violently resisted ever since the Allied Powers decided in 1920 that Arab self- determination should occur in 99.99% of the liberated Ottoman Empire - whilst Jewish self-determination should take place in Palestine - the remaining 0.01%.

President Obama has indeed empathised with the Jewish narrative - which dates the “Jewish - Arab conflict” as having begun in 1880 - not 1948.

Until both narratives at the very least commence from an agreed starting date - one can confidently predict that any talk of peacefully resolving the ongoing and unresolved conflict is a complete waste of time.

Hopefully President Obama has taken the first step to ram this message home.

Palestine - Realities Overtaking Fairy Tales

[Published 8 November 2012]


The idea of reunifying a substantial part of the West Bank with Jordan received a further boost this week - when former head of the PLO Political Department - Farouk Kaddoumi - told the newspaper London-based newspaper Al - Quds Al - Arabi that giving the West Bank back to Jordan would be a “positive move.”

His remarks are the first of their kind to be voiced by a senior PLO figure in decades.

His statement follows hard on the comment recently made by Jordan’s Prince Hassan that the West Bank was part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

It was back in March 1977 that Kaddoumi himself told Newsweek:

“There should be a kind of linkage because Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people,”

His viewpoint was echoed by another PLO leader - Zuheir Mohsen - who told the Dutch newspaper Trouw in the same month:

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”

The greatest criticism of the international community since then has been the failure to heed these statements and recognise there is no difference at all between the Arab residents living in the West Bank and the Arab residents living in Jordan. Both reside in an area comprising almost 80% of former Palestine and live within one hours drive of each other. Both were citizens of Jordan and had Jordanian passports from 1950-1988. Both have families that live on both sides of the Jordan River. No country was ever called “Jordan” until 1950.

The attempt to create two separate national identities and two separate peoples - Jordanians and Palestinians - has always been nothing but misleading and deceptive fairy tales.

Even the 1968 PLO Charter itself makes this abundantly clear in its opening two articles which state:

Article 1: Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.

Article 2: Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.

These clear and unambiguous provisions of the PLO Charter were reiterated and confirmed at the 8th Palestinian National Council meeting in February-March 1971 - which declared:

” Jordan is linked to Palestine by a national relationship and a national unity forged by history and culture from the earliest times. The creation of one political entity in Transjordan and another in Palestine would have no basis either in legality or as to the elements universally accepted as fundamental to a political entity. .. In raising the slogan of the liberation of Palestine and presenting the problem of the Palestine revolution, it was not the intention of the Palestine revolution to separate the east of the River from the West, nor did it believe the struggle of the Palestinian people can be separated from the struggle of the masses in Jordan…”

Despite similar statements by many other Arab spokesmen - the Quartet - Russia, America, the European Union and the United Nations - still remain foolishly fixated on creating an independent Arab State between Israel and Jordan in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - thus separating the East Bank of the Jordan River from the West Bank and dividing the Arabs who live on each side of the Jordan River from one another.

Reunification of the West Bank with Jordan - so far as is now possible given the changed circumstances since Jordan’s loss of it to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War - remains the only realistic option available to the Jews and Arabs to advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.

Any such agreement reached on the territorial dimensions of the dispute will not - however - herald an end to the conflict.

Kaddoumi himself made this clear when he added:

“We launched our revolution for all of Palestine, and that’s why we need to be very cautious. We must safeguard our people’s right to return. We must insist on the right of return for all refugees, because this is the minimum that we could accept.”

Whilst the temperature may be lowered once the reunification of the two banks of the Jordan River into an expanded and enlarged Jordan has been achieved - attitudes such as the above espoused by Kaddoumi and likewise by Hamas and the myriad number of terrorist groups who continue to conduct their murderous campaign to eradicate the Jewish State - will not end overnight.

Yet there is hope that even the vexed right of return is slowly being recognised as a right of return to the 80% of former Palestine that will be encompassed within the newly redrawn borders of Jordan - and not to the remaining 20% of former Palestine that will become the established borders of Israel.

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas caused raised eyebrows when he stated this week that although he is a refugee from the town of Safed - he does not have the right to live there although he likes to visit the town as a tourist.
Abbas continued:

“I am a refugee, but I am living in Ramallah, I believe that West Bank and Gaza is Palestine, and the other parts is Israel.”

How anyone can be classified as a refugee whilst living in any part of one’s country is perhaps a question that Abbas should be asked by one of the intrepid reporters that frequently interview him.

Nevertheless the growing focus on Jordan being part of the solution to the Arab-Jewish conflict is a welcome development that should be encouraged and fostered.

Fairy tales usually have happy endings.

Perhaps an energised and reinvigorated Barack Obama can wave his Presidential wand this time round by facing up to the above realities and help everyone’s dreams come true.