Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine vote winner for Lapid, Gantz, Bibi

 

With Israeli elections due in October--the major players vying to become Israel's next Prime Minister--current caretaker PM -Yair Lapid, current Minister of Defence - Benny Gantz and current Opposition Leader - Bibi Netanyahu have yet to issue any statement on the Saudi plan released on June 8, 2022 to merge Jordan, Gaza and part of the West Bank into a single territorial entity to be called The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine. 

The Plan's author - Ali Shihabi - is a confidante of Saudi Arabia's next King - Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and a member of the Advisory Council appointed by Bin Salman advising him on his personally-driven initiative - a $500 billion development called NEOM - a megacity of the future like none other on this planet - to be built in Northern Saudi Arabia on an expanse of land equal to the size of Israel.

The Saudi Solution offers a lot to excite Lapid, Gantz, Netanyahu and their respective political parties with these game-changing features:

• The plan reverses two previous Saudi peace proposals in 1981 and 2002 calling for Israel to withdraw completely from the West Bank.
• The two-state solution - the creation of a separate Palestinian Arab State between Jordan and Israel - pushed unsuccessfully by the United Nations for the last 29 years and by the European Union since 1980- is consigned to the diplomatic graveyard
• Jerusalem will not be claimed as the capital of The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - whose capital would be Amman.
• The right of return to Israel is abandoned
• Citizenship would be offered in the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine to Palestinian Arab refugees living outside the boundaries of the new entity.

Promising voters to negotiate with Jordan on implementing this Saudi Plan is an assured vote winner. 

The most contentious issues in such Israel-Jordan negotiations would be:

• Israel's security concerns in relation to the territory of the new entity West of the Jordan River -where demilitarization and responsibility for maintaining security control would be issues on the negotiating table 
• the carve up of the West Bank and Gaza - where Israel and Jordan would have a good map to focus on for starters: President Trump's 2020 Conceptual Maps "Vision for Peace" (See following diagrams)

The areas designated as "A future State of Palestine" would be the starting point for Jordan's negotiators. 

The areas designated as "The State of Israel" would be the starting point for Israel's negotiators. 

Armed only with sharp pencils, erasers and liquid paper - and motivated to emulate the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty - these negotiators could agree on the new international border between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine in literally a matter of months as well as the terms of the new peace treaty that would replace the 1994 one. 

Netanyahu and Gantz have already agreed to Israel's starting point - having approved the Trump subdivision in 2020 and the formation of a joint Mapping Committee comprising three members each from Israel and America to define the new border with greater precision.  

One could reasonably assume this would also be Lapid's starting point.

 With Operation Breaking Dawn still fresh in their minds - Lapid, Gantz and Netanyahu need to get off their high horses and break their months-long silence by:

• commenting on the Saudi Plan 
• announcing without any further delay whether negotiations with Jordan on this Saudi plan will be part of each of their parties' election platforms.

Making the Saudi Plan an election issue should not be missed by Lapid, Gantz and Netanyahu. 

If they think otherwise - they risk seeing their party being thrashed at the polling booths. 

Israel's media army needs to confront them for their urgent response. 

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.

Netanyahu and Trump hatch plan for a Jordan exclave in West Bank

[Published 17 September 2019]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s last minute election pledge to apply Israeli sovereignty in parts of the West Bank could possibly see a large part of the remainder of the West Bank being offered to Jordan as an exclave in direct negotiations between Jordan and Israel.

An exclave is a piece of land that is politically attached to a larger piece but not physically conterminous (having the same borders) with it because of surrounding foreign territory.

Netanyahu’s pledge was clear:

“We will apply sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and the Northern Dead Sea as soon as the next government is established in the next Knesset. Today I have appointed a working team led by the director-general of my ministry, Ronen Peretz, to formulate an outline for applying sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea”

Netanyahu has now gone even further reportedly saying that if re-elected, he plans to annex additional “vital” parts of the West Bank in coordination with the United States.

Trump’s Ambassador in Israel David Friedman has already indicated that Trump’s plan will not call for the creation of an additional Arab state between Israel and Jordan based on the 1949 ceasefire lines agreed between those two former enemies.

Friedman declared:

“Under certain circumstances, I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.”

Friedman then declined to say how the United States would respond if Netanyahu moved to annex West Bank land unilaterally — stating:

“We really don’t have a view until we understand how much, on what terms, why does it make sense, why is it good for Israel, why is it good for the region, why does it not create more problems than it solves. These are all things that we’d want to understand, and I don’t want to prejudge.”

Trump seemingly has not yet secured an ironclad guarantee from Jordan or any other Arab interlocutor that they stand ready to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s plan. Releasing it without such a guarantee would constitute political suicide for Trump.

Netanyahu’s pledges provide sufficient justification for Trump to further postpone his deal’s release.

One can visualise Trump’s advisors carefully scrutinising Netanyahu’s final map — or any map drawn up by a non-Netanyahu led Government — prior to Trump releasing his deal — to see if common agreement can first be reached on Israel’s demands, and then advancing to the next stage to see if agreement between Trump and Netanyahu — or Israel’s new Prime Minister — can be reached on what should happen in the remainder of the West Bank.

It would then make sense for Trump’s plan to be released only after concluding these discussions.

Trump will not be proposing the creation of any new Jew-free State in all of the West Bank for the first time in recorded history, whilst the PLO has rejected negotiating on Trump’s deal if it does not meet these core demands articulated by Abbas and the PLO.

Two solutions therefore emerge for resolving sovereignty in the remainder of the West Bank territory that will not come under Israeli sovereignty:

1. Israel unilaterally annexes that territory including its existing Arab population

2. Israel and Jordan create a Jordan exclave within that territory as may be agreed in direct negotiations.

A Jordan exclave would materially help end the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict.

Details such as the demilitarization of the exclave and who controls access into and egress from the exclave would be negotiated.

Trump is the driving force to bring Israel and Jordan together to enable these negotiations to be successfully concluded.

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

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 - Two-State Option Stymied

[ Published December 2009]

Any hope of creating a new Arab state between Israel, Egypt and Jordan has been stymied after the following statement was made by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on December 28:

“Today, 8 months after our government was formed, we have formulated a broad national consensus on the principles to approach the negotiations with the Palestinians in order to achieve peace and security. The two principles are clear, there are others - the recognition of the state of Israel as a Jewish state, and of course, security measures that guarantee effective demilitarization and other principles that I have already expressed.”

These two principles -

1.recognizing Israel as a Jewish State and
2.demilitarization of a future Palestinian State

- were first stipulated by Israel as two of fourteen reservations made by Israel at the time of its acceptance of the Road Map issued by President Bush in April 2003.

They have been consistently maintained by all Israeli Governments since then.

Reservation 5 made by Israel to President Bush stated :

“The character of the provisional Palestinian state will be determined through negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. The provisional state will have provisional borders and certain aspects of sovereignty, be fully demilitarized with no military forces, but only with police and internal security forces of limited scope and armaments, be without the authority to undertake defense alliances or military cooperation, and Israeli control over the entry and exit of all persons and cargo, as well as of its air space and electromagnetic spectrum.”

Reservation 6 stated:

“ In connection to both the introductory statements and the final settlement, declared references must be made to Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and to the waiver of any right of return for Palestinian refugees to the State of Israel.”

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.”

Palestinian Authority President - Mahmoud Abbas - told Haaretz on 28 May 2003 that the 14 reservations made by Israel had nothing to do with him. He said:

“They don’t interest me,”

Haaretz reported that as far as Abbas was concerned, the only document that mattered was the road map that was finalized in December 2002 and handed over to the parties at the end of April 2003. Nothing more, nothing less. Abbas continued:

“We do not accept each side picking and choosing only those specific elements that are convenient for them in the road map.

The map was prepared last December and we accepted it, despite our own comments and reservations. We wanted to give this initiative a chance, but it’s impossible to continue inventing comments and reservations after it was submitted.”

This was a very intransigent - indeed foolish and naïve - attitude to adopt in the face of President Bush having specifically invited both sides to comment on the Road Map.

The response from President Bush to Israel’s reservations acknowledged that Israel’s concerns were real and they would be fully and seriously addressed during the implementation phase.

It is inconceivable that President Obama would repudiate the Bush assurances given to Israel.

Both principles have been rejected by the Palestinian Authority on numerous occasions in the past and no doubt will be met by further adverse comment after Mr Netanyahu’s announcement this week.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat commented on 16 June 2009 in Haaretz on the issue of demilitarization:

“He (Netanyahu) will have to wait 1,000 years before he finds one Palestinian who will go along with him with this feeble state.”

President Abbas told Reuters on 27 April 2009 on recognizing Israel as the Jewish State:

“I do not accept it. It is not my job to give a description of the state. Name yourself the Hebrew Socialist Republic—it is none of my business.”

Israel’s reservation went far beyond an issue of terminology - and Abbas knew it. It was resisted by Abbas because it was seen as denying millions of Arabs the right to emigrate to Israel thereby changing the demographics of Israel to seriously dilute or even overtake the Jewish majority.

Rejection by the Palestinian Authority of demilitarization and the recognition of Israel as the Jewish State coupled with rejection by Israel of the Palestinian Authority’s demands that Israel cede sovereignty over every square metre of the West Bank and remove 500000 Jews presently living there amount to a joint public declaration by both sides that any further negotiations between them - if ever resumed - are going to be a complete waste of time and will achieve no result.

The Palestinian Authority has shown no interest in resuming negotiations with Israel since it announced a ten months moratorium on housing construction in the West Bank on 25 November.

The announcement now made by Mr Netanyahu will only act as a further excuse for the Palestinian Authority to continue to refuse to negotiate.

The Palestinian Authority’s use by date as a negotiating partner with Israel to determine the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza has surely now been reached.

European Union Finally Seeing Reality

[Published November 2009]

The veiled threat by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to approach the United Nations (UN) Security Council to seek its consent to the establishment of a new Arab state between Jordan, Israel and Egypt has received the short shrift it deserved from the European Union (EU).

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt whose country holds the European Union’s rotating Presidency said on 17 November 2009 in Brussels:

“I don’t think we are there yet. I would hope that we would be in a position to recognise a Palestinian state but there has to be one first, so I think it is somewhat premature.

The PA appears to have a totally misconceived notion of the UN as a body that can create states rather than give recognition to States once they have been established - for the purposes of admitting them to membership of the UN.

Mere declarations of statehood are insufficient to receive recognition by the UN and admission to membership.

Applicants seeking admission to the UN need to establish:

1. The borders of the new state
2. Complete and effective control within those borders

It is painstakingly obvious that the PA went way out on a limb when PA Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat declared:

“We have reached a decision to go to the UN Security Council to ask for recognition of an independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital within June-1967 borders. We are going to seek support from EU countries, Russia and other countries.”

The PA has no authority or control in Gaza and only has control of about 40% of the West Bank with Israel’s current consent.

The “June - 1967 borders” are not borders - only armistice lines agreed with Jordan and Egypt who occupied Gaza and the West Bank from 1948 until they were lost to Israel in the Six Day War in 1967.

The last recognized sovereign occupier of the West Bank and Gaza was Great Britain as Mandatory Authority under the Mandate for Palestine conferred on it by the now defunct League of Nations.

However the provisions of the Mandate in relation to the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Gaza and the West Bank “without prejudice to the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities” living there - still prevail today by virtue of Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

As in the case of the PA‘s refusal to resume negotiations with Israel on the future sovereignty of the West Bank without preconditions, the current threatened approach to the UN appears to have been some public relations ploy to put pressure on Israel and keep the cause of a Palestinian State in the media spotlight.

It has in fact achieved the opposite result and blown up in the PA’s face.

The PA is clearly desperate and frustrated as it unsuccessfully pursues alternative diplomatic paths to keep the “two state” solution alive.

Negotiations have hit a brick wall as the PA refuses to change its negotiating stance of the last 16 years by even the slightest concession or admission that Israel also has claims at least as good as the PA to sovereignty in at least those parts of the West Bank in which Jews currently reside.

There are a few other home truths the PA seem to have ignored in its proposed UN tour de force:

* The Arabs were offered - and refused - a state by the UN in 1947 in 100% of the West Bank and Gaza plus additional land in what is now Israel.

* The Arabs could have created a state in 100% of the West Bank and Gaza between 1948-1967 when not one Jew lived there ( having all been driven out by the Arabs) and it was under complete Arab occupation and control - yet failed to do so.

* The current demand that Israel now cede 100% of the West Bank and Gaza in the current changed environment of the Middle East to give the PA what could have been achieved 40- 60 years ago is not going to happen.

* UN Security Council resolution 242 has made it clear that the 1967 armistice lines must be replaced by secure and recognized boundaries that ensure Israel’s safety and security.

* Negotiations involving PA territorial concessions in the West Bank to Israel is the only possible way forward. If the PA refuses to offer any such concessions then they can kiss goodbye to any new state being created. The opportunities existing between 1947-1967 will not be returning in 2009 or at any time thereafter.

* The 500000 Jews now living in the West Bank are legally entitled to do so by virtue of the legal rights conferred on them under the League of Nations and United Nations Charter.

* The PA rejected two Israeli proposals in 2000 and 2008 that would have seen the PA receive sovereignty in 90-100% of the West Bank or its territorial equivalent in area. This offer is unlikely to be renewed by the current Israeli government in the light of Israel’s invasion of Gaza in January, the subsequent Goldstone Commission Report and the continuing power struggle between Hamas and Fatah that threatens to divide the West bank and Gaza into warring fiefdoms for the hearts and minds of the Arab residents who live in both areas.

* If the territorial division of the West Bank cannot be agreed upon then discussion on more difficult issues like refugees, Jerusalem, water and demilitarization will be a complete waste of time.

Arab rejectionism for the last 62 years has come - and will continue to come - at a high price.

The Arabs have had 90 years to mature their views since the small territory of “Palestine” was slated for reconstitution of the Jewish National Home and severed from the other 99.99% of the land freed from the Ottoman Empire by the British and the French and designated for Arab self-determination.

The EU’s instant dismissal of the PA’s proposed approach to the UN serves as a warning notice to the PA to return to the negotiating table and be more flexible in its negotiations with Israel if it ever wants to see the two-state option achieved.

The EU has at long last injected some air of reality into the Middle East. Its about time it did.

Abbas Gives Obama The Thumbs Down

[Published September 2009]

Palestinian Authority President - Mahmoud Abbas - delivered a stinging rebuff to President Obama during his address at the United Nations last Friday.

Obama had called on Israel and the Palestinian Authority from the same podium at the United Nations just a few days earlier to enter into final status negotiations - “without preconditions” - designed to lead to the creation of a new Arab state between Israel and Jordan - the so called “two state solution”.

Obama’s statement had greatly disappointed Abbas who had expected that after six months of intense diplomatic activity by the Americans - Israel would agree to the demand by Abbas - supported by Obama - that Israel freeze all construction and building activity on the West Bank as a condition of Abbas resuming negotiations with Israel after an eight months hiatus.

Israel’s response was to curtail - but not freeze - such activities. This position was ultimately accepted - albeit reluctantly - by the American administration, which had no basis at all for insisting on a freeze anyway since Israel had not agreed to its original inclusion in the Road Map first proposed by President Bush in 2003.

Abbas in his address to the UN made it clear to Obama that Abbas would not be returning to the negotiating table unless there was a complete freeze - and - it would seem - a whole lot of new conditions that Abbas lumped in at the same time.

Abbas told the assembled delegates:

“We call upon the international community to uphold international law and international legitimacy and to exert pressure on Israel to cease its settlement activities, to comply with the signed agreements, and desist from the policies of the occupation and colonial settlements, to release the 10000 - correction approximately 11000 prisoners and detainees, to lift - and to lift the unjust siege imposed on the Gaza Strip….”

Whilst not stating what international pressure should be exerted on Israel to achieve these objectives - Abbas no doubt had in mind the collective economic punishment of Israel’s population by imposing boycotts on the importation and purchase of Israeli products, the sharing of intellectual knowledge between universities and divestment by investors of their share portfolios in Israeli companies.

What is crystal clear is that this shopping list of conditions is unacceptable to Israel and will act as an effective bar to the resumption of negotiations - making President Obama’s call for the immediate resumption of those negotiations just a few days before superfluous and already outdated.

It would need an extraordinary loss of face for Abbas to announce his readiness to resume negotiations in the face of his defiant stance and response to President Obama at the United Nations. His arch enemy - Hamas - would pillory him for his submission to American and Zionist pressure.

President Obama can respond in two ways - either do nothing and let the current state of affairs meander along aimlessly - and dangerously - on the road to nowhere or announce his own plan to break the current impasse.

Before proposing his own plan President Obama would be well advised to put a series of questions to both Israel and the Palestinian Authority so as to gauge their respective attitudes to the following matters:

1. Is the Palestinian Authority prepared to recognize Israel as the Jewish National Home reconstituted pursuant to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter?

2. Does the Palestinian Authority intend to persist with its demand that every square centimeter of the West Bank be ceded to it by Israel or is it prepared to accept less in exchange for an equivalent land swap by Israel?

3. Is the Palestinian Authority still committed to millions of former Arab residents and their descendants of what is now Israel being given the right to return and live there and if so what would be the appropriate number that Israel should accept?

4. Is Israel prepared to allow the creation of a 22nd Arab State between Israel and Jordan with full and unfettered access and control over its air space and maritime waters? If not is the Palestinian Authority prepared to accept something less such as demilitarization?

5. Is Israel prepared to remove all the 500000 Jewish residents living in the West Bank. If not what number are they prepared to remove and from where?

6. Is Israel prepared to divide Jerusalem so that it becomes the capital of both Israel and the new Arab state?

America - unequivocally and unambiguously - needs to present its own answers to both parties on these same questions after first gauging and evaluating their responses and then lay down its own terms as the price for America’s continuing involvement in helping the parties achieve a final resolution of their conflict.

Failure by America to elicit satisfactory and positive responses to these questions from the Palestinian Authority and Israel will only ensure that one can continue to predict with absolute certainty that the two state solution is not going to be the solution to the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Living the dream but experiencing the nightmare that has accompanied this fatally flawed and discredited vision for the last 72 years has proved to be catastrophic for both Arabs and Jews. How much longer will this failed proposal continue to be paraded as the only solution to the conflict? It is about time that the parties put up or shut up.

The thumbs down given to President Obama by Abbas this past week only underscores America’s need to get some answers from the parties to the above questions or vacate the scene - unless America completely revamps its thinking and starts to look at options other than the two state solution.

Obama has already hinted at going in another direction emphasising “dignity” and “security” as the diplomatic drivers in resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict if the two state solution is abandoned.

Such a policy and initiative should surely be welcomed to break the impasse and receive the thumbs up from the international community to enable it to be successfully implemented.