Palestine - Pressure Points And Predictions

[Published April 2009]

“A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.”

Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983), The Passionate State of Mind, 1954

US special envoy George Mitchell has turned American foreign policy on its head following his latest visit to the Middle East.

In the space of 24 hours Mr Mitchell presented conflicting statements on President Obama’s supposed policy to settle the 130 years old conflict between Jews and Arabs over the territory once called Palestine.

Standing next to Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman on 16 April 2009 Mr Mitchell declared

“U.S. policy favors in respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a two-state solution which will have a Palestinian state living in peace alongside the Jewish state of Israel”

Speaking after his meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas the next day Mr Mitchell said:

“The US is committed to the establishment of a sovereign, independent Palestinian state, where the aspirations of the Palestinian people to control their own destiny are realized. We want the Arab peace initiative to be a part of the effort to reach this goal… A two-state solution is the only solution”

Suddenly overnight:

1. a favoured solution becomes the only solution.

2. the Arab peace initiative of 2002 (already having been rejected by Israel) is to be part of the effort to reach this goal when it was not mentioned the day before.

3. the new Palestinian state to be established must be sovereign and independent (though apparently now not necessarily democratic or contiguous because of the presently irreconcilable dispute between the rival Hamas and Fatah Governments operating in Gaza and the West Bank) and

4. Mr Mitchell just happened to overlook mentioning to President Abbas that this newly created Arab State would have to live in peace alongside the Jewish state of Israel.

As an exercise in saying to his respective hosts what they each wanted to hear, Mr Mitchell may have been doing an excellent job.

However as an attempt to bring some resolution to the current conflict by telling both Jews and Arabs what the new American administration’s policy actually is - his visit can only be seen as a complete disaster and a waste of time.

America may not want to talk to Hamas but they can certainly find out what effect this mealy mouthed effort by Mr Mitchell had on Hamas by reading the reported remarks made by Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Zahar on 17 April 2009 in his first public appearance since the Gaza offensive four months ago:

“We cannot, we will not and we will never recognize the enemy in any way shape or form”

His comments would no doubt be enthusiastically endorsed by the overwhelming majority of the 1.2 million Gazans who elected Hamas to power in 2006 and saw Fatah routed in Gaza in 2007. The enemy for Hamas is not only Israel, it is also Fatah.

If America now believes the two state solution is the only solution - then it can only come about if America brings pressure to bear on the Palestinian Authority and Israel to answer the following questions.

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 former Arab residents of what is now Israel being given the right to return and live there and if so what would be the appropriate number 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?


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


6. Is Israel prepared to accept the return of any former Arab residents to live in Israel and if so how many?


7. Is Israel prepared to reconsider its stance on adopting the Arab peace initiative?

America - unequivocally and unambiguously - needs to present its own answers to both parties on these questions after first gauging 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 preceded this vision for the last 61 years has proved a dismal failure. How much longer will this farce continue to be paraded as the only solution to the conflict? It is about time that the parties put up or shut up.

Ignominious visits such as that undertaken by Mr Mitchell this week only underscore America’s need to get some answers from the parties to the above questions or vacate the scene - unless it completely revamps its thinking and starts to look at options other than the two state solution.

Palestine - One Big Yawn and Yawning Chasms

[Published August 2008]

Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have reached an agreement according to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

” … that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. They also have an agreement that they’re not going to go out and talk about what they’re doing in each of the meetings”

This revelation was made in mid-air to the press corps travelling with Ms Rice en route to Tel Aviv this week . It ensured that yet another of Ms Rice’s frequent flying visits to the region would again not yield any significant results or breakthroughs to fill the media columns and air waves sweating on getting some substantive announcement of success or progress in the current negotiations.

Indeed there is going to be a very long blackout and wait by the media for nothing - if what took place on the ground when Ms Rice came down from the clouds is any indication.

Whilst these Mickey Mouse negotiations aimlessly continued to slide to their inevitable denouement, Israel had yet again offered major concessions to induce some change of direction and mind set by the PA to coincide with Ms Rice’s visit.

Israel released hundreds of more prisoners including those with “blood on their hands” where previously this had been resisted. No doubt many of them will show their gratitude by attempting further acts of terrorism fully expecting to be released again if caught. Many will pass on their knowledge and expertise to brainwashed adolescents who have been educated to hate and kill all Jews and are ready to give their lives to achieve this goal.

Israel had also lifted what Ms Rice described as “significant checkpoints ” to help ease the movement of Palestinian Arabs whilst at the same time increasing the risk of terror attacks on their Jewish neighbours.

These unilateral concessions were grudgingly accepted by PA President Abbas complaining however that they were inadequate and demanding more of the same. No doubt his wish will be granted the next time Ms Rice comes calling.

President Abbas showed that such concessions had not changed his direction or mindset in the slightest - making the following statement with Ms Rice standing by his side:

“The solution should be comprehensive, and as we have worked relentlessly throughout this peace process in order to achieve the aspirations of our people and their dream in having an independent Palestinian State on the 1967 borders with its capital, Jerusalem, within the framework of the Palestinian fundamental principles.”

Apart from the fact that there are no 1967 borders - they are only armistice lines - this Abbas demand renewed the long standing and unchanged call for the ethnic cleansing of almost 500000 Jews who now live beyond those armistice lines.

This Palestinian “dream” enunciated by President Abbas does not coincide with the American “vision” enunciated by President Bush and unambiguously rejected by him four years ago.

President Abbas did not spell out what he meant by “the Palestinian fundamental principles”. No doubt he would have had in mind the provisions of the Charters of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Islamic Resistance Movement - Hamas - which both unequivocally call for the eradication of Israel.

Not one of the assembled journalists thought it relevant to challenge President Abbas on maintaining these highly racist and offensive statements. The “settlement issue” - not “the fate awaiting the settlers or Israel” - was deemed a more important question to raise at the press conference following these remarks.

President Abbas once again reminded the journalists that the core issues were

“Jerusalem, refugees, borders, settlements, water and security.”

He echoed Ms Rice’s in flight comments in stressing

“the importance of reaching complete, comprehensive solutions, not partial solutions, and not postponing any of the main issues.”

Ms Rice was forced to admit that

“there are still difficult issues to come to agreement on, that there are still gaps.”

She was being very circumspect and less than forthright in her assessment.

“Yawning chasms incapable of being bridged ” would be a far more truthful way to describe these issues which have doomed any negotiations based on the Roadmap to failure from the time it was first articulated by President Bush in 2002.

One such yawning chasm was confirmed just two days later when President Abbas was in Beirut. He took the opportunity to trumpet his mantra that 400000 refugees living in Lebanon be allowed to migrate to Israel rather than being resettled in the independent democratic contiguous and viable Palestinian Arab State supposedly to be created for the first time in history between Israel and Jordan as a result of the current Roadmap negotiations.

Israel had already made it clear that maintaining this kind of outrageous demand would mean the death of any agreement being reached - a position that has also been fully supported by the United States.

This ludicrous state of affairs guarantees that the only announcement that will be eventually made to the media is that the parties have been unable to agree on all the issues in dispute and that the negotiations have been disbanded.

One wonders why those frustrated reporters accompanying Ms Rice did not immediately try to book a flight out of Tel Aviv to Georgia, Russia, South Ossetia or Abkhazia.

Awaiting them is an abundance of news stories remaining untold and just waiting to be exposed on subjects so dear to the media - occupation, genocide, ethnic cleansing, violation of human rights, disproportionate responses, killing civilians and oppression of minorities.

By concentrating on these very disturbing territorial and humanitarian events occurring in one of the world’s current hot spots, our intrepid reporters could be making an invaluable contribution to the cause of world peace instead of yawning their way in and out of Israel and the West Bank penning reports on negotiations completely lacking in good faith or substance on the part of the PA.

President Bush Presses The Palestine Panic Button

[PublishedJuly 2007]

President George Bush is having a panic attack as his five year old vision of implanting an Arab state between Israel and Jordan in 6% of historic Palestine - the Bush Dream - has turned into a nightmare.

The President has been exposed as totally powerless and lacking in influence to resolve what seemed to him to be so readily achievable in 2002.

The Bush Dream has yet to get off the ground in the slightest detail and still remains only a distant mirage on the political horizon despite intense diplomacy over the last four years by America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - the Quartet - to transform it into a reality.

A desperate President Bush has now fallen back on three old chestnuts - an international conference, providing lots of weapons and throwing $190 million at the problem - in a last ditch effort to salvage something from the wreckage of his Middle East policy that is in tatters and utter disarray

The recipient of this largesse is Palestinian Authority President and PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas who has been unceremoniously and ignominiously removed from control of Gaza and its 1.5 million inhabitants and who has no power to make any agreement with Israel that can possibly bind the Arab residents of the West Bank and Gaza.

President Bush is simply wasting his time and needlessly squandering his country's resources in thinking that Mr Abbas can ever deliver on the Bush Dream for the following further reasons:

1. No meaningful negotiations can even begin until the repeal of those provisions of the Palestine Liberation Organisation Covenant which

(a) call for the State of Israel to be eliminated by armed military struggle and

(b) deny the legality of existing international agreements in relation to the former territory of Palestine - including the Mandate for Palestine, article 80 of the United Nations Charter and Security Council Resolution 242.

These provisions in the PLO Covenant are the very antithesis of the Bush Dream.

Creating a climate conducive to a peaceful resolution of the conflict can only be achieved by first erasing these offensive provisions.

President Bush has erred badly in not conditioning his further diplomatic and financial support on these provisions being immediately repealed.

2. President Bush's latest statement makes it clear that any negotiations "must lead to a territorial settlement with mutually agreed borders reflecting previous lines and current realities, and mutually agreed adjustments."

However Mr Abbas is unwilling to concede one square metre of the West Bank to Israel and requires Israel to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines -a sure fire recipe for sinking any negotiations.

How can the Bush Dream ever eventuate given this totally uncompromising stance by Mr Abbas?

Furthermore "the current realities" are that

(a) Mr Abbas is demanding that 450000 Jews be uprooted from their existing homes for the Bush Dream to come to fruition.

(b) Mr Bush has already signalled this is not acceptable in a letter dated 14 April 2004 to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declaring:.

"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. "

How then can President Bush contemplate the successful conclusion of a final status agreement to which Mr Abbas is a party given his intransigent stance on these basic issues?

3. Remarkably Mr. Bush's latest statement makes no mention of a very sensitive issue - the demand by Mr Abbas that millions of Arabs be allowed to go and live in Israel. Mr Abbas has never indicated the slightest interest in modifying this demand - which is totally unacceptable to Israel.

However President Bush's letter to Mr Sharon makes America's position very clear:

" It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel."

This is a deal breaker on its own. No wonder President Bush seeks to gloss it over. His reticence indicates an unwillingness by him to come to grips with recognising that further negotiations with Mr Abbas are doomed before they begin.

The Bush Dream - as well intentioned and heartfelt as it was when it was first proposed in 2002 - has failed and has now joined many other similar proposals that have fallen by the wayside over the last 70 years.

Prolonging the agony and raising false expectations can only be the end result of this latest effort to resuscitate a process that has realistically never had a chance of succeeding since it was first announced.

The adage - "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" - succinctly describes President Bush's failure to get the Arabs to genuinely negotiate with Israel in resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict. He joins many other famous statesmen and diplomats whose efforts went unrewarded for the same reason.

Better he wakes up to the reality now than suffer the indignity of further rebuffs.

Humility is far preferable to humiliation - and there is plenty of that in store for President Bush if he continues down the road to nowhere.