Trump ends Arab preoccupation with occupation in Judea and Samaria

[Published 3 December 2019]

President Trump’s decision to recognise the right of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) ends a long-running Arab political campaign accompanied by murderous terrorist attacks to drive the Jews out under the Arab mantra - “End the Occupation”. This mantra had become the Arabs’ rallying cry over the last 53 years as they sought to assert sovereignty over every square meter of this hotly-disputed territory.

These three little words managed to turn Israel’s miraculous victory in the 1967 Six Day War in Judea and Samaria — that saw the Jewish People’s triumphal return to the heart of the biblical and ancestral land of its forefathers — as something to be reviled and reversed.

Those mouthing the mantra did not seek to have the “occupation” ended in favour of Jordan — the previous Arab occupier between 1948 and 1967.

Rather they were insisting it all be given to another group — the “Palestinians” — who did not exist:

1. In 1922 – when the League of Nations created the Mandate for Palestine

2. In 1937 - when the Peel Commission issued its Report

3. In 1947 - when the United Nations recommended the partition of western Palestine into an Arab State and a Jewish State.

4. Between 1948-1964 — when Judea and Samaria had been ethnically cleansed of every single Jew who had been living there prior to 1948

The “Palestinians” only first saw the light of day in 1964 when the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Charter was promulgated and Article 1 declared:
"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".

In 2019 the PLO’s legitimacy to rule the “Palestinians” is being challenged by Hamas. Reconciliation between these two competing power seekers is still not in prospect after 13 years of bitter internecine conflict — nor are elections anywhere in sight.

Jordan now sits on the sideline having abandoned any claim to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) in 1988. Jordan shows no interest in attempting to try and restore — as far as is now possible — the status quo existing in these areas Jordan ruled on June 4, 1967.

President Trump is waiting patiently in the wings ready to release his “deal of the century” when Israel’s next Government is eventually formed.

It is surely time for a new mantra: “Right the Wrongs” to enter into the lexicon of international diplomacy in the Middle East — to replace the racist and apartheid “end the occupation”.

The wrongs are the failure of the United Nations to acknowledge that:

1. the provisions of Article 80 of the United Nations Charter reserve to the Jewish people the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Judea and Samaria in accordance with the provisions laid down in article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine

2. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 remain the only internationally accepted bases for resolving the conflict in former Palestine.

The United Nations failure to insist on these binding tenets of international law being universally acknowledged has proved to be a major stumbling block in resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Bowing to extreme pressure from the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference — the United Nations has succumbed to a myriad of General Assembly resolutions that have buried these pillars of international law. The sooner they again become the foundations for peace — the sooner some sanity will return to the Middle East.

Trump’s decisiveness has amazingly ended 53 wasted years of Arab preoccupation with occupation.

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

Trump turns screws as PLO creates fake news on Jerusalem and refugees

[Published 30 August 2018]

President Trump cancelled more than $US200 million in aid to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) this week - following his earlier decisions:

(i) reducing America’s contribution to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) by about $US300 million and

(ii) recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the US Embassy there.

An infuriated PLO has responded by making the following false claims concerning Jerusalem and aid to refugees in the West Bank and Gaza — which have been uncritically and unquestioningly reported as news:

1. Executive committee member Ahmed Tamimi exclaimed:

“Jerusalem is at the heart of the Palestinian, Arab and Islamic peoples”

This claim contravenes Article 1 of the Palestinian National Charter — which declares:

“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.

Claiming the “Palestinian people” is a separate and distinct people from the “Arab people” - is deceptive and misleading.

Meanwhile - Husam Zomlot - head of the Palestinian General Delegation to the United States - stated:

“After Jerusalem and UNRWA, this (cutting of aid to the PLO) is another confirmation of abandoning the two-state solution and fully embracing Netanyahu’s anti-peace agenda.”

Negotiations to conclude the “two state solution” — the creation of a 22nd Arab state with Jerusalem as its capital - in addition to the Arab state of Jordan created in 78% of former Palestine in 1946 — ended in April 2014 after unsuccessful negotiations spanning 20 years.

Other solutions now need to be explored that should involve Jordan and possibly Egypt negotiating with Israel to return to these two existing Arab states territory once occupied by them in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), East Jerusalem and the Gaza District between 1948 and 1967.

2. Cutting US financial aid to refugees in the West Bank and Gaza

PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi declared:

“The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale. There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation. The U.S. administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources; now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation.”

Ashrawi ignored the following facts:
(i) The West Bank currently has 775,000 registered “refugees” - around a quarter of who live in 19 refugee camps - all of which have been under full PLO administrative control since 1993 as designated by the Oslo Accords.

(ii) Gaza has 1.3 million registered “refugees” - of who 500000 currently live in 8 refugee camps — all of which have been under Hamas governance since 2007.

(iii) Many of these camps and their inhabitants date back to 1949. Severe overcrowding problems, high rates of unemployment, personal safety and poor infrastructure are common to them all.

The PLO and Hamas have maintained this discriminatory two-tiered refugee segregation system in both Gaza and the West Bank for at least the last ten years.

The failure to close these camps and integrate their residents into the general Gazan and West Bank Arab populations is a damning indictment of Hamas and the PLO.

Expecting Trump to pick up the tab as these inhumane practices continue for crass political purposes is arrogant and unwarranted.

Trump has made it clear these funds will go to relieving genuine refugee distress in other parts of the world.

Trump turns screws as PLO creates fake news on Jerusalem and refugees

The PLO’s outright refusal to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s long-awaited peace plan - inflamed by these latest false claims — only ensures the PLO’s increasingly-rapid slide into political irrelevance.

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.