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?

Egypt, Israel and Gaza - Flashpoint For Future Confrontation

[Published 15 February 2011]


The Egyptian Revolution has raised questions as to the possible termination of the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty by Egypt.

Any such concern - in the short term - seems to have been allayed by the Fourth Egyptian Military Statement issued on 12 February declaring:

“the country’s ministers will stay in power for the time being and international agreements and commitments will be honoured.”

Egyptian Ambassador to the United States Sameh Shoukry has described the three-decade-old peace treaty as mutually beneficial.

“We have derived a peace dividend from the treaty. We’ve been able to establish security and stability in the region. And I believe it is a main element in terms of our foreign policy,”

This is not the view of all Egyptians and calls have already been made for renegotiation of the Treaty.

Dr Ayman Nur - leader of the Tomorrow Party told Egyptian Radio

“The Camp David accord is over, Egypt must at least renegotiate the terms of the accord,”

This viewpoint must be regarded as political grandstanding with little chance of coming to fruition.

Important factors virtually ensure that the Treaty will continue to operate in the long term:

1.Egypt’s execution of the Treaty regained every square kilometer of land lost by Egypt in the 1967 Six Day War including airfields and oil fields in the Sinai. Any breach of the Treaty would put these important strategic and economic assets at risk of being lost by Egypt forever.
2.An annex to the Israel - Egypt Peace Treaty contained the following pledge from then US President Jimmy Carter to Israel’s then Prime Minister Menachem Begin in a letter dated March 26, 1979:

“I wish to confirm to you that subject to United States Constitutional processes:
In the event of an actual or threatened violation of the Treaty of Peace between Israel and Egypt, the United States will, on request of one or both of the Parties, consult with the Parties with respect thereto and will take such other action as it may deem appropriate and helpful to achieve compliance with the Treaty.”

However the prospects of conflict between Israel and Egypt in the immediate future could arise outside the Treaty involving the Philadelphi corridor - a narrow stretch of sand, ten kilometers long and about a hundred meters wide, separating Egypt from the Gaza Strip - in which is situated the Rafah Crossing - the only exit and entry point between Egypt and Gaza.

After Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in August 2005 this crossing was closed for three months until the signing of two documents on 15 November 2005 by Israel and the Palestinian Authority

1. Agreement on Movement and Access and
2. Agreed Principles for Rafah Crossing

which had resulted from negotiations facilitated by US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice,European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana andthe international community’s envoy for the Israeli Disengagement from Gaza - James Wolfensohn.

For seven months, the crossing operated in an orderly manner, and some 1,320 persons crossed daily.

On 25 June 2006, following the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit Israel closed the crossing for security reasons allowing it to be opened only in isolated cases, and without giving advance notice. From then until June 2007, the crossing was closed for 265 days.

After Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, Israel announced the freezing of the two Agreements. The Palestinian Authority was unable to have its control personnel reach the crossing due to Hamas’ control of the Gaza Strip. Israel objected to opening the crossing on the grounds that the Palestinian Authority was unable to monitor the persons and goods passing through it. The European force also stopped its monitoring activities due to the European Union’s refusal to cooperate with Hamas.

Egypt - which was not a party to the 2005 Agreements - generally refrained from opening its side of the crossing due to its own national interest in preventing

1. the movement of terrorists, arms and equipment into and out of Gaza and
2. contacts between Hamas and the Moslem Brotherhood representatives

which threatened to undermine the decades long rule of Hosni Mubarak.

Article 2 of the Hamas Charter states that Hamas :

“is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. It is characterised by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgement, the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam.”

Whether Egypt maintains this blockade in the current circumstances remains a worry. Neither the Fourth Egyptian Army statement nor the Statement of Sameh Shoukry offer any such assurance that the status quo will be maintained.

Israel cannot allow the uncontrolled movement of people and goods through the Rafah crossing. Failure by the Egyptian Army to maintain its current controls at the Rafah crossing - or any loosening of the controls currently in place - could almost certainly result in Israel returning there to ensure its own strategic interests and the security of its citizens are preserved by controlling who and what is allowed in and out between Egypt and Gaza.

Maj. Gen. Doron Almog who served as head of Israel’s Southern Command from 2000 to 2003 presciently gave his opinion in 2004 when he stated:

“The situation on Israel’s southern border, and in the Philadelphi corridor, is a complex barometer for all of the region’s problems. Not only does it register the ups and downs in Israeli-Palestinian relations. It reflects the state of Egypt’s relations with Israel and the Palestinians, and the situation in Egypt and Gaza itself, where sub-state actors, led by Islamists, have progressively eroded the authority of the Egyptian state and the PA. Smuggling and infiltration must be understood—and fought—in these broader contexts.”

These grim warnings have taken on a new meaning with the tumultuous events in Gaza since then and following the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions that have spawned people power spreading and making its presence felt in Algeria, Yemen Jordan and Iran.

A very small - but highly strategic - sliver of real estate once again holds the key to possible future conflict in the Middle East.

Will the UN and the European Union ignore this video?

This outstanding 15 minute video is compulsory viewing for anyone concerned at the ongoing campaign being waged to delegitimize the State of Israel as the Jewish State in its biblical and historical homeland as mandated and sanctioned by international law.

Featuring three international law experts - Howard Grief, Jacques Gauthier and Dore Gold - this video comprehensively sets out the legal basis for the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home from 1920 - 2011.


http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif


It is unthinkable that:

1. The European Union as witness to the Oslo Accords will agree to those Accords being violated by unilaterally voting for a change in the status of the West Bank

or

2. the United Nations in September 2011 will agree to the terms of Security Council Resolution 242 being breached by unilaterally determining issues that can only be agreed on in negotiations.

Join in this discussion

Professor John Quigley - Professor of Law at Ohio State University - has urged America to recognize a Palestinian State. His article can be viewed at:
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/12/23/3277847/us-can-hot-wire-mideast-peace.html

I have posted a reply and urge others to do likewise. I will respond to all comments to my post.

Realities Of The Middle East

[Published October 2009]

Now that Palestinian Authority intransigence and the Jordanian monarch’s cold feet have frozen President Bush’s Middle East peace plan, we are again facing that time honoured lament of Western liberalism:

“why doesn’t the US put more pressure on Israel, why cannot Israel be forced into more concessions?”

But in any event do Mr Abbas and his internationally cosseted entourage really want a peace settlement? A new term is creeping into the Middle East lexicon: Palestinian Authority Incorporated.

This label stems from a growing realisation that the Palestinian leadership has never had it so good, flitting from one capital to another by private jet, with conference-to-conference limousines, police escorts, top hotels and guest palaces, and everything else that goes with the jet-setting potentate. Running a neighbourhood “entity” after this would seem very dull indeed - assuming Mr. Abbas would make the grade in an open election.

But would he? The Wall Street Journal’s Karen Elliott House reported after a Middle East tour last month:

"Almost no one … believes the self appointed President for the Palestinian cause will ever be the directly re-elected leader of the Palestinian people”

She quotes a Jordanian official in Amman:

” The Palestinian Authority isn’t a revolution. It’s a corporation. After all these years, the pay cheques keep coming and the life is good . The Palestinian Authority cares more about preserving its privileges than helping ordinary Palestinians.”

To which Joseph Kraft of the Los Angeles Times syndicate adds the charge that the Abbas Palestinian Authority is:

“ a bureaucracy dedicated to its own survival. Far from being willing to take risks for political goals, Mr Abbas and Co, in this view, prefer to wander from country to country and from summit meeting to summit meeting, selling the cause of Palestine to Arab leaders who need legitimization. The rulers pay out subsidies. In return Mr Abbas gives them the Palestinian Authority seal of fidelity to Arab nationalism.”

What practical good does this do for the average Palestinian Arabs? As the New York Times remarked last November during a peak of Palestinian Authority negativism:

“Let reality now sink in. If those who claim Palestinian leadership cannot contemplate co-existence and persist in preventing King Abdullah and the residents of the West Bank from negotiating a true peace with Israel, then even this territory will soon be out of reach”

And how.

Israeli Government statisticians and demographers predict that within 30 years the Jewish population of Judea and Samaria will reach parity with the projected Arab population of 1.3 million. Long range settlement plans are in hand. The implications of delayed negotiations require no explanation.

..... AND NOW FOR MY CONFESSION...

The above article was written by Michael Barnard under the title “Realities of the Middle East” and published in the Age Newspaper in Melbourne Australia on Tuesday 26 April 1983 …. 26 years ago !!!!

My contribution to updating the article lies solely in substituting a few words to reflect the different parties.

I could have even left in the acronym for the Palestine Liberation Organization - “PLO” - used by Barnard in his article instead of replacing it with “Palestinian Authority” since the latter is just the reincarnation of the former disguised under a different name.

But essentially nothing has changed for the ordinary West Bank Arab in the last quarter of a century as their leaders have missed countless opportunities to resolve the conflicting Arab and Jewish claims to sovereignty in the West Bank.

Abbas clings to power as unelected President although his term expired last January. Calls for his removal have been mounting because he dared to postpone debate on the Goldstone Report at the behest of President Obama. This was only the latest of his woes as he has to answer questions about his relative silence during Israel’s invasion of Gaza last December and January and his alleged tacit - if not collaborative - approval of Israel’s action to destroy his Hamas challengers for supreme political control of the Palestinian Arabs.

Urged on by well intended but policy deficient “do-gooders” such as Presidents Reagan, Carter, Clinton and Bush, the Quartet and a Moslem dominated UN General Assembly, the Palestinian Authority power brokers have chalked up hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer points, have enjoyed the best food and wines in some of the most expensive hotels and restaurants in the world and collected photo albums full of snapshots with the most famous political and celebrity personages.

Surely a quarter of a century later it is time to heed Barnard’s article (as updated by me):

“Let reality now sink in. If those who claim Palestinian leadership cannot contemplate co-existence and persist in preventing King Abdullah and the residents of the West Bank from negotiating a true peace with Israel, then even this territory will soon be out of reach”

The sooner Jordan is brought into negotiations with Israel to determine Arab and Jewish claims to sovereignty in the West Bank the sooner these junkets and excesses by the Palestinian Authority will be ended.

More importantly the West Bank Arabs will be able to go about their work and raise their children free of war and conflict as fully fledged citizens of Jordan - as they were between 1948-1967 until Jordan’s fatal involvement in the Six Day War saw the loss of this territory to Israel.

Israel will not be returning to the armistice lines that existed between Israel and Jordan on the 6th June 1967 - UN Security Council resolution 242 makes that abundantly clear. It will not agree - in the national interest of preserving Israel as the only Jewish state in the world - to millions of Arabs flooding into its country as migrants.

That is best left to welcoming countries like England, France, Holland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The world is a big place and opportunities to settle outside one’s country of birth have never been so easy as millions of Arabs leave their existing 21 Arab States for greener pastures.

Will an article like this still be written in 2035? I certainly hope not.

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.

Paletine - Annapolis Aborted And Road Map Thwarted

[Published April 2009]


April Fools Day was an appropriate day for Israel’s newly elected Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to tell the world what every Government feared would happen when Benjamin Netanyahu formed Israel‘s new Government:

"There is one document that obligates us - and that’s not the Annapolis conference - it has no validity"

Showing a little more backbone than the spineless diplomats who had spent thousands of fruitless hours and involved their countries in pledging billions of dollars in progressing Annapolis , Mr Lieberman delivered a polite message to those who consider themselves the leading democracies in the world:

"The Israeli government never ratified Annapolis - nor did the Knesset,” Lieberman said.

“The one document that obligates Israel” - and he stressed that Israel is bound by its ratified commitment - “is the 2003 road map, officially called ‘A performance-based road map to a permanent two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict"

The shock and horror at Mr Lieberman’s pronouncements displayed by such world leaders as Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy was ill considered and very hasty.

Had they taken some real time out from saving the world’s headlong plunge into depression - instead of making statements on the run - they would have been able to focus on what Israel’s then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the gathering of world leaders assembled in Annapolis on 27 November 2007

"The negotiations will be based on previous agreements between us,UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338,the Roadmap and the 14 April 2004 letter from President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel."

Letters from Presidents to Prime Ministers are important documents and none was more important than the one President Bush wrote to Ariel Sharon on 14 April 2004 to procure Israel to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza.

That letter made it clear - amongst many other commitments - that the Arabs could not expect to regain 100% of the West Bank and Gaza in the Annapolis negotiations. The Arabs however refused to play ball and insisted on 100% - not the 93% offered by Israel - plus an additional area from Israel’s sovereign territory to make up the remaining 7% that would be retained by Israel.

Instead of pressuring the Arabs to accept this proposal the Quartet - America, Russia, ,the European Union and the United Nations - sought to pressure Israel into more concessions that would have seen the West Bank ethnically cleansed of Jews who had returned to live in their biblical heartland since 1967 - after having been kicked out of there in 1948 by six invading Arab armies.

In going for Israel’s jugular the Quartet cut its own collective wrists and - with assured predictably - failed to get an agreed outcome by the Annapolis expiry date - 1 January 2009.

Crocodile tears are now the order of the day. Like the Annapolis Conference they are a total waste of time.

Remarkably the Quartet appears to have learnt nothing from the Annapolis journey to nowhere as it continues to persist with its call to make the West Bank a “No Jews “ zone - which is both racist and offensive in the extreme.

Perhaps these “world leaders” should now reflect on the only game in town - the Roadmap - and ponder why it has not got off the ground in the six years since it was first mooted and endorsed by the same intrepid Quartet - and why it will surely continue to languish and die on the vine.

Mr Lieberman failed to mention that the Roadmap had only been accepted by Israel with fourteen reservations expressed to President Bush on 25 May 2003.

The first of those reservations (quoted in part following) immediately indicates why the Roadmap will not succeed either:

"In the first phase of the plan and as a condition for progress to the second phase, the Palestinians will complete the dismantling of terrorist organizations (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front Al-Aqsa Brigades and other apparatuses) and their infrastructure, collection of all illegal weapons and their transfer to a third party for the sake of being removed from the area and destroyed, cessation of weapons smuggling and weapons production inside the Palestinian Authority, activation of the full prevention apparatus and cessation of incitement. There will be no progress to the second phase without the fulfillment of all above-mentioned conditions relating to the war against terror. The security plans to be implemented are the Tenet and Zinni plans."

The Roadmap is indeed performance based and the Arabs - and the Quartet - have got to get on the stage and play their parts if the Roadmap is to have any chance of being fulfilled.

There is nothing unambiguous in these demands - dismantle Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other terrrorist groups, end weapons smuggling and weapons production.

The Quartet needs to get serious - and soon. The Quartet’s special envoy - Tony Blair - needs to stop pussyfooting around and tell the Arabs to put up or shut up. No doubt he will retreat yet again from taking this principled stance.

Mr Lieberman may not be Foreign Minister for very long as he faces corruption charges that somehow seem to plague every prominent politician in Israel. But the course he has charted is one that can be followed with complete propriety by anyone who might succeed him.

International diplomacy is based on making and scrupulously abiding by what has been signed and agreed upon between parties to a conflict.

Israel sought nothing more than to have the parameters of the Annapolis negotiations honoured and observed. Those who now seek to pillory it for maintaining such a standard only demonstrate their inability and ignorance to comprehend and understand those parameters. Israel’s reservations to the Roadmap need to be understood if the next ten years is not to be spent in futile negotiations.

Perhaps the Quartet might now turn its attention to some critical international agreements that are binding on the Quartet and the rest of the world - the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

It is these two documents that lay the foundations for ending the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours - the division of sovereignty in the West Bank between Israel and Jordan by redrawing the boundary between these two successor states in the territory once called Palestine.

The sooner the Quartet acts on these two forgotten documents, the sooner those crocodile tears might end.

Palestine - Netanyahu's Knockout Narrative

[Published March 2009]


As Benjamin Netanyahu struggles to form Israel’s next Government there are many politicians around the world hoping against hope that he fails in the mission entrusted to him by President Shimon Peres.

Mr Netanyahu is not cast in the mould of Israel’s current caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who clings to power without a party or a base of political support.

Netanyahu will come to the job - if he succeeds - with a firm parliamentary majority and a party solidly behind him that will enable him to attempt weave his own magic in trying to bring peace between Jews and Arabs.

He has a very different story and narrative to tell that has not been heard for a long time.

He does not favour the “two state solution” which would see the creation of a new Arab state between Israel and Jordan. He has seen 15 years of wasted effort trying to create such a state disappear down the diplomatic drain. This solution was always a fiction based on nothing in history, geography or demography to support or justify its creation.

Pursuing such a solution involved the creation of another fiction - the Palestinian Authority -which has mutated and produced the son of fiction - Hamas - and any multitude of offspring with any and every name one can dream up to glorify death, martyrdom and the end of Israel as the one and only Jewish state in the world.

Netanyahu favours a different kind of “two state solution” based on the allocation of sovereignty of the West Bank between Israel and Jordan - a de facto position that existed between 1948-1967 until Jordan foolishly joined its Arab compatriots to wipe Israel off the face of the map and got soundly trounced in the process.

Israel has enjoyed a signed peace treaty with Jordan since 1994, That peace treaty has survived many pressures that could have easily seen it torn up and trashed. That it hasn’t is a tribute to both countries and demonstrates that Jews and Arabs can live at peace with each other even in the most difficult of circumstances.

Netahyahu’s narrative is neither novel nor new. However it is a narrative whose revival has become vitally urgent for one simple reason - there is no other solution that can break the current impasse short of war.

Netanyahu best encapsulated his views when he made the following statement to the United Nations on 11 December 1984.

"Clearly, in Eastern and Western Palestine, there are only two peoples, the Arabs and the Jews. Just as clearly, there are only two states in that area, Jordan and Israel. The Arab State of Jordan, containing some three million Arabs, does not allow a single Jew to live there. It also contains 4/5 of the territory originally allocated by this body’s predecessor, the League of Nations, for the Jewish National Home. The other State, Israel, has a population of over four million, of which one sixth is Arab. It contains less than 1/5 of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate…. It cannot be said, therefore, that the Arabs of Palestine are lacking a state of their own. The demand for a second Palestinian Arab State in Western Palestine, and a 22nd Arab State in the world, is merely the latest attempt to push Israel back into the hopelessly vulnerable armistice lines of 1949."

The demography may have changed in the last 25 years but the history and geography haven’t

No amount of diplomatic doublespeak can gloss over the fact that in 1946 Jordan became an independent sovereign Arab State in 77% of historic Palestine - whilst Israel became an independent sovereign Jewish state in 17% of historic Palestine in 1948.

The remaining 6% - West Bank and Gaza - belongs to neither Jordan nor Israel. Dividing these last pockets of Palestine between Israel and Jordan {and possibly Egypt with whom Israel also has had a peace treaty since 1979) seems to have reasonable prospects of succeeding if the parties negotiate in good faith having regard to the existing populations of both Jews and Arabs living there at present.

Politicians are notorious for changing their minds but they don’t easily foresake basic historical and geographical realities.

Netanyahu will hopefully challenge the flawed logic of the Quartet - America- Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - in swallowing hook line and sinker the absurd notion that an Arab living in Ramallah is somehow religiously, ethnically, socially and culturally different from an Arab living in Amman - just one hour's drive away.

Why each needs a separate state to thrive and prosper in, to be independent and to exercise self determination remains unexplained. Why do they need two armies, two arsenals two governments and two bureaucracies? Why they can’t live together under the banner of one unified State where they presently reside and work- as they did between 1948-1967?

Arab spokesmen from Jordan’s King Hussein to PLO leader Abu Iyad endorsed the view decades ago that these Arabs were one people with one history and one fate.

Trying to quarantine Jordan from playing any active role in resolving the issue of sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza - and the return of Jordan to occupy the pre-eminent position it once possessed there - has been pure folly and resulted in death, injury and trauma for both Jews and Arabs over the past 40 years - and one could argue even longer - that could have been avoided.

Allowing Jordan to ignore or escape its responsibilities as one of the two successor State to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine has allowed a firm political base in international law to be undermined with the shallow thinking that has led to the collapse of the “two state solution” heralded with such fanfare by President Bush in 2003.

Diplomats with egg on their face are now readying themselves to push an equally irrational and fictitious plan - the Arab League Peace Initiative - to create the illusion and the mirage of peace.

They all need to be challenged - and Netanyahu has the knockout narrative to sock it to them.

Palestine - Perpetual Pantomime Pursues Peace

[Published February 2009]

Benjamin Netanyahu has finally been given the go-ahead by Israel’s President Shimon Peres to try and form Israel’s next Government. This heralds the next round in the farce that passes for “the peace process” in the Middle East.

The solution to the problem - what to do with the 6% of Palestine that still belongs to no one - needs to take a new direction and Netanyahu intends to do just that.

Gone are most of the old cast - President George Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. They will be replaced by rising new stars President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who will be joined this time round by resurrected 90’s star Netanyahu and former bit player George Mitchell - both of whom have a chance to achieve real fame if they perform better than they did so long ago.

The PLO’s Mahmoud Abbas has just managed to hold on to his leading role but is being challenged by Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh - an enterprising upstart who has already assumed a lot of the lines once spoken exclusively by Abbas.

“Explosive and set to rocket to stardom” could be how his captive audience in Gaza might describe Haniyeh.

Haniyeh’s superstar aspirations have been dealt a blow as Paris, London and New York exclude him from centre stage . He had temporarily gone into hiding last month - to escape his Israeli critics. This followed his disastrous performance in Gaza resulting in his unpopularity increasing even further worldwide. Little has been heard from him since. But no doubt he is soon set to make a comeback. Old actors never die - they only put on different clothes and still act out the same roles.

Lurking in the wings are two understudies for the Arab lead roles - Egypt and Jordan. They could soon find themselves starring on the Gazan and the West Bank stages in a repeat of their unbroken record running performances between 1948-1967. They are presently reluctant to return to the stage so intensive negotiations to get them to sign on the bottom line will be required.

Every actor has his price and the bargaining will be hard. Holding on to power and survival in the global economic downturn are two fertile areas to be explored in concluding successful negotiations to get them back on stage again. The royal patronage afforded by Jordan’s King Abdullah could be just the catalyst to spark a real revival in a pantomime that has sadly lost the plot.

The latest attempt to revamp the tired old Roadmap script will prove to be a waste of time, energy and effort.

The Roadmap - a blockbuster written in 2003 in the best traditions of Hollywood and underwritten by America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - has turned out to be a damp squib despite billions of dollars being spent to help it - and its principal actors - earning a Nobel Peace Prize.

The Arabs wanted 100% of the happy ending and were not prepared to share it with the Jews.

Now that’s not really negotiating - most would call it insanity . But then again nothing has changed in Arab thinking for the last 90 years.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee was not sucked into awarding the much sought after Prize to Bush’s Roadmap script following the disastrous decision in 1994 to award it prematurely to Shimon Peres, Yitzchak, Rabin and Yasser Arafat for their starring performances in the Roadmap’s forerunner - Oslo.

Born to great acclaim in 1993 on the White House stage before a television audience of billions and a host of VIP’s sitting in the front stalls to witness the performance live - Oslo was to disappear some six years later in a welter of recriminations as the temperamental actors spat their dummies and stormed off the stage.

History has now repeated itself with the demise of the Roadmap. However this time the actors have quietly left the stage with no encores as the curtain descended on yet another failed attempt to create a box office success.

The Arab Peace Initiative - written in 2002 and now enthusiastically promoted by the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference - has been touted as the new script to get the show on the road again and the crowds through the turnstiles.

This was made very clear by PLO Secretary-General Yasser Abed Rabbo in a press release to Ma’an News Agency on 12 February when he announced:

"Our options are clear toward the coming Israeli Government. [The PLO] will not deal with any new Israeli Government if it does not respond to the Arab Peace Initiative and halt settlement expansion.

US President Barack Obama, his Middle East Envoy, George Mitchell, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton know full well the obstacles preventing accomplishing a just solution to the establishment of a Palestinian State.

These obstacles were not set up by the Palestinians and we will not accept an alternative economic solution to the political situation.

Anyone who thinks that we, the Palestinians and the Arabs, are out of options - is mistaken “

The Arab Peace Initiative was rejected by Israel five years ago precisely because it mandated Arab sovereign control in 100% of the West Bank and Gaza. It will be rejected again - for the same and many other reasons - not only by Netanyahu but by any new Government eventually formed in Israel.

Until the Arabs agree to divide the West Bank with the Jews, ticket sales to future performances of this ongoing farce will continue to plummet.

President Obama might do well to head off this flop just waiting to happen by introducing a new song (with apologies to Noel Coward) into the next staged production of this long running fiasco:

“Don’t put your plan on the stage dear Yasser Rabbo
Don’t put your plan on the stage
Its a bit of an ugly duckling
You must honestly confess
And the width of the plan would surely defeat
Its chances of success”

If the PLO don’t want to sing this song then the understudies - Egypt and Jordan - might just find themselves center stage in the glare of the spotlights much sooner than they think.

Swap Land for War or Land for Peace?

[Published October 2007]


Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) are reportedly looking at swapping land in the West Bank for land in Israel as a means of overcoming the PA's long standing demand that all 6205 square kms of the West Bank be handed over to the PA by Israel as a necessary precondition for peace.

In the best traditions of a Middle East bazaar it seems a great idea for Israel to horse trade 500 sq kms of vacant Israeli land for 500 sq kms of land heavily populated by Jews in the West Bank.

Land swaps are not unknown in the Middle East. In 1965 Jordan exchanged 7000 sq kms of inland desert for 6000 sq kms of Saudi Arabian land fronting the sea shore.

The announcement of a planned land swap to be negotiated within a time frame of six months would certainly go down well at President Bush's international meeting next month and probably be hailed as a major breakthrough in resolving the 130 years conflict between the Jews and the Arabs over the former territory once called Palestine.

It might also just act as the fig leaf necessary to persuade Saudi Arabia to attend the meeting even if the more contentious issues - Jerusalem, water and permitting millions of Arabs to emigrate to Israel - are put on the diplomatic backburner.

President Bush desperately needs a lifeline to prevent his two state vision disappearing forever into the quicksand stirred up by totally inflexible and intransigent Arab negotiating positions.

Certainly the resolution of the territorial dispute over the proposed land to comprise the future Palestinian State would be a notable achievement.

It would herald an important change in the present racist stance of the PA and the Arab League that demands the West Bank be ethnically cleansed of all its Jewish residents - that Jews be tossed out of their homes in breach of international humanitarian law as encompassed in a number of United Nations Conventions.

It would signify the first crack in the negotiating stance of the Arabs that has remained unchanged for the last 40 years - showing a willingness to now be prepared to give something and not demand everything.

Unfortunately the announcement and eventual resolution of such a proposed land swap will not resolve the conflict unless all the other outstanding core issues - Jerusalem, refugees, water, - are also resolved.

Even if such issues were miraculously settled, what guarantee could then be given to Israel by the PA that the border between Israel and the newly created State would become a no go zone for Hamas, Hezbollah and the myriad other terrorist groups hell bent on Israel's destruction - having already unanimously indicated their violent opposition to any proposed settlement with Israel other than its total dismantling?

What guarantee would there be for Israel that those parts of the West Bank accepted by Israel in the land swap deal would not come under mortar fire and rocket attacks from within the borders of the new Arab State as emanated from Gaza virtually without respite when the PA ruled there?

The reality is that until any PA agreement with Israel is endorsed by Hamas, Hezbollah , Islamic Jihad and the Arab League, that agreement runs the risk of being abrogated overnight by the actions of well armed and trained terrorist groups whom PA President Abbas has been too weak to oppose or control in the past.

The risks of continued dealing with the PA alone are therefore so great that any responsible Government in Israel would be putting the lives and security of its citizens at grave risk unless these other belligerent parties were signatories to any peace agreement.

The position would be entirely different if the West Bank was divided between Jordan and Israel - two sovereign countries already possessing a peace agreement that has proved its resilience for the last 12 years.

Land swaps would only be necessary as a last resort if dividing some relatively small areas of the West Bank between Jordan and Israel could not be amicably resolved. A lease to Israel of some Jordanian land as part of their peace agreement shows what can be achieved.

It would not be in Jordan's national interest that any terrorist groups be allowed to flourish in Jordan's newly acquired West Bank territory since they could represent a threat to the Hashemite regime ruling in Jordan. These groups might be tempted to try and overthrow Jordan's King Abdullah if allowed to develop a formidable military infrastructure in the West Bank.

The attempt by the PLO to do just that in 1970 is deeply ingrained in the Jordanian psyche. Jordan has a well trained and disciplined Army and police force - unlike the PA's forces - to meet any such new threat.

Jordan is not faced with the political problems arising out of the falling out between Abbas and former Prime Minister Haniyeh that has split the PA and Hamas into two bitterly opposed factions - destroying any semblance of unity between the Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza. Jordan's close ties with West Bank Arabs would be a unifying factor of enormous significance in countering terrorist activities.

The path to resolution of issues such as Jerusalem, refugees and water are already sign posted in the existing peace treaty between Israel and Jordan.

The return of Jordan to rule the Arab sections of the West Bank would recognise the status quo that existed in the Arab occupied areas between 1948-1967. It would bring the hope of stability to the region rather than the chaos and uncertainty that the PA currently represents as one of the principal players responsible for the slide into despair that has befallen Jordan's Arab brothers in Gaza.

Any belief that an agreed land swap involving the PA will be a step on the road to peace is yet just another mirage like so many others that have marked politics in the Middle East since the euphoric endorsement of the Oslo Accords 14 years ago by most of those countries assembling at President Bush's meeting next month.

How wrong they were then and how wrong they will be next month if they rapturously endorse the announcement of this "historic breakthrough".

Land swaps with the PA is a recipe for war. Land swaps with Jordan is a recipe for peace.

Which one Israel chooses will make a huge difference to millions of Jewish and Arab lives.

Palestine, Fantasy and Tales from the Arabian Nights

[Published August 2007]

President Bush's planned Middle East peace summit is rapidly being transformed into an event that will rival the Tales from the Arabian Nights .

It seems no one is listening to what the Arabs are saying - which is nothing new.

However you would think that after sixty years of drum beating by the likes of Arafat, Abbas , Haniyeh ,Assad Senior and Junior and the Arab League the message might have started getting through to opinion makers and influence peddlers in the West that the Arabs ( apart from Egypt and Jordan) are really not interested in a peace deal with Israel - that the demands they are making are the exact antithesis of a desire to peacefully end a conflict that has existed between the Arabs and the Jews for the last 125 years.

A flurry of meetings being presently undertaken by Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with Palestinian Authority President and PLO Executive Chairman Mahmoud Abbas have led to much speculation in the media of a peace deal being done that will be announced to an expectant world at President Bush's summit in the fall.

Michael Williams the United Nations Special Co-Ordinator for the Middle East Peace Process ( as fancy a title you could ever be given) is apparently in raptures at what has been taking place at these talks in Jerusalem, Jericho, Ramallah and even in Mr Olmert's own home. He told the United Nations Security Council yesterday:

"There is a hope now which has been absent for almost seven years."

Seven years? What about the Quartet's Road Map announced in a blaze of pomp and circumstance in 2003? Is the United Nations spokesman telling us there was indeed never any hope of success when this plan was announced and to which the United Nations was a sponsoring signatory? If so why did the Quartet try to convince everyone it offered the only hope for peace?

It gets even worse for Mr Williams as he gushed:

"Both sides have reported substantive discussions and exchanges of ideas on permanent status issues , as well as confidence- building steps. There appears to be a welcome common desire to reach an agreement or understanding that could be presented to November's international meeting."

Not to be outdone, Riyad Mansour the Palestinian UN observer told the Security Council:

"There is at this time a significant opportunity before us to end the Israeli occupation and towards the attainment of the two state solution"

Mr Williams said:

"with 10-12 weeks to play for, and with the very strong basis that they have now, I'm convinced that they can make real movement in that regard"

So much for the fantasy. It is a pipe dream totally divorced from reality.

What has actually occurred at these "substantive discussions" can best be gleaned from the comments of Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian Authority negotiator who on the very same day said:

"Today's meeting was good and thorough, but until now we haven't discussed any details related to the fundamental issues"

More tellingly Mr Erekat had this to say:

"The Palestinian leadership wants peace, but not at any price. The peace we are seeking must be based on all the UN resolutions pertaining to the Israeli-Arab conflict, the Arab peace plan of 2002, the road map and the US President George W. Bush's vision for two states. Together, all these plans and resolutions will lead to an end of the Israeli occupation of all the territories that were occupied in 1967."

In other words Mr Erekat was repeating the identical formula that has been repeated ad nauseam since 1967 - the return of every square meter of territory captured by Israel in the Six Day War including the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem - a formula which has not and can never be accepted by Israel.

Despite Israel releasing hundreds of terrorists, granting amnesties from arrest to scores of other known terrorists, transferring tax revenue running into hundreds of millions of dollars and supplying additional weapons to the Palestinian Authority, Saeb Erekat continues to hum the same song that can only lead to President Bush's upcoming talkfest leading nowhere.

The amazing thing is that the Western leaders still rely on the optimistic assessments of people like Mr Williams, when they only have to read what Arab spokesman are actually saying to understand that the idea of creating a 23 rd Arab State in 5% of historic Palestine is a tale straight out of the Arabian Nights.