Gaza's Growing Graveyard

[Published May 2007]

Gaza’s slow slide into the network of weapons smuggling tunnels built under its foundations has now turned into a headlong rush into hell.

Heavily armed factions now battle each other in a deadly civil war for political power and control of the billions of dollars in humanitarian aid and reconstruction funds flowing into the territory by courtesy of the European Union and the United Nations.

200 people have been killed and almost 2000 injured so far this year as a result of this rapidly escalating internecine violence that now has sucked Israel in once again, as scores of Kassam rockets continue to be fired indiscriminately into civilian centres in Israel from a well stocked arsenal smuggled into Gaza through Egypt.

Israel’s unilateral evacuation from Gaza in August 2005 was intended to signal Israel’s readiness to find a peaceful solution to competing claims by Jews and Arabs to sovereignty in Gaza and the West Bank.

Instead we are now witnesses to scenes of death and violence in Gaza that no one could have predicted when the world’s broadcasting networks showed their images of thousands of distressed and anguished Israeli soldiers and police removing 7000 crying and in some cases defiant Jews from their homes and livelihoods after a presence of almost forty years.

Certainly the trashing and eradication of the Jewish presence in Gaza, the continued violence against the Jewish State and the hatred and incitement of Gaza’s civilian population against Jews were foreseen by many, as Israel was roundly criticised in many quarters for acting unilaterally as it did.

But no one could have reasonably expected to see Arab killing Arab in Gaza in an unending cycle of violence over the past twelve months.

It is pointless to assign blame for Gaza’s failure to grasp the baton handed to the Palestinian Authority by Israel. Others can and will no doubt do so as the situation continues to worsen.

However, having dropped the baton and allowed Gaza to reach the stage of lawlessness it now has, the Authority has shown itself to be a lame duck without any power or authority to conclude any kind of agreement with Israel on Gaza and the West Bank.

The late Abba Eban, Israel’s first Ambassador to the United Nations, famously said in 1973:

“The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”

The Palestinian Authority has become the latest example of that most apposite statement.

As the carnage continues, those supporters of the Palestinian Authority and its President Mahmoud Abbas - the 22 Arab League States, America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - look on and, as usual, wring their hands, say a lot, but as usual do nothing to stop it.

They continue to promote and cling to the two state solution formulated by them in 2002 and 2003 that remain unimplemented in even the slightest detail and have no prospects of ever being successfully concluded - as if nothing has happened in the meantime.

They place their faith in Abbas being able to deliver the Palestinians on those completely flawed plans - totally ignoring the shift in power caused by the ascension of Hamas in Gaza that calls for Israel’s total destruction.

They still fail to understand that the only negotiating address in Gaza today is Prime Minister Haniyeh of Hamas. No amount of fiction or make believe by the Arab League, the Quartet or Israel for that matter can possibly change that current reality.

Abbas does not have enough power to fill his fountain pen let alone put his signature on any agreement with Israel that he can enforce.

Perhaps as they ponder their next step the Arab League and the Quartet should carefully heed the less quoted words of Abba Eban which appeared in Newsweek on 2 December 1974:

“But in addition to warnings about the futility of war should we not reflect together on the availability of peace? Palestine comes into modern history as a region extending on both sides of the Jordan, comprising the present sovereign territories of Israel and Jordan and the administered areas of the West Bank and Gaza. Of this original Palestine, 80 per cent became an exclusively Arab domain through the separation of Transjordan from Palestine.”

Jordan has always been and still continues to be the only negotiating address for anyone interested in seeking a solution to the West Bank and Gaza between Israel and the Arabs.

Division of the West Bank and Gaza between Jordan and Israel is the only possible outcome that has any reasonable prospect of success.

In an interview published in the Khaleej Times on 11 October 2006, King Abdullah of Jordan declared:

“I really think that by the first half of 2007 we might wake up to reality and realise that the two-state solution is no longer attainable, and then what?”

Until the Arab League and the Quartet understand and act on this reality, the graveyard will continue to grow in Gaza and ultimately and unfortunately extend to the graveyards in the West Bank and Israel.

Jordan and Israel - Singing the same song?

[Published 4 May 2007]

Jordan and Israel have reportedly embarked on secret negotiations to end the impasse in the West Bank and Gaza according to Matthew Guttman of ABC News (3 May 2007).

If true, such negotiations might successfully conclude 17 years of failed diplomacy that has included;

(i) the Oslo fiasco conceived by Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin and reluctantly adopted by Yitzchak Rabin,
(ii) Ehud Barak’s unprecedented concessions, supported by US President Bill Clinton but rejected by Yasser Arafat ,
(iii) Ariel Sharon’s evacuation of 8000 Jews from Gaza and parts of the West Bank,
(iv) Ehud Olmert’s stillborn plan to remove another 70000 Jews out of the West Bank at a cost of US$10 billion,
(v) the Saudi Peace Plan designed to remove all 400000 Jews from the West Bank and allow millions of Arabs to live in Israel,
(vi) The Geneva Peace Initiative and
(vii) US President George Bush’s Road Map promoting the creation of a second Arab State within the boundaries of former Palestine - backed by the United Nations, the European Union and Russia dubbed the Quartet

All of these initiatives have not brought peace and now have no value other than learning tools to instruct future negotiators on how not to commence or handle negotiations in the Middle East.

Jordan was the common denominator excluded from all of these failed processes. It was left out at its own insistence but the Quartet and Israeli negotiators must share the blame for allowing this to occur - virtually by default - and for the pathetic results that inevitably followed.

Any negotiations without Jordan were doomed to failure from the outset.

Jordan, after all, is the Arab State created, built on and occupying 77% of Palestine whose exclusively Arab population is no different in ethnicity, religion, language or cultural beliefs to the Arabs living in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.

Hundreds of thousands are related by familial and clan ties stretching across the Jordan River which runs between Jordan and the West Bank. All live within an easy one to two hours drive of each other.

Jordan is the country that occupied the West Bank from 1948-1967. It only ceded its claims to sovereignty in the West Bank in 1988 after being pressured by the Arab League and the Palestine Liberation Organisation to do so.

Jordan annexed the West Bank in 1950 which was recognised by Britain and Pakistan at that time.

Jordan’s rulers, not the PLO, have successfully preserved almost four fifths of Palestine as an exclusively Arab State. Not one Jew lives there today and the death penalty awaits any one found selling land to Jews. This is no mean feat given that Jordan was originally designated by the League of Nations in 1922 to be part of the territory in which the national home for the Jews was to be reconstituted under the Mandate for Palestine granted to Great Britain.

Contrast this to the remaining 23% of Palestine where 17% - today called Israel - has a population that is 80% Jewish and 20% Arab whilst the remaining 6% - today called the West Bank - has a population that is 80% Arab and 20% Jewish .

Yet the fiction has been created that the Arabs of Palestine lack a State and have been stripped of any rights to self determination in Palestine.

The fact is that Jordan and Israel are the successor sovereign States in former Palestine together exercising sovereignty in 94% of Palestine whilst sovereignty in the remaining 6% still remains unresolved and unallocated after 59 years.

Commonsense rejects the idea of creating a second Arab or, for that matter, a second Jewish State in this remaining 6% of Palestine - an area about the size of Delaware or just two thirds of Cyprus.

The obvious solution is to redraw the boundary between Jordan and Israel so that the heavily populated Jewish areas of the West Bank become part of Israel and the heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank (together possibly with Gaza) become part of Jordan.

This is certainly attainable as Jordan and Israel are parties to a peace treaty signed in 1994, which they both have observed in good faith, with mutual dignity and respect despite some strains in their relationship over the years.

Jordan and Israel could be confidently expected to realign the border to ensure that very few Jews or Arabs would be faced with deciding whether to move from their existing residences or stay put as part of a minority population. Compensation would be paid if they decided to move and become part of the majority population on the other side of the new border.

Guidelines to deal with controversial issues such as water, refugees and Jerusalem are already set out in the Jordan - Israel Peace Treaty.

Unceasing and unsuccessful efforts to sign a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have led nowhere in the last 17 years and threaten to continue to do so ad infinitum whilst the fiction writers continue to believe that a new State between Jordan and Israel is the answer to the conflict between Jews and Arabs.

How many more Jews and Arabs need to be killed and maimed in the pursuit of a solution that has not got even the slightest chance of success?

Perhaps the following words from American composer Cole Porter’s song - “I’ve got you under my skin” - should resonate in the ears of Jordanian and Israeli negotiators as their secret talks proceed :

“Don’t you know you fool, you never can win
Use your mentality, wake up to reality”

That reality is that two peoples, the Jews and the Arabs, need two States, not three States, in Palestine.

At last Jordan and Israel may finally be singing the same song. Everyone interested in ending the 130 years conflict between the Jews and Arabs - including the Quartet -should join in.

Israel - Fresh elections,not musical chairs

[Published May 2007]

The severity of the criticism heaped on Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, and the Defence Minister Amir Peretz by the Winograd Commission demands the immediate calling of fresh elections to allow the Israeli electorate to have its say on whether the Government still retains the public's confidence.

The Government's culpability did not start and end with the Second Lebanon War.

The writing was on the wall long before the Winograd Commission delivered its' scathing interim Report.

Any idea of playing musical chairs by simply replacing Mr. Olmert and Mr Peretz must be resisted .

Every member of the Government must accept responsibility for the precarious position in which Israel finds itself today.

Mr Olmert's unqualified support for two States between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean has not got off the ground despite the active involvement of America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

The Government seems incapable of formulating an alternative policy to break the deadlock such as proposing negotiations for the division of the West Bank between Jordan and Israel within the context of their present peace treaty. The best it has managed to do is express interest in discussing the 2002 Arab League Peace Initiative, which had already been comprehensively rejected by previous Governments.

Gross errors of judgement in pursuing its policy of unilateral withdrawal such as the abandonment of the physical control of the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt and the failure to stop the indiscriminate rocketing of Israeli civilian population centres from Gaza have resulted in Israel's national and security interests being placed in great danger.

The Government has witnessed the rise of a Hamas dominated Government in Gaza, the unrestrained arming of myriad terrorist groups and the entry of Al Qaida into the conflict in the region. It has sat on its haunches and done little of any consequence in any of these areas.

Israel's Arab enemies now believe that further unilateral withdrawals by Israel can be achieved by the continued use of violence, forcing Israel to retreat to more vulnerable borders.

The Government's attempt to negotiate with Palestinian Authority President Abbas to the exclusion of Prime Minister Haniyeh has failed miserably. Photo opportunities at bi-weekly meetings are a waste of time and will not bring tangible results.

Contemplating the release of 1400 prisoners, many of them murderers, for the return of one soldier, indicates the sense of hopelessness in Government circles. Waiting in the background are the decisions that will then have to be taken to procure the release of two more soldiers captured by Hezbollah.

Surrounded by countries that do not recognise its' existence and threatened to be nuked by Iran and attacked by Syria, Israel's Government appears to be bankrupt of any effective policies to counter all the threats facing the country at this time.

Add to this a number of corruption scandals alleged against Government members and one gets a very depressing picture about this Government's ability to govern at one of the most critical stages in Israel's 59 year history.

The Government needs to come clean, clearly articulate its policies in all of these areas and go to the polls to obtain a mandate to implement them from the Israeli electorate.

Clearly the resignation of Mr Olmert and Mr Peretz will solve nothing. Clinging to power at any cost without facing up to the electorate is the last thing Israel needs at this critical juncture.

Only fresh elections can reverse the downhill slide into which Israel is rapidly descending. Surely any other course of action at this time is a sell-out and a subversion of the democratic process.

Quartet Crumbles, Arab League Rumbles, Israel Fumbles

[Published 15-03-2007]

America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - the Quartet - have now apparently decided that their shared vision of creating a second Arab State in former Palestine -in addition to Jordan - is unrealistic and unattainable.

It has taken the Quartet four years of fruitless endeavour to finally understand that this vision has turned into a nightmare, that its' negotiating skills have been found wanting, totally inept and ineffective, and that its' inability to exercise any persuasive leadership or control over the negotiations has made it the laughing stock of the Arab world.

Competent negotiators know that you don't start negotiations unless you can reasonably be assured of a successful outcome. The Quartet has stumbled badly and its' reputation has been shot to pieces.

You would think that in these circumstances the Quartet would understand the need to go back to the drawing board and formulate a new policy that did not have the creation of another Arab State in former Palestine as its' centrepiece.

Instead the Quartet has decided to create a symphony orchestra by joining with the 22 members of the Arab League in pursuing the League's outdated and totally flawed 2002 Peace Initiative - which calls for precisely the same second Arab State to be created in former Palestine.

By what stretch of the imagination does the Quartet believe the Arab Plan will succeed when its' own plan has so spectacularly failed to be implemented in even the smallest detail?

Does the Arab plan have any more desirable features than the Quartet's Plan to enable this new Arab state - the 23rd in the world - to be created?

Definitely not for the following reasons:

(i) It demands the right of return to Israel of all Arabs (and their descendants) who have not lived there for the last 60 years , which even our intrepid Quartet found to be totally unrealistic.

The Quartet's view on this outrageous proposal is set out in the letter George Bush gave to Israel's then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the White House on 14 April 2004 (the Bush Pledge) which explicitly stated:

"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."

(ii) It demands the right of expulsion of 400000 Jews living in the West Bank for the last 40 years - ethnic cleansing at its' cruellest and most primeval level , a gross abuse of international humanitarian law and as racist as you can get.

The Bush Pledge said of this pernicious proposal :

"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."

(iii) It demands the return of every single inch of the West Bank to Arab rule. No ifs and buts- every single inch.

This makes a mockery of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 which made it clear to the Arabs that more than a few inches of the West Bank would remain in Israel's hands.

Again the Bush Pledge was firm and uncompromising stating:

"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."

It is critical to understand that the Arab League Plan is not something that is open to bargaining of the kind one usually indulges in on a visit to an Arab bazaar where the end result usually involves the shopkeeper running down the street after the departing customer, frantically prepared at that stage to do any deal he can conclude.

The Arab leadership has made it crystal clear that its' plan is an "all or nothing proposal".

Israel and the Quartet must somehow think otherwise as both suddenly find something of value in an overture that has been ignored for the last five years.

What could possibly lead them to that conclusion is the real mystery.

What is also crystal clear is that the symphony orchestra will not play a note of this score and that it will be consigned to the dustbin of history like the many plans that have preceded it. Anyone buying tickets to this performance will be bitterly disappointed .

The creation of a second Arab State in former Palestine on the terms demanded by the Arab League is dead in the water.

There is only one piece left to be performed- the division of the West Bank between Jordan and Israel.

Who in the orchestra will have the guts to grab the baton, get on the podium and bring this program to a successful finale?

Jordan's King Abdullah - The Ham In The Sandwich

[Published March 2007]

Jordan's King Abdullah is a desperate man judging by his historic speech to the United States Congress on 7 March 2007 - and with good reason.

The Road Map - designed to create a second Arab state in former Palestine, in addition to Jordan -has unfolded in total disarray.

The Road Map had begun as a vision of President George Bush on 24 June 2002. It was an answer to, and a rejection of, the Arab Peace Initiative endorsed by the Arab League in Beirut just three months earlier.

The detailed provisions of the Road Map were finally endorsed and launched in a blaze of publicity in April 2003 by the strongest negotiating team ever assembled in world history -America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - affectionately dubbed the Quartet.

The Quartet's newly created State was to be born by 2005. But as of today, it is still only a twinkle in the eyes of its' sponsors and any prospects of conception, let alone its' birth, passed long ago.

On the face of it the Road Map was a sure fire winner. However its' failure to predict intransigent Arab negotiating positions was to prove its' downfall.

Only 6000 square kilometres of land known as the West Bank and Gaza was involved - an area about the size of Tokyo or Chicago.

Israel had already agreed to forego its' claims to at least 4000 square kilometres and possibly even more - depending on whose version you accept - in negotiations at Camp David presided over by President Clinton in 2000.

Surely all that was needed was a push and a shove, a tweak here and a tweak there, to divide the remaining 2000 square kilometres between the disputants thus ending what the Quartet seriously claimed to be the most intractable problem facing the world.

This has not occurred for two reasons - the Arabs wanted it all and they demanded that the 400000 Jews living there be thrown out.

Now King Abdullah has appeared before the US Congress to promote the Arab Peace Initiative as the way forward out of the Quartet's dilemma. But this Initiative demands precisely these very same unacceptable outcomes.

One must feel sorry for the predicament of King Abdullah being caught up as the unwilling filling in the Road Map - Arab Peace Initiative sandwich.

Arab unity demands he stand by the Arab Initiative and be seen to be one of its' major sponsors as the Arab world tries to rally international support for this totally flawed and outdated plan.

History and his heart should tell him something else - he needs to give the hapless Quartet the opportunity to re-route its' Road Map by announcing his readiness to negotiate the division of sovereignty of the West Bank between Jordan and Israel.

The reasons for this are compelling:

(i) Jordan was the last sovereign Arab occupier of the West Bank from 1948 -1967 during which time its' Arab residents were Jordanian citizens and subject to Jordanian law.

(ii) Such negotiations would conclude the division of the land contained in the Mandate for Palestine between the two successor States to the Mandate - Jordan and Israel.

(iii) The negotiations would take place within the parameters of the existing peace treaty signed by Israel and Jordan in 1994, where "deal breakers" such as refugees, Jerusalem and water have already been identified and solutions prescribed.

(iv) The negotiations could be concluded within a relatively short period of time based on the general principle that the heavily populated Arab areas would become part of Jordan whilst the heavily populated Jewish areas would become part of Israel

(v) No Arabs or Jews would be forced to leave their present homes. Where Jews or Arabs found themselves on the wrong side of the new border, they could be given the option of staying as citizens or being compensated if they wanted to move.

Jordan clearly does not have the strength to announce and enter into these negotiations of its own volition.

It needs the political, financial, and military support of the Quartet and the endorsement of the Arab League.

King Abdullah's plea to the Congress for "America's leadership in a peace process that delivers results not next year, not in five years, but this year" must be understood in the light of the choices now facing the Quartet, Jordan and the Arab League.

Following the Road Map in the direction of the Arab Peace Initiative can only lead to a dead end and guarantee many more years of death and suffering for the Jewish and Arab inhabitants in the region.

Dividing the West Bank between Jordan and Israel can open a new page in the Road Map that will answer His Majesty's emotional plea before the Congress for all people in the region to be allowed to live in peace and harmony.

Let us hope that the ingredients for the new peace sandwich will include lashings of encouragement and support by the Quartet and the Arab League for Jordan's central role in resolving the conflict.

If it doesn't, who will eat the stale sandwiches and who will be left to pick up the crumbs?

The Arab League, Apple Pie and Indigestion

[Published March 2007}

Jordan's King Abdullah is at it again repeating the mantra of the Arab League of which Jordan is a foundation member:

"The principal problem in the region is the Palestinian issue and, if it is not solved, it will be impossible to solve other problems." [Jerusalem Post 2 March 2007]

Palestine comprised an area of about 120000 square kilometres, which has now been divided into two sovereign States - Israel (22000 square kilometres) and Jordan (92000 square kilometres) - plus an area of 6000 square kilometres called the West Bank and Gaza in which statehood still remains undeclared.

The Arab League has called for full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank and Israel's acceptance of an independent Arab State there with East Jerusalem as its capitol.

This means

(i) the expulsion of some 400000 Jews presently living in the West Bank who have lived there for all or part of the last 40 years.

(ii) the perpetual abandonment by Jews of all claims to reconstitute their national home in the West Bank and Gaza as conferred on them by the League of Nations and confirmed by the United Nations.

(iii) The severance of the Jews from their biblical heartland where they lived as an independent nation long before any Arabs came to the area as foreign conquerors and occupiers seven centuries after the birth of Jesus.

The Arab League has shown no indication of any readiness to abandon this "all or nothing approach" by agreeing to the Jews retaining and living in a portion of this disputed territory whilst the remainder and its Arab residents becomes part of Jordan as it was between 1948 and 1967.

A second Arab State in Palestine, which has been propounded for the last 20 years, is as ridiculous as suggesting a second Jewish State in Palestine.

Two peoples - the Jews and the Arabs - need two States in former Palestine not three.

Whilst the Arab League persists with this intransigent attitude there is indeed a problem, but one solely of the Arab League's choosing.

The Arab League presently is made up of 22 member States covering almost 14 million square kilometres in which almost 320 million Arabs reside.

It is incredulous and completely false to continually advocate that a dispute over 6000 square kilometres housing 3 million Arabs must first be settled before all the other problems in the region can be resolved.

Yet this is precisely what the Arab League has sold to the Quartet - America, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union. - and they have swallowed it hook line and sinker

Besotted by this tale that could have come from the Arabian Nights, the Quartet has thrown billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours in aid and diplomatic manoeuvring in trying to solve this problem. They have not got the disputants to even move off the starting blocks.

Meanwhile the Arab League has allowed far more serious bushfires to rage out of control in some of its' own member States, that threaten to eventually consume the Arab League itself.

In fact some League members such as Syria are actively helping to fan the fires by providing arms, money and safe transit for terrorists to bring down the Governments of other member States where life is anything but pleasant.

The League's biggest problem involves a non Arab state - Iran - as it seeks leadership of the Islamic world through the supremacy of Shia Islam as the dominant Islamic religion over Sunni Islam , the religion of the majority of the Arabs.

This is the clash of ideologies that must first take place before militant Islam can hope to achieve its aim of making Islam the world's dominant religion.

Islam can only have one leader not two to achieve this objective. Will that leader be Shia or Sunni?

The Arab League's failure to prevent Iran interfering in the affairs of Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Iraq has given Iran and the Shiites easy entrée into the Arab World and put the Arab League's very future existence under serious threat.

The white ants are on the march and the Arab edifice is in danger of total collapse.

Perhaps it is time for the Quartet to tell the Arab League to start solving the problems affecting their own member States such as Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Somalia and Sudan where the lives of 100 million people are at risk every day and where the sight of Moslem blowing up Moslem and mosque after mosque being bombed is unbelievable

The Quartet should also put the Palestinian question on the backburner and focus their attention, effort and political clout (if any is left) on the real and pressing issues outlined above.

Creating another Arab State on 6000 square kilometres of land when you already have 22 Arab States on 14 million square kilometres of land reminds me of the glutton who was given 99.5% of the apple pie but still was not satisfied and demanded the rest.

He ended up with severe indigestion.

[The writer acknowledges Wikipedia as the source for the statistics appearing in this article]

Going Gaga over Gaza

[Published February 2007]

Gaza has all the trappings of a State except declared Statehood.

The Quartet - America, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union - and the 22 members of the Arab League have allowed this farce to continue for the last 18 months.

Gaza, larger in area than Malta, has a President, a Parliament, a Prime Minister, a full complement of Ministers, a burgeoning bureaucracy, observers to every United Nations Committee you can think of, delegations to countries all around the world, a flag and an anthem and most importantly of all - not one Jew.

It is as racially pure as you could imagine, making South Africa’s apartheid regime pale in comparison.

The 7000 Jews living in Gaza were forcibly removed from their homes and businesses 18 months ago. That they were so evicted by other Jews, supposedly for their safety, is shameful. However given half a chance the Gazan Arabs would have willingly expelled the Jews. They even boasted that it was their campaign of terror and violence that finally forced the Jews to leave. Ethnic cleansing is apparently acceptable where Jews are the victims.

The violence against Jews has been replaced by the killing and intimidation of Gaza’s now exclusively Arab citizenry, as Hamas and Fatah each battle to assert their authority over the other in an internecine struggle that shows no signs of abating.

The people without a land who had been yearning for a land for the last 40 years suddenly found itself in full possession and control of part of that land but just couldn’t bring itself to utter the magic words of independence. Figuratively speaking the jilted bride was left waiting at the mosque.

The occupation had ended, the occupiers had gone but the population acted as though nothing had changed.

There was no rejoicing and dancing in the streets, no hugs embraces and tears among the populace who now found themselves in full control of their destiny and self-determination. Instead the liberated population could not quickly enough destroy, burn and gut, synagogues, schools, houses and infrastructure left behind by the Jews and then turn around and try to destroy each other.

There have been no exciting nation building programs implemented to give new direction and vision to Gaza’s population. Destruction, not creation, has become the buzzword in Gaza.

Sadly statehood is the last thing that Gaza wanted because it would put an end to the claim of statelessness, terminate the claim to refugee status by a large proportion of its population and signal the end of the perpetual financial support received from UNWRA.

Furthermore statehood might be taken to be an abandonment of further claims to any land that formerly comprised the Mandate of Palestine.

The reticence of the Arab League in these circumstances was misplaced. True, Statehood for Gaza would pull the rug from under the feet of this cartel and put pressure on it to end its refusal to recognise or negotiate with the State of Israel. But the League’s policy of silence and its’ failure to intervene has seen Gaza’s population become a killing field of ever growing proportions.

The Quartet however need not have been so coy. It had a different agenda aimed at solving “the Palestinian question” which it considered to be the most intractable problem in the Middle East.

The removal of all Jews from Gaza presented the Quartet with the opening it had been desperately seeking to take a giant step forward in solving this problem. Yet the Quartet faltered dismally in failing to demand that the Parliament in Gaza declare statehood within the boundaries that separate it from Israel and Egypt.

This single act could have been the circuit breaker towards ending 130 years of conflict between Jews and Arabs over the same land.

Instead the Quartet misguidedly focused its efforts on attempting to achieve an overall rather than a partial solution to Arab claims in the West Bank and Gaza in fulfilment of its‘ misconceived Road Map aimed at creating a third State in Mandatory Palestine.

It has now paid the price for its’ folly.

The Quartet’s failure to insist on Gaza declaring its independence has created a void into which Hamas has stepped making it impossible now to achieve statehood in Gaza.

The frantic shuttle diplomacy and endless meetings that seem to never have any outcome other than the accumulation of frequent flyer points for their participants will continue to be held, and the killing and mayhem in Gaza will continue to head the news bulletins.

It is time to call on Jordan and Egypt to play a constructive role in cleaning up the mess in Gaza, which is quickly sinking into the arms smuggling tunnels it has been so busily excavating under its very foundations.

The time for playing semantic word games, holding joint press conferences and grabbing photo opportunities is surely over.