Palestine - Buy Up or Sell Out?

[Published September 2008]

The West Bank - known only as Judea and Samaria until 1950 - is indisputably the biblical heartland of the Jews.

The purported offer by Israel’s Prime Minister -Ehud Olmert - to cede 93.5% of that area in fulfilment of President George Bush’s “two state solution” was therefore a very difficult and heart rending decision to make. Yet it has been rejected by the Palestinian Authority after five years of fruitless negotiations.

Little useful purpose can now really be served in trying to analyse the reasons why these negotiations ended so ignominiously or who should be blamed for their failure. It is time to move on.

Suffice to say a piece of land just 5860 square miles in area - less than 5% of the original territory of Palestine - still continues to be designated as “no man’s land” - under the sovereignty of no nation.

Like so many missed opportunities in the past, President Bush’s Roadmap will become an addition to - not the final chapter in - the long history of international efforts to resolve the 130 years old conflict.

As a result Israel has now been given a very real window of opportunity to buy up tracts of West Bank land occupied by Arab residents - rather than being forced to sell out Israel’s heritage by compensating 500,000 Jewish residents to vacate their West Bank homes to enable the creation of President Bush’s new Arabs-only State in the West Bank.

The compensation scheme to achieve the President’s objective was to be presented to Israel’s Cabinet last week but discussion on it was deferred.

Labour Party leader and Defence Minister - Ehud Barak - had described the evacuation-compensation bill as

“part of a master plan to advance the final-status agreement. It is a step in the right direction.”

(Jerusalem Post September 7).

Transportation Minister - Shaul Mofaz - said in the same article that he was

“adamantly” opposed to the law, as it “weakens Israel, and weakens its position in the negotiations, and I will not support it.”

Any consideration of such a compensation scheme now appears totally irrelevant given the dead end reached in the Roadmap negotiations.

However Israel would do well to consider whether the money should now be used to offer compensation to 70000 Arab residents in West Bank settlements adjoining or in close proximity to Jewish settlements to enable their voluntary resettlement in one of the twenty one Arab States of the Arab League or any other countries around the world willing to grant them citizenship.

Reclaiming the Jews’ birthright in this manner - rather than selling it off as had been proposed - would garner far greater support in Israel and from Jews world wide.

International financial and diplomatic support - together with Arab League endorsement - for such a program could see perhaps hundreds of thousands more West Bank Arabs being voluntarily resettled in similar fashion.

There is a general international consensus that the daily lives and commercial activities of the resident Arab population in the West Bank have been subjected to grave hardship as Israel has battled to control the growth of terrorism and the movement of terrorists throughout the West Bank - even as Israel was negotiating to divide the West Bank with the very adversaries that seek Israel’s destruction.

With all hopes now ended for a sovereign Arab state being created there, the lives of these West Bank Arabs are likely to worsen as already flagged Arab demands for the creation of a bi-national state and for the right of millions of Arabs to emigrate to Israel raise the spectre of the conflict escalating in intensity.

The migrating Arabs would come to their new host countries not as refugees or mendicants but as persons of self sufficient means. They would at last be able to live free of Israeli control. The occupation for them would have been ended.

Whilst West Bank Arabs were being compensated to move, the refugees living in the surrounding Arab states would be compensated to stay. The setting up of an appropriate international compensation Tribunal to deal with their claims would hopefully see an end to the disgraceful living conditions they have had to endure for up to sixty years, the end of UNWRA and the eventual diversion of the funds and resources of that organisation to deal with the large and growing numbers of refugees world wide.

The successful implementation of this program could eventually persuade Jordan to enter negotiations with Israel to divide sovereignty of the West Bank between Israel and Jordan. As the two successor states to the League of Nations Mandate - together already possessing sovereignty in some 94% of former Palestine - they are the natural parties to negotiate the future sovereignty of the West Bank.

Jordan - the last Arab occupier of the West Bank between 1948-1967 - finally renounced all claims to the West Bank in 1988 in favour of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

However the PLO has proved itself incapable of negotiating the creation of an independent State in the West Bank since then - despite substantial international financial and diplomatic support running into tens of billions of dollars supported by hundreds of resolutions passed at the United Nations.

Jordan has indicated no desire to return to the West Bank and clearly needs to be subjected to international pressure to make it happen or be told that it risks losing the goodwill of the international community if it refuses to accept the challenge.

The voluntary resettlement of West Bank Arabs would make division of the land between Jordan and Israel much easier to achieve, remove a substantial proportion of the Arab population from the arena of conflict and would also relieve the pressure on the scarce water resources that are available there.

The Arab dream to return to Haifa, Acre and Jaffa would not disappear - nor would their claims on Jerusalem. Neither the PLO nor Hamas would go away. Terror would still continue. Israel would still continue to confront these life and death issues.

But the suffering and hardship of perhaps millions of West Bank Arabs and refugees who have been held captive to the conflict would be ended.

The land of the Bible has seen many visions, prophecies and dreams translate into reality. Could this vision be another that could succeed if supported by the international community?

Jordan Prepares To Prevent West Bank Collapse

[Published September 2008]

“You know its just one small step from legacy to lame duck”

- Bill Clinton

President George Bush, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas are clearing their desks as they prepare to vacate their positions of power and influence - now having virtually assumed caretaker roles as lame ducks until their replacements are known within the next few months.

Their hoped for legacy - the creation of a new Arab State in the West Bank and Gaza - lies in tatters despite six years of intense diplomatic efforts by America, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia to bring President Bush’s vision to reality.

Any expectation that such a State can ever emerge in the future by their successors continuing the current fatally flawed negotiations is pure fantasy and totally unattainable.

The main reason for this conclusion is the continuing sixty years old Arab demand calling for millions of former Arab residents and their descendants to be allowed to settle in Israel. It is the same hurdle that brought President Clinton’s Camp David negotiations crashing to the ground in 2000.

This demand - if conceded by Israel - would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish state. It has become so ingrained in the Arab psyche that no Arab leader or group - even Hamas - could agree to its reversal and hope to survive the Arab anger, condemnation and retribution that would inevitably follow.

Mayhem would occur worldwide if this loss of face - and about face - ever eventuated.

The responses in the Arab world to the Muhammad cartoons and the reaction that followed Pope Benedict denigrating Islam by quoting from an article written in 1391 by a Byzantine Emperor - Manuel II Paleologus - indicate the level - and intensity - of the violence that could be expected.

With this bleak- but not unexpected - outcome for President Bush’s Roadmap, the question of what is to happen next in the West Bank is now beginning to exercise everyone’s mind.

Veiled Arab threats to jettison the Palestinian Authority and move for a bi-national state is a “no brainer” and will be given short shrift by Israel.

Separation of Jews and Arabs living in the West Bank by dividing sovereignty in the West Bank between Jordan and Israel appears to be the only face saving option for the Arabs that has any chance of working.

Very few Jews or Arabs currently living in the West Bank would have to consider leaving their homes or businesses under such a proposal. Those that might be affected could be offered the alternatives of compensation to move or staying put and acquiring the citizenship of their domicile.

This solution could be achieved reasonably quickly by the relatively simple expedient of redrawing the border between Israel and Jordan. These two countries have enjoyed a signed sealed and delivered peace treaty since 1994 - something that has been impossible to achieve between Israel and the Palestinian Authority during the last 15 years.

This possible solution has long been resisted and viewed with great misapprehension by Jordan - which occupied the entire West Bank from 1948-1967 and only finally abandoned any claims to the area in 1988.

Jordan has been ardently promoting President Bush’s Roadmap in the hope that Jordan could remain quarantined from playing any future role in the West Bank.

However the imminent collapse of the Roadmap negotiations has become the driver that has now prompted Jordan to recently re-engage in secret discussions with Hamas - which is outlawed in Jordan.

The absence of any disapproval by America and the European Union to Jordan entering into such a dialogue with a prescribed terrorist organization appears to signal tacit approval to these discussions taking place as the prelude to Jordan moving back into the West Bank.

Hamas is no lame duck. It is a rooster in full flight believing in its own invincibility and not stopping for a moment to think that it might one day become a feather duster.

Seeking undertakings and assurances from Hamas that will allow Jordan to assume sovereignty in the West Bank free of Hamas interference and intimidation is a prudent first step for Jordan to take. Consent could also guarantee the fear of any possible threats of reprisal to overthrow the ruling Hashemite dynasty of King Abdullah in Jordan.

King Abdullah remained tight lipped about possible Jordanian intervention in the West Bank in the following exchange between himself and a reporter from the French newspaper L’Express this week:

Q: Is there another option than the creation of a Palestinian state?

A: No, I don’t think so. The only acceptable solution in the eyes of the Muslims and the Arabs means an understanding on Jerusalem; the understanding on refugees and the understanding for a homeland for the Palestinians. Sometimes some people evoke the “Jordanian option”, the confederation kind. But nothing will happen as long as the Palestinians do not have a state.

Simply allowing nothing to happen after collapse of the Roadmap would be a disastrous outcome for the Arabs as it would result in Israel being left in full and unfettered control of the West Bank.

The freeze on new Jewish settlements would be ended. Expansion could then take place there on State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes as authorised by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and Article 80 of the United Nations Charter - subject only to the civil and religious rights of the Arab community living there not being prejudiced.

The Hashemites have preserved 77% of Palestine as the independent Arab state of Jordan - free of any Jews - for the last 62 years. It is that legacy which should convince Hamas to support Jordan’s return to the Arab populated areas of the West Bank

That would be welcome news indeed for the whole world - but don’t bet the bank on Hamas consenting to this happening. In the case of refusal, Jordan would then need to go it alone and commence negotiations with Israel to allocate sovereignty of the West Bank between their respective countries.

Their past histories have shown that neither Israel nor Jordan is afraid to take hard decisions when necessary. Lame ducks they’re certainly not.

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.

Palestine - Death Throes or Rigor Mortis?

[Published August 2008]

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

- Albert Einstein

Israel’s Foreign Minister and frontrunner as next Prime Minister - Tzipi Livni - had the courage to finally say this week what every one else in Israel’s Government knows but has been extremely reluctant to acknowledge.

Speaking to the foreign media in Israel Ms Livni effectively pronounced as dead the creation of a 23rd Arab State between Israel, Jordan and Egypt when she said:

“When we are talking two states for two people, the idea is Israel is the homeland for the Jewish people and the Palestinian state is the homeland for the Palestinians. Without this concept, there is no agreement.”

Her forthrightness - given her position and her critical role in any ongoing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) - must be applauded.

There are still those who refuse to acknowledge this basic and fundamental reality as they watch the “two state solution” in its death throes yet still believe it to be somehow alive and kicking and capable of being resuscitated by another of those miracles for which the Holyland is famous.

One of those true believers is US Secretary of State - Condoleezza Rice - who makes her 18th visit in two years to the region next week.

She needs to be reminded of President Bush’s own assessment that no such state can possibly be created if Israel is required to allow millions of Arabs to flood Israel and destroy its identity as the national homeland of the Jews.

She also needs to bear in mind that both contenders aspiring to be the next American President - John Mc Cain and Barak Obama - are of a similar view.

Ms Rice has a difficult - indeed impossible - task ahead of her in securing any advance in the negotiating positions of Israel and the PA following the PA’s instant rejection of Israel’s peace proposal leaked to the media last week involving the ceding of 93% of the West Bank and Gaza to the PA when it shows itself capable of assuming control there and provided the demanded right of return is dropped.

Despite 15 years of negotiations the price for peace demanded by the Arabs - the right of return - continues to remain the critical deal breaker to any “two state solution”

The thinking that a new state called Palestine could be created in the West Bank and Gaza was fathered in 1993 by two Israeli academics Yair Hirschfeld and Ron Pundik and mothered by three representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Ahmed Qurei, Maher Al-Kurd and Hassan Asfour.

The concept was both surreal and bizarre - given that such a state was never created after the West Bank and Gaza had been totally cleared of Jews during the 1948 War between Israel and six invading Arab armies - leaving those areas wholly controlled by Egypt and Jordan until 1967. Such a state was even achievable after the capture of these areas by Israel following the Six Day War in 1967 and prior to Jews beginning to return to once again live in these areas as they had done prior to being thrown out in 1948. The Arabs however refused to enter into any negotiations.

An additional Arab State in the West Bank and Gaza was not created during that lengthy period of time for one simple reason - the Arabs never wanted or desired it because it would have been seen to end their claimed right to return and live in Israel.

The idea then that such a state could even be contemplated in 1993 and that the right of return would be abandoned as the price for its creation was pie in the sky. The lengthy period of missed opportunity between 1948-1974 and the changed demographic reality that had taken place between 1967 and 1993 should have been more than sufficient to put such a proposal at the bottom of the ideas pile.

Regrettably it was pursued.

The Oslo Accords that followed attempted to turn this flawed thinking into reality but led to nowhere with the total breakdown of the Camp David negotiations in 2000.

Undeterred by the failure of these negotiations President Bush proceeded to persist with the “two state solution” when presenting his proposal - the Roadmap - in 2002. The President managed to persuade the European Union, the United Nations and Russia to join him in forming the world’s most powerful negotiating team ever assembled in history - the Quartet - to make his vision a reality. They have been totally unable to achieve a modicum of success.

Now six years down the track the negotiations contemplated under the Roadmap for this new state to be created have collapsed again for the same crucial reason that has plagued the Arab perspective - the inability to abandon their claimed right of return.

Indeed the refusal of most of the Arab States to recognise Israel as the Jewish State and the national homeland of the Jews - remains today an unbridgeable gap in much the same way as it has for the last 130 years.

If Condoleezza Rice hopes to breathe life into the corpse that was to be called Palestine during her visit next week, she will need to confront the PA and demand it issues an unequivocal and unambiguous declaration abandoning any claimed right of return by any former residents or their descendants into what is now called Israel.

If this demand is being used by the PA as a bargaining chip to secure a better deal from Israel than was offered last week, then she needs to find out what will be required to have the right of return abandoned.

The idea that the problem of dividing the West Bank and Gaza between its Arab and Jewish claimants could be solved by creating another Arab State there has had 15 years to reach a successful conclusion. It has been an abject failure and has gone nowhere.

Some new thinking is needed to replace this outmoded and totally discredited approach.

Surely Ms Rice doesn’t need to be an Einstein to work that out.

Palestinian Authority Catches Olympic Games Fever

[Published August 2008]

The opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing was initially rated a spectacular success. However it now turns out that lots of smoke and mirrors were used to introduce an air of present reality where none really existed.

The angelic voice of 9 years old Lin Miaoke was not hers but the recorded voice of another 7 year old girl rejected because of her appearance. A large number of the spectacular fireworks were computer generated to achieve maximum visual impact for the billions watching the ceremonies throughout the world.

Even the visual reality of the brotherhood of man represented by competitors from over 200 countries marching into the vast stadium for the opening was soon to be shattered by the outbreak of war between Georgia and Russia and two new terrorist attacks in the Xinjiang province of host nation China by a separatist movement seeking to establish an independent Islamic state there.

The feeling of reality following the announcement of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s proposal to eventually cede to the PA 93% of the West Bank and Gaza plus an additional slice of Israel equal to another 5.5% of the disputed territories was also thrown to the wind following its abrupt rejection by the Palestinian Authority (PA)

Mr. Olmert had appropriately made his long awaited offer during the two week period of the Olympic Games when universal goodwill is supposed to be at its highest. In doing so he hoped to resolve the long running marathon between Arab and Jewish competitors each striving to win the race for sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza.

This was to be Mr Olmert’s final - and hopefully triumphant - attempt to secure a gold medal before his announced resignation as Prime Minister takes effect at some unspecified date after September 17.

Mr Olmert’s decisive movement out of the blocks was halted in its tracks when Ahmed Abdel Rahman - an aide to PA President Abbas – protested that the PA had not heard the starter’s gun:

“We haven’t officially heard about the plan from official Israeli leaders. All what [sic] we hear about are just media balloons to show that Israel is serious in the peace process”

(Xinhua, August 12)
More balloons - and a prelude to the fireworks that were soon to follow – came with the response of PA negotiator Saeb Erekat who told AFP:

“These are half truths used by Israelis as a test balloon so they can blame the Palestinian Authority should the negotiations fail.”

This had been a poor start to what had promised to be “the race of the century” especially after “a senior Israeli official” said the PA had been given preliminary maps of the proposed borders. Someone in the PA had dropped the baton and no one there obviously wanted to be held responsible.

The mooted plan was rejected by the PA within hours of it being leaked in the media - setting a new world record for the fastest rejection by the PA of any Israeli proposal made over the last 15 years.

Saeb Erekat led the cheerleaders’ chorus telling AFP:

“We are not a bazaar. We want a complete Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem and agreement on all the final status questions.”

Yet another new world record had now been set for the length of time the Arabs had consistently and unreservedly maintained this same identical demand since 1967.

Nabil Abu Rudainah - another Abbas spokesman - was equally as vociferous telling WAFA news that the Olmert proposal showed “a lack of seriousness” and was “a waste of time”.

The city in which the handshaking, flag raising and closing ceremony was to ultimately take place - Jerusalem - was not even dealt with in Mr Olmert’s proposal since the publication of any details dealing with its disposition was deemed to be too thorny an issue to appear in the official program.

Both Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas appear to be like two losers rowing against each other in a repechage heat which neither is going to win. Like the Australian eight they are rudderless and drifting down the rowing course to nowhere.

Mr Abbas - already on his high horse before the Olmert proposal - has failed miserably to clear the first hurdle faced by him in responding to the Olmert initiative.

The coaches and support teams sitting on the sidelines - including President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, President Sarkozy, Prime Minister Putin, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Quartet Representative Tony Blair - must be tearing out their hair at the outright rejection of the Olmert plan by the PA.

However their frustration should be tempered by the realisation that the entire negotiating process that followed President Bush’s enunciation of his Roadmap 6 years ago was also nothing but smoke and mirrors. These negotiations were always destined to failure from the date of their inception for the very reasons articulated in Mr Erekat’s above mantra that has been standard Arab fare for the last 40 years.

Any suggestion that there could be some “give and take” in the division of the West Bank and Gaza between Israel and the PA has again been exposed as pure folly and sheer nonsense.

Mr Erekat’s perennial message was further rammed home by another advisor to Mr Abbas - Nabil Abu Rudainah - who told Arab News:

“The Israeli proposal is not acceptable. The Palestinian side will only accept a Palestinian state with territorial continuity, with holy Jerusalem as its capital, without settlements, and with the June 4, 1967 boundaries.”

Attempts by the international community will no doubt be made to change the PA’s game plan but they will prove to be a complete waste of time.

The closing ceremony for the Roadmap had been performed once again and no amount of doublespeak could disguise this incontrovertible fact.

The Olympic Games motto -“One World, One Dream” - seems to have run a distant last in the West Bank and Gaza. The time for playing games is over. It is now time to get serious about what is to happen there.

Palestine, Cocktail Parties and Prejudice

[Published August 2008]

“The cocktail party is easily the worst invention since castor oil” -

Elsa Maxwell

If you happen to be Jewish and live in the West Bank then you have certainly blown your chances of ever being invited to a cocktail party again at the British Ambassador’s residence in Israel.

The presence of three prominent West Bank Jewish residents there to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s birthday in June so incensed Conservative MP Crispin Blunt that he was moved to raise the matter in Parliament and write to British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells on July 25 stating that the invitation to “settler leaders” gave the impression of a “weakening in the government’s long held position that settlements were illegal and an obstacle to peace.” (Jerusalem Post, August 5).

Mr Blunt is not just your ordinary Opposition backbencher. He also happens to be the Chairman of the pro-Arab Conservative Middle East Council in the House of Commons and Co-Chairman of the Council for British and Arab Understanding (CAABU) with Colin Breed MP and John Austin MP.

Mr Howells sought to justify issuing the invitations to join in the Queen’s birthday bash - whilst at the same time expressing his contrition - by telling Mr Blunt on 31 July:

“Our Embassy in Tel Aviv’s contacts with the settler community have been with the goal of setting out the British Government’s view on this issue, and to seek to convince them that settlements are a significant obstacle to peace. But you are right that their presence at this event was not helpful and the Embassy is reviewing its procedures to ensure that it does not happen in the future.”

This incredible response will surely require the Ambassador in future to exclude Israel’s President, its Prime Minister and any Cabinet Minister – indeed any Jew living anywhere in Israel - from sharing a gin and tonic and cucumber sandwiches with the Ambassador - since Israel’s policy on the right of Jews to live in the West Bank totally rejects the British government’s stated policy.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs web site succinctly describes Israel’s policy as follows:

“Repeated charges regarding the illegality of Israeli settlements must therefore be regarded as politically motivated, without foundation in international law.

Politically, the West Bank and Gaza Strip is best regarded as territory over which there are competing claims which should be resolved in peace process negotiations. Israel has valid claims to title in this territory based not only on its historic and religious connection to the land, and its recognized security needs, but also on the fact that the territory was not under the sovereignty of any state and came under Israeli control in a war of self-defense, imposed upon Israel. At the same time, Israel recognizes that the Palestinians also entertain legitimate claims to the area. Indeed, the very fact that the parties have agreed to conduct negotiations on settlements indicated that they envisage a compromise on this issue.”

The West Bank and Gaza comprise about 6% of the total area of former Palestine previously administered by the British from 1920 to 1948 under League of Nations Mandate. It comprises the only territory of former Palestine in which sovereignty has not yet been allocated to any State or group. It can be best fairly described as “no man’s land” or “disputed land” in international law.

Sovereignty in 77% of former Palestine - today called Jordan - was exclusively granted by the British to the Arabs in 1946 in contravention of Article 5 of the Mandate.

Israel secured sovereignty over another 17% after fighting a war against six invading Arab states in 1948 following the Arabs refusal to accept a United Nations compromise that would have seen the remaining 23% divided into one Jewish and a second Arab state. Egypt occupied Gaza whilst Jordan occupied the West Bank for 19 years - until both were captured by Israel in the Six Day War in 1967.

Only Britain supported Jordan’s attempt to claim sovereignty in the West Bank between 1948 - 1967. Britain never described the West Bank as “occupied Palestinian territories” during all those 19 years - but uses that term today with increasing stridency and utter political hypocrisy.

Jews living in the West Bank and Gaza were uprooted in 1948 and their settlements razed. They began to return there after 1967 and the current Jewish population living in the West Bank numbers about 450000 people. All 8000 Jews living in Gaza were evacuated in 2005.

Jews had been given the right to “close settlement” in the West Bank and Gaza, “including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes” under Article 6 of the Mandate. It was on these lands and land purchased from Arab owners that the Jewish towns and villages in the West Bank and Gaza had been founded before 1948 and were subsequently to be re-established after 1967.

The right of Jews to live in the West Bank and Gaza survived the termination of the Mandate in 1948 pursuant to Article 80 of the United Nations Charter, which is still applicable today.

The British lost the plot from the day they assumed control of Palestine in 1920. Their attitude today shows they have learnt nothing from many of the problems they created during – and after – they abandoned the Mandate in 1948.

The British are entitled to maintain their own political point of view – but to exclude anyone disagreeing with that policy from attending their cocktail parties because it might indicate a weakening in Britain’s political stance is rather churlish and indicative of an arrogance that hopefully had disappeared from the persona of this bastion of democracy and free speech.

It will be interesting to see if British Ambassadors around the world are instructed to similarly strike off their guest lists anyone (even other countries’ diplomatic representatives) whose policies differs from Her Majesty’s Government for fear that their presence would show weakness in promoting Britain’s political views.

Perhaps slipping some castor oil into their guests’ martinis might help purge political views that don’t coincide with those of their convivial British hosts.

Somehow I think the British directive will stop at Israel and the Jews - and hopefully it will be reversed immediately after a quite drink between Israel and Britain’s respective Foreign Ministers.

Otherwise you might find that diplomatic postings in the British Foreign Service will not be so eagerly sought after if Ambassadors are going to end up having only themselves to drink with and talk to.

Unscrambling Olmert's Omelet

[Published August 2008]

“No clever arrangement of bad eggs ever made a good omelet”

(CS Lewis).

This adage best sums up one possible outcome for Israel following the announcement of Ehud Olmert’s intended resignation as Israel’s Prime Minister at some unspecified date after his successor as head of the political party - Kadima - is named on September 17.

Mr Olmert’s uncertain resignation date could well be resolved with greater clarity if the raft of inquiries currently investigating his past conduct result in his indictment and forced stand down much earlier than he expects.

What appears to be planned following his replacement as Kadima’s leader is merely a change in the arrangement of the same faces that make up the present Government.

Israelis will thus be denied an early election that the current parlous situation demands be held in Israel’s national interest to determine who should next make the crucial decisions needed to meet the rapidly developing - and deteriorating - circumstances that threaten their very lives.

Kadima only has 29 seats in a Parliament of 120 members. It has managed to hold on to power by clobbering together a coalition of various other parties. This has allowed Kadima to conduct Israel’s foreign policy with disastrous results - leaving its coalition partners to claim a piece of the domestic action to advance their own narrow based and vested interests whilst threatening to quit the coalition if their demands are not met.

Fresh elections should have been called in the wake of the Olmert Government’s failure to successfully prosecute the war against Hezbollah in 2006 and to prevent the evacuation of an estimated one million Israelis from the north of Israel to the south to escape the thousands of shells and rockets indiscriminately rained down on their homes and businesses from Lebanon during that war.

Many other events since then have justified the need for the Government to seek the nation’s vote of confidence - the failure to halt thousands of rockets being fired into Israel from Gaza without any effective Israeli response, the failure to halt Hamas from rearming and smuggling weapons into Gaza through Egypt and the intrusion of Iran and Syria into the political equation and the policies needed to deal with each of these existential challenges.

The failure of the Olmert Government to achieve any breakthrough in negotiations on President Bush’s Road Map - despite optimistic and glowing reports of progress by Mr Olmert - requires the Israeli electorate to be given the opportunity to choose which future direction Israel should now take in attempting to resolve the competing territorial claims it has with its Arab neighbours.

Mr Olmert’s turn about on the progress of the Road Map from unbridled optimism in Paris just two weeks ago to subdued reality in Jerusalem this week illustrates the urgent need for there to be more than a changing of the deck chairs on the sinking ship.

In seeking to explain away the last two years of failed negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, Mr Olmert gave the electorate the following explanation when announcing his resignation:

“As prime minister, I bear ultimate responsibility for every decision. There are many excellent people in the country, and together with them I have championed far-reaching, daring and complex processes… Most of them are unknown to the majority of the public, but they are well- known to those who were part of the decision-making and operational process.”

The Prime Minister has no clothes - his far reaching, daring and complex processes have gone nowhere.

Keeping the public completely in the dark as to what they were and why they failed is not the way to gain public confidence nor to expect the voters to let this pathetic situation continue until possibly 2010 when the next election would normally be held.

The portents for fresh elections are however not good at the present time.

Already the two main candidates vying for leadership of Kadima - Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz - have both called for a national unity Government to be formed.

Ms Livni is reported by the Jerusalem Post on 31 July as saying :

“We must leave the small considerations aside and create unity, both inwardly and outwardly,” adding that the main goal of the coalition members would be to “restore the public’s faith in Israeli politics.”

Her recipe for restoring that faith by forming a Government of national unity and not submitting herself and her colleagues for re-election is only a cynical exercise in promoting her own party’s political hold on power and will certainly result in a further erosion of the public’s faith in its politicians.

She attempted to justify her call for a national unity Government by asserting:

“I believe that the internal divisions we have become accustomed to and the idea that different parties have such extremely different ideologies and agendas is a thing of the past and is no longer the case. There is a common agenda that every party can put forward on political issues and also on dealing with the threats we face.”

This makes strange reading considering she and her Kadima colleagues quit the Likud party to form Kadima because the policies adopted by Likud were not - and still are not - to their liking.

Ms Livni’s call has already been rejected by Likud leader Mr. Netanyahu who has declared:

“Kadima is a party of failures,… We must let the public choose. Particularly at such a critical juncture we need to let the people decide who will lead them.”

A third contender for Mr Olmert’s position - Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit - has also called for early elections but his bid for leadership of Kadima presently has little support.

There is still time for Kadima to rethink its position, put the people of Israel before its own interests, accept the urgent necessity of dissolving Parliament and hold early elections.

Mr Olmert’s resignation offers the opportunity for fresh elections - and should be endorsed by all political parties as soon as possible.

Opportunities - like eggs - come one at a time. Missing this one will surely leave egg on the politicians’ faces and create a very dangerous strategic and negotiating void for Israel when it is least needed.