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 - Clinton Comes Calling

[Published March 2009]

It didn’t take long for US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take a running jump into the quicksand which so spectacularly claimed her husband - President Bill Clinton - in 2000.

On her first visit to Israel this week Secretary of State Clinton also nominated President Obama as another candidate for the slippery slide into oblivion when she told Israel’s President Shimon Peres on March 3:

“During the [Sharm el Sheikh] conference, I emphasized President Obama’s and my commitment to working to achieve a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and our support for the Palestinian Authority of President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad.”

The two state solution - involving the creation of a 22nd Arab state between Israel, Jordan and Egypt - has been effectively pronounced dead and buried as a result of:

•the demise of the negotiating process begun in 2003 pursuant to the Roadmap endorsed by America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations
•the failure to achieve the two state solution by the self imposed deadline of 31 December 2008.
•the departure from power of two of its main proponents - former US President George Bush and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
•the loss of political power and control in Gaza by the Palestinian Authority and the PLO and their replacement as governing authority by Hamas.
•the probable formation of a Government in Israel led by Benjamin Netanyahu - which will oppose any two state solution that accepts a fully sovereign and independent Arab state between Israel and Egypt

What rabbit out of the hat does Ms Clinton and her President think they can produce so as to succeed where so many before them have tried and failed abysmally over the last 15 years?

Continued reliance on the Roadmap to achieve the two state solution seems futile. President Obama would be loathe to promote his predecessor’s failed plan. Even he must realise that pursuing a plan that could not even get off the ground after six years of trying is an idea he should continue to pursue any further.

The unyielding and intransigent Arab negotiating demand made during the Roadmap negotiations that Israel cede any claim to 7% of the West Bank means that 500000 Jews would have to be kicked out of their homes for those negotiations to succeed. The Arab demand for 100% of the West Bank and Gaza has been repeated ad nauseam for the last 40 years and has been one of the central issues that has plagued every effort to create the two state solution.

Offers of land swaps between Israel and the West Bank have already been rejected in the Roadmap negotiations. Demographics now make such a two state solution impossible to achieve.

The Arabs must moderate their negotiating stance on this issue. There is no indication they have the slightest intention of doing so.

Perhaps the Secretary of State intends embarking on a romantic cavalcade through the Middle East in pursuit of the adoption of the proposals contained in the Arab League Initiative - dreamt up in 2002 by Saudi Arabia but sidelined as the parties embraced the Roadmap instead.

She will be disappointed. The Arab League Initiative contains a specific demand calling for Israel to cede any claims to even one square metre of the West Bank and Gaza.

The Arab League has made it clear that its proposal is a “take it or leave it” proposal - not subject to negotiation in any respect. Israel will have no choice but to “leave it” - if it does not wish to sign its own death warrant.

Perhaps Ms Clinton is fooling us all and in the best traditions of diplomatic doublespeak is using the term “two state solution” to mean the division of the West Bank between Israel and Jordan. This would see perhaps 90% of the West Bank become part of Jordan and the remaining 10% become part of Israel and represents the only possible breakthrough to end the long running conflict.

Ms Clinton and President Peres both seemed blissfully unaware of the threat posed by Hamas to Israel - and to Palestinian Authority President Abbas who was given the thumbs up by Ms Clinton at her meeting with President Peres.

As Ms Clinton stood side by side with President Peres trying to outdo him in their protestations of undying affection for each other - President Peres observed:

“… even now, they [Hamas] continue to fire. We don’t know the reasons why are they doing it. We don’t know the goals they want to achieve. We know their intentions, which is basically negative—to destroy peace.”

Regrettably the Secretary of State was unable to enlighten President Peres on Hamas’ declared intention to wipe Israel off the map by using Gaza as the forward staging post whilst at the same time undermining Abbas‘ legitimacy to head the Palestinian Authority.

Instead she soothingly replied:

“ … the continued rocket attacks against Israel must cease. I don’t, like Shimon [Peres], understand the provocation that Hamas is determined to present.”

In this scenario of total ignorance billions will be poured into Gaza only to see parts of it razed to the ground in a very short period. Nine hundred million dollars from a cash strapped US economy will disappear without trace as Israel continues to respond to these continuing indiscriminate Hamas rocket assaults on its civilian population centres.

Abbas has been reduced to the status of a political eunuch. US support for his continuing rule seems odd as diplomats from other nations line up to visit Gaza and enter into a dialogue with Hamas.

And so our intrepid Secretary of State had nothing better to say than admire President Peres for his determined efforts to seek peace over his lifetime by saying:

“I always come away from my times with you both inspired and encouraged to think more deeply and more broadly. And I also am silently challenged by your ceaseless optimism about the future.

This is a man for whom the expression “The glass is half full” was invented.”

Perhaps this expression could be equally applied to President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton. Their intentions to pursue peace are without doubt earnest, honourable and sincere.

One thing is certain however - they will need many full glasses to drown their sorrows as they unsuccessfully pursue the two state solution as the path to peace during their respective terms of office.

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.

Palestine - The Lieberman Factor

[Published February 2009]

It has not taken long for media commentators to jump on the bandwagon and label the biggest winner in the Israeli elections - Avigdor Lieberman - as an “anti-Arab politician” (Scotsman 12 February) and a person “who holds abhorrent views” (Telegraph 12 February).

This form of generalised character assassination should be rejected and the media should be required to justify the policies of Lieberman that lead to those kind of general comments and labelling to be made.

The Telegraph has totally misrepresented and distorted Mr Lieberman’s policy in relation to resolving competing Arab and Jewish claims to the last 6% of the land once called Palestine - the West Bank and Gaza - in which sovereignty still remains unallocated between Arabs and Jews more than 60 years after the other 94% was divided between Israel and Jordan.

Mr Lieberman’s policy on this issue was stated by the Telegraph in the following terms:

“Mr Lieberman thinks that what we call the “peace process” has been a mistake from the start. Put simply, Mr Lieberman rejects every facet of President Barack Obama’s thinking on the Middle East. When the nationalist leader has real power in Israel, the country could find itself on a collision course with America’s new administration.

The following official policy of Lieberman’s party - Yisrael Beytenu - however tells a different story:

“Trading Spaces Moving The Border Between Us, Not Among Us.

The responsibility for primarily Arab areas such as Um-Al-Fahm and “the triangle” [presently in Israel - ed. comment] will be transferred to the Palestinian Authority. In parallel Israel will officially annex Jewish areas in Judea and Samaria [the West bank - ed. comment]. Israel is our home. Palestine is their home.”

This policy does not reject - indeed it confirms - President Obama’s thinking on the Middle East calling for a “two state solution” involving the creation of a new Arab State in the West Bank between Israel and Jordan.

Lieberman is not the rejectionist politician on “the peace process” that the Telegraph would ask its readers to believe .

Lieberman and Obama are clearly united in wanting a two state solution to the conflict resulting in the creation of a 22nd Arab state between Israel and Jordan.

Lieberman’s policy affirms that Yisrael Beytenu does not support Israel’s return to the 1967 armistice lines - incorrectly called “the 1967 borders” by the Telegraph. This particular use of incorrect terminology - embraced by Arab negotiators - serves as a stark reminder that you don’t always believe what you read.

Lieberman is not unique in embracing this policy.

His view is shared by:
1. every major political party in Israel,
2. President Bush and the former Israeli Government in the Roadmap negotiations and
3 is enshrined in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242.

President Obama will not retreat from this position, ignore the Security Council Resolution and demand Israel cede 100% of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority. The facts on the ground will simply not allow this to happen. 500000 Jews cannot be kicked out of their homes in the West Bank.

Indeed the reality is that no two state solution can possibly happen until the Arabs accept the inevitability that there will be no return by Israel to the 1967 armistice lines.

President Obama will need to bring the Arabs to this realisation if he is to succeed where President Bush failed. Given the intransigent stance by the Arab League on this issue for the last 40 years it would indeed be a miracle if he could bring about a change in Arab thinking on this fundamental issue.

Lieberman’s policy to cede Israeli sovereign territory to the Palestinian Authority that presently contains solely Arab residents in exchange for Israeli sovereignty over West Bank land that presently contains solely Jewish residents has come in for a fair amount of unjustified criticism.

Yet this policy calling for the separation - as far as is practically possible - of the Jewish and Arab populations has been at the heart of every proposal for partitioning Palestine between the Arabs and Jews since the Mandate for Palestine was first formulated in 1920.

It was the same policy that led to the United Nations Partition Plan in 1947.

The Peel Commission in 1937 eloquently summed up the benefits of partition in the following terms:

“The advantages to the Arabs of Partition on the lines we have proposed may be summarized as follows:—

(i) They obtain their national independence and can co-operate on an equal footing with the Arabs of the neighbouring countries in the cause of Arab unity and progress.

(ii) They are finally delivered from the fear of being swamped by the Jews, and from the possibility of ultimate subjection to Jewish rule.”

“The advantages of Partition to the Jews may be summarized as follows:—

(i) Partition secures the establishment of the Jewish National Home and relieves it from the possibility of its being subjected in the future to Arab rule.

(ii) Partition enables the Jews in the fullest sense to call their National Home their own; for it converts it into a Jewish State. Its citizens will be able to admit as many Jews into it as they themselves believe can be absorbed. They will attain the primary objective of Zionism—a Jewish nation, planted in Palestine, giving its nationals the same status in the world as other nations give theirs. They will cease at last to live a minority life.”

Lieberman’s policies tread well established precedents for resolving the Arab - Jewish conflict in former Palestine.

Perhaps media like the Telegraph should take the time and make the effort to read and understand Lieberman’s policy rather than engage in sensationalist journalism that only hinders rather than enhances the prospect of a resolution of this ongoing conflict between Arabs and Jews.

Palestine - Obama Quicksteps Into The Quicksand

[Published February 2009]

America’s Ambassador to Jordan - Robert Beecroft - lost no time in maintaining the illusion of momentum created by America’s Special Envoy to the Middle East - George Mitchell - following Mitchell’s departure from the region last week after first visit there as President Obama’s nominee.

Ambassador Beecroft gave a revealing interview to the Jordan Times on 5 February - coinciding with a report by Sandy Tolan in The Christian Science Monitor on 4 February - that the Roadmap negotiations to create a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan - the so called “two state solution” - were on “their death bed “.

This grim news had come in the wake of articles written by

(i) John Bolton - former US ambassador to the United Nations - in the Washington Post on 5 January,
(ii) Daniel Pipes - American International Analyst - in the Jerusalem Post on 6 January and
(iii) Professor Efraim Inbar - Director of the Begin-Sadat Center For Strategic Studies in Israel - in Ha’aretz on 26 January

proposing that Jordan and Egypt resume their 1948-1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza respectively to fill the void created by the failure of the Roadmap negotiations to bring about the two state solution by its highly publicized 31 December 2008 birth date.

Ambassador Beecroft’s response to such a proposal was short and sweet:

“Bolton is not part of the Government. He does not speak for the Government. The position of the US is very clear … the policy of the US is a two state solution - Israeli and Palestinian states [that live] side by side.

That is the end of the isssue …it has appeared in the press … but there is no official support for anything other than the two-state solution”

One would imagine that these were not “off the cuff” remarks made by a diplomat without the approval of President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Ambassador Beecroft is not your ordinary run of the mill diplomat. Prior to taking up his position in Jordan on July 17, 2008 he had served as Executive Assistant to Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell and as Special Assistant to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. He had previously been stationed at the U.S. embassies in Riyadh and Damascus.

Clearly his views echoed those of President Obama just one week earlier on Al Arabiya television::

QUESTION: Will it still be possible to see a Palestinian state—and you know the contours of it—within the first Obama administration?

THE PRESIDENT: I think it is possible for us to see a Palestinian state—I’m not going to put a time frame on it—that is contiguous, that allows freedom of movement for its people, that allows for trade with other countries, that allows the creation of businesses and commerce so that people have a better life…

Amazingly not one mention of the Roadmap or the intention to press on with the two state solution had been specifically made by Ms Clinton in the 63 pages of the transcript of the proceedings to confirm Ms Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State on 13 January 2009.

In his own confirmation hearings before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 1 May 2008 Mr Beecroft had been most effusive in his praise of Jordan stating:

“We [America] have no closer friend or ally in the Arab world than Jordan….Jordan is committed to the Roadmap and is tangibly supporting the process..”

Jordan is clearly uncomfortable at such reports suggesting that it return to the West Bank.

Xinhua News Agency on 1 February reported Jordan’s King Abdullah telling George Mitchell :

“We need to act quickly - without wasting time - on negotiations based on two states and not be diverted by new proposals”

Whilst President Obama and Ambassador Beecroft have obliged Abdullah by endorsing America’s commitment to the two state solution, it is significant that neither mentioned the Roadmap as the route to follow to achieve that end result.

Only one other plan on the table seeks to attain that goal - the 2002 Arab League Peace Initiative. This just happens to be King Abdullah’s preferred option.

However this Initiative has been rejected by Israel for the same reasons that have seen the downfall of the Roadmap negotiations - the Arab demands that Israel return to the 1967 armistice lines and that millions of Arabs (and their descendants) who fled to escape the 1948 War between Israel and six invading Arab armies be allowed to return and live in Israel.

Whilst current Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert has expressed an interest in negotiating with the Arab League on its proposal, the Arab League has indicated that it is not interested in any discussions and the proposal is offered on a “take it or leave it” basis.

Mr. Olmert bows out of politics next week and predictions appear to favour the election of a new right wing Government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu that would - like the current Government - not be prepared to agree to either of these Arab demands.

President Obama will quickly find himself sinking in the quicksand that claimed former American Presidents - Carter, Clinton and Bush - if he embarks on trying to achieve any two state solution in the current political climate prevailing in the West Bank and Gaza.

Before he takes the plunge President Obama would do well to contemplate the following advice of respected author and journalist Tom Segev who has accurately summed up the current situation in an article written by him in this month’s Le Monde Diplomatique:

“All possible solutions for ultimate peace are already on the table - and none can be realised. Even Obama himself can do nothing to create final peace. Making life more liveable for this and the next generation seems the improvement that is most possible and the most urgent.”

Ambassador Beecroft’s peremptory rejection of Jordan returning to the West Bank to make life easier for the Arab residents living there - and thereby freeing them from Israeli occupation by restoring the status quo existing between 1948-1967 - may well turn out to have been too hasty and ill advised.

America may have to pressure its closest ally in the Arab world to do just that.

In the Middle East it is always preferable to dance to the slow waltz than the quickstep.

Palestine - George Mitchell Munches On Middle East Lunches

[Published January 2009]

President Obama’s newly appointed Middle East Envoy - George Mitchell - has been traipsing through the Middle East on a look and listen tour to learn the views of players in Cairo, Jerusalem, Ramallah and Amman on the present state of play in resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict that has raged unresolved for the last 130 years.

At the same time President Obama in his first televised interview - with Arab television station Al-Arabiya - has made his own views known to all those players which they should carefully listen to and heed.

Firstly on the issue of a new Arab state being created between Israel and Jordan President Obama stated his commitment to that eventuating but issued this note of warning:

” QUESTION: Will it still be possible to see a Palestinian state—and you know the contours of it—within the first Obama administration?

THE PRESIDENT: I think it is possible for us to see a Palestinian state—I’m not going to put a time frame on it—that is contiguous, that allows freedom of movement for its people, that allows for trade with other countries, that allows the creation of businesses and commerce so that people have a better life…

…But it is not going to be easy, and that’s why we’ve got George Mitchell going there. This is somebody with extraordinary patience as well as extraordinary skill, and that’s what’s going to be necessary.”

The notion that any such new state should be democratic - as President Bush’s Roadmap stipulated - - has now apparently disappeared from the new President’s vocabulary.

The idea that such a State was just around the corner - as the previous administration had been trumpeting for the last twelve months - was now not even being able to be predicted with confidence by President Obama to occur within the next four years.

Secondly President Obama declared that any such new state would have to be part of an overall resolution of other problems in the Middle East and neighbouring regions:

“I do think that it is impossible for us to think only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not think in terms of what’s happening with Syria or Iran or Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan.These things are interrelated.”

Thirdly President Obama negated the idea that the Saudi Peace Plan proposed in 2002-and offered to Israel on a “take it or leave it ” basis - would be the sought for regional solution that would be supported in its entirety by President Obama:

“QUESTION : Now there is an Arab peace plan, there is a regional aspect to it. And you’ve indicated that. Would there be any shift, a paradigm shift?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, here’s what I think is important. Look at the proposal that was put forth by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. I might not agree with every aspect of the proposal, but it took great courage to put forward something that is as significant as that.

I think that there are ideas across the region of how we might pursue peace.”

How President Obama gets the Saudis - and the Arab League which has adopted the proposal - to ameliorate their plan to meet President Obama’s apparent objections to it in its present form will prove to be one of the most fascinating diplomatic manoeuvres to observe in the coming months and years.

Given that the Saudi proposal contains the same intransigent demands that have characterised the Arabs negotiating stance for the last 42 years, the likelihood of any substantive changes to that proposal to meet President Obama’s declared reservation seems most unlikely to occur.

President Obama did not spell out what other ideas there are across the region in his compelling interview.

Clearly trilateral negotiations between Jordan, Israel and Egypt to divide sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza between their respective States is one such idea that needs to be vigorously pursued by Mr Mitchell. It alone seems to offer the best chance of improving the lives of the West Bank’s Arab residents by offering them citizenship in an Arab State without requiring them to move from their present homes whilst allowing them once more to return to the Arab fold finally freed from Israel’s occupation or control - the position they last enjoyed between 1948-1967.

The PLO had already signalled its intentions to abandon the Roadmap - and focus on the Saudi Peace Plan as the only game in town - just a few days before President Obama’s appearance on Al-Arabiya.

Reuters had reported on 22 January:

“The Palestinian leadership are not ready to return to political negotiations with Israel unless there is a new basis for talks,” the PLO said, without elaborating. It said it wanted to conduct talks on the basis of the Arab peace initiative of 2002 which offers Israel peace and normal relations with all Arab countries in return for withdrawal from all territory captured in the 1967 war.”

This position had first been unveiled two months ago when the Palestinian Authority had taken out full page ads in the Israeli press calling on Israelis to endorse the Saudi plan. The money spent on those ads appears to have had no effect on Israel - or President Obama.

The current Palestinian leadership - itself the issue of much conjecture following the schism between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority - will not get to first base with President Obama if it insists on maintaining this stance.

There are three predictions that one can confidently make in this current uncertain climate whilst George Mitchell’s patience and skill is brought into play:

1. The existing Jewish residents of the West Bank - and the current Arab residents - will continue to copulate and populate. Any call for a “freeze” on natural increases in their respective populations - and the provision of housing and infrastructure to cope with such natural increases - is meaningless.

2. The creation of a 22nd Arab State between Egypt, Israel and Jordan will never eventuate unless the current Arab negotiating position is drastically revised by dropping their demands for sovereignty in all of the West Bank and Gaza and for millions of Arabs to be allowed to emigrate to Israel.

3. George Mitchell will be having lots of appointments, ongoing disappointments and very many more lunches in the region.

Let’s hope he doesn’t suffer from indigestion as he swallows what he is forced to hear.