Palestine - G8 Novate The Great Debate

[Published July 2009]

The creation of a new Arab State between Jordan and Israel -the so called “two state solution” - is by no means an assured certainty - despite the confident predictions emanating from such influential sources as President Obama and the Quartet over recent weeks that it remains the only viable solution to resolving the 120 years old conflict between Jews and Arabs over the territory once called Palestine.

The latest meeting of the G8 world leaders concluded in L’Aquila Italy on 10 July 2009 appears to have taken a far more cautious approach - refusing to back itself into a corner by endorsing the two state solution as the only viable option to resolve the conflict.

The G8 Summit annually brings together the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition, the European Union participates and is represented by the president of the European Council and the President of the European Commission.

The Chairman’s Summary presented by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the conclusion of the three day meeting included the following statement:

“Looking forward to a comprehensive peace between Israel and all its neighbours, the Leaders reiterated their full support to the two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and urged the parties to rapidly resume direct negotiations. They also called on them to fulfil their obligations under the Roadmap. G8 Leaders remained engaged to fully support the Palestinian Authority including, once a peace agreement reached, through the launching of an ambitious and comprehensive plan that would develop infrastructure and foster economic activities in the future Palestinian State”

This statement is silent on how the G8 sees a comprehensive peace between Israel and all its neighbours being achieved and the G8 was apparently loath to indicate how it could expect that to ever eventuate.

It is noteworthy that whilst the G8 fully supported the two state solution it specifically refrained from endorsing it as the only viable solution - which puts the majority of the G8 leaders distinctly at odds with the pronouncements of President Obama and the Quartet.

Since America, and Russia comprise two of the four members of the Quartet and two of the 8 members of the G8, the failure of the G8 to collectively toe the American and Quartet line indicates considerable doubt by the remaining members of the G8 in the two state solution ever coming to fruition.

The statement also calls for the rapid resumption of direct negotiations. However the senior negotiator for the Palestinian Authority- Saeb Erekat - has angrily denounced the conditions laid down by Israel’s Prime Minister - Benjamin Netanyahu - for the creation of this new Arab state - especially its demilitarization- with the following dismissive declaration:

“Netanyahu will have to wait 1000 years for someone to agree to talk to him”

Interestingly the G8 have also called on the parties to fulfil their obligations under the Roadmap first proposed by President Bush in 2003. These obligations still remain unfulfilled in any substantive detail - despite six years of the most intense international diplomacy to procure compliance.

Indeed one of the complexities to be resolved at the present time is the status of the Roadmap itself and whether Israel and the Palestinian Authority still regard themselves as obliged to negotiate solely on the basis of the proposals laid out by President Bush.

Whilst Israel has indicated its acceptance to enter negotiations based solely on the Roadmap, the Palestinian Authority has been calling for negotiations based on the Arab League Initiative as well.

Until the ground rules are definitively established it is difficult to see how any negotiations can ever commence.

The pledge by the G8 of full support for the Palestinian Authority might give its President - - Mahmoud Abbas - some traction in seeking popular support for his Fatah administration to represent the Palestinian Arabs. It will not and cannot disguise the huge gap in the positions of Hamas and Fatah as they compete for undivided political control of the Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza.

The G8 statement remains silent on the ability of the Palestinian Authority to enter into a final and binding peace treaty with Israel that would be capable of being honoured or enforced in the face of Hamas opposition to any such treaty - especially whilst the West Bank and Gaza remain divided as separate territorial units under respective Hamas and Fatah control.

The carrot dangled at the end of the statement promising an ambitious and comprehensive plan for the development of infrastructure and economic activities in the future Palestinian State “once a peace agreement has been reached” - amounts to a sober realisation that the billions of dollars that have been recklessly poured into the bottomless coffers of the Palestinian Authority for years by the G8 members - without any substantial improvement in infrastructure or economic activities - will not be repeated by them until a peace agreement has been signed..

The G8 communique amounts to nothing more than a motherhood statement with one notable exception - it does not endorse the two state solution as the only solution to the conflict. Given the difficulties in negotiating such a solution after seventy two years of international efforts trying to do so, this assessment represents a welcome acceptance of reality and lays the way open for alternative solutions to be proposed or adopted by the G8 leaders as the two state solution continues its slide to its inevitable denouement.

Palesine - Freeze Settlements Or Freeze Negotiations?

[Published July 2009]

The demand by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Israel freeze all settlement activity in the West Bank including “natural growth” has now been endorsed at a meeting of the Quartet - America, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations - held at Trieste on 26 June 2009.

However that was not the only demand made by the Quartet - although reading the myriad media reports of that meeting one could be excused for imagining it was the sole subject of discussion.

The communique issued by the Quartet contained the following notable demand:

“Noting the detrimental effect of Palestinian divisions and underscoring its desire for these divisions to be overcome, the Quartet called on all Palestinians to commit themselves to non- violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations. Restoring Palestinian unity based on Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) commitments would be an important factor in this process. while facilitating reconstruction of Gaza and the organization of elections. The Quartet expressed support on this basis, for the ongoing mediation efforts of Egypt and the Arab League for Palestinian reconciliation behind President Abbas and appealed to all States in the region to play a constructive role in supporting the reconciliation process”

Clearly the Quartet itself has come to the conclusion that the Palestinian Authority under President Abbas is a toothless tiger incapable of negotiating and concluding any form of binding peace treaty with Israel whilst Fatah and Hamas remain engaged in their deadly and divisive power struggle.

Any suggestion that Israel should freeze settlement activity in these circumstances of complete Palestinian chaos and disunity seems premature to say the least.

The Quartet is talking pie in the sky if it believes Hamas will reconcile behind President Abbas. Hamas regards itself as the legitimately elected Government of the Palestinians. Hamas will not abandon that position in favour of anyone - especially President Abbas - who illegitimately clings to the office of President after his term of office expired in January.

Under the Palestinian Authority constitution, if the office of the president is considered vacant, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council - Abdel Aziz Dweik - serves as interim President for 60 days until new elections are held.

Hamas legislator Salem Salemeh made Hamas’ view abundantly clear on 25 June when he stated:

“Dweik is the real president of the Palestinians after Abbas’ term in office expired in January”

[Al-Manar TV 25 June 2009]

His statement followed an attempt by Dweik to hold a press conference inside the Palestinian Legislative Chamber on 24 June that was prevented by Fatah legislators on the grounds that only Abbas had the authority to call such a meeting.

In this politically charged and uncertain environment there is simply no credible negotiating partner to sit down with Israel to implement the obligations under the Road Map.

The prospects of further negotiations at this point in time having any possible chance of success have been highlighted by the Quartet’s own statement that :

“these negotiations must result in the end of all claims.”

Neither Hamas nor Fatah will ever be able to abandon their claim for millions of Arabs and their descendants to emigrate to Israel. It is written into their respective constitutions and forms the very essence of their continued functioning and existence . To concede that right in negotiations would be political suicide and impossible to abandon by either Fatah or Hamas with any certainty that such claim would not be prosecuted at a later time in changed circumstances.

The Quartet continues to persist with the simplistic notion affirmed in its statement that :

“the only viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one that ends the occupation began in 1967 and fulfils the aspirations of both parties for independent homelands through two states for two peoples, Israel and an independent, contiguous and viable State of Palestine, living side by side in peace and security”

This solution was first proposed in 1937, again in 1947 and could have been achieved at any time between 1948-1967 after Jews living in the West Bank and Gaza were driven out by the invading Arab armies of Jordan and Egypt.

Tried again in 1993, 2000 and now under the Road Map since 2003 - the Quartet have backed themselves into a corner in again persisting with the claim that this is “the only viable solution.”.

There are other alternative solutions to “ending the occupation” of West Bank and Gazan Arabs that remain unexplored and unaddressed which do not have to involve the creation of a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan.

The Quartet’s stubborn insistence on its solution being the only viable solution indicates the bankruptcy of its thinking. It exposes the Quartet’s inability to adjust to the current political void in the Palestinian leadership that has totally destroyed any prospects of the Quartet’s solution even remotely occurring whilst the reconciliation process urged by the Quartet remains unfulfilled.

To expect any other outcome in negotiations whilst the West Bank and Gaza remain split into separate Fatah and Hamas fiefdoms is naïve in the extreme.

In these circumstances any demand to freeze Israeli settlements is misdirected and mistimed.

Freezing the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority until Hamas and Fatah sort out their differences makes far more sense.

To freeze settlements - in an attempt to induce the political eunuch that the Palestinian Authority presently represents to enter into meaningless and ineffectual negotiations - would be a grave error of judgment on Israel’s part.

There is no point in Israel negotiating with the Palestinian Authority at this point of time given the Palestinian Authority’s lack of legitimacy to enter into any binding commitments that it would ever have the power to enforce.

Freezing the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority until Hamas and Fatah sort out their differences is an imperative to defrosting any attempt by the Quartet to see its solution realised - as remote and distant as that prospect exists after six years of wasted effort so far.

The sooner the Quartet starts to face this reality, the sooner it may gain some credibility in its attempt to bring an end to the 120 years old conflict between Jews and Arabs over the territory once called Palestine.

Palestine - Obama And Netanyahu On Journey To Nowhere

[Published June 2009]

President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu appear on the surface to have found common ground in agreeing on the need to end the 120 years old conflict between Arabs and Jews by creating a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan.

However any basis for optimism on this score following their major speeches within ten days of each other is sorely misplaced.

Their apparent unanimity of purpose must be compared to the euphoria greeting similar expeditions undertaken by former President Clinton and Prime Minister Barak in 2000-2001 and President Bush with Prime Ministers Sharon and Olmert between 2003-2008 in concert with the Palestinian Authority - an artificial entity created by the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Both sets of negotiations went nowhere and got nowhere. Those negotiations occurred for the most part under far more favourable political conditions than now exist.

The current power struggle for control of the Palestinian Authority between Hamas and Fatah,the division of power in Gaza and the West Bank between these two foes and their seeming inability to bury their differences represent major obstacles to the successful conclusion of any negotiating process between the Palestinian Authority and Israel and its subsequent maintenance and enforcement.

Even if Hamas and Fatah were to suddenly overcome their differences tomorrow Israel would not want to deal with a unified West Bank/Gaza government in which Hamas was a member.

Mr. Netanyahu’s conditions for agreeing to the creation of this additional Arab state require that it

(i) be demilitarized ,
(ii) have to accept Jerusalem remaining the united capital of Israel
(iii) have to agree to Israel having defensible borders
(iv) have to recognise Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people
(v) have to settle the problem of the Palestinian refugees outside the borders of Israel.
(vi) have no control over air space or sea lanes

It didn’t take long for senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat to express his disbelief at this shopping list when he declared:

“Netanyahu will have to wait 1000 years for someone to agree to talk to him”

There was anger in the Arab world that Netanyahu should be publicly laying down his conditions in advance in an attempt to define the parameters of any future negotiations.

Yet the Arabs had publicly laid down their conditions for the acceptance of such a state in 1967 and haven’t changed or varied their negotiating position since then in demanding that

(i) such state be established on the entire area of land lost by Jordan and Egypt to Israel in 1967
(ii) Jerusalem be its capitol
(iii) millions of Arabs and their descendants be permitted to migrate to Israel.

Refusing to accept anything less has been the root cause of the breakdown of the previous two negotiating processes.

With the parties even further apart in their demands now in the face of Mr Netanyahu’s stated position - President Obama risks the real danger of failing to get the parties to the negotiating table at all.

In attempting to coax the Palestinian Authority to the negotiating table Obama tersely told Israel:

“The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”

No attempt was made by President Obama to explain the basis for his making this statement.

He surely could not be ignorant of the provisions of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine 1922 which gave recognition to the right of close settlement by Jews in the West Bank This internationally sanctioned legal right did not die with the League of Nations but was expressly preserved by Article 80 of the United Nations Charter and remains as legitimate today as when it was first promulgated in 1922 .

Indeed the right to settle in the West Bank was exercised by Jews prior to 1948 and was only then abruptly halted after those Jews still living there were driven out following Jordan’s occupation of the West Bank during the War of Independence. Jewish settlement in the West Bank was not resumed until Jordan lost the West Bank to Israel in the Six Day War in 1967.

United Nations records attest to the critical importance of Article 80.

On 8 May 1947, Rabbi Abba Silver representing the Jewish Agency addressed the First (Political) Committee of the United Nations and he had this to say about Article 80:

“The Mandate [for Palestine], in its preamble, recognises “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” and “the grounds for reconstituting” - I call your attention to the word “reconstituting” -“their national home in that country”.

These international commitments of a quarter of a century ago, which flowed from the recognition of historic rights and present needs, and upon which so much has already been built in Palestine by the Jewish people, cannot now be erased. You cannot turn back the hands of the clock of history.

Certainly, the United Nations, guided by the great principle proclaimed in its Charter, “to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”, can never sanction the violation of treaties and of international law.

With this situation and similar situations in mind, a specific provision, you will recall, was written into the chapter of the Charter of the United Nations which deals with territories which might become trusteeship territories, and which is therefore especially applicable to territories now under mandate. This is Article 80 of the Charter…”

In evidence given to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine on 7 July 1947, David Ben Gurion as a representative of the Jewish Agency said of Article 80:

“This is the special Article of the Charter which applies to Palestine. It was introduced only because of Palestine.”

President Obama’s claim denying the legitimacy of the settlements therefore flies in the face of the Mandate and the United Nations Charter. He needs to justify his stance with a statement far more explanatory and detailed than his one line throwaway.

American Presidents never seem to learn from the failure of their predecessors. President Obama appears hell bent on joining them in pursing their failed goal of creating a new Arab state between Jordan and Israel.

That has proved for past Presidents - and will continue to prove for President Obama- to be simply unachievable.

Palestine - Twelve Billion Reasons To Change Direction

[Published June 2009]

International donors have now started to renege on US$12 billion dollars in pledges made by them in Paris in December 2007 and at Sharm El Sheikh in March this year. Their decision threatens to send the Palestinian Authority into financial meltdown and political oblivion.

The following circumstances have contributed to this situation:

1. The Palestinian Authority continues to reject any form of rapprochement with Hamas leaving the Arab civilian populations of the West Bank and Gaza under separate Arab administrations and political control.

2. Negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel have failed to procure the creation of a new Arab State between Jordan and Israel with little chance of those negotiations being reconvened. Offers made by Israel to bring this solution to fruition have been rebuffed by the Palestinian Authority which continues to maintain the same unchanged demands made by the Arab League for the last 42 years.

3. The global financial crisis has caused international donors to reconsider whether their dollars should now be directed to more worthy international projects that have a reasonable prospect of eventuating rather than run the risk of ending up in a bottomless pit pursuing a solution that so far has failed to get to first base despite the most intense international diplomacy ever seen to try and make it happen.

Donor resistance to meeting pledges publicly surfaced when the Chairman of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee On Assistance For The Palestinians [AHLC]- Norway’s Foreign Minister Jonas Store - made an impassioned plea to donors attending last week’s meeting of the AHLC in Oslo on 8 and 9 June to not default in meeting their commitments.

The AHLC was established in 1993 following the signing of the Oslo Accords. Donor members have since then poured tens of billions of dollars into the West Bank and Gaza with very few benefits that can be readily ascertained. Much of the money has reportedly ended up in Swiss bank accounts instead of being used for the benefit of West Bank and Gaza’s Arab populations.

Donors attending the Oslo meeting last week had good reason for putting away their chequebooks when Mr Store told them:

“The mission of the AHLC can only be effective if it works in concert with a dedicated effort to forward the political process. And consequently - when the political process stalls, the majority of donors lack the necessary motivation to maintain their contributions.

Certainly tipping more money into the pool in the face of the current stalled political process appears be a most imprudent and reckless investment.

Mr Store further confirmed that

“an increasing number of donors are not living up to their pledges,”

that the

“Palestinian Authority is heading towards fundamental financial crisis” and “is hanging on by a thread.”

Mr Store urged donors to meet their pledges to prevent the demise of the Palestinan Authority saying:

“The international donor community’s support to the Palestinian Territory is in essence political, not humanitarian. Our aim is to help facilitate the creation of a two-state solution where Israeli occupation is replaced by a free and sovereign Palestinian State, living side by side with Israel in peace and security. Without this clearly defined political horizon, donor commitment at the current level can hardly be sustained. Again I believe that continued lack of a political horizon can help explain why a growing number of donors are becoming lukewarm”

The AHLC’s defined political horizon has clearly failed to eventuate.

Many donors might well regard their donations as being humanitarian in nature to provide financial relief and assistance to the civilian population rather than political. Many could take the view that their donations should not now be used to prop up the Palestinian Authority in its struggle with Hamas for control of the West Bank and Gaza streets. Mr Store’s remarks could well have offended many donors and given them additional reason to stop meeting their pledges.

Mr Store told the donors:

“Sooner rather than later, the West Bank and Gaza must be reunified as indivisible parts of one territory, under one Authority … Because absent a modicum of Palestinian political and territorial unity, it will be exceedingly difficult to negotiate, let alone implement, a final-status agreement that stands a chance of ending the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.”

In doing so Mr Store effectively exposed the weakness of President Obama’s efforts in Cairo the previous week urging Israel and the Palestinian Authority to sit down and resume negotiations. The chances of getting an agreed agenda mutually acceptable to both parties is not going to happen.

Until the Palestinian Authority and Hamas resolve their differences and come up with a unified platform that recognizes the Jewish State of Israel, the prospects of getting Israel to positively respond to President Obama’s plea will prove to be a total waste of time and effort.

The AHLC needs to urgently review its two state political horizon because the reality of that ever occurring is now further away than ever. It cannot expect donors to maintain their financial commitments in the face of the total chaos and conflict that the divisions between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority presently pose.

Perhaps Mr Store should be quietly whispering to Jordan whether it could make good use of the $12 billion dollars by replacing the Palestinian Authority and entering into negotiations with Israel to allocate sovereignty in the West Bank between Jordan and Israel.

Such a political horizon could result not only in the international donors being ready to meet their existing obligations but could well trigger an even greater financial response in the recognition that this way forward represents the most realistically attainable political solution which benefits not only Jews and Arabs but the donor countries themselves.

If the non-payment of pledges leads to the demise of the Palestinian Authority and the return of Jordan to the West Bank after previously having occupied it between 1948-1967 then perhaps such non-payments will signal the most effective international response available in helping to end the conflict between Jews and Arabs.

In a region where honouring obligations is rare the international donors would certainly be justified in deciding to end their relationship with the Palestinian Authority which has singularly failed to achieve the objective for which it was created in the euphoria of the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Biting the hand that feeds you ultimately has its consequences - as the Palestinian Authority is now starting to see.

Palestine - Some Home Truths And Missed Opportunities

[Published June 2009]

Jews and Arabs are destined to become engaged in many years of further fighting, trauma and suffering unless President Obama does a complete backflip by adopting a different stance to that he expressed in his long awaited speech at Cairo University on 4 June 2009.

The President has jumped head first into a bottomless hole in unequivocally proposing to his Cairo audience that the two state solution - the creation of a new Arab state between Israel and Jordan - remains the “only resolution” to end the 130 years conflict between Jews and Arabs in relation to the territory once known as Palestine.

President Obama has conveniently chosen to ignore that 94% of former Palestine has already been divided into two states - the Jewish State of Israel (17%) and the Arab State of Jordan (77%) - with both of those States being parties to a peace treaty executed by them in 1994.

Sovereignty in the remaining 6% of former Palestine - the West Bank and Gaza - still remains unallocated between Jews and Arabs.

The idea that sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza be divided other than between Jordan and Israel (and possibly Egypt) has resulted in a journey to nowhere for the last 62 years. President Obama has now joined former American Presidents Carter, Clinton and Bush in embroiling himself in brokering a solution that has no possible chance of succeeding.

This has not been for want of trying by the international community or President Obama’s presidential predecessors.

Missed opportunities by the Arabs to create a separate independent sovereign Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza have been squandered on at least six notable occasions in the past 62 years:

1. When offered by the United Nations in 1947
2. During the 19 years between 1948-1967 that Jordan occupied the West Bank and Egypt occupied Gaza - where not one Jew or Jewish town or village was located following the expulsion of all Jews living there as a consequence of the 1948 War of Independence
3. Between 1967-1988 when the Arabs refused to deal with or negotiate with Israel on the future of the West Bank and Gaza
4. Following the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1993
5. In 2000 at Camp David in negotiations brokered by President Clinton between PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israel’s then Prime Minister Ehud Barak
6. During negotiations conducted under President Bush’s Roadmap between 2003-2007 and under the Annapolis process between 2007-2008.

The failure to create a new Arab state between Jordan and Israel has been the result of the following intransigent and uncompromising Arab demands:

1. Their inability to accept the existence of a Jewish State in any part of former Palestine
2. Their refusal to receive anything less than 100% of the West Bank and Gaza
3. Their unwillingness to abandon their demand that millions of Arabs and their descendants be allowed to return and live in what is now Israel.

What magic formula President Obama intends to use to remove these barriers to achieving his two state solution was not articulated by him in Cairo.

Until he does so he is merely posturing and grandstanding, saying what the Arabs want to hear but remaining silent on what the Arabs need to do to make the President’s two state solution have any chance of getting off the ground.

President Obama’s approach to Jews living in the West Bank was hasty and ill considered as he told his applauding audience in Cairo:

“The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. (Applause.) This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop. (Applause.)”

The Jews possess the entitlement in international law to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in the West Bank under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine - an international trust that has been preserved under Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Anyone suggesting therefore that Jews do not have the inalienable right to live in the West Bank and reconstitute their National Home in areas designated by the Mandate where international sovereignty is yet to be determined is sliding on very thin ice. President Obama’s call to Israel to halt what has been conferred on the Jews by international law needs to be firmly resisted.

Whether that right should be exercised at this particular moment is a different issue. Denying that such a right exists does not help one iota in ending the conflict. In fact it exacerbates and fuels Arab intransigence in seeking sovereignty in every square centimetre of the West Bank and Gaza to the total exclusion of any Jewish claims.

President Obama failed to mention United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 337 and President Bush’s letter dated 14 April 2004 to Israel’s then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. These documents make it clear that Israel cannot be expected to return to the fragile armistice lines that existed in 1967.

Security remains the overriding concern for Israel as it seeks to protect its citizens from armed organizations and States that refuse and will never concede that Jews are entitled to have a state in their biblical ancestral and internationally recognised homeland.

Israel will not be returning to the 1967 armistice lines now or in the future. Until the Arabs accept this reality President Obama’s speech in Cairo will become just the latest in a long list of required reading by diplomats and university students enrolled in international relations courses trying to fathom out why it has been impossible to determine sovereignty in an area of land the size of Delaware for the last 62 years.

Well may they all shake their heads in disbelief.

Contrary to President Obama’s prescription the only solution that now has any chance of working is the division of sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza between Israel, Jordan and Egypt determined in direct trilateral negotiations between those three states.

The sooner President Obama focuses his thoughts on this solution the sooner we might see an American President who will succeed where others before him have so ignominiously failed.

Palestine - Jordan Jittery But Not To Worry

[Published May 2009]

King Abdullah of Jordan has obviously got a bad attack of the jitters as Israeli politicians now focus their attention on Jordan returning to re-occupy the heavily Arab populated areas of the West Bank - as Jordan had previously done so successfully between 1948-1967.

The hysteria emanating from Jordan at such a suggestion indicates that Israel’s politicians have touched a raw nerve that Jordan has long tried to gloss over - the fact that Jordan comprises 77% of former Palestine and has a pivotal role to play in the West Bank if there is ever to be any hope of peace between Arabs and Jews.

Sixteen years of negotiations since 1993 aimed at creating a new Arab state between Israel and Jordan in the West Bank have proved a total failure. Yet the delusion that such a State could ever be created continues to be perpetuated by a very carefully scripted and media managed performance by King Abdullah that has apparently seduced President Obama into believing he will be able to succeed where others before him have ignominiously failed.

President Obama will be in for a rude shock and end up in the same state of disbelief and disillusionment that befell his predecessors Presidents Carter, Clinton and Bush

Jordan’s Foreign Minister was concerned enough at the debate in the Knesset this week to summons Israel’s Ambassador and issue him with a strong protest:

“on a motion on a so-called two states for two peoples on the two banks of the Jordan River”

His concern might be well justified if he were reacting to the following statement made by Lebanese writer Farid Salman on OTV on 6 May 2009 as reported by Middle East Media Research Institute:

“Jordan is an invention. Transjordan, which was an emirate, and later became the Hashemite Kingdom, is part of Palestine. Britain created it in order to crown one of the sons of Hussein,from the Arabian Peninsula, over part of Greater Syria - over Palestine. This continues to be the perpetual reason… Without removing it, the Palestinian issue will not be resolved. It’s impossible.”

Farid Salman’s statement contains within it the call for the overthrow and removal of King Abdullah and an end to Hashemite rule.

President Jimmy Carter was moved to point out as long ago as 11 October 1982 in Time that Jordan as a nation was

“a contrivance arbitrarily devised by a few strokes of the pen.”

Again one could argue that Carter would not have been sorry to see Jordan’s Hashemite rulers disappear and the country be renamed Palestine.

However the current furor in Jordan over this week’s debate in the Knesset is an over reaction by a nervous Hashemite regime that sees the sword of Damocles hanging over the Hashemites every time someone mentions the origins and history of Jordan.

Jordan’s response has been topped by a remarkable outburst by Israel’s President Shimon Peres who has called the idea of two states for two peoples a

“baseless hallucination”

(Haartez 27 May)
The proposal that Jordan step in to fill the void left by the collapse of the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is sound and represents the only alternative option now open to be pursued in trying to end the conflict between Jews and Arabs that has continued for the last 120 years.

There have been countless statements made by Arab leaders attesting to the fact that Jordan forms part of Palestine and that there is no distinction between a Palestinian and a Jordanian.

Abu Iyad was able to tell the Near East Report on 8 January 1990:

“When the Palestinian State and unity is established the Jordanian will be a Palestinian and the Palestinian a Jordanian”

Even Yasser Arafat was moved to admit in Der Spiegel in 1986:

“Indeed Palestinians and Jordanians are one people. No one can divide us”

It is clearly in Israel’s national interest that Jordan’s entry into the West Bank not result in the Hashemite regime being replaced by a rogue leadership. Jordan would have to be given security guarantees by Israel to prevent any such eventuality happening, which given the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan would surely be forthcoming.

A massive injection of international funds flowing to Jordan to enable the rehabilitation of the West Bank and advance the interests of the Arabs living there would revitalise the area and offer hope for real peace and co-operation between Jews and Arabs who would continue to live where they are without having to move or sell up.

The creation of Jordan may have been an invention or a contrivance but it exists as fact today and has survived to become the homeland of the Arabs of former Palestine. Extending its borders to embrace the heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank is the master key to separating Jews and Arabs and removing the barriers and roadblocks that currently impede normal communication and contact between the Arab residents of the West Bank. Extending Jordanian citizenship will give them the right of self determination they have long sought to obtain.

The creation of the Palestinian Authority was another invention or contrivance that proved to be a total failure and now needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history. Jordan is a success story and the Hashemites are entitled to take full credit for what has been achieved since independence was granted in 1946.

The creation of a new Arab state between Jordan and Israel in the West Bank would be another invention or contrivance with no basis to support it historically, geographically or demographically. Rather than advance the cause of peace it would represent a threat to the continued existence of both Israel and Jordan.

King Abdullah might not relish being thrown into the spotlight. However he better get used to it.

Jordan’s role in resolving the conflict won’t go away.

Palestine - Pope Abandons Morality For Politics

[Published May 2009]

Pope Benedict has given Jews and Catholics throughout the world every reason to believe that if you can’t trust the Pope to keep an agreement then who can you trust?

The Pope on two separate occasions during his visit to the Holyland this week has seen fit to plunge into the world of Middle East politics using the long established tradition of saying one thing to the Jews and something very different to the Arabs.

On his arrival in Israel he declared:

“I plead with all those responsible to explore every possible avenue in the search for a just resolution of the outstanding difficulties, so that both peoples may live in peace in a homeland of their own, within secure and internationally recognized borders.”

His Jewish hosts would have welcomed the Pope’s use of the term “homeland” with no definite opinion being expressed by His Holiness on another State needing to be created between Israel and Jordan.

The Jews would have been happy to hear the borders had to be both secure and internationally recognized. This would support Israel’s stance in previous negotiations that any new Arab State between Israel and Jordan could not be established in 100% of the West Bank. You could even say the Pope was seen to be endorsing United Nations Resolution 242 which prescribes the very same formula.

Speaking in the presence of PLO Chief and extant President of the Palestinian Authority - Mahmoud Abbas - the Pope had changed his tune just two days later:

“Mr President, the Holy See supports the right of your people to a sovereign Palestinian homeland in the land of your forefathers, secure and at peace with its neighbors, within internationally recognized borders,”

Gone were the secure borders. The homeland was to be sovereign, secure and at peace with its neighbours. No mention was made of who those neighbours might be,

The Arabs could be excused for interpreting this pronouncement as the Papal endorsement of the destruction of Israel and its replacement with one Palestinian state secure and at peace with its neighbours Jordan and Egypt.

One can only wonder what made the Pope make two such utterly contradictory statements in the space of forty eight hours.

“Popespeak” had reached new heights in totally confusing what the Pope intended to convey. If his words of wisdom were meant to be ambiguous and evasive the Pope certainly achieved his objective. Contradictory statements like these however don’t advance the peace process but only heighten and encourage the maintenance of different political stances adopted by the conflicting parties.

The real disappointment in the Pope’s remarks however came from the Pope’s cardinal breach of Clause 11(2) of the Agreement signed between Israel and the Holy See in 1993 which states:

“The Holy See while maintaining in every case the right to exercise its moral and spiritual teaching-office, deems it opportune to recall that owing to its own character, it is solemnly committed to remaining a stranger to all merely temporal conflicts, which principle applies specifically to disputed territories and unsettled borders.”

There is no ambiguity in these clear and precise words.

The inexcusable breach of these terms by the Pope in both of his addresses signifies the ease with which agreements can be abandoned - even by one recognized as occupying a position among the most moral held by any human being.

The Pope had properly told both his Arab and Jewish hosts that his visit was intended as a pilgrimage. He may well have been able to inspire them had he stuck firmly to that agenda and not plunged headlong into a minefield that continues to claim as victims the most powerful politicians on this planet.

His attempt to play the base political game and emulate the long line of politicians who have traced the same path in the Middle East speaking with forked tongues was a disaster.

Any claim by the Pope to become an independent interlocutor of moral authority disappeared with his intemperate statements breaching the Vatican’s own well defined guidelines.

The prospects of achieving any sort of peace agreement between the Jews and Arabs has now become more distant than ever.

The Pope’s constant host at his side throughout the visit was the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem - Archbishop Fouad Twal, Perhaps some clarity and meaning to the Pope’s thinking can be gauged by a statement made by Archbishop Twal to Vatican Radio on 21 June 2008:

“The majority of our priests, nuns, schools, families are in Jordan. We need to see a link to Jordan…”

Jordan indeed remains the key to solving the long running conflict between Jews and Arabs - be they Moslem or Christian

Until Jordan becomes fully engaged in any negotiations on the allocation of future sovereignty in the West Bank no possible prospects of meaningful progress can emerge.

Papal intrusion into politics is most unwise especially where the Pope in this case has made a specific commitment to remain detached from the current conflict.

In breaching rather than observing that commitment the Pope has failed the most basic of tests that human beings are asked to respect and observe - sticking to an agreement. His failure to do so is a matter of great regret.