Reuters Reprehensible Report Requires Retraction

[Published March 2010]

Reuters - considered the world’s top news source - has allowed its credibility to be seriously damaged with the publication of its “Timeline: Path to new Israel-Palestinian talks” on 7 March 2010.

Its cursory - almost totally dismissive - omission of Jewish claims to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine - are made blatantly clear at the beginning of its Timeline which states:

“Here are key dates on the path to this point:
1897 - European Jews in Zionist movement declare goal of creating a Jewish state in Ottoman Turkish-ruled Palestine.

1917 - British forces take Palestine from collapsing Ottoman empire in World War One. British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour declares support for Jewish “national home” there.

1945 - Revelation of Nazi Holocaust and new Jewish migration to Palestine bolster Western support for creating Jewish state.

1948 - Britain quits and great powers recognize Israel as U.N. partition plan dissolves in war that leaves Jewish state on 78 percent of land and half of Palestine’s Arabs as refugees.”

1967 - In what it calls pre-emptive strikes on Arab states, Israeli forces seize rest of British-mandate Palestine, taking West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan and Gaza Strip from Egypt. Israel captures Golan Heights from Syria.

1988 - After a year of Intifada (uprising), exiled PLO leader Yasser Arafat, widely acknowledged as speaking for Palestinians, renounces “terrorism” and accepts Israel’s right to exist.

Omitted from this hastily concocted version are the following crucial - and critical - dates:

1920: Treaty of Sevres entrusts the administration of Palestine to a Mandatory for putting into effect the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

1922: Britain appointed Mandatory for Palestine by unanimous vote of the League of Nations. 78% of Mandate Palestine excluded from inclusion in the future Jewish National Home in area known as Transjordan which is exclusively reserved for Arab homeland.

1937: Peel Commission recommends division of Palestine into two States - one Jewish, one Arab . Arabs reject recommendation.

1939: Britain severely limits Jewish emigration to Palestine in breach of Mandate for duration of World War Two.

1945: League of Nations wound up and United Nations created. Article 80 inserted in United Nations Charter preserves Jewish rights to establish Jewish National Home in Palestine.

1946: Britain grants Transjordan independence in 78% of Mandate Palestine.

1947: United Nations votes to divide remaining 22% of Mandate Palestine into two states - one Jewish, one Arab. Arabs reject recommendation. Fighting breaks out between Jews and Arabs.

1948: Reuters omits to mention that

•six Arab armies invaded Palestine
•Egypt occupied Gaza and Transordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem
•The Palestinian National Conference decides to place the West Bank under the sovereignty of Transjordan and
•Erroneously states that Israel ended up with 78% - not 17% - of the land

1949: Transjordan changes its name to Jordan

1950: The West Bank and Jordan are unified into one country by the Jordanian Parliament comprising equal number of West Bank and Jordanian representatives

1967: Reuters omits to mention Security Council Resolution 242 requiring Israel to only withdraw to secure and recognized boundaries.

1988: Jordan cedes any claims to the West Bank

This perversion of the history of Palestine is either induced by ignorance or a deliberate suppression of critical information that goes to the heart of the debate currently raging at the moment.

Inclusion of the above dates in Reuters Timeline would substantiate Jewish claims to be entitled to sovereignty in all or part of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and to build settlements there based on the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter - rights grounded in international law.

Their absence from the Timeline needs to be explained or justified by Reuters if it is to regain any credibility in its reporting in the Middle East.

This Timeline has now been distributed throughout Reuters extensive network and can be viewed on its American, British and Indian websites and has been published and reproduced by other web sites and news services.

It has also been distributed on Reuters AlertNet site which proudly claims:

“AlertNet attracts upwards of ten million users a year, has a network of 400 contributing humanitarian organizations and its weekly email digest is received by more than 26,000 readers

It was started in 1997 by Reuters Foundation - an educational and humanitarian trust - to place Reuters’ core skills of speed, accuracy and freedom from bias at the service of the humanitarian community.”

Any claim to Reuters possessing these core skills is exposed as a sham and continues the gross media bias that continues to bury Jewish claims in international law to the West Bank and Gaza and to settle there to reconstitute the Jewish National Home.

Reuters continues the practice of the United Nations which similarly omitted any mention of many of these critical dates when seeking an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice in 2004 on the legality of the construction of the security barrier on and over the 1967 armistice lines.

Judge Elaraby - gave this warning to his fellow 14 judges sitting on that case:

“,,, the international legal status of the Palestinian Territory merits more comprehensive treatment”.

Judge Elaraby identified the need for such a review saying:

“A historical survey is relevant to the question posed by the General Assembly, for it serves as the background to understanding the legal status of the Palestinian Territory on the one hand and underlines the special and continuing responsibility of the General Assembly on the other. This may appear as academic, without relevance to the present events. The present is however determined by the accumulation of past events and no reasonable and fair concern for the future can possibly disregard a firm grasp of past events. In particular, when on one or more than one occasion, the rule of law was consistently sidestepped.”

Judge Elaraby continued:

“The point of departure, or one can say in legal jargon, the critical date, is the League of Nations Mandate which was entrusted to Great Britain”

The bias of the United Nations against Israel in omitting to refer to the Mandate when approaching the International Court is par for the course.

Reuters omission to similarly inform its millions of readers now places it on a similar pedestal following the publication of its grossly inaccurate and misleading Timeline.

The best thing Reuters can do is immediately withdraw its Timeline. I would hope it has the integrity and honesty to do so with an appropriate - and prominent - apology for its publication in the first place.

Palestine - Israeli Bombshell Bounces Off Mediterranean Parliamentarians

[Published March 2010]

A bombshell was lobbed into an International Meeting in support of Israeli- Palestinian Peace organized by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean Union [PAM] and the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People [CEIRPP] of the United Nations in Malta on 12 and 13 February 2010.

Yet the explosion passed over the heads of those present without scarcely a ripple.

The meeting was attended by a number of Member delegations of PAM, parliamentarians from other national and regional assemblies, government officials, experts including Israeli and Palestinians, UN Member States and observers, intergovernmental and civil society organisations.

In all there were 35 countries, 13 Inter-Governmental Organizations, 14 Civil Society Organizations and Academic Institutions, totaling around 200 participants.

Israel Parliamentarians were not officially represented at the Conference. The two members of the Israeli Knesset were reported by the Malta Times to have pulled out of the conference after they objected to comments by Palestinian officials about the situation in Gaza and the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The bombshell nevertheless was delivered by one of the two Israelis present at the conference - Mr Alon Liel.

Described in the official transcript of the proceedings as “Lecturer of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem” Mr Liel told the Conference (as recorded in the transcript):

“he was not representing the Israeli Government, adding that, unfortunately, there was no member of the Israeli Government at the present Meeting. He said that many in Israel felt that the peace process had crashed to the extent that the two-State solution looked impossible at the moment, adding, “You need an unbelievable earthquake, 8 on the Richter scale, on the political map of Israel, to bridge the gap between Israel and the Palestinians”. The talks between Palestinians and Mr. Olmert were over. Even if the Americans managed to arrange proximity talks and enter a hotel and sit in one room, with the existing political map in Israel, “the gap is unbridgeable”. He acknowledged that with a broken heart, but did not see the possibility of a Palestinian State being created in the foreseeable future. And he was not even speaking of Jerusalem or refugees, but about borders only, he said.“

Mr Liel’s modest qualifications as recorded in the transcript belied his extensive diplomatic experience and public service which includes:

•Nov 2000 - April 2001 Director General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

•1997-1999 Foreign Affairs advisor to Ehud Barak, Chairman of the Labor Party

•1992-94 Israeli Ambassador to South Africa (Non-resident Ambassador to Mozambique and Zimbabwe)

•1990-1992 Consul General of Israel to the Southeastern United States (based in Atlanta, Georgia)

•1988-1989 Foreign Ministry Spokesman; Member of Israeli delegation to the United Nations General Assembly; Member of the Israeli negotiating team at the Taba talks with Egypt

•President of the Israel-Syria Peace Society

Only two people present at the Conference seemed to have absorbed the import of Mr Liel’s statement.

One - a representative from Tunis said he had been optimistic at the start of the Meeting, but he was very pessimistic now after having listened to Mr. Liel.

The other was the Palestine Authority’s chief negotiator - Saeb Erekat who was reported as saying:

“what Mr. Liel had done was “transparent and honest”. He had reflected the facts as they were. The Coalition Government in Israel today was not up to the two-State solution with the 1967 borders. The Palestinian leadership had reached the same conclusion. But that did not mean the Palestinians should give up.“

Mr Erekat’s last comment seemed rather hollow considering the Palestinian Authority’s steadfast refusal to resume negotiations with Israel for the last three months following Israel‘s ten months freeze on residential construction in the West Bank announced last November.

What else can now be possibly done to achieve the “two-state option” - the creation of a new Arab state between Israel , Jordan and Egypt - after 16 years of failed diplomacy and negotiations in attempting to make even the slightest breakthrough?

Mr Liel had previously warned in an interview in Asharq Alawsat on 18 March 2008:

“…we think that peace with the Palestinians today is unrealistic. There is a split between Hamas and Fatah, and there is a coup in Gaza, which has exacerbated the situation. There are burning issues the present government cannot resolve now, such as the issues of Jerusalem, the refugees, and the borders. These are very difficult issues.”

What was true in 2008 is even more valid in 2010. Nothing has changed in those two years.

Further negotiations with the Palestinian Authority will assuredly prove to be a complete waste of time and effort.

The Palestinian Authority’s use by date and credentials to negotiate the future sovereignty of the West Bank have well and truly expired.

Yet those present at the Malta Conference continued to repeat the need for the Jewish-Arab conflict to be resolved by the creation of yet another Arab State in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Like ostriches with their heads in the sand - they failed to listen to what Mr Liel and Mr Erekat were telling them.

Perhaps those present at the conference should heed what Mr Liel had to say almost ten years ago on 1 November 2000 when taking up the position of Director General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry in the aftermath of the failed Camp David negotiations brokered by President Clinton:

“The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians has suffered a terrible blow, just as Israel and the Palestinians were on the very brink of realizing their dreams of peace and reconciliation. At the last kilometer of the marathon, as we were nearing the finishing line, Arafat turned around and ran back in the opposite direction. This retrogressive and illogical action goes against the tide of history, it is contrary to the wishes of the international community, and it is surely detrimental to the interests of his own people. Arafat started running in the opposite direction, and he has not stopped for a moment. In doing so, he has harmed the peace process, while undermining his own standing and personal reputation. Arafat has chosen to renounce his status as a statesman, preferring instead to revert to his old role as the leader of a campaign of incitement, violence and terrorism. Arafat has a golden opportunity to lead his people to a new and promising future. Instead, he has taken a dangerous step backwards towards the abyss.”

Mr Liel’s words could be just as appropriately applied today to Mahmoud Abbas’s rejection of the peace offer made by Israel’s former Prime Minister - Ehud Olmert - in 2008.

Whilst the international community continues talking - and not listening to those with intimate knowledge and understanding of the hopelessness inherent in bringing the two-state option to fruition - both Jews and Arabs are set to endure a lot more suffering and trauma before the reality sinks in and a new course is charted to try and bring some closure to the conflict.

Palestine - Mediterranean Union Misses Making Its Mark

[Published February 2010]

An International Meeting in support of Israeli- Palestinian Peace was organized by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean Union and the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People [CEIRPP] of the United Nations in Malta on 12 and 13 February 2010.

The Union now includes all 27 member states of the European Union, along with 16 partners across the Southern Mediterranean and the Middle East.

The meeting turned out to be the usual talkfest in flogging a dead horse - the creation of a 22nd Arab State between Jordan, Israel and Egypt - also known as “the two-state solution“. This solution has been unsuccessfully pursued for the last 16 years and there is no possible chance that such a resolution will be achieved at any time in the future.

The two-state solution could have been availed of in 1937,1947, between 1948-1967, in 2000/2001 and 2008 but was rejected on each occasion by the Arabs. It will continue to be rejected by the Arabs who are not prepared to tolerate Israel gaining sovereignty in any part of the West Bank.

Despite the hopelessness of ever reaching the two-state solution - those present in Malta still concluded in their final communique :

“The Organizers appreciated that the participants had stated their firm commitment to ending Israeli occupation which started on 4 June 1967 in order to achieve a permanent two-State solution in which Israel and Palestine would live side by side in peace and security within mutually recognized borders. …

The Organizers support the firm stance by the international community not to recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders including with regard to occupied Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties.”

These statements go to the heart of explaining why the two-state solution can never be achieved for the following reasons:

•Israel’s occupation of the West Bank as a consequence of the Six Day War in 1967 is conveniently forgotten

•The use of the term “borders” is clearly wrong. There were in 1967 - and still are in 2010 - only armistice lines - a legacy of the Arab League‘s refusal to recognize Israel and settle the final boundaries between Israel, Jordan and Egypt following the conclusion of hostilities in 1948.

•No recognition is given to Security Council resolution 242 which does not require Israel to withdraw from the entire West Bank but only to withdraw to secure and recognized boundaries

•The statement ignores the Palestinan Authority’s continuing refusal to surrender its claim to even one square metre of the West Bank to Israel.

•America has recognized that a change to the 1967 armistice lines is necessary given the changed circumstances on the ground where 500000 Jews now live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The notion that these Jews can be forcibly evicted from their homes is racist and offensive.

•No account has been taken of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine which provides that the West Bank and East Jerusalem were to form part of the area within which the Jewish National Home was to be reconstituted and that such right has been preserved by Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

No doubt the tone and language of the final communique was inevitable given the involvement of the CEIRPP, whose participation ensured that no attention would be paid to Arab intransigence and lost opportunities over 62 years - which has been largely responsible for any progress in finalizing the two-state solution.

What was particularly interesting was the frequent reference to the importance, observance and respect for the rule of international law in resolving the conflict to achieve the two-state solution. Such a reference appears on six separate occasions in the communique.

Yet the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter didn’t rate a mention in Malta.

Strangely enough these critical documents were also omitted from inclusion by the United Nations Secretary General in the brief submitted to the World Court when seeking the advisory opinion of the Court on the legality of the construction of Israel’s security barrier in the West Bank.

One wonders whether any of these august bodies will eventually take the time to read the Mandate and article 80 and fully understand what was determined by the League of Nations in 1922 following the Treaty of Sevres in 1920.

This is not ancient history but has been kept alive and is relevant today by virtue of Article 80.

Whilst the United Nations and its member States flagrantly breach the terms of the UN Charter pursuing a course of conduct that is completely devoid of compliance with and acknowledgment of international law, any hope of a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Jews and Arabs relating to the territory once called “Palestine” will be impossible.

The reference by the Malta Meeting to the West Bank as “occupied Palestinian land” rather than “territory disputed between Jew and Arabs” further indicates an Arab bias that needs to be eradicated if the Mediterranean Union wishes to play any future role in resolving the conflict.

A hint of things to come was apparent in the following terms of the final communique:

“They [the participants] expressed their hope that the ten-month freeze of settlement expansion declared by the Israeli Government would be comprehensive, extended to East Jerusalem and retained indefinitely. “

Israel will no doubt be subjected to intense pressure to comply with this demand - irrespective of whether the Palestinian Authority resumes negotiations within the ten months time frame or not.

Rather than exploring new ideas to end the conflict, the Malta Meeting trotted out the old and familiar phrases that have formed the vocabulary of Middle East diplomacy for decades.

In doing do the Mediterranean Union has shown itself unable to break free from the failures of the past and embrace new and innovative ideas - such as the return of Jordan to the West Bank - which might offer some hope to resolving what President Obama has described as “an intractable problem”.

Abdullah Bristles As Palestine Fizzles

Jordan’s King Abdullah is clearly feeling the pressure as the spotlight increasingly focuses on the role Jordan will have to play in resolving the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank between Jews and Arabs.

This became very clear in the interview given by the King to Fareed Zakaria, in Davos Switzerland during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting on 29 January.

The two-state solution - designed to create a new Arab State between Israel, Jordan and Egypt in the West Bank and Gaza - has comprehensively failed despite the most intensive diplomatic efforts to achieve such an outcome during the last 17 years

The root cause of failure has been the Arab League’s refusal to budge from its 43 years old negotiating position that demands:

1.the ceding by Israel of sovereignty in 100% of the West Bank and Gaza

2.Israel accepting millions of Arabs into the Jewish State

Offers by Israel to cede sovereignty in excess of 90% of the West Bank - which houses 95% of the Arab population living there - were rejected by the Arabs in 2001 and 2008.

Israel is not prepared to cede any further territory in the West Bank for security reasons. This area also houses the majority of the 500000 Jewish population who currently live in the West Bank.

Israel’s evacuation of Gaza in 2005 has proved disastrous with Hamas seizing control from the Palestinian Authority in 2007 - effectively dividing the proposed new State into two separately controlled fiefdoms.

The failure of President Obama to get Israel and the Palestinian Authority to resume negotiations for the last twelve months - which assuredly won’t go anywhere even if they were to be resumed - has sent power brokers scurrying to find alternatives to the two-state solution.

King Abdullah in his above interview expressed his own fears when stating:

“Actually, this is probably the first time where I am somewhat pessimistic”

His gloomy mood was further emphasised when he said:

“…sooner or later there is an invisible line in the sand that we will cross that will be clear to everybody, whether or not the viability of a two-state solution is there. And I hope we haven’t crossed that yet but when –or God forbid –we do cross that line, then I think we doom the Middle East and the region to many decades of instability.”

With the deepest respect to His Majesty - that invisible line was crossed when the Palestinian Authority rejected the offer made by Israel in the negotiations conducted in 2008.

Israel’s chief negotiator in 2008 - Udi Dekel - spelt out the reasons for that failure when he told Ha’Aretz on 25 January in a revealing interview:

"The Palestinian approach was in principle the demand of 100 percent of their rights from 1967. The practical aspect interested them less. They are not willing to discuss any further compromise," he said. "We tried to build scenarios, some of them were imaginary, about specific compromises, but we found the Palestinians taking an approach of ‘all or nothing’."

Israel’s former National Security Advisor - Giora Eiland - has recently called for Jordan to replace the Palestinian Authority as Israel’s negotiating partner.

This has clearly upset King Abdullah who said in the above interview:

“There are pushes by certain elements of the Israeli government to say Jordan takes a role in the West Bank. That is never going to work and we have to be very clear that Jordan absolutely does not want to have anything to do with the West Bank.

All we will be doing is replacing Israeli military with Jordanian military. The Palestinians do not want that. They want to have their own statehood.

And again, what type of West Bank are we talking about? We are talking about a viable entity. What I think these people are offering to try and pull Jordan in is really nothing that would create enough statehood or make the Palestinians feel that they have something that’s called their home. So Jordan – I’m on the record; we’ve said this so many times –we will not have any role in the West Bank.”

King Abdullah is in a state of denial and needs to reverse his negative stance for the following reasons:

1.Jordan was the last Arab occupier of the West Bank between 1948-1967 when it could have - but failed - to give the Palestinians their own statehood in 100% of that territory after the Jews living there had been driven out following Jordan’s conquest of the West Bank in the 1948 War of Independence. Jordan’s return to the West Bank would substantially restore the status quo existing in 1967.

2.Jordan extended its sovereignty, and consequently all applicable domestic law, to the West Bank and East Jerusalem in April 1950. Reinstatement - where necessary - could be easily achieved.

3.West Bank Arabs were Jordanian nationals between 1950 - 1988 - until their nationality was withdrawn by Jordan. Jordanian nationality could now be as easily reinstated by Jordanian legislative decree.

4.Jordan ceded its claims to sovereignty in the West Bank in 1988 in favour of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) - which itself had previously ceded any claims to “exercise regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” under Article 24 of the 1964 Charter of the PLO. These semantic name games can again be easily reversed.

5.Jordan - together with Israel - comprise the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine possessing sovereignty between them in 94% of former Palestine. Only 6% of Palestine - the West Bank and Gaza - remains unallocated between them.

6.Jordan’s return to the West Bank can immediately free its Arab residents from Israeli occupation and control, give them Jordanian nationality, a home and a State -Jordan.

7.Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel provides mechanisms for peacefully settling outstanding issues such as water, refugees and Jerusalem.

King Abdullah needs to heed the following advice given by him in his interview with Fareed Zakaria:

“Don’t take no for an answer. There are members of my society that, when I say ‘Let’s do something’, there’s a – I wish I could translate it into English–but it’s ‘Tsk’. The Arabs will know what I mean when I say ‘Let’s move this sector of society’ –‘Tsk, that’s never going to happen. We can’t find the money’. And I think that has been the major challenge that I’ve had over the past 10 years. It is not to be intimidated by the ‘Tsk’ that I get from society."

King Abdullah must show real leadership at this time of crisis and ready himself for negotiations with Israel - for nothing else has a chance of succeeding. This will avert the doom and instability predicted by the King following the collapse of the two-state solution.

Now is certainly not the time for King Abdullah to say “Tsk”. Please think again Your Majesty.

Palestine - Jordan And Egypt In State Of Denial

[Published January 2010]

Jordan and Egypt need to replace the Palestinian Authority as the Arab partner to negotiate with Israel on the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem according to a paper entitled “Regional Alternatives To The Two State Solution” written by Israel’s former National Security Advisor - Giora Eiland

Eiland’s paper contains two suggested alternatives to the “two-state solution”. He states that there are other creative alternatives that will present themselves once Jordan and Egypt replace the Palestinian Authority as Israel’s negotiating partner.

Eiland presented his paper to a special Ambassadors’ Forum briefing for members of the diplomatic community representing around 30 countries in Israel and at a conference hosted by the University’s Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies last week.

In an introduction to Eiland’s paper BESA’s Director - Professor Efraim Inbar - commented:

“It is clearly a study that challenges conventional wisdom. The great difficulty of changing thought patterns that have become entrenched within dominant paradigms, such as the widespread notion of the need to establish a Palestinian state, is well known.”

The time to change those entrenched thought patterns has now emerged for the following reasons:

1.Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have gone nowhere in the last 16 years

2.The Palestinian Authority now refuses to further negotiate with Israel until Israel ceases all building activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - which Israel is not prepared to do

3.The Palestinian Authority shows no preparedness to change the negotiating position which its alter ego - the PLO - has adopted for the last 42 years - namely a sovereign and fully independent state in 100% of the West Bank and Gaza with its capital situated in Jerusalem and no recognition of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people.

4.The Palestinian Authority has lost its status as sole spokesman for the Palestinian Arabs since 2007 and is now locked in a bitter power struggle with Fatah for total control of the Palestinian Arabs and the government of any future state

5.Gaza and the West Bank have been split into separate fiefdoms governed respectively by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and no unification of the two areas under one government appears likely to occur.

Eiland asserts that Israel made a grave mistake in trying to resolve the Palestinian problem on its own without the involvement of Egypt and Jordan. The position has now been reached in his opinion where no allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem will ever occur without the direct involvement of these two nation states.

There are very strong and supportive views for this position:

•Egypt was the last Arab State to occupy Gaza between 1948-1967 and Jordan the last Arab State to occupy east Jerusalem and the West Bank during the same period of 19 years.

•During those 19 years no Jew resided in these areas and the “two state solution” could have been implemented at any time by Jordan and Egypt in that period if the Arabs had wanted to do so.

•The loss of those areas to Israel in 1967 and the fact that 500000 Jews now live there makes it impossible to return to the 1967 armistice lines that then separated the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem from Israel.

•Since 1967 both Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with Israel - Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 - that have been maintained and respected by all signatories.

•Jordan - with Israel - are the two successor States to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and currently exercise sovereignty in 94% of Mandatory Palestine. They are obviously the best negotiating partners - with Egypt - to resolve Arab and Jewish claims to sovereignty in the remaining 6% - the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

The Egyptian response to Eiland’s proposal has been less than lukewarm.

A representative of the Egyptian embassy in Israel said that the Palestinian problem should not be turned into an Egyptian problem.

This view is hard to accept since Egypt partially created the problem by doing nothing between 1948-1967 in Gaza when it had the opportunity to do so.

Jordan severed its ties with - and any claims to sovereignty of - the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1988 to the PLO. The failure of the PLO and its successor - the Palestinian Authority - to achieve Arab sovereignty in the last 22 years only highlights the need for Jordan to resume negotiations with Israel to try and achieve a better outcome.

This is especially so since the signing of Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel in 1994 already deals with such contentious issues as refugees, water and Jerusalem. The only issue still to be resolved is the new border to be drawn between these two sovereign states.

Whilst there has been no official response from Jordan to Eiland’s suggestion, it is interesting to note that a Jordanian prosecutor agreed on 21 January to hear a lawsuit against two Israeli lawmakers - Speaker Reuven Rivlin and Arye Eldad - after they called for turning Jordan into a Palestinian state.

Arye Eldad - made the following response to such news:

“Apparently in Jordan, telling the truth is against the law. This is a ridiculous attempt to impose Jordanian law on Israel - which allows freedom of speech. No lawsuit can change the fact that Jordan is Palestinian and that the Hashemites are ruling over the Palestinian majority in a dictatorship.”

Eldad said he would continue his efforts to persuade American congressmen and leaders all over the world that Jordan must be the Palestinian state.

“There need to be two states for two peoples,” Eldad said. “The Palestinians have a state, Jordan, and I will continue my campaign to make sure the world realizes this. The next time the world sees a stalemate in the diplomatic process, they must know that this is as a realistic option.”

Eiland’s proposal for negotiations between Israel, Jordan and Egypt indeed remains the only possible way to finally resolve sovereignty in the West Bank ,Gaza and East Jerusalem.

Perhaps Eiland should replicate the advice given by US Embassy spokesman in Israel - Keith Hoyer - when commenting on American Special Envoy George Mitchell’s shuttle diplomacy:

“He’s just trying to persuade, and sometimes you persuade by restating your position, again and again and again, until you get an agreement”

As time goes by and the “two state solution” sinks slowly to the bottom of the harbour - Eiland’s message - if repeated often and loud enough - will be eventually heard by the international community and the Arab League looking for a lifeline to avoid them all going down with the ship.

Palestine - Abbas Attempts The Turkey Trot

[Published January 2010]

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visited Turkey on 6 January and attempted to dance his own version of the Turkey Trot - 100 years after its first introduction to the ballroom floor.

The Turkey Trot was a dance made popular in the early 1900s. The basic step consisted of four hopping steps sideways with the feet well apart, first on one leg, then the other with a characteristic rise on the ball of the foot, followed by a drop upon the heel. The dance was embellished with scissor-like flicks of the feet and fast trotting actions with abrupt stops.

Abbas seems to have now adopted some similar fancy footwork in his approach to resuming negotiations with Israel

He reportedly told Turkey’s assembled diplomats that he was ready to resume talks with Israel if Israel recognized the legitimacy of the Annapolis peace process initiated in November 2007 - which he said was a road map that required Israeli withdrawal from occupied Palestinian and Arab territory and from East Jerusalem.

His statement to the Turkish diplomats marks a remarkable sideways step by Abbas who had previously refused to resume negotiations with Israel unless Israel froze all building activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and also recognized the 1967 armistice lines as the border of a future Palestinian State.

Abbas however seems to have been dancing on one leg in front of the Turkish diplomats because the Annapolis process

•Does not bind the current Israeli Government
•Does not require Israeli withdrawal from “occupied Palestinian and Arab territory and from East Jerusalem”

- as Abbas led the Turkish ambassadors to believe for the following reasons:

1.The then Israeli Government in 2007 never ratified Annapolis - nor did the Knesset - Israel’s sovereign Parliament.
2.The one document that binds Israel is its ratification of the 2003 Road Map formulated by President Bush and adopted unanimously by the Quartet - America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations subject to 14 reservations made by Israel and communicated in writing to President Bush.
3.Israel’s then Prime Minister - Ehud Olmert - made it quite clear to Abbas and the world leaders assembled at Annapolis on 27 November 2007 that the negotiations under Annapolis were to be “based on previous agreements between us, UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the Roadmap and the April 14th 2004 letter from President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel.”

Letters from American Presidents to Israeli 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 any negotiations with Israel.

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 in the West Bank 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.

Abbas’s crocodile tears and slick foot movements are now the order of the day. Like the Annapolis Conference they are a total waste of time.

Perhaps Abbas should now reflect on the only game in town - the Roadmap - and Israel’s 14 reservations to it - and reflect why six years of negotiations have so far come to nought.

Abbas’s cursory dismissal of these 14 reservations by Israel has been one of the major obstacles to achieving any negotiated settlement of the claims by Jews and Arabs to sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza

The first of those reservations immediately indicates why the Roadmap cannot succeed whilst it remains unimplemented:

“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.”

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

If Abbas seriously wants to return to the Annapolis process then he needs to affirm the parameters on which any negotiations will be conducted and acknowledge the centrality of the letter from President Bush to then Prime Minister of Israel - Ariel Sharon - on 14 April 2004 and accept Israel’s reservations to the Road Map.

The sooner Abbas acknowledges and accepts these two crucial documents as integral to any negotiations, the sooner he might find a partner to do the Turkey Trot with him.

Both partners will still however have to really engage in some scissor like flicks of the feet - if any progress is ever going to be made in achieving the creation of a brand new sovereign Arab State between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

Fatah and Hamas - Reconciliation Or Divorce Of The Year?

[Published January 2010]

The world waits with bated breath as the marriage counsellor - Egypt - frantically tries to bring Fatah and Hamas to the mosque to renew their vows once again after a particularly bruising and public slanging match that has seen the West Bank and Gaza split into separate Hamas and Fatah fiefdoms whilst supporters of both factions have been murdered, imprisoned, tortured, discriminated against and had their legs broken over the past two years.

The situation in the past year alone is best summarized by the Cairo Institute For Human Rights Studies in its December 2009 Report titled “Bastion of Immunity, Mirage of Reform” :

“Under the cover of the war in Gaza, Hamas embarked on several repressive measures targeting Fatah members, figures who oppose Hamas’ rule, and suspected collaborators with Israel, and it is suspected that dozens of people were killed, either shot to death or as a result of torture. Hamas personnel also broke the legs and arms of dozens of other people to compel them to stay in their homes. Also, some government employees in Gaza were replaced with Hamas loyalists.

In the West Bank, under the authority of Fatah, hundreds of Hamas sympathizers remain in detention; it is thought that at least two of the detainees have died as a result of torture. The West Bank authorities fired civil servants and teachers suspected of Hamas sympathies, while the salaries of thousands of employees of the Palestinian authority inside the Gaza Strip were suspended. Licensing for associations and companies in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip is now preceded by a security check,and those organizations that have affiliations with the “wrong” party are refused Licenses.”

News reports are very confusing concerning the progress reached by these two antagonists in becoming reconciled once again with each other.

Sri Lanka’s Daily News reports that Hamas head Khaled Meshall visited Saudi Arabia on 2nd January and told Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Affairs Minister:

“We made great steps forward reconciliation,”

though he made clear that Hamas still has some points to settle regarding the Egyptian reconciliation proposal which was made last October and unconditionally signed by Fatah in Cairo but not by Hamas since then.

On the other hand Xinhua News Agency reported that Mohamed Dahlan a member of the Fatah Central Committee ruled out any forthcoming reconciliation stating:

"Hamas movement is the only party that obstructs reaching an inter-Palestinian reconciliation deal… it is also because that Hamas stance is controlled by regional powers."

He was no doubt referring to Hamas’s financial backers, arms suppliers and exporters of terrorism - Syria and Iran.

Yet any delay in reconciling was denied by Hamas spokesman - Ahmed Yousef - who said that reports that Hamas does not want to sign the Egyptian reconciliation protocol are:

“… untrue and rootless. Hamas leaders are ready to go to Cairo once they are invited to sign the pact. Hamas movement doesn’t want to make any change in the text of the Egyptian drafted pact of reconciliation. However, there are some notes that need to be clarified and amended through a session of dialogue, then Hamas will sign the reconciliation agreement"

No doubt any such side understandings will be not be made public making any publicly revealed document not worth the paper it is written on.

However Egypt may not be issuing an invite to Hamas to visit Cairo very soon following protests over an international aid convoy to Gaza, led by George Galloway, which turned violent on 6 January at the border between Egypt and Gaza killing one Egyptian soldier and leaving dozens injured.

Egypt has also come under fire recently from Hamas for stepping up efforts along the Egyptian border to stop tunnel smugglers from moving supplies into Gaza. Egypt’s construction of an underground barrier to cut off the tunnels has drawn criticism from a number of neighbouring Arab states, who call the barrier a “wall of death.”

Egypt maintains that it is protecting its borders, and that aid to Gaza should be sent via internationally recognized channels.

Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is certain to have further exacerbated relations with Hamas by telling Kuwait Times on 6 January:

"They (Egypt) have a right to protect their borders," he said, hinting the tunnels were being "misused".

The international community is certainly anxious to see the reconciliation take place as soon as possible. European Union Foreign Affairs supremo Catherine Ashton told the Strasbourg Parliament on 15 December 2009:

“Today, however, the Palestinians are divided both politically and physically. Credible negotiations require a strong and united Palestinian partner. Israel stands to gain, not lose from a strong Palestinian partner.”

I doubt that Israel will see it this way. Any idea of negotiating on the future status of the West Bank with a team containing any Hamas members would be a certain “no-no”. Israel regards Hamas as a terrorist organization and would be extremely reluctant to engage in negotiations with a joint Fatah-Hamas team.

Israel’s national interest must surely be best served by keeping Hamas from gaining any position of power, control or influence in the West Bank.

Hamas has also made it clear that it will never negotiate with Israel. On 21 June 2008 Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan slammed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and told Xinhua News Agency :

"We are not thinking of trying the ridiculous negotiations that the others have tried but failed to remove a single checkpoint in West Bank….

adding that

"the Zionist enemy must depart and recognize the Palestinian people’s rights."

Article 13 of the Hamas Covenant 1988 also makes this refusal to negotiate with Israel abundantly clear in stating:

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavours."

All in all the prospects of reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah look very bleak indeed - especially when one looks at the provisions of Article 27 of the Hamas Covenant which make it clear that Hamas is opposed to a secular State of Palestine as proposed by Fatah - the major organization that controls the Palestine Liberation Organization:

"Secularism completely contradicts religious ideology. Attitudes, conduct and decisions stem from ideologies. That is why, with all our appreciation for the Palestinian Liberation Organization - and what it can develop into - and without belittling its role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, we are unable to exchange the present or future Islamic Palestine with the secular idea. The Islamic nature of Palestine is part of our religion and whoever takes his religion lightly is a loser. The day the Palestinian Liberation Organization adopts Islam as its way of life, we will become its soldiers, and fuel for its fire that will burn the enemies.”

Therein lies the basic problem forever preventing any lasting reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah - unless Fatah abandons the secular State and adopts the formation of an Islamic State as its goal.

For Hamas to also give up - and surrender - its present territorial power over Gaza to Fatah seems a most improbable scenario.

If however Hamas and Fatah were - for whatever reason - to eventually reach a reconciliation of convenience they would certainly not be sleeping in the same bedroom. Neither could possibly trust the other after what has occurred between them over the past two years.


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