Palestine – Obama Lacks Understanding and Vision

[Published 10 March 2014]

David Singer

President Obama’s interview with Jeffrey Goldberg on 2 March exposed the President as a leader lacking in understanding and vision – bound to a 20 years old negotiating process that has proved an abject failure and will continue to do so until Obama finally declares it dead and buried.

The President still clings to the vain hope that the framework agreement for peace being drafted by Secretary of State Kerry will be accepted by Israel and the PLO – allowing the long drawn out negotiating processes established under the Oslo Accords, Bush Roadmap and Annapolis to continue until a peace agreement is executed between Israel and the PLO – matching those signed by Israel with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994

The interview exposed Obama’s flawed knowledge concerning the following crucial issues that are critical to properly understanding the conflict and positing its possible resolution:

1. The President claimed that the conflict had gone on “for decades” –  rather than for the last 130 years –indicating the President is ignoring earlier international decisions made on Palestine including the San Remo Conference and the Treaty of Sevres in 1920, the League of Nations in 1922, the Treaty of Lausanne 1923, the Peel Commission in 1937, the British White Paper 1939, the United Nations in 1945 and 1947, and the unification of Judea and Samaria with Transjordan in 1950 following the invasion of Palestine by six Arab armies in 1948.
2. The President spoke of the “Palestinian territories” – rather than the “disputed territories” – where internationally recognized sovereignty has remain undetermined since 1948.
3. The President referred to an existing “Palestinian Authority” – which had ceased to exist on 3 January 2013.
4. The President agreed with this claim by Goldberg:

“It’s been the official position of the United States for decades that settlements are illegitimate”

Elliott Abrams – Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations -dismisses this urban myth:

“The U.S. position has fluctuated over time. In the Reagan years, the United States said the settlements were “not illegal.” The Clinton and George H.W. Bush administrations avoided the legal arguments but criticized the settlements frequently. President George W. Bush called the larger settlement blocs “new realities on the ground” that would have to be reflected in peace negotiations.

More recently, the official U.S. attitude has been more critical. In 2011, the Obama administration vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling the settlements “illegal” but former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice then denounced “the folly and illegitimacy” of continued Israeli settlement activity. “The United States of America views all of the settlements as illegitimate,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in August 2013.”

Who is feeding the President with misleading and false information to justify these comments to Goldberg?

The President’s lack of vision became obviously apparent with his following comment:

“I have not yet heard, however, a persuasive vision of how Israel survives as a democracy and a Jewish state at peace with its neighbors in the absence of a peace deal with the Palestinians and a two-state solution. Nobody has presented me a credible scenario.”

Amazingly – with the State Department evidently unable to present Obama with any credible scenarios in the event of the collapse of the “two-state solution” – President Obama then challenged Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu to come up with a plausible alternative:

“If he [Netanyahu] does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach. And as I said before, it’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible.”

Netanyahu had articulated an alternative approach at the United Nations on 11 December 1984 – one which apparently has gone missing from the State Department’s extensive archival records:

“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.”

Netanyahu’s recounting of history, geography and demography present at least two credible – and plausible – scenarios for President Obama to consider:

1. Reunifying the heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank (Areas “A” and “B” designated under the Oslo Accords) with Jordan – as existed between 1950-1967
2. Direct negotiations between Israel and Jordan – the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine – to redraw the existing international boundary between their respective States.

Jordan’s King Abdullah needs to step up to the plate – and Obama must not let him refuse to do so.

President Obama – presently sinking in murky political quicksand – can still be saved by grabbing Netanyahu’s 1984 lifeline with both hands.http://jordanispalestine.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/palestine-obama-lacks-understanding-and.html

King: So-called "alternative homeland" an illusion

[Published 23 February 2014]

Petra Jordan News Agency

http://www.petra.gov.jo/Public_News/Nws_NewsDetails.aspx?lang=2&site_id=1&NewsID=141267

Amman, February 23 (Petra) -- His Majesty King Abdullah II, on Sunday, said whenever there is a serious effort towards resolving the Palestinian issue, a talk about the so-called "alternative homeland" is revived and stressed that "Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine and nothing but that, not the in the past or the future."

In a meeting with the Prime Minister, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the Lower House, the President of the Judicial Council, the President of the Constitutional Court, and members of the permanent offices of both chambers of the parliament, the King said he wanted to discuss this issue before his recent visit to the United States, but chose not to "so no one would say that after my visit to America, things have changed and something new happened."

Commenting on the so-called "alternative homeland", the King said: "We know how this issue has been surfacing since 15 years, or even more, where things start in the spring by the same group, who tense the Jordanian society, and by the summer, people feel scared; a thing that makes me reassure them by a speech or a press interview, but this year, unfortunately, the talk about the so-called alternative homeland stated early." What this group has been doing is "sedition", His Majesty said, adding:" There are more important issues to focus on, especially with regards to political and economic reform. What we should do is to work as a team until we work out our internal issues.

"We know this group and if this issue is repeated next year, we will declare who they are by name," King Abdullah added, calling on all citizens to respond to those who promote the so-called alternative homeland.

"This, God's willing, will be the last time we talk about this subject, and I have said it more than once, but what is required now is everyone's support in this issue." In this context, the King affirmed that Jordan's position is very strong and the Kingdom is well posted on all developments related to the Palestinian-Israeli talks and the future of Palestine.

He said he was surprised with those who say assistance granted to Jordan is used to pressure the Kingdom to make concessions, saying: "We will not accept anything that tampers with the future of our people and our homeland."

Jordan is cooperating with the United States to help the Palestinians and Israelis reach a peace settlement, adding that the U.S. consults with Jordan in all mediation efforts.

King Abdullah said Jordan is familiar with all the details of the negotiations related to final status issues, especially “Jerusalem, the refugees, borders, water and security." He pointed out that Jordan helps all parties to support prospects for achieving peace in the Middle East.

PM: Jordan will not be a substitute homeland for Palestinians

[Published 26 February 2014]

Petra Jordan News Agency

Doha, Feb. 26 (Petra) -- Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour said that Jordan will not be a substitute homeland for the Palestinians, adding neither will the Palestinians give up their homeland nor will the Jordanians accept that.

Israel, Ensour said, is the only party that accepts such a position.

The prime minister made the remarks during the course of a lengthy interview with the Qatari Al Watan newspaper, conducted by its Director General, Ahmad Ali, and published today.

"We have to take all measures to ensure that Jordan does not become a substitute homeland for the Palestinians," he said, adding that the Kingdom will never accept that.

Regarding the children of Jordanian women married to foreigners, Ensour said that the issue of citizenship is not raised at all and that there are no differences when it comes to demands to grant them the right to education, work, owning property and freedom of travel and movement.

On possible unity between Jordan and the Palestinian state once it becomes independent, the prime minister said the majority of Jordanians and Palestinians believe that this issue should be discussed after the establishment of such an independent Palestinian state.

Ensour voiced the hope that the Palestinians would not surprise Jordan as they did when they signed the Oslo Accord in the past as "we have the issue of the refugees," and noted the presence of two million Palestinians in Jordan who have equal rights in any future Palestine in line with the international law, the UN resolutions and the resolutions of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

He pointed out that Jordan should be fully aware of all the details of the ongoing negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis regarding the final status issues, especially in relation to "Jerusalem, refugees, borders, water and security." Asked about the issue of Jordan's membership in the Gulf Cooperation Council, Ensour said not granting the Kingdom the full membership in the GCC was a historic mistake.

A kingdom of two halves

[Published 8 March 2014]

The Economist

WESTERN powers have long found money a good way of persuading the Hashemites, who rule Jordan, to do their bidding.

A century ago, T.E. Lawrence, a charismatic British officer, persuaded them to rebel against the rule of the Ottoman Turks by letting them loot the trains they blew up.

In more modern times, hefty dollops of aid have persuaded them to provide military facilities for the Americans in their war in Iraq and to accommodate the region’s periodic splurges of refugees, most recently from Syria.

Surely, Western officials say, for the right price, currently estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, the Jordanians will help John Kerry, America’s secretary of state to fix a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by absorbing the 4.5m Palestinians who live in the kingdom, including the 3.5m who are now Jordanian citizens.

Or will they?

Indigenous Bedouin from Jordan’s East Bank, who number about 3m, worry that America’s plans to persuade Palestinian leaders to strip generations of refugees of their claimed “right of return” to what is now Israel would reduce Jordan’s original inhabitants to a permanent minority.

Tribal leaders fret that the refugees, barred from Israel, would campaign for full rights in Jordan, over time turning the kingdom into a second Palestinian state.

The Bedouin would lose their preferential access to government jobs. They might also be deprived of the skewed electoral system that has hitherto ensured that they control Jordan’s parliament.

“Kerry is destroying our home,” says a Jordanian analyst. “He is trying to solve one conflict by creating another.”

Read the full article here:

Jordan is Jordan, Palestine is Palestine

[Published 27 February 2014]

Raed Omari

Al Arabiya News


For a considerable period of time, Jordanian political elites have been busying themselves and the country too with the meaningless talk about an Israeli scheme to turn Jordan into a “substitute homeland” for Palestinians.

Once again in Jordan, you see politicians shying away from mega issues facing their economically, socially and now demographically-concerned kingdom to raise concerns over something that is still in the level of intention or maybe conspiracy. These two things have no place in politics anyway.

Though there might be a point behind such concerns over the “substitute homeland” scheme (indeed there should be),“enough is enough” anyway as we in Jordan have other urgent woes to address other than a matter the least to be said about is its unrealism and surrealism.

Just an illusion

Once more in Jordan, King Abdullah had to interfere to alleviate Jordanians’ concerns over the “substitute homeland”, describing the Israel's never publicly-announced scheme as nothing more than an illusion in the minds of rumor-mongers.


Read the full article at:

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2014/02/27/Jordan-is-Jordan-Palestine-is-Palestine.html

Jordanian, Jordanian-American leaders and intellectuals voice their support for King of Jordan

[Published 5 March 2014]

Ali Younes

The Arab Daily News

In an open letter addressed to King Abdullah II of Jordan, tens of leading Jordanian and Jordanian American leaders and intellectuals expressed their strong and unequivocal support for the statements the king made on February 23 when addressing the Jordanian position on the ongoing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

During a palace meeting with senior Jordanian public officials King Abdullah II addressed the concerns of some people in Jordan that a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians might come at the expense of Jordan’s territorial and demographic integrity.

The King, assured his audience, however, that this is “ not true” blaming “certain few individuals and groups for spreading unfounded fears and rumors that have a destabilizing effect on the country. “Jordan is Jordan, and Palestine is Palestine “ said the King in his usually candid and conversational manner.

‘These people should be ashamed of themselves” he added , referring to those who spread the idea that Jordanian national interest will be compromised as a result of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The public letter which was authored by American-based Jordanian cardiologist and political activist Wael Husami, expressed its full support for the King and for his emphasis on the Jordanian political rights and patriotic principles.

The letter was signed by several retired army generals, intellectuals, journalists, former ministers, current and former members of parliament and professionals.

Read the full article here:

http://thearabdailynews.com/2014/03/05/jordanian-jordanian-american-leaders-intellectuals-voice-support-king-jordan/

Palestine - Jordan Gets Jittery Again

[Published 3 March 2014]

Jordan has become increasingly jittery after US Secretary of State John Kerry’s framework agreement for peace missed meeting the second deadline for its release on 21 February - having initially been promised by the end of January.

Now US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro has let slip at a meeting of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors in Jerusalem on 24 February that the US hopes to present the framework agreement before the end of April.

Abdullah is now in the identical position he found himself on 11 October 2006 - when he told the Khaleej Times:

“I really think that by the first half of 2007 we might wake up to reality and realise that the two-state solution is no longer attainable. I think we are really running out of time . Physically on the ground and geographically, I think there is less and less of a West Bank and Jerusalem to talk about.”

He then warned:

“We want to go back to the 1967 borders. We are talking about that today. Are we going to talk about that tomorrow though? This is the danger.”

Abdullah recognised then that compromise would inevitably involve Israel retaining part of the West Bank - notwithstanding the PLO demanding it all.

With a negotiated two-state solution likely to fall by the wayside despite Kerry’s desperate efforts to keep it alive - Abdullah is clearly aware that with less of the West Bank to talk about in 2014 than in 2006 - the PLO might attempt to overthrow Abdullah - as it unsuccessfully tried to do in 1970 with Abdullah’s father - King Hussein .

Whilst Abdullah warned this week that “Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine” - the PLO Charter - and history - ominously state otherwise.

Jordan needs a seat at that negotiating table - immediately.

To read the full article: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/61506