PLO and Hamas perpetuate apartheid in West Bank and Gaza

[Published 6 July 2018]

The British Foreign Office showed appalling judgment when scheduling a visit by Prince William to a refugee camp in the West Bank which should have been closed down long ago.

The Prince - obviously moved by what he saw - remarked:

“I saw at Jalazon (refugee camp) the tremendous hardships faced by the refugees, and I can only imagine the difficulties of life lived under these conditions, the ed (sic) resources and the lack of opportunity,”

Regrettably Prince William failed to question why:

1. Jalazon had not been dismantled during the past 25 years after it came under Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) control.

2. Jalazon’s inhabitants should still be classified as “refugees” when they are living in part of former Palestine now under PLO occupation.

Prince William’s visit was closely followed by a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and United Nations (UN) Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process - Nickolay Mladenov. During their meeting - Abbas stressed the UN’s important role in providing protection for the “Palestinian people” and the necessity of continuing to provide services to the “Palestinian refugees” through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Undiscussed between them was why the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza have failed to close down the 27 refugee camps still remaining within their respective fiefdoms.

The West Bank currently has 775,000 registered “refugees” - around a quarter of who live in 19 refugee camps. Most of the others live in West Bank towns and villages. Some camps are located next to major towns and others are in rural areas. UNRWA provides services in these 19 Palestine refugee camps - but does not administer or police the camps - as this is the responsibility of the PLO — intriguingly identified as the “host authority” by UNRWA

Gaza has 1.3 million registered “refugees” - of who 500000 currently live in 8 refugee camps. As in the West Bank - UNRWA does not administer or police these camps -this being the responsibility of the “host authority” - Hamas.

The West Bank refugee camps are all located within Areas “A” and “B” — some 40% of the territory of the West Bank - being under full PLO administrative control as designated by the Oslo Accords. 95% of the West Bank Arab population - including all those living in the refugee camps — live in Areas “A” and “B”

Many of these camps and their inhabitants date back to 1949. Severe overcrowding problems, high rates of unemployment, personal safety and poor infrastructure are common to them all.

Gaza’s entire population has been under Hamas occupation since 2007.

The PLO and Hamas have maintained their discriminatory two-tiered refugee segregation systems in Gaza and the West Bank for at least the last ten years under which:

1. 800000 “refugees” live in refugee camps

2. 1,570,000 “refugees” live among the general population

Closing these refugee camps and integrating their long-suffering populations among the general population are long overdue. The failure of the PLO and Hamas to do so allows them to maintain and exploit a hard core of hate-filled and desperate Palestinian Arabs who can be readily incited and used as pawns and martyrs to undertake acts of terrorism against Israel.

UN and UNRWA complicity in refusing to pressure the PLO and Hamas to close these squalid camps and end an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis is reprehensible, immoral and completely inexcusable.

Perpetuating apartheid by segregation and discrimination whilst denying equal rights to all members of the Arab populations in the West Bank and Gaza spells disaster for both the PLO and Hamas.

False narrative haunts PLO and UN as Trump courts Arab States.

[Published 28 June 2018]

Nabil Abu Rudeineh - spokesman for Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas — has angrily reacted to President Trump’s intensive diplomatic efforts seeking to enlist Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in advancing Trump’s long-awaited “deal of the century” to end the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Rudeineh fulminated:

“The American delegation should abandon the illusion that creating false facts and falsifying history are going to help it sell those illusions.”

Creating false facts and falsifying history has been the province of the PLO and the United Nations (UN) for decades.

The 1968 PLO Charter declared the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and everything subsequently based on them to be null and void.

The United Nations publication “The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem 1917-1988” (“Study”) - published by the Division for Palestinian Rights of the United Nations Secretariat for, and under the guidance of, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People - falsely claimed:

“After investigating various alternatives the United Nations proposed the partitioning of Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish…”

The UN proposal—Resolution 181(II) - actually referred to:

“Independent Arab and Jewish States”...

Resolution 181(II) clearly denied the existence of any distinctly identifiable Palestinian people in 1947 — yet the Study falsified this narrative.

The Study also omitted to mention that 78% of Palestine had already become an independent Arab State in 1946 and been renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan.

Creating a separate state for the “Palestinians” - never identified as a separate people by the international community in 1947 — is seen by that same international community in 2018 to be the only solution capable of ending the conflict between Jews and Arabs.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Two peoples — the Jews and the Arabs — already have their own independent States in former Palestine - named Israel and Jordan.

Rudeineh continued:

“Despite the burden of regional issues, there are things that cannot be weighed with gold and humanitarian aid, or solutions that try to cut from a more than 100-year-old historical conflict.”

This is the first time the PLO has ever acknowledged that the Jewish-Arab conflict originated in the events following the Balfour Declaration in 1917 — not the events following the 1948 Arab-Israel War.

UN Secretary-General Guterres helped perpetuate this falsehood when recently referring to the “Israeli/Palestinian conflict”.

There were no “Israelis” or “Palestinians” 95 years ago when the preamble to the Mandate for Palestine declared:

“Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine , or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country; “

British reversal of this policy in 1922 saw Transjordan — today called Jordan — totally closed to Jewish settlement to prevent the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home there. The 1937 Peel Commission counted for nothing.

Forty crucial years in Palestine’s history until 1948 were shredded by the PLO and materially altered by the UN Study in propagating the “Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People”.

Rudeineh’s statements mark a welcome return to reality.

Getting other Arab interlocutors to replace the PLO in negotiations with Israel remains Trump’s crucial starting point to ending the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Jordan baulks at replacing PLO in negotiations with Israel

[Published 21 June 2018]

President Trump’s long-awaited plan on ending the Arab-Israeli conflict will be further delayed following a flurry of diplomatic activity over the past week.

Critical to the success of Trump’s plan will involve replacing the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as Israel’s negotiating partner over the last 25 years. The PLO has cut its own throat by making it very clear it will have nothing to do with anything Trump proposes.

Trump’s Senior Advisor Jared Kushner and Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt met in New York City on 15 June with United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The White House reported they had a productive discussion about the efforts of the United States to promote peace in the Middle East and to meet humanitarian needs in Gaza.

This UN visit was followed by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flying to Amman for a public meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah on June 18 — their first since 2014. Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, General Intelligence Department Director Maj. Gen. Adnan Jundi, Adviser to His Majesty and Director of the Office of His Majesty Manar Dabbas and Adviser to His Majesty for Economic Affairs Mohamad Al Ississ attended the meeting.

Communiques separately issued by Netanyahu and Abdullah following their meeting differ significantly.

Netanyahu’s communique was very brief stating they had discussed:

“regional developments and advancing the peace process, and bilateral relations. Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated Israel’s commitment to maintaining the status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem”

Abdullah’s communique was far more expansive and revealing:

“His Majesty King Abdullah, at a meeting on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who departed Jordan after a short visit, stressed the need to make progress in efforts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of the two-state solution and in accordance with international law, relevant UN resolutions, and the Arab Peace Initiative.

King Abdullah reaffirmed that the only way to achieve peace and stability in the region is by reaching a two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 4 June 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side with Israel in peace and security.”

Abdullah was mouthing the mantra articulated by the PLO over the last 25 years during unsuccessful negotiations with Israel. Trump has little chance of seeing his own “ultimate deal“ come to fruition if Jordan replaces the PLO propagating this same failed objective.

Abdullah’s communique continued:

“The King affirmed that Jordan will continue upholding its historical role in safeguarding Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, in accordance with the Hashemite Custodianship.”

The Washington Declaration signed by Israel and Jordan on 25 July 1994 respected:

“the present role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the Muslim Holy Shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines.”

Extending Jordan’s custodianship to the Christian holy sites is presumptuous of Abdullah and flies in the face of the Washington Declaration.

Kushner and Greenblatt met Abdullah on 19 June — when the King stood his ground repeating almost verbatim the above statements made to Netanyahu just the day before.

Trump — the consummate deal maker - will probably delay releasing his plan until Abdullah agrees to negotiate with Israel on recovering land lost in the 1967 Six Day War by Jordan to Israel in Judea and Samaria (West Bank)

Abdullah would be a brave man continuing to defy Trump - as the PLO has already discovered to its chagrin.

PLO rejects Trump lifeline on negotiations with Israel

[Published 14 June 2018]

President Trump — still mulling over the release of his ultimate peace deal to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict - has seen the swift rejection of the call by Jason D. Greenblatt — Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations - to have Dr Saeb Erekat replaced as chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in future negotiations with Israel.

Greenblatt raised America’s objection to Erekat in stark and uncompromising terms — alleging Erekat:

1. failed to contribute to an atmosphere conducive to peace

2. used rhetoric and made claims that were in many respects simply inaccurate

3. had baselessly claimed that Trump’s decision to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem was part of a U.S. attempt to force an Israeli-written agreement on the Palestinians.

4. had failed to acknowledge a significant escalation of rockets fired by Hamas and other militant groups into Israel, which clearly represented the danger that Hamas and these groups present.

Greenblatt asserted that the Palestinian leadership need not shackle themselves to Hamas’ failure — in fact, this should be the Palestinian Authority’s opportunity to do the right thing for the people they lead.

Greenblatt called on Erekat and the Palestinian Authority to reject Hamas’ violence and lies and work with America to bring relief to Gaza where America believed real progress could be made that would lay the foundation for a more hopeful future.

Greenblatt’s reference to the “Palestinian Authority” was strange indeed - since it had been disbanded by written decree issued by PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on 3 January 2013.

Greenblatt stressed it was time to stop indulging in overwrought rhetoric and give the Palestinian people something beyond words. Palestinian leadership must create better lives, not sacrifice those lives for Hamas’ grim agenda of terror.

Greenblatt claimed he had heard many Palestinian voices over the past 16 months and many did not agree with Erekat or his approach. Yet, the sad thing is that most would only meet and speak honestly and openly in private because they are afraid to speak publicly.

Greenblatt summed up:

“Dr. Erekat — we have heard your voice for decades and it has not achieved anything close to Palestinian aspirations or anything close to a comprehensive peace agreement. Other Palestinian perspectives might help us finally achieve a comprehensive peace agreement where Palestinian and Israeli lives can be better.

The time for leadership and responsibility is now. The time for meeting after meeting of government officials repeating the same talking points is over. The Palestinian people want real action, and they need honest, realistic and decisive solutions.

The notion that Israel is going away — or that Jerusalem is not its capital — is a mirage. The notion that the United States is not the critical interlocutor for the peace process is a mirage.”

In a stinging, vitriolic reply Erekat immediately responded:

“In dozens of meetings we had with Mr. Greenblatt he refused to discuss substance: no borders, no settlements, and no two-state solution. Today, his role is nothing less than peddling Israeli policies to a skeptical international community, and then becomes upset when he’s reminded of this.”

Erekat will remain in his decades-long position unless pulmonary fibrosis prevents him physically discharging his current role. Erekat’s replacement would undoubtedly continue the same failed tactics adopted by Erekat.

Erekat’s predictable response should be seen as yet one more reason justifying Trump’s emerging strategy to replace the PLO with Jordan, Egypt and possibly Saudi Arabia in negotiations with Israel on the future of Gaza, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and East Jerusalem.

Rejecting Trump’s proffered lifeline ensures the PLO will play no part in future negotiations on Trump’s ultimate deal.

Israel condemns PLO lies as Trump contemplates PLO demise

[Published 21 May 2018]

The historic opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem has provided opportunities for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to totally discredit the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and President Trump to review the PLO as a suitable Arab interlocutor to negotiate with Israel on ending the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Addressing the large gathering of American dignitaries and Israeli public figures – Netanyahu declared:

“The truth and peace are interconnected. A peace that is built on lies will crash on the rocks of Middle Eastern reality. You can only build peace on truth, and the truth is that Jerusalem has been and will always be the capital of the Jewish people, the capital of the Jewish state”

PLO Chairman – Mahmoud Abbas - didn’t take very long to reply with an outburst against America that seriously questions the fitness of the PLO to resume negotiations with Israel since the PLO walk-out in April 2014:

“What we saw in Jerusalem today was not the opening of an embassy, but the opening of an American settlement outpost. Before we had settlement outposts with American help, but today we have an American settlement outpost in East Jerusalem.”

The rift between Trump and Abbas just continues to widen.

Not content with this salvo – Abbas claimed that the United States:

“has removed itself from the political work in the Middle East as a mediator. It’s no longer an arbiter,”

President Trump would not take kindly to this latest rejection by the PLO of America’s decades-old role as sole mediator in any negotiations aimed at resolving a dispute that has gone on for 100 years.

For Israel – it was just the latest shot in a litany of lies that had its genesis in the 1964 Charter of the PLO - subsequently revised in 1968 – which still remain unamended despite false claims to the contrary.

The 1964 Charter had stated in Article 24:

“This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.”

Yet the 1968 Charter deleted this clause after Jordan and Egypt’s 19 years-occupation of these territories was ended in 1967.

The PLO had suddenly discovered an inalienable right to regional sovereignty in every square meter of these areas. Amazingly this claim has been swallowed hook line and sinker by the United Nations.

Such a recent claim is certainly novel and now must be weighed against Israel’s claim - whose roots in these territories were established 3000 years ago and can be visibly verified in 2018.

The biggest PLO lies are contained in Article 20 of the 1968 Charter:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.”

These lies have driven the PLO campaign to wipe Israel off the face of the map rather than negotiate a division of former Palestine where sovereignty in 78% is already vested in Jordan and 17% in Israel - the last 5% still remaining unallocated between Arabs and Jews

These PLO lies should have been shredded decades ago. They have proved to be the greatest obstacle to peace between Israel and the PLO.

Macron, Merkel and May should adopt Trump Policy on Jerusalem

[Published 13 May 2018]

The opening of the American Embassy on 14 May in Israel’s capital — Jerusalem — should be replicated by fellow-democracies France, Germany and The United Kingdom (“the Democratic Trio”) without delay.

President Trump’s policy on Jerusalem was set out by him on 6 December 2017 (“the Trump Declaration”):

“STATUS OF JERUSALEM: President Trump recognizes that specific boundaries of sovereignty in Jerusalem is highly sensitive and subject to final status negotiations.

President Trump recognizes that the status of Jerusalem is a highly-sensitive issue, but he does not think the peace process is aided by ignoring the simple truth that Jerusalem is home to Israel’s legislature, supreme court, President, and Prime Minister.

President Trump recognizes that the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem are subject to final status negotiations between the parties.

President Trump reaffirms United States support for the status quo at the Temple Mount, also known as Haram al Sharif.”

This policy should be perfectly acceptable to the Democratic Trio — yet they have so far baulked at following Trump’s principled stance.

French President Emmanuel Macron has adopted the following position:

“The status of Jerusalem is a question of international security that concerns the entire international community. The status of Jerusalem must be determined by Israelis and Palestinians in the framework of negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations,”

Waiting for these stars to align is like hoping to win the lottery.The Trump Declaration provides sufficient guarantees to ensure that should Macron’s wish-list ever eventuate - the United Nations will be sufficiently seized of the situation to ensure the status of Jerusalem is finally determined between Arabs and Jews.

Refusing to move the French Embassy to Israel’s designated capital now - whilst negotiations to determine Jerusalem’s future have been suspended by the Palestine Liberation Organization since April 2014 - is bowing to the dictates and diplomatic blackmail of an illegal and undemocratic entity.

France — a bastion of democracy — is being incredibly naïve in not following in the footsteps of the Trump Declaration.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has issued a public statement assuring Germany will not relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem:

“We have to work for the two-state solution, and according to that, the status of Jerusalem should be clarified.”

The “two-state solution” has been the subject of unsuccessful negotiations for the last 25 years.

East Jerusalem was never suggested or declared as the capital of Jordan or another independent Arab state during the years between 1948 and 1967 when East Jerusalem was:

1. illegally occupied by Jordan

2. all Jews living there were forcibly expelled from their homes

3. centuries-old Synagogues and Jewish cemeteries were desecrated and destroyed

4.Jews were denied access to their remaining holy sites

Merkel needs to reject this dark period in Jerusalem’s history by adopting the reality expressed in the Trump Declaration.

Britain’s prime minister Theresa May has stated:

“We disagree with the US decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem and recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital before a final status agreement. The British Embassy to Israel is based in Tel Aviv, and we have no plans to move”

Moving the United Kingdom’s Embassy to West Jerusalem on the identical basis enunciated by Trump will not prejudice future negotiations between Jews and Arabs to resolve East Jerusalem’s final status.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom need to get on the Trump bandwagon and move their Embassies to Israel’s declared capital — Jerusalem — following their own worldwide well-established diplomatic practices and precedents.

Disagreements between democracies play into the hands of unelected and unaccountable regimes.Bowing to these regimes’ unjust and unreasonable demands is a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

PLO dumps Trump easing way for Jordan-Israel negotiations

[Published 6 May 2018]

President Trump’s soon-to-released proposal on resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict will be more readily achievable following the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) confirming it will not participate in implementing Trump’s peace plans.

Secretary General of the PLO Executive Committee Saeb Erekat led the charge:

“No one will deceive us and we will not fall into the illusion that the United States can have any balanced ideas that could lead to the achievement of a real and just peace. Washington has become part of the problem and not the solution”

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas backed-up Erekat a few days later — censuring Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and stating Palestinians believe the US can no longer be the sole mediator in the decades-long conflict with Israel due to America’s pro-Tel Aviv bias.

Abbas declared Trump’s plan would be:

“an end to the peace process in the Middle East.”

Erekat and Abbas’s acts of political hara-kiri coincided with Trump’s newly-appointed Secretary of State - Mike Pompeo - visiting Jordan

Jordanian Foreign Minister — Ayman Safadi — welcomed Pompeo with the decades-old Arab mantra:

”[The Palestinian -Israeli conflict] is, we believe, the main cause of instability in the region, and its resolution is the key to achieving the lasting and comprehensive peace that we want. The two-state solution remains the only path to that peace, as we believe in Jordan, and it is the solution that would allow for the emergence of an independent, sovereign Palestine state with East Jerusalem as its capital in the lines of June 4, 1967.

Yes, that the two-state solution is being challenged. Yes, there are many obstacles. But I think what is — what is the alternative? We cannot give up in our efforts to achieve peace, nor can we say that there is any viable alternative that we can sustain.”

Pompeo begged to disagree:

” We’re certainly open to a two-party solution. That’s a likely outcome.”

Another likely outcome will doubtless be revealed in Trump’s proposal.

Pompeo deferred answering whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the most serious threat to stability in the region. He would have been derided had he agreed —given the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Libya.

On Trump’s "ultimate deal" — Pompeo asserted:

“We understand that ultimately this deal will be agreed to between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but certainly it’s the case that as America continues to be involved in facilitating such an arrangement, we’re doing so in close alignment with Jordan and the Jordanian people so that we’re working together ...”

Any PLO refusal to agree to the deal will receive the Trump treatment meted out to Trump-defiers - reduced funding and diplomatic downgrading. Jordan - working in close alignment with Trump - will reap substantial dividends.

Pompeo referred to the five-year Memorandum of Understanding signed by the United States and Jordan in February committing the US to provide over $6.3 billion in bilateral foreign assistance to Jordan over the next five years — a powerful incentive for Jordan to help Trump bring his proposals to fruition.

Pompeo — significantly — provided two additional substantial sweeteners:

“We’ll continue to work with Jordan to help the Kingdom defend its borders, always.”

Pompeo was signaling that any PLO attempt to overthrow 95 years of unbroken Hashemite rule in Jordan — unsuccessfully attempted by the PLO in September 1970 — would be rebuffed by American military force.

Protecting the Hashemite regime and Jordan’s borders — coupled with massive injections of American financial aid — could see Jordan replacing the PLO as Israel’s Arab partner in implementing Trump’s peace proposals.

Trump — the master deal-maker - may have just pulled another rabbit out of his magic hat.