Trump consigning Russia-PLO collusion to dustbin of history

[Published 1 May 2019]

President Trump’s inexorable march towards releasing his “deal of the century” has seen his decisions on Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and the PLO undermining 55 years of Russia-PLO collusion aimed at eliminating the State of Israel and establishing Russian supremacy in the Middle East.

Russia-PLO collusion has caused the deaths of millions of Jews and Arabs, leaving millions more with permanent and debilitating injuries deeply impacting their lives and the lives of their families.

Front-line states seeking Israel’s elimination - Lebanon, Egypt, Syria Jordan, Libya and Iraq - have seen their societies and public assets adversely affected by war and civil insurrection.

Claire Berlinski has detailed how Russia-PLO collusion began:

“Following the defeat of the Egyptians in the Six Day War, the Soviets came to a second realization: A conventional military confrontation with Israel, and by extension the West, carried too great a risk of escalating into nuclear war. A change of tactics was required. Gen. Alexander Sakharovsky, then head of the KGB’s intelligence arm, explained this to his East European colleagues: “[T]errorism should become our main weapon.” Sakharovsky boasted that airplane hijackings were his own invention; he decorated his office with a world map, covered in flags, each marking a successful hijacking. Though the PLO managed to unite various terrorist organizations, “the supreme headquarters of the whole network was, of course, the Kremlin,” Stroilov writes, and “the evidence accumulated at this point leaves no doubt that the whole system was invented by Moscow as a weapon against the West, and the PLO was a jewel in their crown.”

The PLO – born in 1964 – expressly disavowed any separate claims to sovereignty in Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem and Gaza. In 1968 the PLO reversed its position – claiming statehood in these very same areas that had been unified with TransJordan in 1950 and renamed Jordan - remaining part of Jordan until their loss to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

Jordan and Israel were identified by the PLO in 1964 as one indivisible territorial unit to be liberated by the PLO. The PLO unsuccessfully tried to takeover Jordan in September 1970.

Terrorist attacks by the PLO against Israel included:

1. November 1969 - armed attack on the El Al office in Athens, leaving 1 dead and 14 wounded;

2. May 1972 - Ben Gurion Airport attack, leaving 22 dead and 76 wounded;

3. December 1974 - Tel Aviv movie theatre bomb, leaving 2 dead and 66 wounded;

4. March 1975 - Tel Aviv hotel attack leaving 25 dead and 6 wounded;

5. May 1975 - Jerusalem bomb, leaving 1 dead and 3 wounded;

6. July 1975 - bomb in Zion Square, Jerusalem, leaving 15 dead and 62 wounded;

Berlinski explains:

“The code-name for this operation against Israel, according to Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking defector from the Soviet Bloc, was “SIG” — Sionistskiye Gosudarstva, or “Zionist Governments.” In a National Review article, Pacepa recalls a conversation he had with KGB chairman Yuri Andropov, who envisioned fomenting “a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world. … We had only to keep repeating our themes — that the United States and Israel were ‘fascist, imperial-Zionist countries’ bankrolled by rich Jews.”

The Jew-hating PLO has forced itself undemocratically on the Palestinian Arabs for five decades except for one vote in 2006 – which the PLO refused to accept.

International support and recognition afforded the PLO by the United Nations and UNESCO has exacerbated the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict – not help resolve it.

President Trump will be doing the cause of world peace a great service if his peace proposals finally consign this demonic Russia-PLO cabal to the dustbin of history.

Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones” - one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog

Trump seems set to expose UN fraud on boundaries of Palestine

[Published 23 April 2019]

President Trump appears set to expose more than forty years of deceptive and misleading information disseminated by the United Nations (UN) in relation to the boundaries of former Palestine.

This welcome development comes with President Trump’s Special U.S Envoy Jason D. Greenblatt telling Sky News in Arabic on 19 April:

“there is no reason to use the term ‘two-state solution,” the reason being that, “every side sees it differently.”

The UN must take responsibility for creating such confusion by perpetuating intellectual and political fraud originating with its 1978 publication: “The Origins and Evolution of the Palestinian problem”(Study)

Part 1 of the Study covering 1917-1947 was trashed by Israel’s Ambassador to the UN — Yehuda Blum — on 16 November 1978:

“Even the most cursory reading of this document can leave no doubt that the means and machinery of the United Nations have been misused once again to
disseminate highly selective and tendentious information under the guise, in this instance, of what purports to be a scholarly study.

The history of international conflicts, and particularly those with complex historical origins, can only be properly written by objective historians who enjoy complete academic freedom. The practice of writing and rewriting history according to the transient interests of a political body is of course characteristic of certain regimes. It is regrettable that the United Nations has now been drawn into that pattern.”

Blum then told the UN General Assembly on 30 November 1978:

“At the end of the first part of the publication, ostensibly dealing with the period of the Palestine Mandate, there appear a number of maps. The one map that is conspicuously absent is the official map of the Palestine Mandate which, until 1946, included Transjordan on the east bank of the Jordan River. This map was omitted because it does not fit into the PLO’s own scheme, as it would show too clearly that a Palestinian Arab state has already been in existence for 32 years on more than three quarters of the territory of mandated Palestine - that is, the state now called Jordan. That embarrassment is eliminated in this purportedly scholarly and impartial publication by the simple expedient of eliminating the map.”

Blum was not finished — pointing out to the General Assembly on 20 December 1978 that Part 2 of the Study covering 1947-1977:

“Taken in conjunction with the first part, it is clear that this pseudo-scientific “study” is designed to give currency, under the emblem of the United Nations, to a completely misleading version of the history of the Arab-Israel conflict.

Put briefly, that version has it that the League of Nations Mandate over Palestine was illegal, and all subsequent events, including the establishment of the State of Israel, are null and void. This wholly distorted view is set out in almost as many words in article 20 of the so-called PLO’s basic document, the “National Covenant”, and it forms the underlying thesis of the United Nations Secretariat publication in question. It completely ignores the Jewish people’s inalienable rights to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty in its homeland, the land of Israel.

Thus, what purports to be a scholarly study, supported by what appears to be a scientific apparatus, is no more than a crude piece of propaganda.”

Two States exist in former Palestine today: Arab Jordan - created in 1946 in about 78% of former Palestine - and Jewish Israel — created in 1948 in about 17% of that territory. These two states remain pivotal to ending the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict.

Trump seems ready to set the UN fabricated record straight when his peace plan is released.

Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones” - one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog

Jordan in denial over Trump plan for Israel in Judea and Samaria

[Published 16 April 2019]

In a closed-door meeting with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — King Abdullah of Jordan reportedly said the White House had given him:

“zero visibility into the most fraught part of their peace plan: how it proposes to divide Israeli and Palestinian territory.”

His Majesty — in complete denial — could not bring himself to call that territory “Judea-Samaria and Gaza.”

Abdullah has seen Trump ditch the Palestine Liberation Organisation financially and diplomatically over its continuing refusal to negotiate with Israel on any Trump proposal to divide sovereignty in Judea and Samaria between Jews and Arabs.

Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan laid out Jordan’s pivotal role in negotiating any such division in 1980:

“Israel and Jordan are the two Palestinian states envisioned and authorized by the United Nations. Jordan is now recognized in some 80% of the old territory of Palestine. Israel and Jordan are the parties primarily authorized to settle the future of the unallocated territories in accordance with the principles of the mandate and the provisions of Resolutions 242 and 338”

In 1982 duly-elected President Reagan made it clear that peace could not be achieved by the formation of an independent Palestinian state and the United States would not support the establishment of such a state.

Reagan added:

“There is, however, another way to peace. The final status of these lands must, of course, be reached through the give-and-take of negotiations; but it is the firm view of the United States that self-government by the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza in association with Jordan offers the best chance for a durable, just and lasting peace.”

Reagan concluded:

“When the border is negotiated between Jordan and Israel, our view on the extent to which Israel should be asked to give up territory will be heavily affected by the extent of true peace and normalization and the security arrangements offered in return.”

Abdullah’s father — King Hussein — did not take up Reagan’s invitation.

The creation of an additional Arab State between Israel and Jordan — favoured by President Bush, President Obama and ostensibly Kings Hussein and Abdullah — is dead in the water following Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent re-election as Israel’s Prime Minister for another four years.

Netanyahu promised pre-election to apply Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria.

Having recognised Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan Heights — Trump could do likewise for those parts of Judea and Samaria coming under Israeli sovereignty.

The circle will be completed for Netanyahu who told the United Nations on 11 December 1984:

“Clearly, in Eastern and Western Palestine, there are only two peoples, the Arabs and the Jews. Just as clearly, there are only two states in that area, Jordan and Israel. The Arab State of Jordan, containing some three million Arabs, does not allow a single Jew to live there. It also contains 4/5 of the territory originally allocated by this body’s predecessor, the League of Nations, for the Jewish National Home. The other State, Israel, has a population of over four million, of which one sixth is Arab. It contains less than 1/5 of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate…. It cannot be said, therefore, that the Arabs of Palestine are lacking a state of their own. The demand for a second Palestinian Arab State in Western Palestine, and a 22nd Arab State in the world, is merely the latest attempt to push Israel back into the hopelessly vulnerable armistice lines of 1949.”

King Abdullah should not miss the opportunity his father rejected in 1982.

Zero visibility will disappear when King Abdullah opens his eyes.

Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog

Hashemite rule in Jordan on collision course with Trump and Israel

[Published 7 April 2019]

King Abdullah seems increasingly hell bent on ending 99 years of Hashemite-dynasty rule in Jordan.

This possibility is emerging as Abdullah is:

1. Seemingly refusing to commit to negotiating with Israel on President Trump’s soon-to-be-released deal of the century to end the Jewish-Arab conflict and

2. Taking active steps to place the Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty in jeopardy.

Transjordan (renamed Jordan in 1950) has always been the key to resolving competing territorial claims by both Arabs and Jews in former Palestine.

Transjordan comprised 78% of the territory placed under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine after being wrested from 400 years of Ottoman Empire sovereignty during World War 1. Mandatory Palestine was designated in April 1920 by the Principal Allied Powers at the San Remo Conference and in August 1920 by article 95 of the Treaty of Sevres as the location for reconstitution of the ancient and biblical homeland of the Jewish people.

Transjordan’s first Hashemite ruler — Abdullah I — arrived there in November 1920

Abdullah was en route by train from Hijaz to Syria with armed forces to assist his brother Feisal in his struggle with France to retain power in Syria. Winston Churchill
— at France’s request - offered Abdullah an Emirate in Transjordan — which Abdullah gratefully accepted on 11 April 1921.

Feisal was removed from Syria by the French and installed as ruler of Iraq under the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty dated 10 October 1922. France became the Mandatory for the territory comprised in the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon.

These British-Franco machinations cost the Jewish people dearly — when the Mandate for Palestine - adopted unanimously by all 51 members of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922 - denied the Jewish people the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in any part of Transjordan (Eastern Palestine) and restricted that right to the remaining 22% (Western Palestine).

The Jews reluctantly accepted this decision. The Arabs didn’t.

In 1946 Transjordan was granted independence by Great Britain.

In 1948 — immediately after the Mandate ended and Jews declared the State of Israel — Transjordan invaded Western Palestine conquering Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem (comprising 4% of Mandatory Palestine) — and unified these areas with Transjordan to form a new territorial entity — Jordan — encompassing 82% of Mandatory Palestine completely devoid of Jews.

The founding Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Charter in 1964 specifically excluded any PLO claim to sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

In the 1967 Six Day War Israel captured Judea and Samaria from Jordan. The PLO - claiming Jordan and Israel to be one indivisible territorial unit - removed its non-claim to sovereignty from the revised 1968 Charter.

In September 1970 the PLO unsuccessfully tried to overthrow Jordan’s Hashemite ruler King Hussein. Israel helped save Hussein.

Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 (Peace Treaty) — which has withstood many events that could have seen its termination.

That Treaty is again under threat — as Jordan has:

1. indicated it is not prepared to renew an expired 25 year lease of Jordanian sovereign territory farmed by Israelis and

2. given the PLO 40% representation on the body charged with administering the Moslem Holy Sites in Jerusalem — breaching the Washington Declaration and the Peace Treaty.

Jordan’s resistance to negotiating with Israel on Trump’s plan could see Trump shelving it and abruptly ending the 2018 five year $1.275 billion America-Jordan Memorandum of Understanding underpinning Jordan’s security and stability.

The PLO — as in 1970 — is waiting in the wings as current ongoing unrest in Jordan is destabilizing continuing Hashemite rule there.

Abdullah might find that spurning Trump and Israel could see him facing the PLO on his own.

Trump exposes United Nations as world’s epicenter for Jew-hatred

[Published 3 April 2019]

President Trump’s Proclamation recognizing Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan Heights — and the condemnation issued by the United Nations Security Council in response - has exposed the United Nations (UN) as the world’s epicenter for rabid Jew-hatred.

Jews do have ancient, historic and legal claims to sovereignty in the Golan Heights that cannot simply continue to be dismissed by a UN media release headed “Security Council Members Regret Decision by United States to Recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over Occupied Syrian Golan”.

The “Occupied Syrian Golan” is UN diplomatic doublespeak contrived after Israel:

1. Captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six Day War from Syria,

2. Passed an Act in 1981 declaring that the law, jurisdiction and administration of Israel applied to the Golan Heights - which was immediately rejected by Security Council Resolution 497.

Circumstances have since changed as Israel now faces Syria and its “invitees” Russia, Iran and Hezbollah across this very strategic piece of territory — whilst the UN remains powerless to end the carnage and displacement of Syria’s citizens by its ruler Bashir Assad during the past eight years.

Thirty-eight years of unbroken UN refusal to recognise Jewish sovereignty in the 1150 square kilometers Golan Heights has finally been called out and trashed by Trump.

The UN’s continuing anti-Israel and pro-Syrian bias in 2019 is the product of a structured regional-representation system which has seen decisions of its 193 member states impacted for decades by:

1. 16 member States that have never recognized Israel

2. 11 member States that have had no diplomatic relations with Israel for decades

3. 30 member States (in addition to those in 1 and 2) that are members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) — hardly a Jewish fan club

4. 77 member States that fraternize and associate with the above 57 Jew-hating States in a 134 member voting bloc at the UN called the G77 — guaranteeing an automatic majority for any resolution in the UN General Assembly — no matter how dismissive or contemptuous of Jewish rights and claims.

The Security Council’s current 10 non-permanent members include 3 OIC members — 2 of whom — Indonesia and Kuwait — have never recognized Israel.

The Commission on the Status of Women currently includes among its 45 members: 6 that have never recognised Israel — Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

The current 49 members of the Human Rights Council include: 9 States that do not recognise Israel — Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Iraq, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Tunisia — and another 19 who are both OIC and G77 members or only G77 members.

These States regularly denigrate and delegitimise the Jewish people under the guise of civilized debate and constructive discussion on solving the worlds’ problem — most of which are remarkably sheeted home to the actions of the Jewish State of Israel and its Jewish majority population.

This toxic hate-filled potpourri has created a climate of unbridled UN-sponsored Jew-hatred that has permeated through other UN agencies including UNESCO and UNRWA.

A UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People exists — but no similar UN Committee for the Jewish People.

UN Jew-hatred will be re-ignited when Trump inevitably focuses his attention on Judea and Samaria — the UN’s falsely-designated “Occupied Palestinian Territories” — where the UN still misleadingly claims that Jews have no vested legal rights to reconstitute their biblical and ancient national home there as recognised by:

1. Article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and

2. Article 80 of the United Nations own Charter.

Endemic Jew-hatred throughout the UN must be eradicated if the UN is to regain any credibility or relevance.

Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog

Trump could replicate Golan Heights decision in Judea and Samaria

[Published 26 March 2019]

President Trump’s Proclamation on Recognizing the Golan Heights as Part of the State of Israel (Proclamation) could have important implications for America’s future policy regarding territorial claims by the Jewish people in Judea and Samaria (West Bank).

Trump first signalled America was voting against the United Nations long-held position on the Golan Heights — when US Ambassador to the United Nations — Nikki Haley —declared on 15 November 2018:

“The annual United Nations resolution entitled “The Occupied Syrian Golan” is scheduled for a vote on Friday, November 16. In previous years, the United States has abstained from voting on this resolution. However, given the resolution’s anti-Israel bias, as well as the militarization of the Syrian Golan border, and a worsening humanitarian crisis, this year the United States has decided to vote no on the resolution.

The United States will no longer abstain when the United Nations engages in its useless annual vote on the Golan Heights. If this resolution ever made sense, it surely does not today. The resolution is plainly biased against Israel. Further, the atrocities the Syrian regime continues to commit prove its lack of fitness to govern anyone. The destructive influence of the Iranian regime inside Syria presents major threats to international security. ISIS and other terrorist groups remain in Syria. And this resolution does nothing to bring any parties closer to a peace agreement. The United States will vote no.”

The United Nations designation of the Golan Heights as “The Occupied Syrian Golan” clearly signalled the UN’s total rejection of any Jewish biblical, historic and legal claims in the Golan Heights.

Part of the Golan Heights had been originally included in the territory of the Mandate for Palestine in the 1920 “Franco-British Convention on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia”. This Convention established a joint commission to settle the precise details of the border and mark it on the ground. The Commission submitted its final report on 3 February 1922 — reducing the area of Palestine by placing all of the Golan Heights within the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon. The 1923 Paulet–Newcombe Agreement was subsequently signed by the British and French Governments confirming this and other boundary adjustments.

Trump could well turn his attention now to recognising the legal right of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria.

The United Nations:

1. designation of Judea and Samaria as “The Occupied Palestinian Territories” and

2. retention of the term “West Bank” — first used in 1950 — rather than “Judea and Samaria” — used since biblical times

has similarly signalled the UN’s rejection of the Jewish peoples’ right to “close settlement” in Judea and Samaria — expressly recognized in article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and preserved until today by article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Another Trump proclamation acknowledging the right of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria could happen at any time — irrespective of whether Israel has passed any law similar to that passed on 14 December 1981 which declared that ’‘the law, jurisdiction and administration of the state shall apply to the Golan Heights.’‘

Such a Trump proclamation would blunt the rising tide of rabid Jew-hatred within the United Nations, UNESCO, the United Nations Human Rights Council and the European Union resulting from these institutions having failed to acknowledge such vested Jewish rights under international law.

The Jewish people world-wide owe President Trump a huge debt of gratitude for championing and defending their right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in the Golan Heights — and hopefully soon - in Judea and Samaria.

Author’s note: The cartoon—commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog

Ilhan Omar needs to rethink her flawed position on Palestine

[Published 20 March 2019]


For far too long political debate has been reduced to name-calling and identity labeling with facts and reasoned arguments taking second place — consigning civilized discourse and the exchange of ideas and opinions into the trash bin.

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar has taken a positive step in reversing this burgeoning practice of personal denigration and arbitrary dismissal of opinions of those with whom one doesn’t agree — in setting out her opinion on resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict in an op-ed article in the Washington Post on 17 March.

Omar’s opinion is based on factual errors and her failure to take into account other relevant facts — as this sentence by sentence analysis of her position makes clear:.

1. “The founding of Israel 70 years ago was built on the Jewish people’s connection to their historical homeland, as well as the urgency of establishing a nation in the wake of the horror of the Holocaust and the centuries of anti-Semitic oppression leading up to it.”

The founding of Israel pre-dated the Holocaust - back to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War 1. Palestine — within boundaries to be determined - which had formed part of the territory of the Ottoman Empire for the previous 400 years - was designated by the Principal Allied Powers at the San Remo Conference held in April 1920 as the location for the ”establishment of a national home for the Jewish people.” This decision was unanimously endorsed by the League of Nations when granting Great Britain the Mandate for Palestine in 1922. The Mandate’s boundaries comprised what is today called Israel, Jordan, Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza. However the establishment of the Jewish National Home in Transjordan - 78% of Mandatory Palestine - was postponed or withheld under article 25 of the Mandate.

2. “We must acknowledge that this is also the historical homeland of Palestinians.”

The “Palestinians” were not recognized as an identifiable people in 1917. The Mandate for Palestine regarded the Arab residents of Palestine as forming part of the “existing non-Jewish communities” in Palestine - whose civil and religious rights were not to be prejudiced. The “Palestinians” were only defined for the first time in the 1964 PLO Charter — article 6.3.

3. “And without a state, the Palestinian people live in a state of permanent refugeehood and displacement.”

The Palestinian Arabs acquired their own state and independence in 1946 in Jordan - 78% of Palestine. Hamas exercises full administrative control over the Arab residents of Gaza. The PLO exercises full administrative control over 95% of the Arab population of Judea and Samaria (West Bank).

4. “This, too, is a refugee crisis, and they, too, deserve freedom and dignity.”

A refugee crisis exists in Lebanon and Syria because the Palestinian Arabs living there have been denied citizenship for 70 years.

5. “I support a two-state solution, with internationally recognized borders, which allows for both Israelis and Palestinians to have their own sanctuaries and self-determination.”

There are already two such states in 95% of former Palestine — one (78%) for the Arabs called Jordan — one (17%) for the Jews, called Israel.

6. “This has been official bipartisan U.S. policy across two decades and has been supported by each of the most recent Israeli and Palestinian leaders, as well as the consensus of the Israeli security establishment.”

New solutions are required after negotiations spanning 25 years have failed to create a second Arab state in former Palestine between Israel and Jordan. Redrawing the international borders between Jordan Israel and Egypt could be game changers.

Hopefully Congressman Omar will rethink her flawed position and continue this dialogue…