Biden and Bennett need to jointly adopt or dump Trump Peace Plan

 

President Biden and Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett need to jointly decide on whether to adopt or dump President Trump’s Peace Plan (Trump’s Plan) during their White House meeting on 26 August.

Trump’s Plan (see diagrams following) provides a political and economic path to creating for the first time in recorded history “A Future State of Palestine” between Jordan, Israel and Egypt - or — if rejected — offers the tantalising possibility of extending Jordanian and Egyptian sovereignty - in:

• 70% of Judea and Samaria (West Bank),
• All of Gaza and
• Land currently located within the internationally-recognized boundaries of Israel

Trump summarised his vision:

“The plan designates defensible borders for the State of Israel and does not ask Israel to compromise on the safety of its people, affording them overriding security responsibility for land west of the Jordan River. For Palestinians, the Vision delivers significant territorial expansion, allocating land roughly comparable in size to the West Bank and Gaza for establishing a Palestinian State. Transportation links would allow efficient movement between Gaza and the West Bank, as well as throughout a future Palestine. The plan does not call for uprooting any Israelis or Palestinians from their homes.”

A joint US-Israeli Mapping Committee established in February 2020 to map the precise area of Judea and Samaria in which Israeli sovereignty was to be extended (approximately 30%) had apparently not concluded its deliberations when Trump left the White House in January 2021.

Israel’s then Prime Minister — Benjamin Netanyahu — endorsed Trump’s Plan.

The Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas rejected Trump’s Plan outright but the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco seemingly accepted its political and economic goals when subsequently normalizing their relationships with Israel.

Biden’s seven months tenure as President has already seen unprecedented chaos and confusion in America’s internal and external relations following Biden’s unilateral dumping of three major Trump policies without consulting individuals, state or foreign Governments affected by such changes:

• Ceasing construction of Trump’s security fence on America’s southern border - facilitating increased unauthorised and illegal entry of aliens into the US.

CNN reported on this continuing crisis on August 13, 2021:

"The Biden administration is facing a “serious challenge” at the US southern border, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday, saying the US has encountered an “unprecedented” number of migrants illegally crossing the border.

During a news conference in Brownsville, Texas, Mayorkas stressed the sharp increase of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border, many of whom are fleeing deteriorating conditions in their home countries.”

• Blocking completion of the Keystone XL pipeline (costing 11000 jobs) and reviewing oil-exploration leases granted by Trump in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - reversing hallmark policies of Trump’s administration championing the oil industry by promoting oil-exploration projects in the interests of securing US energy independence. 

• Ditching Trump’s plans for a conditions-based orderly American withdrawal from Afghanistan and replacing it with an unconditional withdrawal - leaving behind billions of dollars of American sophisticated and highly-secret military equipment, up to 15000 American civilians, and thousands of Afghani civilians who helped the US military — and their families - at the mercy of the anti-US Taliban terrorist militants taking over Afghanistan.

Biden cannot — after these disastrous unilateral policy decisions — dump Trump’s Plan without Bennett’s approval.

Trump’s Plan - the most comprehensive and detailed plan ever prepared by an American President for dividing sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza between Arabs and Jews — remains the best way forward for ending the unresolved 100 years Jewish-Arab conflict.

Trump’s Plan — and his vision for peace - will surely be hovering over Biden and Bennett when they face-off in their White House meeting this week.

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.

Jordan is the Palestinian State: Hussein and Abdullah differ

 

It is rare for CNN host Fareed Zakaria to issue an apology – but he did so after interviewing Jordan’s King Abdullah II last week.

Zakaria had wrongly attributed the following comments to prominent Israeli diplomat Dore Gold when questioning the King:

“Jordan needs to start thinking of itself as the Palestinian state. In other words, there is a two-state solution, the Palestinian state is Jordan.”

Abdullah’s response to Zakaria was dismissive:

“Jordan is Jordan. We have a mixed society from different ethnic and religious backgrounds… it is our country. The Palestinians do not want to be in Jordan; they want their lands, they want their football team, they want their flag to fly above their houses.”

Jordan – then called Transjordan - was founded on 77% of the territory comprised in the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine - following the San Remo Conference and Treaty of Sevres in 1920 and the 1921 Cairo Conference.

The planned reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Transjordan was postponed or withheld under article 25 of the Mandate with the result that no Jews live there today – the population being entirely Arab.

Transjordan achieved independence in 1946 – changing its name to Jordan in 1950 after unifying its territory with Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and East Jerusalem conquered by Transjordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Only Great Britain and Pakistan recognised Transjordan’s decision.

Zakaria’s apology to Gold was unqualified:

“On last week’s show, I asked King Abdullah about the concept that there would be no stand-alone Palestine state in the future that but instead his nation, Jordan, would become the de-facto Palestine state. I said the idea had been recently mentioned by long time Israeli diplomat, Dore Gold. I was wrong. Many have talked about that concept, but not ambassador Gold. I apologize for that error.”

One Arab leader who talked about “that concept” was King Abdullah’s father – the late King Hussein - who in 1972:

• lauded his grandfather King Abdullah 1’s legacy: 

“On 24 April 1950, the new Jordanian National Assembly - with its two chambers, deputies and senators - representing the two Banks held an historic meeting which marked the first real step in modern Arab history towards Arab unity, which the revolution has advocated since its inception. The meeting announced the unity and merger of the two Banks in a single independent Arab State, a parliamentary monarchy known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.” 

 

• pointed out the memorable period that followed during King Hussein’s reign:

“The primary fact that the unity of the two Banks represented day after day has been that the people in both Banks are one and not two peoples. This fact was manifested for the first time in the reunion of the sons of the East Bank with their emigrant brothers, the sons of the Palestine areas occupied in 1948. It was manifested when the former shared with the latter food and shelter and the sweetness and bitterness of life. This fact became more salient and took deeper roots with every step the State took.

The unity of blood and destiny reached its greatest significance in 1967 when the sons of the two Banks stood together on the West Bank as they have been doing for twenty years and jointly sacrificed their blood on its pure soil. But the struggle was too great for them and its conditions and complexities were too much for their valour. The catastrophe occurred and what happened did happen.”

Abdullah’s repudiation of his ancestors’ reunification of the two Banks of the Jordan River and their Arab populations within one State marks the lowest point in Jordan’s 100 years-old 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.

King Abdullah cannot exclude Jordan from any two-state solution

 

King Abdullah’s continuing attempt to exclude Jordan from being part of any two-state solution remains the major obstacle to ending the 100 years old unresolved Arab-Jewish conflict.

The King’s intransigent position came in this exchange with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria this week:

Zakaria: Dore Gold, an influential adviser to Prime Minister Netanyahu, recently said, Jordan needs to start thinking of itself as the Palestinian state. In other words, there is a two-state solution, the Palestinian state is Jordan, I think the implication would be, of course, you have 60-70 percent Palestinians, you could absorb the Palestinians in the West Bank. This has been touted before, but here you have a fairly influential Israeli saying it. What is your reaction?

King: Well, again, that type of rhetoric is nothing new, and basically, those people have agendas that they want to do at the expense of others. Jordan is Jordan. We have a mixed society from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. I would maybe contest the percentage in the figures that you have mentioned, but it is our country. The Palestinians do not want to be in Jordan; they want their lands, they want their football team, they want their flag to fly above their houses.”

King Abdullah ignored Jordan’s chequered origins in asserting:

• "Jordan is Jordan”,
• “it is our country” and
• ”the Palestinians do not want to be in Jordan”

The following historic, geographic and demographic realities contradict King Abdullah’s remarks:

• Jordan — then called Transjordan — comprised 78% of the territory of former Palestine designated in the 1920-1948 Mandate for Palestine (British Mandate).
• Transjordan only became an independent state in 1946
• Abdullah’s great-grandfather and Transjordan’s first ruler — King Abdullah I — told a meeting of the Arab League in Cairo on April 12, 1948:

“Palestine and Transjordan are one, for Palestine is the coastline and Transjordan the hinterland of the same country”

• Israel achieved its independence in May 1948 in 17% of the territory comprised in the British Mandate.
• Transjordan was unified with Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem into one territorial entity and renamed Jordan in 1950 after Transjordan had conquered those areas in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War— which lasted until their loss to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.
• Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem were designated “the West Bank of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” in the founding 1964 Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Charter — whilst regional sovereignty was not claimed by the PLO.
• The 1964 PLO Charter asserted that “Palestine with its boundaries at the time of the British Mandate is a regional indivisible unit.”
• The revised 1968 PLO Charter confirmed that “Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit”.
• Arab residents of Judea and Samaria were Jordanian citizens between 1950 and 1988
• Abdullah’s uncle—Prince Hassan—told the Jordanian National Assembly on February 2, 1970:

"Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine, there is one people and one land, with one history and one and the same fate”

• The PLO unsuccessfully tried to seize power in Jordan in 1970
• Prime PLO political strategist—Abu Iyad—declared in Near East Report on January 8, 1990:

“All those who tried in the past and are still trying to create divisions between the Jordanian and Palestinian people have failed. We indeed constitute one people”

Abdullah ignores these long-standing realities at his peril.

Abdullah is deluding himself in denying the role Jordan must inevitably play in achieving the long sought-after two-state solution: Redrawing the international border between Jordan and Israel — the two successor States to the British Mandate — allocating sovereignty between them in Judea Samaria and Gaza — without creating another State.


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.

UN discrimination against Jews traps Unilever and J Street

 

The United Nations (UN) false designation of Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem as the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” (OPT) has seen the sorry spectacle this week of:

• A multinational corporation — Unilever PIC (Unilever) — discriminating against the sale of ice cream to Jews who live in those areas by its wholly owned subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s and
• A Jewish organisation — J Street — defending Unilever’s decision.

The term “Occupied Palestinian Territories” ignores the 1948 Arab-Israeli War that saw every Jew living in those territories prior to 1948 being:

• driven out and expelled from their homes and businesses by the invading army of Transjordan and
• prevented from returning to resume life there until the conclusion of the Six Day War in 1967.

Moreover this loaded anti-Jewish term papers over the destruction, damage and vandalizing of Jewish synagogues, cemeteries and properties during the 19 years those areas remained Judenrein.

Had the UN any intellectual honesty in presenting a fair and balanced account of what happened between 1948 and 1967 — it would be calling these territories the “Re-occupied Disputed Territories”. Its continuing failure to do so indicates the disturbing anti-Jewish bias that permeates the United Nations and its agencies.

Ben & Jerry’s’ press release headlined “Occupied Palestinian Territory” (below) has clearly influenced Unilever’s decision to justify its policy of discriminating against Jews living there — whilst being more than happy to continue selling its ice cream to those Jew-haters who:

• Forcibly evicted and expelled all the Jews living there between 1948 and 1967
• Murder and maim Jews living there now on an ongoing basis and are financially rewarded for doing so.

Strange values indeed for a multinational organisation to embrace — values that are leading Unilever into growing commercial challenges internationally by those decent enough to not share Unilever’s perverse values.

Even more disturbing and reprehensible is this J Street defence of Unilever’s anti-Jewish discrimination policy:

J Street gets it very wrong in relying on false and misleading decades-old UN propaganda when making the following claims:

• The battleground is not the “Israeli-Palestinian debate” — it is the “Jewish-Arab conflict” - begun 100 years ago with the 1920 San Remo Conference and Treaty of Sevres and still unresolved - when there were no “Israelis” or “Palestinians” — only “Arabs” and “Jews”.
• The “Palestinian people” was not defined until 1964 — a racist and apartheid Arabs-only definition that excludes all non-Arabs and Jews who lived in Palestine after 1917.
• The “rights and freedom of the Palestinian People” specifically excluded any claim by its sole spokesman — the Palestine Liberation Organisation - to sovereignty in “the West Bank of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” - or the right to establish a separate State there — in addition to Jordan — which occupies 78% of former Palestine.
• “Illegal settlements” are “legal” under article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter.

Words do count.

J Street’s readiness to defend Unilever’s decision is appalling. No self-respecting Jewish organisation espousing “our Jewish values” should ever defend decisions discriminating against Jews.

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN — Yehuda Blum – confronted the UN General Assembly and trashed its treatment of the Jewish-Arab conflict on November 16, 1978:

“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.”

Unilever and J Street have seemingly swallowed the UN’s pernicious rewriting of history to justify discrimination against Jews because of where they live.

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.

Lapid-Bennett consensus buries Biden's renewed two-state solution bid

 

The likelihood of President Biden being the American President finally overseeing an end to the 100 years old conflict between Arabs and Jews — promisingly advanced by President Trump’s Abraham Accords — was dashed this week when Israel’s Foreign Minister — and its next Prime Minister in 26 months’ time —Yair Lapid — told the EU Foreign Affairs Council:

“A future Palestinian state must be a democracy that seeks peace with Israel”

Israel's current Prime Minister - Naftali Bennett - shares Lapid's opinion:

“Self-determination also depends on democracy so that the people are able to determine what they want. Almost none of neighbours enjoy democracy and if they did they would cease to be.”

Bennett and Lapid’s consensus democracy-demand is also supported by two former American Presidents:

• President Bush on April 30, 2003:

“A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty, and through Israel’s readiness to do what is necessary for a democratic Palestinian state to be established”

• President Trump in his 2020 Peace Plan:

“The following criteria are a predicate to the formation of a Palestinian State and must be determined to have occurred by the State of Israel and the United States, jointly, acting in good faith, after consultation with the Palestinian Authority:

The Palestinians shall have implemented a governing system with a constitution or another system for establishing the rule of law that provides for freedom of the press, free and fair elections, respect for human rights for its citizens, protection for religious freedom and for religious minorities to observe their faith, uniform and fair enforcement of law and contractual rights, due process under law, and an independent judiciary with appropriate legal consequences and punishment established for violations of the law.

The Palestinians shall have ended all programs, including curricula and textbooks, that serve to incite or promote hatred or antagonism against its neighbours, or which compensate or incentivize criminal or violent activity.

The Obama-Biden administration — between 2009 and 2017 — failed to achieve any two-state solution— the creation of a new Arab state between Jordan and Israel for the first time in recorded history —betraying Israel in the process on December 23, 2016 by failing to veto United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 as the Obama-Biden administration was vacating the White House.

That UN decision — inimical to Israel’s interest — was described by Lapid as:

“dangerous and unfair, and Israel will not accept it”

Biden’s latest support for a two-state solution expressed in his telephone call with Jordan’s King Abdullah on April 7, 2021 — seems even further from being realised given Lapid’s four additional conditions for its creation — backed up by Bennett:

• “Israeli security should stay in Israeli hands” — enabling the army to enter Palestinian territory if they are aware of terrorists planning an attack on Israelis.
• The Jordan Valley remain in Israeli hands
• “There is no such thing as the right of return”—referring to the Palestinian demand to return to pre-1948 lands.
• Jerusalem remain undivided “because countries do not divide their own capitals.”

Bennet opposes any two-state solution – even one that is democratically-based:

“My option is that Palestinians have an ‘autonomy on steroids,’ and I’m open to ideas about how this materialises; it could be a confederation with Jordan, or local municipalities, or a central government.”

Biden’s renewed pursuit of the two-state solution — without stipulating there be a democratic outcome— is destined to end up in the garbage bin 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.

Abdullah-Biden meeting will not help resolve Jewish-Arab conflict

 

The meeting between Jordan’s King Abdullah and President Biden at the White House on 19 July seems set to achieve absolutely nothing towards resolving the 100 years-old conflict between Jews and Arabs.

Biden’s Press Secretary — Jen Psaki – has claimed:

“It will be an opportunity to discuss the many challenges facing the Middle East and showcase Jordan’s leadership role in promoting peace and stability in the region.”

The King has shown no leadership in resolving the conflict between Jews and Arabs over sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) [“Disputed Territory”] and Gaza – comprising the remaining 5% of the territory of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine where sovereignty still remains unallocated (“Unallocated Territories”).

Sovereignty in the remaining 95% of the Mandate territory was divided between:

• Jordan—78% – upon the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946
• Israel—17% – upon its establishment in 1948.

Concerted attempts over the last 25 years to create an additional Arab State in the Unallocated Territories for the first time in recorded history (“two-state solution”) have all failed. Abdullah has been a principal protagonist for this solution.

Jordan’s failure to take a leadership role in agreeing to an alternative solution — division of the Unallocated Territories between Jordan and Israel within the framework of their existing 1994 Peace Treaty – has gone begging during Abdullah’s 22 year reign.

The following historic, geographic and demographic realities bind Jordan with the Disputed Territory:

• Transjordan in 1948 conquered and occupied the Disputed Territory until 1967 – renaming the newly-merged territorial entity “Jordan” in 1950.
• The Arab residents of the Disputed Territory were Jordanian citizens between 1950 and 1988 and elected their own representatives to the Jordanian Parliament in Amman.
• Statements made by Arab leaders over decades have attested to the territorial and population ties between Jordan and the Disputed Territory

“Jordan and Palestine until 1945 were one state, actually. After the Second World War Churchill himself said ‘This is Transjordan and this is Palestine’. Before that, Jordan was an emirate, completely part of Palestine.” – Yasser Arafat New York Review of Books 25 June 1987

“Jordanians and Palestinians are indeed one people. No one can divide us. We have the same fate.”—Yasser Arafat Der Spiegel 1986

“The Jordanians and Palestinians are now one people, and no political loyalty, however strong, will separate them permanently… Small as Jordan is, our country is politically, socially, economically, militarily and historically inseparable from the Palestinian issue” - Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan Foreign Affairs Spring 1982

“Palestine and Jordan were both under British Mandate, but as my grandfather pointed out in his memoirs, they were hardly separate countries. Trans-Jordan, being to the east of the River Jordan, it formed in a sense, the interior of Palestine” – King Hussein of Jordan Uneasy Lies the Head, New York 1962 p. 118

“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” – Article 24 Palestine Liberation Organisation Charter 1964

Jewish settlement — prohibited under article 25 of the 1922 Mandate document in what is today’s Jordan – was encouraged under article 6 in the Disputed Territory on State land and waste land not required for public purposes. That right is preserved until today under Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Jordan’s return to such part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as is agreed with Israel in direct negotiations remains the key to ending the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Jordan — part of the problem — must be part of the solution.

Abdullah will continue to hide behind the two-state solution in his meeting with Biden.

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.

Israel signals end to EU-funded unauthorised building in West Bank

 

Israel’s decision to evict all 53 Jewish families from the unauthorised settlement of Evyatar in the West Bank this week should send a clear signal to the European Union (EU) that its days of financing and facilitating the building of unauthorised Arab structures in Area C of the West Bank are over.

Area C comprises about 60% of the West Bank and has been under Israel’s full security and administrative control since the 1995 Oslo Accords were signed.

The following Table shows the annual number of targeted structures funded by the EU and EU member states up to July-December 2019 including information about incurred financial losses:

According to the Daily Mail: (See Chart Below)

• Locally, the villages are known as the ‘EU Settlements’, and can be found in 17 locations around the West Bank.

• They fly the EU flag and display hundreds of EU stickers and signs. Some also bear the logos of Oxfam and other NGOs, which have assisted in the projects.”

Relief Web reported in February:

• So far in 2021, the targeting of EU funded aid structures tripled compared with the monthly average in 2020
• 47 EU-funded structures were targeted in February.

Professor Hillel Frisch in 2019 summarised what the EU has been up to:

“Ever since a decision in January 2012, the EU has been expressly committed to the expansion of illegal Palestinian settlement in Area C in conjunction with the PA [ed: Palestinian Authority]. This is in blatant disregard of the Oslo accords, which the EU purports to uphold. The object is to create continuous Palestinian settlement throughout the West Bank and thereby isolate and strangle Israeli communities.”

Professor Frisch detailed the genesis of the EU’s unlawful involvement in the West Bank:

“In July 2011, a report entitled “Area C and Palestinian State Building” was produced by the EU. It was then brought to the European Parliament in December and approved by the European Commission in early January 2012…

In April 2012, the PA’s Ministry of Local Government (MoLG) published a strategic action plan entitled “Planning Support for Palestinian Communities in Area C.” The EU announced its support for this plan in an official document published in 2012 called “Land Development and Access to Basic Infrastructure in Area C.”

By 2016, the European Community had spent a total of 10.5 million euros to draw up and implement zoning plans for 90 Palestinian settlements and support land development projects in Area C in conjunction with the MoLG.”

Buildings — mainly modular in form — were transported to various areas during the night and erected by the next morning.

An apparently unauthorised Palestinian school located near Adam Junction in Area C - funded by the EU and flying the EU flag - is pictured below:

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s declaration in January 2020 — made before he was elected Israel’s Prime Minister — should now set off alarm bells in the EU:

“Our objective is that within a short amount of time, and we will work for it, we will apply [Israeli] sovereignty to all of Area C, not just the settlements, not just this bloc or another… We are embarking on a real and immediate battle for the future of the land of Israel and the future of Area C”

The EU then responded:

“Demolitions and seizures of humanitarian assets are contrary to Israel’s obligations under international law”.

Representing these EU-funded structures as “humanitarian assets” was deceptive and misleading. They are ”political structures aimed at stopping Israeli sovereignty being applied in Area C “.

EU intervention and meddling in Area C of the West Bank over the last ten years will seemingly no longer be tolerated by Israel’s new Government.


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.