[Published June 2007]
The Arab League and the Quartet – America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - have become totally paralysed as Hamas and Fatah lay into each other in Gaza with a ferocity that makes the never ending procession of pious resolutions passed at the United Nations condemning Israeli "brutality and breaches of international humanitarian law " what they always have been – totally hypocritical and quite farcical.
Throwing people off high rise buildings, murdering patients in hospital wards and shooting off peoples' heads now join Gaza's bizarre list of inhumane and barbaric practices.
Gaza's culture of violence has exploded to new limits of horror and revulsion yet the Arab League and the Quartet are not lifting a finger to actively end it.
The chickens are now coming home to roost with a vengeance for the Arab League and the Quartet.
The Arab League's Peace Plan (2002) and the Quartet's Road Map (2003) sponsoring an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza - just 6% of historic Palestine - were catastrophic decisions that set back any hope for peace in the region during the last five years.
Expectations in the Palestinian Authority that it now had worldwide public and political support firmly behind it for the creation of an independent State in the West Bank and Gaza, emboldened it to continue to make three impossible demands that Israel could not ever possibly accept:
1. The withdrawal from every square inch of Gaza and the West Bank
2. The right to return and live in Israel for millions of former Arab residents and their descendants who wished to do so
3. The removal of 450000 Jews from Gaza and the West Bank where they had lived for up to 40 years and their forced repatriation to Israel if they did not wish to leave willingly.
Israel's precipitate action in unilaterally evacuating all 7000 Jewish residents from Gaza in 2005 contributed to a fuelling of these expectations and even more – the belief that this was the first step in the ultimate destruction of Israel.
Instead of dancing and singing in the streets and engaging in nation building, Gaza reverberated to the sounds of hundreds of Kassam rockets fired at Israel, more suicide missions were undertaken into Israel, a total breakdown of law and order occurred and increased smuggling of weapons from Egypt was carried out - at the same time as an increasingly hostile and belligerent population were voting Hamas into power.
Whatever you think of Hamas – they mean what they say and don't mince the words they use. The goal of Hamas is the destruction of Israel - nothing more, nothing less.
The Arab League and the Quartet however weren't listening and continued to pursue their misguided and flawed policy by supporting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in his supposed quest to achieve a state in Gaza and the West Bank - even as Hamas began to consolidate its position as the Government in Gaza.
Attempts by the Arab League to broker a unity Hamas/Fatah Government failed dismally.
Abbas had become a powder puff President with no real power or authority. Now Abbas' demise in Gaza is very close at hand as his forces wilt under the Hamas onslaught.
The current carnage has ensured once and for all the demise of any plan for the creation of an independent State in the West Bank and Gaza.
Perhaps the Arab League and the Quartet now need to ponder on the phrase used by Plato in his Republic written in 369BC:
"Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State and yet the true creator is necessity,who is the mother of our invention"
The idea of creating a State in Gaza and the West Bank may have seemed a good idea and been undertaken with the best of intentions by both the Arab League and the Quartet.
Yet by refusing to accept anything less than they demanded, the Arab populations living in those areas put their hatred of the Jews above their claimed necessity for such a State.
Rejection of Statehood had been similarly refused by the Arabs when proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937 and the United Nations in 1947.
It had also been rejected between 1948-1967 during the occupation of the West Bank by Jordan and of Gaza by Egypt.
It was rejected again after the Six Day War in 1967 when the Arab League refused to negotiate with or recognise Israel.
In every case, hatred of the Jews was thought more important than the Arabs having a second Arab state in Palestine in addition to Jordan .
Five attempts to create a new Arab State between Israel, Jordan and Egypt over the last 70 years have failed miserably and have brought nothing but continuing death and suffering to both Jews and Arabs. It is time to close the book on this proposal as the means of achieving an end to the 130 year old conflict in former Palestine.
The current parlous position in Gaza and the potentially looming confrontation in the West Bank between Hamas and Fatah have created a new, very urgent and different necessity that needs to be addressed by an inventive solution that is not based on the creation of a state in these areas.
This solution can only be found through the re-entry of Jordan into the heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank - to assume control there and incorporate the area into Jordan - with the unconditional diplomatic and financial support of the Arab League and the Quartet and with the express consent of Israel.
Gaza has now become a place no one wants to enter. It has become Israel's neighbour from hell. Israel will no doubt have to deal with the mess there. It will not be a pretty sight.
The Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank have managed to turn their call for self determination into a dangerous game of self extermination. They only have themselves to blame.
A
Mandate for Palestine - July 24, 1922
Jordan is 77% of former Palestine - Israel, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza comprise 23%.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The Six Day War, Gaza, the West Bank - and Fairy Tales
[First published June 2007]
The failure by editors of supposedly impartial and respected newspapers to correct inaccuracies in media articles regarding the West Bank and Gaza prior to their publication, gives continuing credence to total Arab denial of any Jewish rights in those areas - and also seriously misleads and misinforms their trusting readers as to the nature of the conflict that is taking place.
Letters written to the editors requesting corrections are usually consigned to the waste paper basket and even if printed, are too late to undo the damage - allowing gross distortion of facts to be perpetuated and in many cases repeated by the same and other journalists.
A classic case in point is the article - “War over, but the fight goes on” - written by Ed O’Loughlin, which appeared in two of Australia’s most respected newspapers - the Sydney Morning Herald and the Brisbane Times - on 2 June 2007 to mark the 40th Anniversary of the Six Day War in 1967. http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/war-over-but-fight-goes-on/2007/06/01/1180205513190.html
Consider these five gems (and there are many more) in Mr O’Loughlin’s article:
1. “ A native of New Jersey, he is one of several hundred Jews who live under heavy military protection in the first and most extreme of all Jewish settlements on the West Bank, carved out of the historic heart of the Palestinian city of Hebron.”
The author fails to mention that “the historic heart of the Palestinian city of Hebron” happens to include the ancient Jewish Quarter of Hebron built on land purchased by Jews in 1540.
Jews lived there until 24 August 1929 when 67 Jewish men women and children were slaughtered by a crowd of rampaging Arabs . The remaining Jewish population of 750 were forced to flee. Some returned in 1931 but were forced to leave when the Arabs rioted again in 1936. Jews returned to the Jewish Quarter after the Six Day War to a very hostile welcome from the Arab residents.
Hebron contains the traditional burial place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Leah and Rebecca - one of Jewry’s holiest sites - which the Bible records was purchased by Abraham in 1753BC.
Hebron is therefore more than just a Palestinian city. It has a far longer Jewish history - one of great religious significance for Jews.
Any editor worth his salt should have taken steps to have the author correct this statement.
2. “Of all the territories captured by Israel in the Six-Day war, only the Sinai Peninsula has been returned to its former owner, Egypt, thanks to the 1978 Camp David Accords of the then US president Jimmy Carter.”
The inference is that the Sinai Peninsula is only a small part of all the territories captured by Israel.
In fact the Sinai Peninsula comprised 90% of all the territories captured by Israel. It was returned to Egypt as part of the historic Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt along with the Alma oil field discovered and developed there by Israel and reportedly worth $100 billion as well as strategic military airfields and early warning installations built by Israel. 7000 Jews were also expelled from Sinai as part of the agreement.
Why this misleading statement was allowed to go to print beggars belief.
3. “In the West Bank and East Jerusalem tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers and paramilitary police are needed to control 2.5 million indigenous Palestinians and to protect the 450000 Jewish settlers planted in their midst since the war”
Describing the Palestinians as “indigenous” is very disingenuous.
Weren’t the Jews given the right by the League of Nations under the Mandate for Palestine to “reconstitute” their former national home in these very areas after 2000years of dispersal throughout the world. Has this right not been preserved to this very day by Article 80 of the United Nations Charter?
Who are the indigenous people then - the descendants of Jews who were driven from their country 2000 years ago or the descendants of Arabs who occupied it by conquest seven centuries later?
Mr O’Loughlin’s use of the word “indigenous” is inflammatory, judgemental, totally irrelevant in relation to the context and should have been simply edited out.
4. “Gaza’s air space, sea access and border crossings are all under tight Israeli military control …”
The Rafah border crossing is under Egypt’s control - not Israel’s.
Why was this incorrect statement let through?
5. ”The Six-Day War might have appeared to be a decisive victory for Israel but its outcome was never transformed into a workable political peace settlement”
Aren’t Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) workable political peace settlements ?
If Mr O’Loughlin intended this statement to only refer to the West Bank and Gaza, then he should have made that clear in his article. However that would have created a little problem for him.
Both Gaza and the West Bank had been continuously occupied by Egypt and Jordan respectively from 1948 until 1967. Not one Jew lived there during all that time - although many had been driven out by six invading Arab armies in the 1948 War.
The Arab League could have created another Arab State in those areas at the drop of a hat at any time during those 19 years. What they demand now in the Arab League Peace Initiative was theirs for the creating until 1967.
Israel is now being pressured to make this happen 40 years later and remove 450000 Jews who have, since 1967, gone to live in the West Bank - an area that is part of their ancestral homeland and has been internationally designated and sanctioned for the Jewish National Home.
Perhaps Mr O’Loughlin should use his privileged access to these prestigious newspapers to canvas why another Arab State in the West Bank and Gaza is now thought necessary, why all the Jews must move out and how this will end the conflict between Jews and Arabs.
It might just give the editors the chance to rectify the damage caused to the reputation of their papers by allowing the publication of this article in its present form.
Fairy tales are no substitute for truth and accuracy - especially when it relates to the Arab-Jewish conflict.
The failure by editors of supposedly impartial and respected newspapers to correct inaccuracies in media articles regarding the West Bank and Gaza prior to their publication, gives continuing credence to total Arab denial of any Jewish rights in those areas - and also seriously misleads and misinforms their trusting readers as to the nature of the conflict that is taking place.
Letters written to the editors requesting corrections are usually consigned to the waste paper basket and even if printed, are too late to undo the damage - allowing gross distortion of facts to be perpetuated and in many cases repeated by the same and other journalists.
A classic case in point is the article - “War over, but the fight goes on” - written by Ed O’Loughlin, which appeared in two of Australia’s most respected newspapers - the Sydney Morning Herald and the Brisbane Times - on 2 June 2007 to mark the 40th Anniversary of the Six Day War in 1967. http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/war-over-but-fight-goes-on/2007/06/01/1180205513190.html
Consider these five gems (and there are many more) in Mr O’Loughlin’s article:
1. “ A native of New Jersey, he is one of several hundred Jews who live under heavy military protection in the first and most extreme of all Jewish settlements on the West Bank, carved out of the historic heart of the Palestinian city of Hebron.”
The author fails to mention that “the historic heart of the Palestinian city of Hebron” happens to include the ancient Jewish Quarter of Hebron built on land purchased by Jews in 1540.
Jews lived there until 24 August 1929 when 67 Jewish men women and children were slaughtered by a crowd of rampaging Arabs . The remaining Jewish population of 750 were forced to flee. Some returned in 1931 but were forced to leave when the Arabs rioted again in 1936. Jews returned to the Jewish Quarter after the Six Day War to a very hostile welcome from the Arab residents.
Hebron contains the traditional burial place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Leah and Rebecca - one of Jewry’s holiest sites - which the Bible records was purchased by Abraham in 1753BC.
Hebron is therefore more than just a Palestinian city. It has a far longer Jewish history - one of great religious significance for Jews.
Any editor worth his salt should have taken steps to have the author correct this statement.
2. “Of all the territories captured by Israel in the Six-Day war, only the Sinai Peninsula has been returned to its former owner, Egypt, thanks to the 1978 Camp David Accords of the then US president Jimmy Carter.”
The inference is that the Sinai Peninsula is only a small part of all the territories captured by Israel.
In fact the Sinai Peninsula comprised 90% of all the territories captured by Israel. It was returned to Egypt as part of the historic Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt along with the Alma oil field discovered and developed there by Israel and reportedly worth $100 billion as well as strategic military airfields and early warning installations built by Israel. 7000 Jews were also expelled from Sinai as part of the agreement.
Why this misleading statement was allowed to go to print beggars belief.
3. “In the West Bank and East Jerusalem tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers and paramilitary police are needed to control 2.5 million indigenous Palestinians and to protect the 450000 Jewish settlers planted in their midst since the war”
Describing the Palestinians as “indigenous” is very disingenuous.
Weren’t the Jews given the right by the League of Nations under the Mandate for Palestine to “reconstitute” their former national home in these very areas after 2000years of dispersal throughout the world. Has this right not been preserved to this very day by Article 80 of the United Nations Charter?
Who are the indigenous people then - the descendants of Jews who were driven from their country 2000 years ago or the descendants of Arabs who occupied it by conquest seven centuries later?
Mr O’Loughlin’s use of the word “indigenous” is inflammatory, judgemental, totally irrelevant in relation to the context and should have been simply edited out.
4. “Gaza’s air space, sea access and border crossings are all under tight Israeli military control …”
The Rafah border crossing is under Egypt’s control - not Israel’s.
Why was this incorrect statement let through?
5. ”The Six-Day War might have appeared to be a decisive victory for Israel but its outcome was never transformed into a workable political peace settlement”
Aren’t Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) workable political peace settlements ?
If Mr O’Loughlin intended this statement to only refer to the West Bank and Gaza, then he should have made that clear in his article. However that would have created a little problem for him.
Both Gaza and the West Bank had been continuously occupied by Egypt and Jordan respectively from 1948 until 1967. Not one Jew lived there during all that time - although many had been driven out by six invading Arab armies in the 1948 War.
The Arab League could have created another Arab State in those areas at the drop of a hat at any time during those 19 years. What they demand now in the Arab League Peace Initiative was theirs for the creating until 1967.
Israel is now being pressured to make this happen 40 years later and remove 450000 Jews who have, since 1967, gone to live in the West Bank - an area that is part of their ancestral homeland and has been internationally designated and sanctioned for the Jewish National Home.
Perhaps Mr O’Loughlin should use his privileged access to these prestigious newspapers to canvas why another Arab State in the West Bank and Gaza is now thought necessary, why all the Jews must move out and how this will end the conflict between Jews and Arabs.
It might just give the editors the chance to rectify the damage caused to the reputation of their papers by allowing the publication of this article in its present form.
Fairy tales are no substitute for truth and accuracy - especially when it relates to the Arab-Jewish conflict.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Palestine - The New Myth About Jordan
[Published May 2007]
Jordan’s Prime Minister, Marouf al- Bakhit, has now added one new myth to the countless many concerning Palestine that have been invented by Arab propagandists.
Speaking at a recent seminar marking the 61st anniversary of Jordan’s independence, the Prime Minister asserted that everyone should realise that:
Jordan’s history is well documented and totally contradicts the Prime Minister‘s amazing assertion.
It was accidentally born in 1921 - as the emirate of Transjordan. It then comprised 77% of the area designated by Britain and France as “Palestine” after the First World War - the land in which the Jewish National Home was intended to be reconstituted almost 2000 years after the Jews had lost their biblical and ancestral homeland to foreign invaders and occupiers.
This noble plan was suddenly “postponed or withheld” in relation to Transjordan, when Britain changed tack and proceeded to transform Transjordan into an “Arab province or adjunct of Palestine”, as Winston Churchill described it at the time. However it still remained part of Palestine until independence was granted by Britain in 1946 but the Jews were prohibited from settling there.
What was postponed or withheld became permanent after 1946.
The Jews were then left to reconstitute their homeland in just 23% of the area originally allotted to them - a miniscule 28000 square kilometres. The Arabs had ended up with the other 92000 square kilometres of Palestine as an exclusively Arab State but this did not and never has satisfied the Arabs. Some wanted and still demand a greater share and others want the lot.
Jordan was indeed the outcome of deals, conferences and conspiracies - a pay off by the British, following the Cairo Conference, to Emir Abdullah, second son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca - to stop Abdullah and his armed band of followers transiting through Transjordan on their way to Damascus to help his brother Feisal in a struggle against the French who had taken control of Syria in the break up of the Ottoman Empire.
Former US President Jimmy Carter best summed up Jordan’s history in Time on 11 October 1982 when he said:
One could equally apply Carter’s statement to Syria (independent only since 1946), Iraq (1932), Saudi Arabia (1932) and Lebanon (1943) - all nations created from the vast tracts of the Ottoman Empire allocated to the Arabs by the British and the French simultaneously with the allocation of Palestine to the Jews at the end of World War 1.
Deals, conferences and conspiracies certainly abounded at the time of Jordan’s birth and still exist today when it comes to Jordan and the role it has to play in resolving the Arab -Israel conflict.
The Jordanian Prime Minister ’s statement appears to be trying to distance Jordan from the current woes of the West Bank and Gaza - just 5% of former Palestine and 15 times smaller than the large chunk of former Palestine that Jordan now occupies.
Denying Jordan’s Palestinian parentage and lineage draws a line in the sand. It sends a message to both Hamas and Fatah to not be tempted to try attacking and wresting control of Jordan from its current rulers, as the idea of a separate State in the West Bank and Gaza now slowly fades into the sunset of history.
King Abdullah of Jordan is well aware of this nightmare scenario.
Yasser Arafat tried to do it in 1970 to Abdullah’s father King Hussein from inside Jordan and failed dismally leaving thousands dead in the process.
Now Jordan could face such a threat externally if the chaos, lawlessness, murder and mayhem occurring in Gaza spreads to the West Bank as Messrs Haniyeh and Abbas find themselves engaging in an undeclared war with Israel that they cannot possibly win.
Firing Kassam rockets into Jordan from the West Bank and making terrorist incursions into Jordan could well mirror what is happening in Israel if steps are not taken to prevent jihadist groups taking root in the West Bank.
Preserving the territorial integrity of Jordan and the safety and welfare of its citizens, all of whom are Arabs of Palestinian descent from either eastern or western Palestine, has been King Abdullah’s and his family’s sacred duty since that day back in 1921 when his great-grandfather was induced to remain in Transjordan under British patronage and protection.
Because of their efforts Jordan has been preserved as an exclusively Arab state in 77% of historic Palestine.
61 years of Arab rejectionism since Jordan’s independence in 1946 wasted in attempting to conquer all or part of the remaining 23% have brought the Arab population nothing but misery and suffering.
King Abdullah understands that both Israel and Jordan now have common enemies that are seeking their downfall.
He told Acting Israeli President Dalia Itzik just that only recently.
King Abdullah now appears to be setting the stage for a return to the Arab occupied areas of the West Bank, which Jordan last occupied from 1948 to 1967, as a necessary counter to stop any threat to his country and the relative peace and tranquillity it has enjoyed since it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.
Jordan’s Prime Minister does not have to re-write history to justify the continuing rule of Jordan under its current leadership and the role it must play - as the successor state in 77% of historic Palestine - in resolving who will ultimately be allocated sovereignty in the West Bank.
Jordan’s Prime Minister, Marouf al- Bakhit, has now added one new myth to the countless many concerning Palestine that have been invented by Arab propagandists.
Speaking at a recent seminar marking the 61st anniversary of Jordan’s independence, the Prime Minister asserted that everyone should realise that:
"this small country [Jordan] was not accidentally born nor was the outcome of deals,conferences or conspiracies.”
Jordan’s history is well documented and totally contradicts the Prime Minister‘s amazing assertion.
It was accidentally born in 1921 - as the emirate of Transjordan. It then comprised 77% of the area designated by Britain and France as “Palestine” after the First World War - the land in which the Jewish National Home was intended to be reconstituted almost 2000 years after the Jews had lost their biblical and ancestral homeland to foreign invaders and occupiers.
This noble plan was suddenly “postponed or withheld” in relation to Transjordan, when Britain changed tack and proceeded to transform Transjordan into an “Arab province or adjunct of Palestine”, as Winston Churchill described it at the time. However it still remained part of Palestine until independence was granted by Britain in 1946 but the Jews were prohibited from settling there.
What was postponed or withheld became permanent after 1946.
The Jews were then left to reconstitute their homeland in just 23% of the area originally allotted to them - a miniscule 28000 square kilometres. The Arabs had ended up with the other 92000 square kilometres of Palestine as an exclusively Arab State but this did not and never has satisfied the Arabs. Some wanted and still demand a greater share and others want the lot.
Jordan was indeed the outcome of deals, conferences and conspiracies - a pay off by the British, following the Cairo Conference, to Emir Abdullah, second son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca - to stop Abdullah and his armed band of followers transiting through Transjordan on their way to Damascus to help his brother Feisal in a struggle against the French who had taken control of Syria in the break up of the Ottoman Empire.
Former US President Jimmy Carter best summed up Jordan’s history in Time on 11 October 1982 when he said:
“As a nation, it is a contrivance, arbitrarily devised by a few strokes of the pen.”
One could equally apply Carter’s statement to Syria (independent only since 1946), Iraq (1932), Saudi Arabia (1932) and Lebanon (1943) - all nations created from the vast tracts of the Ottoman Empire allocated to the Arabs by the British and the French simultaneously with the allocation of Palestine to the Jews at the end of World War 1.
Deals, conferences and conspiracies certainly abounded at the time of Jordan’s birth and still exist today when it comes to Jordan and the role it has to play in resolving the Arab -Israel conflict.
The Jordanian Prime Minister ’s statement appears to be trying to distance Jordan from the current woes of the West Bank and Gaza - just 5% of former Palestine and 15 times smaller than the large chunk of former Palestine that Jordan now occupies.
Denying Jordan’s Palestinian parentage and lineage draws a line in the sand. It sends a message to both Hamas and Fatah to not be tempted to try attacking and wresting control of Jordan from its current rulers, as the idea of a separate State in the West Bank and Gaza now slowly fades into the sunset of history.
King Abdullah of Jordan is well aware of this nightmare scenario.
Yasser Arafat tried to do it in 1970 to Abdullah’s father King Hussein from inside Jordan and failed dismally leaving thousands dead in the process.
Now Jordan could face such a threat externally if the chaos, lawlessness, murder and mayhem occurring in Gaza spreads to the West Bank as Messrs Haniyeh and Abbas find themselves engaging in an undeclared war with Israel that they cannot possibly win.
Firing Kassam rockets into Jordan from the West Bank and making terrorist incursions into Jordan could well mirror what is happening in Israel if steps are not taken to prevent jihadist groups taking root in the West Bank.
Preserving the territorial integrity of Jordan and the safety and welfare of its citizens, all of whom are Arabs of Palestinian descent from either eastern or western Palestine, has been King Abdullah’s and his family’s sacred duty since that day back in 1921 when his great-grandfather was induced to remain in Transjordan under British patronage and protection.
Because of their efforts Jordan has been preserved as an exclusively Arab state in 77% of historic Palestine.
61 years of Arab rejectionism since Jordan’s independence in 1946 wasted in attempting to conquer all or part of the remaining 23% have brought the Arab population nothing but misery and suffering.
King Abdullah understands that both Israel and Jordan now have common enemies that are seeking their downfall.
He told Acting Israeli President Dalia Itzik just that only recently.
King Abdullah now appears to be setting the stage for a return to the Arab occupied areas of the West Bank, which Jordan last occupied from 1948 to 1967, as a necessary counter to stop any threat to his country and the relative peace and tranquillity it has enjoyed since it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.
Jordan’s Prime Minister does not have to re-write history to justify the continuing rule of Jordan under its current leadership and the role it must play - as the successor state in 77% of historic Palestine - in resolving who will ultimately be allocated sovereignty in the West Bank.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
The West Bank - Terrorize or Jordanize?
[Published May 2007]
Gaza has become a basket case as Arab kills Arab in a fight for power and control between Fatah and Hamas.
Simultaneously Kassam rockets are being fired indiscriminately from Gaza into civilian population centres in Israel inviting retaliation by Israel that has so far been remarkably restrained but threatens to erupt into all out war.
Gaza’s population has become totally dysfunctional embracing a culture of death and martyrdom rather than engage in the project of nation building following Israel‘s unilateral withdrawal in 2005.
A Mickey Mouse look alike cartoon character called Farfur stars in a children’s television show exhorting young viewers to look forward to Islam dominating the world, one in three men carries a gun, and a bewildering number of armed groups roam the streets at will in an environment of complete lawlessness.
Murders, kidnappings and torching of public buildings are happening with regular frequency.
Now the web site Debkafile has reported (May 21) that Hamas military chief Mohammad Jabari has instructed all West Bank cells to launch suicide attacks in Israeli towns forthwith and that sniper teams should target roads on the West Bank as well as Jerusalem and the Sharon district in Israel.
Not one word protesting such a call to arms has been heard from Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, or Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
The West Bank’s Arab residents now face a real dilemma as a result Jabari’s proclamation, which comes precisely at the time that Jordan’s King Abdullah has been taking tentative steps to re-enter the West Bank, which it last occupied between 1948-1967.
Jordan is the key to resolving the issue of sovereignty in the West Bank - just five per cent of historic Palestine and the only area remaining unallocated between the Arabs - who currently hold 78% called Jordan and Gaza - and the Jews - who currently hold 17% called Israel.
Jordan ceded all claims to the West Bank in 1988. At that time Jordan’s then monarch, King Hussein, in an address to the nation on 31 July 1988 said this action was “taken only in response to the wish of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and the prevailing Arab conviction that such measures will contribute to the struggle of the Palestinian people and their glorious uprising”
That decision has turned out disastrously for the Arab residents of Gaza and the West Bank, who have seen their hopes and aspirations wrecked on the dreams of a leadership that has always had the destruction of the State of Israel as its goal, despite frequently claiming that it had abandoned that policy.
Brought back to Gaza and the West Bank in 1994 from exile in Tunisia where they had been plotting and murdering since being expelled from Lebanon in 1982 to which they had gone after being driven out of Jordan in 1970, that leadership including Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, has turned “the glorious uprising” into a bewildering number of lost opportunities in the last 13 years to cement a peace treaty with Israel and end the Arab-Israel conflict.
The insistence of that leadership that Israel surrender every square inch of Gaza and the West Bank to them to allow the creation of a second Arab State in Palestine -in addition to Jordan - with Jerusalem as its capitol, as well as allowing millions of Arabs to go and live in Israel, have proved to be stumbling blocks that were and will always be incapable of resolution.
What then should happen with the Arab populations of Gaza and the West Bank?
Unless there are radical changes in Gaza, it will continue to be a hotbed of rejectionism and hatred of Israel. The population has become so traumatised by the ongoing struggles of the last 13 years that it is impossible to see how moderation and reason can prevail that will lead to the inhabitants breaking the pattern of hatred and violence that has become a feature of every aspect of their lives.
The West Bank Arabs have better choices as Israel has kept a tighter lid on the development of terrorist cells, armed gangs and the smuggling and supply of weapons to the region.
The just announced arrest by Israel of a Palestinian Cabinet Minister and 32 other Hamas leaders in the West Bank signals a determined approach by Israel to maintaining that policy.
No one should be complacent. The situation in the West Bank could well explode if Jabari’s path of terrorism is heeded. Its prevention will require the wholehearted co-operation of the population in exposing those who would seek to impose on the population the same kind of misery and suffering presently occurring in Gaza.
Jordan is now poised to return to centre stage in the West Bank as the Palestinian Authority loses all semblance of control and the two state solution proposed by the Quartet and the Arab League involving the creation of a new Arab state between Jordan and Israel slowly sinks into oblivion.
Jordan offers the best hope to end the Israeli occupation of the Arab populated areas of the West Bank.
Jordan is the most suitable negotiating Arab partner to resolve with Israel - within the framework of their existing peace treaty - the competing claims by Jews and Arabs to sovereignty in the West Bank.
The Arab League and the Quartet need to understand that the West Bank in 2007 is a vastly different place to what it was in 1988 or 1994 and need to actively support and encourage Jordan to enter into and assume sovereignty over the Arab populated areas of the West Bank within the boundaries of an expanded state of Jordan.
The Arab residents of the West Bank now have a stark choice to make - become citizens of Jordan or heed Jabari’s advice and proceed down the path of madness and terrorism taken by their Gaza brethren.
To terrorize or Jordanize? - that is the question.
Gaza has become a basket case as Arab kills Arab in a fight for power and control between Fatah and Hamas.
Simultaneously Kassam rockets are being fired indiscriminately from Gaza into civilian population centres in Israel inviting retaliation by Israel that has so far been remarkably restrained but threatens to erupt into all out war.
Gaza’s population has become totally dysfunctional embracing a culture of death and martyrdom rather than engage in the project of nation building following Israel‘s unilateral withdrawal in 2005.
A Mickey Mouse look alike cartoon character called Farfur stars in a children’s television show exhorting young viewers to look forward to Islam dominating the world, one in three men carries a gun, and a bewildering number of armed groups roam the streets at will in an environment of complete lawlessness.
Murders, kidnappings and torching of public buildings are happening with regular frequency.
Now the web site Debkafile has reported (May 21) that Hamas military chief Mohammad Jabari has instructed all West Bank cells to launch suicide attacks in Israeli towns forthwith and that sniper teams should target roads on the West Bank as well as Jerusalem and the Sharon district in Israel.
Not one word protesting such a call to arms has been heard from Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, or Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
The West Bank’s Arab residents now face a real dilemma as a result Jabari’s proclamation, which comes precisely at the time that Jordan’s King Abdullah has been taking tentative steps to re-enter the West Bank, which it last occupied between 1948-1967.
Jordan is the key to resolving the issue of sovereignty in the West Bank - just five per cent of historic Palestine and the only area remaining unallocated between the Arabs - who currently hold 78% called Jordan and Gaza - and the Jews - who currently hold 17% called Israel.
Jordan ceded all claims to the West Bank in 1988. At that time Jordan’s then monarch, King Hussein, in an address to the nation on 31 July 1988 said this action was “taken only in response to the wish of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and the prevailing Arab conviction that such measures will contribute to the struggle of the Palestinian people and their glorious uprising”
That decision has turned out disastrously for the Arab residents of Gaza and the West Bank, who have seen their hopes and aspirations wrecked on the dreams of a leadership that has always had the destruction of the State of Israel as its goal, despite frequently claiming that it had abandoned that policy.
Brought back to Gaza and the West Bank in 1994 from exile in Tunisia where they had been plotting and murdering since being expelled from Lebanon in 1982 to which they had gone after being driven out of Jordan in 1970, that leadership including Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, has turned “the glorious uprising” into a bewildering number of lost opportunities in the last 13 years to cement a peace treaty with Israel and end the Arab-Israel conflict.
The insistence of that leadership that Israel surrender every square inch of Gaza and the West Bank to them to allow the creation of a second Arab State in Palestine -in addition to Jordan - with Jerusalem as its capitol, as well as allowing millions of Arabs to go and live in Israel, have proved to be stumbling blocks that were and will always be incapable of resolution.
What then should happen with the Arab populations of Gaza and the West Bank?
Unless there are radical changes in Gaza, it will continue to be a hotbed of rejectionism and hatred of Israel. The population has become so traumatised by the ongoing struggles of the last 13 years that it is impossible to see how moderation and reason can prevail that will lead to the inhabitants breaking the pattern of hatred and violence that has become a feature of every aspect of their lives.
The West Bank Arabs have better choices as Israel has kept a tighter lid on the development of terrorist cells, armed gangs and the smuggling and supply of weapons to the region.
The just announced arrest by Israel of a Palestinian Cabinet Minister and 32 other Hamas leaders in the West Bank signals a determined approach by Israel to maintaining that policy.
No one should be complacent. The situation in the West Bank could well explode if Jabari’s path of terrorism is heeded. Its prevention will require the wholehearted co-operation of the population in exposing those who would seek to impose on the population the same kind of misery and suffering presently occurring in Gaza.
Jordan is now poised to return to centre stage in the West Bank as the Palestinian Authority loses all semblance of control and the two state solution proposed by the Quartet and the Arab League involving the creation of a new Arab state between Jordan and Israel slowly sinks into oblivion.
Jordan offers the best hope to end the Israeli occupation of the Arab populated areas of the West Bank.
Jordan is the most suitable negotiating Arab partner to resolve with Israel - within the framework of their existing peace treaty - the competing claims by Jews and Arabs to sovereignty in the West Bank.
The Arab League and the Quartet need to understand that the West Bank in 2007 is a vastly different place to what it was in 1988 or 1994 and need to actively support and encourage Jordan to enter into and assume sovereignty over the Arab populated areas of the West Bank within the boundaries of an expanded state of Jordan.
The Arab residents of the West Bank now have a stark choice to make - become citizens of Jordan or heed Jabari’s advice and proceed down the path of madness and terrorism taken by their Gaza brethren.
To terrorize or Jordanize? - that is the question.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Israel, Apartheid and the Minister for Unintelligence
[Published May 2007]
Mr. Ronnie Kasrils is South Africa’s Intelligence Minister.
He has chosen to make many unintelligent remarks in an op-ed piece written by him for the Mail and Guardian on 18 May titled “Israel 2007 : worse than apartheid” which can be located at:
http://www.monitoringsa.com/PDFS/2007_05_18_380d2.pdf
Such remarks require rebuttal, especially as they have been uttered by a person of his prestige and stature.
Let me deal with some of these remarks that mouth so many similarly wild and unsubstantiated claims being uttered with growing frequency in the media by others under the guise of free speech.
1. “The West Bank and Gaza have become hermetically sealed prisons”
Freedom of movement between Gaza and Egypt is available through the Rafah border crossing and between the West Bank and Jordan through the Allenby Bridge.
Movement between Gaza and Israel and the West Bank and Israel is permitted but is more limited and subject to frequent closure during terrorist attacks or terror alerts.
How does this inflammatory and misleading statement serve any purpose?
2. “Its [the security barrier] route cuts huge swathes into the West Bank to incorporate into Israel the illegal Jewish settlements - some of which are huge towns - and annexes more and more Palestinian territory.”
The Israeli settlements are permitted in international law under article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter provided that nothing is done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities.
Where prejudice has been proved to have occurred in construction of the security barrier, Israel’s High Court of Justice has intervened and ordered relief and will continue to do so.
The West Bank is the only territory of the Mandate for Palestine remaining unallocated between Jews and Arabs, both of whom maintain claims that are still to be resolved.
3. “The West Bank, once 22% of historic Palestine,..…”
The West Bank is only 5% of historic Palestine.
Gaza is 1% of historic Palestine ,Israel is 17% of historic Palestine and Jordan is 77% of historic Palestine .
4. “It is shocking to discover that certain roads are barred to Palestinians and reserved for Jewish settlers. I try in vain to recall anything quite obscene in apartheid South Africa”
Really, is Mr Kasrils’ memory that short ? - no blacks in restaurants or on “whites only” buses, no rights for the black majority to vote or control their own futures, separate toilets at the airports and all other public places, the banning of sex between the races - to name but a few.
Mr Kasrils was in the forefront in fighting apartheid in South Africa. What on earth did he think he was fighting?
Mr Kasrils is really insulting our intelligence with this kind of fatuous remark.
Mr Kasrils’ concern for the Palestinians is obviously sincere and well intended .
However his inane remarks leads one to conclude that his views have been formulated as a result of some fairly basic misunderstandings of the conflict that has been going on since the 1880’s in what was once called Palestine.
The ongoing refusal of the Arabs to countenance the right of Jews to have their own State in their biblical and ancestral homeland comprising 0.001% of the territory freed from Ottoman occupation by Britain and France in 1917 as part of a package deal that handed the Arabs the remaining 99.999% - eventually leading to the creation of such states as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan - still remains the sticking point in the throats of the Arabs to this very day.
Looking at Palestine only in isolation is the trap into which many well meaning persons stumble.
The Arabs now have 22 States in which hardly a Jew lives and in which selling land to Jews is punishable by death . Arabs involved in selling land to Jews in Jerusalem have been hunted down and murdered. Try and enter Saudi Arabia if you are a Jew.
The Jews have one state - Israel - in which over 20% of the population - or more than one million - are Arab citizens. They eat in the same restaurants, travel on the same buses, use the same toilets and yes, vote in elections and even intermarry with Jews.
Who is practising apartheid?
Yes, the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza are doing it tough - but they have no one but themselves and their intransigent brethren to blame for the sorry position they find themselves in.
There was a time between 1948-1967 when Statehood in the West Bank and Gaza and even part of what is now Israel could have been achieved with the stroke of a pen. What is yearned for now was rejected then. What was available then is not available now.
This reality still eludes the Arabs as they call for 400000 Jews to pack up and vacate every square inch of the West Bank. This is cuckoo land thinking and is bound to ensure the conflict will continue.
Whilst persons like Mr Kasrils continue to make their judgements based on facts that are demonstrably wrong, they will continue to give fuel to Arab demands that are impossible for Israel to accept.
Let the influential Mr Kasrils support handing over sovereignty of the Arab occupied areas of the West Bank to Jordan as a means of ending the indignities he witnessed on his recent wanderings.
That would be an intelligent contribution to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. His article certainly isn’t.
Mr. Ronnie Kasrils is South Africa’s Intelligence Minister.
He has chosen to make many unintelligent remarks in an op-ed piece written by him for the Mail and Guardian on 18 May titled “Israel 2007 : worse than apartheid” which can be located at:
http://www.monitoringsa.com/PDFS/2007_05_18_380d2.pdf
Such remarks require rebuttal, especially as they have been uttered by a person of his prestige and stature.
Let me deal with some of these remarks that mouth so many similarly wild and unsubstantiated claims being uttered with growing frequency in the media by others under the guise of free speech.
1. “The West Bank and Gaza have become hermetically sealed prisons”
Freedom of movement between Gaza and Egypt is available through the Rafah border crossing and between the West Bank and Jordan through the Allenby Bridge.
Movement between Gaza and Israel and the West Bank and Israel is permitted but is more limited and subject to frequent closure during terrorist attacks or terror alerts.
How does this inflammatory and misleading statement serve any purpose?
2. “Its [the security barrier] route cuts huge swathes into the West Bank to incorporate into Israel the illegal Jewish settlements - some of which are huge towns - and annexes more and more Palestinian territory.”
The Israeli settlements are permitted in international law under article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter provided that nothing is done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities.
Where prejudice has been proved to have occurred in construction of the security barrier, Israel’s High Court of Justice has intervened and ordered relief and will continue to do so.
The West Bank is the only territory of the Mandate for Palestine remaining unallocated between Jews and Arabs, both of whom maintain claims that are still to be resolved.
3. “The West Bank, once 22% of historic Palestine,..…”
The West Bank is only 5% of historic Palestine.
Gaza is 1% of historic Palestine ,Israel is 17% of historic Palestine and Jordan is 77% of historic Palestine .
4. “It is shocking to discover that certain roads are barred to Palestinians and reserved for Jewish settlers. I try in vain to recall anything quite obscene in apartheid South Africa”
Really, is Mr Kasrils’ memory that short ? - no blacks in restaurants or on “whites only” buses, no rights for the black majority to vote or control their own futures, separate toilets at the airports and all other public places, the banning of sex between the races - to name but a few.
Mr Kasrils was in the forefront in fighting apartheid in South Africa. What on earth did he think he was fighting?
Mr Kasrils is really insulting our intelligence with this kind of fatuous remark.
Mr Kasrils’ concern for the Palestinians is obviously sincere and well intended .
However his inane remarks leads one to conclude that his views have been formulated as a result of some fairly basic misunderstandings of the conflict that has been going on since the 1880’s in what was once called Palestine.
The ongoing refusal of the Arabs to countenance the right of Jews to have their own State in their biblical and ancestral homeland comprising 0.001% of the territory freed from Ottoman occupation by Britain and France in 1917 as part of a package deal that handed the Arabs the remaining 99.999% - eventually leading to the creation of such states as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan - still remains the sticking point in the throats of the Arabs to this very day.
Looking at Palestine only in isolation is the trap into which many well meaning persons stumble.
The Arabs now have 22 States in which hardly a Jew lives and in which selling land to Jews is punishable by death . Arabs involved in selling land to Jews in Jerusalem have been hunted down and murdered. Try and enter Saudi Arabia if you are a Jew.
The Jews have one state - Israel - in which over 20% of the population - or more than one million - are Arab citizens. They eat in the same restaurants, travel on the same buses, use the same toilets and yes, vote in elections and even intermarry with Jews.
Who is practising apartheid?
Yes, the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza are doing it tough - but they have no one but themselves and their intransigent brethren to blame for the sorry position they find themselves in.
There was a time between 1948-1967 when Statehood in the West Bank and Gaza and even part of what is now Israel could have been achieved with the stroke of a pen. What is yearned for now was rejected then. What was available then is not available now.
This reality still eludes the Arabs as they call for 400000 Jews to pack up and vacate every square inch of the West Bank. This is cuckoo land thinking and is bound to ensure the conflict will continue.
Whilst persons like Mr Kasrils continue to make their judgements based on facts that are demonstrably wrong, they will continue to give fuel to Arab demands that are impossible for Israel to accept.
Let the influential Mr Kasrils support handing over sovereignty of the Arab occupied areas of the West Bank to Jordan as a means of ending the indignities he witnessed on his recent wanderings.
That would be an intelligent contribution to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. His article certainly isn’t.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Gaza's Growing Graveyard
[Published May 2007]
Gaza’s slow slide into the network of weapons smuggling tunnels built under its foundations has now turned into a headlong rush into hell.
Heavily armed factions now battle each other in a deadly civil war for political power and control of the billions of dollars in humanitarian aid and reconstruction funds flowing into the territory by courtesy of the European Union and the United Nations.
200 people have been killed and almost 2000 injured so far this year as a result of this rapidly escalating internecine violence that now has sucked Israel in once again, as scores of Kassam rockets continue to be fired indiscriminately into civilian centres in Israel from a well stocked arsenal smuggled into Gaza through Egypt.
Israel’s unilateral evacuation from Gaza in August 2005 was intended to signal Israel’s readiness to find a peaceful solution to competing claims by Jews and Arabs to sovereignty in Gaza and the West Bank.
Instead we are now witnesses to scenes of death and violence in Gaza that no one could have predicted when the world’s broadcasting networks showed their images of thousands of distressed and anguished Israeli soldiers and police removing 7000 crying and in some cases defiant Jews from their homes and livelihoods after a presence of almost forty years.
Certainly the trashing and eradication of the Jewish presence in Gaza, the continued violence against the Jewish State and the hatred and incitement of Gaza’s civilian population against Jews were foreseen by many, as Israel was roundly criticised in many quarters for acting unilaterally as it did.
But no one could have reasonably expected to see Arab killing Arab in Gaza in an unending cycle of violence over the past twelve months.
It is pointless to assign blame for Gaza’s failure to grasp the baton handed to the Palestinian Authority by Israel. Others can and will no doubt do so as the situation continues to worsen.
However, having dropped the baton and allowed Gaza to reach the stage of lawlessness it now has, the Authority has shown itself to be a lame duck without any power or authority to conclude any kind of agreement with Israel on Gaza and the West Bank.
The late Abba Eban, Israel’s first Ambassador to the United Nations, famously said in 1973:
The Palestinian Authority has become the latest example of that most apposite statement.
As the carnage continues, those supporters of the Palestinian Authority and its President Mahmoud Abbas - the 22 Arab League States, America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - look on and, as usual, wring their hands, say a lot, but as usual do nothing to stop it.
They continue to promote and cling to the two state solution formulated by them in 2002 and 2003 that remain unimplemented in even the slightest detail and have no prospects of ever being successfully concluded - as if nothing has happened in the meantime.
They place their faith in Abbas being able to deliver the Palestinians on those completely flawed plans - totally ignoring the shift in power caused by the ascension of Hamas in Gaza that calls for Israel’s total destruction.
They still fail to understand that the only negotiating address in Gaza today is Prime Minister Haniyeh of Hamas. No amount of fiction or make believe by the Arab League, the Quartet or Israel for that matter can possibly change that current reality.
Abbas does not have enough power to fill his fountain pen let alone put his signature on any agreement with Israel that he can enforce.
Perhaps as they ponder their next step the Arab League and the Quartet should carefully heed the less quoted words of Abba Eban which appeared in Newsweek on 2 December 1974:
Jordan has always been and still continues to be the only negotiating address for anyone interested in seeking a solution to the West Bank and Gaza between Israel and the Arabs.
Division of the West Bank and Gaza between Jordan and Israel is the only possible outcome that has any reasonable prospect of success.
In an interview published in the Khaleej Times on 11 October 2006, King Abdullah of Jordan declared:
Until the Arab League and the Quartet understand and act on this reality, the graveyard will continue to grow in Gaza and ultimately and unfortunately extend to the graveyards in the West Bank and Israel.
Gaza’s slow slide into the network of weapons smuggling tunnels built under its foundations has now turned into a headlong rush into hell.
Heavily armed factions now battle each other in a deadly civil war for political power and control of the billions of dollars in humanitarian aid and reconstruction funds flowing into the territory by courtesy of the European Union and the United Nations.
200 people have been killed and almost 2000 injured so far this year as a result of this rapidly escalating internecine violence that now has sucked Israel in once again, as scores of Kassam rockets continue to be fired indiscriminately into civilian centres in Israel from a well stocked arsenal smuggled into Gaza through Egypt.
Israel’s unilateral evacuation from Gaza in August 2005 was intended to signal Israel’s readiness to find a peaceful solution to competing claims by Jews and Arabs to sovereignty in Gaza and the West Bank.
Instead we are now witnesses to scenes of death and violence in Gaza that no one could have predicted when the world’s broadcasting networks showed their images of thousands of distressed and anguished Israeli soldiers and police removing 7000 crying and in some cases defiant Jews from their homes and livelihoods after a presence of almost forty years.
Certainly the trashing and eradication of the Jewish presence in Gaza, the continued violence against the Jewish State and the hatred and incitement of Gaza’s civilian population against Jews were foreseen by many, as Israel was roundly criticised in many quarters for acting unilaterally as it did.
But no one could have reasonably expected to see Arab killing Arab in Gaza in an unending cycle of violence over the past twelve months.
It is pointless to assign blame for Gaza’s failure to grasp the baton handed to the Palestinian Authority by Israel. Others can and will no doubt do so as the situation continues to worsen.
However, having dropped the baton and allowed Gaza to reach the stage of lawlessness it now has, the Authority has shown itself to be a lame duck without any power or authority to conclude any kind of agreement with Israel on Gaza and the West Bank.
The late Abba Eban, Israel’s first Ambassador to the United Nations, famously said in 1973:
“The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”
The Palestinian Authority has become the latest example of that most apposite statement.
As the carnage continues, those supporters of the Palestinian Authority and its President Mahmoud Abbas - the 22 Arab League States, America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - look on and, as usual, wring their hands, say a lot, but as usual do nothing to stop it.
They continue to promote and cling to the two state solution formulated by them in 2002 and 2003 that remain unimplemented in even the slightest detail and have no prospects of ever being successfully concluded - as if nothing has happened in the meantime.
They place their faith in Abbas being able to deliver the Palestinians on those completely flawed plans - totally ignoring the shift in power caused by the ascension of Hamas in Gaza that calls for Israel’s total destruction.
They still fail to understand that the only negotiating address in Gaza today is Prime Minister Haniyeh of Hamas. No amount of fiction or make believe by the Arab League, the Quartet or Israel for that matter can possibly change that current reality.
Abbas does not have enough power to fill his fountain pen let alone put his signature on any agreement with Israel that he can enforce.
Perhaps as they ponder their next step the Arab League and the Quartet should carefully heed the less quoted words of Abba Eban which appeared in Newsweek on 2 December 1974:
“But in addition to warnings about the futility of war should we not reflect together on the availability of peace? Palestine comes into modern history as a region extending on both sides of the Jordan, comprising the present sovereign territories of Israel and Jordan and the administered areas of the West Bank and Gaza. Of this original Palestine, 80 per cent became an exclusively Arab domain through the separation of Transjordan from Palestine.”
Jordan has always been and still continues to be the only negotiating address for anyone interested in seeking a solution to the West Bank and Gaza between Israel and the Arabs.
Division of the West Bank and Gaza between Jordan and Israel is the only possible outcome that has any reasonable prospect of success.
In an interview published in the Khaleej Times on 11 October 2006, King Abdullah of Jordan declared:
“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, and then what?”
Until the Arab League and the Quartet understand and act on this reality, the graveyard will continue to grow in Gaza and ultimately and unfortunately extend to the graveyards in the West Bank and Israel.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Jordan and Israel - Singing the same song?
[Published 4 May 2007]
Jordan and Israel have reportedly embarked on secret negotiations to end the impasse in the West Bank and Gaza according to Matthew Guttman of ABC News (3 May 2007).
If true, such negotiations might successfully conclude 17 years of failed diplomacy that has included;
All of these initiatives have not brought peace and now have no value other than learning tools to instruct future negotiators on how not to commence or handle negotiations in the Middle East.
Jordan was the common denominator excluded from all of these failed processes. It was left out at its own insistence but the Quartet and Israeli negotiators must share the blame for allowing this to occur - virtually by default - and for the pathetic results that inevitably followed.
Any negotiations without Jordan were doomed to failure from the outset.
Jordan, after all, is the Arab State created, built on and occupying 77% of Palestine whose exclusively Arab population is no different in ethnicity, religion, language or cultural beliefs to the Arabs living in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.
Hundreds of thousands are related by familial and clan ties stretching across the Jordan River which runs between Jordan and the West Bank. All live within an easy one to two hours drive of each other.
Jordan is the country that occupied the West Bank from 1948-1967. It only ceded its claims to sovereignty in the West Bank in 1988 after being pressured by the Arab League and the Palestine Liberation Organisation to do so.
Jordan annexed the West Bank in 1950 which was recognised by Britain and Pakistan at that time.
Jordan’s rulers, not the PLO, have successfully preserved almost four fifths of Palestine as an exclusively Arab State. Not one Jew lives there today and the death penalty awaits any one found selling land to Jews. This is no mean feat given that Jordan was originally designated by the League of Nations in 1922 to be part of the territory in which the national home for the Jews was to be reconstituted under the Mandate for Palestine granted to Great Britain.
Contrast this to the remaining 23% of Palestine where 17% - today called Israel - has a population that is 80% Jewish and 20% Arab whilst the remaining 6% - today called the West Bank - has a population that is 80% Arab and 20% Jewish .
Yet the fiction has been created that the Arabs of Palestine lack a State and have been stripped of any rights to self determination in Palestine.
The fact is that Jordan and Israel are the successor sovereign States in former Palestine together exercising sovereignty in 94% of Palestine whilst sovereignty in the remaining 6% still remains unresolved and unallocated after 59 years.
Commonsense rejects the idea of creating a second Arab or, for that matter, a second Jewish State in this remaining 6% of Palestine - an area about the size of Delaware or just two thirds of Cyprus.
The obvious solution is to redraw the boundary between Jordan and Israel so that the heavily populated Jewish areas of the West Bank become part of Israel and the heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank (together possibly with Gaza) become part of Jordan.
This is certainly attainable as Jordan and Israel are parties to a peace treaty signed in 1994, which they both have observed in good faith, with mutual dignity and respect despite some strains in their relationship over the years.
Jordan and Israel could be confidently expected to realign the border to ensure that very few Jews or Arabs would be faced with deciding whether to move from their existing residences or stay put as part of a minority population. Compensation would be paid if they decided to move and become part of the majority population on the other side of the new border.
Guidelines to deal with controversial issues such as water, refugees and Jerusalem are already set out in the Jordan - Israel Peace Treaty.
Unceasing and unsuccessful efforts to sign a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have led nowhere in the last 17 years and threaten to continue to do so ad infinitum whilst the fiction writers continue to believe that a new State between Jordan and Israel is the answer to the conflict between Jews and Arabs.
How many more Jews and Arabs need to be killed and maimed in the pursuit of a solution that has not got even the slightest chance of success?
Perhaps the following words from American composer Cole Porter’s song - “I’ve got you under my skin” - should resonate in the ears of Jordanian and Israeli negotiators as their secret talks proceed :
That reality is that two peoples, the Jews and the Arabs, need two States, not three States, in Palestine.
At last Jordan and Israel may finally be singing the same song. Everyone interested in ending the 130 years conflict between the Jews and Arabs - including the Quartet -should join in.
Jordan and Israel have reportedly embarked on secret negotiations to end the impasse in the West Bank and Gaza according to Matthew Guttman of ABC News (3 May 2007).
If true, such negotiations might successfully conclude 17 years of failed diplomacy that has included;
(i) the Oslo fiasco conceived by Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin and reluctantly adopted by Yitzchak Rabin,
(ii) Ehud Barak’s unprecedented concessions, supported by US President Bill Clinton but rejected by Yasser Arafat ,
(iii) Ariel Sharon’s evacuation of 8000 Jews from Gaza and parts of the West Bank,
(iv) Ehud Olmert’s stillborn plan to remove another 70000 Jews out of the West Bank at a cost of US$10 billion,
(v) the Saudi Peace Plan designed to remove all 400000 Jews from the West Bank and allow millions of Arabs to live in Israel,
(vi) The Geneva Peace Initiative and
(vii) US President George Bush’s Road Map promoting the creation of a second Arab State within the boundaries of former Palestine - backed by the United Nations, the European Union and Russia dubbed the Quartet
All of these initiatives have not brought peace and now have no value other than learning tools to instruct future negotiators on how not to commence or handle negotiations in the Middle East.
Jordan was the common denominator excluded from all of these failed processes. It was left out at its own insistence but the Quartet and Israeli negotiators must share the blame for allowing this to occur - virtually by default - and for the pathetic results that inevitably followed.
Any negotiations without Jordan were doomed to failure from the outset.
Jordan, after all, is the Arab State created, built on and occupying 77% of Palestine whose exclusively Arab population is no different in ethnicity, religion, language or cultural beliefs to the Arabs living in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.
Hundreds of thousands are related by familial and clan ties stretching across the Jordan River which runs between Jordan and the West Bank. All live within an easy one to two hours drive of each other.
Jordan is the country that occupied the West Bank from 1948-1967. It only ceded its claims to sovereignty in the West Bank in 1988 after being pressured by the Arab League and the Palestine Liberation Organisation to do so.
Jordan annexed the West Bank in 1950 which was recognised by Britain and Pakistan at that time.
Jordan’s rulers, not the PLO, have successfully preserved almost four fifths of Palestine as an exclusively Arab State. Not one Jew lives there today and the death penalty awaits any one found selling land to Jews. This is no mean feat given that Jordan was originally designated by the League of Nations in 1922 to be part of the territory in which the national home for the Jews was to be reconstituted under the Mandate for Palestine granted to Great Britain.
Contrast this to the remaining 23% of Palestine where 17% - today called Israel - has a population that is 80% Jewish and 20% Arab whilst the remaining 6% - today called the West Bank - has a population that is 80% Arab and 20% Jewish .
Yet the fiction has been created that the Arabs of Palestine lack a State and have been stripped of any rights to self determination in Palestine.
The fact is that Jordan and Israel are the successor sovereign States in former Palestine together exercising sovereignty in 94% of Palestine whilst sovereignty in the remaining 6% still remains unresolved and unallocated after 59 years.
Commonsense rejects the idea of creating a second Arab or, for that matter, a second Jewish State in this remaining 6% of Palestine - an area about the size of Delaware or just two thirds of Cyprus.
The obvious solution is to redraw the boundary between Jordan and Israel so that the heavily populated Jewish areas of the West Bank become part of Israel and the heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank (together possibly with Gaza) become part of Jordan.
This is certainly attainable as Jordan and Israel are parties to a peace treaty signed in 1994, which they both have observed in good faith, with mutual dignity and respect despite some strains in their relationship over the years.
Jordan and Israel could be confidently expected to realign the border to ensure that very few Jews or Arabs would be faced with deciding whether to move from their existing residences or stay put as part of a minority population. Compensation would be paid if they decided to move and become part of the majority population on the other side of the new border.
Guidelines to deal with controversial issues such as water, refugees and Jerusalem are already set out in the Jordan - Israel Peace Treaty.
Unceasing and unsuccessful efforts to sign a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have led nowhere in the last 17 years and threaten to continue to do so ad infinitum whilst the fiction writers continue to believe that a new State between Jordan and Israel is the answer to the conflict between Jews and Arabs.
How many more Jews and Arabs need to be killed and maimed in the pursuit of a solution that has not got even the slightest chance of success?
Perhaps the following words from American composer Cole Porter’s song - “I’ve got you under my skin” - should resonate in the ears of Jordanian and Israeli negotiators as their secret talks proceed :
“Don’t you know you fool, you never can win
Use your mentality, wake up to reality”
That reality is that two peoples, the Jews and the Arabs, need two States, not three States, in Palestine.
At last Jordan and Israel may finally be singing the same song. Everyone interested in ending the 130 years conflict between the Jews and Arabs - including the Quartet -should join in.
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