Palestine - George Mitchell Munches On Middle East Lunches

[Published January 2009]

President Obama’s newly appointed Middle East Envoy - George Mitchell - has been traipsing through the Middle East on a look and listen tour to learn the views of players in Cairo, Jerusalem, Ramallah and Amman on the present state of play in resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict that has raged unresolved for the last 130 years.

At the same time President Obama in his first televised interview - with Arab television station Al-Arabiya - has made his own views known to all those players which they should carefully listen to and heed.

Firstly on the issue of a new Arab state being created between Israel and Jordan President Obama stated his commitment to that eventuating but issued this note of warning:

” QUESTION: Will it still be possible to see a Palestinian state—and you know the contours of it—within the first Obama administration?

THE PRESIDENT: I think it is possible for us to see a Palestinian state—I’m not going to put a time frame on it—that is contiguous, that allows freedom of movement for its people, that allows for trade with other countries, that allows the creation of businesses and commerce so that people have a better life…

…But it is not going to be easy, and that’s why we’ve got George Mitchell going there. This is somebody with extraordinary patience as well as extraordinary skill, and that’s what’s going to be necessary.”

The notion that any such new state should be democratic - as President Bush’s Roadmap stipulated - - has now apparently disappeared from the new President’s vocabulary.

The idea that such a State was just around the corner - as the previous administration had been trumpeting for the last twelve months - was now not even being able to be predicted with confidence by President Obama to occur within the next four years.

Secondly President Obama declared that any such new state would have to be part of an overall resolution of other problems in the Middle East and neighbouring regions:

“I do think that it is impossible for us to think only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not think in terms of what’s happening with Syria or Iran or Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan.These things are interrelated.”

Thirdly President Obama negated the idea that the Saudi Peace Plan proposed in 2002-and offered to Israel on a “take it or leave it ” basis - would be the sought for regional solution that would be supported in its entirety by President Obama:

“QUESTION : Now there is an Arab peace plan, there is a regional aspect to it. And you’ve indicated that. Would there be any shift, a paradigm shift?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, here’s what I think is important. Look at the proposal that was put forth by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. I might not agree with every aspect of the proposal, but it took great courage to put forward something that is as significant as that.

I think that there are ideas across the region of how we might pursue peace.”

How President Obama gets the Saudis - and the Arab League which has adopted the proposal - to ameliorate their plan to meet President Obama’s apparent objections to it in its present form will prove to be one of the most fascinating diplomatic manoeuvres to observe in the coming months and years.

Given that the Saudi proposal contains the same intransigent demands that have characterised the Arabs negotiating stance for the last 42 years, the likelihood of any substantive changes to that proposal to meet President Obama’s declared reservation seems most unlikely to occur.

President Obama did not spell out what other ideas there are across the region in his compelling interview.

Clearly trilateral negotiations between Jordan, Israel and Egypt to divide sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza between their respective States is one such idea that needs to be vigorously pursued by Mr Mitchell. It alone seems to offer the best chance of improving the lives of the West Bank’s Arab residents by offering them citizenship in an Arab State without requiring them to move from their present homes whilst allowing them once more to return to the Arab fold finally freed from Israel’s occupation or control - the position they last enjoyed between 1948-1967.

The PLO had already signalled its intentions to abandon the Roadmap - and focus on the Saudi Peace Plan as the only game in town - just a few days before President Obama’s appearance on Al-Arabiya.

Reuters had reported on 22 January:

“The Palestinian leadership are not ready to return to political negotiations with Israel unless there is a new basis for talks,” the PLO said, without elaborating. It said it wanted to conduct talks on the basis of the Arab peace initiative of 2002 which offers Israel peace and normal relations with all Arab countries in return for withdrawal from all territory captured in the 1967 war.”

This position had first been unveiled two months ago when the Palestinian Authority had taken out full page ads in the Israeli press calling on Israelis to endorse the Saudi plan. The money spent on those ads appears to have had no effect on Israel - or President Obama.

The current Palestinian leadership - itself the issue of much conjecture following the schism between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority - will not get to first base with President Obama if it insists on maintaining this stance.

There are three predictions that one can confidently make in this current uncertain climate whilst George Mitchell’s patience and skill is brought into play:

1. The existing Jewish residents of the West Bank - and the current Arab residents - will continue to copulate and populate. Any call for a “freeze” on natural increases in their respective populations - and the provision of housing and infrastructure to cope with such natural increases - is meaningless.

2. The creation of a 22nd Arab State between Egypt, Israel and Jordan will never eventuate unless the current Arab negotiating position is drastically revised by dropping their demands for sovereignty in all of the West Bank and Gaza and for millions of Arabs to be allowed to emigrate to Israel.

3. George Mitchell will be having lots of appointments, ongoing disappointments and very many more lunches in the region.

Let’s hope he doesn’t suffer from indigestion as he swallows what he is forced to hear.

The One State Solution Is Unworkable

My letter published in the Indypendent - 10 March 2010

One state will never work.

Firstly it denies Jews the national homeland in Palestine promised to them by the League of Nations and the United Nations.

Secondly Jews and Arabs lived together in Palestine for 70 years until 1948 - years that were marked by bitterness, confrontation, constant assaults and killing of the Jews on many occasions such as 1920,1929 and 1936 as they then were the minority population with little to defend themselves. They might now be the majority but the level of civil disobedience shown by the current Arab population in Israel does not inspire any confidence that the two peoples can co-exist on a friendly and peaceful basis.

The only solution is the separation of the Jewish and Arab populations in the West Bank. This can best be achieved by Jordan and Israel dividing sovereignty of the West Bank between their respective States. The West Bank Arabs will become Jordanian citizens again as they were between 1950-1988, the Jews will remain as Israeli citizens and no one need leave his current home.

Is Israel 78% - or only 17% - of historic and mandate Palestine?

[My letter published in The Indypendent - 9 March 2010]

Peaceful debate and conflict resolution can only succeed if those involved first agree on the problem that needs to be resolved.

The problem is the resolution of sovereignty in the West Bank between Jewish and Arab claimants.

The Jewish claimant is Israel and the Arab claimant is the Palestinian Authority. In determining a resolution to this problem there first needs to be agreement on the following facts:

1. Israel comprises 17% of the Mandate for Palestine
2. Jordan comprises 78% of the Mandate for Palestine
3. The West Bank comprises 4% of the Mandate for Palestine
4. Gaza comprises 1% of the Mandate for Palestine
5 Under Article 6 of the Mandate and article 80 of the UN Charter the Jewish people have acquired a vested right in international law to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in all or part of the West Bank and Gaza

Once these facts are agreed then possible solutions can be discussed.

No discussion can possibly begin to reach any agreement whilst Alex posits the following statement:

“Palestinians will not meet directly with Israel as long as Israel continues building illegal Jewish-only settlements on occupied Palestinian land, which is in direct violation of numerous United Nations resolutions and the Geneva Conventions ”

This statement rules out any hope of a settlement which would lead to the division of the West Bank between Arabs and Jews by denying the Jews any rights to claim sovereignty of at least part of the West Bank under their legal entitlement pursuant to the Mandate.

This is why any negotiations with the Palestinian Authority have failed and will continue to fail.

The Mandate for Palestine and Article 80 of the UN Charter

[My letter published in The Daily Cougar - 13 March 2010]

You want some legal opinions on Article 80 then here they are:

1. The International Court of Justice in an advisory opinion on the effect of article 80 in the Namibia case on 21 June 1971:

“When the League of Nations was dissolved, the raison d’etre and original object of these obligations remained. Since their fulfillment did not depend on the existence of the League, they could not be brought to an end merely because the supervisory organ had ceased to exist. … The International Court of Justice has consistently recognized that the Mandate survived the demise of the League [of Nations.”

Strange that the International Court never took the time to look at this decision in 2004 until you understand the UN never raised the Mandate or article 80 of its own Charter when seeking the Court’s advisory opinion on Israel’s security barrier. Cover up or ignorance? Either way it stinks.

2. Professor Paul Riebenfeld:

"The League of Nations was officially liquidated in April 1946 and with it the Mandate system. The continued validity,however, of rights derived from a Mandate after the expiry of the League and the Mandate system, was spelled out in the Charter of the United Nations in its Article 80, which in the literature is often referred to as “the Palestine clause”. The reason is that this provision which is part of Chapter XII, dealing with International Trusteeship, was drafted as a result of Zionist representations at the San Francisco Conference in order to protect, in addition to the existing rights of any states, also those of “any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.” It mentions “peoples”. The rights referred to were in particular those of the Jewish people as the beneficiary of the Palestine Mandate, in an international system based on the membership of States”

3. Judge El Araby of the International Court of Justice in regard to the legal status of the West Bank in the Israeli security barrier advisory opinion:

“,,, the international legal status of the Palestinian Territory merits more comprehensive treatment”…

“A historical survey is relevant to the question posed by the General Assembly, for it serves as the background to understanding the legal status of the Palestinian Territory on the one hand and underlines the special and continuing responsibility of the General Assembly on the other. This may appear as academic, without relevance to the present events. The present is however determined by the accumulation of past events and no reasonable and fair concern for the future can possibly disregard a firm grasp of past events. In particular, when on one or more than one occasion, the rule of law was consistently sidestepped….”

“The point of departure, or one can say in legal jargon, the critical date, is the League of Nations Mandate which was entrusted to Great Britain”

John

Now I have given you some sources dealing with the Mandate and article 80 – you need to give me your sources refuting the relevance of those two pieces of international law.

The article in the Independent that you cited [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-big-question-what-are-israeli-settlements-and-why-are-they-coming-under-pressure-1692515.html] does not deal with the Mandate and article 80. I will bet the reporter never heard of either. I doubt if the Israeli lawyer quoted had ever heard of or been aware of the Mandate and article 80.

When you can pinpoint some legal authority who has considered the Mandate and article 80 and come to a contrary view to the legal authorities I have cited above, then maybe there can be a further dialogue between us.

But until you do, please be open minded enough to at least acknowledge that there is an argument in international law that those Jewish settlements in the West Bank may be indeed legal.

Expert Calls For Fresh Ideas In Palestine Talks

[My letter published in Arab News - 6 March 2010]

A fresh idea that needs to be considered is the replacement of the Palestinian Authority by Jordan as Israel's negotiating partner.

Jordan and Israel are the two successor states to the Mandate for Palestine and are uniquely placed to determine the division of sovereignty of the West Bank between their two respective States.

In addition the 1994 signed peace treaty between Jordan and Israel already sets out the manner in which the issues of water,refugees and Jerusalem is to be resolved.

No solution will completely suit either Jews or Arabs but the redrawing of the international boundary between Jordan and Israel in direct face to face to face negotiations will ensure that:

1. The West Bank Arabs will regain Jordanian citizenship they enjoyed between 1950 - 1988 and will be freed from Israeli occupation.
2. No Jew or Arab will be forced to move from his current home in the West Bank

16 years of ineffectual negotiations with the Palestinian Authority have failed - and will continue to fail - to yield results.

The prospects of reunifying the Arab populated areas of the West Bank with Jordan as existed between 1948-1967 offers the only possible realistic solution to end the conflict between Jewish and Arab claims to sovereignty in the West Bank.

The Two State Option Is Dead

[My letter published in Israel National News - 26 February 2010]

Oslo is dead. The Road Map and Annapolis are the only games in town that define the scope of the currently stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

America's commitment in a letter to Israel by President Bush dated 14 April 2004 remains the linchpin on which any future negotiations will proceed.

Since the Palestinian Authority refuses to accept Bush's conclusions one can confidently predict that the resumption of those negotiations will be a complete waste of time.

The Only Two State Solution

[My letter published in Y Net - 8 February 2010]

The only two state solution...

1.Jordan PLUS Arab populated areas of West Bank
2.Israel PLUS Jewish populated areas of the West Bank

All that is required to achieve this two state solution is to redraw the boundary between Israel and Jordan in direct face to face negotiations between these two countries.

Why is everyone running around like chooks with their heads chopped off when the solution is so simple?

Get a life Abdullah. You can achieve fame and glory with the stroke of a pen.