Sarkozy Seething - Mediterranean Union Hardly Breathing

[Published November 2009]

French President Nicolas Sarkozy could be excused for being very annoyed at Egypt’s precipitate action in forcing the cancellation of this month’s meeting of the Foreign Ministers from the 43 countries that comprise the Mediterranean Union.

The Union brings together European Union members with States from North Africa, the Balkans, the Arab world and Israel in a bid to foster cooperation in one of the world’s most volatile regions.

It didn’t take long for President Sarkozy’s grandiose plan to unravel when the 43 Presidents and Prime Ministers assembled in Paris at its inaugural summit meeting on 13-14 July 2008 and failed to agree on the wording of a final joint communiqué.

The party pooper was the Palestinian Authority - the only non-state entity in the Union - which belatedly objected to the wording adopted by the other 42 members because it might amount to an abandonment of the Palestinian Authority‘s demand that millions of Arabs be allowed to emigrate to Israel.

Apart from being a totally unrealistic demand, the idea that the Palestinian Authority could thwart the Union in pursuit of policies designed to benefit the region as a whole was a harbinger of worse things to come.

Egypt’s decision to force the cancellation of the Foreign Ministers’ meeting this month was a direct consequence of that initial rebuff fifteen months ago.

Egypt's reasons appear to centre on its Foreign Minister not being prepared to sit in the same room as Israel’s Foreign Minister coupled with Egypt’s view that no further proceedings of the Mediterranean Union should be held until Israel resumes negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.-

The last minute cancellation of the Istanbul conference has prompted an unnamed European Union diplomat to tell the Sunday Times of Malta

“We are risking the death of the Mediterranean Union just after being born. The Union is in complete shambles and no progress has been made since its launch, both on the structure of the organisation and its seat.”

President Sarkozy would be absolutely seething at reports in the media that 16.6 million euros was spent on that inaugural President’s meeting in July 2008.

This sum included a dinner for the 43 invited heads of state and government that cost more than 1 million euros. At a cost of about 5000 euros a head for those invited, one must wonder what delicacies they ate.

No doubt Sarkozy watchers and the media will be rushing around trying to get a copy of the menu. It will certainly make interesting reading. The public enjoy being fed this type of information.

Maybe Palestinian Authority President Abbas was suffering from indigestion or some kind of party hangover that caused him to be odd man out when the final communiqué was prepared. He certainly didn’t do his French host any favour - although he might have gained brownie points in the West Bank and Gaza for continuing the struggle for liberation and self-determination on behalf of 4 million Arabs living there and another 4 million living - unintegrated and unabsorbed - in other Arab countries in refugee camps for the last 60 years.

These goals would be seen as far more important by President Abbas than progressing the objectives of the Union in improving the lives of 735 million people living within the member states - including the area presently under control of the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas will have also probably improved his waning image by not succumbing and selling out the Palestinian Arabs whilst himself personally enjoying the pleasures of hospitality on a grand scale as only the French know how.

An apparent beat up has also been made of the fact that President Sarkozy spent 245000 euros building a luxury shower which he never used - according to French opposition MP Rene Dosiere. ABC On Line says it was custom-built for Mr Sarkozy, with power and massage jet buttons and surround-sound radio.

But government spokesman Luc Chatel told Taiwan News that sum was not for a shower for President Sarkozy, but for eight meeting rooms used by the 43 leaders who attended the summit.

French Budget Minister Eric Woerth poured cold water on the shower cost declaring:

“It would be scandalous if it were true, but it is false,” [Expatica 29 October]

The bills for running the Mediterranean Union will continue to roll in and the costs of cancelling the Istanbul Conference will be substantial.

President Sarkozy no doubt will be subjected to criticism for the amount of money he has spent in promoting a vision that had very little chance of success from the outset. He has found out - if he didn’t know before - that dealing with the Arab States is a decidedly risky proposition - particularly if Israel is brought into the equation.

Like so much of the conflict in the Middle East, the Arab states are unable to raise their sights beyond the conflict between Jews and Arabs over two tiny strips of land - the West Bank and Gaza - and focus on the bigger canvas that demands joint action by them in the Mediterranean Union for the benefit of all.

The Union’s priorities are to fight pollution in the Mediterranean Sea, increase solar energy use, build land and sea highways and cooperate on higher education and research. Its goals are meant to be achieved by joint projects, which it is hoped would also help improve regional integration.

Israel probably possesses the greatest expertise of any of the Union’s member nations in water management and conservation as well as the harnessing of solar power.

This appears of little consequence to the Arab states as they continue their micro war against Israel within the Mediterranean Union at the expense of the macro economic impact the Union could have on their lives.

The French Audit report concluded:

“For its scale, the irregular procedures followed and its massive impact on our public finances, the summit will go down as a record of sorts,”

Perhaps that record will soon be surpassed by the brief lifespan the Mediterranean Union enjoys before it is dead and buried by Arab intransigence and pettiness of mind.

"Palestine" Causes Mediterranean Disunion

[Published October 2009]

The Mediterranean Union - and its founding sponsor France - have been dealt a severe body blow as Egyptian intransigence has caused the cancellation of a meeting in Lisbon next week of foreign ministers from the 43 member countries comprising the Mediterranean Union.

The reasons given vary.

According to Ha’aretz (27 October) Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, that Egypt would not attend the conference with Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Sources close to the conference organizers said the Egyptian minister was adamant.

“I’m not coming if Lieberman is there,” he told Kouchner. “Forget it. I won’t sit at a table with him, or even be seen in the same room.”

A different reason emerges in Y Net (27 October) which reports a meeting having taken place between Israel’s Vice Premier - Silvan Shalom - and Egypt’s Ambassador to Israel - Yasser Reda - when Reda told Shalom:

“At the moment the conditions are not ripe for convening such a conference. They may mature when the talks with Palestinians begin.”

Given that Israel is a world leader in programs such as the Mediterranean Solar Plan - a project of the Mediterranean Union to install concentrating solar power in the deserts for the benefits of its members - the cancellation of the meeting in the face of global warming represents a severe set back in world moves to counter the effects of carbon dioxide emissions.

This is the second time in 18 months that France has suffered a serious diplomatic debacle in its efforts to get the Mediterranean Union up and running because of Arab intransigence.

France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy previously was forced to eat humble pie after his ground-breaking plan to establish the Mediterranean Union on 13 July 2008 failed to reach an agreed final communiqué because of the opposition to its wording by the Palestinian Authority (PA) - the only non-state member present.

President Sarkozy’s efforts in bringing Israel and 9 members of the Arab League - including Syria - to that inaugural meeting of the Union promised to introduce a ray of light for Israeli-Arab co-operation and an end to regional turmoil.

The images of President Sarkozy, PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Mr Olmert smiling and enjoying a three way hand shake would have encouraged President Sarkozy into believing that he would be able to achieve the diplomatic breakthrough that had eluded President Bush’s Road Map for the previous 5 years.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner however had sounded a word of warning when he bluntly told European News (12 July 2008):

“Being around the same table with people you have fought is the beginning of something, it is the wind of hope. I’m sorry to say that the talks between the Israelis and Palestinians are not part of this wind of hope”

Little did Mr Kouchner - or President Sarkozy - imagine that the fundamental disagreements between Israel and the PA would be used by the PA to undermine the grand design of President Sarkozy to bring the nations of the Mediterranean and the European Union together in a new spirit of co-operation and joint venture.

The unfriendly wind Mr Kouchner had felt was shortly to blow away any hopes of an agreed summit position when the PA objected to the wording of the summit declaration.

Why the PA thought it necessary to incur the wrath and displeasure of President Sarkozy by importing the Middle-East conflict into the formation of the Mediterranean Union was puzzling. Quibbling over a few words in an otherwise agreed document remained a mystery - until the PA tried to explain the significance - and insidiousness - of its objection.

PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told reporters according to Xinhua news agency (15 July 2008):

“The Israelis insisted on the inclusion of the words - “state for the Jewish people” - something we are categorically opposed to. It was out of the question for us to accept this wording. We wanted to ensure the final statement was very clear on this point.”

The Israeli delegation had a different take on what had happened telling Xinhua that

"Israel was in agreement with everything that has been adopted in the declaration because it was done by consensus”

Mr Kouchner was more forthcoming on what had actually occurred to spoil President Sarkozy’s party.

He told Xinhua that the standstill had been caused by the use of the expressions:

“nation state, national state, and democratic state”.

This had resulted in:

"a last minute deadlock between the Israelis and the Palestinians which meant that the final text had to undergo some little changes. The use of the expression “national state” implies difficulties in ensuring the return of refugees to the Jewish State or non-Jewish, Palestinian State.”

How the PA could ever hope to succeed in getting the Mediterranean Union members to unanimously agree to wording in the summit declaration that would support the entry of millions of Arabs into Israel and deny the Jewish people its own State is unbelievable.

These two non-negotiable demands of the PA have long been the sticking points in ensuring that the creation of a 22nd Arab state between Israel and Jordan will remain incapable of fulfillment.

Now these demands had been brought to France by the PA to embarrass and undermine President Sarkozy’s vision - the establishment of the Mediterranean Union.

The supine French reaction to these untenable and badly mistimed demands was entirely predictable.

President Sarkozy could have told the PA to take a cold shower or to re-apply for membership of the Mediterranean Union when it had received international recognition as the governing authority of a sovereign and democratic state. Alternatively he could have suggested the PA be given observer status at the Mediterranean Union until statehood was achieved.

Mindful that any such action would have provoked an Arab walkout, President Sarkozy bit his tongue and chose the diplomatic path - sending the hapless Mr Kouchner on an appeasement journey to ease the frustration President Sarkozy must have felt at this upstart non-state thwarting mighty France at the very moment of what was to be one of its greatest achievements.

Mr Kouchner was left to tell Xinhua (July 15) :

“At the last moment we failed , perhaps for half an hour, to advance due to one word”

That one word was “Jewish”.

It will take more than half an hour and more than one word before these nations are disavowed of their evil intention.

The Arab campaign to delegitimize the Jewish State was once again exposed as it continued in earnest in Paris at the birthplace of the Mediterranean Union.

One Jewish State on this planet remains an anathema to most of the 21 Islamic Arab States as they continue resisting it and calling for its destruction wherever and whenever the opportunity arises.

Mr Kouchner fooled no-one as he bent the French knee in 2008 in deference to this racist alliance that has actively opposed the existence of the Jewish State in its ancient homeland since its establishment 60 years ago.

France’s humiliation again at the hands of Egypt this week serves to remind us that continuing appeasement of the Arabs comes at a great price - in this case the welfare and advancement of all 43 members of the Mediterranean Union - including the Palestinian Authority.

France should insist on the Conference going ahead. To back down is a recipe for disaster and will hold the Mediterranean Union hostage to the demands of any member at any time.

Realities Of The Middle East

[Published October 2009]

Now that Palestinian Authority intransigence and the Jordanian monarch’s cold feet have frozen President Bush’s Middle East peace plan, we are again facing that time honoured lament of Western liberalism:

“why doesn’t the US put more pressure on Israel, why cannot Israel be forced into more concessions?”

But in any event do Mr Abbas and his internationally cosseted entourage really want a peace settlement? A new term is creeping into the Middle East lexicon: Palestinian Authority Incorporated.

This label stems from a growing realisation that the Palestinian leadership has never had it so good, flitting from one capital to another by private jet, with conference-to-conference limousines, police escorts, top hotels and guest palaces, and everything else that goes with the jet-setting potentate. Running a neighbourhood “entity” after this would seem very dull indeed - assuming Mr. Abbas would make the grade in an open election.

But would he? The Wall Street Journal’s Karen Elliott House reported after a Middle East tour last month:

"Almost no one … believes the self appointed President for the Palestinian cause will ever be the directly re-elected leader of the Palestinian people”

She quotes a Jordanian official in Amman:

” The Palestinian Authority isn’t a revolution. It’s a corporation. After all these years, the pay cheques keep coming and the life is good . The Palestinian Authority cares more about preserving its privileges than helping ordinary Palestinians.”

To which Joseph Kraft of the Los Angeles Times syndicate adds the charge that the Abbas Palestinian Authority is:

“ a bureaucracy dedicated to its own survival. Far from being willing to take risks for political goals, Mr Abbas and Co, in this view, prefer to wander from country to country and from summit meeting to summit meeting, selling the cause of Palestine to Arab leaders who need legitimization. The rulers pay out subsidies. In return Mr Abbas gives them the Palestinian Authority seal of fidelity to Arab nationalism.”

What practical good does this do for the average Palestinian Arabs? As the New York Times remarked last November during a peak of Palestinian Authority negativism:

“Let reality now sink in. If those who claim Palestinian leadership cannot contemplate co-existence and persist in preventing King Abdullah and the residents of the West Bank from negotiating a true peace with Israel, then even this territory will soon be out of reach”

And how.

Israeli Government statisticians and demographers predict that within 30 years the Jewish population of Judea and Samaria will reach parity with the projected Arab population of 1.3 million. Long range settlement plans are in hand. The implications of delayed negotiations require no explanation.

..... AND NOW FOR MY CONFESSION...

The above article was written by Michael Barnard under the title “Realities of the Middle East” and published in the Age Newspaper in Melbourne Australia on Tuesday 26 April 1983 …. 26 years ago !!!!

My contribution to updating the article lies solely in substituting a few words to reflect the different parties.

I could have even left in the acronym for the Palestine Liberation Organization - “PLO” - used by Barnard in his article instead of replacing it with “Palestinian Authority” since the latter is just the reincarnation of the former disguised under a different name.

But essentially nothing has changed for the ordinary West Bank Arab in the last quarter of a century as their leaders have missed countless opportunities to resolve the conflicting Arab and Jewish claims to sovereignty in the West Bank.

Abbas clings to power as unelected President although his term expired last January. Calls for his removal have been mounting because he dared to postpone debate on the Goldstone Report at the behest of President Obama. This was only the latest of his woes as he has to answer questions about his relative silence during Israel’s invasion of Gaza last December and January and his alleged tacit - if not collaborative - approval of Israel’s action to destroy his Hamas challengers for supreme political control of the Palestinian Arabs.

Urged on by well intended but policy deficient “do-gooders” such as Presidents Reagan, Carter, Clinton and Bush, the Quartet and a Moslem dominated UN General Assembly, the Palestinian Authority power brokers have chalked up hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer points, have enjoyed the best food and wines in some of the most expensive hotels and restaurants in the world and collected photo albums full of snapshots with the most famous political and celebrity personages.

Surely a quarter of a century later it is time to heed Barnard’s article (as updated by me):

“Let reality now sink in. If those who claim Palestinian leadership cannot contemplate co-existence and persist in preventing King Abdullah and the residents of the West Bank from negotiating a true peace with Israel, then even this territory will soon be out of reach”

The sooner Jordan is brought into negotiations with Israel to determine Arab and Jewish claims to sovereignty in the West Bank the sooner these junkets and excesses by the Palestinian Authority will be ended.

More importantly the West Bank Arabs will be able to go about their work and raise their children free of war and conflict as fully fledged citizens of Jordan - as they were between 1948-1967 until Jordan’s fatal involvement in the Six Day War saw the loss of this territory to Israel.

Israel will not be returning to the armistice lines that existed between Israel and Jordan on the 6th June 1967 - UN Security Council resolution 242 makes that abundantly clear. It will not agree - in the national interest of preserving Israel as the only Jewish state in the world - to millions of Arabs flooding into its country as migrants.

That is best left to welcoming countries like England, France, Holland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The world is a big place and opportunities to settle outside one’s country of birth have never been so easy as millions of Arabs leave their existing 21 Arab States for greener pastures.

Will an article like this still be written in 2035? I certainly hope not.

Israeli Palestinians or Palestinian Jordanians?

[Published October 2009]

Former Chief Palestinian Authority negotiator Ahmed Qureia first raised the possibility of Israeli residents living in the West Bank becoming Palestinian citizens in any new State created between Jordan and Israel as an answer to forced removal from their existing homes and transfer to Israel.

In an interview in Haaretz on 26 May 2009 the following exchange took place:

“Qureia: “Negotiating the annexation of Ariel to Israel is a waste of time. Ma’aleh Adumim and Givat Ze’ev must also be part of Palestine. Any agreement must guarantee our territorial contiguity; leave historical sites in our hands, especially Jerusalem, as well as natural resources, especially water.”

Question: Do you believe Israel would agree to evacuate Ma’aleh Adumim’s 35,000 residents?

Qureia: “[Former U.S. secretary of state] Condoleezza Rice told me she understood our position about Ariel but that Ma’aleh Adumim was a different matter. I told her, and Livni, that those residents of Ma’aleh Adumim or Ariel who would rather stay in their homes could live under Palestinian rule and law, just like the Israeli Arabs who live among you. They could hold Palestinian and Israeli nationalities. If they want it - welcome."

This theme was taken up by Palestinian Authority Acting Prime Minister Salam Fayyad at the Aspen Institute’s Ideas Festival in July when he was asked by R. James Woolsey - former director of Central Intelligence under President Clinton - whether the same rights would be available to Jewish citizens of a Palestinian state that were available to the over one million Arab citizens of Israel - such as freedom of religion and speech and the right to vote in elections.

Woolsey also wanted to know whether Jews would be able to sleep at night without worrying that someone might kick their doors down and kill them

Fayyad replied:

“I’m not someone who will say that they would or should be treated differently than Israeli Arabs are treated in Israel. In fact, the kind of state that we want to have, that we aspire to have, is one that would definitely espouse high values of tolerance, coexistence, mutual respect and deference to all cultures, religions. No discrimination whatsoever, on any basis whatsoever. Jews, to the extent they choose to stay and live in the state of Palestine, will enjoy those rights and certainly will not enjoy any less rights than Israeli Arabs enjoy now in the state of Israel.”

This is an argument that would hold little attraction to Israel or the Jewish residents of the West Bank.

The reasons are manifold and include the following:

1. Jews could never be assured that their security would be protected from terrorist attacks.

2. The history of the conflict indicates that wherever possible Jews and Arabs should be separated to avoid clashes between their respective populations. Israel’s successful integration of 1.5 million Arabs into its population as Israeli citizens could not possibly be repeated in the West Bank. The baggage of hatred between the two populations engendered by the PLO Covenant and the Hamas Covenant would prove insurmountable.

3. The Jewish community could be held to ransom by any assorted rag and tag groups to meet Arab demands for millions of Arabs to be allowed to emigrate to Israel, for Arab prisoners to be released from Israeli jails or for any other reason - even simple extortion of money.

4. The Palestinian Authority has been trumpeting the removal of all Jewish residents living in the West Bank for the last 40 years and has legislated for the death penalty for anyone selling land to Jews. It would hardly be seen as a convincing change of heart if these racist attitudes were suddenly abandoned.

However the parallel proposition that the Arab residents of the West Bank acquire Jordanian citizenship has become increasingly more attractive as the “two state solution” continues to founder after 16 years of failed diplomatic efforts to achieve a breakthrough.

The West Bank and Gazan Arabs are considered to be oppressed and victimised communities who have been deprived of the freedom of movement, ability to access goods and services, export their own products as well as exercise their rights as full citizens of a sovereign Arab state. This loss of dignity will continue as the two state solution evaporates and will need to be addressed in some way if there is to be peaceful co-existence between the Arab and Jewish communities in the West Bank.

These problems can be solved if the international boundary between Israel and Jordan is redrawn so that the heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank become part of Jordan and the heavily populated Jewish areas of the West Bank become part of Israel.

The reasons for this occurring are compelling:

1. Jordan is 77% of Mandatory Palestine and will extend its borders to include about another 3% of former Palestine if this solution is adopted.

2. Jordan - as the last Arab State to occupy the West Bank between 1948-1967 - will resume its historical role as the Arab successor State to the Mandate in allocating sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza between it and the other successor state to the Mandate - the Jewish State of Israel.

3. The Arab residents of the West Bank will resume their status as Jordanian citizens which they enjoyed until 1988 and will be granted Jordanian passports entitling them to the same political rights as the current Jordanian population.

4. The Arab residents on both sides of the Jordan River will be reunited into one political entity - a relationship which has been acknowledged and recognised by both Jordanian and Palestinian leaders such as the late King Hussein, Crown Prince Hassan, the late Yasser Arafat and Abu Iyad.

Jordanian resistance to such an idea might be anticipated, since Jordan has been very wary of attempts to remove the ruling Hashemite regime and replace it with a revolutionary style Government.

However events in Gaza demonstrate the utter folly of repeating the same coup in Jordan.

Jordan needs to be given security and financial guarantees by the Quartet - America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - to enter into negotiations with Israel to divide sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza between them and possibly Egypt.

Given Israel already enjoys signed peace agreements with both Jordan and Egypt and all are already sovereign States - the negotiations could be successfully concluded in a very short space of time.

Such a solution would be preferable to any form of autonomy since it would free the West Bank and Gazan Arabs from Israeli domination and control and allow the West Bank and Gazan Arabs - and indeed all Palestinian Arabs - the right to self determination for which they have been agitating since 1967.

In the absence of such a resolution the future looks very bleak for both Arabs and Jews.

Abbas Gives Obama The Thumbs Down

[Published September 2009]

Palestinian Authority President - Mahmoud Abbas - delivered a stinging rebuff to President Obama during his address at the United Nations last Friday.

Obama had called on Israel and the Palestinian Authority from the same podium at the United Nations just a few days earlier to enter into final status negotiations - “without preconditions” - designed to lead to the creation of a new Arab state between Israel and Jordan - the so called “two state solution”.

Obama’s statement had greatly disappointed Abbas who had expected that after six months of intense diplomatic activity by the Americans - Israel would agree to the demand by Abbas - supported by Obama - that Israel freeze all construction and building activity on the West Bank as a condition of Abbas resuming negotiations with Israel after an eight months hiatus.

Israel’s response was to curtail - but not freeze - such activities. This position was ultimately accepted - albeit reluctantly - by the American administration, which had no basis at all for insisting on a freeze anyway since Israel had not agreed to its original inclusion in the Road Map first proposed by President Bush in 2003.

Abbas in his address to the UN made it clear to Obama that Abbas would not be returning to the negotiating table unless there was a complete freeze - and - it would seem - a whole lot of new conditions that Abbas lumped in at the same time.

Abbas told the assembled delegates:

“We call upon the international community to uphold international law and international legitimacy and to exert pressure on Israel to cease its settlement activities, to comply with the signed agreements, and desist from the policies of the occupation and colonial settlements, to release the 10000 - correction approximately 11000 prisoners and detainees, to lift - and to lift the unjust siege imposed on the Gaza Strip….”

Whilst not stating what international pressure should be exerted on Israel to achieve these objectives - Abbas no doubt had in mind the collective economic punishment of Israel’s population by imposing boycotts on the importation and purchase of Israeli products, the sharing of intellectual knowledge between universities and divestment by investors of their share portfolios in Israeli companies.

What is crystal clear is that this shopping list of conditions is unacceptable to Israel and will act as an effective bar to the resumption of negotiations - making President Obama’s call for the immediate resumption of those negotiations just a few days before superfluous and already outdated.

It would need an extraordinary loss of face for Abbas to announce his readiness to resume negotiations in the face of his defiant stance and response to President Obama at the United Nations. His arch enemy - Hamas - would pillory him for his submission to American and Zionist pressure.

President Obama can respond in two ways - either do nothing and let the current state of affairs meander along aimlessly - and dangerously - on the road to nowhere or announce his own plan to break the current impasse.

Before proposing his own plan President Obama would be well advised to put a series of questions to both Israel and the Palestinian Authority so as to gauge their respective attitudes to the following matters:

1. Is the Palestinian Authority prepared to recognize Israel as the Jewish National Home reconstituted pursuant to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter?

2. Does the Palestinian Authority intend to persist with its demand that every square centimeter of the West Bank be ceded to it by Israel or is it prepared to accept less in exchange for an equivalent land swap by Israel?

3. Is the Palestinian Authority still committed to millions of former Arab residents and their descendants of what is now Israel being given the right to return and live there and if so what would be the appropriate number that Israel should accept?

4. Is Israel prepared to allow the creation of a 22nd Arab State between Israel and Jordan with full and unfettered access and control over its air space and maritime waters? If not is the Palestinian Authority prepared to accept something less such as demilitarization?

5. Is Israel prepared to remove all the 500000 Jewish residents living in the West Bank. If not what number are they prepared to remove and from where?

6. Is Israel prepared to divide Jerusalem so that it becomes the capital of both Israel and the new Arab state?

America - unequivocally and unambiguously - needs to present its own answers to both parties on these same questions after first gauging and evaluating their responses and then lay down its own terms as the price for America’s continuing involvement in helping the parties achieve a final resolution of their conflict.

Failure by America to elicit satisfactory and positive responses to these questions from the Palestinian Authority and Israel will only ensure that one can continue to predict with absolute certainty that the two state solution is not going to be the solution to the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Living the dream but experiencing the nightmare that has accompanied this fatally flawed and discredited vision for the last 72 years has proved to be catastrophic for both Arabs and Jews. How much longer will this failed proposal continue to be paraded as the only solution to the conflict? It is about time that the parties put up or shut up.

The thumbs down given to President Obama by Abbas this past week only underscores America’s need to get some answers from the parties to the above questions or vacate the scene - unless America completely revamps its thinking and starts to look at options other than the two state solution.

Obama has already hinted at going in another direction emphasising “dignity” and “security” as the diplomatic drivers in resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict if the two state solution is abandoned.

Such a policy and initiative should surely be welcomed to break the impasse and receive the thumbs up from the international community to enable it to be successfully implemented.

Is Obama Ready To Speak His Mind?

[Published September 2009]

President Obama’s address at the United Nations on 23 September gave some indication that he would soon be releasing his own plan for achieving the creation of a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan - the so called “two state solution - that has avoided the best efforts of previous American Presidents for the last sixteen years.

In his carefully crafted address he made the following statement:

“The time has come to re-launch negotiations - without preconditions - that address the permanent-status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians; borders, refugees and Jerusalem. The goal is clear: two states living side by side in peace and security - a Jewish State of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people.”

The insistence that such negotiations be opened “without preconditions” was a slap in the face for Palestinian Authority president - Mahmoud Abbas - who has so far refused to enter into such negotiations with Israel until Israel totally freezes all construction activity in the West Bank.

No doubt Obama had hoped that his fruitless trilateral meeting with Abbas and Israel’s Prime Minister - Benjamin Netanyahu - the previous day would have enabled him to tell the United Nations that negotiations were soon to resume. That was not to be.

To compound Abbas’s irrational stance he has now insisted that he would not enter into any negotiations unless their end result would be the withdrawal by Israel from every inch of territory occupied by it since the Six Day War in 1967. [Wafa Palestine News Agency 22 September 2009].

Netanyahu - and previous Israeli Governments - have made it clear Israel would not be obliging Abbas in this demand.

President Obama appears to have supported Netanyahu on this issue by pointedly not calling for an Israeli return to the territorial position that existed at 4 June 1967 - but merely an end to the occupation that began in 1967.

Obama’s insistence that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state also is completely at odds with Abbas’ long standing refusal to accept such a proposal.

Given the above - it is extremely unlikely that Abbas is politically strong enough to get off his high horse, lose face and resume negotiations with Israel without preconditions. Hamas - and his own faction Fatah - will ensure this does not happen.

His preferred course will be to employ the tactics of the past and engage in rhetoric accusing the Israel lobby of controlling President Obama and the Congress and totally ignoring the victims of the conflict and their ongoing suffering.

He will prefer this course and the strong support he expects to receive in his stance from a majority of the morally bankrupt member states of the United Nations who control the affairs of the General Assembly and its Human Rights Council and can pass resolutions ad infinitum excoriating Israel and pursuing a program of delegitimizing Israel as the Jewish National Home.

President Obama has signalled he is not prepared to accept that tactic and allow the question of resuming negotiations and bringing an end to the conflict to meander aimlessly along the road to nowhere.

Slotted into his speech to the United Nations was this clear warning to both Israel and the Palestinian Authority:

“I am not naïve. I know this will be difficult. But all of us must decide whether we are serious about peace, or whether we only lend it lip-service. To break the old patterns - to break the cycle of insecurity and despair - all of us must say publicly what we would acknowledge in private.”

The President was politely laying down an ultimatum - resume negotiations immediately “without preconditions” or he would publicly speak out and lay down his proposals for achieving the two state solution. If those proposals were not finally acceptable to both sides then America would not become further involved in pursuing the two state solution.

One does not need to gaze into a crystal ball to know that no plan the President publicly reveals will ever be acceptable to the Palestinian Authority.

President Obama will not resile from the demand that Israel be recognized as the Jewish State. He will not stipulate that 500000 Jews living in the West Bank will all have to be kicked out of their homes and businesses. The President won’t insist that millions of former Arab residents and their descendants be given the right to live in Israel.

What President Obama has done at the United Nations has made it very transparent that America is not prepared to be dragged along ignominiously for any further length of time in pursuing an objective that is all but totally unattainable.

Crunch time is fast approaching and for America the two state solution is all but dead and buried.

Other solutions and options need to be explored and pursued to separate the warring parties and allow each to live with one another as President Obama so eloquently expressed in his address:

“And after all of the politics and all of the posturing, this is about the right of every human being to live with dignity and security. That is a lesson embedded in the three great faiths that call one small slice of Earth the Holy Land. And that is why - even though there will be setbacks, and false starts, and tough days - I will not waiver in my pursuit of peace. “

America will not depart the scene but it certainly is ready to abandon the two state solution if the parties cannot get down to business very soon and enter into negotiations to try and agree on its parameters.

“Dignity” and “Security” will soon become the diplomatic catchwords that replace “the two state solution”. After sixteen years of trying to achieve the impossible - the new direction being charted by President Obama at least offers some realistic hope of succeeding.

Abbas Only Tells Half The Story

[Published September 2009]

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has put paid to any prospects of the Palestinian Authority resuming negotiations with Israel after the proposed trilateral meetings to be held with President Obama, Abbas and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House today.

Abbas said at a press conference on 19 September after meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak that as there was no agreement on halting settlement so there could be no agreement on re-launching negotiations because there was no basis. He continued :

“The basis [ for resuming negotiations] we know is the one stated in the Road Map plan,’ ‘Americans are required to continue their commitment of the first article of the Road Map plan, which clearly states that there must be complete settlement freeze including the natural growth,’.

What Abbas failed to tell the assembled media was that Israel had not accepted that proposal in the Road Map.

When President Bush released his detailed Road Map on 30 April 2003, Israel had then sent a letter to President Bush on 23 May 2003 containing 14 reservations it had before it could accept the plan as a basis for negotiation.

Reservation 9 made by Israel to President Bush stated in part:

“There will be no involvement with issues pertaining to the final settlement. Among issues not to be discussed: settlement in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (excluding a settlement freeze and illegal outposts); “

Israel thus made it clear that whilst it was prepared to discuss a settlement freeze (no mention being made by Israel of restricting natural growth) it was not prepared to accept that there be a complete settlement freeze including natural growth per se.

On 23 May 2003, then Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice made the following statement from the White House:

“The roadmap was presented to the Government of Israel with a request from the President that it respond with contributions to this document to advance true peace. The United States Government received a response from the Government of Israel, explaining its significant concerns about the roadmap. The United States shares the view of the Government of Israel that these are real concerns,and will address them fully and seriously in the implementation of the roadmap to fulfil the President’s vision of June 24, 2002.”

On 25 May 2003, the Israeli Cabinet met and by a majority resolved:

“Based on the 23 May 2003 statement of the United States Government, in which the United States committed to fully and seriously address Israel’s comments to the Roadmap during the implementation phase, the Prime Minister announced on 23 May 2003 that Israel has agreed to accept the steps set out in the Roadmap.

The Government of Israel affirms the Prime Minister’s announcement, and resolves that all of Israel’s comments, as addressed in the Administration’s statement, will be implemented in full during the implementation phase of the Roadmap.”

Nothing could be clearer or more unambiguous - President Bush had accepted Israel’s position that there would be no settlement freeze without it first being discussed and agreed by Israel.

Abbas told Haaretz on 28 May 2003 that the 14 reservations made by Israel had nothing to do with him. He said:

“They don’t interest me,”

Haaretz reported that as far as Abbas was concerned, the only document that mattered was the road map that was finalized in December 2002 and handed over to the parties at the end of April 2003 Nothing more, nothing less. He continued:

“We do not accept each side picking and choosing only those specific elements that are convenient for them in the road map.

The map was prepared last December and we accepted it, despite our own comments and reservations. We wanted to give this initiative a chance, but it’s impossible to continue inventing comments and reservations after it was submitted.”

This was a very aggressive and intransigent - indeed foolish and naive - attitude to adopt in the face of President Bush having specifically invited both sides to comment on the Road Map.

The response from the President to Israel’s reservations acknowledged that Israel’s concerns were real and they would be fully and seriously addressed during the implementation phase.

The past months’ discussions between George Mitchell, Benjamin Netanyahu and President Obama in relation to a settlement freeze must be seen and be understood to have taken place within the framework of America’s previous acknowledgment that no such freeze could be imposed on Israel under the Roadmap unless Israel agreed to the terms of any such proposal.

Israel has responded to America’s request by agreeing to curtail - but not totally freeze - settlement activity for some as yet unspecified period whilst negotiations are being held between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. This apparently is not acceptable to Abbas. Unless he has a change of heart he intends to spit the dummy and walk away from any further negotiations.

Abbas needs to really take a cold shower and cool down and not tell half the story - especially the half that he does not like.