Palestine - Serious Negotiations Or Spurious Nonsense?

[Published 30 September 2010]

The threat by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to walk away from direct negotiations with Israel following Israel’s refusal to extend its ten month moratorium on some residential building construction in the West Bank - has brought forth an almost universal plea for Israel to reconsider its position.

However, PA negotiator Nabil Shaath has now indicated that even if Israel were to renew the limited moratorium - it would not be acceptable to the PA - telling Arab News:

“There is no alternative to one formula ending this crisis: the full stopping of the settlement building, even for a specific time.”

One has learned to take such PA pronouncements with a grain of salt. Hyperbole and rhetoric are part and parcel of PA negotiating tactics. When push comes to shove they usually give in to pressure.

President Abbas dithered for more than nine months of the initial ten month moratorium period before deigning to enter into direct negotiations with Israel. He demanded then what Shaath is now recycling - a total building freeze. It proved - and will continue to prove - to be a disastrous error of judgment by the PA. Abbas can only blame himself for the dilemma he currently faces as to whether to resume negotiations or not in view of the expiry of the moratorium period on 26 September.

Assuming however that some compromise is eventually agreed on for a further moratorium - questions must be asked and answers given as to the basis on which such negotiations are to be resumed.

Israel’s position is clear but the PA‘s position is steeped in uncertainty.

The parameters under which Israel has been negotiating are:

1. The Bush Roadmap - subject to Israel‘s 14 expressed written Reservations to it

2. United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and

3. The letter from President George Bush to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dated 14 April 2004

Roadmap references to the Saudi Peace Plan - adopted subsequently as the Arab Initiative - were expressly rejected by Israel as playing any part in the negotiating process - the Reservations stating:

“The removal of references other than 242 and 338 (1397, the Saudi Initiative and the Arab Initiative adopted in Beirut). A settlement based upon the road map will be an autonomous settlement that derives its validity therefrom. The only possible reference should be to Resolutions 242 and 338, and then only as an outline for the conduct of future negotiations on a permanent settlement. “

Israel was also adamant in its Reservations that :

“… declared references must be made to Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and to the waiver of any right of return for Palestinian refugees to the State of Israel.”

Abbas’s reaction to Israel’s Reservations was starkly revealed in an article by Akiva Eldar on 28 May 2003 when he wrote in Ha’aretz newspaper:

“When Abu Mazen talks about the road map it’s important for him to emphasize that the 14 Israeli reservations have nothing to do with him. “They don’t interest me,” he says. As far as he’s concerned, the only document that matters is the road map that was finalized in December 2002 and handed over to the parties at the end of April this year. Nothing more, nothing less.

“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.”

He says:

“We understood from the Americans that there are no changes in the road map. This is an historic opportunity to return to a track of normalcy. We are saying to the Israelis, `follow the map and don’t waste time haggling over details.’ We must get into the implementation phase. It is vital the two peoples feel something is changing on the ground. In any case nobody will pay attention to this or that reservation.”

Abbas was wrong.

America did indeed pay serious attention to Israel’s Reservations - as was indicated in the letter President Bush gave to Prime Minister Sharon on 14 April 2004 which stated:

“The United States is strongly committed to Israel’s security and well-being as a Jewish state. It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.

As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.

It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.”

The PA has consistently refused to accept these parameters as defining the goals of the negotiating process.

On 27 November 2007 Israel’s then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert once again clarified these parameters at Annapolis before the leaders of the international community assembled there when he said:

“The negotiations will be based on previous agreements between us, UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the Roadmap and the April 14th 2004 letter of President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel."

The PA clearly is not negotiating on the same wavelength as Israel as it continues to:

1. Demand the right for millions of Arabs to emigrate to Israel

2. Refuses to accept the right of any Jews to live in the West Bank

3. Attempts to introduce the Saudi Peace Plan into the negotiations

4. Refuses to recognise Israel as the national state of the Jewish people

5. Refuses to accept Israel’s Reservations to the Road Map as having any relevance

Israel and the PA have each been playing the negotiating game under different sets of rules. Until they start to play the game under the same rules - any further talks will - like the talks held since 2003 - prove to be a complete waste of time.

Palestine - What Obama And Abbas Didn't Tell The UN

[Published 26 September 2010]

President Obama and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas both addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations this week and left more unsaid than was actually stated.

Both delivered speeches that indicated little grasp with the political realities that have led to negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority failing to make any progress at all since the “two-state solution” was revived in 1993 - after having been unequivocally rejected by the Arab world in 1947.

President Obama’s speech reiterated long standing American policy when he stated:

“Israel is a sovereign state, and the historic homeland of the Jewish people. It should be clear to all that efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States. And efforts to threaten or kill Israelis will do nothing to help the Palestinian people. The slaughter of innocent Israelis is not resistance — it’s injustice.”

Such a principled call by America is not new.

President Obama was indeed confirming the written commitment made to Israel by his predecessor President Bush on 14 April 2004:

“The United States is strongly committed to Israel’s security and well-being as a Jewish state.”

These statements had followed similar declarations by all American Presidents beginning with President Woodrow Wilson who stated on 3 March 1919:

“I am persuaded that the Allied Nations, with the fullest concurrence of our own Government and people, are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundation of a Jewish Commonwealth.’

It was President Harding who on 21 September 1922 signed the joint resolution of approval by Congress and the Senate to establish a Jewish National Home in Palestine.

The President therefore missed a wonderful opportunity in failing to tell the assembled world leaders:

“My appeal to President Abbas is to end his opposition and that of all members of the Arab League to recognizing Israel’s existence as a Jewish State. This policy is not mine alone but continues the policies expressed by all United State Presidents since Woodrow Wilson in 1919. This policy led to the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine by both the United Nations and its predecessor the League of Nations. Continuing resistance to accept Israel as the sovereign State of the Jewish people will guarantee the failure of negotiations recently resumed in Washington. It is time for the Arab world - after 63 years of unqualified rejection - to accept the Jewish people’s right to self determination in their historic homeland.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been vainly seeking such an assurance from President Abbas since direct negotiations were resumed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority [PA] in Washington on 2nd September. President Abbas has failed to yield to this demand.

That President Abbas has no intention of accepting this basic principle was evident in just one hypocritical sentence in his speech to the General Assembly just two days after President Obama had spoken:

“Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, I reaffirm the eagerness of the Palestine Liberation Organization to achieve a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy”

These words were insincere, false and totally meaningless - completely the opposite of what appears in the Charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] and the separate Charter of its largest constituent member organization - Fatah.

President Abbas should have told the General Assembly that:

“

I head both the PLO and Fatah and I can tell you that President Obama’s demand to recognize Israel’s existence as a Jewish State will never be conceded by the Palestinian Authority. My reasons are found in the Charters of both Fatah and the PLO - the sponsors of - and responsible for - the creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1993.

Might I remind you all that those two Charters specifically provide that:

Liberating Palestine is a national obligation which necessities the materialistic and human support of the Arab Nation.

The Israeli existence in Palestine is a Zionist invasion with a colonial expansive base, and it is a natural ally to colonialism and international imperialism

Liberating Palestine and protecting its holy places is an Arab, religious and human obligation.

Our goal is complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence

I am committed to establishing an independent democratic state with complete sovereignty on all Palestinian lands, and Jerusalem is its capital city, and protecting the citizens’ legal and equal rights without any racial or religious discrimination.

Armed struggle is a strategy and not a tactic, and the Palestinian Arab People’s armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.

We oppose any political solution offered as an alternative to demolishing the Zionist occupation in Palestine

The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.”

President Obama and President Abbas were playing diplomatic games at the United Nations that were totally divorced from reality.

The demands of neither are capable of being achieved.

President Obama is engaging with the PA in a fruitless exercise that has no chance of being achieved because of Palestinian intransigence on this one critical issue.

Talk of any compromise in reaching the “two state solution” - the creation of a new Arab state between Jordan and Israel - remains a pipe dream whilst the PA ignores President Obama’s call to recognize Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people.

President Obama needs to find another Arab negotiating partner to sit down and negotiate with Israel on the future sovereignty of the West Bank.

Maybe that will be the subject of President Obama’s next speech to the United Nations.

Let’s hope it is.

Palestine - Clinton Opens Up Alternatives To Two-State Solution

[Published 21 September 2010]


American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has publicly canvassed the possibility of considering alternative solutions on the future sovereignty of the West Bank as the current negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to create a new Arab state between Israel and Jordan - the so called “two-state solution” - continue to go nowhere.

In an interview with ABC’s Christiane Amanpour in Jerusalem this week the following interesting exchange took place:

QUESTION: Do you believe you’ve convinced some of the skeptics - for instance, the [Israeli] Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who you also spoke to - have you convinced him that this two-state solution, this process, is the right one?

SECRETARY CLINTON: I don’t claim to convince someone whose views are very different from that position. I think that he and many Israelis are quite skeptical, just as many Palestinians are quite skeptical. But I’d ask them, what’s the alternative; I mean, what is the alternative? You need, if you are worried about Israel’s future and security, to be living peacefully with a neighbor who has the same aspirations for normal life.

Many commentators such as MJ Rosenberg and Robert Grenier have suggested that the only alternative solution is the “one state bi-national solution” which would see Israel securing sovereignty in 100% of the West Bank in some negotiated bi-national agreement with its West Bank Arab population.

Both Rosenberg and Grenier are equally firm in their prognosis.

Rosenberg writes:

“The alternative, looming just beyond the horizon, is the so-called one state—or bi-national—solution in which Israelis and Palestinians share all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. How can it be more obvious? The alternative to two states is one state, which virtually all Palestinians would accept and virtually all Israelis reject”

Rosenberg’s own conclusion - that the Arabs would accept it and the Jews reject it - guarantees that such an alternative solution is dead in the water before it is even proposed.

Rosenberg offers no evidence to support his claim that virtually all the Palestinian Arabs will accept the one state bi-national alternative and so agree to abandon their 43 years old demand that a sovereign Palestinian Arab State be created for the first time ever in recorded history.

Rosenberg is on a trip to fantasyland.

Grenier’s pessimism in achieving the two state solution is succinctly expressed as follows:

“That the Israelis and Palestinians could reach agreement on a comprehensive two-state settlement under the current circumstances is hard to imagine. That they could actually implement such an agreement is impossible."

Grenier’s only alternative is also the one-state bi-national solution as he continues:

“The fact of the matter, however, is that the idea of a two-state solution in Palestine is finished. Israeli settlements in the West Bank and their attendant infrastructure have made a viable and independent Palestinian state impossible. The settlements, moreover, cannot be undone. Their existence obviates the need for formal Israeli annexation: The de-facto annexation of the West Bank has already taken place. The only remaining solution is a single, unified, bi-national state.”

The one-state bi-national alternative certainly will not dispel Clinton’s expressed concern for Israel’s future and security. It will become a demographic time bomb, a recipe for future conflict and an even more hopeless exercise to bring to fruition than the discredited two-state solution.

There is however another far more practical and readily achievable alternative solution to that suggested by Rosenberg and Grenier.

That solution involves the division of sovereignty of the West Bank between Israel and Jordan.

Separation of Arabs and Jews in Palestine - as far as is possible - has been the policy that has guided international diplomacy in the region since 1920. It has been sponsored by the League of Nations, the United Nations and several Commissions of Inquiry. It remains the policy currently favoured and supported by America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

This policy - with one notable exception - has failed for one reason - Arab refusal to accept anything less than sovereignty in 100% of the territory available for allocation between Jews and Arabs.

That one exception was Arab acceptance of the League of Nations decision on 23 September 1922 denying the Jews any entitlement to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in 77% of Palestine - laying the groundwork for the creation of an exclusively Arab State there in 1946 that is today called Jordan.

It was not until 1948 that the Jews were able to create their own State in 17% of Palestine.

Sovereignty in the remaining 6% of Palestine - the West Bank and Gaza - is still up for grabs.

Although Jordan and Israel have fought several wars following the War of Independence in 1948 they have enjoyed a signed and sealed peace treaty between their respective states since 1994 - which has withstood many political and diplomatic pressures that could have heralded its demise.

Jordan indeed fits the Clinton mould of Israel “living peacefully with a neighbor who has the same aspirations for normal life.”

Presently stuck between their two respective States is the West Bank with a population of 2 million Arabs and 500000 Jews - whose territorial sovereignty remains undetermined.

Division of that sovereignty between Israel and Jordan resonates as a just and fair solution for the following reasons:

(i) It will restore Jordanian governance to the major part of the West Bank as existed from 1950 up to its loss to Israel in the Six Day War in 1967.
(ii) It will bring the overwhelming majority of its 2 million West Bank Arabs under Jordanian protection, free them from Israeli control and restore the freedom of movement and citizenship rights enjoyed by them between 1948 - 1967
(iii) Not one Jew or Arab will have to leave his present home or business in the West Bank
(iv) Issues presently seen as contentious such as water, refugees and Jerusalem have already been identified and proposed solutions flagged in the 1994 Treaty.
(v) Drawing the new international boundary between Israel and Jordan to end sovereignty claims by Jews and Arabs in the West Bank should be capable of being achieved within three months.
(vi) There will be a dramatic and immediate change in the current status quo which most agree is dangerous and untenable
(vii) Jordan is the only Arab partner that can honour and enforce any agreement on the West Bank that Israel is prepared to sign.
(viii) It will finalize the allocation of sovereignty of former Palestine between the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine.

Jordan cannot be allowed to simply reject such an alternative out of hand and seek to walk away from the looming conflict that must inevitably fill the void after the collapse of the two-state solution.

Jordan has been part of the problem surrounding the issue of sovereignty in the West Bank since 1920. It now is time for Jordan to step up to the plate and take responsibility for being part of the solution in 2010.

Palestine - Jew Haters - Like Koran Burners - Cannot Be Tolerated

[Published 11 September 2010]

It did not take very long for the Palestinian Authority to make its unequivocal rejection of a Jewish State crystal clear following the pomp and circumstance of resumed negotiations between it and Israel in Washington last week.

Dr Nabeel Shaath - a member of the Palestinian Negotiating Team, the Fatah Central Committee and the Palestinian Legislative Council - told a press conference in Ramallah on 7 September:

“The Palestinian National Authority will never recognise that Israel is the national state for Jewish people, as such recognition will directly threaten the Muslim and Christian Palestinians in Israel, and will prevent the Palestinian refugees who left their homes and towns decades ago, from the right to return,”

Dr Shaath’s forthrightness and honesty is refreshing but clearly indicates that any further negotiations with the Palestinian Authority are a total waste of time.

The Palestinian Authority is apparently hell bent on challenging and confronting President Obama whose National Security Strategy released by the White House in May 2010 declared that the United States would seek two states that will live in peace and security:

“a Jewish state of Israel, with true security, acceptance, and rights for all Israelis and a viable, independent Palestine with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people.”

President Obama had also previously made it clear that sentiments such as those expressed by Dr Shaath are completely unacceptable.

Speaking as a then Senator at a Foreign Policy Forum in Des Moines Iowa on 18 December 2007 the future President stated:

“I think everyone knows what the basic outlines of an agreement would look like. It would mean that the Palestinians would have to reinterpret the notion of right of return in a way that would preserve Israel as a Jewish state. It might involve compensation and other concessions from the Israelis but ultimately Israel is not going to give up its state.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an address on 29 April 2010 had also made it perfectly clear that:

“Since our first day in office, the Obama Administration has made the pursuit of peace and secure and recognized borders for Israel a priority because that is, we believe, the best way to safeguard Israel’s long-term future as a democratic Jewish state.”

Dr Shaath’s statement also constitutes a rebuff to former President George W Bush who assured Israel’s then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a letter dated 14 April 2004:

“The United States is strongly committed to Israel’s security and well-being as a Jewish state.”

Dr Shaath has effectively reiterated the long held position of the Palestinian Authority’s surrogate parent - the Palestine Liberation Organization - whose Charter declares:

“Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.”

Dr Shaath’s remarks also operate as a clear rejection of a statement made by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s Parliament in July 2010:

“The first thing [in negotiations] is Palestinian recognition of the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. When we are talking about a solution of two states for two peoples, one of these peoples is the Jewish people. It is not some Israeli people, it is the Jewish people.”

With negotiations set to resume between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on 14 September in Sharm El Sheikh - Prime Minister Netanyahu needs to then make it absolutely clear that the Palestinian Authority’s stance - as represented by Dr Shaath’s statement - is completely unacceptable to Israel and that Israel will immediately suspend any further negotiations with the Palestinian Authority until it unreservedly disassociates itself from Dr Shaath’s remarks.

Prime Minister Netanyahu was effusive in lauding the Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas as his “partner in peace” in Washington just one week ago.

How this façade can be maintained in the face of a clear statement refusing to acknowledge Israel’s continuing existence as a Jewish State is totally incomprehensible.

It is to be hoped that President Obama will be similarly outspoken and condemn Dr Shaath’s remarks perhaps by repeating the words of concern spoken by him in response to the planned burning of the Koran by Pastor Terry Jones:

“It is absolutely important now for the overwhelming majority of American people to hang on to that thing that is best in us - that is our belief in religious tolerance …”

The Palestinian Authority’s position represents a serious threat to the fragile stability in the region. It makes the continuation of any further negotiations meaningless.

Was Dr Shaath’s statement endorsed by the Arab League? If not - then a strong statement from the Arab League distancing itself from those remarks should also be forthcoming.

The inability of the Arabs to accept a Jewish State in the midst of 21 Islamic Arab states has always been at the heart of resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Dr Shaath’s remarks show that nothing has changed in the Arab psyche that would lead one to hope that Jew-hatred will be replaced by an appreciation that the Jewish state is here to stay.

Suspension of direct negotiations is realistically the only option available to Israel until the Palestinian Authority disavows itself of Dr Shaath’s racist and totally unacceptable remarks.

The Palestinian Authority will have signed its own death warrant if it refuses to do so.

Palestine Quartet - Out of Time And Out of Tune

[Published 23 August 2010]

The Quartet - America, Russia, The European Union and the United Nations - continues to miss the beat in attempting to revive its artificially orchestrated two-state solution - the creation of a new Arab state between Israel, Egypt and Jordan for the first time ever in recorded history.

The Quartet has shown it in its latest statement that it has learned nothing from its failed performances over the
past eight years in attempting to achieve that two-state solution by now asserting:

“The Quartet expresses its determination to support the parties throughout the negotiations, which can be completed within one year.”

The Quartet appears unphased that as the most powerful negotiating team ever assembled in international diplomacy - it has consistently been playing out of tune ever since its opening performance when the printed program notes then published on 15 October 2002 stated:

“The following are the elements of a performance-based and goal-driven roadmap, with clear phases, timelines, target dates, and benchmarks aiming at progress through reciprocal steps by the two parties in the political, security, economic, humanitarian, and institution-building fields,under the auspices of the Quartet. The destination is a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005, as presented in President Bush’s speech of 24 June [2002] … “

Reinforcing its complete misunderstanding of the playing time required to complete the performance of this very complex work called the Roadmap - the Quartet then declared:

“The plan establishes a realistic timeline for implementation. However, as a performance-based plan, progress will require and depend upon the good faith efforts of the parties, and their compliance with each of the obligations outlined below. Should the parties perform their obligations rapidly, progress within and through the phases may come sooner than indicated in the plan. Non-compliance with obligations will impede progress.”

Whatever good faith efforts the Quartet thought would be made by Israel and the Palestinian Authority in performing the Roadmap - its judgement has been shown to have been totally unrealistic and its expectations incapable of being achieved.

The Quartet has now seen its guest conductor - Special US envoy George Mitchell - publicly say:

“We believe that there is a basis for proceeding and achieving a successful result, and we’re going to pursue that. We do not take the position that if you don’t get everything you want the first time you ask for it, you pack up your bags and go home. If that had been the standard applied in South Africa, there would never have been peace there; in Northern Ireland, there would never have been peace there; in Bosnia, there would never have been peace there.

It takes patience, persistence, a willingness to go back again and again, to not take the first no as a final no, to not take the 50th no as the final no or the 100th no. We are patient, we are persevering, and we are determined, and we believe there is a basis for concluding a peace agreement in the region, and that’s what we’re going to pursue.”

Mr Mitchell is deluding himself in believing this conflict between one Jewish State and 21 Islamic Arab States that continue to refuse to recognize the existence of such a Jewish State in their midst can be resolved like the conflicts in South Africa, Bosnia or Northern Ireland. Indeed one can seriously question whether those conflicts have been finally resolved as many tensions continue to simmer beneath the surface.

Mr Mitchell does not specify what he believes is the basis for now proceeding and achieving a successful result in regard to the West Bank and Gaza. All indications point in precisely the opposite direction. It is a pity that Mr Mitchell thinks it unnecessary to share the reasons for his optimism this time round - having seen his judgment badly dented as a result of his past failures to bring even the smallest of breakthroughs between Jews and Arabs.

Bashing your head against a brick wall will inevitably cause terminal brain damage - especially in pursing a resolution to a conflict as long-running and complex as the 130-years-old Arab-Jewish dispute.

The Quartet needs to think again as to how progress can be made to end the current impasse. A new direction is urgently needed if any meaningful breakthrough is to be made.

Replacement of the Palestinian Authority with Jordan and Egypt as Israel’s new Arab negotiating partners has now become the imperative - especially as Egypt and Jordan are:

(i) the only two members of the 21 Arab League states to have signed peace treaties with Israel and
(ii) are the last Arab States to have respectively occupied Gaza and the West Bank between 1948-1967

Resolving Arab and Jewish claims in the West Bank and Gaza by allocating sovereignty of that territory between Jordan, Egypt, and Israel in direct negotiations is increasingly becoming the only proposal that has any chance of transforming the lives of the West Bank and Gazan Arabs.

It may not bring Arab League recognition of Israel nor solve every aspect of the Arab-Jewish conflict but it will become a positive circuit breaker in the quest for concluding a peace agreement in the region.

Perhaps the Quartet is slowly coming to this conclusion itself for the following reasons:

1. Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak have been invited to join Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Washington on 2 September when direct negotiations are expected to be resumed.

2. The Quartet’s latest statement pointedly makes no specific mention of the Roadmap as the basis on which these new negotiations are to be undertaken. Yet three previous statements emanating from the Quartet dated 26 June 2009, 24 September 2009 and 19 March 2010 - and expressly referred to in this latest statement - all specifically called for adherence to the Roadmap.

Certainly the diplomatic logjam caused by the continuing lack of progress in negotiations based on the Roadmap constitutes the greatest impediment to resolving the conflict between Jews and Arabs.

The Quartet needs to quickly remove the ambiguity created by its latest statement and let those attending the forthcoming Washington conference know whether it is the Roadmap that is to continue to be the basis of negotiations or whether its latest statement is indicative of a newly emerging playing field with different rules of engagement between the conflicting parties.

Please don’t stop the music. Just make sure everyone is playing from the same score. Otherwise the outcome will again be decidedly discordant.

Palestine - One Arab, Two States, Three Hats, No Jews

[Published 17 August 2010]

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas continues to vacillate on resuming direct negotiations with Israel to create a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan.

Director of the Palestinian Authority government’s media centre - Ghassan Khatib - has described Abbas’s predicament as follows:

“The Palestinians are looking for either an Israeli commitment to a settlement freeze, or a Quartet [European Union, United States, United Nations, and Russia] statement that would be accepted by both sides as a basis for negotiations. We are looking for a settlement freeze according to the definition of Quartet … road map – adopted by the United Nations Security Council – which called for a settlement freeze in all occupied areas including East Jerusalem.”

Mr Ghatib is living in fantasyland.

Israel never accepted the settlement freeze proposed in the Road Map - having raised the issue as one of 14 reservations it made to President Bush after its initial release.

Reservation 9 made by Israel to President Bush stated :

“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), the status of the Palestinian Authority and its institutions in Jerusalem, and all other matters whose substance relates to the final settlement.”

Israel thus made it clear that whilst it was prepared to discuss a settlement freeze it was not prepared to accept that there be a complete settlement freeze as a binding condition in the Roadmap.

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.

Israel’s current limited freeze has resulted from its own sovereign decision and following agreement reached with President Obama as predicated by President Bush‘s earlier commitment.

Abbas cannot hope to delay direct negotiations on the basis of obtaining any further concessions from Israel. He cannot reasonably expect to get Israel to extend the deadline for its current limited freeze beyond its 26 September deadline. Certainly there is no hope of it being extended if Abbas refuses to enter into direct negotiations and great doubt that it will - even if Abbas relents.

The real irony is that Israel should contemplate resuming direct negotiations with Abbas as President of the Palestinian Authority whilst he also continues to occupy the dual positions of Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Chairman of Fatah - the largest faction of the PLO.

As President of the Palestinian Authority Abbas is committed to concluding the “two state solution” accepted both by him and his predecessor the late Yasser Arafat - albeit the uncompromising terms demanded by both of them to date have ensured the failure of this American initiative.

As Chairman of the PLO - Abbas is obligated to observing the provisions of Article 20 of the PLO Covenant which states:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine and everything that has been based on them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism being a divine religion is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own: they are citizens of the states to which they belong”

As Chairman of Fatah - Abbas is also sworn to uphold Article 22 of Fatah’s own separate Charter:

“Opposing any political solution offered as an alternative to demolishing the Zionist occupation in Palestine “

Abbas therefore still continues to head two organizations that are hell bent on consigning the six million Jews now living in Israel into national oblivion whilst heading another organization that seeks to live side by side with the Jews in their own independent state.

Abbas - whilst he wears these three hats - is powerless to distance or disassociate himself from these plans to eliminate Israel as the designated Jewish National Home for all present - and future - generations of Jews no matter where they might happen to be born or now be residing.

Abbas is certainly frank about where his loyalties reside.

On 27 April 2009 he told a preliminary conference of the Palestinian Youth Conference at Ramallah:

“A Jewish State, what is that supposed to mean? You can call yourselves as you like, but I don’t accept it and I say so publicly. All I know is that there is the state of Israel, in the borders of 1967, not one centimeter less. Anything else I don’t accept ” [Y Net - 27 April 2009]

Abbas - after this outburst - had no compunction or embarrassment in accepting a large framed map of “Palestine” covering the entire area of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea . This picture later appeared on the front page of both daily publications of the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas is clearly conflicted - advocating for a “two state solution” whilst heading two organizations that call for the elimination of one of those two states. He heads the third organization - the Palestinian Authority - without any electoral mandate to do so and is powerless to guarantee the performance of - let alone honour and enforce - any agreement with Israel.

Continuing to deal with Abbas whilst he wears three hats has proved to be - and will continue to be - a recipe for disaster.

Palestine - Obama Can't End The Racist Rant

[Published 12 August 2010]

US Middle East Special Envoy - George Mitchell - has again been rebuffed by Palestinian Authority President - Mahmoud Abbas - in refusing to resume direct negotiations with Israel.

Following a three hour meeting between Abbas and Mitchell on 10 August the Palestinian Authority Chief negotiator - Saeb Erekat - said:

“The meeting was fruitful and profound, but there was no agreement on going to direct talks,”

No doubt pressure will continue to be mounted by President Obama to have Abbas return to direct talks with Israel.

The real question to be asked however is - what agreement can any such talks hope to deliver?

The basic fundamental to reaching any agreement from Israel’s point of view is the recognition of Israel as the Jewish State by the Palestinian Authority.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made this very clear on 14 June 2009 when he said:

“The key condition is that the Palestinians recognize in a clear and public manner that Israel is the state of the Jewish people, The heart of the conflict has always been the Arabs’ refusal to accept the existence of the Jewish state”

Perhaps some encouragement could be taken by Israel from the recent remark made by President Abbas on 9 June 2010 when he reportedly stated:

“I would never deny [the] Jewish right to the land of Israel,”

This is a welcome and long overdue statement from Abbas - one which has not since been retracted by him.

It could be taken to be a repudiation of the following statement made by Abbas in November 2007:

“Historically, there are two states - Israel and Palestinian. Israel has Jews and other people, and this we are ready to recognize, but nothing else,”

His latest statement however comes at a time of extreme political weakness on his part and appears to have very little backing from anyone else on the Palestinian side.

Hamas rules in Gaza and continues to show no signs of entering into any agreement to reconcile its political differences with the Palestinian Authority. The Hamas Charter unabashedly calls for the eradication of the Jewish State.

Abbas’s belated support for a Jewish State has already been swiftly undermined by the appearance of an open letter on 29 July signed and endorsed by a large number of prominent Palestinian luminaries described as:

“scholars, intellectuals, artists, activists, trade unionists, human rights advocates and civil society leaders, inside historic Palestine and in exile “

in which they criticise Abbas’ statement declaring:

“We regard this announcement, which adopts a central tenet of Zionism, as a grave betrayal of the collective rights of the Palestinian people.”

They continue:

“No Palestinian institution or leader has ever accepted an exclusive Jewish claim to Palestine,which is irreconcilable with the internationally recognized rights of the Palestinian people. Our rights inhere in us as a people; they are not yours to do with as you please.”

Of course these signatories purposely choose to ignore the facts that:

(i) Israel comprises only 17% of Palestine
(ii) Jordan comprises 77% of Palestine and
(iii) Gaza and the West Bank make up the remaining 6% of Palestine.

Their message is clear however - there is no room for a Jewish State in any part of former Palestine.

This open letter perpetuates the refusal of the Palestine Liberation Organization - headed by Abbas - to accept or acknowledge that Jews have been given the legal right in international law to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine by the League of Nations and the United Nations.

In further support of these rejectionist views Al-Jazzerah has now published on 8 August a declaration by the Movement For One Democratic State in Palestine stating:

“The conflict in Israel-Palestine cannot be resolved until its fundamental source is addressed. That source is the premise of partition. We reject the Zionist claim that Jewish people have rights to a separate state in Palestine.”

President Obama has yet to comprehend that these anti-Jewish sentiments remain an irreconcilable bar to achieving any resolution of the conflict. They run counter to the view of President Obama expressed by his Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on 15 June 2009:

“The president is committed to two states, a Jewish State of Israel and an independent Palestine, in the historic homeland of both peoples,”

Any talks - direct or indirect - in the absence of a complete change of heart by both the Palestinian leadership and the majority of its constituents effectively prevents Israel from making any compromises - territorial or otherwise - in the West Bank.

Israel is not going to trade away its internationally acquired status as the national homeland of the Jewish people for anything less than unconditional recognition as the Jewish State - not only by the Palestinian Authority but also by the 21 Islamic member states of the Arab League.

Until the Arabs come to their senses and reject their 63 years of continued and unrelenting opposition to the notion of a Jewish State existing in their Islamic midst - all attempts at reconciliation remain a complete and utter waste of time.

It is abundantly clear that no Palestinian Arab consensus on a Jewish State has yet emerged that would indicate any optimism that Israel and the Palestinian Authority could achieve an agreed resolution to their conflict by now entering into direct negotiations.

Abbas remains a lame duck President - illegally clinging to power despite the expiry of his term of office and unable to carry his constituency with him on recognizing Israel as the Jewish state.

The only remaining way forward to address the current impasse is for direct negotiations between Israel and Jordan to divide the sovereignty of the West Bank between their respective states. Such negotiations will not end demands for a a second Arab State in historic Palestine or the destruction of Israel. They will however complete the division of sovereignty of Palestine between the Arab and Jewish successor states to the Mandate for Palestine.

The political dividends that remain to be reaped from pursuing such a policy and the transformation this will bring to the lives of the West Bank Arab population are becoming rapidly more evident with the passing of each day.

The racist rant will continue and Israel will have to deal with - and defuse - any military threat to its existence as it has been forced to do on so many occasions since its founding in 1948.

That is the reality and nothing Obama does will change that reality.ublished