Daphne Anson: David Singer: Palestine – France, Farce and Folly

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Friday, 10 June 2016

David Singer: Palestine – France, Farce and Folly

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer, who writes:

France embarked on a journey to nowhere when it hosted 28 delegations in Paris for a ministerial meeting on 3 June marking the first phase of its initiative aimed at promoting peace in the Middle East. Amid the pomp and ceremony, photo opportunities and handshakes, the final communique revealed:

1. Support was reaffirmed for a just, lasting and comprehensive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The conflict actually requiring resolution is the Jewish-Arab conflict going back to 1917 – well before Israel’s creation in 1948 – which still sees 20 Arab States today denying the Jews the legal rights vested in them by the Mandate for Palestine to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical and historical homeland.

Only Jordan and Egypt have recognised and signed peace treaties with Israel.

The “Palestinians” were regarded as part of the “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” by the League of Nations in 1922 and not recognized as a people by the United Nations in the 1947 Partition Plan.

The 1964 PLO Covenant is their birth certificate. PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s claim on 6 June that the “Palestinians” had a 5000 years old history is farcical.

Paris remained blinded.

2. A negotiated two-state solution was reaffirmed as the only way to achieve an enduring peace, with two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.

That “two-state solution” – first proposed in 1947 – was available at any time between 1948 and 1967, was again offered in 2000/1 and 2008 but was always rejected by the Arabs.

Flogging that dead horse is a waste of time.

The “two-state solution” envisioned by the League of Nations in 1922 and the Peel Commission in 1937 provides the best opportunity for peacefully resolving Jewish and Arab territorial claims in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza.

Guess the delegates were too busy quaffing champagne and tasting canapes to focus on other solutions than the artificially contrived, totally failed and utterly discredited 1947-2016 “two-state” solution.

3. Rebuilding trust and creating the conditions for fully ending the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and resolving all permanent status issues through direct negotiations based on resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), and also recalling relevant United Nations Security

Council resolutions and highlighting the importance of the implementation of the Arab Peace Initiative.

“Fully ending” the 1967 occupation means kicking 65,0000 Jews out of their homes. What were they thinking – and drinking?

Israel agreed to negotiate with the PLO under the 2003 Bush Roadmap only on the basis of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.

Introducing new negotiating parameters now is incredibly fanciful.

4. Possible ways in which the international community could help advance the prospects for peace, including by providing meaningful incentives to the parties to make peace.

Direct negotiations between Israel, Jordan and Egypt would fit these objectives.

5. The participants highlighted the key role of the Quartet.

The Quartet lost its key role in July 2015 when:

(i) The Quartet’s representative Tony Blair stood down with no replacement

(ii) Blair’s office—the Office of the Quartet Representative (OQR) - was renamed the Office of the Quartet (OQ) and its stated mandate was expressed:

“to support the Palestinian people on economic development, rule of law and improved movement and access for goods and people, as they build the institutions and economy of a viable and peaceful state in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

Jews became persona non grata overnight as the Quartet’s previously independent non- partisan role was superseded.

France’s follow-up international conference being organised before the end of the year promises further farce and continuing folly.

1 comment:

borhani10 June 2016 at 13:28
Thank you, good summary of this waste-of-time-conference.

The BBC summary of why Israel "didn't attend" is mendacious:
https://bbcwatch.org/2016/06/08/bbcs-middle-east-editor-promotes-paris-conference-falsehood/

And something somewhat related I posted as a comment in response to this blog at the Council for Foreign Relations:
http://blogs.cfr.org/cook/2016/05/31/on-the-road-in-israel/

RE: West Bank. I should think someone at the CFR would present an analysis more cognizant of international law, as first embodied in the San Remo agreement and then enshrined in the still legally binding Mandate for Palestine.

The “West Bank” (a post-1948 construct coined by the illegally invading Jordanians) belongs to Israel, by any of several incontrovertible legal arguments (cf. Eugene Kontorovich, Jacques Gauthier, and others). Israel’s “mistake” has been in not asserting its clear sovereignty and title to the West Bank, and thereby allowing the initially crystal-clear legal reality to become ever more obscured, and thus inappropriately and uninformedly challenged, over the past 50 years.

What Israel chooses to do politically is another matter, of course. It could yield sovereignty to a Palestinian state. Given the demise of Oslo, however, I think a single Jewish state is more realistic (the demographics are overstated).Non-citizens living in the West Bank could be given a choice of either becoming Israeli citizens and swearing allegiance to Israel, or risk being deported to the other 73% of Mandatory “Palestine,” that is, Jordan.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

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Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world.
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Expose The Lies!

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The "Apartheid" Slur

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Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.
Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.
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I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

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