David Singer: Trump Plan to end Jewish-Arab Conflict sees PLO implode

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas’s dismissive response to President Trump’s peace plan spells the end of the road for the PLO as Israel’s Arab partner to negotiate an end to the 100 years unresolved conflict between Jews and Arabs.

The PLO will maintain its long-standing rejectionist policy of not recognising Israel as the Jewish State after Abbas panned the Trump plan in the following denigrating and unequivocal terms: 

"They told me Trump wants to send me the deal of the century to read, I said I would not," Abbas told the meeting of Arab League foreign ministers.

"Trump asked that I speak to him over the phone, so I said 'no', and that he wants to send me a letter, so I refused to receive it."

Holding up a map that shows the gradual geographic reduction of Palestine through four stages from pre-1948 to Trump's Middle East plan, Abbas said: "I challenge any of you, if you can even see us on the map. If you ask a child in first grade to draw Trump's map he will never know how to."

"This is a disgrace," he added.

 Abbas also said that he will cut security ties with both Israel and the US: "We've informed the Israeli side ... that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States, including security ties," he said.”

Abbas has lost the plot.

The map Abbas held up (pictured below) – was false and misleading – comprising only 23% – not 100% of Historic Palestine.

Abbas’s map excluded Transjordan – 77% of the land in the League of Nations 1922 Mandate for Palestine. Transjordan was closed to Jews to reconstitute the Jewish National Home there under article 25 of the Mandate - reserving this 77% of Palestine for the Arab residents of Palestine.
Transjordan remained part of the Mandate until it was granted independence by Great Britain in 1946. A textbook containing a similar map was trashed by Publisher Mc Graw Hill in 2016.

The following map accurately records these historical facts:

Jordan and Israel are the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine – currently exercising sovereignty in 95% of former Palestine. Sovereignty in the remaining 5% – Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza – remains undetermined.

The PLO refusal to negotiate with Israel on the Trump plan - will have the following results:

· No second Arab state - in addition to Jordan – will be created in former Palestine

· US$50 billion in development aid will not be required to build and develop that new State

· Gaza and the West Bank will remain politically divided

Jordan should now replace the PLO in negotiations with Israel on Trump’s plan because:

· Jordan was the last sovereign Arab state to occupy the West Bank between 1948 and 1967 when the PLO expressly rejected any claim to sovereignty.

· Jordan conferred Jordanian citizenship on the Arab residents of the West Bank between 1950 and 1988

· The 1994 Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty will ensure good-faith – not confrontational  – negotiations

The areas designated for A Future State of Palestine in the Trump Plan (pictured below) now become possible areas for transfer to Jordanian sovereignty in negotiations with Israel.

Successful Israel-Jordan negotiations would be a real game changer – holding out great prospects that the long-running Jewish-Arab conflict could finally be achieved.

Failure by Jordan to negotiate with Israel could see Israel extend its sovereignty to all of Area C in the West Bank.

President Trump needs to phone King Abdullah of Jordan and persuade him to embrace Trump’s “deal of the century”.

The PLO has blown its chance to do so.

David Singer: “State of Palestine” set to confront Trump at United Nations

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

The bizarre Handover ceremony of Egypt’s Chairmanship of the Group of 77 to the “State of Palestine”for 2019 will enable this non-existent and non-member State of the United Nations to play a leading role in the 74 years old farce – “TheQuestion of Palestine and the United Nations” (PUN).

“The State of Palestine” does not meet the criteria for statehood required under the 1933 Montevideo Convention.

The Group of 77 (“the Bloc”) contains 133 of the 193 member states of the United Nations – ensuring the automatic passage of all United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions they propose.

UNGA ResolutionA/RES/73/5 – adopted on 16 October 2018 – put  this illusory “State of Palestine” centre stage for PUN’s 2019 New York season – recognising it as the Bloc’s public face in all matters  brought before UNGA and at meetings of representatives of other major groups.

146 countries voted for this Resolution whilst only three – Israel, the U.S. and Australia – voted against, 15 countries abstained and the remaining 29 states did not vote.

US Deputy UN Ambassador Jonathan Cohen called out the hypocrisy of the vote:

"We cannot support efforts by the Palestinians to enhance their status outside of directnegotiations. The United States does not recognize that there is a Palestinian

state.... Only U.N. member states should be entitled to speak and act on behalf of major groups of states at the United Nations."

 Australia’s UN Ambassador Gillian Bird asserted:

"Australia's decision to vote no on this resolution reflects our long-standing position that Palestinian attempts to seek recognition as a state in international fora are deeply unhelpful to efforts towards a two-state solution."

The Handover Ceremony took place in the presence of UNGA President Ms.Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, UN Secretary General Mr. António Gutteres, Mahmoud Abbas  – the self-styled “President of the State of Palestine” (formerly called “the Palestinian Authority” before Abbas unilaterally changed its name in 2013) and Bloc members.

Mr. Gutteres’ 12 minute speech contained this politically-charged statement:“Palestine and its citizens have first-hand experience of some of the most challenging and dramatic global issues at force”

Regrettably the Secretary General failed to elaborate on where he believed “Palestine” is located,

who he considers are its citizens, its capital, the area it controls and its current government.

The Handover Ceremony included a one-hour concert featuring live performances of Astor Piazolla’s “Oblivion”, a Brahms sonata for violin and piano, five works by three Egyptian composers extending over 26 minutes and just 4 minutes of “Palestinian folk songs” whose provenance was not

mentioned in the program notes.

One Egyptian composition – “Lessa Faker” – aptly describes the path UNGA needs to take to end this blatant “State of Palestine” fakery that flagrantly violates international law.

“Foreign Minister”of the “State of Palestine” Riyad Malki has impertinently predicted:

“... we are confident that [the Bloc] will support the Palestinians when it [sic] time comes for negotiations and the US will find out that it cannot ignore Palestine.”

 Malki’s claim is risible.

America has denied the existence of any State of Palestine for the last seven decades. President Trump has closed the PLO diplomatic offices in Washington and ceased America’s annual payments of $360 million to UNRWA. The PLO refuses to entertain any Trump peace proposals designed to end the Arab-Jewish conflict.

President Trump’s response could well see him consigning the “State of Palestine”to diplomatic oblivion to the accompanying strains of Piazolla’s Oblivion – with the United Nations left lamenting at the wake that it holdsfor the phantom State.

This is truly Theatreof the Absurd – Multilateralism gone mad.

(Author’s note:The cartoon—commissioned exclusively for this article —is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones” – one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators—whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog)

David Singer: Trump’s PLO Shutdown Paves Way for Jordan-West Bank Reunification

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

President Trump’s decision to close the PLO mission in Washington, cancel the visas of the Palestinian ambassador and his family and order their bank accounts be closed – mark the PLO’s final humiliation for condemning Trump’s proposed peace plan before its contents have even been published.

Strangely however the United States still maintains that direct negotiations between Israel and the PLO are the only way forward.

The PLO will be fortified by this latest statement – mistakenly believing it:

• remains in the box seat to stymie any peace plan Trump wheels out,
• can blunt Trump’s reputation as a highly successful deal maker and
• reinforces the PLO’s right to continue as sole spokesman for the Palestinian Arabs although Hamas governs Gaza and Jordan exercises sovereignty in 78 per cent of former Palestine.

Direct Israel-PLO negotiations on Trump’s peace proposals are a pipe dream.

Jordan remains the key to resolving – with Israel – Trump’s plans involving the future of the West Bank for the following reasons:

• Transjordan occupied the West Bank from 1948 to 1967.
• Transjordan and the West Bank were unified in 1950, the new entity was renamed “Jordan” and Jordanian citizenship was extended to the West Bank Arab population
• Jordan continued to retain legal and administrative control and extend citizenship between 1967 and 1988 until King Hussein announced Jordan’s termination of its role in the West Bank in the PLO’s favour for the following reasons:

“Lately, it has transpired that there is a general Palestinian and Arab orientation which believes in the need to highlight the Palestinian identity in full in all efforts and activities that are related to the Palestine question and its developments. It has also become clear that there is a general conviction that maintaining the legal and administrative links with the West Bank, and the ensuing Jordanian interaction with our Palestinian brothers under occupation through Jordanian institutions in the occupied territories, contradicts this orientation. It is also viewed that these links hamper the Palestinian struggle to gain international support for the Palestinian cause of a people struggling against foreign occupation.
In view of this line of thought, which is certainly inspired by genuine Palestinian will, and Arab determination to support the Palestinian cause, it becomes our duty to be part of this direction, and to respond to its requirements…” …

• Jordan’s retirement from the West Bank moved Abu Iyad – PLO-leader Yassar Arafat’s deputy – to declare on 15 December 1989:

“I say that on the day immediately following the establishment of the Palestinian State, we will begin unity with Jordan. I am not concerned what kind of unity this may be, because we are one people and have the same history. You cannot make a distinction between a Jordanian and a Palestinian. It is true that we encourage unity between Arab peoples, but the relation between Jordan and Palestine in particular is clearly distinctive; all those who tried in the past and are still trying to create divisions between the Jordanian and Palestinian people have failed. We indeed constitute one people… when the Palestinian state and unity is established … The Jordanian will be a Palestinian and the Palestinian a Jordanian”

Reunification of the West Bank with Jordan never required the creation of a second Palestinian Arab State in the West Bank – in addition to Jordan.
Reunification of a large part of the West Bank with Jordan is now once again tantalisingly within Jordan’s grasp following Trump’s spectacular undermining of the PLO after it defiantly refused to negotiate on Trump’s still-unannounced peace plan.
Trump will not be pandering to the PLO and repeating the same mistakes made by former American presidents.

(Author’s note: The cartoon – commissioned exclusively for this article – is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators – whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog)

David Singer: Jordan’s Re-entry into West Bank Looms Large as Trump Dumps PLO

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Two major developments this past week could see a large part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) being reunified with Jordan – as existed between 1950 and 1967 – or becoming a Jordanian enclave – under President Trumps’ yet-to-be- announced “ultimate deal” intended to resolve the100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

Those developments were:

1. Trump immediately stopped all further American financial aid to UNRWA:

The PLO refusedto have anything to do with Trump’s slowly-gestating peace proposals after Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017.

This PLO anti-Trump stance has continued unabated despite US Ambassador to the United Nations – Nikki Haley – publicly warning the PLO last January when asked about future US funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian Arab refugees:

“The President has basically said he doesn’t want to give any additional funding, or stop funding, until the Palestinians agree to come back to the negotiation table. We still very much want to have a peace process. Nothing changes with that. The Palestinians now have to show they want to. As of now, they’re not coming to the table, but they ask for aid. We’re not giving the aid. We’re going to make sure that they come to the table.”

This week Trump gave up waiting – ending all future donations to UNRWA including $300 million pledged for this year.

More than 2 million UNRWA registered Palestinian Arab refugees live in Jordan – most of whom have full citizenship. Nearly 370,000 – or 18 per cent – live in 10 refugee camps.

The West Bank has nearly 775,000 UNRWA registered Palestinian Arab refugees – a quarter of who live in 19 camps.

Trump’s proven propensity for financially helping those States that help him achieve his goals could well see a large part of this retired UNRWA funding being redirected to Jordan – if Jordan replaces the PLO and enters into direct negotiations with Israel on finally resolving sovereignty in the West Bank.

2. The PLO announced it had refused Trump’s proposal to create a Jordan-West Bank confederation:

Israel and the PLO have been unable to agree on the creation of an additional Arab State between Israel and Jordan after fruitless negotiations conducted over the last 25 years.

Rejecting a Jordan-West Bank confederation now sees the PLO hoisted by its own petard– leaving Jordan to fill the yawning diplomatic void by stepping in and negotiating with Israel to engineer Jordan’s return to a large part of the West Bank – occupied by Jordan from 1948 until its loss to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

Restoring Jordanian citizenship to the West Bank Arab population – as existed between 1950 and 1988 – would once again see parity of rights re-established between the Arab populations spanning both sides of the Jordan River.

The 29 refugee camps in Jordan and the West Bank could be closed and their inhabitants integrated into the general population. “Palestinian refugees” would be relics of the past.
No Arab or Jew living in the West Bank would be forced to move.

Palestinian Arabs residing in other Arab countries could emigrate to this newly-merged Jordan-West Bank entity – which might even choose to rename itself “Palestine” – comprising as it would about 80% of the territory contained in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. Israel would end up exercising sovereignty in about 19 per cent – leaving sovereignty in the remaining 1 per cent – Gaza – to be determined by Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

As with any good settlement – no-one would be 100 per cent happy – but 100 years of conflict would be ended and Trump would have pulled off yet another stunning success.

(Author’s note: The cartoon – commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators –  whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog)

David Singer: Israel Condemns PLO Lies as Trump Contemplates PLO Demise

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

The historic opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem has provided opportunities for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to totally discredit the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and President Trump to review the PLO as a suitable Arab interlocutor to negotiate  with Israel on ending the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Addressing the large gathering of American dignitaries and Israeli public figures, Netanyahu declared:

“The truth and peace are interconnected. A peace that is built on lies will crash on the rocks of Middle Eastern reality. You can only build peace on truth, and the truth is that Jerusalem has been and will always be the capital of the Jewish people, the  capital of the Jewish state” 

 PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas didn’t take very long to reply with an outburst against America that seriously questions the fitness of the PLO to resume negotiations with Israel since the PLO walk-out in April 2014:

“What we saw in Jerusalem today was not the opening of an embassy, but the opening of an American settlement outpost. Before we had settlement outposts with American help, but today we have an American settlement outpost in East Jerusalem.”

The rift between Trump and Abbas just continues to widen.

Not content with this salvo – Abbas claimed that the United States:

“has removed itself from the political work in the Middle East as a mediator. It’s no longer an arbiter”  

President Trump would not take kindly to this latest rejection by the PLO of America’s decades-old role as sole mediator in any negotiations aimed at resolving a dispute that has gone on for 100 years.

For Israel – it was just the latest shot in a litany of lies that had its genesis in the 1964 Charter of the PLO – subsequently revised in 1968 – which still remain unamended despite false claims to the contrary.

The 1964 Charter had stated in Article 24:

“This Organisation does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organisational, political and financial fields.”

Yet the 1968 Charter deleted this clause after Jordan and Egypt’s 19 years-occupation of these territories was ended in 1967.

The PLO had suddenly discovered an inalienable right to regional sovereignty in every square meter of these areas. Amazingly this claim has been swallowed hook line and sinker by the United Nations.
Such a recent claim is certainly novel and now must be weighed against Israel’s claim – whose roots in these territories were established 3000 years ago and can be visibly verified in 2018.

The biggest PLO lies are contained in Article 20 of the 1968 Charter: 

“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.” 

These lies have driven the PLO campaign to wipe Israel off the face of the map rather than negotiate a division of former Palestine where sovereignty in 78% is already vested in Jordan and 17% in Israel –  the last  5% still remaining unallocated between Arabs and Jews

These PLO lies should have been shredded decades ago. They have proved to be the greatest obstacle to peace between Israel and the PLO.

(Author’s note: The cartoon – commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators – whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed here)

David Singer: Trump Pressure Pushes Jordan to Choose Israel or PLO

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – refusing to bow to pressure by President Trump to cease payments to terrorists and their families currently exceeding US$400 million annually – is looming as a potential threat to end 96 years of unbroken Hashemite rule in Jordan.

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas – addressing the ninth annual Islamic Beit al-Maqdes International Conference in Ramallah last week – has sent a veiled message of the PLO’s intention to challenge Jordan’s ruling Hashemite family if PLO demands for a State in the West Bank with Jerusalem as its capital are not met.

Jordan comprised almost 77% of Palestine between 1920 and 1946 until granted independence by Great Britain and being renamed The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan – subsequently being renamed Jordan in 1950 following Transjordan’s illegal annexation of Judea and Samaria in 1948 ( redesignated the West Bank).

This semantic sleight of hand could never change the historic and demographic reality that Jordan formed part of the territory comprised in the 1922 Mandate for Palestine – Jordan’s Crown Prince Hassan declaring in the Foreign Affairs Review in 1982: 

“the Jordanians and Palestinians are now one people, and no political loyalty, however strong, will separate them permanently.”

Abbas told the Ramallah Conference: 

“In Palestine and Jordan, we are one people in two states and we will never accept an alternative homeland.”

Abbas's statement mirrored PLO founder Yasser Arafat’s in Der Spiegel in 1986: 

“Jordanians and Palestinians are indeed one people. No one can divide us. We have the same fate.”

Farouk Kadoumi – the Head of the Political Department of the PLO – told Newsweek on 14 March 1977: 

“Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people.”

Alleging flagrant bias towards Israel by the Trump Administration – Abbas defiantly declared: 

“We are not expecting anything from them. We won’t accept anything from them.”

Abbas is being incredibly naïve if he believes he can now convince the international community into accepting that one people needs two states – and that pursuing that goal should be internationally supported at the expense of achieving an end to a conflict that originated with the 1917 Balfour Declaration.

Abbas’s categorical rejection of an American role in ending the conflict by calling on the international community to help create a second Arab state in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan – has little chance of success.

Jordan’s King Abdullah should by now be under no illusion that the PLO’s quest to create a PLO-ruled State is doomed to failure. Abdullah should view with apprehension that Abbas’s remarks at the Ramallah Conference could again be laying the groundwork for another PLO attempt to overthrow Hashemite rule in Jordan – as unsuccessfully occurred in September 1970 and is prescribed by article 2 of the PLO Charter.

The solution proposed by Israel’s late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in The Australian on 27 May 1985 now takes on added significance: 

“the Palestinians should have a sovereign State which includes most of the Palestinians. It should be Jordan with a considerable part of the West Bank and Gaza. East of the Jordan River there is enough room to settle the Palestinian refugees”

Such a solution – negotiated between Israel and Jordan under the framework of their 1994 Peace Treaty – would see continuing Hashemite rule in Jordan being backed by Israel and America – stability sadly lacking presently in many failed Arab States such as Syria and Libya.

Abbas’s Ramallah statement has presented Jordan with a stark choice – negotiate with Israel or continue supporting the PLO and face the prospect of another attempt to overthrow Jordan’s ruling Hashemite dynasty.

Jordan’s decision should be a no-brainer.

[Author’s note: The cartoon – commissioned exclusively for this article – is by Yaakov Kirschen aka "Dry Bones" – one of Israel's foremost political and social commentators – whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades]
 

David Singer: Israel-Jordan Negotiations Could Follow PLO Threat to Boycott Trump

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) threat to refuse to negotiate with Israel unless President Trump withdraws his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel could see Jordan replacing the PLO as Israel’s negotiating partner to end the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

This threat – unless unconditionally revoked – would give Trump the opportunity to consign the PLO to the political wilderness by inviting Jordan to step in and negotiate with Israel over Trump’s eagerly-anticipated “ultimate deal”.

Jordan-Israel negotiations would offer Jordan the opportunity to recover a substantial part of Judea and Samaria (“West Bank”) annexed by Jordan in 1950 – albeit illegally – but subsequently lost to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War (“disputed territory”).

Should Jordan buck at entering into such negotiations – some 60% of the disputed territory – under Israel’s full administrative and security control since the 1995 Oslo Accords and containing just 5% of the West Bank’s entire Arab population (“Area C”) – could be annexed by Israel.

PLO-Israel negotiations over the last twenty-five years – with United Nations, UNESCO and European Union backing – aimed at creating a 22nd Arab state in the disputed territory for the first time ever in recorded history – have failed abysmally.

Such a State was an artificially-contrived creation that could never be justified on historic, geographic or demographic grounds. It had actually been rejected by successive Arab leaderships on many occasions since first being proposed by the 1937 Peel Commission.

Joint 1994 Nobel Peace Prize winners – Israeli leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzchak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat – all understood Jordan’s pivotal role in ending the Jewish-Arab conflict:

1. Jordan is the major part (78%) of the Palestinian Arabs’ homeland according to article 2 of the PLO Charter.

Farouk Kadoumi - Head of the Political Department of the PLO – reinforced this reality  – telling Newsweek on 14 March 1977:

 “Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people.”

2.      Peres declared on 31 August 1978: 

“Jordan is also Palestine… I’m against two Arab countries and against another Palestinian country, against an Arafat state. Today 50 percent of the inhabitants of Jordan are Palestinians and that is the Palestinian state…"   

Peres backed this up – telling the Jewish Telegraph on April 19, 1991: 

“It is not obstinacy to regard the populations of Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza as having greater similarities than differences. The Jordan River is not deep enough to turn into a knife blade serving to cut one piece of territory into three slices. Most of Jordan’s population are Palestinians: the residents of the West Bank are Jordanian citizens and Jordan has distributed tens of thousands of passports to residents in the Gaza Strip. Jordan is therefore an existing State. It has an army. There is therefore no need to set up another State, another army."

3.      Yitzchak Rabin told The Australian newspaper on May 27, 1985: 

“One tiny State between Israel and Jordan will solve nothing. It will be a time bomb.”

     Rabin’s solution to end the conflict:  

“… the Palestinians should have a sovereign State which includes most of the Palestinians. It should be Jordan with a considerable part of the West Bank and Gaza. East of the Jordan River there is enough room to settle the Palestinian refugees.”

Jordan-Israel negotiations on the political future of the disputed territory open up options to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict never before considered. If Trump’s Jerusalem Declaration helps bring such negotiations about – then Trump could well succeed where all other American presidents before him have failed.

Taking on Trump could herald the PLO’s political demise after 54 years of failed leadership.

David Singer: Trump Meets with Abbas and a Phantom Palestinian Authority

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

It is hard to believe that a White House meeting between President Trump and Mahmoud Abbas could be headlined in an official White House Statement as:

“Readout of President Donald J. Trump’s Meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority”

To ram home this was no oversight or mischaracterisation of whom President Trump was meeting  – the White House Statement continues:

“President Donald J. Trump and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority met yesterday in New York to continue working toward an enduring Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.” The Palestinian Authority has not existed since 3 January 2013 following Abbas issuing this decree:

“Official documents, seals, signs and letterheads of the Palestinian National Authority official and national institutions shall be amended by replacing the name ‘Palestinian National Authority’ whenever it appears by the name ‘State of Palestine’ and by adopting the emblem of the State of Palestine.”

The Palestinian Authority was created pursuant to the “Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area” dated 4 May 1994 signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization – (PLO)  Article V providing: 

Structure and Composition of the Palestinian Authority

1. The Palestinian Authority will consist of one body of 24 members which shall carry out and be responsible for all the legislative and executive powers and responsibilities transferred to it under this Agreement, in accordance with this Article, and shall be responsible for the exercise of judicial functions in accordance with Article VI, subparagraph 1.b. of this Agreement.

2. The Palestinian Authority shall administer the departments transferred to it and may establish, within its jurisdiction, other departments and subordinate administrative units as necessary for the fulfillment of its responsibilities. It shall determine its own internal procedures.

3. The PLO shall inform the Government of Israel of the names of the members of the Palestinian Authority and any change of members. Changes in the membership of the Palestinian Authority will take effect upon an exchange of letters between the PLO and the Government of Israel.

4. Each member of the Palestinian Authority shall enter into office upon undertaking to act in accordance with this Agreement.

Abbas’s unilateral action was surprisingly received with little reaction by Israel. Robbie Sabel – a former adviser to Israel’s Foreign Ministry was moved to declare:

"Israel won't be happy about it because anything that undermines the peace process, any unilateral act, is not helpful."

Unilaterally erasing the identity of Israel’s negotiating partner under the Oslo Accords and renaming it “the State of Palestine” is part of the semantic warfare engaged in by the PLO as it continues to create a false narrative of the Jewish-Arab conflict. The Palestinian Authority’s demise has enabled PLO Chief Negotiator – Saeb Erekat – to assert:

“Palestine is a country under occupation. What was Norway, Finland, Holland, France, Korea, Philippines between 1939 and 1945 – nation states under occupation. Today, the state of Palestine is officially a state under occupation. It has 192 member countries that recognise this and a nation state, Israel, which is the occupying power; these are the new realities."

The farce continues – as President Trump gives his apparent imprimatur to meeting with the phantom head of a phantom non-existent Palestinian Authority.

President Trump is sorely mistaken if he believes that maintaining this facade will advance his efforts to end the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Abbas needs to be called out by Trump for abandoning the Oslo Accords and pursuing a policy that will not lead to resolving the long-running conflict – but rather exacerbate it and make it more difficult to resolve.

Trump needs to replace the deceased Palestinian Authority with living Arab negotiating partners.

David Singer: United Nations and Trump should heed 1989 Balfour Declaration

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

A lot of bloodshed, pain and suffering sustained by both Jews and Arabs over the last 28 years could have been avoided had the United Nations heeded the 1989 Balfour Declaration presented by the 4th Lord Balfour at the 4th international conference of the Jordan is Palestine Committee held in Jerusalem in November 1989.

The 1989 Declaration stated:

“The world should be fully aware of what was British Palestine; the misleading propaganda issued from oil-wealthy Arab states must be countered; Palestine has already been divided into two countries – Jewish Israel and Arab Jordan; the present governments of Israel and Jordan should be fully supported and upheld; and a third state as suggested by the PLO would upset the political and economic situation in the whole area”

The demand by the PLO to establish that third state – in addition to Jordan and Israel – in the territory comprised in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – remains unrealised in 2017.

President Trump at this point of time still seems wedded to this proposed three state solution  – eventually formulated by President Bush in his 2003 Roadmap – and endorsed by the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.

The Bush Roadmap was also accepted unconditionally by the PLO and with 14 reservations by Israel. Bush – overwhelmingly supported by the Congress – made the following written commitment to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on 14 April 2004 to secure Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the West Bank:

“… the United States remains committed to my vision and to its implementation as described in the roadmap. The United States will do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan. Under the roadmap, Palestinians must undertake an immediate cessation of armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere, and all official Palestinian institutions must end incitement against Israel. The Palestinian leadership must act decisively against terror, including sustained, targeted, and effective operations to stop terrorism and dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure. Palestinians must undertake a comprehensive and fundamental political reform that includes a strong parliamentary democracy and an empowered prime minister.”

The PLO has failed over the last 13 years to comply with these obligations.

Yet Trump still apparently appears willing to allow PLO Chief Mahmoud Abbas to stride on the world stage as he simultaneously refuses to unconditionally return to negotiations with Israel on the Bush Roadmap – stalled since April 2014.

However, Amnesty International’s latest report presents an appalling overview of life under the PLO which could herald a rapid Trump-about face:

“The Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and the Hamas de facto administration in the Gaza Strip both continued to restrict freedom of expression, including by arresting and detaining critics and political opponents. They also restricted the right to peaceful assembly and used excessive force to disperse some protests. Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees remained rife in both Gaza and the West Bank. Unfair trials of civilians before military courts continued in Gaza; detainees were held without charge or trial in the West Bank. Women and girls faced discrimination and violence. Courts in Gaza continued to hand down death sentences and Hamas carried out executions; no death sentences were imposed or executions carried out in the West Bank.”

Elections – the first since 2007 – are urgently needed to test whether the PLO should continue to dominate the lives of the West Bank Arab population and to prevent all hell breaking loose as the negotiating void continues.

The 1989 Balfour Declaration beckons if the above measures do not break the current stalemate.