David Singer: PLO Continues to Denigrate Trump Peace Plan and Ignore Elections

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

He writes:

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has cranked up its propaganda machine to continue denigrating President Trump’s deal of the century – as a joint US-Israel Mapping Committee is finalising those areas in Judea and Samaria on Trump’s map where Jewish sovereignty can be restored after 3000 years.

The PLO rejected Trump’s plan on the day it was published – 28 January 2020 – even though it provided for the creation of a second Arab State in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan – for the first time in recorded history.

WAFA – the Palestinian news and information agency – has attacked Trump’s move to start implementing his plan in an article headlined: “PLO official warns of Israeli plan to annex parts of West Bank” – which headline itself is false and misleading for the following reasons:

• It is not an Israeli plan – but Trump’s plan being applied by Israel in tandem with Trump
• Trump’s plan does not involve annexation by Israel – rather the restoration of Jewish sovereignty after 3000 years in the Jewish people’s ancient and biblical heartland – in areas authorised by the San Remo Conference and Treaty of Sevres in 1920, the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922 and the United Nations Charter.
• “West Bank” was only coined in 1950 to replace the 3000 years old geographic place name “Judea and Samaria” – after all the Jews living there had been ethnically cleansed by Transjordan during the 1948 War of Independence – and Judea & Samaria was unified with Transjordan to form a new territorial entity – renamed Jordan.

Wafa’s report references a statement by Ahmad Majdalani – member of the PLO Executive Committee and Minister of Social Affairs:

“Uncovered reports that Washington and Tel Aviv are about to agree on the maps of annexation [of parts of the West Bank] – at a time the world is preoccupied with the war on coronavirus – falls within the framework of the US plan to implement the “deal of the century”

Note:

• No uncovered reports are produced
• Repetition of the false and misleading terms annexation and West Bank
• The world might be preoccupied with the war on coronavirus but Governments – including the US and Israeli Governments – have not stopped governing and making decisions – and to suggest they should is arrant nonsense

Wafa asserts:

“The PLO official stressed that the US-Israeli plan undermines the basic principles of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and the resolutions of the international community, calling on the latter to compel Israel to abide by these resolutions.”

No mention that:

• Negotiations between Israel and the PLO spanning various periods between 1993 and 2014 have failed to produce any resolution
• negotiations have not been held since 2014

Majdalani concludes:

“This plan, drawn with maps by the teams of the Israeli occupation and the Trump administration, is the actual implementation of the “deal of the century”, which means an end to the two-state solution.”

False:

• Israel’s occupies 60% and the PLO 40% of Judea and Samaria pursuant to the 1993 Oslo Accords
• The “two-state” solution is very much alive under Trump’s Plan. It just doesn’t meet the PLO’s non-negotiable demand for the last 53 years claiming a state in 100% of Judea and Samaria.

The PLO has not called any general election since 2006.

Holding elections now would allow 95% of Judea and Samaria’s Arab population currently living under the PLO’s tyrannical and oppressive governance in Areas “A” and “B” to have their say on Trump’s two-state proposal and the PLO’s continuing rule over them.

The deathly-silent international community needs to stop fawning over the PLO and demand such long-overdue elections take place.

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 Ends Arab Preoccupation with Occupation in Judea and Samaria

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

He writes:

President Trump’s decision to recognise the right of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) ends a long-running Arab political campaign accompanied by murderous terrorist attacks to drive the Jews out under the Arab mantra – “End the Occupation”. 

This mantra had become the Arabs’ rallying cry over the last 53 years as they sought to assert sovereignty over every square meter of this hotly-disputed territory.

These three little words managed to turn Israel’s miraculous victory in the 1967 Six Day War in Judea and Samaria – that saw the Jewish People’s triumphal return to the heart of the biblical and ancestral land of its forefathers - as something to be reviled and reversed.

Those mouthing the mantra did not seek to have the “occupation”ended in favour of Jordan - the previous Arab occupier between1948 and 1967.

Rather they were insisting it all be given to another group – the “Palestinians” –   who did not exist:

• In1922 – when the League of Nations created the Mandate for Palestine•In1937 -when the Peel Commission issued its Report

• In 1947 -when the United Nations recommended the partition of western Palestine into an Arab State and a Jewish State

• Between 1948-1964 – when Judea and Samaria had been ethnically cleansed of every single Jew who had been living there prior to 1948 

 The “Palestinians”only first saw the light of day in 1964 when the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Charter was promulgated and Article 1 declared:

Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.

 In 2019 the PLO’s legitimacy to rule the “Palestinians”is being challenged by Hamas.Reconciliation between these two competing power seekers is still not in prospect after 13 years of bitter internecine conflict – nor are elections anywhere in sight.

Jordan now sits on the sideline having abandoned any claim to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) in
1988. Jordan shows no interest in attempting to try and restore – as far as is now possible – the status quo existing in these areas Jordan ruled on 4 June 1967.

President Trump is waiting patiently in the wings ready to release his “deal of the century”when Israel’s next Government is eventually formed.

It is surely time for a new mantra – “Right the Wrongs” – to enter into the lexicon of international diplomacy in the Middle East – to replace the racist and apartheid “end the occupation”.

The wrongs are the failure of the United Nations to acknowledge that:

• the provisions of Article 80 of the United Nations Charter reserve to the Jewish people the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Judea and Samaria in accordance with the provisions laid down in article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine

• Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 remain the only internationally accepted bases for resolving the conflict in former Palestine. 

The United Nations' failure to insist on these binding tenets of international law being universally acknowledged has proved to be a major stumbling block in resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Bowing to extreme pressure from the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference -the United Nations has succumbed to a myriad of General Assembly resolutions that have buried these pillars of international law.

The sooner they again become the foundations for peace - the sooner some sanity will return to the Middle East.Trump’s decisiveness has amazingly ended 53 wasted years of Arab preoccupation with occupation.

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: Trump and Israel Dabble in Hamas and PLO Quicksand

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

He writes:

President Trump’s attempt to see a five-year Gaza ceasefire negotiated between Hamas and Israel seems to be an exercise in futility destined to failure. 

America’s involvement first surfaced on 7 July when “an unnamed senior Trump administration official” stated:  

“We definitely have a Gaza focus right now because the situation is the way it is, and we want to try to help. But it’s not as though we think we need to fix Gaza first before we would air the peace plan.”   

If it sounds like a cop-out and looks like a cop-out – it is a cop-out.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) had made it very clear months ago it would have nothing to do with Trump’s yet to-be-released peace plan – no matter when it is aired. 

Arab States supportive of Trump’s plan were wavering.

Leaving those small technicalities aside - any negotiations between Israel and Hamas over Gaza would be anathema to the PLO - which has been engaged in an internecine struggle with Hamas to govern Gaza since 2007.

Indeed, Fatah spokesman Osama Qawasmeh has already reportedly said the number one priority should be achieving Palestinian unity on the basis of previous agreements signed between Hamas and Fatah - and not a truce with Israel in return for humanitarian aid.

Trump’s “ultimate deal” was initially foreshadowed back in 2016 – before Trump was even sworn in as president:

“I believe that my administration can play a significant role in helping the parties to achieve a just, lasting peace – which must be negotiated between the parties themselves, and not imposed on them by others. Israel and the Jewish people deserve no less”  

Trump did not then define who he meant by “the parties”.

Given the developments in the Middle East generally since 2016 – and in Gaza and the West Bank specifically – both Hamas and the PLO seem to have disqualified themselves from possibly participating in negotiating Trump’s peace plan. This leaves the way open for Jordan and Egypt – the last two Arab States to occupy the West Bank and Gaza respectively between 1948 and 1967 – to fill the empty Hamas and PLO chairs at the negotiating table with Israel.

Trump’s new Gaza approach is conditioned upon the following observation made by his three negotiating emissaries – Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman – in their op-ed article in the Washington Post on 20 July:

“For far too long, Gaza has lurched from crisis to crisis, sustained by emergency appeals and one-time caravans of aid, without dealing with the root cause: Hamas leadership is holding the Palestinians of Gaza captive. This problem must be recognized and resolved or we will witness yet another disastrous cycle.”

Hamas is not going to suddenly disappear or allow free and fair elections in Gaza to determine who shall govern Gaza’s population. Any reconciliation by Hamas with the PLO seems most unlikely to occur.

Israel appears to be going along with this Gaza trial balloon being floated by Trump.

Realistically however – ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas will be fatuous unless the following provision in the 1988 Hamas Covenant is shredded:

 “The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. … " 

Trump needs to persuade previously-supportive but now wavering Arab states to back his peace plan being released without delay.

For Trump to contemplate being dragged into the Hamas and PLO quicksand that has claimed so many sincerely-intentioned do-gooders preceding him is incomprehensible.

(Author's Note: 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)

Israel, Jordan and PLO Apprehensive about Trump Peace Plan

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

He writes:

President Trump has appeared to dampen expectations that his “ultimate deal” to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict will shortly emerge.

The only clue given so far is this statement from the White House:

“What we can say is we are engaged in a productive dialogue with all relevant parties and are taking a different approach than the past to create an enduring peace deal. We are not going to put an artificial deadline on anything and we have no imminent plans beyond continuing our conversations. As we have always said, our job is to facilitate a deal that works for both Israelis and Palestinians, not to impose anything on them."

Israel, Jordan and the PLO each have their own reasons to be apprehensive as to the different approach that Trump might be contemplating.

The approach for the last 24 years has concentrated on implementing:

1. The 1993 Oslo Accords (Oslo) signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and

2. The 2003 Bush-Quartet Roadmap endorsed by America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations (Roadmap) – agreed to by Israel – albeit with 14 reservations – and the PLO

These two internationally-sanctioned agreements sought to create a second independent Arab state – in addition to Jordan – in the territory comprised in the 1922 Mandate for Palestine.

Sovereignty in 95% of the Mandate territory had already been vested in:

1. Jordan since 1946 (78%) and

2. Israel since 1948 (17%).

Sovereignty remained unallocated in just 5% of the Mandate territory – Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza (“the unallocated territories”).

Under Oslo, 40% of the unallocated territories containing 95% of the Arab population living there are currently under PLO or Hamas administration – whilst 5% are under Israel’s administration in the remaining 60%.

The Roadmap’s attempt to convert Oslo’s achievement into a “three-state” subdivision of the Mandate territory has failed.

Offers by Israel in 2000/1 and 2008 to cede its claims to sovereignty in more than 90% of the unallocated territories were rejected by the PLO – which demanded 100%.

The idea of territorial swaps was unsuccessfully floated by President Obama.

Negotiations to create this third state – suspended since April 2014 – appear dead and buried.

Trump’s different approach from these past failures could lead him to revisiting the following viewpoint enunciated by Ronald Reagan on 4 September 1980 – when seeking election as President:

“Israel and Jordan are the two Palestinian states envisioned and authorized by the United Nations. Jordan is now recognized in some 80% of the old territory of Palestine. Israel and Jordan are the parties primarily authorized to settle the future of the unallocated territories in accordance with the principles of the mandate and the provisions of Resolutions 242 and 338.” 

President Reagan after his election however adopted a different stance when declaring on 1 September 1982:

1. The United States would not support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and would not support annexation or permanent control by Israel.

2. Self-government by the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza in association with Jordan offered the best chance for a durable, just, and lasting peace.

Israel rejected this proposal. The PLO refused to allow Jordan to negotiate on its behalf.

An amalgam of Reagan’s 1980 and 1982 positions could break the current negotiating stalemate by proposing that:

1. Jordan be allocated sovereignty in areas of the West Bank and Gaza agreed with Israel and

2. Jordanian citizenship be granted to the entire Gazan and West Bank Arab populations.

There is no substitute for a solution based on history, geography, demography and international law.

David Singer: While in Australia, Netanyahu Needs To Expose PLO Hoax

Here, on the day of Bibi Netanyahu's arrival in Sydney for his four-day visit Down Under, is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

The first visit to Australia by a sitting Israeli Prime Minister – Benjamin Netanyahu – has been preceded by a statement signed by 65 prominent Australians on the initiative of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network.

That statement declares:

“The Australian Government needs to rethink its one-sided support for the Israeli Government. We are appalled that our Government opposes the recent UN Security Council resolution supporting the application of international law to Israel and Palestine, when most nations, including the United Kingdom, Germany, France and New Zealand, support it. Even the USA did not oppose it. It is time for the suffering of the Palestinian people to stop and for Australia to take a more balanced role in supporting the application of international law and not supporting Mr Netanyahu and his policies.” 

Signatories to this statement include:

* senior legal professionals – including former Solicitor General Gavan Griffith QC, and former Federal Court judge Murray Rutledge Wilcox

 * former parliamentarians –and diplomats including Jon Stanhope, former ACT Chief Minister, former ALP Minister The Hon Alan Griffin, and Ambassador Bruce Haigh

 * senior clergy – including Bishop George Browning, Bishop Pat Power and former Uniting Church President Rev Gregor Henderson AM

 * Artists – including actor Miriam Margolyes, writer and commentator Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, artist Luke Roberts, and filmmaker Christina Wilcox

 * Academics – including Dr Susan Carland, Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees AM and Associate Professor Peter Slezak, and many others

Their signatures are a sad testament to their embrace of Security Council Resolution 2334 and to its claim that the Jewish Quarter, the Kotel and the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and the Machpelah in Hebron are “Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

If they did not understand that is what they were endorsing then they should withdraw their signatures immediately.

Interestingly they also signed up to “supporting the application of international law to Israel and Palestine”

International law indisputably establishes:

1. The right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Jerusalem, Hebron and Judea and Samaria (West Bank) pursuant to the provisions of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine

2. The preservation of such vested legal rights under article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – Israel’s “partner for peace” has:

1. declared this established international law to be “deemed null and void” under its Charter

2. claimed in its 1964 Charter:

"Article 24. This Organization 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, organizational, political and financial fields."

This article remained unamended when UN Security Council Resolution 242 was passed after the Six Day War. Article 24 was removed from the Charter in 1968 but no claim to sovereignty replaced it.

The PLO claim in 2017 to a separate State where sovereignty still remains unclaimed under its own Charter has been one of the greatest scams perpetrated on and swallowed by the international community during the 100 years conflict.

That persons of the quality and calibre of these 65 prominent Australians should have signed this declaration is testament to the stunning inroads that false Arab propaganda has been used to influence public opinion over the last fifty years.

The idea of two Arab states in the area covered by the Mandate for Palestine has been offered to – and rejected by – the Arabs on many occasions since 1922.

Prime Minister Netanyahu should take the opportunity to say a few words on this PLO hoax during his visit to Australia.

David Singer: Abbas Abandons Peace Negotiations With Israel

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

He writes:

Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to prosecute Britain for publishing the 1917 Balfour Declaration amounts to an outright rejection of the right of the Jewish People to have their own State in former Palestine  – the major stumbling block to peacefully resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict for the last 100 years.

Abbas effectively abandoned further peace negotiations with Israel when his Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki announced Abbas’s decision during an Arab League meeting in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott on 25 July:

"We are working to open up an international criminal case for the crime which they [Britain] committed against our nation – from the days of the British Mandate all the way to the massacre which was carried out against us from 1948 onwards …

… With the commemoration of 100 years since this historic massacre, and following the continuity of this tragedy, we request that the Secretary General of the Arab League assist us in prosecuting the British government for publishing the Balfour Declaration which caused this catastrophe against the Palestinian people."

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO),  from its founding in 1964, had labelled the Balfour Declaration a “fraud” – revising this position in 1968 by claiming it was “deemed null and void”.

Such unsubstantiated assertions of British fraud and illegality are supposedly now to be legally challenged – but can Abbas be taken seriously?

Abbas has not similarly threatened France, although France’s Secretary General For Foreign Affairs, Jules Cambon, informed Nahum Sokolow on 4 June 1917 – 5 months before the Balfour Declaration:

“You were good enough to present the project to which you are devoting your efforts, which has for its object the development of Jewish colonization in Palestine. You consider that, circumstances permitting, and the independence of the Holy Places being safeguarded on the other hand, it would be a deed of justice and of reparation to assist, by the protection of the Allied Powers, in the renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that Land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago.

The French Government, which entered this present war to defend a people wrongfully attacked, and which continues the struggle to assure the victory of right over might, can but feel sympathy for your cause, the triumph of which is bound up with that of the Allies.

I am happy to give you herewith such assurance.”

Abbas is not proposing to sue all 51 member states of the League of Nations who unanimously adopted and incorporated the Balfour Declaration in the Mandate for Palestine – when calling for the “reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine”.

Threatened legal action against Britain only will probably never eventuate – let alone have any chance of success.

Abbas’s latest grandstanding ploy comes as he desperately tries to recover lost political ground to Hamas by reinforcing his own Jew-hating credentials.

The Nouakchott Declaration has however served to focus attention on thirty years of long-overlooked international political decisions taken between 1917 and 1947 which resulted in:

* 99.99 per cent of the Ottoman Empire lands conquered by Britain and France in World War 1 being set aside for Arab self-determination whilst only 0.01per cent – Palestine – was set aside for Jewish self-determination

* 78 per cent of Palestine being closed in 1922 to Jewish settlement and development of the Jewish National Home – such territory subsequently becoming an independent sovereign Jew-free Arab State in 1946 – today called Jordan.

Burying Arab heads in the sand by refusing to accept these decisions remains an exercise in futility.

When Arab minds acknowledge these historic and legal realities, the peaceful resolution of the century-old conflict between Arabs and Jews becomes certainly attainable.

David Singer: Israel Sheds PLO As Negotiating Partner

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.  Bibi Netanyahu's speech to the Sabon Forum, to which David refers, can be seen on video on my blog here

Writes David Singer:

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has concluded that completing successful negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) on the allocation of territorial sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), Gaza and East Jerusalem is a mission impossible to achieve.

Addressing the Saban Forum on 6 December, Netanyahu made his position clear and unequivocal:

“I have said and I continue to say it, that ultimately the only workable solution is not a unitary state, but a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state. That’s the solution. But the Palestinians have to recognize the Jewish state and they persistently refuse to do so. They refuse to recognize a nation-state for the Jewish people in any boundary. That was and remains the core of the conflict. Not this or that gesture or the absence of this or that gesture, but the inability or unwillingness of the Palestinian leadership to make the leap.”

Whilst the issue of a “demilitarized Palestinian State” is one possibly capable of being further negotiated – the issue of recognizing the Jewish State is definitely not.

Recognition of the right of Jewish self-determination in Palestine – whilst simultaneously recognizing the right of Arab self-determination in Syria, Lebanon and Mesopotamia (now Iraq) – has always been an issue with the Arabs – since these decisions were first made at the San Remo Conference in April 1920 establishing the Mandates for Palestine, Mesopotamia and Syria and Lebanon.

These decisions delivered to the Arabs 99.99 per cent of the lands won from the defeated Ottoman Empire in World War 1 whilst setting aside the remaining 0.01 per cent for the Jews.

95 years of bloody conflict between Jews and Arabs has ensued since then because the Arabs wanted – and still want – 100 per cent of the Ottoman Empire pie and have never been prepared to settle for 99.99 per cent.

Netanyahu points out where the Arab world now finds itself in 2015 because of such Arab irredentism:

 “And what we see is the old order established after the Ottoman Empire collapsing and militant Islam, either of the Shiites, Shiite hue led by Iran, or the Sunni hue, led by ISIS, rushing in to fill the void.”

The PLO has never accepted the San Remo carve up of the Ottoman Empire between Jews and Arabs – as its current Charter declares:

 “The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void.” 

The PLO’s rejection of the right of Jews to have one State whilst the Arabs presently have 22 States is also virulently expressed in the PLO Charter:

 “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.”

The PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) has no intention of changing this racist and utterly offensive position – as Netanyahu points out:

 'You got a hint of that the other day when Abu Mazen spoke about the “occupation of Palestinian lands for the last 67 years.  Did you hear that? Occupation of Palestinian lands? For the last 67 years?   

Sixty-seven years ago was 1948. That’s when the State of Israel was established. Does Abu Mazen mean that Tel Aviv is occupied Palestinian territory? Or Haifa? Or Beer Sheba?'

The demise of the PLO as Israel’s negotiating partner is long overdue.

President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry must urgently move to fill this negotiating void by replacing the PLO with Israel’s Arab partners in two long-standing signed peace agreements – Jordan and Egypt.

The Jewish-Arab conflict can still be peacefully resolved with the right partners sitting at the negotiating table.

"The Soil Of Palestine Includes The Soil Of Israel And The Soil Of Jordan": The PLO's Fraudulent Intent

Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer's latest article is entitled "Palestine: Trojan Horse Exposes Duplicitous Doublecross".

He writes:

'Any doubt that the Oslo Accords and the Bush Road Map are dead and buried has been put to final rest by John V Whitbeck – an international lawyer who has served as an advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel.

Writing in the Cyprus Mail on 13 January Whitbeck reveals that the Palestinian Authority "has been absorbed and replaced by the State of Palestine" in a decree issued by Mahmoud Abbas on 3 January and signed by him acting in his capacities as president of the State of Palestine and chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Whitbeck's confirmation of the demise of the Palestinian Authority signals the definite end to any further negotiations under the Oslo Accords and the Road Map being conducted between Israel and the Palestinian Authority – the designated parties to both agreements.

To make sure the message was fully understood, Whitbeck states unequivocally:

"The Trojan horse called the “Palestinian Authority” in accordance with the Oslo interim agreements and the “Palestinian National Authority” by Palestinians, having served its purpose by introducing the institutions of the State of Palestine on the soil of Palestine, has now ceased to exist."

The sordid truth and fraudulent intentions of the PLO in this long running duplicitous doublecross over the last 20 years have now been well and truly exposed by Whitbeck for all to see.

The Palestinian Authority never intended to negotiate in good faith to bring about the two-state solution prescribed by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Road map. It was a Trojan horse fronting for the PLO whose objective was to procure recognition of a Palestinian State without giving up or compromising any of the PLO's claims and demands.

This latest loss of the opportunity offered by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Road Map to realise the two-state solution matches the two opportunities thrown away by the PLO in 2000/1 and 2008

Three strikes –  and the PLO has been definitely outed.

The reaction of the international community will be followed with interest.

Whitbeck continues:

"In his correspondence, Yasser Arafat used to list all three of his titles under his signature – president of the State of Palestine, chairman of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and president of the Palestinian National Authority (in that order of precedence). It is both legally and politically noteworthy that, in signing this decree, Mahmoud Abbas has listed only the first two titles... There is no further need for a Palestinian leader to be three-headed or three-hatted."

But two hatted and two-faced Abbas must remain – because as Whitbeck explains:

"While the Palestine Liberation Organisation will continue to represent all Palestinians everywhere, those Palestinians who live in the State of Palestine (whose territory is defined by the November 29 General Assembly Resolution as “the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967”) or who, living elsewhere, will be the proud holders of new State of Palestine passports will now also be represented by the State of Palestine."

The fact that Hamas is not a member of the PLO and that its constituency running into millions is engaged in an internecine struggle with the PLO seems to have escaped Whitbeck's notice.

Whitbeck must have been reading the wrong wire services to draw the following conclusions:

"Perhaps due, at least in part, to the low-key manner in which this change has been effected, it has attracted remarkably little attention from the international media or reaction from other governments, even the Israeli and American governments. This is not necessarily disappointing, since passive acceptance is clearly preferable to furious rejection. The relatively few and brief media reports of the change have tended to characterise it as “symbolic”.  It could – and should – be much more than that. If the Palestinian leadership plays its cards wisely, it could – and should – represent a turning point toward a better future."

He obviously has missed the many articles critical of Abbas being forced to tip toe through the minefield that his unilateral actions have created.

More repercussions are yet to come as a disappointed international community comes to appreciate how this Trojan horse has pulled the wool over their collective eyes.

Certainly passive acceptance – instead of furious rejection – of Israel's demands that any Palestinian Arab State be demilitarised and that Israel be recognised as the Jewish State – would have helped the two-state solution possibly come to fruition.

The reasons for such furious rejection by the Trojan horse have now been revealed.

The Trojan horse fooled everyone. The negotiations were only a cover to grab what the PLO could get on the way to claiming their ultimate prize - the elimination of the state of Israel.

Whitbeck repeats the mantra of self delusion expressed by the PLO leadership:

"The State of Palestine now exists on the soil of Palestine - albeit still, in varying degrees and circumstances, under belligerent occupation by the State of Israel."

The soil of Palestine includes the soil of Israel and the soil of Jordan.

Whitbeck was circumspect in not bringing up that darker side of the PLO Covenant which regards Israel, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza as one indivisible territorial unit.

The Trojan horse is clearly biding its time to take over Jordan.

In what must amount to one of the greatest tongue in cheek pronouncements ever issued over the course of the 130 years old conflict between Arabs and Jews, Whitbeck concludes:

"The members of the international community must now show their determination not simply in words but also in deeds and actions. In a world which professes to take human rights and international law, including the UN Charter, seriously, the perpetual belligerent occupation of one state by another state is inconceivable. The fact that the Israeli occupation of Palestine has been permitted to endure, expand and entrench itself for more than 45 years represents an appalling black mark against mankind. This occupation must now end."

The democratic world does not like wiping egg off its collective face – and neither does Israel.

With the Palestinian Authority now defunct, the only two possibilities for negotiations now remaining are those between:

1. Israel, Jordan and Egypt –  to allocate sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza between them in accordance with the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter or

2. Israel and all the Arab states – to negotiate an end to the Arab-Jewish conflict in accordance with Security Council Resolution 242.

You can lead a Trojan horse to water but you can't make it drink – or think.'

David Singer On Why Divided Palestinian Factions Must End Rejectionism Re Israel

"Palestine – Narrowing the Great Divide" is the title of Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer's latest article.

Writes David Singer:

'The political rift between Hamas and Fatah arising from their struggle to control the minds and the hearts of the Palestinian Arabs has continued unabated and unresolved for the last six years.

Gaza and the West Bank have become two separate and distinct political fiefdoms that have materially contributed to making the attainment  of the "two-state" solution envisaged in the Oslo Accords and the Bush Road Map impossible to achieve.

The divide is so wide that the areas themselves have been dubbed "Hamastan" and "Fatahland"  –  signifying the utter hopelessness of reconciliation between two very polarized forces.

Political commentators Amos Harel and  Avi Issacharoff have succinctly summed up the position in their recent article "Palestinian unity can wait – discord still growing between Hamas and Fatah":

"Both entities – the West Bank (Fatahland) and the Gaza Strip (Hamastan) - continue their bizarre dance: endless negotiations on the need for unity with zero actions or results, and a reality that only proves how wide the internal Palestinian divide is."

The results of a recent survey indicate that there is also deep division between the "1948 Arabs" –  those who did not flee the 1948 War between the Jews and six invading Arab armies – and those Arabs who did, identified as the "1967 Arabs".

The survey was undertaken by Professor Shifra Sagy, director of the Conflict Management and Resolution Program at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev –  with funding from the German research foundation DFG.

The study came at the initiative of some of Professor Sagy’s Palestinian students. It was co-directed with her postdoctoral student Dr. Adi Mana, and PhD students Anan Srour and Serene Madjali.

The survey was taken among 1104 Israeli Arabs and 948 West Bank  Arabs - who were all personally interviewed.

Views were expressed by each group on the following matters –  and commented on by Professor Sagy:

    1. Loyalty to the land:

"We asked Arabs of ’48 about their narrative, which is that they were loyal to their land when they didn’t desert it and stayed. The ’67 people look at the same issue, and they say the ’48 Arabs stayed on their land because they gave up and succumbed to the occupation without any resistance"      

    2. The relative well-being of the 1948 Arabs as compared to the 1967 Arabs: 

"The ‘48 Arabs say this is our right as citizens of Israel, but in the West Bank, the popular narrative is that this relative affluence is because Israel coopted them into being loyal"

     3.  On marrying each other:

60 percent of Israeli Arabs surveyed said they would not want their daughter to marry a  West Bank Arab, while 41 per cent of West Bankers had the same attitude to their daughter marrying an Arab with Israeli citizenship.

Prof. Sagy concludes that:

"Both groups think of themselves as Palestinians, but narratives are different regarding very crucial issues. What it reveals here is that over the past 60 years, this has really become two distinctly different groups."

One does not have to look very far to ascertain the reasons – which can be put down to the following:

    the unification of the West Bank with Jordan and the granting of Jordanian nationality to the West Bank Arabs between 1950-1967 – with Jordanian citizenship continuing to be enjoyed until 1988;
    the West Bank Arabs being under Israeli occupation between 1967-1993; and
    the grant of civil administrative autonomy to the Palestinian Authority bringing 95 per cent of the West Bank Arab population under its control since 1993 [My emphasis here and below]

Researcher Anan Srour commented:

"Perhaps there are some radicals who see this survey and will think it’s too controversial. We heard this occasionally in comments from the participants, in both directions. Some said that it’s really an issue, that we are two groups."  

Professor Sagy further noted:

'It is possible that the ’48 Arabs’ status as a small minority, at times threatened, both within Israeli society and the Arab world, has strengthened their group cohesion and their need to protect their unique collective narrative. Despite feeling that their common connection and identity with the ’67 Arabs is very important and significant, that connection could come at a heavy price, according to respondents, by bringing into doubt their connection to Israeli society. It is possible that it is for this reason that they distance themselves from the ’67 Arabs more than the ’67 Arabs do, and stress their unique potential as a "bridge" between the two nations'

Gazan Arabs were not included in the survey because it was deemed too risky an undertaking.  One suspects that their viewpoint would be very different to each of the two groups surveyed.

Indeed it would be very interesting if the same survey was conducted among Palestinian Arabs living in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon – where their experiences have been entirely different to those of the three Arab populations in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

The results of this research herald the need for both Hamas and the PLO to give up their declared political aim of wiping Israel off the face of the map –  the only thread they have had to unite Palestinian Arabs since the formation of the PLO in 1964.

Are we indeed witnessing the genesis of a people movement not marching in step with the declared political aims of either Hamas or the PLO –  as evidenced by the easing of entry restrictions enabling 120,000 West Bank Arabs to visit Israel during the holy month of Ramadan?

Israel’s decision last month elicited the following comment from Daoud Kuttab:

"Naturally, Palestinians were delighted to be able to pray in Jerusalem's Aqsa Mosque and visit relatives and friends in Jerusalem and inside the Green Line. Many had not been in Jerusalem for decades. Parents took their children (some teenagers) to see a Jerusalem they had never seen. Many flooded West Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and other locations.

Palestinians shopped (the Malha mall is said to have sold goods worth 2 million shekels in one weekend). They hit the beaches and stores, enjoying a rare occasion to get out of the closed area of the West Bank."

Denied any vote for six years –  the West Bank Arabs had voted with their feet –  indicating to their political masters that the time had come to narrow the divide between the 1948 Arabs and the 1967 Arabs, not by trying to eliminate the State of Israel but co-existing peacefully with it.'