David Singer: Mattis-Bolton Accord Can Sway Trump to Dump PLO for Jordan

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

He writes:

President Trump’s possible call for Jordan to replace the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as Israel’s negotiating partner under Trump’s soon-to-be-releasde "ultimate deal" will be considerably strengthened if Trump’s newly-appointed National Security Adviser – John Bolton – and Secretary of Defense – James “Mad Dog” Mattis – concurs on such a move.

Bolton has supported this strategy since 2009 – telling Eric Shawn on 21 January 2018: 

“I hope at some point the Administration recognizes and perhaps it is already quietly – that the two-state solution isn’t going anywhere. If anything I would say to King Abdullah of Jordan – “Be prepared to reassert Jordanian sovereignty over part of the West Bank – negotiate with Israel”. I think that’s a far better outcome than the continued pursuit of a mythical – I believe unattainable – viable Palestinian state” 

Mattis has favoured the Obama-Kerry strategy – pointing out to the Aspen Security Forum in July 2013: 

“We have got to find a way to make the two-state solution that Democrat and Republican administrations have supported, we’ve got to get there. And the chances for it, as the king of Jordan has pointed out, are starting to ebb because of the settlements and where they’re at, are going to make it impossible to maintain the two-state option.”

Mattis further reasoned: 

“I paid a military security price every day as the commander of CentCom because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel and that moderates all the moderate Arabs who want to be with us, because they can’t come out publicly in support of people who don’t show respect for the Arab Palestinians. So he [Secretary of State John Kerry] is right on target with what he’s doing. And I just hope the protagonists want peace and a two-state solution as much as he does.”

Kerry however failed miserably – being unable to get the PLO back to the negotiating table after a PLO walk-out in April 2014 following nine months of unsuccessful negotiations on proposals specifically formulated by Kerry to resolve the long-running conflict.

Today: 

· Moderate Arabs – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Oman – have come out publicly – joining Jordan and Egypt in meeting with Israel in the White House – without PLO participation - to discuss Gaza’s deteriorating situation. 

· The PLO refuses to resume negotiations with Israel on the two-state solution: creating a second Arab State – in addition to Jordan – in the territory covered by the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

· The PLO will no longer accept America as sole mediator and is demanding an international conference be convened by mid-2018

The media have castigated Trump for appointing Bolton – typified by highly-credentialled columnist George Will – claiming:

“Bolton will soon be the second-most dangerous American.”

Yet Will himself had written in the Washington Post on 17 April 1987: 

“May 14 will be the 30th Anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, June 6 will be the 20th anniversary of the Six Day War. The West Bank has been held by Israel longer than it had been held by Jordan, the 1967 aggressor, which ever since has presented itself as the aggrieved party. Today, as every day since 1948, the key to peace is direct negotiations between Jordan and Israel, not a committee” 

Mattis’s jocular remarks on meeting Bolton at the Pentagon – caught in an off-microphone exchange – signals Mattis could have already changed his thinking: 

"I heard you're actually the devil incarnate and I wanted to meet you"

A Mattis-Bolton accord on Jordan replacing the PLO in future negotiations with Israel will undoubtedly reinforce Trump’s preparedness to make this long-overdue call.

[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: Russia and America Must Jointly Confront Islamic State

As always, I'm delighted to post the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

The possibility that Russia and America may at long last be seeking common ground on confronting Islamic State has been increased with US Secretary of State John Kerry revealing that his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov [pictured together, left] has approached America proposing military talks over Syria. Kerry told reporters:

"The Russians proposed in the conversation I had today and the last conversation specifically that we have military-to-military conversation and meeting in order to discuss ... precisely what will be done to de-conflict with respect to any potential risks that might be run, and to have a complete and clear understanding as to the road ahead and what the intentions are” 

Russia is concerned to ensure that America will not take the opportunity to use any jointly agreed action against Islamic State as a pretext to try and oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or weaken his hold on power.

America suspects that Moscow’s motives in sending 200 Russian naval infantry soldiers, seven tanks, a portable air traffic control station and components of an air defense system to an Assad-stronghold airbase near Latakia on the Mediterranean coast is part of an ongoing military build-up to support Assad’s continued hold on power.

Russia would also not have been too impressed with White House spokesman Josh Earnest reportedly stating a few days earlier:

“What we would prefer to see from the Russians is a more constructive engagement with the 60-member coalition that’s led by the United States that’s focused on degrading and ultimately destroying ISIL”

Eleven members of that US coalition comprise a group known as the London 11 supporting and arming the rebels fighting Assad for the last five years.

American and Russian distrust of the other’s possible motives in Syria were successfully put aside when they co-operated to have all chemical weapons in Syria held by Assad and his opponents destroyed by jointly securing the passing of Security Council Resolution 2118 (2013) on 27 September 2013.

Such agreement – reached between Russia and America without threatening to either restrict or extend Assad’s hold on power – was an impressive diplomatic achievement. However it only came about after they both decided to focus on destroying all chemical weapons in Syria – rather than focusing on whether Assad or the rebels was responsible for the use of chemical weapons that caused the deaths of 1429 Syrians on 21 August 2013.

Security Council Resolution 2118 ended the deadlock that had paralysed the Security Council’s efforts to end the civil war in Syria for the previous thirty months.

Russia and America now need to solely focus on defeating Islamic State - whilst putting their support for Assad or his overthrow on the backburner until Islamic State is defeated.

They can achieve this by jointly sponsoring another Security Council resolution under Chapter V11 article 42 of the United Nations Charter which empowers the Security Council to:

“take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations”. 

Every day’s delay in securing the passage of such a resolution - and acting on it
– means further deaths, injuries and suffering for the Syrian and Iraqi populations at the hands of Islamic State. Internal displacement of those populations inside Syria and Iraq, or to neighbouring countries – or even into the European Union – has had disastrous consequences that have shocked all people of compassion and goodwill over the last three weeks.

The time for procrastinating, arguing and blaming is surely over.

In Iran, "Death To Israel!" (video)

Never mind, eh?  After all, John Kerry and his cohorts have just made a nuclear deal with the Teheran regime, and they wouldn't have done that if Israel was really in danger from Iran, would they?

David Singer: Time to End The Reprehensible International Indifference To Islamic State Horrors

Entitled "Pope Calls On World To End Islamic State Barbarism", this is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Pope Francis has considerably upped the ante in enlisting spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians – Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I – to sign a joint Common Declaration demanding an end to international indifference regarding Islamic State barbarism being perpetrated against religious minorities in Syria and Iraq.

The Common Declaration constitutes an impassioned plea on behalf of 1.2 billion Catholics and 300 million Orthodox Christians world-wide for concerted international action to eradicate Islamic State.

Whilst two seemingly indifferent Permanent UN Security Council members – Russia and China – and another 129 member States of the UN stand on the sidelines, an American-led coalition comprising the remaining 62 UN member states has been doing the heavy lifting confronting Islamic State outside United Nations' authorisation, prompting the Pope and Bartholomew to declare:  

“While recognizing the efforts already being made to offer assistance to the region, at the same time, we call on all those who bear responsibility for the destiny of peoples to deepen their commitment to suffering communities, and to enable them, including the Christian ones, to remain in their native land. We cannot resign ourselves to a Middle East without Christians who have professed the name of Jesus there for two thousand years. Many of our brothers and sisters are being persecuted and have been forced violently from their homes. It even seems that the value of human life has been lost, that the human person no longer matters and may be sacrificed to other interests. And, tragically, all this is met by the indifference of many.” 

The Pope and Bartholomew have demanded this shocking state of affairs be met by:  

“an appropriate response on the part of the international community.”

No nation should shirk from its duty to eradicate the threat Islamic State poses to the breakdown of world peace and security.  

“The grave challenges facing the world in the present situation require the solidarity of all people of good will”

Islamic State needed to be confronted by Muslims and Christians together:  

"Inspired by common values and strengthened by genuine fraternal sentiments, Muslims and Christians are called to work together for the sake of justice, peace and respect for the dignity and rights of every person, especially in those regions where they once lived for centuries in peaceful coexistence and now tragically suffer together the horrors of war" 

In a further pointed criticism of Russia,  the Declaration stated:  

“We also remember all the people who experience the sufferings of war. In particular, we pray for peace in Ukraine, a country of ancient Christian tradition, while we call upon all parties involved to pursue the path of dialogue and of respect for international law in order to bring an end to the conflict and allow all Ukrainians to live in harmony.”

The grim situation facing Christians in Iraq has been confirmed in a video released on the Orthodox Christian Network by Canon Andrew White, the Vicar of Baghdad.

Canon White – who was ordered to leave Iraq for his own safety by the Archbishop of Canterbury – speaks movingly of the plight of Christians there. Around 250,000 have been displaced by Islamic State in the north of the country – all that remained from the 1,500,000-strong Christian population.

He said:   

"Things were bad in Baghdad, there were bombs and shootings and our people were being killed, so many of our people fled back to Nineveh, their traditional home. It was safer, but then one day, ISIS – Islamic State. They came in and they hounded all of them out. They killed huge numbers, they chopped their children in half, they chopped their heads off, and they moved north and it was so terrible what happened."

Islamic State forced Christians to convert to Islam on pain of death, Canon White added.

He told of the fate of a group of Christian young people: 

"Islamic State turned up and said to the children, you say the words that you will follow Mohammed. The children, all under 15, four of them, said no, we love Yesua, we have always loved Yesua, we have always followed Yesua, Yesua has always been with us. They said, 'Say the words.' They said, 'No, we can't.' They chopped all their heads off. How do you respond to that? You just cry."

Meanwhile US Secretary of State, John Kerry, was depressingly telling a meeting of the US-led coalition that the limited military action being undertaken against Islamic State could see the Coalition’s commitment being:  

“measured most likely in years …”

Kerry however left no doubt on the Coalition’s mission:  

“Our coalition does not summon hate, but rather the courage to build a future that is based on shared interests, shared values, and a shared faith in one another. That contrast in goals marks the dividing line between barbarism and civilization, and it explains both why we dare not fail and why we will succeed.”

The dividing lines have been drawn – demanding that every member state of the United Nations declares on which side it stands and what it will contribute towards eliminating Islamic State.

The international community needs to shed its present indifference and unanimously take up the call of the Pope and Bartholomew to put an end to the horrors represented by the Islamic State and those who are flocking to fight under its flag.

Time to end this reprehensible international indifference – and time to stop crying.

(Below is the Christian scholar Raymond Ibrahim talking about the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries and the western media's general apathy towards the situation, largely owing to a swallowing of Muslim propaganda against Israel and of the mischievous myth that Muslims are the underdogs, Christians the persecutors - D.A.)