David Singer on Why It's Time To Talk Tachlis with Jordan

Jews fleeing their Jerusalem homes in 1948

I'm delighted to present this article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer, who is of course no stranger to regular readers of this blog.  It's headed "Palestine: Jordan, part of the problem, part of the solution".

Writes David Singer:

'A new strategy to resolve the 130 years old Jewish-Arab conflict is urgently needed with the growing recognition that the “two-state solution” proposed by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap for the last 20 years is dead and buried .

Dr. Carlo Strenger has recently expressed this view in an article entitled "Requiem for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict".

Dr Strenger is Chair of the Clinical Graduate Program of the Department of Psychology at Tel Aviv University. He serves on the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism of the World Federation of Scientists, the Seminar of Existential Psychoanalysis in Zurich, and the Scientific Board of the Sigmund Freud Foundation, Vienna in addition to maintaining a part-time practice in existential psychoanalysis.

He is –  and has been –  a constant critic of the policies of Israel’s Government and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Dr Strenger’s summation of the current position is succinctly stated:

"I came to the conclusion that the two-state solution was dead at the end of 2011, when Abbas’ bid for recognition of  Palestine by the UN failed. Ever since I published this assessment, friends and readers have asked what I suggest as an alternative. Some thought that I had finally moved to the extreme left’s endorsement of the one-state solution; others thought that I had moved to the right.

Neither is the case. There are moments when reality flies into your face, and in which you realize that your political program is no longer viable, even though you do not endorse any of the alternatives. I do not derive much comfort from being in good company: The remainders of Israel’s left pay lip service to the two-state solution, knowing that there is no longer a way to implement it.

My conversations with European diplomats and politicians generate the impression that the same holds true for Western Europe. For lack of an alternative to the two-state solution, European governments have not endorsed any alternative conception, but they are beginning to realize that the two-state solution won’t happen."

 Dr Strenger further confesses that he too "does not have any coherent strategy to propose".

There is however a coherent strategy or alternative conception that can be pursued outside the options mentioned in his article - which Dr Strenger and Western Europe have failed to consider  –  focusing on Jordan  –  78 per cent of former Palestine.

Jordan’s entry into the Six Day War on 5 June 1967 – against Israel’s warning to refrain from doing so –  resulted in Jordan’s loss of control over the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Israel. .

The War broke out when Israel responded to the Egyptian military build-up by launching a surprise attack on Egypt’s air force, destroying most of it on the ground within a matter of hours.

That same morning, Israel had sent a message to Jordan’s leader King Hussein via the US State Department, the UN and the British Foreign Office, saying that, despite the outbreak of war, it would not attack the West Bank if Jordan maintained quiet on that front.

Jordan ignored Israel’s appeal to avoid any such conflict – and launched the following attacks on Israel before Israel acted militarily against Jordan or moved into the West Bank:

Civilian suburbs of Tel-Aviv were shelled by artillery;

 Israel’s largest military airfield, Ramat David, was shelled;

 Jordanian warplanes attacked the central Israeli towns of Netanya and Kfar Sava;

Thousands of mortar shells rained down on West Jerusalem hitting civilian locations indiscriminately, including the Hadassah Hospital and the Mount Zion Church;

Israel’s parliament building (the Knesset) and the Prime Minister’s office, each in Israeli-controlled West Jerusalem, were targeted;

 20 Israelis died in these attacks; 1000 were wounded. 900 buildings in West Jerusalem were damaged.

 "Jerusalem is totally engulfed in war…" reported the British Consul-General that morning.

Jewish refugees in Jerusalem 1948

At that fateful moment in time Jordan had continuously occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem from 1948-1967; not one Jew had lived in the West Bank or East Jerusalem for those 19 years.

The West Bank and East Jerusalem had been incorporated as part of Transjordan following a conference of hand picked Palestinian Arab leaders held on 1 December 1948 in Jericho.  Transjordan had officially changed its name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan on 25 April 1949.

On 24 April 1950 the Jordan House of Deputies and House of Notables, in a joint session, adopted a resolution declaring

"complete unity between the two sides of the Jordan and their union in one state... at whose head reigns King Abdullah Ibn al Hussain, on a basis of constitutional representative government and equality of the rights and duties of all citizens".    

West Bank Arabs had become Jordanian citizens and held Jordanian passports.

Not one call to establish an independent Palestinian Arab state in every square centimetre of the West Bank with its capital in Jerusalem had been made during those 19 years.

The Palestine Liberation Organization had only been in existence for three years but article 24 of  its constitution clearly stated that the organization:

"does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the Western Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan …"  [my emphasis]

Jordan must now be pressured to fill the Arab void following the burial of Oslo, the Roadmap and the Palestinian Authority with it –  because Jordan’s decision in 1967 to join the Six Day War against Israel and its consequent loss of the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Israel created the problem that still persists unresolved to this day.

Jordan cannot be allowed to simply bow out of resolving a problem which it helped create by either  refusing point blank to come to the negotiating table with Israel, or by claiming to have washed its hands of the problem in 1988 when foregoing any territorial claims in areas it had ruled for 19 years between 1948-1967.

There is a beautifully expressive Yiddish word –  tachlis  – which the Everyday Yiddish-English-Yiddish Dictionary defines as: "substance, worth, basics, 'brass tacks'"

It is time to talk tachlis with Jordan and let it know in no uncertain terms that it is part of the problem in the West Bank and East Jerusalem –  and must now be part of the solution.'

Since A Slim Israeli Waistline Courts Death ...

In view of the 44th anniversary of the Six Day War, David Singer, a Sydney lawyer and foundation member of the International Analysts Network, has written one of his typically thoughtful and thought-provoking articles on the Middle East. 

Entitled "Palestine – an Arab West Bank is a lost cause," the article recalls, to quote its author, "some of the significant events that led to Jordan’s loss of the West Bank in that War ending 19 years of uninterrupted occupation" and demonstrates  "why all of the West Bank – or its equivalent area – will never again return to Arab control".

At the beginning of the article Singer notes his indebtedness to http://www.sixdaywar.co.uk/timeline.htm and notes that that website in general "should be required reading for all who wish to understand why international pressure to  return all of the West Bank to the Arabs must fail". (I've added the illustrations, and that website is my source for the two Arab cartoons, produced in the early stages of the war when it was assumed that Nasser would succeed in his vow to push Israel into the sea; the second cartoon is how a cartoonist in a Syrian newspaper imagined the fate awaiting Tel Aviv.)

As usual, David Singer's article comes via the antipodean J-Wire service.

Writes Singer:

'Jordan’s path down the road to its disastrous loss of the West Bank began on 30 May 1967 – 6 days before the start of the Six Day War.  This was the fatal day that Jordan signed  a five year mutual defence treaty with Egypt, thereby joining the military alliance already in place between Egypt and Syria. Jordanian forces were given to the command of an Egyptian General.

Jordan’s King Hussein had been caught up in the Arab euphoria and vitriol emanating from Egypt’s President Nasser who had declared on 28 May 1967:

“We will not accept any…coexistence with Israel.…Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel….The war with Israel is in effect since 1948”.

Such was the mood of Jordan’s population that Jordan’s Army Commander-in-Chief General Sharif Zaid Ben Shaker warned in a press conference that :

“If Jordan does not join the war a civil war will erupt in Jordan”.

The West Bank had been unified with Transjordan in 1950 and the country renamed Jordan after  unanimous ratification by a Parliament comprised equally of representatives from the West Bank and Transjordan.  No demand was made in the next 17 years for the creation of a separate Palestinian Arab State – even though all the Jews living there had been driven out by six invading Arab armies in 1948.

On 31 May 1967 President Aref of Iraq declared:

“The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out  the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear – to wipe Israel off the map”

Al Akhbar – Cairo’s daily newspaper correctly summed up Jordan’s involvement on the same day:

“Under the terms of the military agreement signed with Jordan, Jordanian artillery, coordinated with the forces of Egypt and Syria, is in a position to cut Israel in two at Qalqilya, where Israeli    territory between the Jordan armistice line and the Mediterranean Sea is only 12 kilometres wide”.

What was true in 1967 remains as valid in 2011.  Israel’s vulnerable waistline of only 12 kilometers would return again with all of the West Bank under Arab control.

On 5 June Israel made its pre-emptive strike against Egypt. That same morning, Israel sent a message to Jordan’s leader King Hussein via the US State Department, the UN and the British Foreign Office, saying that, despite the outbreak of war, it would not attack the West Bank if Jordan maintained quiet on that front.

Jordan ignored Israel’s appeal to avoid conflict  and  launched immediate multiple attacks on Israel

• civilian suburbs of Tel-Aviv were shelled by artillery;
• Israel’s largest military airfield, Ramat David, was shelled;
• Jordanian warplanes attacked the central Israeli towns of Netanya and Kfar Sava;
• thousands of mortar shells rained down on West Jerusalem hitting civilian locations indiscriminately, including the Hadassah Hospital and the Mount Zion Church;
• Israel’s parliament building (the Knesset) and the Prime Minister’s office, each in Israeli-controlled West Jerusalem, were targeted;
• 20 Israelis died in these attacks; 1000 were wounded. 900 buildings in West Jerusalem were damaged.

All this happened before Israel reacted militarily against Jordan, or moved at all into the West Bank.
The Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 242 on 22 November 1967 recognizing  that secure and recognized boundaries needed to be drawn between Israel and its neighbours to  ensure the Arabs would not be tempted to again try and cut Israel in two in the future as the first step in any attempt to wipe Israel off the map.

Egypt and Jordan eventually came to realise the folly of their action. Both entered into peace treaties with Israel in 1979 and 1994 respectively. Syria refused to join them. But the current upheaval in Egypt, Jordan and Syria now put the continued operation of these two treaties at real risk.

Jordan withdrew all its claims to the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1988. The Palestinian Authority (PA) was created in 1993 as a result of the Oslo Accords – stepping into the void left by Jordan.

The PA has since then sought  to undo the 1950 reunification and substitute the creation of a Palestinian Arab State in all of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza for the first time in recorded history

The PA is now threatening to approach the United Nations in September to achieve this outcome. The UN’S  abject surrender to an Egyptian diktat was the catalyst that led to the Six Day War.

UN Secretary General U Thant had of his own volition agreed to Nasser’s demand that  the United Nations Emergency Force be withdrawn on 18 May 1967 – just seven hours after Egyptian ambassador Kony had informed U Thant:

“Egypt has decided to terminate the presence of the United Nations Emergency Force from the territory of the United Arab Republic and Gaza Strip. Therefore I request that the necessary     steps be taken for the withdrawal of the Force as soon as possible.”

Britain made its position very clear when its Foreign Secretary George Brown stated:

“UNEF was established with the full concurrence of the United Nations…any decision to withdraw the force should be taken in the United Nations after full consultation with all the countries involved – it should not be taken as the result of some unilateral decision.”

It is unthinkable and immoral that Jordan’s heinous conduct should be rewarded by the United Nations now ignoring  Security Council Resolution 242 and returning Israel to the vulnerable 1967 armistice lines.
That the UN might seek to do so in clear contravention of its own resolution and international law – specifically the Montevideo Convention 1933 – would certainly not surprise. Treachery knows no bounds when it comes to double standards by the UN in dealing with Israel.

Jordan paid a high price for joining in an alliance with Egypt and Syria – the loss of  the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Those pre-June 1967 halcyon days are not going to return in 2011 – either for Jordan or the PA.'

“Sentenced to life for a moment of patriotic rage, instead of being honoured for it” (video)

On 13 March 1997, to the chagrin of the late King Hussein, who apologised in the name of his country, Jordanian soldier Ahmad Daqamseh (or Ahmad Al-Daqamsa) opened fire on an Israeli school bus on an excursion to the Jordan Valley, killing seven 11-year-old girls and badly wounding others. He received a life sentence in Jordan for the outrage.
His mother later declared that he remains defiant, quoting him as saying: "The only thing that I am angry about is the gun, which did not work properly. Otherwise I would have killed all of the passengers on the bus."

The Jordanian Justice Minister, Hussein Mujalli, has now demanded Daqamseh’s release, echoing demands of demonstrators. “I support the demonstrators' demand to free Ahmad Dakamseh,” said Mr Mujalli. “He's a hero. He does not deserve prison."

In this video from a Lebanese television station, dating from 2009, a Jordanian lawyer, a Jordanian human rights activist, and a female Lebanese reporter speak in favour of Daqamseh. His “patriotic” killing of the “Zionist girls” from the “entity” that is “occupied” is presented as an heroic, even glorious, act and a defining moment for Arabs and Muslims