David Singer: Hamas and PLO Entrench Apartheid in Gaza and West Bank

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

He writes:
 
The British Foreign Office showed appalling judgement when scheduling a visit by Prince William to a refugee camp in the West Bank which should have been closed down long ago. The Prince  – obviously moved by what he saw – remarked:

“I saw at Jalazon (refugee camp) the tremendous hardships faced by the refugees, and I can only imagine the difficulties of life lived under these conditions, the ed (sic) resources and the lack of opportunity”

Regrettably Prince William failed to question why:

1. Jalazon had not been dismantled during the past 25 years after it came under Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) control.

2. Jalazon’s inhabitants should still be classified as “refugees” when they are living in part of former Palestine now under PLO occupation.

Prince William’s visit was closely followed by a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and United Nations (UN) Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process  – Nickolay Mladenov.

During their meeting Abbas stressed the UN's important role in providing protection for
the “Palestinian people” and the necessity of continuing to provide services to the “Palestinian refugees” through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Undiscussed between them was why the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza have failed to close down the 27 refugee camps still remaining within their respective fiefdoms.

The West Bank currently has 775,000 registered “refugees” – around a quarter of who live in 19 refugee camps. Most of the others live in West Bank towns and villages. Some camps are located next to major towns and others are in rural areas.

UNRWA provides services in these 19 Palestine refugee camps – but does not administer or police the camps – as this is the responsibility of the PLO – intriguingly identified as the “host authority” by UNRWA Gaza has 1.3 million registered “refugees” – of who 500,000 currently live in 8 refugee camps. As in the West Bank – UNRWA does not administer or police these camps -this being the responsibility of the “host authority” – Hamas.

The West Bank refugee camps are all located within Areas “A” and “B” – some 40% of the territory of the West Bank – being under full PLO administrative control as designated by the Oslo Accords. 95% of the West Bank Arab population – including all those living in the refugee camps – live in Areas “A” and “B”

Many of these camps and their inhabitants date back to 1949. Severe overcrowding problems, high rates of unemployment, personal safety and poor infrastructure are common to them all.
Gaza’s entire population has been under Hamas occupation since 2007.

The PLO and Hamas have maintained their discriminatory two-tiered refugee segregation systems in Gaza and the West Bank for at least the last ten years under which:

1. 800000 “refugees” live in refugee camps

2. 1,570,000 “refugees” live among the general population

Closing these refugee camps and integrating their long-suffering populations among the general population are long overdue. The failure of the PLO and Hamas to do so allows them to maintain and exploit a hard core of hate-filled and desperate Palestinian Arabs who can be readily incited and used as pawns and martyrs to undertake acts of terrorism against Israel.

UN and UNRWA complicity in refusing to pressure the PLO and Hamas to close these squalid camps and end an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis is reprehensible, immoral and completely inexcusable.

Entrenching apartheid by segregation and discrimination whilst denying equal rights to all members of the Arab populations in Gaza and the West Bank spells disaster for both Hamas 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 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: PLO Dumps Trump Easing Way for Jordan-Israel Negotiations

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

He writes:

President Trump’s soon-to-released proposal on resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict will be more readily achievable following the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) confirming it will not participate in implementing Trump’s peace plans.

Secretary General of the PLO Executive Committee Saeb Erekat led the charge:

“No one will deceive us and we will not fall into the illusion that the United States can have any balanced ideas that could lead to the achievement of a real and just peace. Washington has become part of the problem and not the solution”

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas backed-up Erekat a few days later  – censuring Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and stating  Palestinians believe the US can no longer be the sole mediator in the decades-long conflict with Israel due to America’s pro-Tel Aviv bias.

Abbas declared Trump’s plan would be:

     “an end to the peace process in the Middle East”

Erekat and Abbas’s acts of  political hara-kiri coincided with Trump’s newly-appointed Secretary of State – Mike Pompeo – visiting Jordan

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi welcomed Pompeo with the decades-old Arab mantra:

“[The Palestinian -Israeli conflict]  is, we believe, the main cause of instability in the region, and its resolution is the key to achieving the lasting and comprehensive peace that we want. The two-state solution remains the only path to that peace, as we believe in Jordan, and it is the solution that would allow for the emergence of an independent, sovereign Palestine state with East Jerusalem as its capital in the lines of June 4, 1967.

Yes, that – the two-state solution is being challenged. Yes, there are many obstacles. But I think what is – what is the alternative? We cannot give up in our efforts to achieve peace, nor can we say that there is any viable alternative that we can sustain.”

Pompeo begged to disagree:

“ We’re certainly open to a two-party solution. That’s a likely outcome.”

Another likely outcome will doubtless be revealed in Trump’s proposal.
Pompeo deferred answering whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the most serious threat to stability in the region. He would have been derided had he agreed – given the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Libya.

On Trump’s ultimate deal – Pompeo asserted: 

“We understand that ultimately this deal will be agreed to between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but certainly it’s the case that as America continues to be involved in facilitating such an arrangement, we’re doing so in close alignment with Jordan and the Jordanian people so that we’re working together …”

Any PLO refusal to agree to the deal will receive the Trump treatment meted out to Trump-defiers – reduced funding and diplomatic downgrading. Jordan – working in close alignment with Trump – will reap substantial dividends.

Pompeo referred to the five-year Memorandum of Understanding signed by the United States and Jordan in February  committing the US to provide over $6.3 billion in bilateral foreign assistance to Jordan over the next five years – a powerful incentive for Jordan to help Trump bring his proposals to fruition.

Pompeo –  significantly – provided two additional substantial sweeteners: 

“We’ll continue to work with Jordan to help the Kingdom defend its borders, always.”

Pompeo was signaling that any PLO attempt to overthrow 95 years of unbroken Hashemite rule in Jordan – unsuccessfully attempted by the PLO in September 1970 – would be rebuffed by American military force.
Protecting the Hashemite regime and Jordan’s borders  –  coupled with massive injections of American financial aid – could see  Jordan replacing the PLO as  Israel’s Arab partner in implementing Trump’s peace proposals.
Trump – the master deal-maker – may  have just pulled another rabbit out of his magic hat.
(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: 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: Trump Readies to Dump PLO for Jordan-Israel Negotiations

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

He writes:

President Trump and America’s UN Ambassador Nikki Haley  – virtually within hours of each other – have laid the groundwork for Jordan to replace the PLO as Israel’s negotiating partner under President Bush’s 2003 Roadmap – endorsed by the United Nations, European Union, and Russia – and Bush’s 2004 Congress-endorsed commitments to Israel.

Haley told the UN Security Council:

1. Real peace requires leaders who are willing to step forward, acknowledge hard truths, and make compromises. It requires leaders who look to the future, rather than dwell on past resentments. Above all, such leaders require courage.

 2. Abbas’s two-hour speech to the PLO Central Council on 14 January

· Declared the landmark Oslo Peace Accords dead.

· Rejected any American role in peace talks.

· Insulted President Trump

· Called for suspending recognition of Israel.

· Invoked an ugly and fictional past, reaching back to the 17th century to paint Israel as a colonialist project engineered by European powers.

Such a speech indulging in outrageous and discredited conspiracy theories is not the speech of a person with the courage and the will to seek peace.

3. King Hussein of Jordan was a leader with courage. In 1994, he ended 46 years of war and entered into a peace agreement with Israel that holds to this day. When King Hussein signed the peace treaty, he said:

“These are the moments in which we live, the past and the future. When we come to live next to each other, as never before, we will be doing so, Israelis and Jordanians, together, without the need for any to observe our actions or supervise our endeavors. This is peace with dignity; this is peace with commitment.”

Abbas’s recent actions demonstrate Abbas is the total opposite of King Hussein.

Haley certainly pulled no punches.

Trump – attending the World Economic Forum in Davos – had some additional dismissive remarks to make about the PLO:

1. The PLO disrespected America by not allowing America’s great Vice-President Mike Pence to see them.

2. Money was never on the table. America gives the Palestinian Arabs tremendous amounts, hundreds of millions of dollars a year. That money is on the table. Because why should America do that as a country if they’re doing nothing for America?

3. Trump doesn’t know whether Israel-PLO negotiations will ever take place.

Trump and Haley have clearly indicated that the ground is rapidly shifting under a corrupt PLO edifice that:

 · unashamedly continues to fund murderers of Israelis and non-Israelis

 · is not yet tired and disgusted of such killing

Replacing Abbas will not solve the PLO’s dilemma. Abbas’s speech to the PLO Central Council was frequently interrupted by loud applause from the entire PLO leadership gathered in Ramallah.

Trump ominously remarked that Israel would have to pay for Jerusalem being taken off the table as the toughest issue requiring resolution in any negotiations.

Israeli concessions can be more easily negotiated if Jordan – not the PLO - is Israel’s negotiating partner – because:

· Amman is Jordan’s long-established capital

 · Jordan also enjoys negotiating rights on Jerusalem’s future under article 9 (2) of the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty:

“In this regard [freedom of access to places of religious and historical significance] in accordance with the Washington Declaration, Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines.”

Israel-Jordan negotiations indeed represent the best opportunity to end the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

The PLO has seemingly done its dash – and hundreds of millions in cash – in defiantly taking on Trump.

David Singer: PLO Ditches Trump, Undermines Future UN and EU Support

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

He writes:

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s extraordinary two-hour-long anti-American and Jew-hating diatribe delivered on January 14 must inevitably see:

Israel refusing to resume negotiations with the PLO 

Another Arab partner replacing the PLO to negotiate with Israel in implementing President Trump’s eagerly-awaited ultimate deal.

The viciousness and vindictiveness of Abbas’s attack on the internationally-recognised legal right of the Jewish people to its own independent State – as endorsed by:

·        the United Nations (“UN”)  1947 Partition Plan

·        the European Union (“EU”)  1980 Venice Declaration

·        UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338

·        The 1993 Oslo Accords

·        President Bush’s 2003 Road Map - supported by both the UN and the EU

requires the UN and EU to unequivocally reject Abbas’s racist, false and misleading claims.

Abbas’s speech was delivered at what has been described as “a Palestinian Central Council meeting in Ramallah”.

In fact it was a very well stage-managed event involving the attendance of some 80 of the 132 Councillors and about 500 other persons. One vacant seat was reserved for the “Republic of Lithuania”. Diplomats from other countries were undoubtedly present.

The backdrop included two huge screens each containing five maps of Palestine from 1947 onwards – conveniently excluding 78% of Palestine – today called Jordan - granted independence by Great Britain in 1946.

President Trump has already reacted to Abbas’s following inflammatory remarks by withholding US$65 million to UNRWA:

1.      "Let them [the US] not do us a favor by paying us money... We do not want anyone to pay us.”

2.       "We will not accept the deals the US wants to impose on us. We will not accept its mediation after the crime it committed against Jerusalem.”

3.      "There are two names that I don’t want to mention, but my conscience is bothering me, so I have to mention them. American Ambassador David Friedman... He says: "There is no occupation, who said there’s an occupation? Israel is building on its lands." ... The second name, their Ambassador to the UN Ms. Haley… who said: 'I wear high heels not for fashion, only to hit whoever attacks Israel.' I say to her – and may she hear me – [our] response is going to be worse, but not by way of high heels.”

4.      “The Americans are always telling us that we must stop paying salaries to the families of the martyrs and the prisoners. We categorically reject this demand.”

Further retaliatory action by Trump seems certain.

Interestingly Abbas also claimed:

"We made a decision at the [Arab] Summit in Amman in 1980 that every state that recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, or that transfers its embassy to it – we must cut our relations with it."

The Minutes of that Summit actually record:

“The Conference also emphasized that the liberation of Arab Jerusalem was a national duty and a national obligation, proclaimed the rejection of all measures taken by Israel, requested all nations of the world to adopt clear and defined positions in opposition to the Israeli measures and resolved to break off all relations with any country recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or transferring its embassy there.”

Attendees at the 1980 Summit were:

    ·        Bahrain

    ·        Djibouti

    ·        Iraq

    ·        Jordan

    ·        Kuwait

    ·        Mauritania

    ·        Morocco

    ·        Oman

    ·        Qatar

    ·        Saudi Arabia

    ·        Somalia

    ·        Sudan

    ·        Tunisia

    ·        United Arab Emirates

    ·        Yemen

How many of these countries will now break off diplomatic relations with America following its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital will serve as a useful indicator of the support the PLO can continue to receive in the Arab world.

Abbas’s Ramallah rant has provided irrefutable evidence that the PLO has no further role to play in peacefully resolving the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

David Singer: Trump Won’t Swallow Erekat’s PLO-Palestine Poison Pill

Image credit: Elder of Ziyon HERE

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.  (Incidentally, if you happened to miss this video of dropped jaws and outraged faces at the United Nations Human Rights Council last week, you've missed a gem. )

Writes David Singer:

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Secretary-General Saeb Erekat has managed to grab international headlines to promote yet another PLO canard regarding the 100-years-old Jewish-Arab conflict.

Unabashedly and unashamedly Erekat has declared:

"Israel is internationally recognised as the occupying power over 100 per cent of Palestine, including in and around occupied East Jerusalem"  

Yet according to Article 2 of the PLO Charter – Jordan is the occupying power over 78 per cent of Palestine.

“Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”

The British Mandate for Palestine between 1920 and 1946 encompassed what is today called:

1. Israel (17%),

2. Jordan (78%),

3. Judea and Samaria (West Bank) (4%) and

4. Gaza (1%).

The Hashemite dynasty has been the occupying power in Jordan since 25 May 1946 (having rebuffed the PLO’s attempt to overthrow it in 1970).

Hamas has occupied Gaza since 2007.

40 per cent of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) was occupied by the Palestinian Authority between 1993 and 2013 until the Palestinian Authority was disbanded on 3 January 2013 by decree of Mahmoud Abbas – the PLO assuming occupation thereafter.

Erekat’s claim that Israel occupies 100 per cent of Palestine is therefore utter rubbish.

Erekat has revived one of the greatest travesties perpetrated by the United Nations on the Jewish-Arab conflict in its publication The Origins and Evolution of the Palestinian Problem (“publication”) – omitting any map of the British Mandate for Palestine. Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations – Yehuda Blum – told the UN General Assembly on 30 November 1978:

“At the end of the first part of the publication, ostensibly dealing with the period of the Palestine Mandate, there appear a number of maps. The one map that is conspicuously absent is the official map of the Palestine Mandate which, until 1946, included Transjordan on the east bank of the Jordan River. This map was omitted because it does not fit into the PLO's own scheme, as it would show too clearly that a Palestinian Arab state has already been in existence for 32 years on more than three quarters of the territory of mandated Palestine - that is, the state now called Jordan. That embarrassment is eliminated in this purportedly scholarly and impartial publication by the simple expedient of eliminating the map.”

Why then has Erekat chosen to follow the UN and delete Jordan from the map of former Palestine?

It has everything to do with the negotiations between Israel and the PLO – conducted with little success since 1993 and having been stalled since April 2014 – and the current concerted effort by President Trump to resolve this long-running conflict that has defied so many other American presidents.
Jordan can help resolve that conflict – precisely because Jordan is historically, geographically and demographically 78 per cent of Palestine.

Jordan remains the key to Trump ending the conflict between Jews and Arabs in former “Palestine”.
Whilst Jordan was part of the Mandate for Palestine between 1922 and 1946 – the League of Nations had under article 25 restricted the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home within just 22 per cent  of Palestine located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

Following Jordan’s independence in the remaining 78 per cent of Palestine in 1946, Jordan rejected international overtures under the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1982 Reagan Plan to enter into negotiations with Israel.

Erekat’s outburst signals concerns within the PLO that Trump may be looking to bring Jordan into negotiations with Israel to resolve competing Jewish and Arab claims in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) – whose last internationally recognised occupying power was Great Britain in 1948.

Trump won’t be swallowing Erekat’s poison pill.

David Singer: Abbas Concessions Kick-Start Trump Attempt to Resolve Israel-Arab Conflict

Getty Images

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

He writes:

Three concessions made by Mahmoud Abbas – following pressure placed on him by President Trump – open the way to possible negotiations between Israel, the Palestinian Arabs, Egypt and Jordan to resolve the 100-years-old Israel-Arab conflict.

Abbas has agreed to:

1. Withdraw his 2014 demand that Israel first agree to freeze building within Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as a pre-condition to resuming negotiations with Israel.

2. Tone down his campaign to prosecute Israel for alleged war crimes and rallying condemnation of the Jewish state at the United Nations.

3. Cease paying salaries to 277 released Hamas prisoners including Director of Hamas’s Political Bureau in the Gaza Strip – Yahya Al-Sinwar.

Israel sentenced Al-Sinwar to four life terms in the late 1980s but released him after 23 years imprisonment in a swap of 1,047 Palestinian prisoners for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006.

Al-Sinwar headed Hamas’s first security unit responsible for tracking and killing Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.

Abbas’s spectacular capitulation comes just two weeks after his reportedly fiery meeting with President Trump in Bethlehem on 23 May – when Trump had stressed:

“.. the importance of creating an environment consistent with the desire for peace” 

Trump had then warned Abbas at their subsequent media conference:

“Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded. We must be resolute in condemning such acts in a single, unified voice.”

These three Abbas concessions may sufficiently satisfy Trump to pressure Netanyahu to resume negotiations.

However such negotiations – if conducted only between Abbas and Netanyahu – will assuredly fail and end up in the garbage bin of history – joining other unsuccessful negotiations conducted between them over the last ten years – for the following reasons:

1. Whilst Hamas and Fatah continue their internecine struggle for political control of the Gazan and West Bank Arab populations and refuse to countenance the holding of elections for the first time since 2006 – no permanent peace agreement can emerge from such resumed negotiations.

2. Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation will not abandon their campaigns to wipe Israel off the face of the map – as clearly stated in their respective Charters.

3. Trump will need to unscramble the following seemingly intractable demands being made by Netanyahu and Abbas if he wants to succeed where so many before him have abjectly failed:

 · Israel being recognised as the national home of the Jewish people

· Israel retaining military and security control in and over Judea and Samaria (West Bank)

· any Palestinian State being demilitarised

· Jerusalem remaining united as the capital of Israel

· A second Arab State – in addition to Jordan – being created in the territory of the Mandate for Palestine and the capital of that State being located in Jerusalem

· Israel withdrawing totally from the territories lost by Jordan to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War

· Palestinian Arabs retaining their claimed right of return to Israel.

Trump may well intend trying to resolve these demands by including other Arab States in any new round of negotiations – as this White House Press Office Readout of Trump’s 23rd May meeting with Abbas tantalisingly suggests:

“The two leaders discussed ways to advance negotiations and considered how Arab states might support those negotiations.”

Egypt and Jordan – enjoying signed peace treaties with Israel since 1979 and 1994 respectively  could be just those States.

Such four-party negotiations – conducted under Trump’s oversight and using his proven skills in successfully negotiating and concluding deals – could be the key to ending the logjam of failed negotiations since 1993.

Hope springs eternal.

David Singer: Trump Signals Abbas Must End Indiscriminate Slaughter of Jews

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

He writes:

The horrific carnage perpetrated in Manchester on 22 May presented an emotion-charged backdrop to two meetings the next day between President Trump and President Abbas in Bethlehem and President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu in Jerusalem.
Trump pointedly told Abbas:

“Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded. We must be resolute in condemning such acts in a single, unified voice. Peace is a choice we must make each day – and the United States is here to help make that dream possible for young Jewish, Christian and Muslim children all across the region.” 

Netanyahu did not mince his words, telling Trump:

“Terrorism, the deliberate slaughter of innocents, must be equally condemned and equally fought, whether it strikes in Europe, in America or in Israel – or for that matter, anywhere else. And as you said this morning, Mr. President, funding and rewarding terrorism must end.

Standing next to you, President Abbas condemned the horrific attack in Manchester. Well, I hope this heralds a real change, because if the attacker had been Palestinian and the victims had been Israeli children, the suicide bomber’s family would have received a stipend from the Palestinian Authority. That’s Palestinian law. That law must be changed.” 

Abbas presides over the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) whose Charter openly promotes a culture of violence and incitement urging Palestinian Arabs to kill Jews.

Article 7 of the Charter provides: 

“It is a national duty to bring up individual Palestinians in an Arab revolutionary manner … He must be prepared for the armed struggle and ready to sacrifice his wealth and his life in order to win back his homeland and bring about its liberation.” 

Article 9 prescribes: 

“Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it”

Article 10 declares: 

“Commando action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war. This requires its escalation, comprehensiveness, and the mobilization of all the Palestinian popular and educational efforts and their organization and involvement in the armed Palestinian revolution.” 

Every time a Jew is stabbed, run over, murdered in his bed or whilst praying in a Synagogue, blown up dining in a restaurant or attending a nightclub, killed by stones thrown at his car or targeted in drive by shootings, Palestinian Arabs – radicalised and encouraged by the PLO Charter to perpetrate such heinous crimes – are treated as heroes, many having schools named after them. Their families are rewarded by Abbas paying them monthly pensions which totalled $300 million in 2016.

Abbas declared on 16 September 2015: 

"We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every Martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah."  

Trump told the Arab-Islamic-American Summit in Riyadh on 21 May: 

“A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and extremists. Drive. Them. Out. DRIVE THEM OUT of your places of worship. DRIVE THEM OUT of your communities. DRIVE THEM OUT of your holy land, and DRIVE THEM OUT OF THIS EARTH.” 

Trashing the hate-filled PLO Charter and ending incitement to indiscriminately slaughter Jews are necessary steps in this process.

Abbas will end up in the diplomatic wilderness if he ignores the messages delivered by both Trump and Netanyahu. 

David Singer: Trump Must Honour Bush-Congress Deal with Israel

A flag burns in Gaza; For link click here

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

He writes:

President Trump’s historic visit to Israel on 22 May presents the perfect opportunity for him to deliver on the promises he made to Israel during last year’s presidential election campaign.

Trump’s broad-ranging foreign policy speech on 27 April 2016 highlighted the disgraceful way Israel had been treated by the Obama Administration:

"Israel, our great friend and the one true democracy in the Middle East has been snubbed and criticized by an administration that lacks moral clarity.

President Obama has not been a friend to Israel."

Trump’s claim was certainly justified.

Obama – aided and abetted by his two Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry – had deliberately undermined the written commitments made to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by President Bush on 14 April 2004 and subsequently endorsed overwhelmingly by the Congress by 502 votes to 12 (“Bush/Congress Commitments”).

Trump promised:

“To our friends and allies, I say America is going to be strong again. America is going to be reliable again. It’s going to be a great and reliable ally again. It’s going to be a friend again. We’re going to finally have a coherent foreign policy based upon American interests and the shared interests of our allies.”

The shared interests of Israel and America became inextricably entwined after the Bush/Congress Commitments had:

1. secured Israel’s total disengagement from Gaza and a part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) in 2005

2. promised President Bush’s stalled 2003 Roadmap proposing the two-state solution a real chance of coming to fruition.

The Bush/Congress Commitments were also crucial to Israel’s agreement to resume negotiations with the Palestinian Authority as publicly declared by Israel’s then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the international conference called by President Bush in Annapolis in 2007: 

“In the course of the negotiations, we will use previous agreements as a point of departure. U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the road map, and the letter of President Bush to the prime minister of Israel dated April 14, 2004.”

Obama’s treachery in derogating from the Bush/Congress Commitments was compounded when he refused to veto Security Council Resolution 2334 passed during the dying days of Obama’s Presidency on 23 December 2016.

Trump needs to repeat this part of his 2016 message loudly and clearly in Israel: 

“… your friends need to know that you will stick by the agreements that you have with them. You’ve made that agreement, you have to stand by it and the world will be a better place."

Sticking by the Bush/Congress commitments will sound a clear warning to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Arab League that PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas will become irrelevant if he continues to:

1. press for a complete withdrawal by Israel from Judea and Samaria (West Bank)

2. refuse to accept Israel as the nation State of the Jewish people

3. maintain a claimed right of return to Israel for millions of refugees and their descendants contradicting the unequivocal terms of the Bush/Congress Commitments.

Trump – as only he can – has put Abbas on notice this could well happen:

“We have to look to new people because many of the old people frankly don’t know what they’re doing, even though they may look awfully good writing in The New York Times or being watched on television.”

Bipartisan Congressional support will welcome Trump honouring the Bush/Congress Commitments  – confirming Trump’s bold vision:

“We need a new rational American foreign policy, informed by the best minds and supported by both parties, and it will be by both parties – Democrats, Republicans, independents, everybody, as well as by our close allies.” 

Integrity always trumps betrayal.

David Singer: Trump and Congress Can Make America Great Again

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

He writes:

President Trump and Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders this week have the last opportunity to resuscitate the two-state solution laid out in President Bush’s 2003 Roadmap adopted by the Quartet – America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations (“Bush-Quartet Roadmap”).

This can only happen if President Trump and the Congress re-affirm the commitments made to Israel by President Bush in his letter to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dated 14 April 2004 – as overwhelmingly endorsed by the House 407:9 and the Senate 95:3 (“Bush-Congress Commitments”). Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu reportedly sees this outcome flowing from his White House visit on 15 February:

“Trump believes in a deal and in running peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians,” the prime minister was quoted as saying. “We should be careful and not do things that will cause everything to break down. We mustn’t get into a confrontation with him.” 

The last six years have seen those negotiations teeter on the brink of total collapse because the framework for such negotiations - the Bush-Quartet Roadmap and the Bush-Congress commitments – has been successively trashed by President Obama, the European Union and the United Nations.
President Obama’s failure to honour the Bush-Congress commitments first emerged on 19 May 2011 –  when he stated: 

“We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.” 

Obama’s statement put him on a collision course with America’s position as laid out in the Bush-Quartet Roadmap and the Bush-Congress Commitments.

Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had declared before an international meeting of world leaders called by President Bush in Annapolis on 27 November 2007 – including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas – that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority would resume on the basis of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the Bush-Quartet Roadmap and the Bush-Congress Commitments.
Land swaps from Israel’s sovereign territory for any territory Israel retained in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) was never mentioned or contemplated in the Bush-Congress Commitments or indeed the Bush-Quartet Roadmap.

Certainly Israel might decide to make land swaps if deemed to be in Israel’s national interest – but that was for Israel to decide – not for Obama or Bush to influence or impose. Obama appeared to flip flop during his speech on 21 March 2013 at the Jerusalem International Convention Centre:

"I know Israel has taken risks for peace. Brave leaders – Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin – reached treaties with two of your neighbors. You made credible proposals to the Palestinians at Annapolis. You withdrew from Gaza and Lebanon, and then faced terror and rockets." 

However those “credible proposals at Annapolis” had never suggested that the “1967 lines” and “land swaps” be the starting point for negotiations.

Yet Obama, the European Union and the United Nations persisted with these demands until the dying days of Obama’s Presidency – when America abstained – rather than veto – Security Council Resolution 2334 which expressed: 

“grave concern that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines” 

The Bush-Quartet Roadmap and the Bush-Congress Commitments is the only mutually agreed two-state negotiating process.

President Trump and the Congress can ensure the survival of that process – though not necessarily a successful outcome of any negotiations to be conducted under that process – by reaffirming the Bush-Congress Commitments.

Trump and the Congress in so doing would be meeting Netanyahu’s expectations.
America’s restored reputation for keeping agreements made with its closest allies would resonate with Trump’s campaign promise to “Make America Great Again”.

David Singer: Bibi's Claim of Palestinian Ethnic Cleansing of Jews is Certainly Justified

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

 It's entitled "United Nations Rebuked for Promoting Palestinian Ethnic Cleansing of Jews".

Writes David Singer:

United Nations member States need to examine their own consciences and policies following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu castigating them for promoting a Jew-free Palestinian Arab State in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and East Jerusalem. In a video presentation last week Netanyahu declared:

“Israel's diversity shows its openness and readiness for peace.

Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews.

There's a phrase for that: It's called ethnic cleansing.

And this demand is outrageous. It's even more outrageous that the world doesn't find this outrageous.

Some otherwise enlightened countries even promote this outrage” 

 The Oxford Dictionary defines “enlightened” to mean “having or showing a rational, modern, and well-informed outlook”

Enlightened United Nations member States lost their moral and humanitarian compasses when supporting United Nations Resolution A/67/L.28 passed on 29 November 2012 (“the Resolution”) which reaffirmed:

“the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to independence in their State of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967”

Among the 138 countries voting for the Resolution were enlightened States such as:
Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Russian Federation, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Uruguay and Venezuela

Canada, the Czech Republic, Israel, and the United States voted against the Resolution, whilst 41 others – including Australia – abstained.

800,000 Jews currently live in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem under rights vested in them by:

* Article 6 of the 1922 Mandate for Palestine,

* Article 80 of the 1945 United Nations Charter, * Israel’s 1967 annexation of East Jerusalem

* The 1993 Oslo Accords.

 Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared in 2010:

“We have frankly said, and always will say: If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it,”

Like Hitler – Abbas made no secret of his racist plan to create a Jew-free State.

Member States of the United Nations remained silent. In voting for the Resolution they chose to march to the same tune.

Abbas repeated his evil message in 2013: 

“But when a Palestinian state is established, it would have no Israeli presence in it.”

Enlightened States still said nothing.

Jews forced from their Jerusalem homes in 1948

They had said nothing after every single Jew had been ethnically cleansed from Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem following Jordan’s conquest of these areas between 1948 and 1967 when the following events happened:

“After the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem was captured, the destruction, desecration and systematic looting of Jewish sites began and continued. 57 ancient synagogues (the oldest dated to the 13th century), libraries and centers of religious study were ransacked and 12 were totally and deliberately destroyed. Those that remained standing were defaced, used for housing of both people and animals. The city’s foremost Jewish shrine, the Western Wall, became a slum. Appeals were made to the United Nations and in the international community to declare the Old City to be an ‘open city’ and stop this destruction, but there was no response.”

The independent Jew-free Palestinian State promoted by the United Nations in 2012 could have been created between 1948 and 1967 with the stroke of an Arab League pen when not one Jew lived in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. That 19-year window of opportunity will not return.

Netanyahu’s rebuke was certainly justified.

Enlightened – and unenlightened – States need to affirm their total opposition to any settlement of the Jewish-Arab conflict involving the ethnic cleansing of any Jews from Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem.

(Note from Daphne. Full text of Netanyahu's speech below):

 I'm sure many of you have heard the claim that Jewish communities in Judea Samaria, the West Bank, are an obstacle to peace.

I've always been perplexed by this notion.

Because no one would seriously claim that the nearly two million Arabs living inside Israel – that they're an obstacle to peace. That's because they aren't. On the contrary.

Israel's diversity shows its openness and readiness for peace. Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews.

There's a phrase for that: It's called ethnic cleansing.

And this demand is outrageous.

It's even more outrageous that the world doesn't find this outrageous. Some otherwise enlightened countries even promote this outrage.

Ask yourself this: Would you accept ethnic cleansing in your state? A territory without Jews, without Hispanics, without blacks?

Since when is bigotry a foundation for peace?

At this moment, Jewish schoolchildren in Judea Samaria are playing in sandboxes with their friends.

Does their presence make peace impossible?

I don’t think so.

I think what makes peace impossible is intolerance of others. Societies that respect all people are the ones that pursue peace. Societies that demand ethnic cleansing don't pursue peace.

I envision a Middle East where young Arabs and young Jews learn together, work together, live together side by side in peace.

Our region needs more tolerance, not less.

So the next time you hear someone say Jews can't live somewhere, let alone in their ancestral homeland, take a moment to think of the implications.

Ethnic cleansing for peace is absurd.

It's about time somebody said it.

I just did.

David Singer: Palestine – Russia Following France On Diplomatic Journey To Nowhere

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

He writes:

The media has gone into overdrive after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited President Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu to Moscow for direct talks.

Al-Sisi broke the news during an interview on 22 August with the chief editors of state-run newspapers Al-Ahram, Al-Akhbar and Al-Gomhouriya:

"The Russian president has informed me that he has invited Palestinian President [Abbas] and Prime Minister Netanyahu for a meeting in Moscow.

Egypt supports these efforts and both sides are urged to participate and respond positively to the initiative for the sake of finding light at the end of the tunnel for Palestinians and establishing their state alongside Israel."

The Russian invitation has not yet been confirmed by Putin.

However even assuming the meeting was indeed to eventuate – it must be crystal clear to any impartial observer that such a Moscow talkfest will end up in the garbage bin of history, like so many similar meetings over the last 20 years that have failed to resolve the 100 years-old Jewish-Arab conflict.

Peace negotiations between Netanyahu and Abbas remain deadlocked on one perennial and fundamental Israeli demand – that Israel be recognised as the Jewish State.

Abbas made his rejection of this demand very clear on 30 November 2014 when speaking to leaders of the Arab world in Cairo:

“We will never recognize the Jewishness of the state of Israel.”

Abbas has now backed up this statement by threatening to sue Britain for issuing the Balfour Declaration in 1917 – which ultimately led to the League of Nations unanimously approving the Mandate for Palestine in 1922 calling for the “reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine”.

Abbas has been emboldened in taking this stance after the Obama administration wavered in America’s previous long-standing commitment to support this Israeli non-negotiable demand.

US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared to downplay supporting Israel’s position when he told a Senate panel in March 2014:

“Jewish state’ was resolved in 1947 in Resolution 181 where there are more than 40—30 mentions of ‘Jewish state’. In addition, chairman Arafat in 1988 and again in 2004 confirmed that he agreed it would be a Jewish state. And there are any other number of mentions.”

Any Arafat declarations are meaningless – having been replaced with statements of outright rejection by Abbas. Arafat cannot rule from the grave.

Obama will soon be political history and his successor – either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump  – have both made clear that the Obama-Kerry position will be reversed.

Hillary Clinton declared on 4 November 2015

“I am deeply committed to Israel’s future as a secure and democratic Jewish state” 

 Donald Trump stated on 26 March 2016:

“Basically I support a two-state solution on Israel. But the Palestinian Authority has to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Have to do that.”

France’s attempt to convene an international conference later this year has been apparently undertaken without first attempting to get Abbas to moderate his stance by finally acknowledging and accepting the decisions of the international community expressed in the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Indeed Abbas’s threat to sue Britain is a diplomatic kick below the belt for France’s efforts to broker a solution.

Putin would be politically naïve if he failed to sound out Abbas before facilitating any Moscow meeting.

Laying on the vodka, caviar and a Kremlin guard of honour whilst hosting talks that must inevitably lead to nowhere is the last photo-op Putin surely needs.

Strong man being derided with egg on face is not a pretty sight.

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.