David Singer: Israel jettisons PLO as Negotiating Partner on Trump Peace Plan

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

He writes:

Israel’s decision to withhold US$138 million dollars in tax revenues collected for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – equalling the estimated annual payments made to Palestinian Arabs (or their families) carrying out random and indiscriminate attacks against Israeli civilians – marks a watershed in Israel-PLO relations.

Israel’s action will see the PLO being finally jettisoned as a possible negotiating partner on President Trump’s long-delayed peace plan – deferred yet again until after the Israeli elections in April.

The release of the Trump plan could now be further postponed as the president continues his so far unsuccessful search to find other Arab negotiators willing to replace the PLO – which had already rejected having anything to do with Trump’s plan well before Israel’s latest decision.

The law authorising the freezing of these PLO funds was passed by the Israeli parliament in July 2018 – three months after similar legislation – the Taylor Force Act – passed by the US Congress – was signed into law by President Trump.

Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked stressed the funds withheld would be used to pay “fat salaries to murderers who are in prison”.

They would also be used to pay Palestinian Arabs imprisoned in Israeli jails for lesser crimes.
Israel’s action follows the discovery of the body of 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher in the Jerusalem Forest on 7 February.

Channel 12 news reported that investigators from the Shin Bet security service and Israel Police hoped to indict Arafat Irfaiya, a 29-year-old Hebron resident, for murder in the context of a terrorist act in addition to a charge of rape.

Israel is clearly not prepared to allow this continuing wave of terror to be condoned and rewarded financially by the PLO.

Al Jazeera reported that the PLO took a very different view of Israel’s freeze:

"The Palestinians have accused the Israeli government of piracy, of coordinating this with the United States to add pressure ahead of the publication of the Trump peace plan"

The PLO had,however, been unceremoniously consigned to the diplomatic scrap heap by Trump well before Israel’s tax-revenue freeze. Trump had been given the thumbs down by the PLO after Trump had:

• Recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem

 • Stopped America’s annual payment of US$350 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency

• Shut down the PLO offices in Washington

 • Cancelled more than $200m in aid for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank

Chairman Mahmoud Abbas had already dismissed any further involvement with Trump on 5 January 2019:

“We are dealing with three issues that we can not accept: the situation with the US, the situation with Israel and the situation with Hamas. The doors are closed to the US. As long as it does not retract its decisions against the Palestinian people, no Palestinian should meet with the American leadership, no matter what their role is.”

 Paying murderers and felons who kill and maim Jews has finally become the PLO’s political downfall.

Ori Ansbacher’s murder was the final tipping point for Israel to dump the PLO as a future negotiating partner after thousands of well documented random terror attacks on Israel’s civilian population over the last four years – perpetrated by individuals, many very young, inspired by vicious incitement in Palestinian social and traditional media and rewarded financially by the Palestinian leadership.

The days of “pay for slay”and fruitless negotiations with the PLO that have gone nowhere over the last 25 years are over.

Israel has well and truly closed the door on the PLO and it should remain locked and bolted.

David Singer: Israel, PLO, Jordan, EU and UN Must Agree on Boundaries of Palestine

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

He writes:

Ending the Arab-Jewish conflict over the territory called “historic Palestine” has little chance of success until its territorial boundaries are first agreed between Israel, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Jordan, the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN).

Rima Najjar – a retired professor of English literature at Al-Quds University – claims in a recent article that the territory of “historic Palestine” has been subdivided into Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but is effectively controlled by the Jewish State.
The following facts contradict her assertions:

• Jordan comprises 78% of the territory of Palestine under the League of Nations 1922 Mandate for Palestine – and Jews were denied the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in any part of that area of Palestine under article 25 of the Mandate
• The Old Testament records that two and a half of the twelve tribes of Israel settled in Jordan and cities of refuge were established by the Israelites in Golan, Ramoth, and Bosor – on the eastern side of the Jordan River – and Kedesh, Nablus, and Hebron – on the western side.
• Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza form one indivisible territorial unit under Article 2 of the PLO Charter.
• Many leading PLO, Jordanian, Arab and Israeli leaders have acknowledged that Jordan formed part of Palestine and that Jordanians and Palestinians are one people – not two.
• Under the 1993 Oslo Accords and following Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2006 – the PLO effectively controls 40% of the West Bank and Hamas effectively controls all of Gaza.
• Many leading PLO, Jordanian, Arab and Israeli leaders have acknowledged that Jordan formed part of Palestine and that Jordanians and Palestinians are one people – not two.

Najjar’s intention is clear: to misleadingly and deceptively allege that Israel effectively controls 100 per cent of historic Palestine – when Jordan effectively controls 78 per cent.
In fact:

• Israel currently exercises sovereignty in only 17% of historic Palestine whilst Jordan exercises sovereignty in 78% – leaving competing Arab and Jewish claims to sovereignty in the remaining 5% of historic Palestine– the West Bank and Gaza – to be resolved.
• The Palestinian Arabs already have their own State in 78% of historic Palestine where not one Jew lives.

Najjar has claimed in an earlier article:

“How deep is the historical illiteracy of Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic Party and Donald Trump and his party?
It is so deep, they are even immune to déjà vu, also known as “cryptomnesia”, which is where history is forgotten but nevertheless stored in the brain.”

Najjar, the UN, EU, even Mahmoud Abbas, are the historical illiterates suffering from cryptomnesia when it comes to determining the boundaries of historic Palestine – having written off the biblical history of “Eretz Yisrael” and the modern day history of “Palestine” between 1917 and 1947.

Najjar has form – having falsely stated in 2017:

“Israel now has sovereignty over all of mandate Palestine.”

Najjar also uttered her historic Palestine canard when calling for Israel’s elimination in 2018:

“The Palestinians have never held the bargaining chips in their tragedy and might as well go for broke – ending the Apartheid Zionist colonial regime in all of historic Palestine.”

Najjar lamented in 2017:

“I don’t know what it means to be Palestinian Jordanian, which is how I began my life …” 

Najjar’s identity crisis disappears once she recognises that Jordan is 78% of historic Palestine.
Until Israel, the PLO, Jordan, the UN and EU all agree on the boundaries of historic Palestine– any hope for ending the 100-years conflict between Arabs and Jews remains a mirage.

(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 Triumphs as Oman and Brazil Step Up and PLO Bows Out

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

He writes:

Oman has broken ranks with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) by endorsing President Trump’s efforts to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict.

The PLO has made it crystal-clear on many occasions that it wanted nothing to do with Trump’s upcoming proposals.

The PLO Central Council also threatened on 30 October to suspend its recognition of the State of Israel and halt security coordination with Israel.

Addressing the 14^th Middle East Security Summit in Manama, Bahrein, Yousef Bin Alawi – Oman’s Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs  – declared:

“I would like to tell you very clearly that we call, we request and we affirm and confirm that the main role is mainly relying on the role of the US and what the US president will be doing regarding the deal of the century, because we want this effort to be very successful and to lead to getting rid of all the problems that we have faced recently or during the last 40/50 years.”

Oman had in the previous week hosted separate visits within days of each other by PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Alawi still continued to utter the following Arab mantra to the Summit – which would not have impressed Trump:

“We consider that the Palestinian issue is the core of all the problems that we have seen during the second half of the last century and the 18 years of the 21st Century. We have to see how we can solve this problem and find a future for a new generation of young persons in this area who can really live with the other generations of this world into the future.”

Conflicts in Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Kuwait and the rampage by Islamic State – all having nothing to do with the Palestinian issue – strangely seem to have escaped Alawi’s purview.

The Palestinian issue had not even been referred to once in an earlier keynote address to the Summit by US Secretary for Defense, James Mattis.

Alawi returned to reality when answering a question posed to him:

“How can we involve Israel and prompt it to contribute to the affairs of the region? I am going to say something that I say for the first time. Israel is a state that is present in this region. We all understand this, we know this; the world is also aware of this fact. But despite that, Israel is not being treated by the other countries as it is treating the other countries. Maybe it is time for Israel to be treated the same and it should also bear the same obligations as other countries. Why? Those are really facts. History says that the Torah saw the light in the Middle East, that the prophets of Israel were born in the Middle East, and that the Jews also used to live in this area of the world.”

Building on this reality is key to ending the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Meanwhile, Brazil’s President-Elect – Jair Bolsonaro – announced that Brazil was moving its Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, tweeting:

“Israel is a sovereign state and we shall duly respect that.”

Balsonaro – echoing the Trump administration’s stance – also announced he will close the Palestinian embassy in Brasilia stating:

“Is Palestine a country? Palestine is not a country, so there should be no embassy here”

The 22 member Arab League includes Oman, the “State of Palestine” and Brazil as an observer state – whilst the 134 members of the G77 include all three.  Some soul-searching by fellow-members is urgently required.

Trump’s focus on reality – not fantasy – is bearing fruit.

(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)

Posh Spite?

As we see here, Mahmoud Abbas, who's already on record as denying the Holocaust, has made despicable remarks regarding Jews in a long rambling speech:

Part of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1tATSiX_wI

I happened to notice this exchange on Facebook regarding Mahmoud Abbas's remarks between Professor Kamel Hawwash of the University of Birmingham in the UK and one Giles Leveson-Gower, whose posh surname (pronounced Looson-Gore) grabbed my attention because I'm a naval history buff and John Leveson-Gower was a well-known officer in George III's Navy.

And then I remembered that some of the Leveson-Gowers benefitted from, er, land occupation and a sort of, um, ethnic cleansing.

Remember reading in the history books about the dastardly Highland Clearances (1811-20) that dispossessed thousands of Scottish crofters, forcing many of them in desperation into exile across the Atlantic, and Down Under too?

Who was one of the principal architects of the Highlanders' forced evictions?

Why, none other than the snooty-looking chap above, aristocratic and plutocratic English MP Granville Leveson-Gower (eldest son of the first Marquess of Stafford), who added to his already abundant riches when in 1785 he married the Scottish Countess of Sutherland in her own right and then conceived the idea of moving the peasantry, ending up as the first Duke of Sutherland.

Ah, well.

Funny old world innit.

David Singer:Arab Summit Helps Trump Break Jordan-PLO-Israel Impasse

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

He writes:

The 29th Arab Summit – concluded in Dhahran on 15 April – has presented President Trump with a wonderful opportunity to circumvent the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) refusal to consider Trump’s eagerly-awaited proposals to end the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and Sudan received scant attention – the Summit’s final communique declaring:

“We reaffirm that the Palestine Cause is the entire Arab nation's main priority, stressing the Arab identity of occupied East Al-Quds as the capital of the State of Palestine.”

Using the term “Palestine Cause” rather than “Palestinian cause” indicates the Arab world now intends focusing on recovering territory lost in the 1967 Six Day War without necessarily creating another Palestinian Arab state – in addition to Jordan – in former Palestine.

The communique further reinforced this interpretation when adding:

“The conflict could be ended through a two-state solution that guarantees the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the borders of 4 July 1967 with East Al-Quds as its capital.”

Using the words “could be ended” rather than “can only be ended” is highly significant in the context of this long-running conflict where every word uttered is invariably scrutinised and analysed in great detail.

The Summit’s declared “two-state solution” – pressed for the last 25 years by the PLO and the Arab League and endorsed by the United Nations and the European Union as the only solution to end the Arab-Jewish conflict – is now being seen by the Arab world as just one possible solution.

The Dhahran Communique downgraded the PLO’s sole-spokesman status:

“We consider the Jordanian authorities as the only body in charge of the administration, maintenance and access to Al-Aqsa Mosque”

This unequivocal Arab endorsement of Jordan challenges the PLO having any future control or influence in the most sensitive area of crucial concern to the Islamic world in Jerusalem – the Moslem holy sites.

Jordan has maintained its presence in Jerusalem as Islamic Holy Shrines Custodian for the last 24 years as a result of the 1994 Peace Agreement between Jordan and Israel – article 9 declaring:

“1. Each Party will provide freedom of access to places of religious and historical significance.

2. In this regard, 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.

3. The Parties will act together to promote interfaith relations among the three monotheistic religions, with the aim of working towards religious understanding, moral commitment, freedom of religious worship, and tolerance and peace.”

The Washington Declaration – signed by His Majesty King Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the White House on July 25, 1994 in the presence of President Clinton – formally ended the 46-year state of war between Jordan and Israel.

The Washington Declaration is testament to America’s role as the only power possessing the prestige and clout to change Arab and Jewish perceptions on resolving their long-running conflict.
Jordan’s special role in Jerusalem recognised by the Summit closely follows PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s recent assertion that Jordanians and Palestinians are indeed one people.

Resolving the “Palestine Cause” remains more easily achievable in negotiations between Israel and Jordan within the framework of their existing peace treaty – rather than resuming fruitless negotiations pursued over the last 25 years between Israel and the PLO.

Ending the 100-years-old “Palestine Curse” which has so terribly afflicted both Jews and Arabs could well be within Trump’s grasp thanks to the Dhahran Summit.

(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’s Bolton Appointment Signals Curtains for Abbas and PLO

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

He writes:

President Trump’s appointment of John Bolton as National Security Adviser flags the possibility that the centrepiece of Trump’s eagerly-awaited “ultimate deal” could involve the subdivision of Judea and Samaria (“the West Bank”) and Gaza between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

Such tripartite negotiations would replace the stale-mated Israeli-Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) negotiations – begun in 1993 until suspended in 2014 following a PLO walk-out – at the stage where:

1. The PLO was demanding a new Palestinian Arab State with Jerusalem as its capital in 100% of the West Bank and Gaza (“disputed territories”) for the first time in recorded history – which was unacceptable to Israel.

2. Offers by Israel in 2000/2001 and 2007 to cede its claims to sovereignty in about 95% of the disputed territories had been rejected by the PLO.

3. The 1993 Oslo Accords had seen the West Bank divided into three Areas - “A”, “B’ and “C”:

· “A” (18%) - under total PLO administrative and security control.

· “B” (22%) - under total PLO administrative control and joint Israel-PLO security control

· “C” (60%) - under total Israeli administrative and security control

4. Israel and the PLO had been negotiating the final status of the disputed territories under President Bush’s 2003 Roadmap – endorsed by the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.

President Bush had given Israel written commitments on 14 April 2004 – overwhelmingly endorsed by the US Congress – to support Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza – which Israel honoured in 2005. America committed it would not expect Israel to withdraw from 100% of the disputed territories.

5. Hamas had governed Gaza since 2007 – as Egypt had between 1948 and 1967.

Abbas and the PLO have recently:

1. Rejected considering any future Trump proposals following Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital 

2. Declared the Oslo Accords “dead”.

Enter Trump-appointee John Bolton into this Israel-PLO standoff – as President Trump ponders how to fill this negotiating void.

Bolton has an answer  – provided with amazing prescience on 5 January 2009 in his Washington Post article headlined “The Three-State Solution”:

“Let's start by recognizing that trying to create a Palestinian Authority from the old PLO has failed and that any two-state solution based on the PA is stillborn. Hamas has killed the idea, and even the Holy Land is good for only one resurrection. Instead, we should look to a "three-state" approach, where Gaza is returned to Egyptian control and the West Bank in some configuration reverts to Jordanian sovereignty. Among many anomalies, today's conflict lies within the boundaries of three states nominally at peace. Having the two Arab states re-extend their prior political authority is an authentic way to extend the zone of peace and, more important, build on governments that are providing peace and stability in their own countries. "International observers" or the like cannot come close to what is necessary; we need real states with real security forces.” 

Bolton still retains these views – 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”

Saudi Arabia’s backing can be anticipated.

Bolton’s appointment is shaping up as yet another Trump-inspired circuit breaker.

Trump’s decision to accept Bolton’s advice would spell curtains for Abbas and the PLO and give Trump the momentum he needs to get meaningful Israel-Arab negotiations started. 

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

David Singer: Israel, Trump and United Nations Should Boycott Abbas and PLO

This is the blog's second post today.

The first (click back to previous post, don't miss it!) foreshadows anti-Israel activist Stephen Sizer's (he's the clean-shaven one, at left) imminent visit Down Under, which I'll be following with interest, and of course concern.

And here's the second, the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

David writes:

Click HERE for details

Israel’s Prime Minister – Benjamin Netanyahu – has used his address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – to savage the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) policy that rewards Palestinian murderers of Israelis and other innocent civilians with lifetime payments.


Netanyahu’s PLO-onslaught in front of 18000 people attending the annual AIPAC Conference in Washington was unequivocal and unrelenting:

“But to get peace, to get peace President Abbas has to embrace peace and to stop supporting terror. Raise your hands high if you agree with me that President Abbas should stop paying terrorists who murder Jews. You know how much he pays? He pays about $350 million dollars a year to terrorists and their families, each year. That’s about a little less than 10% of the total Palestinian budget. That’s an incredible number. He pays Hakim Awad. Hakim Awad is the terrorist who murdered this beautiful family of Ehud and Ruth Fogel and their three children, including a 3 month-old baby girl, Hadas. So he pays Hakim Awad, this murderer, and over the lifetime of this killer, he will be receiving two million dollars.”

Hakim Awad, aged 18 – and his 19-years-old cousin and accomplice Amjad Awad – each received five consecutive life sentences for murdering the five sleeping Fogel family members in March 2011.


Netanyahu’s attack on Abbas comes at a particularly sensitive time politically as:

· President Trump mulls over the final details of his “ultimate deal” to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict 

· PLO chief – Mahmoud Abbas – has already signaled he will not enter into negotiations with Israel mediated by Trump 

· Abbas has called on the United Nations to convene an international peace conference by mid-2018 to accept the non-existent “State of Palestine” as a full UN member

 · The US Senate is currently considering the Taylor Force Act – overwhelmingly passed by the House in December 2017  – suspending US financial assistance to the PLO, and any successor or affiliated organizations until these payments are terminated. Taylor Force – a US citizen – was murdered on 8 March 2016 by a Palestinian Arab during a stabbing spree in Tel Aviv that also injured ten other people. 

· Israel’s Knesset has passed the first reading of a bill requiring such blood-money presently being paid to 35000 Palestinian families to be deducted from the US$2.1 billion in taxes and tariffs Israel presently collects for the PLO.

· Abbas - 83 and in poor health – faces challengers to his leadership

Palestinian prisoners serving 20-30 year sentences for these murderous attacks reportedly receive a monthly US$3400 stipend for life.Those receiving a three-to-five-year sentence get a monthly wage of US$570. Palestinian prisoners who are married, have children, live in Jerusalem, or hold Israeli citizenship receive additional payments.

Trump called on Abbas to abandon this immoral and heinous policy during a joint press conference in Bethlehem in May 2017:

“Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded”

Just one month later Jared Kushner – Trump’s son-in-law and chief Middle East adviser – and Trump’s international negotiator Jason Greenblatt – met with Abbas in Ramallah.

According to reports in Arabic media, the Americans then allegedly watered down Trump’s demands – only wanting these payments stopped to some 600 prisoners serving life sentences in Israeli prisons.

Abbas defiantly rejected that proposal.


Abbas seems to believe he can publicly humiliate Trump and escape the consequences.

Monetary retaliation is a totally inadequate response to the indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians.


Israel, Trump and the United Nations should boycott Abbas and the PLO by terminating all diplomatic contact until their vile and repulsive “murder for money” policy is ended.

David Singer: Abbas Dumps Trump, Embraces United Nations

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

He writes:

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas signed his own suicide note after another blistering attack on
America in the United Nations Security Council on 20 February.
Abbas told the Security Council:

“The United States has contradicted itself and contradicted its own commitments and has violated international law and the relevant resolutions with its decision regarding Jerusalem. So, it has become impossible today for one country or State alone to solve a regional or international conflict without the participation of other international partners. Therefore, to solve the Palestine question, it is essential to establish a multi-lateral international mechanism emanating from an international conference and in line with international law and the relevant resolutions.”

Exiting the meeting immediately after this verbal barrage – Abbas did not hear US Ambassador to
the UN – Nikki Haley – giving him this serve:

“I will decline the advice I was recently given by your top negotiator, Saeb Erekat. I will not shut up. Rather, I will respectfully speak some hard truths. The Palestinian leadership has a choice to make between two different paths. There is the path of absolutist demands, hateful rhetoric, and incitement to violence. That path has led, and will continue to lead, to nothing but hardship for the Palestinian people. Or, there is the path of negotiation and compromise. History has shown that path to be successful for Egypt and Jordan, including the transfer of territory. That path remains open to the Palestinian leadership, if only it is courageous enough to take it.”

Haley was still smarting from Erekat's intemperate "shut up" outburst on 31 January when he 
also described Haley as "impudent" – whilst Abbas’s two hour anti-American diatribe on 14
January and Abbas’s refusal to meet American Vice-President Mike Pence also contributed to
Abbas's public dressing down.

Abbas is perfectly entitled to choose the United Nations path to pursue his agenda seeking to
create a second Arab State in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan which comprises 78% of
former Palestine. However he cannot possibly achieve that result facing a certain US veto in the Security Council.

Haley made Abbas's choices and America's intentions crystal-clear  – warning Abbas:

"You can choose to denounce the United States, reject the U.S. role in peace talks, and pursue punitive measures against Israel in international forums like the UN. I assure you that path will get the Palestinian people exactly nowhere toward the achievement of their aspirations. Or, you can choose to put aside your anger about the location of our embassy, and move forward with us toward a negotiated compromise that holds great potential for improving the lives of the Palestinian people. Putting forward old talking points and entrenched and undeveloped concepts achieves nothing. That approach has been tried many times, and has always failed. After so many decades, we welcome new thinking."

Choosing the United Nations over direct negotiations with Israel will disqualify the PLO from
participating in Trump’s proposed "ultimate deal" to end the Arab-Jewish conflict  – details of which
still remain shrouded in secrecy.

President Trump's "new thinking" could see Jordan and Egypt replacing the PLO in future
negotiations with Israel to determine the allocation of sovereignty between these three States in
Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza – the last remaining 5% of the territory of the Mandate
for Palestine still claimed by both Arabs and Jews. 

Abbas's "new thinking"  – claiming [here too] Palestinian Arabs are descended from the long-extinct
Canaanites – grossly insulted the Security Council's intelligence.

Abbas has committed political suicide, dumping Trump and embracing the United Nations.  Trump's
response will be far-reaching and the consequences dire for those whom Abbas purports to represent.

"Abbas is Making Himself Irrelevant" (video)

Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton condemns Abbas's speech (be sure to see previous post by David Singer), sniffs an appeal to antisemitism within it, and suggests that Jordan's King Abdullah should take over parts of the West Bank ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41dMB_EFP5s

David Singer: Trump, Kushner, Greenblatt Flirt With Phantom Palestinian Authority

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

He writes:

President Trump has made a poor start in attempting to broker an end to the Jewish-Arab conflict by initially engaging with the “Palestinian Authority” – an entity that no longer legally exists.

Trump’s White House communique on 21 June highlights his glaring tactical error:

“Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner, Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt, and United States Consul General in Jerusalem Donald Blome met today in Ramallah with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and his senior advisors.”

The Office of the Historian in the State Department faithfully records the creation of the Palestinian Authority under “Milestones in the History of US Foreign Relations” (Milestones):

“On September 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Negotiator Mahmoud Abbas signed a Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, commonly referred to as the “Oslo Accord,” at the White House. Israel accepted the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians, and the PLO renounced terrorism and recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace. Both sides agreed that a Palestinian Authority (PA) would be established and assume governing responsibilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over a five-year period.”

However on 3 January 2013 Abbas unilaterally signed the Palestinian Authority’s death certificate when issuing the following Decree:

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

Quite bizarrely, the Palestinian Authority’s 2013 demise was never recorded in Milestones.

The reason was only made clear on 9 May 2017 when the Office of the Historian reported it had retired Milestones which was no longer being maintained or expanded.

The Office explained that it had completed a review of its online offerings in Milestones and concluded that extensive resources would be needed to revise and expand its publication of any further developments in the subject matters dealt with up to 2000 to meet the Office’s standards for accuracy and comprehensiveness. The timing of this announcement came just six days after the White House visit by “President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority”.

Indeed the full terms of the Abbas Decree  – introduced with “minimal ceremony or fanfare” – can only be found to my knowledge in an article written by John Whitbeck  – identified as having been:

“in Madrid in October 1991 to contribute ideas for the Palestinian speeches delivered at the conference which launched the "peace process," in Cairo in April/May 1994 as a legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team which negotiated the Gaza/Jericho Withdrawal Agreement (the first "post-Oslo" agreement) with Israel and near Camp David in July 2000, when the "peace process" effectively ended, to be available to provide legal advice on any documents which emerged from the Arafat/Barak/Clinton summit.” 

 Whitbeck summarises the effect of the Abbas Decree:

“By this decree, the Palestinian Authority, created for a five-year interim period pursuant to the Oslo Declaration of Principles signed on the White House lawn in September 1993, has been absorbed and replaced by the State of Palestine, proclaimed in November 1988, recognized diplomatically by 131 of the 193 UN member states and supported in the recent General Assembly vote by an additional 28 states which have not yet formally recognized it diplomatically.”

Whitbeck’s article does not smack of “fake news”.

Either the Palestinian Authority was absorbed and replaced in 2013 or it still exists in 2017.

Flirting with phantoms is the height of folly and extremely foolish.

David Singer: Deceiving Trump and Tillerson has consequences for Abbas

From this site

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

He writes:

President Trump and Secretary of State Tillerson are quickly learning that tough talk is needed to rein in Mahmoud Abbas – who has deceived Trump and Tillerson twice in the last month.

1. Abbas sweet-talked Trump at the White House on 3 May claiming:

“we are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace.” 

          Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly responded on 4 May:

“I heard President Abbas yesterday say that Palestinians teach their children peace. That’s unfortunately not true. They name their schools after mass murders of Israelis and they pay terrorists”  

         Trump blasted Abbas in Bethlehem on 23 May:

“You tricked me in D.C.! You talked there about your commitment to peace, but the Israelis showed me your involvement in incitement”

 2. Tillerson too was made to look stupid after he had told a Senate hearing on 13 June that he had been informed that Abbas intended ceasing the policy of payments to terrorists. 

Tillerson’s claim was immediately repudiated by Issa Qaraqe, the head of the PA prisoners affairs department:

“This is not true and this statement is an aggression against the Palestinian people”

Such duplicity does not augur well for creating an environment hoping to end the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Straight talking from Trump is needed to:

1. Bury the negotiating process between Abbas and Netanyahu that torpedoed the attempts by President Obama and Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry to end the conflict between 2009 and 2016.

2. Terminate the artificially contrived framework misnamed “the two-state solution” within which previous negotiations have been conducted between Abbas and Netanyahu with total disregard for the origins of the conflict between Jews and Arabs.

That conflict began with the creation by the League of Nations of the Mandate for Palestine on 24 July 1922 following decisions taken by the Principal Allied Powers at the San Remo Conference and the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War 1.

The League of Nations by unanimous resolution of all member States – including Iran – laid down a formula that would see the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home being restricted to an area comprising no more than 23 per cent of the territory covered by the Mandate

In 1946 an Arab State was created in the remaining 77 per cent of Mandatory Palestine and was renamed “the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan”.

In 1948 Israel was created in 17per cent of the territory of the Mandate whilst the remaining 6 percent – Judea and Samaria, Gaza – was conquered and occupied by Transjordan (renamed Jordan in 1950) and Egypt respectively until their loss to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

Arab propaganda has repeatedly and misleadingly claimed that the conflict only began in 1948.
Abbas is but the latest in a long line of failed leaders of the Palestinian Arabs who have rejected all attempts to resolve the conflict based on what was internationally agreed 95 years ago.

Jordan has been exculpated from playing any role in resolving this conflict it was part of from the very inception of the Mandate and which it substantially aggravated between 1948 and 1967.

Trump and Tillerson belong to the old school that uses language whose meaning cannot be misinterpreted.

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Trifling with the truth in conversations with Trump and Tillerson must have political consequences for Abbas.

Hopefully the days of diplomatic doublespeak and ambiguous language are nearing their end.

Bringing Jordan into any new negotiations to finally determine the allocation of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) – an area smaller than Delaware  – is the key to Trump pulling off the deal of the century.

David Singer: France Humiliated by Abbas but Israel Remains Focused

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

He writes:

French foreign policy on resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict has been exposed to ridicule following France’s reported decision to postpone an international conference planned for December 21.

Originally proposed on 3 June – France’s blatant attempt to replace the conduct of direct negotiations between Israel and the PLO – as provided for in the internationally approved Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap – has embarrassingly fallen flat on its face.

In a document issued in September explaining France’s position – the French Foreign Office asserted:

"France has launched a two-phase initiative. A ministerial meeting, first, took place in Paris on June 3rd 2016, without the Israelis and Palestinians, in order to reaffirm the international community’s commitment to the two-State solution. At that meeting, the main international actors expressed their willingness to create a framework and incentives so that credible negotiations can resume. An international conference, to which all parties will be invited, will be organized in the second half of 2016 for this purpose."

Surely it would have been much easier – and certainly much cheaper and more effective – for France to pick up the phone and invite both Israel and the PLO to Paris to sit down and resume their negotiations (stalled since 2014) without pre-conditions and outside foreign interference.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had publicly expressed his readiness to do so on many occasions – but PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas refused to indicate his willingness to do likewise.

The international community may well be concerned to see the two-state solution – the creation of a second Arab State in former Palestine in addition to Jordan – slowly sinking into oblivion.

However the way to resuscitate it was not by calling an international conference – but by threatening both parties with retaliatory action if they failed to meet somewhere at some nominated time and place.

Netanyahu made it very clear to France on 7 December that he would be willing to attend such a one-on-one meeting with Abbas if the conference planned for December 21 was cancelled.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke, by telephone, with French President François Hollande a short while ago today and told him that if there is no international conference in Paris, he would come to meet with Abu Mazen for direct talks without preconditions.

Israel will not attend an international conference, which will not contribute to achieving peace.”

France has the undoubted diplomatic and economic clout to influence Abbas – as the French Foreign Office acknowledges:

“France is an active contributor to Palestine’s economic development and the consolidation of the institutions of the future Palestinian State. It devotes considerable sums (close to €400 million for the period 2008-2014, and €40 million in 2015) to aid for Palestine, about a third of which is destined for Gaza. Palestine remains the leading beneficiary of French budgetary assistance.”

Why France’s President Hollande allows Abbas to humiliate France by refusing to take up Netanyahu’s offer is a mystery. France’s foreign policy itself is a pure flight of fancy – declaring:

“France considers that the conflict will only be resolved through the creation of a viable and democratic independent Palestinian State, living in peace and security alongside Israel.”

The idea that any Palestinian State will ever be democratic is as fanciful as France’s belief that its planned international conference could ever succeed.

There are solutions – other than the two-state solution – to end the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict.

Perhaps it is time France turned its attention to investigating alternative solutions  rather than pushing for a solution whose use by date has surely expired since first being proposed in 1993.

David Singer: European Union Acclaims Abbas Whilst Flogging Farage

Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer shines a spotlight on an important aspect of the moral bankruptcy of the bloated tyrannous juggernaut that is the European Union.

He writes:

Brexit proponent Nigel Farage has been branded a liar by the European Parliament (EUP) – but PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas can lie compulsively without the slightest EUP remonstration or rebuke.

Such hypocrisy and double standards surfaced during addresses by Abbas and Farage to the EUP within the last week. Farage told those assembled:

“The biggest problem you’ve got and the main reason the UK voted the way it did is because you have by stealth and deception, and without telling the truth to the rest of the peoples of Europe, you have imposed upon them a political union. When the people in 2005 in the Netherlands and France voted against that political union and rejected the constitution you simply ignored them and brought the Lisbon treaty in through the back door.

What happened last Thursday was a remarkable result – it was a seismic result. Not just for British politics, for European politics, but perhaps even for global politics too.”

Farage taunted the EUP Parliamentarians:

“What I’d like to see is a grownup and sensible attitude to how we negotiate a different relationship. I know that virtually none of you have never done a proper job in your lives, or worked in business, or worked in trade, or indeed ever created a job. But listen, just listen.”

Amid shouts of protest, the President of the EUP, Martin Schulz, interrupted Farage in full-flight with this rebuke:

“Mr Farage – I would say one thing to you. The fact that you’re claiming that no one has done a decent job in their life – you can’t really say that”.

Jean-Claude Juncker – President of the European Commission – put the boot into Farage amidst thunderous applause:

“You lied. You didn’t tell the truth. You fabricated reality.”  

 Abbas’s address contained a litany of lies based on a fabricated reality from the outset:

“I would also like to thank you all for all the different kinds of aid you have given, aiding us in institution-building and helping us establish the bases for a democratic regime which will be stable in the future and which will be able to comply with international criteria for democracy, and in particular we want to establish a proper rule of law and proper respect for human rights.”

EUP parliamentarians – including Shulz and Juncker – silently swallowed these soothing words despite:

* Gazan and West Bank Arabs having been denied the right to vote since 2006 or to choose a President to replace Abbas whose term of office had expired in 2010.

* The “Palestinian National Authority” having been unilaterally disbanded by Abbas by decree on 3 January 2013

* Honour killings and victimisation of gays continuing under Abbas’s regime

* Life imprisonment being imposed for selling land to Jews.

A duplicitous Abbas further claimed:

“Our history has been, frankly, one of a continued existence in this territory since the dawn of civilization until now”

Utter nonsense.

The “Palestinians” were defined for the first time in history in 1964 by article 6 of the PLO Charter:

“The Palestinians are those Arab citizens who were living normally in Palestine up to 1947, whether they remained or were expelled. Every child who was born to a Palestinian parent after this date whether in Palestine or outside is a Palestinian.”

The Arab citizens of Palestine formed part of the “existing non-Jewish communities” in the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

Exclusively high-jacking the term “Palestinians” constitutes racist-inspired semantic fraud.

Acclaim – not derision or condemnation – was the disgraceful EUP response to these and further outrageous lies.

Farage pointedly told the EUP:

“You as a political project are in denial”

Never were truer words spoken.

David Singer: Palestine – France, Farce and Folly

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer, who writes:

France embarked on a journey to nowhere when it hosted 28 delegations in Paris for a ministerial meeting on 3 June marking the first phase of its initiative aimed at promoting peace in the Middle East. Amid the pomp and ceremony, photo opportunities and handshakes, the final communique revealed:

1. Support was reaffirmed for a just, lasting and comprehensive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The conflict actually requiring resolution is the Jewish-Arab conflict going back to 1917 – well before Israel’s creation in 1948 – which still sees 20 Arab States today denying the Jews the legal rights vested in them by the Mandate for Palestine to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical and historical homeland.

Only Jordan and Egypt have recognised and signed peace treaties with Israel.

The “Palestinians” were regarded as part of the “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” by the League of Nations in 1922 and not recognized as a people by the United Nations in the 1947 Partition Plan.

The 1964 PLO Covenant is their birth certificate. PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s claim on 6 June that the “Palestinians” had a 5000 years old history is farcical.

 Paris remained blinded.

 2. A negotiated two-state solution was reaffirmed as the only way to achieve an enduring peace, with two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.

That “two-state solution” – first proposed in 1947  – was available at any time between 1948 and 1967, was again offered in 2000/1 and 2008 but was always rejected by the Arabs.

Flogging that dead horse is a waste of time.

The “two-state solution” envisioned by the League of Nations in 1922 and the Peel Commission in 1937 provides the best opportunity for peacefully resolving Jewish and Arab territorial claims in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza.

Guess the delegates were too busy quaffing champagne and tasting canapes to focus on other solutions than the artificially contrived, totally failed and utterly discredited 1947-2016 “two-state” solution.

3. Rebuilding trust and creating the conditions for fully ending the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and resolving all permanent status issues through direct negotiations based on resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), and also recalling relevant United Nations Security

Council resolutions and highlighting the importance of the implementation of the Arab Peace Initiative.

“Fully ending” the 1967 occupation means kicking 65,0000 Jews out of their homes. What were they thinking – and drinking?

Israel agreed to negotiate with the PLO under the 2003 Bush Roadmap only on the basis of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.

Introducing new negotiating parameters now is incredibly fanciful.

4. Possible ways in which the international community could help advance the prospects for peace, including by providing meaningful incentives to the parties to make peace.

Direct negotiations between Israel, Jordan and Egypt would fit these objectives.

5. The participants highlighted the key role of the Quartet.

The Quartet lost its key role in July 2015 when:

 (i) The Quartet’s representative Tony Blair stood down with no replacement

 (ii) Blair’s office—the Office of the Quartet Representative (OQR) - was renamed the Office of the Quartet (OQ) and its stated mandate was expressed:

“to support the Palestinian people on economic development, rule of law and improved movement and access for goods and people, as they build the institutions and economy of a viable and peaceful state in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

Jews became persona non grata overnight as the Quartet’s previously independent non- partisan role was superseded.

 France’s follow-up international conference being organised before the end of the year promises further farce and continuing folly.

David Singer: End the West Bank Refugee Gravy Train

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

He writes:

With more than three million Syrians fleeing war-torn Syria seeking safe havens in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Europe – scarce United Nations resources continue to be used supporting and maintaining about 760,000 Palestinian Arabs currently living in the West Bank and registered as “refugees” with the United Nations Relief And Works Agency (UNRWA).

Their refugee categorization and status was changed on 3 January 2013 when PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas replaced the “Palestinian Authority” with the “State of Palestine” by this decree: 

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

 John Whitbeck – a legal advisor to the Palestinian team in negotiations with Israel – has written on the significance of this name change: 

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

Abbas’s semantic ploy had left Israel without its designated negotiating partner under the Oslo Accords and had effectively ended negotiations for the creation a Palestinian State under the Bush Roadmap.

The institutions of the so-called “State of Palestine” had replaced the “Palestinian Authority” in some 40 per cent of the West Bank designated under the Oslo Accords as Areas “A” and B”– assuming full administrative control over 95 per cent of the entire West Bank Arab population  including about 190000 Palestinian Arab refugees living in 19 camps whilst the remaining 570000 lived in towns and villages.

UNRWA funds:

* 97 schools with 51,327 pupils

* 2 vocational and technical training centres

* 42 primary health centres

* 15 community rehabilitation centres

* 18 women’s programme centres 

 UNRWA explains: 

'UNRWA is unique in terms of its long-standing commitment to one group of refugees. It has contributed to the welfare and human development of four generations of Palestine refugees, defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.”

The descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children, are also eligible for registration.

UNRWA services are available to all those living in its areas of operations who meet this definition, who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance.'

As of 14 September 2015, 136 of the 193 United Nations member states have been playing the PLO name-game change and recognised the “State of Palestine”.

These 136 States now need to answer two questions: 

1. How can any person living in his own country still be classified as a refugee?

2. Shouldn’t the 760,000 registered Palestinian Arab refugees living in the West Bank have their refugee status revoked and be resettled and fully integrated among their fellow Palestinian Arabs?

Claiming the trappings of Statehood – whilst segregating its citizens into two different classes – is a recipe for continuing tension and future conflict.

Change the name – change the game – but be prepared to accept the consequences.

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.