David Singer: PLO Suicide Note Leaves Jordan to Decide Fate of West Bank

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

He writes:

President Trump has been given the clearest notice that his deal of the century will be stillborn if he designates any role for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in its implementation.

In a remarkable outburst that can best be described as his “suicide note”– PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared on 25 July:

“I reiterate that we will not surrender, we will not coexist with the occupation and we will not deal with the deal of deal of the century, or the slap of the century or the deal of shame - all names for one title. Palestine and Jerusalem are not for sale and bargain. They are not a real estate deal in a real estate company.”

Yet for the last 25 years the PLO – aided and abetted by Jordan – has refused to yield its claim to sovereignty over every square meter of West Bank real estate – when compromise could possibly have resolved the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

Two days prior to Abbas’ suicide note , the US Congress in a rare show of bipartisanship had offered the PLO a lifeline to enable it to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s yet-to-be-released proposals – overwhelmingly passing House Resolution 246 by a vote of 398-17 with 5 voting ‘present’.
Resolution 246:

• Urged: Israelis and Palestinians to return to direct negotiations as the only way to achieve an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• ...Reaffirmed: its strong support for a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resulting in two states – a democratic Jewish State of Israel, and a viable, democratic Palestinian state – living side-by-side in peace, security, and mutual recognition.

48 hours later Abbas’s suicide note had trashed Congress’s Resolution.

So where to from here?

First some indisputable facts:

• Jews have the legal right to settle in the West Bank under Article 6 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (Mandate) and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.
• Jordan and Israel are the two successor States to the Mandate: Jordan being sovereign in 78% of the Mandate territory and Israel sovereign in 17%....
• 4% of the Mandate’s remaining real estate – Judea and Samaria – was unified with Transjordan between 1950 and 1967 and renamed Jordan – whilst Judea and Samaria were renamed the West Bank….
• The 1964 PLO Charter made no claim to territorial sovereignty “over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan”...
• The revised 1968 PLO Charter declared the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the Mandate and everything based on them null and void....
• West Bank Arabs were Jordanian citizens between 1950 and 1988.
• Abbas and Arafat have acknowledged Jordanians and Palestinians are one people.

Reunifying parts of the West Bank with Jordan in direct negotiations between Jordan and Israel should now be Trump’s objective, recognising the following resolution passed at the 8th meeting of the Palestinian National Council in February-March 1971:

...“Jordan is linked to Palestine by a national relationship and a national unity forged by history and culture from the earliest times. The creation of one political entity in Transjordan and another in Palestine would have no basis either in legality or as to the elements universally accepted as fundamental to a political entity.... In raising the slogan of the liberation of Palestine and presenting the problem of the Palestine revolution, it was not the intention of the Palestine revolution to separate the east of the River from the West, nor did it believe the struggle of the Palestinian people can be separated from the struggle of the masses in Jordan…”

Abbas has written his suicide note .... Trump shouldn’t demean himself begging Abbas to reconsider.

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: PLO Blocks West Bank Arabs Leaving for a Better Life

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

He writes:

Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Saeb Erekat has told a political symposium in Jericho that West Bank Arabs would not be allowed to voluntarily leave  ̶  virtually holding them captives against their will.

Erekat stated:

“We will not allow resettlement or formation of refugee committees for that aim, while holding on to the settlement of their cause in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions.”

Michael Lynk  ̶  the United Nations Human Rights Council’s “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967”  ̶  had issued a statement on June 28 endorsing the right to freedom of movement  ̶  enshrined in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Erekat’s outrageous threat was not responding to Lynk’s comments  ̶  but to leaked reports claiming the United States might be seeking the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in at least five Arab neighbouring countries.

If confirmed, West Bank Arabs could well be prepared to voluntarily leave the West Bank in large numbers  ̶  especially if offered the opportunity to legally enter other Arab countries and receive financial assistance for rehousing and resettlement there.

President Trump has a massive US$28.7 billion possibly available to aid West Bank Arabs who want to emigrate,  being the money he wanted to plough into revitalising the West Bank and Gaza  ̶  which both the PLO and Hamas unbelievably rejected.

Given the state of relationships between Israel, the PLO and Hamas  ̶  spending that money earmarked for projects within the West Bank and Gaza was a highly questionable exercise that could have seen the destruction of such projects in future conflicts between these three long-time enemies.

Helping those desperate to emigrate who have suffered the perverse decisions of the PLO during the last 25 years is a much more targeted use of the money  ̶  guaranteeing a far better outcome for West Bank Arabs and their families.

The 2019 Human Rights Watch Report evidences the toxic nature of the West Bank:

• the PLO arrested activists who criticized their leaders, security forces, or policies, and mistreated and tortured some in their custody.
• The Independent Commission for Human Rights in Palestine (ICHR), a statutory commission charged with monitoring human rights compliance by the Palestinian authorities, received 205 complaints of torture and ill-treatment by West Bank security forces as of October 31, 2018.
• In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israeli security forces fatally shot 27 Palestinians and wounded at least 5,444,
• Attacks by Israeli settlers injured 61 Palestinians and damaged property in 147 incidents.
• Palestinians killed 10 Israelis, including six civilians, and wounded at least 58 in the same period in the West Bank.

Since the 1993 Oslo Accords  ̶  95 per cent of the West Bank Arab population has been under total PLO administrative control.

Real growth declined to around 2 percent in 2018  ̶  lower than its average in previous years. The 2018 unemployment rate was 17.6 percent.  Youth unemployment between ages 15-24 is 29.8 percent. 

The World Bank has concluded that lack of progress towards peace and reconciliation creates an unsustainable economic situation. The PLO has refused to negotiate with Israel since April 2014 and has failed to call elections since 2007.

The only media outlet to report Erekat’s incendiary statement was the Chinese news agency Xinhua.
The remaining media’s failure to report  ̶  and the UN Special Rapporteur’s failure to condemn Erekat’s controversial announcement  ̶  are despicable.

Hopefully President Trump will pressure the PLO to reverse its position and offer a window of opportunity for those to leave who wish to do so.

Offering West Bank Arabs a lifeline to a better future elsewhere is long overdue.

 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 Consigning Russia-PLO Collusion to Dustbin of History

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

He writes:

President Trump’s inexorable march towards releasing his  “deal of the century”  has seen his decisions on Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and the PLO undermining 55 years of Russia-PLO collusion aimed at eliminating the State of Israel and establishing Russian supremacy in the Middle East.

Russia-PLO collusion has caused the deaths of millions of Jews and Arabs, leaving millions more with permanent and debilitating injuries deeply impacting their lives and the lives of their families.
Frontline states seeking Israel’s elimination – Lebanon, Egypt, Syria  Jordan, Libya and Iraq – have seen their societies and public assets adversely affected by war and civil insurrection.
Claire Berlinski  has detailed how Russia-PLO collusion began:

“Following the defeat of the Egyptians in the Six Day War, the Soviets came to a second realization: A conventional military confrontation with Israel, and by extension the West, carried too great a risk of escalating into nuclear war. A change of tactics was required. Gen. Alexander Sakharovsky, then head of the KGB’s intelligence arm, explained this to his East European colleagues: “Terrorism should become our main weapon.” Sakharovsky boasted that airplane hijackings were his own invention; he decorated his office with a world map, covered in flags, each marking a successful hijacking. Though the PLO managed to unite various terrorist organizations, “the supreme headquarters of the whole network was, of course, the Kremlin,” Stroilov writes, and “the evidence accumulated at this point leaves no doubt that the whole system was invented by Moscow as a weapon against the West, and the PLO was a jewel in their crown.”

 The PLO – born in 1964 – expressly disavowed any separate claims to sovereignty in Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem and Gaza. In 1968 the PLO reversed its position – claiming statehood in these very same areas that had been unified with TransJordan in 1950 and renamed Jordan – remaining part of Jordan until their loss to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.
Jordan and Israel were identified by the PLO in 1964 as one indivisible territorial unit to be liberated by the PLO. The PLO unsuccessfully tried to take over Jordan in September 1970.

Terrorist attacks  by the PLO against Israel included:

• November 1969 – the armed attack on the El Al office in Athens, leaving 1 dead and 14 wounded;
• May 1972 – Ben Gurion Airport attack, leaving 22 dead and 76 wounded;
• December 1974 – Tel Aviv movie theatre bomb, leaving 2 dead and 66 wounded;
• March 1975 – Tel Aviv hotel attack leaving 25 dead and 6 wounded;
• May 1975 – Jerusalem bomb, leaving 1 dead and 3 wounded;
• July 1975 – a bomb in Zion Square, Jerusalem, leaving 15 dead and 62 wounded;

Berlinski explains:

“The code-name for this operation against Israel, according to Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking defector from the Soviet Bloc, was “SIG”—Sionistskiye Gosudarstva, or “Zionist Governments.” In a National Review article, Pacepa recalls a conversation he had with KGB chairman Yuri Andropov, who envisioned fomenting “a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world. … We had only to keep repeating our themes—that the United States and Israel were ‘fascist, imperial-Zionist countries’ bankrolled by rich Jews.”

 The Jew-hating PLO has forced itself undemocratically on the Palestinian Arabs for five decades except for one vote in 2006 – which the PLO refused to accept.
International support and recognition afforded the PLO by the United Nations and UNESCO have exacerbated the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict – not help resolve it.
President Trump will be doing the cause of world peace a great service if his peace proposals finally consign this demonic Russia-PLO cabal to the dustbin of history.

(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, 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 Turns Screws as PLO Creates Fake News on Jerusalem and Refugees

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

He writes:
 
President Trump cancelled more than $US200 million in aid to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) this week – following his earlier decisions:

• reducing America’s contribution to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) by about $US300 million and
• recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the US Embassy there.

An infuriated PLO has responded by making the following false claims concerning Jerusalem and aid to refugees in the West Bank and Gaza – which have been uncritically and unquestioningly reported as news:

1. Jerusalem

PLO executive committee member Ahmed Tamimi exclaimed:

“Jerusalem is at the heart of the Palestinian, Arab and Islamic peoples”

This claim contravenes Article 1 of the Palestinian National Charter – which declares:

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

Claiming the “Palestinian people” is a separate and distinct people from the “Arab people” – is deceptive and misleading.

Meanwhile, Husam Zomlot – head of the Palestinian General Delegation to the United States – stated:

“After Jerusalem and UNRWA, this (cutting of aid to the PLO) is another confirmation of abandoning the two-state solution and fully embracing Netanyahu’s anti-peace agenda.”

Negotiations to conclude the  “two state solution” – the creation of  a 22^ndArab state with Jerusalem as its capital – in addition to the Arab state of Jordan created in 78 per cent of former Palestine in 1946 – ended in April 2014 after unsuccessful negotiations spanning 20 years.

Other solutions now need to be explored that should involve Jordan and possibly Egypt negotiating with Israel to return to these two existing Arab states territory once occupied by them in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), East Jerusalem and the Gaza District between 1948 and 1967.

2.   Cutting US financial aid to refugees in the West Bank and Gaza

PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi declared:

“The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale. There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation. The U.S. administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources; now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation.”

 Ashrawi ignored the following facts:

• The West Bank currently has 775,000registered “refugees” – around a quarter of who live in 19 refugee camps– all of which have been under full PLO administrative control since 1993 as designated by the Oslo Accords.
• Gaza has 3 millionregistered “refugees” – of who 500000 currently live in 8 refugee camps– all of which have been under Hamas governance since 2007.
• 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.

The PLO and Hamas have maintained this discriminatory two-tiered refugee segregation system in both Gaza and the West Bank for at least the last ten years.

The failure to close these camps and integrate their residents into the general Gazan and West Bank Arab populations is a damning indictment of Hamas and the PLO.
Expecting Trump to pick up the tab as these inhumane practices continue for crass political purposes is arrogant and unwarranted.

Trump has made it clear these funds will go to relieving genuine refugee distress in other parts of the world.

The PLO’s outright refusal to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s long-awaited peace plan – inflamed by these latest false claims – only ensures the PLO’s increasingly-rapid slide into political irrelevance.

(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 exposes UN hypocrisy on PLO, Hamas and Israel

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

He writes:

President Trump has challenged United Nations (UN) member States to put their money where their mouths are in a hard-hitting speech delivered by US Permanent Representative to the UN – Ambassador Nikki Haley – at a UN Security Council Open Debate on the Middle East on 24 July.

Following Trump’s dressing down of NATO – Haley attacked UN member States who are full of words but short on money when it comes to supporting the Palestinian Arabs.

Haley did not mince her words:

Here at the UN, thousands of miles away from Palestinians who do have real needs, there is no end to the speeches on their behalf. Country after country claims solidarity with the Palestinian people. If those words were useful in the schools, the hospitals, and the streets of their communities, the Palestinian people would not be facing the desperate conditions we are discussing here today. Talk is cheap.
No group of countries is more generous with their words than the Palestinians’ Arab neighbors, and other OIC [Organisation of Islamic Cooperation – ed.]member states. But all of the words spoken here in New York do not feed, clothe, or educate a single Palestinian child. All they do is get the international community riled up.

Haley used members’ contributions to UNRWA to prove her case:

Last year, Iran’s contribution to UNRWA was zero. Algeria’s contribution to UNRWA was zero. Tunisia’s contribution to UNRWA was zero.
Other countries did provide some funding. Pakistan gave $20,000. Egypt gave $20,000. Oman gave $668,000.

Haley did not spare non-Arab and non-Islamic countries from similar naming and shaming:

Other countries talk a big game about the Palestinian cause. In 2017, China provided $350,000 to UNRWA. Russia provided two million dollars to UNWRA.

Haley contrasted America’s generosity:

Last year … the United States gave 364 million dollars… And that’s on top of what the American people give annually to the Palestinians in bilateral assistance. That is another 300 million dollars just last year, and it averages to more than a quarter of a billion dollars every year since 1993.

Haley delivered this stern warning:

“But we are not fools. If we extend a hand in friendship and generosity, we do not expect our hand to be bitten. And as we extend our hand, we also expect others to extend their hands as well.”

Haley emphasised that Arab countries’ giving more money was not the only issue confronting them:

Too often, the Arab countries give just enough money and mouth just enough uncompromising words to stay out of the cross hairs of Palestinian representatives. But if they really cared about the Palestinian people, they would not do that. Instead, they would condemn extremism and they would put forth serious ideas for compromises that could end this struggle and lead to a better life for the Palestinian people. They would tell the Palestinian leadership how foolish they look for condemning a peace proposal [Trumps’ “ultimate deal” – ed.] they haven’t even seen yet.

Haley called out both aberrant PLO and Hamas leaderships:

The Palestinian leadership has been allowed to live a false reality for too long because Arab leaders are afraid to tell them the truth… It is time for the regional states in particular to step up and really help the Palestinian people, instead of just making speeches thousands of miles away.

Those regional States – Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon – can really help by sitting down with Israel and negotiating an end to the 100-years old Arab-Jewish conflict as formulated 51 years ago by UN Security Council Resolution 242.
Delivering this message to the UN has been long overdue.

(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: PLO-Hamas anti-England, anti-Israel Hatred Politicises FIFA World Cup

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

He writes:

Hatred against Britain and Israel surfaced in Gaza as England progressed its way through the World Cup to meet Sweden in the quarter finals.

One Gaza fan was outspoken:

“Of course I will support Sweden.

I can’t imagine a Palestinian supporting England, which created the Balfour Declaration, or not supporting the country that stood before the world and recognized our state.” 

The 1917 Balfour Declaration has never been forgotten or forgiven by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Hamas – both of whom consider the Declaration to be null and void – spending decades in spruiking this false message to their respective constituencies – fomenting Arab hatred against the Jews since the Declaration first called for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

The fuming Gaza fan was expressing his resentment by barracking for Sweden – even though Sweden was one of the 51 countries that transformed the Balfour Declaration into binding international law by unanimously incorporating it in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922.

Our anguished fan was blissfully unaware of these facts having obviously not studied the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict. Anti-England prejudice was enough to back his decision to go for Sweden. True – Sweden had purged itself of its 1922 decision when officially recognizing the State of Palestine in October 2014 – making it the first major European Union member state to back the PLO’s statehood bid.

However in atoning for its 1922 sin, Sweden’s recognition of the “State of Palestine” was a fiction that failed to meet the requirements demanded in international law by Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention which states:

“The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications:

a. A permanent population

b. A defined territory

c. Government

d. Capacity to enter into relations with the other states

FIFA’s admission of the Palestinian Football Federation as a member of FIFA in 1988 had also contravened Article 10.1 of FIFA’s then governing articles:

'Any Association which is responsible for organising and supervising football in its country may become a Member of FIFA. In this context, the expression “country” shall refer to an independent state recognised by the international Community.'

FIFA started living in its own dream world 26 years before Sweden joined it. Who will replace Sweden as Britain’s nemesis was summed up by another fan:

“Anyone supporting England is supporting Israel itself. These teams represent their countries and governments and will raise their flags in the stands. How can I support the country that allowed the Jewish state on our land?”

The Gazan fans are in for a shock and a reality check when they begin choosing one of the three remaining teams – France, Belgium or Croatia – to topple the evil Brits.

France, Belgium and Croatia just happen to have all voted in favour of the Mandate for Palestine incorporating the Balfour Declaration.

The semi-finals, final and third-place playoff will be agony for Gazan viewers as one of these last four countries holds up the trophy on the winner’s podium come finals day – the others the three minor places - with their flags filling Gaza’s TV screens.

The moral is clear – international law cannot be turned on and off as circumstances dictate – because one day the perpetrator will become entrapped in the hopeless position that the Arab States, the PLO and Hamas now find themselves.

Throwing out binding international law – the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine – and falsely creating fake international law – “the State of Palestine” – goes to the heart of why the Arab-Jewish conflict still remains unresolved in 2018.
 
(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: 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: PLO Rejects Trump Lifeline on Negotiations with Israel

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

He writes:

President Trump – still mulling over the release of his ultimate peace deal to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict – has seen the swift rejection of the call by Jason D. Greenblatt – Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations – to have Dr Saeb Erekat replaced as chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in future negotiations with Israel.

Greenblatt raised America’s objection to Erekat in stark and uncompromising terms – alleging Erekat

- failed to contribute to an atmosphere conducive to peace

 - used rhetoric and made claims that were in many respects simply inaccurate

 - had baselessly claimed that Trump’s decision to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem was part of a U.S. attempt to force an Israeli-written agreement on the Palestinians.

  - had failed to acknowledge a significant escalation of rockets fired by Hamas and other militant groups into Israel, which clearly represented the danger that Hamas and these groups present.

Greenblatt asserted that the Palestinian leadership need not shackle themselves to Hamas’s failure – in fact, this should be the Palestinian Authority’s opportunity to do the right thing for the people they lead.

Greenblatt called on Erekat and the Palestinian Authority to reject Hamas’s violence and lies and work with America to bring relief to Gaza where America believed real progress could be made that would lay the foundation for a more hopeful future.

Greenblatt’s reference to the “Palestinian Authority” was strange indeed – since it had been disbanded by written decree issued by PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on 3 January 2013.

Greenblatt stressed it was time to stop indulging in overwrought rhetoric and give the Palestinian people something beyond words. Palestinian leadership must create better lives, not sacrifice those lives for Hamas’ grim agenda of terror.

Greenblatt claimed he had heard many Palestinian voices over the past 16 months and many did not agree with Erekat or his approach. Yet, the sad thing is that most would only meet and speak honestly and openly in private because they are afraid to speak publicly.

Greenblatt summed up:

“Dr. Erekat – we have heard your voice for decades and it has not achieved anything close to Palestinian aspirations or anything close to a comprehensive peace agreement. Other Palestinian perspectives might help us finally achieve a comprehensive peace agreement where Palestinian and Israeli lives can be better.

 The time for leadership and responsibility is now. The time for meeting after meeting of government officials repeating the same talking points is over. The Palestinian people want real action, and they need honest, realistic and decisive solutions.

The notion that Israel is going away – or that Jerusalem is not its capital – is a mirage. The notion that the United States is not the critical interlocutor for the peace process is a mirage.”

In a stinging, vitriolic reply Erekat immediately responded:

“In dozens of meetings we had with Mr. Greenblatt he refused to discuss substance: no borders, no settlements, and no two-state solution. Today, his role is nothing less than peddling Israeli policies to a skeptical international community, and then becomes upset when he’s reminded of this.” 

Erekat will remain in his decades-long position unless pulmonary fibrosis prevents him physically discharging his current role. Erekat’s replacement would undoubtedly continue the same failed tactics adopted by Erekat.

Erekat’s predictable response should be seen as yet one more reason justifying Trump’s emerging strategy to replace the PLO with Jordan, Egypt and possibly Saudi Arabia in negotiations with Israel on the future of Gaza, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and East Jerusalem.

Rejecting Trump’s proffered lifeline ensures the PLO will play no part in future negotiations on Trump’s ultimate deal.

(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 here.)

David Singer: Trump Takes High Road as Abbas, PLO and Hamas Implode

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

He writes:

President Trump’s soon-to-be released “ultimate deal” – aimed at resolving the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict – seems set to see Trump not offering the PLO a seat at the negotiating table with Israel.

This possibility follows two extraordinary outbursts by PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas:

· attacking Hamas – ending any prospects of reconciliation between the PLO and Hamas and

· publicly disparaging US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman – whom Abbas called “son of a dog”

The wheels fell off the much-publicised Hamas-PLO reconciliation at a PLO leadership meeting in Ramallah on 19 March when Abbas accused Hamas of being responsible for the assassination attempt against Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and chief of intelligence Majid Faraj in Gaza the previous week.

Abbas threatened retaliatory action against Hamas which was undisguised and unequivocal:

"I have decided to take national, legal and financial measures to protect out national project. We never thought of punishing any Palestinian citizen, not in the West Bank or Gaza. But we have to say where the wrong is and where the crime is. This situation is not acceptable."

Abbas accused Hamas of sabotaging all efforts for reconciliation – saying that either the Palestinian government takes full charge of everything in Gaza or the de facto authority (Hamas) remains fully responsible for it: 

"We did all we can to make the reconciliation a success, but, unfortunately, the result for empowering the government was zero. We have been working hard for six months and got nothing, not the government, not the crossings, not security, nothing. It's all hypocrisy. They don't want reconciliation … There aren't two sides to the division, rather only one side that is consolidating it and enforces an illegal de facto situation"

Abbas said he would not wait for Hamas' investigation into the assassination attempt "because we know that they, Hamas, are behind it" – adding that assassinations are not new to Hamas whose history is full of similar acts warning that the attempt will not go without reaction.

This latest bout of in-fighting between the PLO and Hamas highlights the bitter internecine conflict they have engaged in since 2007 for control of the hearts and minds of the Gazan and West Bank Arab populations. It underscores the continuing refusal of Hamas and the PLO to give these long-suffering populations any say in their own future for the last 11 years. It haunts the utter inability of the PLO to conclude a peace agreement with Israel after negotiations spanning the last 25 years.

Free and fair elections in Gaza and the West Bank are long overdue. Yet not a word is heard from the United Nations or the European Union calling on both Hamas and the PLO to replace bullets with ballots.

America designated Hamas as a terrorist organisation in 1987 – so believing that the PLO can play any constructive role in resolving Gaza’s future without succeeding in violently overthrowing Hamas is illusory.

Trump’s recently-assembled coalition comprising Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, and Oman offers far better hope that Trump’s proposals might be ultimately translated into a binding Arab-Jewish peace treaty – with Arab recognition finally of the Jewish State 70 years after its establishment.

Trump will not take kindly to Abbas’s personal denigration of Ambassador Friedman. Trump should not be surprised if he, UN Ambassador Haley and Trump’s Middle East envoys Kushner and Greenblatt are soon on the receiving end of similar epithets.

Trump is taking the high road to possible peace – leaving Abbas, the PLO and Hamas wallowing on the murky low road engaging in further conflict and becoming politically irrelevant.

[Author’s note: The cartoon appearing with this article is the work of 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: Israel-Jordan Negotiations Could Follow PLO Threat to Boycott Trump

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

He writes:

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) threat to refuse to negotiate with Israel unless President Trump withdraws his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel could see Jordan replacing the PLO as Israel’s negotiating partner to end the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

This threat – unless unconditionally revoked – would give Trump the opportunity to consign the PLO to the political wilderness by inviting Jordan to step in and negotiate with Israel over Trump’s eagerly-anticipated “ultimate deal”.

Jordan-Israel negotiations would offer Jordan the opportunity to recover a substantial part of Judea and Samaria (“West Bank”) annexed by Jordan in 1950 – albeit illegally – but subsequently lost to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War (“disputed territory”).

Should Jordan buck at entering into such negotiations – some 60% of the disputed territory – under Israel’s full administrative and security control since the 1995 Oslo Accords and containing just 5% of the West Bank’s entire Arab population (“Area C”) – could be annexed by Israel.

PLO-Israel negotiations over the last twenty-five years – with United Nations, UNESCO and European Union backing – aimed at creating a 22nd Arab state in the disputed territory for the first time ever in recorded history – have failed abysmally.

Such a State was an artificially-contrived creation that could never be justified on historic, geographic or demographic grounds. It had actually been rejected by successive Arab leaderships on many occasions since first being proposed by the 1937 Peel Commission.

Joint 1994 Nobel Peace Prize winners – Israeli leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzchak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat – all understood Jordan’s pivotal role in ending the Jewish-Arab conflict:

1. Jordan is the major part (78%) of the Palestinian Arabs’ homeland according to article 2 of the PLO Charter.

Farouk Kadoumi - Head of the Political Department of the PLO – reinforced this reality  – telling Newsweek on 14 March 1977:

 “Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people.”

2.      Peres declared on 31 August 1978: 

“Jordan is also Palestine… I’m against two Arab countries and against another Palestinian country, against an Arafat state. Today 50 percent of the inhabitants of Jordan are Palestinians and that is the Palestinian state…"   

Peres backed this up – telling the Jewish Telegraph on April 19, 1991: 

“It is not obstinacy to regard the populations of Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza as having greater similarities than differences. The Jordan River is not deep enough to turn into a knife blade serving to cut one piece of territory into three slices. Most of Jordan’s population are Palestinians: the residents of the West Bank are Jordanian citizens and Jordan has distributed tens of thousands of passports to residents in the Gaza Strip. Jordan is therefore an existing State. It has an army. There is therefore no need to set up another State, another army."

3.      Yitzchak Rabin told The Australian newspaper on May 27, 1985: 

“One tiny State between Israel and Jordan will solve nothing. It will be a time bomb.”

     Rabin’s solution to end the conflict:  

“… the Palestinians should have a sovereign State which includes most of the Palestinians. It should be Jordan with a considerable part of the West Bank and Gaza. East of the Jordan River there is enough room to settle the Palestinian refugees.”

Jordan-Israel negotiations on the political future of the disputed territory open up options to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict never before considered. If Trump’s Jerusalem Declaration helps bring such negotiations about – then Trump could well succeed where all other American presidents before him have failed.

Taking on Trump could herald the PLO’s political demise after 54 years of failed leadership.