David Singer: Trump Rejects UN and UNESCO’s Fictitious Palestinian State

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

He writes:

President Trump’s National Security Adviser – John Bolton – has exposed the fiction that there is a legally-constituted “State of Palestine” – shredding United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and United Nations (UN) resolutions misleadingly recognising such a state when none – in fact – exists.

Bolton was unequivocal in his statement:

“Palestine” is not a state… It’s not a state now. It does not meet the customary international law test of statehood. It doesn’t control defined boundaries. It doesn’t fulfill the normal functions of government. There are a whole host of reasons why it’s not a state.”

Article 1 of the 1934 Montevideo Conventioncompletely substantiates Bolton’s claim.
Holding out the carrot after administering the stick – Bolton continued:

“It could become a state, as the president said, but that requires diplomatic negotiations with Israel and others… We have consistently, across Democratic and Republican administrations, opposed the admission of ‘Palestine’ to the UN as a state, because it’s not a state.”

Bolton’s tempting offer may have been made to try and get the PLO to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s soon to–be-released peace plan. It seems certain to fall on deaf ears as the PLO wants nothing to do with Trump’s plan.

The PLO will only be more infuriated at this latest Trump effort to engender some reality into the Arab-Jewish conflict – as happened when Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

UNESCO’s decision to admit “Palestine” as a member in 2011 in clear breach of UNESCO’s own Constitution has come back  to bite UNESCO with a vengeance –  with America and Israel quitting

UNESCO on 31 December 2018.

UNESCO anti-Israel decisions made since “Palestine” was admitted to UNESCO membership have included:

• January 2014 – cancelling an exhibition at its Paris headquarters on the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel
• October 2016 – disregarding Jewish ties to the Temple Mount – only referring to it by its Muslim names – then several weeks later – passing a softer version of the resolution that referred to the Western Wall by its Jewish name – though still ignoring Judaism’s ties to the site.
• July 2017 – designating Hebron and the two adjoined shrines at its heart — the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Muslim Ibrahimi Mosque — as a “Palestinian World Heritage Site in Danger”.

On 29 November 2012, the UN General Assembly granted Palestine“non-member observer state” status.

Pure fiction.

The PLO hopped on the UN bandwagon – PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas decreeingon 3 January 2013:

 “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.”

Pure fiction.

In November 2014 – Sweden became the 135th member of the UN to officially recognize Palestine as an independent state.

Pure fiction – 135 times over.

More truth-telling involving Jordan-Israel negotiations are on the Trump agenda – Bolton having signalled on 18 January:

“In fact, [Jordan’s] King Abdullah II should be preparing himself for a larger role in the West Bank. Before the 1967 war, Jordan had no hesitation asserting sovereignty over West Bank territory from Britain’s former Palestinian mandate, territory conquered by Jordan’s Arab Legion during the 1948 to 1949 war with Israel.
Once it becomes clear the two-state solution is finally dead, Jordan should again be asked to exercise control over suitably delineated portions of the West Bank and have the monarchy’s religious role for holy sites like the Temple Mount reaffirmed.”

 Fact – not fiction – will resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict.

(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: Britain rebuffs Abbas call to apologise for Balfour Declaration

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

He writes:

Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s demand that Britain apologise for the Balfour Declaration has been rebuffed by British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Addressing the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) on 12 December, May responded:

'… we are entering the centenary year of the Balfour Declaration.

On the 2nd of November 1917, the then Foreign Secretary – a Conservative Foreign Secretary – Arthur James Balfour wrote: 

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” 

It is one of the most important letters in history.

It demonstrates Britain’s vital role in creating a homeland for the Jewish people.

And it is an anniversary we will be marking with pride.' 

The Balfour Declaration became established international law after being incorporated into the Mandate for Palestine on 24 July 1922 – all 51 Member States of the League of Nations unanimously agreeing that: 

“recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country;” 

The Mandate further affirmed that Britain would be responsible for:

“placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.” 

The use of the terms

* “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” in the Balfour Declaration and

* “all the inhabitants of Palestine” in the Mandate document

–  rather than the term “Palestinians” – clearly refutes the existence of any identifiable “Palestinian – people” in Palestine in 1917 or 1922.

However, fake news stories repetitively dealing with the “stateless Palestinians” may have influenced Ms May into also telling the CFI meeting:

“Of course, people are correct when they say that securing the rights of Palestinians and Palestinian statehood have not yet been achieved.”

The Prime Minister has ignored the following pertinent facts:

1. The term “Palestinians” was not defined until 1964 when article 6 of the PLO Charter stipulated:

“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.”

2. The “Palestinian people” was declared to be an integral part of the Arab Nation under Article 1 of the revised 1968 PLO Charter – not a separate and distinct people.

3. The rights of the Arab citizens of Palestine were secured in 1922 by articles 2 and 25 of the Mandate.

4. On 13 September 1922 a Note communicated to the League of Nations by the Secretary General contained a Memorandum by the British Representative limiting the site designated for the Jewish National Home to just 22 per cent of the mandate territory.

The other 78 per cent was designated for the Arab citizens of Palestine – where Statehood was finally declared on 25 May 1946 when the area was renamed the “Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan”. Another name change to “Jordan” in 1950 followed Transjordan’s illegal occupation of Judea and Samaria in 1948.

A second Arab State in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan – remains a fatuous and unrealistically attainable goal.

Maureen's Message To Miliband

www.telegraph.co.uk

What a great lady British actress Maureen Lipman is.  Known for her gifts as an actress and writer, the widow of much-acclaimed playwright Jack Rosenthal well deserves her epithet "a British national treasure".

While a bevy of other star thespians, including Miriam Margolyes, Juliet Stephenson, Emma Thompson, and Harriet Walter, to note only examples from the pro-cultural boycott distaff side of Britain's theatreland, are among Israel's trenchant critics, Ms Lipman outdazzles them all with her steadfast support of the beleaguered, traduced, and heroic little country.

Now, writing in the conservative intellectual monthly Standpoint, she tells Labour leader "Red Ed" Milibank, who placed a three-line whip on his members during the recent Commons debate and vote on whether Britain should recognise a Palestinian state, why she's abandoning, at least for the foreseeable future, her decades-long attachment to the Labour Party.

www.telegraph.co.uk

She writes in part:

'Just when ... anti-Semitism ... is mounting savagely...  Just when the virulence against a country defending itself, against 4,000 rockets and 32 tunnels inside its borders, as it has every right to do under the Geneva Convention, had been swept aside by the real pestilence of IS, in steps Mr Miliband to demand that the government recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.  

.... Many people on the Left and the Right would like to see a two-state solution if it means peace and mutual respect. I am one of them. Any future Palestinian state will be entirely free of Jews, of course. Yet the Jewish state is labelled "apartheid" with 1.7 million Arabs in residence and represented in parliament.

(1) It is a historical fact that the Arab states refused such an offer in 1937, 1948, 2000 and 2008. They have yet to accept Israel's right to exist and their constitutions and broadcasts to this day extol its destruction. 

(2) How can you recognise a state until its borders are decided?

(3) If you recognise a state you can officially arm that state. Already billions of pounds have been allotted to rebuild Gaza. Ha! Rebuild the tunnels and reequip the arsenal. Oh, how the propaganda has worked on these clever, concerned people again and again and again. If Hamas and Fatah cared one iota for the Palestinians, might they not have built schools and hospitals and streets for their people the first time the billions poured in and were converted into weaponry and hotel suites in Paris and citizens were used as human shields?...

....May I remind you that no one is tunnelling into Dover or sending rockets into Coventry, yet we seem to have every right to bomb the living daylights out of Iraq. Again. Conclusion: one law for the Israelis, another law for the rest of the world. ....'

Read the entire piece here

Benny Morris on Prospects for a Palestinian State

Benny Morris’s substantial article, “Bleak House”, in Tablet Magazine, in which he argues that “the prospects for a Palestinian state have rarely been more grim”, is a must-read (hat tip: reader Rob):

In recent years, starting with the Israeli handover of West Bank cities and the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority in the mid-1990s, the Palestinians, ever-so-slowly and inefficiently, have built pre-state institutions of governance—most recently and competently under the leadership of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. During the past few years alone, Western observers have noted substantial improvements in Palestinian taxation, infrastructure, and economic development, and in the functioning of the (American- and European-trained) security services. Indeed, under Fayyad, the West Bank is flourishing economically (around 9 percent annual growth, according to the International Monetary Fund, even if the gains are fragile) and is a largely peaceful place, with residents even paying traffic tickets, and militants of Hamas and other organizations largely inactive, with some jailed in periodic round-ups.

At the same time, Hamas, which took over the Gaza Strip in 2007 from the Palestinian National Authority, in the process throwing PA officers off of tall buildings and knee-capping others, has also demonstrated an ability to rule, in an orderly if brutal fashion.

A series of question marks hangs over these recent improvements in the governance of the West Bank: How deep do they run? And can they outlast Western financial aid and political backing and the overriding guardianship of Israeli bayonets? Will the American- and European-trained security forces, in crisis, hold their own against Hamas or fade away, like the Western-trained Iraqi and Afghani forces have when left to perform independent of their American and British instructors?

Even before we can get to such practical questions, though, there is another more fundamental question that goes to the heart of the continuing historical struggle between two peoples for the same piece of land: What will be the geographical contours of the envisioned Palestinian state and what will be its nature? Put simply, will the envisioned state encompass all of Palestine, including the territory of the existing Jewish state, Israel, or will it include only the West Bank and Gaza Strip and, perhaps, Arab-populated East Jerusalem? And will the envisioned state be a secular, perhaps even “democratic,” republic as promised by the Fatah-led PNA, which rules the West Bank, or will it be a fundamentalist, Islamic, sharia-based state, as sought by Hamas, which rules Gaza? Will one of the parties absorb or co-opt the other, or will the Palestinians maintain this political bifurcation indefinitely?
Read the rest: www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/51926/bleak-house/