David Singer: Congress rebuffs Obama and Kerry for abandoning American Policy on Israel

Here, hot on the heels of his previous must-read article (see previous post), is Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer's latest incisive contribution.

He writes:

The US Congress has swiftly moved to rebuff the efforts by President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to reverse long-standing American policy in relation to Israel. By a vote of 342:80 Congress resolved on 5 January 2017:

“the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 undermined the long-standing position of the United States to oppose and veto United Nations Security Council resolutions that seek to impose solutions to final status issues, or are one-sided and anti-Israel, reversing decades of bipartisan agreement” 

Congress’s decision goes a long way to restoring America’s reputation and integrity.

Vice President-elect Pence has certainly signalled the incoming Trump Administration’s approval of such Congress action with the following tweet:

Congress now needs to rectify Obama’s abandonment of the written commitments made to Israel by President Bush in his letter to then Israeli Prime Minister Sharon on 14 April 2004 (“Commitments”).

Congress has a vested interest in seeing those Commitments restored - because it overwhelmingly approved Bush giving those Commitments to Israel by a massive vote of 502 to 12.

Among those voting to support those Commitments was Senator Hillary Clinton.

Senator John Kerry – whilst not casting a vote in the Senate –  made his position very clear to moderator Tim Russert on Meet The Press on 18 April 2004:

Russert: On Thursday, President Bush broke with the tradition and policy of six predecessors when he said that Israel can keep part of the land seized in the 1967 Middle East War and asserted the Palestinian refugees cannot go back to their particular homes. Do you support President Bush?

Kerry: Yes.

Russert: Completely?

Kerry: Yes. 

Subsequent decisions by both Clinton and Kerry respectively as Secretary of State played an active role in aiding and abetting Obama’s abandonment of the Bush Commitments - marking a shameful period in American history.

Bush gave his Commitments to Israel for the following stated reasons: 

“We welcome the disengagement plan you have prepared, under which Israel would withdraw certain military installations and all settlements from Gaza, and withdraw certain military installations and settlements in the West Bank. These steps described in the plan will mark real progress toward realizing my June 24, 2002 vision, and make a real contribution towards peace. We also understand that, in this context, Israel believes it is important to bring new opportunities to the Negev and the Galilee. We are hopeful that steps pursuant to this plan, consistent with my vision, will remind all states and parties of their own obligations under the roadmap.

The United States appreciates the risks such an undertaking represents.”

Neither Bush nor Sharon could have envisaged what followed:

1. Hamas installed as the Government in Gaza;

2. a terrorist tunnel network being dug into Israel;

3. thousands of rockets indiscriminately fired into Israeli population centres;

4. chaos in Sinai;

5. three wars with heavy Jewish and Arab casualties;

Clinton and Kerry should have resigned in protest at Obama abandoning the Bush Commitments.

Reaffirming those Commitments should be an immediate priority for Congress – which is clearly in no mood to allow Obama to do any further damage.

Congress has signalled it will not tolerate Obama or Kerry attempting to subvert American foreign policy on Israel at the forthcoming international conference in Paris on 15 January or in the Security Council in the last five days of Obama’s presidency.

America can stand tall and proud. American commitments to Israel will be honoured once again.

David Singer: Carter Threatens Chaos for Obama, Trump and US Foreign Policy

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

He writes:

Former US President Jimmy Carter has urged current President Barack Obama to:
* betray another former President – George Bush,
* destroy America's reputation for integrity and trustworthiness and
* thwart President-elect Donald Trump in attempting to resolve the 100 years old conflict between Arabs and Jews

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times Carter has proffered the following advice to Obama as his eight year term of office is ending:

"The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, as 137 countries have already done, and help it achieve full United Nations membership."

 The following calamitous consequences for American foreign policy would ensue should Obama accept Carter's irresponsible advice:

1. President Bush's 2003 Roadmap and 13 years of American diplomacy would be trashed.

Endorsed by the United Nations, European Union and Russia and accepted by Israel (with14 reservations) and the then Palestinian Authority (since disbanded on 3 January 2013) – the Roadmap provides for:

 "A settlement, negotiated between the parties," that "will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors"

 2. Obama would break Bush's following written commitment made to Israel on 14 April 2004:

"The United States remains committed to my vision and to its implementation as described in the roadmap. The United States will do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan."

3. Any such State would not be "democratic" – its current "President" now being in the 11th year of a four year term – whilst two separate claimants – the PLO and Hamas – engage in a bitter internecine struggle to become the recognised Government of the Palestinian Arabs despite elections not having been held to legitimise the authority of either since 2007.

4. Carter's following call in May 2015 will remain unimplemented and a distant pipe dream:

"We hope that sometime we'll see elections all over the Palestinian area and east Jerusalem and Gaza and also in the West Bank"

5. Obama will break his pledge to Israel to require any such State to first recognise Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.

6. Obama would be recognising a State which has no legal basis for existence in international law since it fails to comply with the provisions of customary international law as expressed in the Montevideo Convention 1934.

7. Full United Nations membership under Article 4 of the UN Charter is only open to peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter.

No such State is "peace loving" nor would it ever accept the obligations contained in article 80 of the Charter preserving the rights vested in the Jewish people under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine

Ironically Carter hit upon the clue to finally resolving the conflict when addressing Jordan and Jordan's late monarch King Hussein in another op-ed in Time magazine on 11 October 1982:

“Hussein is personally courageous but an extremely timid man in political matters. That timidity derives almost inevitably from the inherent weakness of Jordan. As a nation it is a contrivance, arbitrarily devised by a few strokes of the pen”

Jordan  – 78 per cent of former Palestine – originally designated as part of the location for the Jewish National Home – still remains the key to resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict.


Obama should reject Carter's latest disastrous advice and leave Trump to try and end the long conflict which has eluded all American presidents.

David Singer: Obama, Clinton and Trump Must Affirm America’s Crucial Commitment To Israel

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

He writes:

President Obama is causing consternation and uncertainty in Israel because of his continuing refusal to make clear that America will veto any Security Council resolution attempting to impose a settlement of the Jewish-Arab conflict in former Palestine other than under the Roadmap of his predecessor George W. Bush.

The Roadmap – first envisioned on 24 June 2002 – was finally documented on 30 April 2003.

Bush made the following written commitment to Israel in his letter to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on 14 April 2004 – which was overwhelmingly endorsed by the American Congress by 502 votes to 12 in June 2004:

“First the United States remains committed to my vision and to its implementation as described in the roadmap. The United States will do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan. Under the roadmap, Palestinians must undertake an immediate cessation of armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere, and all official Palestinian institutions must end incitement against Israel. The Palestinian leadership must act decisively against terror, including sustained, targeted, and effective operations to stop terrorism and dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure. Palestinians must undertake a comprehensive and fundamental political reform that includes a strong parliamentary democracy and an empowered prime minister.”

Bush’s reasons for giving this American commitment were stated in his letter:

“The United States remains hopeful and determined to find a way forward toward a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. I remain committed to my June 24, 2002 vision of two states living side by side in peace and security as the key to peace, and to the roadmap as the route to get there.

“We welcome the disengagement plan you have prepared, under which Israel would withdraw certain military installations and all settlements from Gaza, and withdraw certain military installations and settlements in the West Bank. These steps described in the plan will mark real progress toward realizing my June 24, 2002 vision, and make a real contribution towards peace….

… The United States appreciates the risks such an undertaking represents.”

Israel honoured its disengagement plan and withdrew from Gaza and part of the West Bank in August 2005.

The risks in doing so have been translated into reality with the indiscriminate firing of tens of thousands of rockets from Gaza into civilian population centres in Israel and ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza since 2005.

That Obama would seek to resile from this Bush Congress-endorsed American commitment to Israel is unthinkable and should be disavowed by him immediately.

Amazingly two presidential debates have been held so far between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton where the word “Israel” has not been mentioned once.

Both Trump and Clinton have remained silent up till now on stating whether they would uphold this American commitment to Israel.

Clinton was among those Senators overwhelmingly endorsing America’s commitment by 95 votes to 3.

Clinton needs to publicly commit that she will honour this commitment to Israel if elected President Trump has so far failed to say whether he will do likewise – although his rival Marco Rubio pledged at the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Forum:

“I will revive the common-sense understandings reached in the 2004 Bush-Sharon letter and build on them to help ensure Israel has defensible borders”

Trump needs to follow suit.

The third presidential debate also gives Trump the perfect opportunity to state his position if he is elected president.

Hopefully the moderator, Chris Wallace, will ask them both this crucial question – or they volunteer an answer themselves.

America’s reputation and trustworthiness for keeping its promises are on the line.

David Singer: Come Clean, Clinton! Trump Advisor Castigates Clinton Betrayal of Israel

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

He writes:

Donald Trump’s trusted co-advisor on Israel – David Friedman – has castigated Hillary Clinton for her role as Secretary of State in perpetrating one of President Obama’s worst foreign policy failures  –
trashing the letter from President Bush to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dated 14 April 2004 – its terms having been overwhelmingly endorsed by Congress 502 votes to 12.

Friedman – rumoured to be Trump’s Ambassador to Israel if Trump becomes America’s next President – was recently asked this question in a wide ranging interview:

"Hillary Clinton has just about everyone suggesting she is the most qualified person ever to be president. Where did she go wrong with the Middle East — if she did?"

Friedman replied:

"I don’t think she has made a right decision. I think she said some helpful things when she was the senator from New York when she had a Jewish constituency. As soon as she became secretary of state, the first thing she did was to embrace a unilateral settlement freeze. I think it completely poisoned the environment. I’m not aware of anything she did that is particularly good. I can name off the top of my head things that were nasty, like ripping up the letter from George Bush to Ariel Sharon, which I think was the only thing Israel got from evacuating Gaza."

The Bush letter had acknowledged the risks Israel was taking in unilaterally disengaging from Gaza and part of the West Bank. In return Bush gave Israel written assurances that in final status negotiations with the Palestinian Authority America would support Israel:

* not returning to the 1949 armistice lines

* demanding recognition as the Jewish state

* refusing Palestinian Arab "refugees" being resettled in Israel

In ripping up these assurances Obama had undermined Israel’s security concerns and negotiating positions as agreed with Obama’s immediate predecessor.

Israel’s unilateral disengagement was duly completed in 2005 – with 8000 Israeli civilians leaving their homes and businesses established during the previous 35 years – whilst Israel’s military also completely withdrew.

By any analysis that disengagement has been disastrous – bringing Israel and Gaza no peace – only ongoing and continuing conflict resulting from:

* Thousands of rockets and projectiles being fired indiscriminately into Israeli population centres from Gaza

* Terrorist incursions into Israel and

* The construction of tunnels from Gaza into Israel’s sovereign territory to serve as entry points for future terrorist assaults on Israel by Gaza’s myriad array of terrorist groups.

To be fair to Clinton, her role in framing Obama’s policy repudiating the Bush Congress-endorsed assurances remains unclarified and unexplained.

Clinton was confirmed as Secretary of State by the full Senate voting 94:2 on 21 January 2009 – having been a Senator since 3 January 2001.

On 24 June 2004 she was part of the Senate majority that voted 95:3 to endorse the Bush letter.

The fact that Clinton was Secretary of State when the Bush letter was torn up does not necessarily implicate her as the architect of, or personally having agreed to, that appalling decision.

Statements made by Clinton – on 17 June 2009 and 25 November 2009 – point to her as the lead Obama official charged with implementing Obama’s policy finally declared by Obama on 19 May 2011.

Clinton remained Secretary of State until 1 February 2013.

Critically for Clinton, she now needs to fully explain her role in Obama’s gross act of betrayal of one of America’s staunchest long-standing allies.

Does Clinton avow:

1. Obama’s policy of ripping up the Bush letter in 2011?

 or

2. Her vote in the Senate endorsing the Bush letter in 2004?

Clinton needs to come clean before voting day.

David Singer: Israel – Clinton And Trump Must Honour Bush-Congress Commitments

Image credit:jpost.com

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

He writes:

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have yet to signal their readiness to honour the commitments made by President Bush in his letter dated 14 April 2004 to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Bush’s letter – overwhelmingly endorsed by the House of Representatives 407:9 on 23 June 2004 and the Senate 95:3 the next day – supported Israel’s proposed unilateral disengagement from Gaza and four settlements in the West Bank.

Bush further reassured Israel that in final status negotiations with the Palestinian Authority America would support Israel:

* not returning to the 1949 armistice lines

* demanding recognition as the Jewish state

* refusing Palestinian Arab refugees being resettled in Israel

Bush’s assurances were absolutely crucial to Israel resuming negotiations with the Palestinian Authority – Israel’s then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert telling world leaders gathered with Bush at Annapolis on 27 November 2007:

“The negotiations will be based on previous agreements between us, UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the Roadmap and the April 14th 2004 letter of President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel.”  

Former Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz revealed in an editorial that he raised the letter during Bush’s meeting with a group of Israeli journalists at the White House in May 2008:

“Bush did not at first realize that I was referring to the 2004 letter. [National Security Adviser] Hadley, who was also in the Oval Office, had to prompt him. "Okay, the letters," the president then said, remembering.”

Bush’s apparent memory lapse could not be claimed by his successor President Obama, who set out deliberately to circumvent Bush’s commitment supporting Israel’s position on territorial withdrawal.

Obama’s attack dog was Hillary Clinton – then Secretary of State – who claimed on 6 June 2009 that the letter:

"did not become part of the official position of the United States government"

Elliott Abrams –Middle East Affairs point-man at the National Security Council from 2001 to 2009 – had no qualms dismissing Clinton’s contention, stating in July 2009:

“Not only were there agreements, but the prime minister of Israel relied on them in undertaking a wrenching political reorientation — the dissolution of his government, the removal of every single Israeli citizen, settlement and military position in Gaza, and the removal of four small settlements in the West Bank. This was the first time Israel had ever removed settlements outside the context of a peace treaty, and it was a major step”.

Clinton made Obama’s sinister intentions clearer on 25 November 2009:

“We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.”

Bush’s letter had never mentioned “agreed swaps” – signalling abandonment of the Bush-Congress commitments if Obama himself confirmed Clinton’s statements.

Eighteen months later that confirmation eventuated – Obama declaring on 19 May 2011:

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

Michael Oren – Israel’s former Ambassador to Washington between 2009 and 2013 – has called for the Bush letter to be resuscitated. Clinton can do this by distancing herself from Obama’s attempt to trash it.

Trump’s assertion that “your friends need to know that you will stick by the agreements that you have with them” is meaningless unless Trump pledges to unconditionally honour those Bush-Congress commitments.
.
Halting America’s rapidly declining trustworthiness and diplomatic integrity demands Clinton and Trump so act.

David Singer: Hillary Clinton Silent On Honouring Bush-Congress Commitments To Israel

Maintaining the theme of American presidential hopefuls and Israel, here's the latest post by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Marco Rubio’s withdrawal from the presidential race this week will not relieve Hillary Clinton from affirming or disavowing the following pledge made by Rubio during his failed campaign:

“I will revive the common-sense understandings reached in the 2004 Bush-Sharon letter and build on them to help ensure Israel has defensible borders”

The terms of Bush’s letter – dated 14 April 2004 – were overwhelmingly endorsed by the House of Representatives 407:9 on 23 June 2004 and the Senate 95:3 on 24 June 2004.

The letter backed Israel's unilateral disengagement from Gaza and promised to support Israel’s following positions in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority over the previous 11 years:

1. Israel would not cede its claims to all of the territory captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War

2. Millions of Palestinian Arabs would not be resettled in Israel and

3. Israel must be recognised as the state of the Jewish people.

Israel’s insistence on these conditions had been major stumbling blocks in the PLO rejecting Israel’s offer to withdraw from more than 90 per cent of the West Bank during negotiations brokered by President Bill Clinton in 2000/2001.

The Bush Congress-endorsed letter had put America squarely in Israel’s corner.

Elliott Abrams – Middle East Affairs point-man at the National Security Council from 2001 to 2009 – had no qualms about the significance of the Bush letter, when stating in July 2009:

“Not only were there agreements, but the prime minister of Israel relied on them in undertaking a wrenching political reorientation -- the dissolution of his government, the removal of every single Israeli citizen, settlement and military position in Gaza, and the removal of four small settlements in the West Bank. This was the first time Israel had ever removed settlements outside the context of a peace treaty, and it was a major step”.

http://www.defensibleborders.org/images/map2.jpg

President Obama however sought to change the goal posts laid down in the Bush letter with this statement on 19 May 2011:

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

 Glenn Kessler pointed out at the time:

"Indeed, Israelis and Palestinians have held several intensive negotiations that involved swapping lands along the Arab-Israeli dividing line that existed before the 1967 war — technically known as the Green Line, or the boundaries established by the 1949 Armistice agreements. (Click here for a visual description of the swaps discussed between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008.)

So, in many ways, it is not news that the eventual borders of a Palestinian state would be based on land swaps from the 1967 dividing line. But it makes a difference when the president of the United States says it, particularly in a carefully staged speech at the State Department. This then is not an off-the-cuff remark, but a carefully considered statement of U.S. policy.”

Given the chaos in Syria since Obama’s statement, the birth of Islamic State in 2014 and the continuing unstable political and security situations in Gaza and the West Bank – mutually agreed land swaps as a concept have become just another missed opportunity whose time has expired.

Michael Oren – Israel’s Ambassador to Washington between 2009 and 2013 – was moved to make the following call in January 2015: 

"... it’s time to revive the Bush-Sharon letter and act according to it.”

Will Clinton so act – if elected America’s 17th Democratic President – to honour a former Republican President’s commitments to one of America’s longstanding allies that go far beyond personal partisan politics?

Her answer is eagerly awaited.

David Singer: Rubio Challenges Clinton’s Support For Israel

Photo: Haaretz.com

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

He writes:

Marco Rubio has directly challenged Hillary Clinton – and every other Presidential candidate – to honour the commitments given by President Bush to Israel on 14 April 2004.

Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Forum Rubio said:

“I will revive the common-sense understandings reached in the 2004 Bush-Sharon letter and build on them to help ensure Israel has defensible borders”

President Bush’s letter – overwhelmingly endorsed by the Congress – supported Israel’s proposed unilateral disengagement from Gaza - stating: 

“As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.” 

Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who succeeded Sharon, had neither forgotten nor overlooked the critical significance of Bush’s commitments when agreeing to resume negotiations with the Palestinian Authority before an international audience of world leaders at Annapolis on 27 November 2007:

“The negotiations will be based on previous agreements between us, U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the road map and the April 14, 2004 letter of President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel.”

It didn't take too long thereafter for these Presidential commitments to be downplayed by Bush himself and his advisors.

In an editorial (published on 14 May 2008) former Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz revealed Bush’s shameful efforts to minimise the letter’s significance – following Bush’s meeting with a group of Israeli journalists at the White House:

“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, however, has been known to minimise the significance of this four-year-old letter. Just last week, for instance, she told reporters that the 2004 letter “talked about realities at that time. And there are realities for both sides….

… Bush’s National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has also given briefings to the effect that Israel had tried to overstate the importance of a rather vague letter...

“Bush did not at first realize that I was referring to the 2004 letter. Hadley, who was also in the Oval Office, had to prompt him. "Okay, the letters," the president then said, remembering.”

Bush was clearly reneging on his unequivocal commitments to Israel just six months after Olmert sought to rely on them.

Israel by then had already paid a high price, Gaza having become a de facto terrorist State with Hamas firmly entrenched as Gaza’s governing authority. Israel had been subjected to a sustained barrage of thousands of rockets and mortars fired indiscriminately into Israeli population centres from Gaza by a bewildering variety of terrorist groups and sub-groups who would have had no chance of operating so freely from Gaza if the Israeli Army had remained there.

President Obama has also disgracefully attempted to subvert his predecessor’s commitments for the last seven years – aided and abetted by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who reportedly laid the groundwork on 6 June 2009: 

“Since coming to office in January, President Barack Obama has repeatedly called on Israel to halt all settlement activity in Palestinian areas, a demand rejected by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israelis say they received commitments from the previous US administration of President George W. Bush permitting some growth in existing settlements.

They say the US position was laid out in a 2004 letter from Bush to then Israeli premier Ariel Sharon.

Clinton rejected that claim, saying any such US stance was informal and 

"did not become part of the official position of the United States government." 

Clinton – doubling as Obama’s attack dog – made Obama’s sinister intentions clearer on 25 November 2009:

“We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.”

Clinton’s blatant disregard of Bush’s commitments – which had never mentioned “agreed swaps” – signalled trouble for Israel if Obama indeed confirmed Clinton’s statements.

Eighteen months later Israel’s worst fears were realised when Obama declared on 19 May 2011:

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

Michael Oren – former Israeli Ambassador to Washington between 2009 and 2013 – has called for Bush’s commitments to be resuscitated:

"... it’s time to revive the Bush-Sharon letter and act according to it.”

Rubio has to his credit so reacted.

Motherhood-statements supporting Israel by the remaining candidates vying to become America’s next President pale into insignificance compared to Rubio’s coming out and pledging to honour Bush’s Congress-endorsed commitments to Israel.

Clinton – and for that matter Sanders, Trump, Cruz and Kasich – must do likewise, or allow America’s reputation as a trustworthy and reliable ally to be forever trashed.

David Singer: "Abbas's Pathetic Bluff & Bluster Should For Once Be Exposed & Rejected By America & Israel"

Here, entitled "Palestine – Abbas Unilaterally Resurrects Palestinian Authority," is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

'Easter 2014 will be remembered as the time when PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas tried to resurrect the Palestinian Authority (PA) that he himself had declared dead and buried on 3 January 2013.

Adopting US Secretary of State Kerry's terminology – "Poof – that was the day that signalled the end of the Oslo Accords".

The demise of the PA had been announced by John Whitbeck, an international lawyer who served as a legal advisor to the Palestinian team negotiating with Israel, in an article published on 10 January 2013 in Al Jazeera English and also the Huffington Post:

"On January 3 Mahmoud Abbas, acting in his capacities as President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, signed "Decree No. 1 for the year 2013." While he did so with minimal ceremony or fanfare, and while the change formalized by this decree should surprise no one after the UN General Assembly's overwhelming vote on November 29 to upgrade Palestine's status at the United Nations to "observer state," this change is potentially historic.

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.

After citing the November 29 General Assembly Resolution, Article 1 of the decree states: "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." Concluding Article 4 states: "All competent authorities, each in their respective area, shall implement this Decree starting from its date."

Did none of the thousands of US State Department and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs minions read Whitbeck's article and realise its significance?

Surely those who did should have been concerned at Whitbeck's further following comments:

"Perhaps due, at least in part, to the low-key manner in which this change has been effected, it has attracted remarkably little attention from the international media or reaction from other governments, even the Israeli and American governments. This is not necessarily disappointing, since passive acceptance is clearly preferable to furious rejection.

The relatively few and brief media reports of the change have tended to characterize it as "symbolic." It could – and should – be much more than that. If the Palestinian leadership plays its cards wisely, it could – and should – represent a turning point toward a better future.

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 had dissolved the Palestinian Authority with the stroke of a pen – creating a situation where further negotiations under the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap were nugatory.

America and Israel – at their peril – apparently preferred to negotiate with ghosts and turn a blind eye to this extremely significant development.

Now, 15 months down the track – with negotiations begun in July 2013 now on their last legs – news that Abbas is contemplating dismantling the PA for a second time has brought forth the following response from State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki:

"Of course [the PA disbanding] will have serious consequences. Obviously this is not in the interest of the Palestinian people , and all that has been achieved will be lost.

The US has made tremendous efforts to build Palestinian institutions in the PA, and so has the international community, The move will seriously harm the US-PA relationship, including in terms of financial aid."

Ignoring Abbas's 2013 decree has certainly cost the US dearly – about US $500 million in financial aid reportedly paid to an organization over the last 15 months that had ceased to exist.

Has America ever suffered a more blatant financial scam of such massive proportions?

Suddenly the State Department is now also concerned about "the interest of the Palestinian people" after having connived to allow Abbas to lead them down a negotiating blind alley with no possible light at the end of the tunnel following the PA demise.

Israel also needs to explain its role in perpetuating the fiction of the PA's existence for the last nine months

Kerry's desperate efforts to keep these Mickey Mouse negotiations alive has been exposed by Abbas's last ditch threat to dismantle the non-existent PA.

Kerry needs to answer how any signed agreement could ever be achieved with a party whose existence Abbas can turn on and off like a tap.

Abbas's pathetic bluff and bluster should for once be exposed and rejected by America and Israel.'

"Israel Is A Bright And Shining Beacon": Congressman Allen West (video)

Lieutenant-Colonel Allen West, a Republican member of the House of Representatives and often tipped as a future president of the United States, is a stalwart friend of Israel.  Here he is addressing the House a few days ago, when support for Israel was reaffirmed:

Other speeches indicating the tone and thrust of the debate include these (if you've only time for one, that directly below, by West's fellow Florida Republican, Cuban-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is a corker):

Truly, such sentiments, based on a realistic appreciation of what is at stake for both Israel and the West, warms the cockles of one's heart!  If only European legislators were as perceptive and resolute.