Politics News

david singer asked:


State Department spokesman Sean McCormack revealed this week that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been talking to ex-Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton about their experiences in trying to negotiate peace between Israel and its Arab enemies.

Carter successfully brokered a peace treaty at Camp David in 1978 between Egypt and Israel, which has endured for 29 years surviving many strains that could have permanently ended the relationship during this period.

Clinton walked away empty handed in 2000 at Camp David after two weeks of intense one on one diplomacy with Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat.

Ms Rice certainly needs all the advice and help she can get as she struggles to get her planned international meeting in Annapolis off the ground. Even if she succeeds it could end in so much bitterness and enmity that it could signal the end of President Bush’s vision to create a new democratic Arab State between Israel and Jordan.

Why then did Carter succeed and Clinton fail and what lessons are there to be learnt by Ms Rice?

Three critical differences marked the negotiations that were undertaken by each President:

1. Two sovereign States - Israel and Egypt - were the parties in the Carter negotiations.

One sovereign State - Israel - and one non sovereign entity - the Palestinian Authority - were the parties in the Clinton negotiations.

2. Egyptian sovereign territory - the Sinai - was the territorial issue at the Carter negotiations.

Territory belonging to no sovereign State - the West Bank and Gaza - was the territorial issue at the Clinton negotiations.

3. Up to 7000 Jews faced removal from the Sinai to successfully conclude the Carter negotiations, whilst up to 200000 Jews faced removal from the West Bank and Gaza if the Clinton negotiations were to succeed.

Additionally, highly emotive issues concerning refugees and Jerusalem were the sting in the tail for Clinton’s negotiations once the territorial issue had been resolved.

Israel had no historic territorial claims on Sinai. Israel returned every square metre of the Sinai and removed all 7000 Jews living there to secure peace with Egypt.

In the process Israel also handed over the Alma Oil Field it had discovered valued at over $100 billion - which would have secured energy independence for Israel if it had been retained - as well as military bases and airfields.

100% of Egyptian sovereign territory captured by Israel in the Six Day War was thus returned to Egypt by Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin - for solemn promises of peace contained on a piece of paper.

Arafat similarly demanded the return of every square metre of the West Bank and Gaza in the Clinton negotiations which would have necessitated all 200000 Jews living there being uprooted. If it had worked for Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat - Arafat probably reasoned -why would it not work for him?

There was one great difference.

The land Arafat sought exclusively for himself was “no man’s land “- territory in which sovereignty remained unallocated between Jews and Arabs and whose last sovereign ruler was Great Britain under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine from 1920-1948.

Following Britain’s withdrawal in May 1948, Jordan had seized and occupied the West Bank - dispossessing those Jews then living there - until losing it to Israel in the Six Day War in 1967.

Jews - who had been entitled to settle in the West Bank from 1922 under Article 6 of the Mandate as later confirmed by article 80 of the United Nations Charter - started returning to live there after 1967.

Arafat was offered 90% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, refused to take it and ended up with nothing. 450000 Jews currently living in the West Bank complicate any such offer being renewed again.

Condolezza Rice has hopefully learnt the following four lessons from these two Presidential negotiations :

1. Israel has valid territorial claims in the West Bank - the biblical heartland of the Jewish people - created by the League of Nations and the United Nations, that will not be ceded in their entirety.

2. Removing 450000 Jews to satisfy the territorial demands of a non-sovereign claimant with an inferior claim in international law to Israel is a certain recipe for negotiations to fail.

3. Negotiations between Sovereign States are easier to successfully conclude - especially where territorial disputes are involved that have a linkage to those States historically, geographically and demographically as is the case with Israel, Jordan and the West Bank.

4. Negotiations that have failed are not likely to succeed in the future if the same demands continue to be made without any real change by the party who caused the original negotiations to fail.

Sean McCormack said Ms. Rice:

“is a student of history and has a keen appreciation for how we can apply the lessons of history, what we can learn from those who have gone before us”

Her discussions with Presidents Carter and Clinton should have convinced her that further negotiations on President Bush’s two state vision have the hallmark of Clinton failure stamped all over them.

Ms Rice needs to have the candour to tell the President just that and to formulate a policy which can lead to negotiations between Israel and Jordan on the future of the West Bank which can have successful outcomes like those achieved between Israel and Egypt in the Carter negotiations.

President Bush can still leave the Oval Office a winner and avoid being buried in the diplomatic graveyard among those who tried - and failed - to resolve any aspect of the Arab-Israel conflict.

To do so he needs to quickly jettison his two state vision which has gone nowhere in five years. His decision - either way - will become history too.

david singer asked:


US President George W. Bush held talks at the White House at a hastily arranged private dinner on Tuesday with Jordan’s King Abdullah II to discuss major regional issues - with no joint public appearances afterwards.

Certainly their discussion over dinner would have included President Bush’s intention - announced last week - to “call together an international meeting of representatives from nations that support a two state solution and that reject violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist and commit to all previous agreements between the parties.”

That two state solution involves the creation of a new Arab State in 6% of historic Palestine in addition to the existing Arab state of Jordan which occupies 77% of historic Palestine.

This proposed meeting is a vain attempt by President Bush to stave off acknowledging what should by now be patently obvious to him - the total collapse of his two state solution.

President Bush said the “key participants in this meeting will be the Israelis, the Palestinians and their neighbours in the region.”

The Palestinians’ mindset will be completely the opposite of the others attending the meeting since they have failed to:

1. reject violence - by still remaining committed to armed struggle as set out in the PLO Covenant, the Hamas Charter and the Fatah Constitution

2. recognise the State of Israel - by still retaining the clauses in all of the above documents that call for Israel’s destruction and the liberation of every square inch of Palestine

Pussyfooting around this fundamental schism between Palestinian thinking and what the rest of the world would like to see happening in the West Bank and Gaza remains the stumbling block to the two state solution ever eventuating.

The PLO, Hamas and Fatah remain rejectionist, extremely violent and totally inflexible in changing their hard uncompromising stance against the Jewish State despite the billions of dollars in aid and diplomatic support lavished on the Palestinians by the international community.

It is time to dispel the notion that there is any difference between a Jordanian and a Palestinian and to finally accept that there should be only one Arab state - not two - in former Palestine.

In an interview published in the Khaleej Times on 11 October 2006, King Abdullah presciently declared:

“I really think that by the first half of 2007 we might wake up to reality and realise that the two- state solution is no longer attainable, and then what?”

King Abdullah has already made it clear that he is not prepared to consider a confederation between Jordan and the West Bank until an Arab state is created in the West Bank.

With that now very unlikely to occur we may well ask - then what?

Will history repeat itself and King Abdullah find himself in the same position as his late father, King Hussein, whose rule in Jordan was challenged by PLO leader Yasser Arafat in 1970 when thousands died in the ensuing battle and Arafat was forced to flee to Lebanon with his fellow terrorists? Mahmoud Abbas was at the centre of PLO decision making at that time and he still is so now.

King Abdullah is well aware of the words of the late Abu Iyad - one of the highest ranking members in the PLO :

“You cannot make distinctions between a Jordanian and a Palestinian….we indeed constitute one people. When the Palestinian State and unity is established… the Jordanian will be a Palestinian and the Palestinian a Jordanian” [Kuna - 15 December 1989]

This accords with the thinking of King Abdullah’s own great-grandfather King Abdullah 1 expressed at a meeting of the Arab League in Cairo on 12 April 1948 when he declared:

” Palestine and Transjordan [now Jordan - ed.] are one, for Palestine is the coastline and Transjordan the hinterland of the same country.”

There are many more similar statements by Arab leaders acknowledging these basic facts.

Denials at various times of these historic, geographic and demographic truths by the late King Hussein were self serving as he faced threats to his rule when they were issued. They were more easily rebuffed then as the Palestinians had no power structures in Gaza or the West Bank.

However throwing the Palestinians a bone and not the whole carcass of former Palestine west of the Jordan River has failed to appease them or satisfy their hunger despite the best efforts of America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - the Quartet - to convince them otherwise.

President Bush’s planned meeting only postpones the curtain being finally pulled down on his two state solution.

Jordan cannot remain passively on the sidelines any longer without planning for this eventuality.

The issue of sovereignty in the West Bank cannot be allowed to fester because 77% of the carcass may be seen by the Palestinians as a more easier option to swallow than part of the 6% that has been offered to them and already rejected.

Jordan needs to return to the West Bank - which it occupied between 1948-1967- and do a deal with Israel. The sooner it takes the plunge the more favourable the conditions for this happening peacefully are likely to eventuate. The split between Hamas and Fatah has now made it a considerably more dangerous undertaking.

King Abdullah will need lots of diplomatic, financial and military support from the Quartet if he is to take this measure - which would reap the Quartet a far greater dividend than the same support currently being poured straight down the drain in propping up Mr. Abbas.

Hopefully neither the President nor the King suffered too much heartburn whilst chewing over the bones of Palestine.

david singer asked:


President Bush’s Road Map was publicly shredded by PLO Chairman and Palestinian Authority President - Mahmoud Abbas - in Ramallah this week. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was there when it happened.

Ms Rice was making all the right noises and uttering the usual buzzwords and trite phrases designed to impress everyone with the supposed progress of the negotiations.

“Trilaterals”, “bilaterals” ,”quantitative metrics”, “ the first really serious discussions on all of the core issues that have taken place between the parties for almost seven years” - were just a few choice terms that she managed to drop when answering questions from the assembled press corps.

However her optimism dissipated as President Abbas dropped the following bombshell at the joint media conference held with the Secretary of State:

“On this occasion we reiterate the need to stress that Gaza and the West Bank are one unified entity. And, therefore, we call up on Hamas to withdraw back from its coup and to accept immediately—and we are ready for that, to accept the calling for immediate Presidential and legislative elections and, therefore, we repeat our—what we mentioned earlier, that we are ready to go for early Presidential and legislative elections.”

President Abbas with these few carefully crafted words made it absolutely clear that:

1. Any new State must be established on the whole of the West Bank and Gaza

2. Any talk of dividing the West Bank between Israel and the Palestinian Authority or separating the West Bank from Gaza would not be acceptable

3. Hamas - a declared terrorist organization - would be permitted - after ending its coup - to take part in new elections which could lead to it ending up in control of the new State . This would allow it to then engage in - and continue to implement - its declared policy of trying to destroy Israel using an army and State apparatus set up, trained and financed with American and international aid.

Abbas in making his outrageous remarks was repudiating a cardinal tenet of President Bush’s Road Map which states:

“A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty,”

Israel - in accepting the Road Map - had its own ideas of what ending violence and terrorism meant and expressed it as follows in one of the 14 reservations it stipulated when accepting the Road Map:

“In the first phase of the plan and as a condition for progress to the second phase, the Palestinians will complete the dismantling of terrorist organizations (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front, Al-Aqsa Brigades and other apparatuses) and their infrastructure; collection of all illegal weapons and their transfer to a third party for the sake of being removed from the area and destroyed; cessation of weapons smuggling and weapons production inside the Palestinian Authority; activation of the full prevention apparatus and cessation of incitement.”

Abbas’s failure to dismantle Hamas and the other terror organisations prior to his ouster from Gaza has been the real obstacle to any new State ever having the remotest chance of being created. Whilst these terrorist organisations remain unexpurgated from Palestinian society any negotiations continue to be futile and offer no chance of success.

The Hamas coup in Gaza last year transformed President Abbas into a political eunuch. Yet he still managed to retain the confidence of the international community to progress President Bush’s Road Map to fruition. US$7.4 billion pledged to him in Paris at an international donors’ conference last year indicated the extent to which the international community was prepared to back Abbas.

Many of those donors are now also calling for Israel to negotiate with Hamas - having taken note of the meetings held by former US President Jimmy Carter with Hamas and the ostensible legitimacy that afforded to the terror organization.

In making his most recent comments President Abbas may have just finally tipped the scales enough to lose the support of President Bush and many others who saw him as the light at the end of the tunnel.

President Bush’s Road Map required the elimination - not the legitimisation - of terrorism if there was to be any successful outcome. Embracing terrorists rather than fighting them is the very antithesis of the Road Map provisions.

President Abbas’s remarks have effectively consigned the Road Map to the waste paper basket and ensured the end of any hope of a new Arab State being created between Israel and Jordan.

Ms Rice stood by silently as President Abbas rammed his message home. Hopefully she delivered a stern rebuke to President Abbas in the confines of their private discussions. However the damage has been done and President Abbas will now find it exceedingly difficult to retract his comments. He certainly has indicated he is prepared to embrace - not dismantle - Hamas if the coup is ended in Gaza.

The Executive Council of the PLO was quick to endorse the Abbas remarks just one day later.

To the eternal shame of the press corps gathered there, not one question was put to either Ms Rice or President Abbas as to the impact his ground breaking statement would have on the current negotiations. The reporters present were too busy trotting out the tired old questions on roadblocks and settlements to even comprehend the enormity of President Abbas’s remarks.

President Abbas in those few words once again demonstrated the inability of the Arabs to understand that negotiations mean compromise - not intransigence. The body blow he delivered to the successful implementation of the Road Map is lethal.

Certainly his remarks were the last thing Ms Rice - and President Bush - would have wanted to hear.