T. Belman. Singer wants to extend Jordan’s borders to take in the land set aside for the Palestinians west of the Jordan R. I disagree vehemently. I want Israel to have sovereignty over all land west of the Jordan R and to incentivize the Palestinians to emigrate to Jordan or elsewhere.
The “Palestinians” do have a state – now called Jordan – created in 78% of former Palestine in 1946.
President Trump’s now released deal of the century – calling for the creation of a second Arab state in former Palestine in addition to Jordan (“the two-state solution”) – has predictably already been consigned to the dustbin of history by PLO President Mahmoud Abbas on the day of its publication.
Trump’s solution was a mirage based on the same shaky foundations unsuccessfully pursued by the international community since the 1980 Venice Declaration.
Trump’s failure to address the following issues ensured its collapse from the get go:
- The term “Palestinians” is not defined in the plan’s Glossary.
- Who comprise “the Palestinians” and what constitutes their common identity?
Trump’s plan states: “Palestinians have aspirations that have not been realized, including self-determination”.
Trump ignores that the “Palestinians” right to self-determination was realized when all West Bank Arabs became citizens of Jordan between 1950 and 1967 – then continued to retain their Jordanian citizenship until revoked by Jordan in 1988.
Trump’s plan states: “The State of Israel has also exchanged sizeable territories for the sake of peace, as it did when it withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for peace with the Arab Republic of Egypt.”
Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
Why was this not mentioned?
Trump’s plan states: “One reason for the intractability of this problem is the conflation of two separate conflicts: a territorial, security and refugee dispute between Israel and the Palestinians and a religious dispute between Israel and the Muslim world regarding control over places of religious significance.”
There is only one conflict – between Jews and Arabs – fuelled by the Arab League’s refusal to recognise the State of Israel since its establishment in 1948.
The religious dispute was resolved under the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty granting Jordan control over places of Islamic religious significance in Jerusalem.
Trump’s plan states that Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin: “envisioned Jerusalem remaining united under Israeli rule, the portions of the West Bank with large Jewish populations and the Jordan Valley being incorporated into Israel, and the remainder of the West Bank, along with Gaza, becoming subject to Palestinian civil autonomy in what he said would be something “less than a state.” Rabin’s vision was the basis upon which the Knesset approved the Oslo Accords, and it was not rejected by the Palestinian leadership at the time.”
Rabin actually said:
“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
“We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines”.
Trump’s plan states: “This Vision addresses today’s realities, and provides the Palestinians, who do not yet have a state …”
The “Palestinians” do have a state – now called Jordan – created in 78% of former Palestine in 1946.
The key to successfully ending this 100 years unresolved conflict requires Jordan’s borders to be extended to incorporate those areas designated as “A Future State of Palestine” in Trump’s already-defunct proposal.
President Trump needs to go back to the drawing board and persuade Israel and Jordan to urgently negotiate those new borders.
Giving the Palestinian territory to Jordan, given the present Jordanian government’s hostility to Israel, handing over the proposed Palestinian area to Jordan would be just as bad, or nearly so, as handing it over to the PLO or Hamas.
Mr Abbas is not the only one to indicate that this ‘deal’ is dead on arrival. The secretary-general of the cesspit known as the United Nations has come out to voice support for ‘two states living in peace and security’ based on the pre-1967 borders. So nothing to see here, folks, just move along.
@ Ted Belman:
Oh yes I knew that from your response to Josephus. I was just airing my recollections, and putting myself in Josephus’ place, thinking I might interpret what he was getting at. He slipped up when he brought in the “British Mandate”…
It is interesting that the League of N dissolved a couple of years before the Mandate itself was (forcibly?) terminated.
Trans-Jordan was “only” detached from Palestine, not from the Mandate. I have described on this site (from Christopher Sykes’ “Crossroads to Israel”) how the British used to send regular camel loads of leather sacks full of gold coins (likely sovereigns) to Abdullah..
Was my recollection as to how the British did it’s “fiddling” correct…?
@ Edgar G.:
My point is that after the removal of the Zionist clause to settle the land from applying to the East Bank, TransJordan remained part of the British Mandate. It did not leave the mandate.
@ Tessa Goldstein: Tessa, if you read the report from beginning to end, the man whom Zahran warned against is openly hostile the U.S. presence in the middle East and pro-Iranian. He said that he hoped that the Iranians would kill 80 Americans, and boasted that he and two friends in Sweden had launched a conspiracy to kill Americans. He claimed that that threat had been “sarcastic” and a “joke.’ However, given this gentleman’s tweets supporting Iranian attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East, it seems to me that Zahran may have had rational grounds for suspecting that his tweet about conspiring to kill American soldiers might not be a “joke,” and passing along this information to U.S. military forces in Germany.
@ Ted Belman:
I think that Josephus is talking about where the Bafour Decaration says “…a National Home IN Palestine”… and means that it removed the Palestinian Province of Trans-Jordan (It’s official name then) from inclusion in the section which conferred Jewish ownership.
Actually if my recollection is correct, it made no difference, because the damage was done by Churchill, who must have already had it in mind since the deal with Hejaz to “revolt”..when he arranged later to have inserted, in (I think) the Mandatory Document, that Britain reserved the right to alter…notwithstanding … (I think this was referring to the clause (was it clause 5 ??) where alienation of any part of the whole, to any other state or group was forbidden).
I think I have garbled it a bit, as I’m going purely on recollection of the Mandate Document which I read a long time ago. But I am sure that Britain, using it’s pre-eminent position after WW1 in the 51 (San Remo, where the Mandates were decided on) States..pushed a pseudo-legal acceptance from them afterwards, (when most of the states were already absent) to reserve the later option to sever Trans-Jordan..
I’m open to correction….
Ted, I’m worried because I read a report by Newsweek accusing Mudar Zahran of putting out a fake “intelligence report” about an imminent terror attack on a US army base in Germany. Newsweek says Mudar Zahran’s “intelligence report” was aimed at screwing another Jordanian with whom he has a feud. I’m concerned that if the Newsweek article is correct, that would hurt Mudar Zahran’s chances of replacing Jordan’s King. https://www.newsweek.com/us-base-germany-threat-alert-was-result-feud-between-two-jordanian-activists-1485172
Josephus Said:
Wrong. Churchill made the Zionist clauses of the mandate inapplicable to TransJordan. TransJordan remain part of the Palestine Mandate until 1946 when it declared independance..
Its not complicated. Never-ending 2-states in the same [small] land = an extermination doctrine. It is also arguable Britain’s first 2-state that created Jordan on 80% of the land, allocated for one only Jewish state, was illegal and a miracle that Israel survived. Of all the states created by Britain, Israel is the only one that existed before – why account a 3-state as a 2-state? Why pick on the Jews – again? Never Again must apply.
Britain terrible deeds must be taken to task: • “The original text of the Balfour Declaration had read “Palestine should be reconstituted as the National Home of the Jewish people.” The text was changed to read “the establishment in Palestine of a Home for the Jewish people.” The single word “in” was used subsequently to justify removing all of Transjordan from the British Mandate that resulted from the Balfour Declaration. – [President of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error, 1949, p 257]
The only real solution to the Muslim-Jewish conflict over Israel/Palestine is for Israel to win the “lomg war” against it. This would mean victory of three fronts: the military front, the public relations front, and the diplomatic front. Nothing else would be a clear victory over Israel’s enemies. Victory could be achieved if several things happen. First Israel will have to wallop the Arabs and Iranians in the armed conflicts that are inevitable in the future so badly that they Arab governments realize that continuing the conflict is no longer practical. Second, the Arab public must lose interest in the conflict because of the urgent economic problems,including the threat of mass starvation, that is facing them. And they must become dissillusioned with the jihadists and the Sharia advocates after realizing that they have done absolutely nothing to improve their standard of living and quality of life. Third, the non-Muslim or predominently non-Muslim countries of the world, including the five permanent members of the Security Council and the EU nations, must realize that supporting the Palestinians, the Iranian fanatics and Arab governments hostile to Israel is not in their interest, that Israel is not the “bad guy” but the “good guy” in the conflict, and that they need Israel to help them deal with the jihadist threat , both internal and external, to their own national sovereignty and national culture. Israel could play a major role in changing the attitudes toward it in both the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds by a skillful, well-financed propaganda campaign, and a skillful, agressive and assertive diplomacy.
The obstacle to an Israeli victory is the total incompetence of Israel’s ruling class when it comes to diplomacy and counter-propaganda. Israelis just don’t get it that Israel has to improve its game drastically in both of these areas. That keeps me awake at night.
@ Bear Klein: The CNN interview with Kushner further clarifies his and Trump’s intentions.
It seems unlikely to me that Israel will ever unilaterally declare its sovereignty over the areas “allocated” to Israel in the Trump-Kushner Vision. Both of its candidates for Prime Minister strike me as too timid to do this. Worse, the Attorney General has announced his inclination to veto any such decision. And in contemporary Israel, the power of the Attorney Genral andthe courts courts is unlimited.
This is an interview with Jared Kushner in the Jerusalem Post. It appears to clarify some of the confusion about what the Trump Vision Plan actually says, and what unilateral initiatives by Israel the Trump administration is willing to support, and when.
See Video of Kushner talking on CNN plus the full article at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/275456
No room for a Pal State west of the Jordan River nor any other Army.
Trumps Plan is NOT going to happen because it requires the Pal-Arabs to become peaceful, democratic, agree to demilitarization (including Gaza), recognize the Jewish State of Israel. Trump says if it does not happen the world will go on.
Singers’ obsession with trying to bring a shaky Jordanian King who already causes Israel periodic problems into Judea/Samaria again is utterly ridiculous and dangerous to Israelis safety. Old bad idea put it to bed before you die already please! Never going to happen.