Jerusalem and the embassy issue

 

          When politicians say of any problem that their position is “clear”, you can be pretty certain that it is anything but. Clarity on the issue of Jerusalem, its status and its future, has been claimed recently by both the United Nations and the European Union. In fact the positions of both organizations on the matter are as clear as mud.

          The claim on behalf of the UN was made by Nickolay Mladenov, its special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, in a session of the UN Security Council considering US President Donald Trump’s decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem.  The United Nations position, he announced, was clear.  “Jerusalem is a final status issue for which a comprehensive, just and lasting solution must be achieved through negotiations between the two parties, and on the basis of relevant United Nations resolutions and mutual agreements.”  That formula has been repeated several times since, most recently by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in February 2020.

In other words, the UN holds that the exact status of Jerusalem in international law is as yet undetermined.  Yet the Security Council, in its Resolution 2334 passed in 2016, had determined that the status of Jerusalem was at it had been on 4 June 1967 - that is, on the day before the Six Day War commenced - referring three times to “Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem.”    

So the UN’s “clear” position is that it asserts that East Jerusalem is part of Palestinian territories, but in the same breath maintains that Jerusalem is a final status issue to be determined through negotiation.  It recognizes no changes to the pre-Six Day War boundaries, except that it does not recognize that West Jerusalem at least was part of Israel at the time. Its position defies logic.

         The European Union also believes that its stance on Jerusalem is crystal clear. As recently as February 2020 it issued a statement, prefaced by the words: “The European Union has a clear and united position on Jerusalem.” What is that position? “The EU remains firmly committed to the two-state solution, with Jerusalem as capital of both the State of Israel and the future State of Palestine.”

That is as ambiguous a clarity as it is possible to achieve.  Does the EU believe in an undivided capital shared between Israel and an as yet unestablished state of Palestine, administered jointly?  Or does it subscribe to a divided Jerusalem with West Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and East Jerusalem, which has a large Arab population that extends into its hinterland, serving as the capital of a new sovereign Palestine? 

What of the status of the Old City?  The EU has nothing to say on that.  Before the Six Day War it was occupied by Jordan, which instituted a program of “Islamization” in 1953, prohibiting Christians from owning or purchasing land near holy sites, and removing educational institutions from Christian control, while Jordanian troops desecrated Jewish synagogues and holy sites including the Western Wall, the holiest of all.  Does the EU endorse a return to that situation?

The EU condemned Trump’s recognition of the city as Israel’s capital, taking no account of his statement: “We are not taking a position on any final status issues, including the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem…Those questions are up to the parties involved.”  Nor has the EU taken on board what Trump said at the unveiling of his peace plan - namely that it envisages a Palestinian capital in eastern Jerusalem to be called Al Quds, where the US will “proudly” open an embassy.

Because the EU’s position on Jerusalem is so obscure, it cannot endorse the idea of any national embassy being sited there – not even in West Jerusalem, which it cannot bring itself to acknowledge as lying within sovereign Israel.  This is why the EU voiced "serious concern and regret" when Serbia and Kosovo announced, on 4 September 2020, that they intended to locate their Israel embassies in Jerusalem. These intentions were incorporated in a signing ceremony in the White House brokered by President Trump, when Serbia and Kosovo agreed to normalize their relations and pursue economic cooperation.

In a statement three days later, the EU spokesperson objected, implying that breaking with the EU’s common position on Jerusalem could undermine the prospects of Serbia and Kosovo becoming EU members.

The European Leadership Network (ELNET) expressed deep concern over the EU’s stance. In its statement ELNET said it “strongly believes it is high time the EU updates its position on Jerusalem and recognizes Israeli sovereignty over West Jerusalem…Objecting to European embassies in any part of Jerusalem completely defies reality. Jerusalem has been Israel’s capital city since Israel’s inception.”

The ELNET statement urges the EU to abandon “entirely anachronistic UN stipulations”. It is referring to the 1947 UN General Assembly resolution 181 (II): “The City of Jerusalem shall be established as a corpus separatum under a special international regime and shall be administered by the United Nations.” 

          Astonishingly this resolution has never been countermanded. It is undoubtedly dead in the water. It has never been proposed by any party in the many attempts at settling the Israel-Palestine dispute. Yet incongruously the UN as a whole, like the EU, still clings to the concept of an internationalized Jerusalem administered by the UN, turning a blind eye to the Security Council’s support for the incompatible objective of “a viable state of Palestine in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

          Clarity is the last word that either the UN or the EU can legitimately apply to their stated views on Jerusalem, while their objections to any nation locating its embassy at least in West Jerusalem have no basis in logic. Arab states are lining up to normalize their relations with Israel. It is time for both the UN and the EU to have a radical rethink about Jerusalem.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 30 September 2020 as:

"The embassy issue reveals the contradictions in the EUs Jerusalem policy"

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/the-embassy-issue-reveals-the-contradictions-in-the-eus-jerusalem-policy-643893

Published in Eurasia Review, 25 September 2020:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/25092020-jerusalem-and-the-embassy-issue-oped/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 25 September 2020:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2020/09/25/jerusalem-and-the-embassy-issue/ 

Published in The Times of Israel, 27 September 2020:

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/jerusalem-and-the-embassy-issue/

Who is betraying whom?

 This article appears in the Jerusalem Post today, Thursday 17 September 2020

           Twice in the past few days Palestinian leaders have charged fellow Arab states with treachery.  The accusation was taken up and repeated by the two non-Arab states that proclaim themselves Israel’s great enemies, Iran and Turkey, and was echoed by Iran’s puppet, Hezbollah.  By normalizing relations with Israel, they proclaimed, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have betrayed the Palestinians.

            The Arab League disagreed.  At a video conference convened by the Palestinian Authority (PA) specifically to condemn the UAE-Israel deal, the League refused to do so – a decision so unacceptable to Islamist rejectionists that one spokesman called for the League itself to be disbanded.  The new reality now being acknowledged openly by two Gulf states, but covertly by many more, is that Israel is no enemy to the moderate Arab world, but a bulwark against the ambitions of Iran to dominate the region both politically and religiously.  Moreover active cooperation with Israel, a hi-tech, security and business powerhouse, could unlock the door to growth and future prosperity for the region on a scale previously unimaginable. 

            Moderate Arab states are increasingly aware that by dropping outworn attitudes and dealing with today’s world as it really is, a bright future for them and the Middle East is within grasp. The Palestinian leadership is stuck in the past. The ultimate priority for all Palestine’s current leaders is to dislodge, overthrow or neuter Israel, in other words to condemn their people to a future of unending conflict.  PA President Mahmoud Abbas repudiated Trump’s peace plan sight unseen, and rejected its economic leg, “Peace to Prosperity - A New Vision for the Palestinian People”, as soon as it appeared.

            He clearly took very little account of the stated purpose behind the proposals: “Peace to Prosperity represents the most ambitious and comprehensive effort for the Palestinian people to date. It has the ability to…open a new chapter in Palestinian history – one defined not by adversity and loss, but by freedom and dignity.”

            Spurned. The document itself regards its proposals not as cut-and-dried, but as the basis for bilateral negotiations.  Palestine’s leaders are not interested.  To what extent are the Palestinian public aware of its details?  Do they know that the plan has as its objective a sovereign Palestinian state, and that it proposes a massive injection of some $50 billion to finance a 10-year program designed to transform all aspects of Palestinian life from jobs, housing, the economy, education and health care to taxes, roads and railways?   Even without public knowledge of its full details, the last official poll of Palestinian public opinion revealed that some 50 percent of Palestinians approve of the two-state solution.  If their leaders projected those proposals as a possible basis for starting peace negotiations, what percentage might approve and urge the leadership to get on with it? 

            It is not the UAE and Bahrain, and whichever Arab states might follow them, that are out of step with the Palestinians; it is the Palestinian leadership that has failed to keep pace with the new reality in the Middle East. It is they who are increasingly out of step with their Arab brothers, as the decision of the Arab League demonstrates. 

Worse, the PA has allied itself with the two non-Arab states who are at odds with the moderate Arab world.  Turkey strongly supports the Muslim Brotherhood. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is accordingly helping Qatar overcome the economic sanctions placed on it by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, while in the Libyan civil war Erdogan is opposing a host of NATO nations as well as Egypt.  

            The regional ambitions of Iran’s revolutionary regime, and its ruthless pursuit of them, have alienated most of the more moderate Arab states, which have had to deal with Iranian efforts to destabilize or overthrow their governments.  Iran’s grip on the Iraqi nation is only now being loosened by its new prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, while Iran is making every effort to retain control of Lebanon through its manipulation of Hezbollah – the state within the state.

            Everyone is entitled to dream, and the Palestinian leaders have no need to abandon their messianic dream of one day occupying the whole of Mandate Palestine, however illusory that may be.  But for the sake of their people they do need to recognize the reality that is staring them in the face.  Israel is here to stay. It will cooperate with those nation states that are prepared to do so, bringing prosperity and a new bright future for the Middle East within reach.  The Palestinians could be part of all that, to their immense benefit. Is it not a betrayal of the Palestinian people to withhold from them the opportunity of participating in the prosperous future that is within grasp in the Middle East?

Published in the Jerusalem Post on-line titled: "Who is betraying whom with the UAE-Israel agreement", 17 September 2020:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/who-is-betraying-whom-with-the-uae-israel-agreement-642558

Published in The Times of Israel, 18 September 2020:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/who-is-betraying-whom/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 18 September 2020:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2020/09/18/who-is-betraying-whom/

Pity the Palestinian people

This article appeared in the Jerusalem Post on 10 September 2020

          It is becoming increasingly obvious to the world at large that a peaceful, productive. flourishing Middle East is not only possible, but within grasp. Steps are being taken, plans are being made, to achieve a bright new future for the region. The Palestinian people could share in that prosperity, but their path forward is being blocked by their leaders – all of them, right across the Palestinian political spectrum.

          It is clear that the Palestinian leadership simply cannot shake itself free of old outworn aspirations, no matter how unrealistic they obviously are in the here and now. Unfortunately for the Palestinian man and woman in the street, their leaders have no appetite for normalization or for peace. Encouraging economic growth, fostering industry and business, improving health and social provision, raising the living standards of its citizens – all have been subordinated to the objective shared by them all, which is to gain control of the whole of what used to be Mandate Palestine, eliminating or neutering Israel in the process..

          The rejectionist Hamas organization and like-minded extremist bodies make no bones about it. They take their lead from the pronouncement by Yassir Arafat back in 1970: “Our basic aim is to liberate the land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.... The Palestinian revolution's basic concern is the uprooting of the Zionist entity from our land and liberating it.”

          Where Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) differ, and differ fundamentally, is about the most effective way to achieve their common purpose. That disagreement is so basic that it has ensured the two main Palestinian political groups have remained at each other’s throats for decades. Recent reports of a reconciliation are likely to prove as illusory as the scores of previous such efforts. Hamas wants to replace Fatah and control the West Bank.

          As for its policy toward Israel, Hamas believes that the only appropriate way to achieve its desired outcome is through terror and the armed struggle. Any pause in the battle – such as the agreement just reached on ending the tit-for-tat attacks on each other - must be of limited duration and represent a tactical advantage.

          The PA also takes its lead from Arafat, but at a time when he was in a more strategic frame of mind. At the Oslo meetings in 1993 and 1995 Arafat decided to woo world opinion by supporting the two-state solution overtly, with the covert intention of using that support as a first step towards eventually overthrowing Israel.

          Not long after the conclusion of Oslo II, he held what was intended to be a secret meeting with Arab leaders in a Stockholm hotel. To his embarrassment, both his tactical plans and his strategic objectives were leaked to the Norwegian daily, Dagen. Among much else, he told Arab leaders that the PLO intends: “…to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state.” 

          Following Arafat’s death the PA, and its new leader Mahmoud Abbas, took their lead from his prospectus. A determined effort was made to win over world opinion to establishing a sovereign Palestine within the boundaries that existed before the 6-Day War in 1967 – that is, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Pressing for a Palestinian state within those boundaries inevitably meant acknowledging that a sovereign Israel existed outside them. This was the pill that Hamas and like-minded rejectionists found impossible to swallow. Clever-clever tactics were not for them. They would never recognize that Israel had any right to exist on “their” land at all, not even as one step towards its eventual destruction.

          And that is where they are stuck today. Hamas never supported Abbas’s effort to gain recognition within the UN for the “State of Palestine”, because the state that Abbas sought recognition for was less than the whole. The problem for Abbas and the rest of the PA leadership is that they dare not appear less zealous than the hard-line extremists within the Palestinian body politic. So willingly, or perhaps in some cases unwillingly, all are forced to turn their backs on the bright future that is beckoning.

          Peace to Prosperity, the economic leg of Trump’s Middle East peace plan, is subtitled A New Vision for the Palestinian People. It covers all aspects of Palestinian life from education and health care to taxes, roads and railways. With a financial input of some $50 billion, it is based on three pillars – the economy, the people and the government.

          A main goal of the economy pillar – to connect Palestinian-occupied areas to regional and global markets – included integrating Gaza and the West Bank “through an efficient, modern transportation network, including a transportation corridor directly connecting” the two areas. “Billions of dollars of new investment will flow into various sectors of the Palestinian economy,” said the document, which also detailed how “hospitals, schools, homes and businesses will secure access to affordable electricity, clean water and digital services.” 

          The second pillar aimed to “improve the well-being of the Palestinian people” through educational programs, vocational and technical training, expanding the female labor force, reducing Infant mortality and increasing average life expectancy.

          The third pillar proposed a range of reforms in the Palestinian government including reforming the tax structure and increasing exports and direct foreign investment.

          In the document’s own words: “Peace to Prosperity represents the most ambitious and comprehensive effort for the Palestinian people to date. It has the ability to…open a new chapter in Palestinian history – one defined not by adversity and loss, but by freedom and dignity.”

          Root and branch rejection from Palestinian leaders and spokesmen was immediate. The PA seems to believe that Trump’s “Deal of the Century” is a case of take it or leave it. That is not the situation. As the document states: "We hope that the parties will seize the opportunity, embrace this vision, and begin negotiations."

          A Palestinian leadership genuinely committed to the welfare of their people could take the proposals in Vision for Peace as a starting point for negotiations. Stuck in the past, their knee-jerk response was to reject it. Their negative reaction to the historic UAE-Israel normalization deal is further evidence of how out of step with today’s reality they are.

          The Palestinian leadership have positioned themselves on the wrong side of history. They are leading their people along a road to nowhere. The Palestinian people deserve better.

Published in the Jerusalem Post on-line titled: "The Palestinian people deserve better than their current leaders" on 9 September 2020:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/the-palestinian-people-deserve-better-than-their-current-leaders-opinion-641691

Published in the Jewish Business News, 11 September 2020:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2020/09/11/pity-the-palestinian-people/

Published in The Times of Israel, 12 September 2020:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/pity-the-palestinian-people/

The hard truth about Iran

          In his “The Art of War”, the ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu said: “Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will not be defeated in a hundred battles.” 

          Can anyone claim to know the revolutionary Iranian regime? For 41 years world leaders have been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to perceive the quintessential purposes that motivated the leader of Iran’s Islamic revolution of 1979, or to appreciate that these same objectives have driven the regime ever since and continue to be its raison d’être.

          The regime’s original Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, affirmed repeatedly that the foundation stone of his philosophy, the very purpose of his revolution, was to destroy Western-style democracy and its way of life, and to impose Shia Islam on the whole world. He identified the United States and Israel as his prime targets.

          “We wish to cause the corrupt roots of Zionism, Capitalism and Communism to wither throughout the world,” said Khomeini. “We wish, as does God almighty, to destroy the systems which are based on these three foundations, and to promote the Islamic order of the Prophet.” By this he meant his strict Shia interpretation of Islam, for elsewhere he had declared that the holy city of Mecca, situated in the heart of Sunni Saudi Arabia, was in the hands of “a band of heretics”.

          Ever since 1979 the world could have recognized, if it had had a mind to, that the Iranian regime was engaged in a focused pursuit of these twin objectives, quite impervious to any other considerations – and, indeed, that it is still doing so. If post-revolution Iranian actions had been interpreted in the light of religious zeal on the one hand, and realpolitik on the other, the threat that Iran now poses to the Middle East could have been averted. Instead wishful thinking has governed the approach of many of the world’s leaders to Iran, and continues to do so.

          “We shall export our revolution to the whole world,” declared Khomeini. “Until the cry 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.” 

          Pursuit of this fundamental objective of the Islamic Revolution has involved the state – acting either directly or through proxy militant bodies like Hezbollah or the Houthis that enable it to deny responsibility – in a succession of bombings, rocket attacks, assassinations and acts of terror directed not only against Western targets, but against non-Shia Muslims as well. “To kill the infidels,” declared Khomeini, “is one of the noblest missions Allah has reserved for mankind.” For decades Iran has also made determined efforts to develop nuclear power, with the aim – never openly acknowledged – of producing nuclear weapons. It is unlikely that the present regime has abandoned that objective.

          In 2015, in an attempt to cripple its nuclear programme, the permanent members of the UN Security Council together with Germany concluded an agreement with Iran. No doubt all those involved, including then-US President Barak Obama, had the very best of intentions. With that deal – which incorporated a substantial financial boost to Iran – they believed they had put the regime’s nuclear ambitions on hold for at least 15 years, making the world a safer place. Moreover they believed that they had taken an important step toward normalizing relations and bringing Iran back within the comity of nations.

          They were mistaken. To quote President Donald Trump, speaking on January 8, 2020:

          “Iran’s hostilities substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2015, and they were given $150 billion, not to mention $1.8 billion in cash. Instead of saying "thank you" to the United States, they chanted "death to America." In fact, they chanted "death to America" the day the agreement was signed. Then, Iran went on a terror spree, funded by the money from the deal, and created hell in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration.”

          The problem that Iran poses to the civilized world stems entirely from the Islamic revolutionary regime that the nation wished on itself back in 1979. Unwavering pursuit of the fundamental objectives of the Islamic Revolution partly explains Iran’s unremitting hostility to Sunni Saudi Arabia. With Islam’s two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, within its borders, the Saudi kingdom sees itself as the leader of the Muslim world – a claim hotly contested by Iran. The regime sees Saudi Arabia as its great rival for political, as well as religious, hegemony in the region. 

          Iran’s leaders want to destroy the world as we know it. They want to overthrow Western-style democracy of which America is the prime exponent, to wipe out the state of Israel, to impose Shia Islam first on the Muslim world, and then on the world entire, and to achieve political dominance in the Middle East. They believe that any means are justified in the struggle to achieve their aims – God-given aims, as they perceive them. In pursuing them they are prepared to bluff, trick and cheat, and to undertake or facilitate acts of terror regardless of the deaths or injuries inflicted.

          For some time the Sunni Arab world has recognized who its main enemy was. The recent UAE-Israel deal is one outcome – perhaps the first of others. Western leaders want to believe in an accommodation with the regime. A clear-eyed look at the facts shows that this is simply not possible. This Iranian regime is not, and has no intention of ever becoming, one of the comity of civilized nations. It simply does not wish to be “brought in out of the cold”. To accede to that would be to negate the fundamental purposes underlying the revolution, purposes to which the ayatollahs remain unshakably committed. 

Published in The Times of Israel, 4 September 2020:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-hard-truth-about-iran-2/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 4 September 2020:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2020/09/04/the-hard-truth-about-iran/

Published as "What Iran really wants" in Eurasia Review, 5 Sept 2020:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/05092020-what-iran-really-wants-oped/