Where’s the positive thinking about Israel-Palestine?

                                                                               Video version
          Israel goes to the polls on Tuesday, 9 April. Ahead of the general election, old political parties like Likud and Labor, and newly-formed ones like Israel Resilience and New Right, have been publishing their platforms – the policies on which they seek the support of voters.

          Anyone scrutinizing these party platforms for new outside-the-box proposals for tackling the Israel-Palestine situation will search in vain. Not one of the political parties, new or old, is offering any new thinking on the perennial problem facing the nation and the region.

          The Likud leadership, with advance knowledge of what is contained in the long-awaited, and long-delayed, Trump peace deal, may be relying on just that. Typically trumpeted in advance as “the deal of the century”, it will probably receive an equivocal reception when it is eventually unveiled after the general election. Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas has already condemned it sight unseen, while recent reports suggest that its main hoped-for supporter, Saudi Arabia, has been laying down conditions before agreeing to come out in its defence.

          So there is room enough, and to spare, for some bold, positive thinking about how the long-standing problem might be resolved.

          On 3 September 2018 the Palestinian Information Center, known as Palinfo, published this: “During a meeting with an Israeli delegation that visited Ramallah on Sunday, Abbas said that senior US administration officials, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, asked him recently about his opinion of a ‘confederation with Jordan’. “I said yes to the offer, but I want a three-way confederation with Jordan and Israel,” said Abbas.”

          The statement was more or less ignored by commentators in the media.

          Abbas has a good deal of reason on his side. Prowling around the PA stockade is Hamas, ruling over nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza, hungry for power in the West Bank, and harrying Abbas for a decade. Every effort to effect a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, and they are numerous, have failed. The PA leadership is rightly worried about losing power to Hamas, either by way of a military coup or even via democratic elections, for Hamas has a fair following among the Palestinian public which is not enamoured of the inadequacies of the PA. The latest poll of Palestinian opinion shows no less than 80 percent of the public believe that PA institutions are riddled with corruption.

          The poll, held in December 2018, revealed a significant rise in Hamas’s popularity and that of its leader, Ismail Haniyeh. If only Abbas and Haniyeh were nominated in new presidential elections, Abbas would receive 42 percent and Haniyeh 49 percent of the vote, compared to 47 percent for Abbas and 45 percent for Haniyeh in the previous poll in September 2018.

          Like it or not, Abbas realizes that if ever a sovereign Palestine came into being, it would need stronger defences against “the enemy within” than his own resources could provide – one powerful reason for supporting the confederation concept.

          An even more fundamental issue militates against the classic two-state solution. The PA has painted itself into a corner. Vying with Hamas on the one hand, and extremists within its own Fatah party on the other, it has glorified the so-called “armed struggle”, making heroes of those who undertake terrorist attacks inside Israel, and reiterating the message in the media and the schools that all of Mandate Palestine is Palestinian and the creation of Israel was a national disaster. The end-result of its own narrative is that no Palestinian leader dare sign a peace agreement unilaterally with Israel based on the two-state solution. The consequent backlash from within the Palestinian world, to say nothing of the personal fear of assassination, have made it impossible.

          The political reality is that any viable solution would have to be based on an Arab-wide consensus, within which Palestinian extremist objections could be absorbed. In recent times moderate Arab states, led perhaps by Saudi Arabia, have begun to perceive Israel as an ally against Iranian ambitions, both nuclear and political. The US-led summit on Middle East security, held in Warsaw on 13 and 14 February 2019, focused its attention on the threat posed by Iran to the Arab world. The PA, fearful that the Israel-Palestine issue was being sidelined, declined an invitation to attend and tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Arab nations to boycott the conference.

          It seems increasingly likely that the Arab League could prove a broker for peace acceptable to all parties. Under its shield the PA could participate, with Jordan and Israel, in bringing Abbas’s concept of a three-state confederation to reality. This new entity – a Confederation of Jordan, Israel and Palestine – could come into legal existence simultaneously with a new sovereign Palestine that ideally would include Gaza.

          The negotiations to bring about this kind of political solution would be lengthy, intensive and complex. But if successful, the end-result would be eminently worthwhile. A Jordan-Israel-Palestine confederation, geared to defending itself and its constituent sovereign states, could also be dedicated to cooperating in the fields of commerce, infrastructure and economic development. From the moment it came into legal existence, the confederation could make it abundantly clear that any subsequent armed opposition, from whatever source, including Hamas, would be disciplined and crushed from within. The Israel Defense Forces would act in concert with the defence forces of the other states to guarantee the security of Israel and that of the confederation as a whole.

          A confederation of three sovereign states, dedicated to providing high-tech security but also future economic growth and prosperity for all its citizens – this is a configuration offering the possibility of a peaceful and thriving Middle East. Surely it is attractive enough for at least one of Israel’s contending political groupings to adopt as its proposed policy in the forthcoming election?

Published in the Eurasia Review, 16 February 2019:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/16022019-wheres-the-positive-thinking-about-israel-palestine-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 16 February 2019:
http://mpc-journal.org/blog/2019/02/16/wheres-the-positive-thinking-about-israel-palestine/

Britain's next Labour government and Israel

This article appears in the edition of the "Jerusalem Report" dated 25 February 2019

          In the UK the political pendulum is always on the move. Sometimes it swings very slowly, but swing it does. So, although the timing may be unsure, what is certain is that at some point in the future a Labour government will be voted into power in the United Kingdom.

          The current political situation gives Labour supporters grounds for optimism. Back in 2017 prime minister Theresa May, in an attempt to boost her party’s standing ahead of her Brexit negotiations, engineered a snap general election. Against all the odds – and they were substantial at the time – the Labour party, invigorated by an influx of enthusiastic young people, slashed May’s majority and left her with a minority government.

          In Israel it is necessary for the party winning most seats to do deals with smaller parties in order to build a parliamentary majority. In the UK it is highly unusual, but on this occasion May was forced to seek an arrangement with the 10-member Northern Irish DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) – an arrangement that came unstuck in the furore of Brexit.

         When the House of Commons came to vote on the exit deal that May had negotiated with the EU, the DUP refused to back her. Facing opposition also from the Labour party and even from considerable numbers of her own Conservatives, May suspended the parliamentary vote on her deal while she undertook to open further discussions with the EU. When she returned to the Commons with the minor clarifications she had wrung from the EU, she suffered the worst parliamentary defeat in modern British history.

          A chaotic situation ensued. Labour tabled a vote of no confidence in the government, but failed to win it. The party could try again, and if they succeeded a general election would be a very likely outcome. But even if the government manages to soldier on until 2022 when, in accordance with the UK’s 5-year fixed term parliamentary system, a general election must take place, the Labour hierarchy is extremely hopeful that it would win an outright majority and form the next government.

          What would be the effect on Israel and on Britain’s Jewish community of a Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn?

          Whatever Corbyn’s own views on anti-Semitism – and he repeatedly condemns it, sweeping it up with his passionate denunciation of racism in all its forms – there is no doubting his pretty total opposition to Israel. It is not only Israel’s current right-wing government that he abhors, but Israel’s very existence. He is on record as viewing the establishment of the state of Israel as a racist endeavour – and he strove hard to have this opinion appended to Labour’s eventual and grudging acceptance of the internationally approved definition of anti-Semitism. On this he was defeated by his party’s ruling body, but it is an opinion shared by his closest advisers.

           The man Corbyn appointed to run Labour’s election campaign in 2017, and who will run it in 2022 if not before, is Andrew Murray. Debarred on account of his past affiliations from working in the House of Commons, banned from the Ukraine, and refused entry to Israel until 2025, Murray chaired the anti-Israel organization Stop The War for some twelve years. In 2009 one of the group’s founders, John Rees, described Hamas and Hezbollah as a legitimate part of their movement. Murray has denounced as “bloody aggression” Israel’s reaction to Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on civilians. Seeking to isolate Israel from international left-wing interests, he has called on UK trade unionists to break their long-standing fraternal links with the Histadrut, Israel’s trade union movement.

          Few wield more power in the group surrounding Corbyn than Seumas Milne, a fierce opponent of Israel. Before joining Corbyn’s team in 2015, Milne was comment editor for The Guardian, running a controversial operation that was notoriously anti-Israel. “I never regarded him as a journalist,” a former Guardian colleague is reported as saying, “but as a propagandist...The basics of reporting both sides of an argument were anathema to him.” 

          In 2009 Milne described Israel as a state “created by European colonists, built on the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population.” That same year he told a rally that the creation of Israel was a “crime”. In an anti-Israel rally in 2014 Milne declared: “Israel has no right to defend itself from territory it illegally occupies… It’s not terrorism to fight back. The terrorism is the killing of civilians by Israel on an industrial scale.”

          Seamus Milne is Labour’s director of communications and strategy. Should Corbyn ever become prime minister, Milne is likely to mastermind a hard-line anti-Israel policy for the new Labour government. One Labour insider has been quoted as saying: “Israel would have to assume that diplomatic relations [with the UK] were unofficially null and void.”

          A word also about Jon Lansman, the leader of the hard-left organization Momentum. Back in 2015 Lansman skillfully master-minded Corbyn’s campaign to gain the leadership of the Labour party. Voting for the leader of the Labour party is open to all paid-up members, and prior to the poll Lansman mounted a recruitment campaign that boosted party membership to an all-time record of 600,000. Against all the odds he secured a win for a declared Marxist, who had consistently opposed the social democratic policies of his party and its leaders.

          Labour stalwarts were shocked, and in Corbyn’s early days as party leader his MPs, by an overwhelming majority, passed a vote of no confidence in him. As a result the leadership election was re-run, and he won again on a majority of 61 percent, henceforth maintaining that his mandate came not from his MPs, but from the popular vote. 

          Having achieved a key position in the inner sanctum of the Labour party, Lansman embarked on a “democratization” process aimed at removing as many social democrat Labour MPs as possible. Under current arrangements a “sitting member” is automatically the party’s candidate in the next general election, if they choose to stand. However the process is well under way of requiring a fully-fledged re-selection process in each constituency. At the same time hard-left members are being infiltrated into the party at local level to guarantee the selection of “correct-thinking” candidates.

          As for a future Labour government’s policy towards Israel, the general outline was clearly demonstrated in the party’s annual conference in September 2018. To a standing ovation and the wild waving of Palestinian flags, Corbyn pledged that “as soon as we take office” Labour would recognize a Palestinian state. Denouncing as “illegal and inhuman” Israel’s response to the Hamas-inspired attempts to breach the Gaza-Israel border, he demanded “an independent international investigation into Israel’s use of force” against what he described as “unarmed Palestinian demonstrators”. Earlier, in a near-unanimous show of hands, the conference passed a motion calling for a freeze of UK government arms sales to Israel.

          If implemented by a future Labour government, this ban would be consistent with Corbyn’s support for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. As he said in 2015: “I think the boycott campaign, divestment campaign, is part and parcel of a legal process that has to be adopted.”

          Setting aside for the moment the effect on Israel of a BDS policy, for the UK it would be a case of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. UK-Israeli trade is flourishing as never before. From some $6 billion four years ago, in 2017 it achieved over $9 billion, while the figures for 2018 look set to hit a new record. As for arms sales, in 2017 the UK issued $283 million-worth of arms licenses to British defense companies exporting to Israel – in 2016 it was $110 million and only $26 million in 2015.

           All this – to say nothing of the close collaboration between the UK and Israel in the fields of intelligence and high-tech security – will be at risk. British-Israeli cooperation in cyber security is rated a “first-order partnership”. With many Israeli cyber companies involved in the British market, several UK firms have joined the growing list of multinational corporations establishing cyber security centres in Israel.

          From the point of view of the advisory team surrounding Corbyn, there is a certain electoral logic to a BDS delegitimization policy towards Israel. The current population of the United Kingdom is about 66 million, of which some 3.4 million, or 5.15 percent are Muslim. The total number of Jews residing in the UK is about 270,000, or 0.4 percent of the total population. So although the British Muslim community contains a substantial moderate element, the calculation might be that sufficient Muslim opinion would respond positively to an anti-Israel policy to provide Labour with an electoral advantage.

          However much Labour politicians might decry anti-Semitism as such, an actively anti-Israel Labour government would inevitably embolden anti-Jewish feeling within the population and change the climate of opinion toward the Jewish community. Shechita [slaughtering animals in conformity with religious practice]  and Brit Mila [religious circumcision] might be at risk, despite Muslim objections (both practices are common to Islam and Judaism). The inevitable conclusion is that the prospects for Israel in general, and for British Jewry in particular, of a Corbyn-led Labour government look grim indeed. If there is any hope, it may lie in the fact that the last Labour leader to contest a general election on a far-left agenda – Michael Foot – suffered the worst electoral defeat in recent times.

          Is the British electorate ready for Corbyn’s Marxist-inspired policies? Or eventually, once the inexorable electoral pendulum has swung far enough, will British voters give their trust to a Labour party under more moderate leadership?

Published in the Jerusalem Report, 25 February 2019:
https://www.jpost.com/Jerusalem-Report/Britains-next-Labour-government-and-Israel-581244

Tales from a Diplomatic Life

This review of Zalman Shoval's memoirs: "Jerusalem and Washington: A Life in Politics and Diplomacy" appears in the Jerusalem Post magazine of 8 February 2019

          Zalman Shoval made aliyah in 1936 at the age of 6. Mandate Palestine was in turmoil, and it was not long before he got caught up in the political excitement. Aged 14, the enthusiastic young Zionist penned an essay describing the future Jewish state that he was certain would soon emerge. His headmaster gathered the higher grade students together, and had Shoval read it out to them. This, Shoval recalls in his “Jerusalem and Washington: A Life in Politics and Diplomacy”, was his first political appearance in public.

          It was to be the beginning of a life largely devoted to the internal politics and foreign policy of Israel. Starting with the pre-State struggle against the British administration, Shoval’s career in the political sphere mirrors the history of Israel itself. Along the way he was elected to the Knesset from time to time, and also served two terms between 1990 and 2000 as Israel’s ambassador to the United States.

          So for most of his working life Shoval was at the heart of Israel’s political machine, and his take on the nation’s major political and diplomatic events is unflinchingly honest. In describing the period leading up to his first ambassadorial appointment, Shoval provides an uninhibited account of some of the behind-the-scenes manoeuvrings and political back-stabbings that seem an inextricable part of Israel’s statecraft. He is equally frank when, as Israeli ambassador, he turns to his dealings with various US administrations and his experiences on the world stage.

          Party labels change with bewildering rapidity in Israeli politics, but the political inclinations of individuals are more constant. Throughout his long and distinguished career in public affairs, Shoval leaned to the right of the old Ashkenazi élite. So when in 1965 David Ben Gurion broke from the centre-left Mapai to form a new party, to be called Rafi, Shoval went with him.

          Rafi’s fortunes waxed and waned. They were at a particularly low ebb in 1968 when a number of powerful voices in the party advocated reunifying Rafi with Mapai, a proposal which Ben Gurion strongly opposed. He was outvoted. The reunification went ahead and, together with a smaller left-wing group, this new political entity became the Labor party. Neither BG nor Shoval approved of its political direction, and as soon as Shimon Peres entered the government, Shoval left Labor.

          Just before the 1969 Knesset elections Ben Gurion, then aged 80, gave his approval to suggestions from his closest political allies to revive Rafi. Shoval was among the leading figures in its reconstitution, and was placed fifth on its list in the general election. In the event Rafi won four seats – but when Ben Gurion resigned in 1970, Shoval found himself shoe-horned into the Knesset for the first time.

          During his time in parliament, and subsequently, Shoval became well-known in political circles as a powerful advocate, both in private and in public, for policies he believed in. The general election of 1977 was a triumph for Menachim Begin, but his success in the polls generated a torrent of adverse publicity. Once a commander in Etzel (or the Irgun as it is more commonly known in English), Begin was being castigated in the international media as a terrorist. Shoval was drafted in to brief foreign correspondents with a more favourable view, which he did with great success.

          It was partly for these skills that he was seconded to Israel’s delegation to the UN where he honed his abilities in political public diplomacy. Following the historic visit of Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem in 1977, Shoval was directly involved in the negotiations which led to the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, and was present throughout the Camp David discussions between Begin, Sadat and US President Jimmy Carter in 1978.

          It was during the days of the Shamir-Peres unity government that his name was bandied about as a possible ambassador to the US. Shoval is frank about the political machinations that underlay his delayed, but eventual, appointment, and about the problems and tensions generated by the fact that although appointed by prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, foreign minister David Levy regarded himself as Shoval’s direct superior.

          Certain major themes dominate Shoval’s account of his public service. The most persistent was the ever-present Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and the continuing attempts to achieve some sort of breakthrough. One stumbling block was the settlement issue, and Shoval’s insider account describes the tensions between the US and Israel on the matter. An authoritative legal opinion by President George H W Bush’s special legal adviser on international law debarred Washington from describing them as “illegal”, but they were a constant bone of contention, described by various US administrations an “obstacle to the peace process”.

          He was involved in peace effort after peace effort – Madrid, Oslo, Annapolis, Wye River, the Quartet’s Road Map – all to no effect. Shoval sets out the background to each, describes the personalities and the clash of political opinions involved, and explains as only someone on the inside could, the reasons for failure on each occasion.

          Anyone fascinated by the minutiae of Israel’s politics, its intrigues and machinations, but also its successes and failures, will be delighted to be led by Zalman Shoval through his personal account of his country’s high points and low during a major period of its history.

Yemen and the Pope

                   Video version

For once the description “historic” was no exaggeration when, on 3 February 2019, Pope Francis I set foot on the Arabian peninsula. This was the first time, since the establishment of the Muslim faith fourteen centuries ago, that a pontiff had ever done so. He was visiting the Sunni Gulf state of the UAE (the United Arab Emirates), at the invitation of its crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. The visit was arranged to demonstrate the reality behind the UAE’s designation of 2019 as the Year of Tolerance. 

          The Pope was accorded a right royal welcome. Inter-faith discussions with leading Muslim clerics and scholars were organized, and facilities were provided for him to celebrate a public mass at Zayed Sports City Stadium in the capital city of Abu Dhabi before a congregation of some 135,000 people. Many of them were reported to be Catholic migrants from places such as the Philippines and South America, part of a large migrant community in the oil-rich country, but the gathering included also imams, muftis, ministers, rabbis, swamis, Zoroastrians and Sikhs.

          Pope Francis did not mince words in his address, a message clearly intended as much for his hosts as for the world in general: "War cannot create anything but misery, weapons bring nothing but death. I am thinking in particular of Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya."

          It was a controversial thing to say, for it is no secret that the UAE is heavily involved in the war in Yemen.

          The conflict in Yemen had its origins in the sadly misnamed “Arab spring” uprisings of 2011. Mass protests, a near-assassination, and pressure from neighbouring petro-states forced President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down in favour of his vice-president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Hadi was then universally recognized as the legitimate president of Yemen.

          Although a Sunni Muslim, the deposed Saleh seemed intent on manoeuvring a return to power in collaboration with the Iran-backed Shia rebel group known as the Houthis. It was through Saleh that the Houthis were able to gain control of most of the Yemeni military, including its air force. As a result, and supported with military hardware from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, they overran large tracts of the country, including the capital city, Sana’a.

          Yemen sits to the south of Saudi Arabia behind a thousand mile border, and it seemed as though Iran was about to gain a significant foothold on the Arabian peninsula and thus threaten Saudi Arabia directly. Determined to prevent this, in March 2015 the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), assembled a coalition of Arab states including the UAE, obtained the diplomatic backing of the US, Turkey and Pakistan, and launched a series of air strikes against the rebels. The aim was to beat back the Houthis and re-establish Hadi in power.

          The unconventional Saleh-Houthi partnership came to an abrupt end on 2 December 2017, when Saleh went on television to declare that he was splitting from the Houthi rebels. On 4 December Saleh's house in Sana'a was besieged by Houthi fighters and he was killed.

          Four years of combat have not succeeded in defeating the Houthis. In December 2018 peace talks negotiated by the UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, achieved a minor easing of the humanitarian disaster which has overtaken the civilian population, but co-operation between the two sides stalled. They accuse each other of violating the ceasefire in the vital port city of Hodeida. Griffiths is reported to be trying to arrange a new round of talks, possibly in Jordan.

          Although the Houthis were responsible for initiating the turmoil in the first place, it is the Saudis and their coalition who are at the receiving end of the world’s opprobrium for the humanitarian devastation that the conflict has wrought. After investing billions of dollars in the war, MBS is said to want to cut his military losses and withdraw from Yemen in exchange for some diplomatic arrangement.

          What Yemen needs are elections, an inclusive government, and a new structure for the state. Can Griffiths bring the Houthis to accept this? UN Resolution 2216 aims to establish democracy in a federally united Yemen. A lasting political deal would of course involve the end of the Saudi-led military operation, and probably a major financial commitment by Saudi to fund the rebuilding of the country.

          Finally the Houthis must be given the opportunity to choose. Do they wish to remain an outlawed militia permanently, or would they prefer to become a legitimate political party, able to contest parliamentary and presidential elections and participate in government? The price would be serious engagement in negotiations aimed at a peaceful transition to a political solution for a united Yemen.

          Meanwhile Saudi Arabia and its main ally, the UAE, are facing accusations of transferring American-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other factions waging war in Yemen, in violation of their agreements with the United States. Local commanders were reported as claiming that the Saudis and the UAE were using US weapons as currency to buy off different factions and militias in the Yemeni conflict, including Iranian-backed fighters.

          The charges, which immediately became the subject of an inquiry in the US Senate, were endorsed on 6 February 2019 in the report of an investigation by Amnesty International. Titled: “When arms go astray: Yemen’s deadly new threat of arms diversion to militias,” it claimed that the UAE has become a major conduit for armoured vehicles, mortar systems, rifles, pistols, and machine guns which were being illicitly diverted to unaccountable militias accused of war crimes and other serious violations.

          These revelations give added urgency to the words of Pope Francis in Abu Dhabi: “Let us commit ourselves against the logic of armed power…God is with those who seek peace.“

Published by the Eurasia Review, 10 February 2019:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/10022019-yemen-and-the-pope-oped/

Published by the MPC Journal, 11 February 2019:
http://mpc-journal.org/blog/2019/02/11/yemen-and-the-pope/

Palestinian politics in turmoil

                                                                         Video Version
          The struggle between Hamas and Fatah for the soul of the Palestinian people began almost from the moment that Hamas was created in 1987 as a radical off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

          Hamas regarded the PLO (the Palestine Liberation Organization), founded in 1964 to “liberate Palestine through armed struggle”, as not effective enough, despite the string of terrorist actions it perpetrated. When the PLO entered into peace talks with Israel, Hamas was appalled. Its leader, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, condemned the first Oslo Accord agreement of 1993, and rejected the PLO recognition of the State of Israel. Yasser Arafat, he declared, was “destroying Palestinian society and sowing the seeds of discord and division among Palestinians.”

          Hamas was never comfortable either with the Palestinian Authority (PA), which emerged from the Oslo accords, nor with its claim to be the sole representative of the Palestinian people. It rejected the PA’s “play it long” policy of pressing for recognition of a sovereign Palestine within pre-1967 boundaries, even though it was only the first stage in a strategy ultimately designed to gain control of the whole of Mandate Palestine. Equally Hamas opposed PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s efforts to obtain recognition of a State of Palestine within the United Nations, since to do so would also legitimize Israel.

          At the heart of the Hamas-Fatah conflict is this fundamental difference about the most effective route to reach their common objective. It led to the refusal by Hamas in 2006 to participate in a national unity government dominated by Fatah. Led by Khaled Mashal, Hamas mounted an armed coup in Gaza, ousted Fatah from the Strip and seized control. Since then Hamas has made no secret of its aspiration to replace Fatah as the governing body of the West Bank. Sometimes it chooses to acknowledge Abbas as Palestinian leader; sometimes it refuses to recognize him as PA president at all on the grounds that his presidential mandate, granted in 2005 for a four-year term, has long expired. Hamas has, moreover, consistently tried to undermine his PA administration by forming militant cells in the West Bank to launch attacks on Israel.

           Ismail Haniyeh, who replaced Mashal as leader of Hamas in 2017, pursued the same hard line. Abbas reacted by attempting to force Hamas into submission through cutting financial support and restricting the Strip’s access to electricity. The many efforts at reconciliation between the parties, the most recent sponsored by Egypt, have failed, and the Hamas-Fatah schism has led some to speculate on an eventual full-scale separation between the two Palestinian communities.

          The current PA government, headed by prime minister Rami Hamdallah, was formed in 2014 following a temporary truce between Fatah and Hamas. On 27 January 2019, in view of the obvious split between the two organizations, the Fatah Central Council recommended that the PA government be disbanded, and that Abbas form a new administration mainly drawn from various PLO groups.
                 
           The next day, as Hamdallah indicated that he was willing to step down, Hamas declared that a new PA government would serve only to deepen its split with Fatah.

          “A new government consisting of PLO factions will consolidate the rift between the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. “Our people are in need of a national unity government representing all Palestinians.”

          As Abbas accepted Hamdallah’s resignation and set about forming his new government, conspiracy theories proliferated. One Hamas official, Hazem Qassem, declared “This is an attempt by Abbas to detach the West Bank from the Gaza Strip.”

          A dissident Fatah figure, Khaled Abu Hilal, believed that Abbas was in the pocket of US President Donald Trump. “Fatah’s intention to form a political factional government in the West Bank proves that Abbas is involved with the deal of the century.” He was referring to Trump’s pending peace plan for the Middle East which, according to wilder Palestinian speculation, will propose setting up a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip.

          Two PLO groups, the DLFP (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and the PLFP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) declared that they would not participate in the new government – an irrelevance in their view The real priority, they declared, was to heal the Fatah-Hamas split. Miriam Abu Dakka, a senior PFLP official, maintained that Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction was not authorized to decide on forming a new government, and had usurped the function of the PLO.

          Azzam al-Ahmed, one of many possible successors to Hamdallah, said that the rationale behind forming a new government was to disengage from Hamas, which had been trying to exploit the current administration. Hamdallah himself, on the other hand, said that attempts to detach the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian state would not succeed.

          “There will be no state in the Gaza Strip,” he said, “and there will be no state without the Gaza Strip… National unity and reconciliation are the ideal solution to ending the occupation. And,” he added for good measure, “the deal of the century will not materialize.”

          This change of government comes hard on the heels of another political coup engineered by Abbas in December 2018, when he announced a new Supreme Constitutional Court ruling calling for the dissolution of the PA’s Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), and for elections to it to be held within six months. The following day Hamas rejected this as unconstitutional, asserting that neither Abbas nor the court were permitted to dissolve the PLC. Hamas called instead for general elections, including for the presidency.

           Hamas has dominated the PLC ever since the 2006 elections. It holds 76 of the 132 seats. Fatah holds only 43. However, ever since Gaza and the West Bank have been at loggerheads, the PLC has been dormant, and Abbas has increasingly ruled by presidential decree. The dissolution of the PLC would allow Abbas to consolidate his power by moving much of the decision-making process to the PLO Central Council, in which Hamas does not feature.

          Meanwhile, Public Opinion Poll 70, conducted in December 2018 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, not surprisingly reveals that confidence in the political system among Palestinians, as well as Abbas’s popularity rating, continues to decline.

Published in the MPC Journal, 2 February 2019
http://mpc-journal.org/blog/2019/02/02/palestinian-politics-in-turmoil/?fbclid=IwAR3W0-zVtwEhRLAgGwqTELmmYvtNov6Wi07mxrdpddfeVtiOOLpJxmQBTLk

Published in the Eurasia Review, 3 February 2019:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/03022019-palestinian-politics-in-turmoil-oped/

Ebb-tide for the Arab League

                                                                                 Video version
          The Arab League’s economic and social summit, held in Beirut on 19 and 20 January, hardly showed the organization at its most dynamic.

          All Arab heads of state were invited. Almost none turned up.

          “We wanted this summit to be an occasion that brought together all the Arabs, leaving no vacant seats,” said the host, President Michel Aoun of Lebanon, in his opening remarks. “The hurdles were unfortunately stronger.”

          Most countries sent minor officials to represent them, but two states in particular were notable by their absence. One was Libya.

          The antagonism between Lebanon’s Shi’ites and the state of Libya goes back some 40 years. On 25 August 1978, at the invitation of Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi, the revered Shia religious leader Musa al-Sadr set off with two companions for a meeting. The three men were last seen on 31 August. They were never heard from again. Supporters of Lebanon’s main Shi’ite political party, Amal. have continued to press the Libyan government to investigate the circumstances of their disappearance, but to no effect.

          Consequently, from the time Lebanon was selected to host the new summit, Amal supporters announced that they opposed Libya attending. Finally they threatened to block the Libyan delegation at the airport if they tried to fly in, and then symbolically burned a Libyan flag. Shortly afterwards Libya announced that it would not be present.

          Another non-attender was Syria. Soon after the start of the Syrian civil war the Arab League, appalled by the violence and bloodshed of President Bashar al-Assad’s response to opposition dissent, suspended Syria’s membership. Nothing succeeds like success, and the fact that Assad, with the support of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, has regained a large part of the territory lost to Islamic State in the early years of the conflict, has generated a change of attitude among Arab nations.

          In December 2018 the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, became the first Arab League leader to visit Syria for eight years. Sudan and Saudi Arabia have recently become close, and many believed the visit was a gesture of friendship on behalf of Saudi Arabia. But Syria is aligned to the Shi’ite arm of Islam, and in the weeks before the summit the Speaker of Lebanon’s Parliament, Nabih Berri, a Shi’ite, called for the whole event to be postponed until Syria was invited. Both Syria’s reconstruction and its refugees were on the agenda, and Berri asked what the point was of discussing them in Syria’s absence.

          He was far from alone. Most of the Sunni Arab world is strongly opposed to the Iranian regime’s ambition to dominate the Middle East, but there was reportedly a growing consensus among the League’s 22 members that, despite the fact that Assad has been in a close alliance with Iran, Syria should be readmitted. The logic of supporting Syria’s return into the League lies in the hope that it might swing Assad away from Tehran and back into the Arab fold. It is often forgotten that the Iranian nation, though Muslim, is not Arab.

          When the 28 members of the European Union meet, they are at least at peace with one another. The same cannot, unfortunately, be said of the 22 members of the Arab League.

          “Half these countries are fighting each other in wars or undermining each other,” said Rami G Khouri, a Beirut-based political columnist.
        

          In Yemen, Saudi Arabia and its coalition, including the United Arab Emirates, are battling the Iranian-supported Houthis in a conflict that has reduced the country to famine and penury. Although delegates from the Saudi-backed and officially recognized government of Yemen attended the summit, the League had nothing to offer on its humanitarian crisis.

          Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are at daggers drawn with Qatar, with whom they have cut off diplomatic relations and tried to isolate economically. In Syria several Arab states have funded one or other of the rebel groups that have been combatting Assad’s government forces.

          The venue chosen for the summit, Lebanon, exemplifies the chaotic state of intra-Arab relations. Eight months after a general election the country still has no government. Dominated by Hezbollah, the “state within a state”, it is not only locked into a political stalemate, but is also the unhappy locus of a struggle between Shi’ite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

          Two issues that the Lebanese hosts desperately wanted help with were the huge burden imposed by the influx of refugees from the Syrian conflict, and the failing economy. But when one of the League’s assistant secretary-generals, Hussam Zaki, landed in Beirut to oversee preparations for the summit, he announced: “The internal political problems in Lebanon have nothing to do with the Arab League.”

          He was to be proved wrong. While the summit was still under way, mass rallies involving some 20,000 people were held in Beirut to protest the government’s economic policy. The most recent survey has revealed that more than 25 percent of Lebanese citizens live in poverty. The day after the summit Qatar stepped forward and offered to invest $500 million in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia, not to be outdone by the nation it is seeking to isolate, had its finance minister announce that his country would “support Lebanon all the way.”

         As for the refugee issue, the Arab League agreed, somewhat controversially, that refugees should be “encouraged” to return to their home country. A joint statement, read by Lebanese foreign minister Gebran Bassil, called on the international community to foster “favorable conditions for return” by providing aid in their home country.

          Many countries, particularly the Gulf states, were hesitant to encourage refugees to return in the absence of a political solution to the Syrian conflict. Bassil, however, announced that: “This statement represents a victory for Lebanon” and a “gesture of solidarity” from Arab countries.

          If so, it was a minimally positive outcome from an organization clearly in the doldrums. 

Published in the Eurasia Review, 27 January 2019:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/27012019-ebb-tide-for-the-arab-league-oped/ 


Published in the MPC Journal, 29 Jannuary 2019:
http://mpc-journal.org/blog/2019/01/29/ebb-tide-for-the-arab-league/

This rogue Iranian regime

                                                                              Video version
          Ever since then-US President Obama took office with his misconceived pro-Iran foreign policy, the Iranian regime has run rings around world opinion. 

          The nuclear deal with Tehran, brokered by Obama in 2015, was promoted as a way of both resolving the long‑standing controversy over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and also encouraging the regime to join the so-called “comity of nations”.  The very reverse seems to have occurred. 

          The deal, the partial lifting of sanctions that followed, and the opening up of trade with the West appear to have emboldened the ayatollahs to pursue their political and religious ambitions with even greater determination. A recent report claimed that Tehran has so far successfully sidestepped all attempts to halt its nuclear program, while its continued missile development and testing program led Donald Trump to withdraw the US from the deal and to reimpose sanctions. 

          In addition, the regime has expanded its terrorist operations into the heart of Europe. 

         At the very time the nuclear deal was being signed in 2015, an Iranian activist opposed to the regime, Ali Motamed, was assassinated in the Dutch city of Almere. This was followed in 2017 by the murder in the Hague of another critic of the regime, Ahmad Molla Nissi. The Dutch intelligence service has “strong indications that Iran was involved in the assassinations.”

          In summer 2018 an Iranian opposition rally in Paris was very nearly the scene of carnage in the wake of a failed bomb plot. Apprehended by French security officials, a Belgian couple of Iranian origin were caught with half a kilogram of powerful explosives and a detonator. Paris believes the plot was organized by Assadollah Assadi, a senior member of Iran’s intelligence ministry. The couple are now awaiting trial in Belgium on terrorism charges.

          In September, Danish police successfully foiled a plot to assassinate an Iranian activist in Copenhagen. The Danish government, blaming Iranian intelligence for planning the attack, recalled its ambassador from Tehran.

          So far the European Union has been turning a blind eye to Iranian excesses. Flowing from the nuclear deal a number of European countries, especially Germany, France and Italy, have concluded highly profitable commercial arrangements with the Iranian regime. As a result, the EU has been working actively to subvert Trump’s newly imposed sanctions on Iran by way of a so-called Special Purpose Vehicle, a measure designed to allow European companies to continue trading with Iran without attracting punitive measures from the US.

         Yet the emerging evidence of Iranian terrorist activity on its very soil has stirred even the EU into action – albeit somewhat milk-and-water.

          On January 8, 2019, ambassadors from Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands visited the Iranian Foreign Ministry in Tehran “to convey their serious concerns” about Iran’s behavior. In addition the EU imposed some limited sanctions which involve freezing assets connected to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and to two Iranian officials believed to have been behind the Paris bomb plot.

         In response, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, did not deny the allegations, but accused European countries of harboring militants from the Mujahedeen Khalq, or M.E.K., a group that seeks the violent overthrow of the Iranian government.

          Meanwhile, the US and Poland have announced a summit, to be held in Warsaw over February 13-14, on securing stability and security in the Middle East, including the "important element of making sure that Iran is not a destabilizing influence."

          "We will gather around a number of different topics,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters recently, “fighting ISIS is part of that... and address how we can get the Islamic Republic of Iran to behave like a normal nation. There will be countries from Asia, Africa and all across the world."

          The announcement evoked an immediate riposte from the Iranian regime. Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri said the summit was being held because US sanctions had failed to bring Iran to its knees. "Americans thought pressures would break down our economy. They wanted to bring our oil exports to zero but failed... Now they've decided to hold an anti-Iran conference in Europe." 

          But the world cannot continue ignoring the threat to global stability posed by the current Iranian regime. The Trump administration’s special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, recently published a dossier detailing the weaponry manufactured and supplied by Iran to combatants in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, together with details of the terrorist activity sponsored by the regime aimed at overthrowing the government of Bahrain.

          The fears of the Sunni Arab world about the intentions and actions of the Iranian regime are not irrational. They are based upon facts and evidence. The regime of the ayatollahs poses a threat to the civilized world, and it must be curbed.

Published in the MPC Journal, 21 January 2019:
http://mpc-journal.org/blog/2019/01/21/this-rogue-iranian-regime/

Published in the Eurasia Review, 22 January 2019:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/22012019-this-rogue-iranian-regime-oped/

We must not abandon the Kurds

                                                                             Video version

 One major factor behind President Trump’s decision to withdraw US special forces from Syria is the dominant position achieved by Russia, in alliance with Iran, in restoring the fortunes of Syria’s President Bashar al Assad. Another seems to have been a telephone discussion with Turkey’s President Erdogan just before Christmas 2018. The implications of this are worrying. 

          The military defeat of Islamic State (IS) over the eight long years of Syria’s civil conflict has been due in no small measure to the part played by the doughty Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. But for Erdogan the Kurds and their aspirations – whether for civil rights, for autonomy or, worst of all, for independence – are a constant thorn in the flesh. Kurd-occupied territory encompasses substantial areas of Turkey, but also of Syria, Iraq and Iran. It spans their borders. So Erdogan faces not only a domestic political threat from Turkish Kurds, but what he perceives as their military support abroad, and specifically in north-eastern Syria.

          Long before the civil war, the 2 million Kurds in Syria, accounting for 15 percent of the population, had aspired to some degree of autonomy. Their opportunity came with the internal uprising in 2011 against Assad’s regime. As the civil war inside Syria resulted in Islamic State winning vast swaths of territory, the Syrian Kurds began battling IS up in the north-east. Backed by air support and special forces from the US and its allies, the Kurdish Peshmergas began to prevail, winning back large areas of Kurd-inhabited territory.

          Today the Kurd-occupied region – about 25 per cent of the old Syria – is formally known as the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS), ruled under a new federal and democratic constitution. It is not a sovereign state nor, if statements from its leaders are to be believed, does it aspire to be one. It is a semi-autonomous region, and there have been formal moves by its leaders to reach an accommodation with the Syrian president.

          In September 2017 Walid Muallem, Syria's foreign minister, said that his country was open to the idea of greater powers for the country's Kurds. They ”want a form of autonomy within the framework of the borders of the state," he said. "This is negotiable and can be the subject of dialogue." He indicated – presumably with the acquiescence of Russia – that discussions could begin once the civil conflict had ended.

          A Kurdish legislator, Omar Ussi. who sits in Syria's national parliament in Damascus recently said the government wanted the Kurds to "facilitate the entry of the Syrian army and the return of state institutions into Kurdish-majority areas east of the Euphrates.” In return, it was offering "constitutional recognition for the Kurdish community and its cultural rights."

          All this might eventually result in a Syrian version of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan that is recognized by the Iraqi government. But any such formal recognition of the DFNS would be anathema to Erdogan. Whatever degree of autonomy Syria’s Kurds might gain could only reinforce the separatist demands of the Kurds in Turkey.

          This explains Erdogan’s incursion in January 2018 into the region around Afrin in north-west Syria. His success in defeating the Kurdish forces there indicates that, allowed a free hand, Erdogan would probably take action aimed at gaining dominance right along the Turkey-Syrian border, decimating the DFNS Kurdish-ruled region.

         Subsequent to his off-the-cuff announcement about US troop disengagement from Syria, Trump seems to have allowed wiser counsels to prevail. The US simply could not allow a free-for-all to develop inside Syria, give Turkey carte blanche in its vendetta against the Kurds, and throw its long-time and successful ally and partner to the wolves. So whatever the substance of his telephone discussion with Erdogan, Trump now indicates that there is to be no hasty US withdrawal from Syria. It will be done, but in a measured and timely fashion.

          It is well established that in foreign relations there is little or no room for sentiment. Realpolitik is the order of the day. But the civilized world does owe a debt of gratitude to the Kurdish people in general, and to their stalwart Pershmerga fighters in particular, for their successful efforts to combat the evil and inhumane IS movement. Theirs has been a long struggle for recognition and self-determination. It is time the world honoured its debt and at least allowed the Kurds in Syria to negotiate an acceptable future for themselves as part of the post-war settlement.

Published in the MPC Journal, 13 January 2019:
http://mpc-journal.org/blog/2019/01/13/we-must-not-abandon-the-kurds/

Published in the Eurasia Review, 14 January 2019:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/14012019-we-must-not-abandon-the-kurds-oped/

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 27 January 2019:
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/We-must-not-abandon-the-Kurds-578768

A Palestinian peace option

          On September 2, 2018, a delegation from Israel’s Peace Now organization travelled to Ramallah in the West Bank to discuss with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas prospects for settling the conflict. The statements that follow such meetings rarely contain anything of substance. This was an exception. 

          The next morning, the Palestinian Information Center, known as Palinfo, published a deadpan account of Abbas’s conversation with the Israelis. without comment. 

         “During a meeting with an Israeli delegation that visited Ramallah on Sunday,” ran the report, “Abbas said that senior US administration officials, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, asked him recently about his opinion of a ‘confederation with Jordan’. “I said yes to the offer, but I want a three-way confederation with Jordan and Israel,” Abbas said.” 

          When exactly did Abbas speak with the Trump peace plan team, Kushner and Greenblatt? It could only have been some time in 2017 while the details were still being assembled. Now it is complete , but it is clear that Abbas has not been briefed on its provisions. Abbas disengaged from all dealings with Washington back in December 2017, when President Donald Trump announced US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Abbas has subsequently declared that the US has disqualified itself as a broker in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. 

          Leaks are always possible, despite the tightest security. It is just on the cards that the word “confederation” has somehow slipped through the intensive screen of secrecy that has been erected around the plan. Whether this is so or not, the word has featured in the speculation buzzing about the “deal of the century”. It may explain why the Jordanians issued a statement rejecting the idea of uniting with, or taking over, the West Bank . But Abbas’s endorsement of a triangular confederation comprising Jordan, Israel and a sovereign state of Palestine is a game changer.

          Abbas has a good deal of reason on his side. Prowling around the PA stockade is Hamas, ruling over nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza, hungry for power in the West Bank, and harrying Abbas for a decade. Hamas rejects the two-state solution because it rejects the right of Israel to exist at all and is dedicated to destroying it. Establish a new sovereign Palestine within whatever borders, and it would not take long for Hamas to seize the reins of power just as it did in Gaza. The PA leadership is very worried about losing power to Hamas, either by way of a military coup or via democratic elections. Like it or not, Abbas realizes that a new Palestine would need stronger defences against “the enemy within” than his own resources could provide – one powerful reason for supporting the confederation concept. 

          An even more fundamental issue now militates against the classic two-state solution. The PA has painted itself into a corner. Vying with Hamas on the one hand, and extremists within its own Fatah party on the other, it has glorified the so-called “armed struggle”, making heroes of those who undertake terrorist attacks inside Israel, and reiterating the message that all of Mandate Palestine is Palestinian and the creation of Israel was a national disaster. The end-result of its own narrative is that no Palestinian leader dare sign a peace agreement unilaterally with Israel based on the two-state solution. The consequent backlash from within the Palestinian world, to say nothing of the personal fear of assassination, have made it impossible. 

          The political reality is that any viable solution would have to be based on an Arab-wide consensus, within which Palestinian extremist objections could be absorbed. In recent times moderate Arab states, led perhaps by Saudi Arabia, have begun to perceive Israel as an ally against Iranian ambitions, both nuclear and political. The Arab League could prove a broker for peace acceptable to all parties. Under its shield the PA could participate in hammering out a three-state confederation of Jordan, Israel and Palestine – a new entity, to come into legal existence simultaneously with a new sovereign Palestine that ideally would include Gaza. 

          The negotiations to bring about this kind of political solution would be lengthy, intensive and complex, probably putting the discussions leading to the UK’s deal to withdraw from the EU – so-called Brexit – in the shade. But if successful, the end-result would be eminently worthwhile. A Jordan-Israel-Palestine confederation could be dedicated above all to defending itself and its constituent sovereign states, but also to cooperating in the fields of commerce, infrastructure and economic development. From the moment it came into legal existence, the confederation could make it abundantly clear that any subsequent armed opposition, from whatever source, including Hamas, would be disciplined and crushed from within. 

          Acting in concert with the defence forces of the other states, the Israel Defense Forces would guarantee both Israel’s security and that of the confederation as a whole.

          A confederation of three sovereign states, dedicated to providing high-tech security but also future economic growth and prosperity for all its citizens. If this is indeed Mahmoud Abbas’s vision, it is a possible route to a peaceful and thriving Middle East.

Published in the Eurasia Review, 5 January 2019:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/05012019-a-palestinian-peace-option-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 5 January 2019:
http://mpc-journal.org/blog/2019/01/05/a-palestinian-peace-option/?fbclid=IwAR2iHztwbdvOZ4XnOO7FGNwiaTcU-H2n3im0WBJEdyK2qxdoF8H477l8tY8

Peace in the Holy Land – one possible path

                                                                                 Video version

With new political groupings emerging in anticipation of Israel’s forthcoming general election, voters are entitled to ask what policy each of the contending parties proposes for the perennial Israeli-Palestinian issue. 

          On September 2, 2018, a delegation from Israel’s Peace Now organization travelled to Ramallah in the West Bank to discuss with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas prospects for settling the conflict. The statements that follow such meetings rarely contain anything of substance. This was an exception.

          The next morning, the Palestinian Information Center, known as Palinfo, published an account of Abbas’s conversation with the Israelis that was replete with surprising, not to say startling, details.

          “During a meeting with an Israeli delegation that visited Ramallah on Sunday,” ran the deadpan report, “Abbas said that senior US administration officials, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, asked him recently about his opinion of a ‘confederation with Jordan’. “I said yes to the offer, but I want a three-way confederation with Jordan and Israel,” Abbas said.”

          When exactly did Abbas speak with the Trump peace plan team, Kushner and Greenblatt? It could only have been some time in 2017 while the details were still being assembled. Now it is complete , but it is clear that Abbas has not been briefed on its provisions. Abbas disengaged from all dealings with Washington back in December 2017, when President Donald Trump announced US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Abbas has subsequently declared that the US has disqualified itself as a broker in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

          Leaks are always possible, despite the tightest security. It is just on the cards that the word “confederation” has somehow slipped through the intensive screen of secrecy that has been erected and maintained around the plan. Whether this is so or not, the word has featured in the speculation buzzing about the “deal of the century”. It may have provoked the Jordanians into rejecting the idea of uniting with, or taking over, the West Bank . But Abbas’s response - that he believed in a triangular confederation comprising Jordan, Israel and a sovereign state of Palestine – that is a game changer.

          Abbas has a good deal of reason on his side. Prowling around the PA stockade is Hamas, ruling over nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza, hungry for power in the West Bank, and harrying Abbas for a decade. Hamas rejects the two-state solution because it rejects the right of Israel to exist at all and is dedicated to destroying it. Establish a new sovereign Palestine within whatever borders, and it would not take long for Hamas to seize the reins of power just as it did in Gaza. The new state would then become a Gaza-type launching pad for the indiscriminate bombardment of Israel.

          This prospect in itself may not concern the PA leadership overmuch, but what does worry them is the likelihood of losing power to Hamas, either by way of a military coup or via democratic elections. Like it or not, Abbas realizes that a new Palestine would need stronger defences against “the enemy within” than his own resources could provide.

          An even more fundamental issue now militates against the classic two-state solution. The PA has painted itself into a corner. Vying with Hamas on the one hand, and extremists within its own Fatah party on the other, it has glorified the so-called “armed struggle”, making heroes of those who undertake terrorist attacks inside Israel, continuously promulgating anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda in the media and in the schools, and reiterating the message that all of Mandate Palestine is Palestinian and the creation of Israel was a national disaster. The end-result of their own narrative is that no Palestinian leader dare sign a peace agreement unilaterally with Israel based on the two-state solution. The consequent backlash from within the Palestinian world, to say nothing of the personal fear of assassination, have made it impossible.

          Any viable solution will need to be based on an Arab-wide consensus, within which Palestinian extremist objections could be absorbed. Israel’s status within the Arab world has improved immeasurably in recent times, as moderate Arab states begin to perceive Israel as a stalwart ally against Iranian ambitions, both nuclear and political. The Arab League could prove an acceptable broker for a peace deal. Under its shield the PA could participate in hammering out a three-state confederation of Jordan, Israel and Palestine – a new legal entity that could come into existence simultaneously with a new sovereign Palestine that ideally would include Gaza.

          The negotiations to bring about this kind of political solution would be lengthy, intensive and complex, probably putting the discussions leading to the UK’s deal to withdraw from the EU – so-called Brexit – in the shade. If achieved, the end-result would be eminently worthwhile. A Jordan-Israel-Palestine confederation would be dedicated above all to defending itself and its constituent sovereign states, but also to cooperating in the fields of commerce, infrastructure and economic development. From the moment it came into legal existence, the confederation could make it abundantly clear that any subsequent armed opposition, from whatever source including Hamas, would be disciplined and crushed from within.

          The IDF, acting in concert with the defense forces of the other states, would guarantee both Israel’s security and that of the confederation as a whole. A confederation of three sovereign states, dedicated to providing high-tech security but also future economic growth and prosperity for all its citizens – this is not only a configuration offering considerable potential advantages to Israel, but it is also the possible answer to a peaceful and thriving Middle East. It is attractive enough for at least one of Israel’s contending political groupings to adopt as its proposed policy in the forthcoming election.