Abbas’ speech at the UN: Stuck in his past

Abbas’ speech at the UN is old and repeated stuff. Jews should return to their “dhimmi” minority status they had in the Arab world in two stages. First stage: return to the 1949 armistice lines (the “2-state solution”); second stage: return of the Jews to their status prior to 1948 as a “tolerated” minority also in Israel proper (through the demand for the “return of the Palestinian refugees”). This is the solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the eyes of the Palestinians in the West Bank.

Hamas proposes the return of the Jews to their “dhimmi” status directly in one-step, by eliminating the State of Israel through violent means. As they state at the beginning of their 1988 Covenant: “Islam will obliterate Israel, as it obliterated others before it” and “initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement … a waste of time and vain endeavors.” This is the solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the eyes of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Both the Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza aim to achieve the same goal: The land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea was and will be Arab land, forever. Jews interested in living there should accept their status as “dhimmis”, the status of a submissive “tolerated” minority. Jews who will not accept their “dhimmi” status, will be dealt with according to the Islamic principles that hold in Arab lands, read: expelled or killed. (For details: See Chapter 1 in Reference 1.)

A bit of recent History

Camp David (2000) failed because the Palestinians would not give up their “right to return”, after Israel had accepted the “Clinton parameters” for a 2-state solution. (For details: See Chapter 3 in Reference 1.)

The 2005 disengagement from Gaza was wrong: Recapturing now Gaza will be wrong. I do not blame the Israeli government for what it did in 2005. The intentions were good: Gaza at that time posed a smaller security risk and the idea of leaving Gaza to the Palestinians to give peace a chance, praying that they would do the right thing and develop Gaza for the benefit of the Palestinians, was philosophically noble – but politically shortsighted, showing a lack of understanding of the profound rejectionism and irredentism Palestinians are imbued with.

The Oslo Accords in 1994 were wrong. Ignoring the UNSC 242 and Jordan, and embracing the PLO, showed an unusual level of naivety. What was the Israeli government thinking when they colluded with the PLO and bypassed Jordan?

Who was the PLO? The Palestinian Liberation Organization had been founded in 1964, when the West Bank was under Jordanian rule and Gaza under Egypt rule. Its charter clearly said that they intended to eliminate Israel and return the situation in the region between the River and the Sea into what it was – not in 1949 – but in 1917, expulsing or killing the Jews and returning the Palestinians to Tel-Aviv, Haifa and Beer Sheva. The PLO had repeatedly shown its stripes: in Jordan it tried to bring the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan down during the bloody Black September insurrection in 1970. Then, moving to Lebanon in the 1970s, the PLO managed to transform a beacon of peace and development in the Arab world into ruins, from which that country never recovered. With this Resume of “country building” in front of its eyes, the government of Israel decided to bypass Jordan and the UNSC 242, and make the PLO its partner in peace.

Nothing came out of the Oslo Accords, except for three Nobel Peace prizes bequeathed to Arafat, Rabin and Peres.

My 2-cents about how to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict

Return to the UNSC 242 and the Jordan track. (For details: See Appendix I in Reference 2.) Gaza and the West Bank should be demilitarized and become part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine, perhaps West Bank first and Gaza some time later, and an internationally recognized border between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine should be defined to recognize the new reality. An international aid program – similar to the Marshall Plan for Europe after World War II – should be established, as part of the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to develop the economy of Jordan and integrate the Palestinians in the expanded Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine.

A similar proposition has been heard lately from circles close to the Saudi Royal family. I refer people to the article by Ali Shihabi, a close confident of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, in the Saudi Royal Family-owned news outlet “Al-Arabiya News”, from last June 8, 2022:

https://english.alarabiya.net/in-translation/2022/06/08/The-Hashemite-Kingdom-of-Palestine

Quoting Ali Shihabi: “The Palestinian problem can only be solved today if it is redefined. The most logical vehicle for this redefinition and hence for the solution to the Palestine problem is the kingdom of Jordan. Over the last seventy-five years, Jordan has developed into a relatively well-governed state, although the impact of regional political turmoil has caused it to fail economically and become heavily reliant on foreign aid for its survival. It is this Jordanian governance infrastructure that needs to be captured and put to productive use in integrating the millions of Palestinians and Jordanians into a modern, reasonably well-functioning state that would, in an era of real peace and economic integration with Jordan’s neighbors, have a much higher chance of growth and prosperity.

This proposed enlarged kingdom would include present-day Jordan, Gaza, and the West Bank (areas populated by Palestinians attached in a contiguous manner and physically connected to Jordan, i.e., not broken up into islands). Israeli arguments as to the need to retain the Jordan Valley become moot since the valley will now be controlled by a Jordanian government with a reliable record of maintaining peace with Israel. The convenient argument that Israel has no “peace partner” will now also be eliminated.

Jerusalem, despite the fact that neither Arabs nor Muslims have a hope of dislodging Israel from it, is, given its symbolism, a key bargaining chip in Palestinian hands. The formal relinquishment of any claims to Jerusalem (with an appropriate arrangement for the holy places) can be an important concession used to secure the foregoing terms. The Palestinians, after all, are the only party who can do this and, hence, completely legitimize Israel in the eyes of the region and the world.”

I do not say that the return to the UNSC 242 and to the Jordanian track would be easy and accepted immediately by the world: it might take a long time for this proposal to sink in the minds of the people in the region and in the western world, and be implemented. But this vision should be clearly and explicitly adopted by Israel early on, in order to concentrate its limited human resources on the principal objective: A Jewish and Democratic state, living in secure and recognized international borders.

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References

[1] Jaime Kardontchik, “Ethnic Studies in K12 schools: The Jewish module” (May 2023 edition). The book is available at Amazon, but it can be read and downloaded for free at:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361800823_Ethnic_Studies_in_K12_schools_The_Jewish_module

[2] Jaime Kardontchik, “Boycott of Israel is wrong: How to fight it” (May 2023 edition). The book is available at Amazon, but it can be read and downloaded for free at:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352573399_Boycott_of_Israel_is_Wrong_How_to_fight_it