Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Peace with Jordan – stop panicking
The King of Jordan, not some lowly clerk, announced that Jordan will not extend the currently existing leases renting two parcels of land to Israel. One is the so-called Island of Peace in the northern Naharayim area and the other located in the southern Arava, near Tzofar, an agricultural cooperative village (moshav). Jordan was entirely within its rights to decide not to renew the leases insofar as the relevant clauses in the 1994 peace treaty with Israel are concerned, and the only reason the king announced it himself was to give the declaration the weight of a final decision not open to negotiation. Jordan’s foreign minister added, in his own declaration, that if there are to be negotiations, they will be limited to deciding on the way those areas are to be returned to Jordanian jurisdiction.Hashemite Chutzpah
Since the publication of the King’s declaration, utter hysteria has overcome the Israeli media and the voices of both broadcasters and those they interview are laced with panic. “Jordan has cancelled the peace treaty!!” “Why is the king doing this to us?” “What will happen to the longest peaceful border Israel has? “ Politicians, on the other hand, are attempting to calm us down on the lines of: “The peace treaty with Jordan is a strategic asset of the first order for Israel,” “ there is no threat to future relations with Jordan,” “Jordan depends on us for its security,” and other similarly irresponsible remarks, the gist of which is that Israel would do anything to preserve the peace agreement with Jordan.
Those media personalities and their interviewees do not realize that when they talk about the importance of the Israel-Jordan peace treaty, they are granting the Hashemite kingdom the ability to pressure Israel on more crucial issues, such as a Palestinian Arab state in Judea and Samaria, continuing Jordan’s special status in Jerusalem overriding Israel’s sovereignty in the Holy City and including Jordan as a partner to negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. In its endless search for scoops and hysterical headlines, the media have turned into talking heads whose unnecessary pronouncements ignore the Middle Eastern propensity for raising the price of anything Israel considers important.
The King of Jordan announced the cancellation of the leasing due to internal pressures. Numerous Jordanians demanded that the leasing of Jordanian land to Israel must end and the king acceded to those demands. In addition, the king has several “bones to pick” with Israel and the US, especially regarding Jerusalem, America’s recognition of the city as Israel’s capital and its relocation of the embassy. Trump took these steps despite King Abdullah II’s requests to leave the Jerusalem issue to negotiations between the PA and Israel, expecting the city to be divided between Israel and a future Palestinian state. The king was insulted when his request was ignored and looked for a way to punish Israel.
Traditionally, when you start a war and lose, there's a price to pay--especially if the land you launched from wasn’t yours in the first place. Whatever will or won't become, in the future, of the land in question, it must be noted that this is disputed territory, not "purely Arab" land. In Arab eyes, however, they claim the whole region as “purely Arab patrimony.”David Singer: Jordan and Israel – Trump’s only viable two-state solution
Jews lived and owned property in those "occupied territories" until their slaughter by Arabs in the 1920s and 1930s. Judea (as in JEW) and Samaria, only since the 20th century known as the "West Bank" (via British imperialism and Transjordan's later annexation), were non-apportioned parts of the original 1920 Mandate with thousands of years of documented Jewish history; and leading authorities such as Eugene Rostow, William O'Brien, and others have stressed that these areas were open to settlement by Jew, Arab, and other residents of the Mandate alike.
The Minutes of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission documented scores of thousands entering into Palestine from Syria alone in just several months’ time. Hamas' "patron saint," Sheikh Izzedine al-Qassam (for whom the rockets and terror brigade are named), was from Latakia.
It's estimated that many more Arabs entered the Mandate, to take advantage of the economic development going on because of the Jews, under cover of darkness and were never recorded...more Arab settlers setting up more Arab settlements in Palestine. Why are these "legal" and those of the Jews not? Scores of thousands of Jews in Syria soon became refugees fleeing that country. Greater New York City alone now has tens of thousands of descendants, with some of the most beautiful synagogues I’ve ever seen.
Peace between Israel and its immediate Arab neighbor to the east is obviously a worthy goal. But the world must stop accepting the Hashemites’ assertion that Jordan is not part of the balance sheet when the of rights of both Arabs and Jews in the region are being discussed.
Four major developments in the past week have heightened expectations that President Trump will have no option but to call on Jordan and Israel to negotiate the allocation of sovereignty between their two respective States in the West Bank and Gaza – 5% of the territory comprised in the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (Mandate) .
Jordan and Israel are the two successor States to the Mandate currently exercising sovereignty in the other 95% of the Mandate territory – Jordan 78%, Israel 17%.
Jordan-Israel negotiations – if successfully concluded – would complete the two-state solution first contemplated under article 25 of the Mandate. Arab and Jewish claims to the Mandate territory would be finally resolved.
These four developments were:
1. The G77 and China – comprising 135 of the 193 United Nations member states – appointed the non-existing “State of Palestine” as Chairman of the G77 for 2019 and procured the passage of a United Nations General Assembly Resolution giving this phantom “State of Palestine” the right to:
(a) Make statements on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, including among representatives of major groups;
(b) Submit proposals and amendments and introduce them on behalf of the Group of 77 and China;
(c) Co-sponsor proposals and amendments;
(d) Make explanations of vote on behalf of the States Members of the United Nations that are members of the Group of 77 and China;
(e) Reply regarding positions of the Group of 77 and China;
(f) Raise procedural motions, including points of order and requests to put proposals to the vote, on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.
US Ambassador to the UN – Nikki Haley – re-iterated America’s long-standing position:
“The United States does not recognize a Palestinian state, notes that no such state has been admitted as a UN Member State, and does not believe that the Palestinians are eligible to be admitted as a UN Member State.”
The PLO has chosen the United Nations fantasyland to push its agenda in preference to negotiating with Israel under Trump’s proposed plan – simultaneously rejecting the Montevideo Convention requirements necessary for statehood in international law.
11 other UN member states embraced this nonsensical resolution, whilst the remaining 47 voted: Against (3), Abstained (15), or Did Not Vote (29).
2. US Secretary of State – Mike Pompeo – announced that the U.S. Embassy Jerusalem and U.S. Consulate General Jerusalem would be merged into a single diplomatic mission.
This was Trump’s response to the UN’s embrace of the “State of Palestine”.
3. President Trump sent World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder as his personal envoy to Jordan.
Lauder's visit reportedly occurred without the knowledge of Israel or Trump’s Special Middle East Negotiators – Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt.
Jordan received $690 million in US aid in 2018 – to be boosted by a 27% increase for each of the next five years. Lauder would have reminded Jordan’s King Abdullah that Trump’s policy could see this aid reduced if Jordan refuses to negotiate with Israel.
4. King Abdullah gave Israel twelve months’ notice of Jordan’s intention to not renew twenty-five year leases of two areas denoted as “Special Regimes” in the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty.
Israel is entitled to request that consultations be entered into – as Israel undoubtedly will – since Israeli private land ownership rights and property interests are affected in one area and Israeli private land use rights in the other.
These Special Regimes would become important bargaining chips in Jordan – Israel negotiations on the West Bank and Gaza over the next 12 months.
Any Trump peace proposal not requiring direct Jordan –Israel negotiations will be dead in the water from the get-go.
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