By David Singer —— Bio and Archives October 27, 2013
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"Your Majesty, you claimed to defend the Palestinian people`s right to self-determination and a state of their own. And I support you in that. But you were responsible for the Palestinian homeland on the West Bank from 1948 to 1967. Why in all that period did you not give them their rights and statehood?" "You are a very intelligent man, Your Majesty. And you have a fine memory. You say the Kuwait-Iraqi border is disputed and based on a historical record created by the colonial British. Your Majesty, you should be the last one to say that. Not only all your borders, but your whole country was created by the same colonial British." Tell us, Your Majesty, what you have done to safeguard the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that you lost to the Israelis in 1967, almost a quarter of a century ago?Bandar was right in sheeting home the blame on Jordan - but he also failed to acknowledge that the Arab League shared a major part of the responsibility for failing to have achieved that "two-state solution" during 1948-1967 - when not one Jew lived in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem after they had all been permanently driven from their homes by six invading Arab-League members' armies in 1948, Bandar correctly identified that the conflict did not begin in 1948 - but started with the "colonial British" - who in 1922 planted the seeds enabling the ultimate creation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946 - thus denying the Jews the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in 76.9% of the territory originally intended for that purpose by the San Remo Conference as confirmed in the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. Former US President Jimmy Carter neatly summed up this British decision in Time on 11 October 1982: "As a nation it (Jordan) is a contrivance, arbitrarily devised by a few strokes of the pen" With the two-state solution now in tatters - Jordan must resolutely face up to the responsibility incumbent on it to end the Arab-Jewish conflict by negotiating with Israel to achieve the most realistic one-state solution presently attainable - dividing the West Bank between Israel and Jordan. Jordan's opportunity to belatedly rectify the errors committed by it between 1948-1967 would have almost certainly been aired in the secret discussions this week in Jordan with Bandar. Jordan's King Abdullah would be well aware of the words of his father - the late King Hussein - who stated in his Autobiography - Uneasy Lies The Head: "Palestine and Transjordan were both under British Mandate, but as my grandfather pointed out in his memoirs, they were hardly separate countries. Trans-Jordan being to the east of the river Jordan, it formed in a sense, the interior of Palestine" The idea that Saudi Arabia could actually be encouraging Jordan to help end - if not finally terminate - the Arab-Jewish conflict within the context of secret discussions - is fascinating to contemplate. The PLO has undeniably botched its chances.
David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International—an organization calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Previous articles written by him can be found at: jordanispalestine.blogspot.com