Palestine - Kerry's framework agreement certain to collapse

Entrapped by a fictitious narrative that dismisses binding international law whilst maintaining an illusory belief it can be re-written - the Arab League and the PLO will surely miss yet another opportunity.

By DAVID SINGER
John Kerry departing Israel, January 6, 2014 (photo credit: U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv)
John Kerry departing Israel, January 6, 2014
(photo credit: U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv)
Any prospects of US Secretary for State John Kerry producing a framework agreement possibly serving as the basis for ongoing negotiations designed to achieve the creation of a Palestinian Arab State between Jordan and Israel for the first time in recorded history were well and truly shattered at a joint press conference held by Kerry with chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat in Ramallah on January 4, 2014.
Kerry highlighted the real problem confronting him in concluding any such framework agreement:
"There are narrative issues; difficult, complicated years of mistrust that have been built up, all of which has to be worked through and undone, and a pathway has to be laid down in which the parties can have confidence that they know what is happening and that the road ahead is real, not illusory."
One narrative issue arising from the two very different Jewish and Arab perspectives of the 130 years old conflict has proved to be irreconcilable throughout the last 92 years - and will again prove to be Kerry's undoing.
This issue goes to the very heart of the conflict - and short of a complete collapse in the Arab narrative - will continue to be the quicksand into which Kerry's framework agreement - like the proposals of others before him - will collapse into political oblivion.
This issue involves the continuing refusal of the PLO and the Arab League to accept the unanimous decision of the League of Nations on July 24, 1922 legally sanctioning under the British Mandate for Palestine the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in its ancient and biblical homeland - following decisions made by:1. The San Remo Conference on 24 April 1920, attended by Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, with the United States as a neutral observer.2. The Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Turkey signed at Sevres on 10 August 1920.
The site for the Jewish National Home - originally intended to apply in 100% of the area of the Mandate - was restricted to just 22% of that area on 23 September 1922 by virtue of the application of article 25 of the Palestine Mandate.
The basis for the currently sought "two state" solution had its genesis in these decisions with 22% of Palestine being set aside for Jewish self-determination and the remaining 78% for Arab self-determination.
The League of Nations made it clear that there was no indigenous population then in existence referring to: 1. the "civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." 2. "safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion."3. "The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration... and shall encourage ... close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes."
In 1964 the PLO was formed and its Charter consigned the Mandate and all subsequent decisions of the League of Nations and its successor - the United Nations - to the garbage bin.
These decisions were "considered fraud" in article 18 of the original 1964 Charter of the PLO.
These enduring international legally binding commitments were dismissed with even more contempt when the Charter was revised in 1968 - article 20 unequivocally declaring:
"The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong."
Palestine had been transformed to become:
1. "The homeland of the Arab Palestinian people."2. "An indivisible part of the Arab homeland and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation."3. "With the boundaries it had during the British Mandate ... an indivisible territorial unit."
This outright disregard for long established international law has been the driver seeking to delegitimize and denigrate the Jewish people's legitimate right to establish a state of their own sitting alongside 57 Arab and Moslem nations in the United Nations on equal terms and with equal respect.
It results in the majority of those Arab and Moslem States - and regretfully many other UN member states - seeking to subvert the legal right of Jews to reconstitute their national home in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as laid down by article 6 of the Mandate and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.
Having become members of the United Nations - thereby having agreed to accept the obligations set out in the Charter, including article 80 - these recalcitrant States have become involved in a concerted Arab and Moslem campaign to eradicate the Jewish State from world atlases back to the Bible from where its birth and history was first recorded.
No amount of doublespeak, winks or nudges will enable Kerry to present a framework agreement that has any chance of a diplomatic breakthrough - unless this disingenuous Arab narrative is abandoned.
Entrapped by a fictitious narrative that dismisses binding international law whilst maintaining an illusory belief it can be re-written - the Arab League and the PLO will surely miss yet another opportunity to end their conflict with the Jewish people.
So will Kerry.