Spring Summit Meeting With Obama, Netanyahu, King Abdullah II

Nadene Goldfoot
First, the word was out that there wasn't going to be any talk about Palestine and peace when Obama made his first visit to Israel as the USA President.  There was speculation, though, as to what he would do and who he would visit.  According to Danny Ayalon, the former Deputy Foreign Minister in Israel,  Obama is planning a summit meeting with Netanyahu and King Abdullah II of Jordan.  It's not for sure if PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is invited or not at this time.  This was reported back on December 27, 2012.

It's a USA-Israeli-Jordanian plan to pass up the core issues of the Israel-Palestine dispute by "establishing a self-ruling Palestinian entity " inside the framework of a confederation with Jordan.  So far, Abbas and his group have no money in which to pay anyone.  The question is for me that they have been demanding a state but where are their plans to be economically self sufficient? They are in "extreme jeopardy."  In fact, Abbas at one point threatened Netanyahu with handing over the problem to him.

In June 1967 (Six Day War) Israel was attacked by all the surrounding states both near and far but won and took over the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).  The culminating event for Israel was the capture of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Jordan is made up of many Palestinians as it is.  They had their war called Black September which started in September 1970 and lasted till July 1971 led by Yasser Arafat of Fatah.  The Palestinians had attempted to assassinate King Hussein on September 1st.  Thousands of Palestinian fighters moved onto Lebanon afterwards.  Thousands had died in the fighting.  The Palestinians had outnumbered Jordanians.  "King Hussein feared an independent West Bank under PLO administration would threaten the autonomy of his Hashemite kingdom."

For a long time many have felt that Jordan is Palestine.  "These ideas took more specific form in July 1989, when Shamir raised the possibility of a Palestinian state being established in Jordan in the course of his discussions with Arab residents of the West Bank."  Here are the steps that were discussed then.

• "The land of Israel east of the Jordan River shall be the Palestinian state.
• In the first stage, the Palestinian state shall be established east of the Jordan River. This state shall enjoy all the characteristics of sovereignty.
• In the second stage (after the establishment of the Palestinian state east of the Jordan River) those areas of the land of Israel in the West Bank under Israel's control and areas inside the green line [delimiting pre-1967 Israel] inhabited by Palestinians shall become part of the Palestinian state.
• The West Bank and Gaza shall not be handed over to or placed under the sovereignty of the Palestinian state except after peace with this state prevails and is manifested in mutual economic, tourist, and cultural relations, and through cooperation in establishing economic and water projects, in addition to allowing free movement of people and goods." from Daniel Pipes.  

Notice that Gaza had been included in the above, but as soon as Israel left, the attacks on her started.  

In the summit meeting they will have to address these same points.  A lot depends on the attitude of Abbas and if he will recognize Israel, something he has refused to do.  Or is this one of the core issues that will be passed up at this time?  If so, let's not allow another Gaza situation where they will be able to attack Israel.  

Resource: DebkaFile Newsleetter, Debka@thejmg.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September_in_Jordan
http://www.danielpipes.org/298/is-jordan-palestine  Is Jordan Palestine?
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/67_War.html  Listing of countries that attacked.
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Israel+wars/The+Six-Day+War+-+June+1967.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/world/middleeast/palestinian-authority-threatened-by-fiscal-crisis-premier-says.html?_r=0

The Big Lie: That Arabs Were Displaced By Israel

                                                     Mandate for Jewish National Home
Nadene Goldfoot
The Jewish Homeland shrunk to less than 20% of its original size which had been decided by the Balfour Doctrine and okayed by the League of Nations.  What became Israel in 1948 was a fraction of Western Palestine where Jews had already settled and had been living.   Immigrant Jews had returned to the land in the 1870's to join the small native Jewish population and until it became a state in 1948, the area of Jewish settlement remained about in the same area.  It had been underpopulated land and had been set upon by Bedouin exploitations, plunder, nomadism , tribal uprisings and natural disaster during the Jews' first aliyah or return to work and reclaiming of  the land.

The major part, 3/4  of the Jewish Homeland, had been taken over by Transjordan, which was land east of the Jordan River.  Yasser Arafat had stated that Jordan is Palestine.  Even King Hussein and Prince Hassan of Jordan have also stated that Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine.  That happened to be a good 80% of land promised to the the Jews. In fact, Palestinian Arabs and Jordan had a battle in 1970-1971 called the "Black September" period, when King Hussein fought against Arafat's PLO forces who had been operating opening in Jordan until then.  It was considered a Civil War and the final crackdown against those of his people who were trying to establish a separate Palestinian state under Arab Palestinian rule instead of his own.

 The king considered them criminals and conspirators using commando movement to disguise their treason and plots to destroy the unity of the Jordanian and Palestinian people. Thousands died, mostly the Palestinians who later retreated to Lebanon.   It was a similar situation to Syria today, only the king was fairly good and not about to be undercut and displaced.  He eventually married a Palestinian girl, born in the USA whose father was from Syria, Queen Noor, one way to keep the peace.  One good thing about him, he kept the peace with Israel.  King Hussein has since died, and his son, King Abdullah II also married a Palestinian girl, Queen Rania, born in 1970 whose father was from Kuwait.

The Jewish National Homeland had been split into 2 separate unequal Palestines:  Eastern Palestine--or the Arab emirate of Transjordan east of the Jordan River and Western Palestine, which was less than 1/4th of the League of Nations Mandate.  Where the Jews actually lived in 1870-1880 was only a segment of the area of Western Palestine.  Transjordan, nearly 38,000 square miles,  had been filched by the Arabs with the British permission and assistance.  Israel got less than 8,000 square miles in the end.

The land of Transjordan had been conqauered by King David.  W Ammon was held for a time by a Jewish family, the Tobiads.  From the 8th century to the 19th century it had been mostly left to the Bedouin except when the Crusaders were there.  In 1921 it was detached from the Jewish Homeland for Abdullah who renamed it the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan in 1946.  In 1948 he took over the Arab area of Palestine which his grandson, Hussein lost to Israel in the 6 Day War.  In 1990 Jordan's population was 3,000,000 of which many were Palestinian Arabs and its capital is Amman.  By 2011 the population of Jordan was 5,568,565 and 95% Sunni Muslim which is their state religion.

The Muslim population in "Palestine around 1917, the time of the Balfour Declaration, was made up of mostly transient and landless nomads.  Sherif Hussein commented in a 1918 article that the native soil of Palestine could not keep the Arabs from " wandering....in every direction."

Palestine did not become Israel.  Israel is but a sliver of what it was to have been.  Palestine was indeed to have become the Jewish Homeland but because of British dealings, it didn't happen.  It should have been the land east and west of the Jordan River from the Mediterranean to Arabia and Iraq, and north and south from Egypt to Lebanon and Syria.

Arnold Toynbee, historian, said in 1918 that the "desolate land which lies east of the Jordan stream was capable of supporting a large population of irrigated and cultivated scientifically.  The Zionists have as much right to this no-man's land as the Arabs, or more."

The land was previously referred to as Palestine, and that was but a small piece of land compared to Arab countries created around it.  It was also called South Syria, or Eastern and Western Palestine, or part of Turkey, but by the international mandate known finally as a Jewish National Home.  The USA mentioned much about it, and said it was to "recognize Palestine as a Jewish state as soon as it is a Jewish state in fact."

So all around it independent Arab statehood arose., but not within Palestine itself, unless you count Transjordan.  After WWI the Arabs in Syria and Iraq had statehood.  Saudi Arabia got about 865,000 square miles of land which was pure Arab land.  Surely the Arab would not begrudge the "small notch" of Palestine east and west of the Jordan River, thought Lord Balfour.  Little did he know his own country and the Arabs.

Britain had to help themselves by recognizing Abdullah and his emirate in the land east of the Jordan River that was to be the Jewish National Home.  He was the royal son of the Hejaz (Saudi Arabia), because the Arabians of the Hejaz had been the biggest helpers against the Turks in WWI.  His brother, Emir Feisal, and Lawrence of Arabia had agreed to abandon all claim of his father to Western Palestine if Feisal got Iraq and Eastern Palestine as Arab territories.  Never mind that Chaim Weizmann had developed chemicals to create bombs that worked for England and with that they would have lost the whole war against Germany and had been promised the land first for the Jews in return for his contribution to the war effort .

So this idea of Jews displacing the Arab is nothing but bunk.  Arabs actually took over land meant for the Jews by taking Transjordan illegally. Folke Bernadotte in 1950-1951 said that "The Palestinian Arabs have at present no will of their own.  Neither have they ever developed any specifically Palestinian nationalism...It would seem as though in existing circumstances most of the Palestinian Arabs would be quite content to be incorporated in Trans-Jordan."

Resource: Book:  From Time Immemorial-the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine by Joan Peters p 234-241
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September_in_Jordan
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Noor_of_Jordan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Rania_of_Jordan