It seems again as if the United States, in their rush to find a "solution" to the Israeli/Palestinian problem are focusing on the borders of a Palestinian state defined by the pre-1967 borders of the West Bank and Gaza.
This solution again does not in any way solve the dilemma of what to do with the millions of Palestinians warehoused for decades in refugee camps. Where do they go? What do they do? And again what will the Palestinians within the above mentioned borders do for a living. What about full sovereignty? What sense of pride will the Palestinian people have in their work, their country, their future under the solutions being rushed to acceptance by governments looking for a quick fix and not long term solutions?
I have adjusted my original outline for a Hashemite Kingdom of Greater Palestine with, what I feel, are a few major but key adjustments. The first is to redefine the solution as the Hashemite Kingdom of Wadis Arabia. This solution encompasses a region, not a country or people from one nation. It requires a name for the entire region and a group of people for a common goal.
The second and perhaps most noticeable is the redrawing of the southeastern dividing boundary between Wadis Arabia and Saudi Arabia. It is my belief, after some consideration, that Saudi Arabia would not wish to part with Duba, Saudi Arabia and its key port and transportation links in northwest Saudi Arabia.
It is also my belief that the creation of new port facilities in the new area of Wadis Arabia facing the Red Sea would create a massive amount of new jobs for the new kingdom. The creation of port facilities here would also allow for the transfer of industrial type facilities away from the Taba, Eilat, Aqaba, Haql area for use then by mainly tourist and water desalinization facilities. A tiny corner of the much larger Saudi Arabia would become a major focus and center of growth for an enlarged Wadis Arabia.
Next is the addition of the consideration of adding the districts of Tyre, Bint Jbeil, Marjeyun and Hasbaya in Lebanon to the new kingdom. This addition is based upon two factors. One is the allowance of a direct connection to the Litani River in Southern Lebanon. As massive amounts of fresh water leave to the Mediterranean through this river, any collection or diversion of this incredibly valuable resource as both an economic and well as political tool for long term peace in the region should not be ignored. More than money, more than arms, more than rhetoric, the transfer of the lower Litani basin to Wadis Arabia would provide a much more effective lever to the hope of peace and expanding viability to the new kingdom.
The second reason is based upon the complete lack of attention paid to these four districts by the powers that be in Beruit over decades of opportunity. The relatively small population of perhaps 250,000 in total would receive much greater attention in a Wadis Arabia area of influence. The addition of the water and agriculture possibilities of this area to a Wadis Arabia far exceed any use for the area shown by Lebanon in the past many decades.
Also by allowing the very center of Hezbollah to become a part of a solution, not only for themselves but the Palestinians, Jordanians, Iraqis and other displaced peoples cannot be overlooked as another way to defuse tensions in the region while also bringing renewed purpose to all of those of the current lower Litani River basin.
The inclusion of the Nabatiya district has been considered as well but was not included at this posting.
It cannot be stressed enough that this entire concept of a Hashemite Kingdom of Wadis Arabia is based upon a few simple principles.
A viable homeland must be found for all Palestinians. This means not just larger camps and walled communities with little long term prospects. It means a solution of a state with framework to all of the rights and privileges of any other country in the world.
It should be led by a government that has had decades of experience in governing effectively and have the acceptance of its neighbors.
The use of a long term solution to the water problems of the entire area must be the basis for any solution, not threat of war, current boundaries or current political sovereignty. It is for water that they all will come and all will agree.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Palestine 1948 Part II
If one clicks on the link below, one will find that indeed in the pre 1948 Palestine, Beersheba, Ashkelon and Eilat were all enhabited by a majority of Palestinians.
It it to this Triangle of Palestinian population that any new Palestinian homeland must refocus as the center of reclaimed land. A new Palestinian homeland MUST be VIABLE and with no limitations upon future growth or defense. These conditions can only be achieved with Beersheba, Eilat and Ashkelon in the answer, not Nablus, Ramallah or Janin.
It it to this Triangle of Palestinian population that any new Palestinian homeland must refocus as the center of reclaimed land. A new Palestinian homeland MUST be VIABLE and with no limitations upon future growth or defense. These conditions can only be achieved with Beersheba, Eilat and Ashkelon in the answer, not Nablus, Ramallah or Janin.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Comments by Jake Tapper; ABC news. 3 June 2009
President Obama on Israel: 'Part of Being a Good Friend Is Being Honest'
June 02, 2009 7:15 AM
In an interview that aired last night and this morning, President Obama told NPR that in terms of the U.S. relationship with Israel, "part of being a good friend is being honest. And I think there have been times where we are not as honest as we should be about the fact that the current direction, the current trajectory in the region, is profoundly negative – not only for Israeli interests but also U.S. interests. And that’s part of a new dialogue that I’d like to see encouraged in the region."
Later today the president will fly to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he will neet with King Abdullah, after which he will fly to Cairo, Egypt, to deliver a major address to the Muslim world. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process will be front and center on the agenda.
We're also told the president will discuss terrorism, oil prices, and Iran with King Abdullah. The president is expected to press Arab countries to formally recognize Israel.
"I think that we do have to retain a constant belief in the possibilities of negotiations that will lead to peace," the president said. "And that’s going to require, from my view, a two-state solution that is going to require that each side – the Israelis and Palestinians – meet their obligations. "
The president as of late has been publicly expressing much more frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's settlement policy than he has with Bibi's Palestinian's counterparts.
"I’ve said very clearly to the Israelis both privately and publicly that a freeze on settlements, including natural growth, is part of those obligations," Mr. Obama said. "I’ve said to the Palestinians that their continued progress on security and ending the incitement that, I think, understandably makes the Israelis so concerned, that that has to be – those obligations have to be met. So the key is to just believe that that process can move forward and that all sides are going to have to give. And it’s not going to be an easy path, but one that I think we can achieve."
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and other Democrats in Congress have been expressing concern that the president's approach is not even-handed,
“My concern is that we are applying pressure to the wrong party in this dispute,” Berkley told Ben Smith of Politico. “I think it would serve America’s interest better if we were pressuring the Iranians to eliminate the potential of a nuclear threat from Iran, and less time pressuring our allies and the only democracy in the Middle East to stop the natural growth of their settlements.”
Berkely said that "when Congress gets back into session the administration is going to hear from many more members than just me."
“There’s a line between articulating U.S. policy and seeming to be pressuring a democracy on what are their domestic policies, and the president is tiptoeing right up to that line,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y, told Politico. “I would have liked to hear the president talk more about the Palestinian obligation to cut down on terrorism.”
Laura Rozen at Foreign Policy last week reported that Netanyahu seems flummoxed grousing, according to an associate, "What the hell do they want from me?"
Netanyahu, looking for "loopholes and hidden agreements that have often existed in the past with Washington," writes Rozen, is confused that the Obama administration's opposition to settlements has no wiggle room.
- jpt
June 02, 2009 7:15 AM
In an interview that aired last night and this morning, President Obama told NPR that in terms of the U.S. relationship with Israel, "part of being a good friend is being honest. And I think there have been times where we are not as honest as we should be about the fact that the current direction, the current trajectory in the region, is profoundly negative – not only for Israeli interests but also U.S. interests. And that’s part of a new dialogue that I’d like to see encouraged in the region."
Later today the president will fly to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he will neet with King Abdullah, after which he will fly to Cairo, Egypt, to deliver a major address to the Muslim world. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process will be front and center on the agenda.
We're also told the president will discuss terrorism, oil prices, and Iran with King Abdullah. The president is expected to press Arab countries to formally recognize Israel.
"I think that we do have to retain a constant belief in the possibilities of negotiations that will lead to peace," the president said. "And that’s going to require, from my view, a two-state solution that is going to require that each side – the Israelis and Palestinians – meet their obligations. "
The president as of late has been publicly expressing much more frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's settlement policy than he has with Bibi's Palestinian's counterparts.
"I’ve said very clearly to the Israelis both privately and publicly that a freeze on settlements, including natural growth, is part of those obligations," Mr. Obama said. "I’ve said to the Palestinians that their continued progress on security and ending the incitement that, I think, understandably makes the Israelis so concerned, that that has to be – those obligations have to be met. So the key is to just believe that that process can move forward and that all sides are going to have to give. And it’s not going to be an easy path, but one that I think we can achieve."
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and other Democrats in Congress have been expressing concern that the president's approach is not even-handed,
“My concern is that we are applying pressure to the wrong party in this dispute,” Berkley told Ben Smith of Politico. “I think it would serve America’s interest better if we were pressuring the Iranians to eliminate the potential of a nuclear threat from Iran, and less time pressuring our allies and the only democracy in the Middle East to stop the natural growth of their settlements.”
Berkely said that "when Congress gets back into session the administration is going to hear from many more members than just me."
“There’s a line between articulating U.S. policy and seeming to be pressuring a democracy on what are their domestic policies, and the president is tiptoeing right up to that line,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y, told Politico. “I would have liked to hear the president talk more about the Palestinian obligation to cut down on terrorism.”
Laura Rozen at Foreign Policy last week reported that Netanyahu seems flummoxed grousing, according to an associate, "What the hell do they want from me?"
Netanyahu, looking for "loopholes and hidden agreements that have often existed in the past with Washington," writes Rozen, is confused that the Obama administration's opposition to settlements has no wiggle room.
- jpt
Comment posted by me on abc.com in response to above news article. 3 June 2009
All sides, and I mean ALL sides. have been building towards this stalemate for decades now. No one can back down, no one can be seen to giving in. And far to many political stands in nations all over the world are based upon what THEY can get out of the dilemma. The Arab world needs to consider the fact that the even the most moderate wishes for a Palestinian state involve a geographical boundary that precludes the Palestinians from ever living in a viable, forward looking country. Israel needs to realize that while they him and haw about a solution, the longer term worries such as water and poverty slip further and further behind in their own backyard. All sides need to take a deep breath, stand WAY back and take a good long hard look at what would work. What would be a viable solution for not only Israel, ALL the Palestinian people and the region as a whole?
Thursday, May 28, 2009
An article about West Bank water in the 27 May 2009 UK Guardian newspaper
Israelis get four-fifths of scarce West Bank water, says World Bank
Palestinians losing out in access to vital shared aquifer in the occupied territories
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 May 2009 18.05 BST
A deepening drought in the Middle East is aggravating a dispute over water resources after the World Bank found that Israel is taking four times as much water as the Palestinians from a vital shared aquifer.
The region faces a fifth consecutive year of drought this summer, but the World Bank report found huge disparities in water use between Israelis and Palestinians, although both share the mountain aquifer that runs the length of the occupied West Bank. Palestinians have access to only a fifth of the water supply, while Israel, which controls the area, takes the rest, the bank said.
Israelis use 240 cubic metres of water a person each year, against 75 cubic metres for West Bank Palestinians and 125 for Gazans, the bank said. Increasingly, West Bank Palestinians must rely on water bought from the Israeli national water company, Mekorot.
In some areas of the West Bank, Palestinians are surviving on as little as 10 to 15 litres a person each day, which is at or below humanitarian disaster response levels recommended to avoid epidemics. In Gaza, where Palestinians rely on an aquifer that has become increasingly saline and polluted, the situation is worse. Only 5%-10% of the available water is clean enough to drink.
The World Bank report, published last month, provoked sharp criticism from Israel, which disputed the figures and the scale of the problem on the Palestinian side. But others have welcomed the study and its findings.
Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli head of Friends of the Earth Middle East, said there was a clear failure to meet basic water needs for both Israelis and Palestinians, and that Israelis were taking "the lion's share".
"The bottom line is there is a severe water crisis out there, predominantly on the Palestinian side, and it will be felt even worse this coming summer," Bromberg said at a conference on the issue in Jerusalem.
He said the Joint Water Committee, established in 1995 with Israelis and Palestinians as an interim measure under the Oslo peace accords, had failed to produce results and needed reform.
The World Bank report said the hopes that the Oslo accords might bring water resources for a viable Palestinian state and improve the life of Palestinians had "only very partially been realised".
It said failings in water resource and management and chronic underinvestment were to blame. In Gaza, the continued Israeli economic blockade played a key role in preventing maintenance and construction of sewage and water projects. In the West Bank, Israeli military controls over the Palestinians were a factor, with Palestinians still waiting for approval on 143 water projects.
"We consider that the efficiency of our aid in the current situation is compromised," said Pier Mantovani, a Middle East water specialist for the World Bank, which is an important source of aid for the Palestinians.
Most went on short-term emergency projects with limited long-term strategic value. It was a "piecemeal, ad hoc" approach, he said.
Yossi Dreisen, a former official and now adviser at the Israeli water authority, disputed the Bank's findings and said many remarks in the report were "not correct". He produced figures suggesting Israeli water consumption per person had fallen since 1967, when Israel captured and occupied the West Bank, while Palestinian consumption had risen.
Israel argues that the water problem should be solved by finding new sources, through desalination and water treatment.
"There is not enough water in this area," said Dreisen. "Something must be done. The solution where one is giving water to the other is not acceptable to us."
However, Fuad Bateh, an adviser to the Palestinian water authority, said Israel continued to have obligations under international law as the occupying power and should allow Palestinians water resources through an "equitable and reasonable allocation in accordance with international law".
He accepted that there was a lack of institutional development and capacity on the Palestinian side, but he said the Palestinians were caught in an unequal, asymmetric dispute. Palestinians had not been allowed to develop any new production wells in the West Bank since the 1967 war.
"Palestinians have no say in the Israeli development of these shared, trans-boundary, water resources," he said. "It is a situation in which Israel has a de facto veto over Palestinian water development."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
Palestinians losing out in access to vital shared aquifer in the occupied territories
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 May 2009 18.05 BST
A deepening drought in the Middle East is aggravating a dispute over water resources after the World Bank found that Israel is taking four times as much water as the Palestinians from a vital shared aquifer.
The region faces a fifth consecutive year of drought this summer, but the World Bank report found huge disparities in water use between Israelis and Palestinians, although both share the mountain aquifer that runs the length of the occupied West Bank. Palestinians have access to only a fifth of the water supply, while Israel, which controls the area, takes the rest, the bank said.
Israelis use 240 cubic metres of water a person each year, against 75 cubic metres for West Bank Palestinians and 125 for Gazans, the bank said. Increasingly, West Bank Palestinians must rely on water bought from the Israeli national water company, Mekorot.
In some areas of the West Bank, Palestinians are surviving on as little as 10 to 15 litres a person each day, which is at or below humanitarian disaster response levels recommended to avoid epidemics. In Gaza, where Palestinians rely on an aquifer that has become increasingly saline and polluted, the situation is worse. Only 5%-10% of the available water is clean enough to drink.
The World Bank report, published last month, provoked sharp criticism from Israel, which disputed the figures and the scale of the problem on the Palestinian side. But others have welcomed the study and its findings.
Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli head of Friends of the Earth Middle East, said there was a clear failure to meet basic water needs for both Israelis and Palestinians, and that Israelis were taking "the lion's share".
"The bottom line is there is a severe water crisis out there, predominantly on the Palestinian side, and it will be felt even worse this coming summer," Bromberg said at a conference on the issue in Jerusalem.
He said the Joint Water Committee, established in 1995 with Israelis and Palestinians as an interim measure under the Oslo peace accords, had failed to produce results and needed reform.
The World Bank report said the hopes that the Oslo accords might bring water resources for a viable Palestinian state and improve the life of Palestinians had "only very partially been realised".
It said failings in water resource and management and chronic underinvestment were to blame. In Gaza, the continued Israeli economic blockade played a key role in preventing maintenance and construction of sewage and water projects. In the West Bank, Israeli military controls over the Palestinians were a factor, with Palestinians still waiting for approval on 143 water projects.
"We consider that the efficiency of our aid in the current situation is compromised," said Pier Mantovani, a Middle East water specialist for the World Bank, which is an important source of aid for the Palestinians.
Most went on short-term emergency projects with limited long-term strategic value. It was a "piecemeal, ad hoc" approach, he said.
Yossi Dreisen, a former official and now adviser at the Israeli water authority, disputed the Bank's findings and said many remarks in the report were "not correct". He produced figures suggesting Israeli water consumption per person had fallen since 1967, when Israel captured and occupied the West Bank, while Palestinian consumption had risen.
Israel argues that the water problem should be solved by finding new sources, through desalination and water treatment.
"There is not enough water in this area," said Dreisen. "Something must be done. The solution where one is giving water to the other is not acceptable to us."
However, Fuad Bateh, an adviser to the Palestinian water authority, said Israel continued to have obligations under international law as the occupying power and should allow Palestinians water resources through an "equitable and reasonable allocation in accordance with international law".
He accepted that there was a lack of institutional development and capacity on the Palestinian side, but he said the Palestinians were caught in an unequal, asymmetric dispute. Palestinians had not been allowed to develop any new production wells in the West Bank since the 1967 war.
"Palestinians have no say in the Israeli development of these shared, trans-boundary, water resources," he said. "It is a situation in which Israel has a de facto veto over Palestinian water development."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
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