Bibi-hatred trumps creating Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine
One wonders what led Israel’s leading left-wing newspaper Haaretz to publish a bizarre article by Rogel Alpher headlined “I oppose peace with Saudi Arabia” because Alpher fears Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s political position will be strengthened if Netanyahu succeeds.
Alpher’s pathological hatred of Netanyahu is clear:
“Peace with Saudi Arabia would give Netanyahu a license to continue digging us into a binational apartheid state. Many Israelis, including most of the demonstrators against the legal overhaul, would rejoice to see the Palestinians further weakened.
Netanyahu would be invited to the White House. The mainstream media would celebrate this peace with half a year of reports about Nir from Petah Tikva visiting the duty-free stores in Riyadh. Netanyahu would rise in the polls. The protests against him would weaken. After all, we would be able to eat hummus in Jeddah.
This is why I’m opposed to peace with Saudi Arabia at this time. It’s better for Netanyahu to be as weak as possible.
Let the conflict continue. Let the mounting number of deaths and injuries rise. Preferably this ongoing humanitarian disaster escalate than Netanyahu should – G-d forbid – make peace with Saudi Arabia and end the Jewish-Arab conflict.
Is this also the position of the Haaretz Editorial Board?
Alpher deludes himself that Netanyahu won’t succeed anyway when asserting:
“Netanyahu has a powerful interest in it [peace]. But he isn’t capable of giving the Saudis what they want – a freeze on settlement construction, a commitment to two states and progress in negotiations with the Palestinians… Consequently, if peace happens, it will presumably mean that the Saudis have given up on the Palestinians. That would be bad news for the Palestinians, but also bad news for Israel.”
Alpher completely misreads what the Saudis want – which is laid out in detail in the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution published in the Saudi-Government controlled Al-Arabiya News on 8 June 2022.
Authored by Ali Shihabi – a confidante of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman – Jordan, Gaza and part of the West Bank would be merged into one territorial entity to be named “The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine” (HKOP) – to be governed by Jordan’s current Hashemite rulers – with its capital in Amman – not Jerusalem.
Implementing this solution would result in:
- A freeze on settlement construction becoming ancient history once the existing international border between Jordan and Israel is redrawn – with the overwhelming majority of Israel’s current settlements becoming part of Israel.
- The two-state solution – part of Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy and the Arab Peace Initiative since 2002 – being trashed.
- All current Palestinian Arab residents living within the recognized borders of HKOP gaining citizenship in that newly-created entity.
- Any Palestinian Arabs living outside the newly-created entity being given two choices:
- Returning to live in and acquire citizenship there
- Becoming citizens of HKOP while also getting full residency rights in their current country of residence equivalent to what an EU citizen has in the European Union outside his or her home country. This would allow those Palestinian Arabs to gain full civil rights as legal foreign residents without impacting the local political or sectarian balance in these countries.
Is Alpher unaware of the existence of this Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution?
Is Haaretz – which has not published one article on this game-changing solution since its publication thirteen months ago – similarly ignorant?
Time Alpher and Haaretz got up to date.
Netanyahu certainly is.
Secret negotiations reportedly being held between Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman – mediated by Bahrein – are probably discussing the implementation of this solution.
Opposing peace with Saudi Arabia because it will strengthen Netanyahu politically is perverse and clearly against Israel’s national interest.
Please join my Facebook Page: “Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine supporters”
Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.
