# The Blue Cross

I am glad you are showing some interest in negotiations taking place between Jordan and Israel. Your queries will no doubt be dealt with in those negotiations when those two sovereign states sit down to try and achieve a resolution.

16 years of fruitless negotiations involving the Palestinian Authority have gone nowhere and will go nowhere because of the intransigence of the Authority in retaining the same unchanged negotiating stance for the last 42 years.

Sure this state of affairs can be allowed to fester and continue but to what end and to what purpose?

Jordan remains the key to resolving the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank between Jews and Arabs.

#NADIA1

It was the Jews that finally were ethnically cleansed from the West Bank - every single Jew living there - in 1948.

I am not advocating the ethnic cleansing of one single Arab from the West Bank. Each Arab resident will be entitled to live in his own home in the West Bank where he presently resides if that is what he wants to do.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 recognises that the Arabs will not be rewarded with the return of the whole of the West Bank.

Trouble is the Arabs are not prepared to accept this decision of the international community. Come to think of it they have never accepted any decision of the international community on Palestine since 1920. This is their perfect entitlement but it has certainly not served the best interests of the Arab population of former Palestine as the last 99 years of strife and suffering have proved.

You seem to be advocating the continuance of this rejectionist stance. That is a real pity.

Why the author does not refer to the relevant UN resolutions on the partition of the Palestine territories and the subsequent developments?

Thanks for your attention.
Ozonder-istanbul

#Ozonder

The only relevant UN Resolutions that have any binding effect are those passed by the Security Council.

The two binding Security Council resolutions are 242 and 338.

These two resolutions have not been acted on by the Arab League which still calls for the return of 100% of the West Bank and Gaza to Arab control. This is contrary to both of these resolutions which make it clear that Israel will not be required to return to the armistice lines that existed prior to the Six Day War in 1967 but only to secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.

Israel is waiting for some Arab interlocutor to come and negotiate on the terms of Resolution 242. The Palestinian Authority has shown it is incapable of negotiating such an arrangement. Jordan (and possibly Egypt) have the authority and status to so negotiate because they both have signed peace agreements with Israel and were the last Arab States to occupy the West Bank and Gaza between 1948-1967.

It takes two to tango. Israel (17% of former Palestine)is on the dance floor ready to go but without a partner. The sooner Jordan (77% of former Palestine)agrees to become involved in the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza(6% of former Palestine)the sooner some hope of peace might become possible.