Palestine - 'End the Occupation' and 'Right the Wrongs'

In 2011 the legitimacy of the PLO leadership role is in tatters. A new boy on the block - Hamas - has emerged to challenge the PLO's claim and reconciliation between these two competing power bases is still not a prospect after six years of bitter internecine conflict.

The effort to reach a resolution of the 130 years old Arab-Jewish conflict has been stymied by the refusal of the PLO to sit down in direct face-to-face negotiations with Israel. But even if this were to occur tomorrow, the prospects of any successful outcome would be extremely unlikely.

Jordan sits on the sideline having abandoned any claim to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and East Jerusalem in 1988. Jordan shows no interest in attempting to try and restore - as far as is now possible - the status quo existing in these areas at 4 June 1967.

Israel's attempts to "end the occupation" of these areas in 2000/2001 and 2008 were rebuffed by the PLO.

Perhaps it is time for a new slogan - "Right the Wrongs" - to enter into the lexicon of international diplomacy in the Middle East.

The wrongs involve the failure of the United Nations to acknowledge the following incontrovertible facts:

• The provisions of Article 80 of the United Nations Charter reserve to the Jewish people the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem in accordance with the provisions laid down in article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine; and
• That Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 remain the only internationally accepted basis for resolving the conflict in former Palestine.

The failure of the United Nations to insist on these basic tenets of international law being implemented, respected and observed has proved to be the main stumbling block to resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Yasser Arafat himself declared before the United Nations, on 13 December 1988:

"Our people do not want any right to which they are not entitled and which is not compatible with international legality and laws. They are not seeking any freedom that encroaches upon the freedom of others or any destiny that negates the destiny of another people."

Bowing to extreme pressure from the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the United Nations has succumbed to a myriad of General Assembly resolutions since then that have virtually buried such "international legality and laws."

It is time for international law to be resurrected, debated and enforced as the only basis for ending the conflict in former Palestine.

The sooner this process is begun, the sooner some sanity will return to the Middle East.