Biden, Bibi, MBS, Guterres & Abdullah can no longer ignore HKOPS
President Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Jordan’s King Abdullah (“The Group of 5”) need to meet urgently to discuss the implementation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine Solution (HKOPS).
They’re doing so in the hope of preventing Iran from carrying out its threat to invade Israel following the assassination of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Lebanon and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh – named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US government – in Iran.
Iran’s threat must be treated as genuine following Iran’s unprecedented action on April 13 in launching more than 200 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles at Israel from Iran – most of them intercepted outside Israeli borders – including more than 10 cruise missiles.
The Group of 5 needs to present a united front to Iran by adopting a solution to end the 100-year-old conflict between Jews and Arabs – which is fast becoming an international conflict with terrible repercussions for the whole of the Middle East and the world.
That solution is HKOPS – which first emerged as a possible solution when published in Saudi Arabia on 8 June 2022 – authored by an advisor to MBS – Ali Shihabi.
I made contact with Shihabi and on 22 August 2022 we co-operated jointly to publish an article in which Shihabi pointed out the following key points of his very revolutionary plan – the merging of Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into one territory governed by Jordan’s King Abdullah – to be renamed The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine:
- It would supersede two previous Saudi peace proposals in 1981 and 2002 calling for Israel to withdraw completely from the West Bank
- The two-state solution – the creation of a separate Palestinian Arab State between Jordan and Israel promoted unsuccessfully by the United Nations for the last 29 years – was consigned to the diplomatic graveyard
- Amman, not Jerusalem, would be the capital of The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine
- The right of return to Israel was abandoned.
- Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and stateless refugees would get full citizenship in the merged Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine with all the elements of sovereignty applicable to those Territories that belonging to a fully recognized state in the UN entail.
For some as yet unexplained reason:
- Not one of the Group of 5 – nor the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly -appears to have ever mentioned HKOPS by name as a possible solution even once in the two years since HKOPS was published
- Virtually none of the international media, well-funded think tanks and world-respected political analysts has sought to analyse the merits of HKOPS or call for its attempted implementation.
The vacuum created by this complete silence has seen the region sliding into an ever-increasing and more-widening conflict culminating in the atrocities suffered by Israel following Gaza’s invasion of Israel on 7 October 2023 and the ensuing Israel-Gaza War that is still raging unresolved.
The Group of 5 need to bury their ideological and political differences and call for the implementation of HKOPS in a last-ditch effort to avert Iran threatening to turn the region into one giant killing field.
Ironically Persia (now Iran) was one of the 51 members of the League of Nations who voted for the Mandate for Palestine in 1922 dividing Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish Area west of the Jordan River and an Arab Area east of the Jordan River.
It can happen again with a different border other than the Jordan River.
HKOPS offers this solution – not the wholesale decimation of Arab and Jewish communities promised by Iran.
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.
David Singer is a Sydney lawyer and a foundation member of the International Analysts Network
