Trump must honour Bush-Congress deal with Israel…writes David Singer
President Trump’s historic visit to Israel on 22 May presents the perfect opportunity for him to deliver on the promises he made to Israel during last year’s Presidential election campaign.Trump’s broad-ranging foreign policy speech on 27 April 2016 highlighted the disgraceful way Israel had been treated by the Obama Administration:
“Israel, our great friend and the one true democracy in the Middle East has been snubbed and criticised by an administration that lacks moral clarity.
President Obama has not been a friend to Israel.”
Trump’s claim was certainly justified.
Obama – aided and abetted by his two Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry – had deliberately undermined the written commitments made to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by President Bush on 14 April 2004 and subsequently endorsed overwhelmingly by the Congress by 502 votes to 12 (“Bush/Congress Commitments”).
Trump promised:
“To our friends and allies, I say America is going to be strong again. America is going to be reliable again. It’s going to be a great and reliable ally again. It’s going to be a friend again. We’re going to finally have a coherent foreign policy based upon American interests and the shared interests of our allies.”
The shared interests of Israel and America became inextricably entwined after the Bush/Congress Commitments had:
- secured Israel’s total disengagement from Gaza and a part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) in 2005
- promised President Bush’s stalled 2003 Roadmap proposing the two-state solution a real chance of coming to fruition.
The Bush/Congress Commitments were also crucial to Israel’s agreement to resume negotiations with the Palestinian Authority as publicly declared by Israel’s then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the international conference called by President Bush in Annapolis in 2007:
“In the course of the negotiations, we will use previous agreements as a point of departure. U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the road map, and the letter of President Bush to the prime minister of Israel dated April 14, 2004.”
Obama’s treachery in derogating from the Bush/Congress Commitments was compounded when he refused to veto Security Council Resolution 2334 passed during the dying days of Obama’s Presidency on 23 December 2016.
Trump needs to repeat this part of his 2016 message loudly and clearly in Israel:
“… your friends need to know that you will stick by the agreements that you have with them. You’ve made that agreement, you have to stand by it and the world will be a better place. “
Sticking by the Bush/Congress commitments will sound a clear warning to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Arab League that PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas will become irrelevant if he continues to:
- press for a complete withdrawal by Israel from Judea and Samaria (West Bank)
- refuse to accept Israel as the nation State of the Jewish people
- maintain a claimed right of return to Israel for millions of refugees and their descendants contradicting the unequivocal terms of the Bush/Congress Commitments.
Trump – as only he can – has put Abbas on notice this could well happen:
“We have to look to new people because many of the old people frankly don’t know what they’re doing, even though they may look awfully good writing in The New York Times or being watched on television.”
Bipartisan Congressional support will welcome Trump honouring the Bush/Congress Commitments – confirming Trump’s bold vision:
“We need a new rational American foreign policy, informed by the best minds and supported by both parties, and it will be by both parties — Democrats, Republicans, independents, everybody, as well as by our close allies.”
Integrity always trumps betrayal.
David Singer is a Sydney Lawyer and Foundation Member of the International Analysts Network
Mr. Singer must be one of the rare persons to take any notice of the clown president
Maurice:
Paying no notice to what the President of the United States says is foolhardy indeed.
Now Maurice,
Just think where the ‘clowns’ he replaced have got us !!
This man deserves to be given a chance. The people who voted for him are not complaining are they? No, they are pleased to see the wind of change.
Israeli’s are pleased because he appears to be unafraid to call out the outrageous shenanigans of the U.N.
Mr Trump is far from perfect .. something like me I suppose!
Amongst other things he is attempting to “drain the swamp” of Washington. They don’t like it one little bit.
Trust me on this. There is a ‘swamp’ in Canberra too. Talk about ‘clowns’! And we will vote for the first reasonably decent person who offers a way of producing a government which puts citizens first and ‘swampies’ last.
David,
Is there ANY possibility that 2334 could be repealed? I mean does the mechanism for such action exist?
Given that America has “a new sheriff in town”, and New Zealand must surely recognize their amazing blunder, could the whole episode be revisited?
Roy Sims
Roy. I believe that article 80 of the UN charter makes resolution 2334 invalid because it directly conflicts with article 80 which being part of the charter takes precedence. But in any case the resolution is not bindong
I wonder what David thinks
Roy
It would need another Security Council Resolution.
The US House of Representatives has already resolved by 342 votes to 80:
“the House of Representatives opposes United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 and will work to strengthen the United States-Israel relationship, and calls for United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to be repealed or fundamentally altered so that—
(A) it is no longer one-sided and anti-Israel; and
(B) it allows all final status issues toward a two-state solution to be resolved through direct bilateral negotiations between the parties.”
One could reasonably anticipate that if the UN sought to enforce Resolution 2334 in any of its aspects then the US under the current administration would veto any such attempt.