UN silence on HKOPS helped Israel-Gaza War happen
The United Nations (UN) failure to mention the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (HKOPS) once in the 16 months after its publication on 8 June 2022 could have contributed to the Israel-Gaza War happening.
The UN failed to recognise the looming confrontation identified in this Report (my underlining):
“The head of the IDF intelligence unit that is charged with questioning IDF [Israel Defence Forces – ed] assessments and conceptions warned four times in the three weeks before Hamas’s October 7 onslaught that the Gaza ruling terror group could soon launch a confrontation, Channel 12 reports.
The head of Ipcha Mistabra — the Devil’s Advocate Unit — wrote twice in late September to all senior decision-makers in the army and the political echelon, to challenge the widespread assessment that Hamas was deterred, the TV report says, and presented the same argument twice more during IDF discussions.
The report quotes from a letter the unnamed officer wrote on December 3 in which he recalled trying to draw his superiors’ attention to the possibility of an imminent attack in the three weeks before the October 7 Hamas onslaught.
“I tried in the weeks before the war erupted to challenge our fundamental basic assessment, which held that Hamas was interested in maintaining quiet in the Gaza Strip,” the officer recalled.
“My central claim was that Hamas would soon launch a confrontation with Israel, because it identified deep processes that were fundamentally changing the strategic situation, especially the progress of normalization efforts between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and signs of vitality and recovery by the Palestinian Authority.”
Israel’s political and military leadership will have to answer these bombshell allegations in the inevitable public enquiry that follows the end of the Israel-Gaza War.
The UN also needs to answer why it ignored the changing strategic situation between Israel and Saudi Arabia as they moved to normalize their relations – by deliberately burying debate on HKOPS which almost certainly was being raised in secret Israeli-Saudi discussions in February 2023.
HKOPS author – Ali Shihabi – an advisor to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman – had earlier approved every word of my article published on 14 August 2022 – stating HKOPS:
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“Would supersede two previous Saudi peace proposals in 1981 and 2002 calling for Israel to withdraw completely from the ‘West Bank’
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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 – is consigned to the diplomatic graveyard
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Amman – not Jerusalem – will be the capital of The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine
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The right of return to Israel is abandoned.
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Palestinians in the ‘West Bank’, Gaza and stateless refugees 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.”
I sent Stéphane Dujarric – Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres – a copy of this article on 17 August 2022 asking for the Secretary-General’s comment.
Dujarric failed to even acknowledge receipt of this letter – following the pattern he had adopted to letters I sent him on 30 June, 19 July and 4 August 2022 enclosing earlier articles written by me about HKOPS and inviting the Secretary-General’s response to this game-changing proposal.
Dujarric similarly ignored my letters sent to him on 16 October, 22 November, 14 December 2022 and 3 January, 18 January, 29 January and 13 June 2023 including later published articles criticizing the Secretary-General’s arrogant behaviour.
Debating HKOPS in the Security Council to replace its failed 2016 two-state solution – instead of consigning my letters to the UN’s shredders – could well have helped prevent the Israel-Gaza War.
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
