Jordan's King Abdullah II is at it again, repeating the mantra of the Arab League, of which Jordan is a foundation member: "The principal problem in the region is the Palestinian issue and, if it is not solved, it will be impossible to solve other problems." (Jerusalem Post, 2 March 2007)


Palestine comprised an area of about 120,000 square kilometres, which has now been divided into two sovereign states - Israel (22,000 square kilometres) and Jordan (92,000 square kilometres) - plus an area of 6,000 square kilometres called the West Bank and Gaza in which statehood still remains undeclared.


The Arab League has called for full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank and Israel's acceptance of an independent Arab State there with East Jerusalem as its capital. This means:


(i) the expulsion of some 400,000 Jews presently living in the West Bank who have lived there for all or part of the last 40 years;


A second Arab State in Palestine is as ridiculous as suggesting a second Jewish State in Palestine.



(ii) the perpetual abandonment by Jews of all claims to reconstitute their national home in the West Bank and Gaza as conferred on them by the League of Nations and confirmed by the United Nations;


(iii) The severance of the Jews from their Biblical heartland, where they lived as an independent nation long before any Arabs came to the area as foreign conquerors and occupiers, seven centuries after the birth of Jesus.


The Arab League has shown no indication of any readiness to abandon this "all or nothing approach" by agreeing to the Jews retaining and living in a portion of this disputed territory, whilst the remainder, and its Arab residents, become part of Jordan - as it was between 1948 and 1967.


A second Arab State in Palestine, which has been propounded for the last 20 years, is as ridiculous as suggesting a second Jewish State in Palestine. Two peoples - the Jews and the Arabs - need two states in former Palestine, not three.


While the Arab League persists with its intransigent attitude, there is indeed a problem, but one solely of the Arab League's choosing. The Arab League presently is made up of 22 member states, covering almost 14 million square kilometres and in which almost 320 million Arabs reside. It is incredulous and completely misleading to continually claim that a dispute over 6,000 square kilometres, home to three million Arabs, must first be settled before all the other problems in the region can be resolved.


Yet, that is precisely what the Arab League has sold to the Quartet - America, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union. And the Quartet has swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. Besotted by this tale that could have come from the Arabian Nights, the Quartet has thrown billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours in aid and diplomatic manoeuvring into trying to solve this problem. They have not got the disputants to even move off the starting blocks.


Meanwhile, the Arab League has allowed far more serious bushfires to rage out of control in some of its own member states; fires that threaten to eventually consume the Arab League itself. In fact, some League members, such as Syria, are actively helping to fan the fires by providing arms, money and safe transit for terrorists to bring down the governments of other member states where life is anything but pleasant.


The League's current biggest problem involves a non Arab state - Iran - as it seeks leadership of the Islamic world through the supremacy of Shia Islam as the dominant Islamic religion, over Sunni Islam, which is the religion of the majority of the Arabs. This is the clash of ideologies that must first take place before militant Islam can hope to achieve its aim of making Islam the world's dominant religion. Fundamentalist Islam can only have one leader, not two, to achieve this objective. Will that leader be Shia or Sunni?


T

Perhaps, it is time for the Quartet to tell the Arab League to start solving its own problems.

he Arab League's failure to prevent Iran from interfering in the affairs of Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Iraq has given Iran and the Shiites easy entree into the Arab World and put the Arab League's very future existence under serious threat. The white ants are on the march and the Arab edifice is in danger of total collapse.


Perhaps, it is time for the Quartet to tell the Arab League to start solving the problems affecting its own member states such as Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Somalia and Sudan - places where the lives of 100 million people are at risk every day, and where the sight of Muslim blowing up Muslim and mosque after mosque is unbelievably common. The Quartet should also put the Palestinian question on the back burner and focus its attention, effort and political clout (if any is left) on the real and pressing issues outlined above.


Creating another Arab state on 6,000 square kilometres of land, when you already have 22 Arab states on 14 million square kilometres of land, reminds me of the glutton who was given 99.5% of the apple pie but still was not satisfied and demanded the rest.


He ended up with severe indigestion.


[The writer acknowledges Wikipedia as the source for the statistics appearing in this article.]