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No scenario for settlement of Palestinian question on horizon

Jan 13,2018 - Last updated at Jan 13,2018

The search for a settlement of the Palestinian conflict went through many twists and turns since its inception back in 1947-48 with no real breakthrough in sight. Yet the biggest missed opportunity and the most devastating setback  for a just solution to the crisis was when His Majesty the late  King Abdullah I was assassinated on July 20,1951, at the hands of a little-known assassin who no doubt was driven by certain radical factions as he entered Al Aqsa Mosque to make his noon prayer. 

For me, the tragedy was compounded by the fact that my late father Col. Mohamad Saadi was the Chief Military Companion of the martyred King and sustained a grave injury when he joined in the defence of King Hussein who accompanied his grandfather to the mosque. With his death, the Palestinians lost the only chance of solving their conflict with Israel on reasonable grounds. The late King was negotiating for salvaging all that could still be saved from Palestine and was on the brink of reaching a solution on the basis of the 1947 UN partition plan for Palestine. 

The missed opportunity never presented itself again since that time some 67 years ago and from the looks of things it is not going to present itself in the near future. The people who were behind his killing made the Palestinian people lose the one and only chance for a fair deal with Israel. It so happened that it was the late King Abdullah l who saved East Jerusalem from the advancing Israel army in 1948 by ordering its defence at any cost no matter how high. 

Sure enough the price was indeed high as many Jordanian soldiers fell in the defence of the ancient walls of Jerusalem. There was a chance, a real chance then that a solution on the basis of the partition of Palestine could have become a reality. 

To be sure the late Monarch was the 38th direct descendant of Prophet Mohammad, God bless his soul. He was also the founder of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the architect of the unity between the West Bank with Jordan. The late King truly believed in the unity of the two banks and made this unity the jewel of his glorious reign.  

His Majesty the late King Hussein tried in vain to build on what his late grandfather was able to construct in terms of a sustainable foundation for the solution of the Palestinian question throughout his half-a-century reign. But regional developments turned sour together with the rapid rise of misguided Arab nationalism prevented King Hussein from fulfilling the prophecy of his great grandfather. King Hussein's hopes for a just solution to the Palestinian conflict on the basis of full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, came to a frustrating naught. 

Now the Palestinians are back to square one with a vision for peace with Israel becoming too blurred and unfocused with each passing year. The Palestinians never got around to accepting any offer of peace which was not 100 per cent honourable and legitimate. 

The late president of Tunisia Habib Bourguiba once called on the Palestinians back in the early 50s to accept "anything" reasonable and then ask for a more perfect solution. That was easily said than done as the Palestinian had never reconciled themselves to accepting anything short of a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank including  East Jerusalem. 

The late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin came close to offering the Palestinians a Palestinian state on most of the West Bank but not on all of it. Former Israeli prime ministers Ehud Barack and Ehud Olmert also offered the Palestinians the establishment of a Palestinian state on most of the West Bank but left East Jerusalem out of the peace equation. 

 

Had the Palestinians accepted the logic of Bourguiba they would have accepted an incomplete settlement instead of no settlement. From the looks of things, there is really no scenario for the settlement of the Palestinian question on the horizon. The forces behind the assassination of the late King Abdullah I destroyed all hopes for an acceptable settlement of the Palestinian case for as far as one can see.

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