August 30, 2011: A report in a Saudi paper stated Jordan reiterated its opposition to the plan, and that Jordan’s King Abdullah II has communicated his stance to PA chief Mahmoud Abbas several times to no avail, as Abbas continues to ignore Abdullah’s stance on the matter, much to the latter’s frustration.

While the impression is that the Arab world supports the Palestinian Authority’s plan to declare an independent Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem and seek UN recognition of it, the truth is that numerous Arab countries oppose it. 

The most vocal Arab country opposing the PA’s “September plan” has been Jordan, which threatened to vote against approving the PA state when the UN General Assembly votes on the matter.

Jordan contends that if the UN approves the establishment of a PA state before negotiations with Israel are complete, the descendants of British Mandate Arabs who fled Israel when the state was re-established in 1948 will lose any claim they have to return to their family’s previous homes, or receive compensation. Israel will refuse to negotiate on their status, claiming the PA broke the Oslo agreements, and that Israel is not under any obligation to negotiate the issue any further with the PA, Abdullah was quoted as telling Abbas in the report.

Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon stated that Jordan was not the only Arab country opposed to the PA’s plan. “In the coming weeks I am sure we will hear about other leaders criticizing the PA,” he stated. “The only way to move forward is for both sides to return to the negotiating table.”

A PA state of Palestinian Arabs may also activate the plot of “Black Setmember and demise the Hashemite Kingdom and Saudi arabia.

August 30, 2011: Sheikh Abu Hader Jaabari, the Mukhtar of Hevron, stated in an interview with INR that Israel made a bad mistake when it chose dialogue with the foreign entity of the PLO instead of local tribal leadership.

He stated he misses the days that preceded the Oslo Accords. Speaking emotionally and with conviction, Jaabari stated that there is no way of establishing another “Palestinian” state.

Firstly, he stated, Islam forbids Arab leaders from ceding any part of the land, which is considered holy. Therefore, any kind of land compromise is not valid from a religious viewpoint. Secondly, he stated, Israel is present everywhere on the land, there are checkpoints everywhere and there is no way to create an independent Arab country, because there is not enough land to create it on.

“I wish we had remained in the pre-Oslo period,” Jaabari stated. “The situation was much better, at least economically. Today we have over 40% unemployment. Most of the factories have closed down, and drug trafficking within the populace has grown. People find themselves in a vacuum; they look for their path.”

“We are basically a conservative nation. Now there is no conservatism, no anything.” The solution, he stated, is not to divide the land between Jews and Arabs but to establish a single country in which Jews and Arabs will have equal rights.

Regarding the Jewish fear that Arabs would eventually gain a majority in such a country, he stated: “You have a fear of demography. But I think the Arabs are going down demographically and the Jews are only going up. Our women have begun to work and they are content with one or two children.”

Ayoub Kara floated the idea that Arabs would have full rights in Israel but would not be able to vote for the Knesset. Sheikh Jaabari stated he would agree to this arrangement as a temporary one, until trust was established between Jews and Arabs.

Kara suggested that Palestinians are in effect Jordanians, and do not need an additional state. Jaabari agreed that most Jordanians are Palestinians and that many of the Arabs in Judea and Samaria are Jordanian citizens. However, he stated that once Jordan announced its disengagement from Judea and Samaria in 1988, the option of “Jordan as Palestine” became difficult to implement.

Perhaps a confederation of some sort with Jordan or Israel is still possible, he stated, but this too is difficult after the Oslo process, because “everyone wants to be a part of the leadership and if there is no state there is no leadership.”

In any case, he stated, an independent Palestinian state is not an option.The interview with Jaabari was conducted at his home, in the presence of Deputy Minister Ayoub Kara.

August 28, 2011: Turkey’s government is returning hundreds of properties confiscated from the country’s Christian and Jewish minorities over the past 75 years in a gesture to religious groups who complain of discrimination that is also likely to thwart possible court rulings against the country.
The country’s population of 74 million, mostly Muslim, includes an estimated 65,000 Armenian Orthodox Christians, 23,000 Jews and fewer than 2,500 Greek Orthodox Christians.

A government decree published August 27, 2011 returns assets that once belonged to Greek, Armenian or Jewish trusts and makes provisions for the government to pay compensation for any confiscated property that has since been sold on to third parties.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was scheduled to announce the decision formally when he hosts religious leaders and the heads of about 160 minority trusts, at a fast-breaking dinner for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, officials stated.

The properties include former hospital, orphanage or school buildings and cemeteries. Their return is a key European Union demand and a series of court cases have also been filed against primarily Muslim Turkey at the European Court of Human Rights. Last year, the court ordered Turkey to return an orphanage to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.

Some properties were seized when they fell into disuse over the years. Others were confiscated after 1974 when Turkey ruled that non-Muslim trusts could not own new property in addition to those that were already registered in their names in 1936. The 1974 decision came around the time of a Turkish invasion of Cyprus that followed a coup attempt by supporters of union with Greece and relations with that country were at an all time low.

Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted government seeking to promote religious freedoms has pledged to address the problems of the religious minorities. In the past few years, it amended laws to allow for the return of some of the properties, but restrictions remained and the issue on how to resolve properties that were sold on to third parties was left unsolved.

The decree overcomes those restrictions and helps scupper further court rulings.

“There was huge pressure from the European Court of Human Rights which has already ruled against Turkey,” stated Orhan Kemal Cengiz a human rights activist and lawyer who specializes in minority issues.

“It is nevertheless a very important development,” he stated. “With the return of properties and the compensations, the minority communities will be able to strengthen economically and their lives will be made easier.”

Religious minorities have often complained of discrimination in Turkey, which had a history of conflict with Greece and with Armenians who accuse Turkish authorities of trying to exterminate them early in the last century. Turkey claims the mass killings at that time were the result of the chaos of war, rather than a systematic campaign of genocide. Few minority members have been able to hold top positions in politics, the military or the public service.

Turkey is also under intense pressure to reopen a seminary that trained generations of Greek Orthodox patriarchs. The Halki Theological School on Heybeliada Island, near Istanbul, was closed to new students in 1971 under a law that put religious and military training under state control. The school closed its doors in 1985, when the last five students graduated.

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