25 Nov 07   An Interim Palestinian Homeland at Arm's Length in Iraq?, CNN, Michael Dale Huckabee
map       Iraq’s Diyala Province
2 Jan 03   PRO MEMORIA, GOGEL

GOGEL    2 January 2003

Considering Mesopotamia, the Land of the Two Rivers, to have given birth, both there and farther afield, to monotheistic communities lead by Abraham/Zarathushtra, Akhenaton (www.solami.com/a1.htm), etc.,

noting the generally alien polytheistic background on which these communities survived, to have favored differing, eventually even competing paths of evolution, with the effect, as regards their real common origin (.../SLM.htm), of blinding most members of the thus parallel but separately evolving communities of Palestine in particular,

appreciating Jerusalem to have thus widely acquired a special, hugely symbolic and non-exclusive status which was formally recognized in the Peace Treaty of Jaffa of 18 February 1229 (.../jaffa.htm), as negotiated between Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich II and Sultan Malek al-Kamal providing, on the one hand, for the former’s sovereign control of both Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and other holy places as well as militarily defendable links to them from the Sea and, on the other hand, secured and unrestricted access to the Al-Aqsa mosque in particular,

in view of the conditions which, after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, have been brought about by international treaties in that and neighboring regions, to have essentially failed to accommodate the legitimate aspirations of the communities concerned (.../britishgas.htm ¦ .../NPT.htm ¦ .../3103.htm), with regional and global ramifications of such a nature and such dimensions as to make the resolution of the over-lapping claims and the resultant political gridlock a matter of urgency and priority,

considering the Lausanne Treaty of 24 July 1923 (.../Lausanne.htm) to have offered to the international community an opportunity to contribute to regional stability, security and prosperity by giving international minority & property rights guarantees also to non-Muslim communities, and by assisting the countries concerned in drawing up secure international borders, notably with regard to the Turkish/Iraqi border,

taking into account the resultant - and still fully binding - constitutive Declaration of the Kingdom of Iraq of 30 May 1932 (.../a3a.htm#DECLARATION) to provide international minority protection & private property guarantees notably for the Arab, Assyrian, Kurdish, Turkoman and Yezidi inhabitants of the Mosul Vilayet, i.e. a district which, in 1926, was conditionally attached to Iraq rather than to Turkey (.../nechirvan.htm),

noting the conclusions of the related United Nations report "League of Nations Documents Question Iraq's Claims and Ownership of Petroleum Resources in Kurdish Area" (April 1992: .../UN92.htm ¦ .../UNGA.htm):

appreciating the Mosul Vilayet Council – which was established in 1992 by the leaders of its ethnic, religious and political communities (.../mvcindex.htm ¦ .../rebirth.htm ¦ .../hotpursuit.htm#Gridlocks)  – to have worked out a mutually beneficial interim plan involving Iraq’s northern part, Jordan, Israel and former Palestine, providing notably for part of the Diyala Province to be leased, for a negociated duration, to those Palestinians who are capable and willing to help unlock the current Mideastern gridlock by volontarily and temporarily settling in the Diyala – without giving up any of their claims or rights in Palestine proper - to assist in the reconstruction, including the recovery of the lost generations of the Mosul Vilayet and of the other neighboring parts in Iraq, and to create the institutions and conditions necessary for becoming an internationally recognized state (.../mvciht.htm), thus permitting the members of all involved monotheistic communities to develop the preconditions for rediscovering their individual and common roots (.../SLM.htm) as an essential pillar for regional peace, security and prosperity,

giving due consideration to the proposals presented by various parliamentarians, personalities and NGOs for the resolution of current Mideastern problems (.../assyriansawake.htm ¦ .../cabotlodge.htm ¦ .../ashur.htm), including the creation of a United States of Abraham (.../a32b.htm#ABRAHAM), a United Kingdom of Jordan and Iraq (.../a3b.htm#1994/NGO/48), a temporary UN mandate for the northern part or for all of Iraq, (.../opinion.htm) ¦ .../recres.htm ¦ .../invitation.htm) with or without a Sheikdom of Tikrit (.../babylon2.htm ¦ .../holygrail.htm), etc.:

those in a position to do so are invited to seriously examine and, in the event, contribute their fair share to the early realization of the most appropriate alternative to the current ill-considered free flow of things.

Geneva, 2 January 2003 (update 26 November 2007)

BLITZER: Do you think it's a good idea for the Bush administration, this week, to convene Israelis and Palestinians and a lot of other countries and institutions in Annapolis, Maryland, to try to jump start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process?

HUCKABEE: Well, I don't think it's ever a bad idea to try to get parties to discuss the ramifications of a world that continues to spiral out of control. Whether or not there is going to be a resolution, at least there is some conversation taking place, and that's -- that's healthy.

BLITZER: Should Israel give up the West Bank?

HUCKABEE: No, I don't think so. I have been to Israel nine times. I have been all throughout the Middle East, to Lebanon, to Syria, to Jordan, to Egypt. Anyone who goes to Israel, and if you just understand the unique geography and the unique tension that surrounds that area, it would be very problematic for Israel to give up the West Bank, from their own standpoint of security. The same thing with the Golan Heights -- giving up the Golan Heights makes most of Galilee a sitting target. And it would be a very problematic concern for Israeli security. Now it's their government. They'll make that decision, not me. But I certainly could not encourage them to give up the West Bank.

BLITZER: Well, if they're not going to give up the West Bank or with Syria, the Golan Heights, or at least parts of the Golan Heights, what are they going to negotiate about, from the Arab perspective, or the Palestinian or the Syrian perspective if Israel shouldn't give up the West Bank or the Golan Heights?

HUCKABEE: Well, there are a lot of options that involve other territory that doesn't have to include the West Bank or the Golan Heights. There is an enormous amount of land in Arab control all over the Middle East. And to say that it has to be on the West Bank or that it has to be in the Golan Heights, I think, limits the capacity to bring some type of resolution. But let's be honest, there is not going to be some instant kumbaya moment where everybody builds the campfire, toasts marshmallows, and sings, holding hands. This conflict isn't new. It has been going on since all the way to the time of Abraham. And it's not going to be resolved any time in the immediate future. The best we can hope for is that there will be some level of loosening of the hostilities. But that everybody is going to just get along merrily is probably not something that's likely to take place any time, at least, in the immediate future.

BLITZER: Well, I guess the question, though, is, do you support what's called a two-state solution, Israel and Palestine side by side, as President Bush says he supports?

HUCKABEE: Well, I would want to see where that side-by-side exists, Wolf, because if you do something that puts the Israelis in a position of ultimate vulnerability, that may not be a healthy solution. You've got to realize that there are people in that region who have stated that their primary purpose is to annihilate Israel, to do away with them. And if you surround them by hostility and give them very little room in which to maneuver, you may not have created anything other than a very, very temporary peace, but for a long-term disaster.

BLITZER: So I guess you're not ready to endorse what is called a two-state solution yet?

HUCKABEE: Not until you see where those two states are going to be located and whether or not there is going to be some guarantee of security and concessions on the part of the nations that would surround Israel. And the Israelis would have to be comfortable with it, otherwise it's not going to be something that I think they could live with.

This Iconoclast text is available, fully hyperlinked, on the web at: www.solami.com/salve.htm
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