Zero Palestine Solution
US ARAB ISRAELI INITIATIVES
Recent developments including the
election of Trump in the US and the Iran Saudi shosm have generated a fresh
impetuous to the zero Palestine solution. Important changes in the formula have
been the : US acceptance of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel and moving the
US Embassy to Jerusalem ; Israeli enactment declaring Israel as a Jewish State
; US actions against Iran ; Saudi and Gulf States actions against Iran . The solution when advanced years ago did
not find any acceptance in either Egypt or Jordan. With the new realities in
the Middle East both Jordan and Egypt seem receptive to the idea, so to seem
the Saudis. There seems to be very few friends of the Palestinian people.
Perhaps Iran or Turkey or Russia could be counted to accord support to the
badly beleaguered residents of Palestine, the two former named are embroiled in
struggles with the US and Russia may have overextended itself. This needs
immediate attention of Muslims all over the World. The status of the Muslim
land is at stake so too are the Holy Muslim places now in Occupied Palestine.
Israel has already indicted intent to alter the Status of the AL Aqsa mosque .
Kindly also read: https://javedrashid.blogspot.com/2018/08/secret-interactions-between-israel-and.html
Background
The origins to the conflict can be traced
back to Jewish immigration, and sectarian
conflict in Mandatory Palestine between Jews and Arabs. It has
been referred to as the world's "most intractable conflict", with the
ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip reaching 51
years.
A summarized history of the conflict
would be : The British Mandate in Palestine and the Balfour Declaration, the
Arab revolts of the 1930s, the declaration of the State of Israel (with scant
regard of local opinion) and the subsequent war in the late 1940s, raids and
counter-raids in the 1950s, the 1956 Suez Crisis, the 1967 Six Day War, the
1973 Yom Kipper War, the 1982 Lebanon War, the First and Second Intifada, the
2006 Lebanon War, and the Gaza War of 2008-2009. With over 100,000 casualties
since 1945 and with economists estimating that the opportunity cost of the various
conflicts representation trillions of dollars.
The dead are many, the costs are high and the divisions are
deep. David Hacohen, a supposedly left-wing member of the Israeli Knesset for
six terms once described Arabs as "... they are not human beings, they are
not people". At the start of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the first
secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, announced: "This will
be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like
the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades" . These are just illustrative
examples of how deep the hatred has often reached; there are plenty of others
and from equally senior positions.
Solutions
Peace efforts have only had a modicum of success. The two
United Nations Security Council Resolutions, 242 and 338, have provided a
temporary cessation of hostilities, but have not been unable to unravel the
continuing damage, let alone implement, the original UN General Assembly
Resolution 181 for the partition of Palestine. Resolution 242 called for Israel
to give up the occupied territories and the resolution passed was passed 15 to
0. It has not, of course, ever been implemented. Indeed the opposite has been
the case; there are now 0.5 million Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East
Jerusalem, turning the region into a "pastrimi" of harshly discriminatory settlement policy,
of restricted movements, of concrete and iron 'separation barriers' - of kibosh
ha'adama - "conquest of the land". The 1993 Oslo Accords fared
somewhat better - they allowed for the formation of the Palestinian National
Authority, providing the 'right' for Palestinians to police their own
imprisonment.
Many attempts have been made to broker
a two-state solution, involving
the creation of an independent Palestinian
state alongside the State of Israel (after Israel's establishment in
1948). In 2007, the majority of both Israelis and Palestinians, according to a
number of polls, preferred the two-state solution over any other solution as a
means of resolving the conflict.]Moreover, a majority of Jews see
the Palestinians' demand for an independent state as just, and thinks Israel
can agree to the establishment of such a state. The majority of
Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have expressed a preference for a
two-state solution. Mutual distrust and significant disagreements are deep
over basic issues, as is the reciprocal skepticism about the other side's
commitment to upholding obligations in an eventual agreement
The "Three State Solution" argues that Israel
should give the West Bank to Jordon and Gaza to Egypt, changing boundaries back
to the 1949 Armistice, some variation of the Allon Plan or, as alternative,
independent governments of Palestinian Gaza, Palestinian West Bank and Israel.
The former has been advocated by Benny Morris who argues that Muslims in
particular are culturally inept in their ability to adopt to secularism. The
position ignores that the people of the West Bank and Gaza do not want it, nor
does Jordan, and nor do the half a million Israeli settlers are in the West
Bank and East Jerusalem. In contrast the mainstream "Two State
Solution", also suffers the problem of practicality. This is the option
with the greatest degree of plurality support according to opinion polls , and
the official policy from the 1991 Madrid Conference to the 2007 Annapolis
Conference. Yet it is plagued with impossibilities; there is next to no chance
that the half million Israeli settlers are going to move from East Jerusalem or
the West Bank. There is next to no chance that a Palestinian state without
contiguous borders would ever be viable.
Here are the general solutions offered by the major political
forces in Israel:
1.
The Extreme Left Wing –
Annex everything and give citizenship rights to everyone. Forget about a Jewish
majority. Arabs are awesome.
2.
The Left Wing – Give the
Arabs their own State so you won’t have to give them voting rights, thereby
maintaining the Jewish majority.
3.
The Center – Don’t do
anything. Just keep staying in power and hope nobody notices.
4.
The Right Wing – Annex
everything, give human rights but no citizenship rights to any of the Arabs,
and instead pay them to leave, thereby maintaining the Jewish majority.
5.
The Extreme Right Wing –
Annex everything and kick all the Arabs out of the country. Jews are awesome.
Zero Palestine Solution
Thus enter the "One State Solution", which in many
ways Israel and the Occupied Territories already are, in a de facto sense. On
one hand this is an argument used by both religious fundamentalists who
advocate either an Islamic state in Palestine, such as Hamas, or the total
ethnic cleansing of Arabs from a Greater Israel, potentially from the Biblical
"from the brook of the Nile to the Euphrates", as expressed by the
Revisionist Zionists. The alternative however is the "One State
Solution" of equal and advanced rights (e.g., the Isratin option , the
historic Brit Shalom), which is in the direction of a "Zero State
Solution". At least on this level there are those who argue that the
number of States is of less significance than the political rights of those who
have to live in them, a consideration that rulers often forget. Whilst in both
contemporary Israel an Palestine it is not the first preference choice, it is
gaining support and is increasingly the most viable - ex factis jus
oritur.
In a "Zero-State" solution, governance would be
secular and democratic. There would be no special benefits on the basis of
nationalities, real or imagined, or religious affiliation that were separate
from the rights of all citizens. Of course the region would remain a Jewish
homeland just as other regions and cultures have their homeland too; but that
is quite distinct from a Jewish (or Islamic, or other) state. Organizations
like the Israel Land Administration would retain their role in holding natural
resources as a public good, but without the horrendous prohibitions on leasing
rights that currently exist (this is a particularly clear example of the
difference between "the governance of people" and "the
administration of things"). Finally, in a "zero-state solution",
there are no standing armies only reserve militia and emergency services; the
purpose is local defense and civil order, not invasive war. The path to peace
will never exist without the abolition of the means to war.
In the context of
the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, a 'zero-state
solution', based on a proposal by the Ariel Center for
Policy Research(ACPR), assumes that there is no unique Palestinian
identity and that the Palestinians in the West Bank should
get "restoration of Jordanian citizenship"
while Egypt should have responsibility for the Gaza Strip. Israel thus
has no reason to agree to assimilate them or provide them with a state, since
they were part of those countries until their territory was captured in the
1967 Six-Day War. This proposal is very similar to the three-state solution advocated by some commentators. The approach
generally assumes that Israel will expand to fill the territories occupied in
1967. Specific proposals differ as whether the present Palestinians can remain
where they are, as non-citizens of Israel, or are expected to return to the
territory of their national identity.
The
proposal by ACPR, the "Framework Proposal for a National Strategy
Regarding Judea and Samaria and the Issue of Eretz Israel Arabs",
describes an objective of "Consolidating a political proposal with the
intention of halting Israel's defeatist campaign that is manifest in its most
extreme form in the conduct of the Olmert Government". It assumes that
there is no unique Palestinian identity and that the Palestinians in the West
Bank should get "restoration of Jordanian citizenship" while Egypt
should have responsibility for the Gaza Strip. The proposal is as follows:
·
Extending Israeli sovereignty over
the West Bank
·
"Jordan is Palestine" and restoration of Jordanian
citizenship to the Arabs in Judea and Samaria
·
Municipal autonomy for the Arabs of
Judea and Samaria (on the basis of the Camp David Accords) accompanied by a
total disarmament of the autonomous areas
·
The areas of Arab settlements located
on private property (the Mosaic Program by Dr. Yuval Arnon Ohanna)
·
Military liquidation of the military
infrastructure in Gaza and according responsibility for the area to Egypt
Update: Dec.,24,2018
Bits
and pieces of the deal have been leaking: the siege on Gaza is to be lifted, its
residents provided with humanitarian aid, while East Jerusalem and West Bank
settlements are to be recognised as Israeli territory; Palestinian refugees
will have to give up their right of return.
President
Donald Trump and his Middle East team, led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner,
seem to have secured an implicit backing of the deal by strategic players in
the Arab world such, such as Saudi Arabia. Recent diplomatic initiatives by
Israel in Gulf states have borne fruit and it is increasingly clear that they
have set out on a course towards normalisation of relations.
Thus,
the Trump administration is likely to press forward with the deal sometime in
the first half of 2019. And on the eve of this certain disaster for
Palestinians, the Palestinian political leadership stands disunited.
Relations
between Fatah
and Hamas
- are at an historic low and seem to be getting
worse.It has been 12 years since the two parties clashed in Gaza in the
aftermath of the legislative elections, effectively creating two axes of
political power in the Palestinian territories. And it's been 11 years since
Arab states started trying to broker a reconciliation between the two. Every
time - in Mecca (2007), Sanaa (2008), Cairo (2011), Doha (2012), and Gaza
(2014) - an agreement was signed but never implemented.
There
was hope that the last
Israeli assault on Gaza in November this year would bring the two
sides together and would enable them to get over partisan and personal
interests. Therefore, Egypt, which is currently leading another attempt at
reconciliation, called on the leadership of both movements to come
together for new talks and invited delegations from both sides.But its efforts
ended in failure after Fatah and Hamas exchanged hostile statements, accusing
each other of wrongdoing.
Fatah
declared it would not reconcile and participate in a unity government with
Hamas until the latter rolls back the "coup" it carried out in 2007.
It also signalled that it would look into imposing additional sanctions on the
Gaza Strip, adding to the ones that
have been in effect since 2017, to press Hamas to give up power. The
Hamas leadership responded that its government is legitimate, as it won the
2006 elections, and accused Fatah of playing "politics of arrogance"
and trying to undermine its power in Gaza. Thus, Egypt's reconciliation efforts
ended yet again in a regrettable failure, and no new initiative is expected to
be launched in the foreseeable future.
One
of the main points of contention currently between Fatah and Hamas is the
ongoing negotiations over a truce between
the latter and Israel. A number of local, regional and international
bodies have been trying for some time to bring about an agreement between Hamas
and the Israeli government for a more permanent ceasefire and some form of
lifting of the debilitating siege imposed on Gaza for the past 11 years.
Fatah
- and by extension the Palestinian Authority (PA) it controls - sees this
arrangement as highly problematic because it deals with the Gaza Strip as a
separate geographical entity from the West Bank. And given that the mass
expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank over the
past few decades has made a declaration of a Palestinian state in its area
impossible, Fatah and the PA leadership fear Gaza could be given that status.
This
would effectively mean the complete sidelining of the party and its leadership
(given that the Strip is under Hamas' control politically and militarily) and
the relegation of the PA to an administrative authority (and not a sovereign
state structure), managing the affairs of the Palestinian population in the
remaining pockets of territory outside Israeli settlements.
To
preclude such a development, Fatah has demanded that a unity government is
formed, whereby Hamas relinquishes control over the government, economy and
security in Gaza and the model of governance currently in place in the West
Bank is transferred to the Strip. Hamas has outright rejected these demands
because they effectively mean that Gaza would slip out of its grip.
The
group insists that it should participate in the unity government as an equal
partner, along with other Palestinian factions, and rejects the extension of
the PA's security policies and model (especially cooperation with the Israeli
security apparatus) into the Gaza Strip. It has also made it clear that it will
resist any pressure from the PA to disarm its military wing.
The
persistent squabbling and disunity between Fatah and Hamas are detrimental to
the Palestinian cause and are resulting in increasing disillusionment among the
general Palestinian population. Although both factions claim to have the
legitimate right to power, political legitimacy is difficult to gauge in Gaza
and the West Bank, given that there haven't been legislative elections since
2006 and PA President Mahmoud Abbas has not faced a vote after his term expired
in 2009.
As
Fatah and Hamas trade accusations of aiding the deal of the century, their
political disunity is what would ultimately allow for its implementation.
Hostility between the two factions would facilitate the political separation of
the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, in which Egypt is likely to take over
economic and security supervision of the former, while Jordan will have some
form of authority over the latter.
This
would not only preclude the declaration of a viable Palestinian state that
satisfies Palestinian aspirations and solidify Israel's denial of the
Palestinian right to return but would also deal a major blow to the popularity
and legitimacy of both Fatah and Hamas. At this time, it is clear that it is in
their best interest and that of the Palestinian people that they overcome their
disagreements and stand united.
Update: Jan., 7,
2019:
US National Security Adviser John Bolton on Sunday visited
the Old City of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall and the adjacent Western
Wall tunnels, raising the ire of a senior Palestinian official. The
Western Wall — the holiest place where Jews can pray — is located in
Jerusalem’s Old City, which the international community does not recognize as
sovereign Israeli territory. Therefore, foreign dignitaries very rarely agree
to be accompanied by Israeli officials when they visit the site.
In May 2017, six months before
recognizing the city as Israel’s capital, Donald Trump became the
first sitting US president to visit the Western Wall.
Update:
Mar., 8, 2019:
Just a week
after attending what was largely seen as "anti-Iran" conference in
Warsaw earlier this month, Jared Kushner, senior adviser to US President Donald
Trump, embarked on a special diplomatic trip across the Middle East to
promote and fundraise for his peace plan to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict. Unsurprisingly, on his tour of the region, he brought along US
Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook. The Warsaw meeting and Kushner's Middle East
trip reflect what seems to be a key foreign policy pillar of the Trump
administration which links the much-awaited "deal of the
century" to the formation of an Arab-Israeli anti-Iran
alliance. The expectations of the White House are that the Arabs would sign off
on Kushner's deal, normalise relations with the Israelis and work with them to
deter Iran.
That is why, while many observers saw the Warsaw conference as a failure, since
it did not convince European allies to fully back US anti-Iranian regime
policies, the Trump administration saw it as a success, having brought together
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and representatives of several Arab countries on the same
table.
Trump has also
reversed the long-standing US policy on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
His administration is now pushing to break a basic Arab policy principle, which
ties normalisation with Israel to a fair Israeli-Palestinian deal that
recognises a viable Palestinian state, provides for Israel's withdrawal to 1967
borders and settles the status of Jerusalem.
US Arab allies want a deal that meets these basic requirements; anything short
of that would be difficult to sell at home. Arab leaders remain uncomfortable with official
normalisation with Israel given that the Arab public remains sensitive to the
idea of them cosying up to Israel. Popular unrest can easily erupt across the
Arab world if Arab leaders endorse a Palestinian-Israeli deal perceived as
flawed.
However, the core challenge to Arab-Israeli normalisation
and anti-Iran coalition-building remains the Palestinian question.
Jared Kushner
has put together a peace deal which might be unveiled in April after the
Israeli general elections. The so-called "deal of the century" is
arguably the first attempt at resolving the conflict in which the Palestinian
side was not informed or consulted.
What is
interesting about this plan is its approach to Palestinian politics. After Hamas
took control of Gaza in 2007, the Bush administration's policy was to punish
the strip by blocking all aid while simultaneously assisting the Palestinian
Authority to showcase a model of how the West Bank
can prosper when it abides by international norms and accepts negotiations with
Israel.
Trump is reversing this approach by punishing the
Palestinian Authority in the West Bank for refusing to accept the "deal of
the century" after he moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Simultaneously, the White House is enticing Hamas with
funding for major economic projects in Gaza, which like the approach of the
Bush administration, encourages Palestinian divisions instead of strengthening
Palestinian unity.
Although the
full provisions of the deal have not been yet disclosed, the details already
known to the public indicate that it will not uphold the best interests of the
Palestinians.
In an interview for Emirati channel Sky News Arabia
broadcast on February 25, Kushner stated:
"if you can eliminate the border and have peace and less fear of terror,
you could have freer flow of goods, freer flow of people and that would create
a lot of opportunities." What his cryptic declaration means is that the weaker Palestinian
economy will become further integrated into the Israeli one, making
Palestinians even more dependent on the Israeli state, which will retain full
control over security and hence its ability to repress Palestinian political
dissent.
Thus, Trump is linking the Arab-Israeli normalisation
and deterrence of Iran to a Palestinian-Israeli deal on terms, which would
institutionalise Israeli control over the Palestinian territories and have
disastrous consequences for Palestinians.
Having the
Palestinians pay for the Arab-Israeli alliance will likely spell trouble for
Arab leaders down the road. It might undermine the deterrence of Tehran by
boosting the popularity of the Iranian regime in the region and further delegitimize
already weakened Arab regimes.
In
this sense, the Trump administration's strategy of linking a flawed
Israeli-Palestinian deal to an Arab-Israeli alliance to deter Iran might
undermine these two US objectives in the Middle East and might even backfire
against US allies and interests in the region.
·
Maiming of Palestinians ; Mar.,31,2019: Earlier this year, the UN
Human Rights Council's Commission of Inquiry released
their report stating that during the Great March
of Return, which commenced on March 30, 2018, Israeli snipers
intentionally fired on civilians who presented no danger to them - they shot
protesters, medics, journalists, disabled people, and even children. The
February 2019 Situation Report from the World Health Organization (WHO) states that 266 Gazans have been killed since the beginning of
the march. But civilian deaths are only part of the story. The report also highlights
the fact that in just under one year, 29,130 people - more than 0.01 percent of
the population of the Gaza Strip
have been injured. Of those, 6,557
sustained live ammunition gunshot wounds and in 89 percent (5,183) of these
cases, the lower limbs were affected.During the protests, sniper bullets that
are designed to kill a target at a distance of more than a
kilometre were fired on protesters from just a couple of hundred
metres, causing devastating injuries. Patients with such injuries usually
require five to nine surgeries before their wounds could heal and their
treatment takes a minimum of two years to complete. According to the Gaza
Ministry of Health's Limb Salvage Unit, there are between 800 and 1,200 young
Palestinian men currently awaiting reconstructive surgery in Gaza At the MSF meeting, Palestinian surgeons from
Gaza's largest hospital Shifa described how the majority of those injured by
Israeli snipers were shot in the lower thigh/back of knee where a single bullet
can damage nerves, arteries and the knee joint all at once. The prevalence of
such hard to treat injuries, reminiscent of the ones sustained by Northern
Ireland's "kneecapping" victims during the Troubles, demonstrates how
Israeli snipers shoot not only to temporarily immobilize their targets, but
also to inflict long-term damage. Approximately
30 percent of such gunshot wounds lead to bacterial bone infections, further
complicating an already grueling treatment process. In the age of
multidrug-resistant bacteria (MDR), treating these infections is both difficult
and costly. According to the WHO, 124 amputations have taken place in Gaza in
the last year as a result of injuries sustained during the Great March of
Return. This number is likely to increase in the coming days, as infected
gunshot wounds can deteriorate quickly and render limbs unsalvageable, despite
the best efforts of medical professionals
This policy of intentionally
maiming protesters and creating an epidemic of disability serves several
purposes for Israeli settler colonialism. First, it puts enormous strain on the
already crumbling Palestinian healthcare
infrastructure. On May 14, 2018, for example, during the protests against the
transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem, Israeli forces wounded so many
Palestinians (more than 1,300) within 10 hours that the healthcare system was
completely overwhelmed and hospitals in Gaza ran out of beds, forcing doctors
to issue early discharges. Second, it burdens already struggling Palestinian
families, who not only lose a breadwinner, when one of their members is maimed,
but also have to provide care for him or her and find additional funds to cover
medical costs. Third, maiming attempts to smother the spirit of resistance of
protesting Palestinians while avoiding international criticism for mass
killing. By creating a humanitarian catastrophe, Israel
is able to reframe the global debate around the rights of the Palestinian
people in the Gaza Strip from that of national liberation and anti-apartheid
struggle to one of the medical needs of an afflicted population. The need to
provide for a large number of disabled people further entrenches modes of
dependency on aid. The past year has been a testament to the unbridled bravery
of the Palestinian people in Gaza. The international community has,
unfortunately, yet again, failed them - further emboldening Israel's sense of
impunity that fuels its crimes. Despite this failure, the determination of the
Palestinians in Gaza to end a medieval blockade that has lasted for over 12
years - robbing a whole generation of its potential - spurred by their belief
that they deserve a better and more dignified life, will go down in the annals
of history as testimony to the human spirit.
Israeli Elections:
Apr., 12, 2019:
First, the way the
campaign was conducted: Israel’s long-time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
who is desperate to cling to power to avoid punishment for impending
indictments on multiple counts, undertook a campaign that crossed multiple red
lines that have alienated even his traditional supporters in the United States
like AIPAC. Netanyahu not only built an alliance between his Likud
party with a coalition that includes the ultra-racist
Otzma Yehudit party, which draws inspiration from terrorist groups, but declared the coalition
Likud’s single closest ally, forging a vote-sharing agreement with them to
share surplus votes. Although Otzma Yehudit won’t actually end up with a seat
in the Knesset—unless a couple of members of its alliance resign from the
Knesset—their ultra-right-wing coalition bedfellows in Tkuma and the Jewish
Home Party will likely form a core part of Netanyahu’s government.
Second, as if that
weren’t bad enough, Netanyahu also effectively declared an end to the two-state paradigm that has undergirded
the U.S.-supported Oslo peace process for the past quarter of a century by declaring: “All the
settlements, without exception, those that are in blocs and those that aren’t,
need to remain under Israeli sovereignty.” Although it may just
be campaign sloganeering, we all need to be clear that Israeli sovereignty over
all the Israeli settlements would make it impossible to create a Palestinian
state.
Third, even if Netanyahu
is not able to form a coalition government in Israel, none of his main
opponents have said they would reverse the ever-expanding Israeli settlements
in the West Bank, which are a growing threat to the prospects for
Israeli-Palestinian peace. Even without annexation this year, the growth of
settlements makes annexation all the more likely. Since the Oslo Accords were
signed on the White House lawn in 1993, the number of Israeli settlers in the
West Bank alone has more than tripled, from 116,000 to over 413,000 in 2017. Further, as Secretary of State John Kerry stated at the end of his tenure, this included “100,000
just since 2009 when President Obama’s term began.” Kerry added: “Nearly 90,000
settlers are living east of the separation barrier that was created by Israel
itself. In the middle of what, by any reasonable definition, would be the
future Palestinian state? And the population of these distant settlements has
grown by 20,000 just since 2009.” In other words, the difficulty of
separation—and the likelihood of annexation—is growing stronger day by day.
Indeed, undergirding the
right-wing rhetoric in the election campaign was the fact that the number of
Israeli settlers in the West Bank is now reaching a tipping point whereby it
may be too painful to evacuate them to make room for a Palestinian state. And
when Israelis and Palestinians come to terms with the fact that as Netanyahu
says “no settler
[will be] uprooted,” the prospects for a Palestinian state will have collapsed. That will mean that Jews and Palestinians will be
living in adjacent communities in the West Bank controlled by Israel where Jews
have the right to vote in Israeli elections and Palestinians do not.
And whatever word one
wants to use to describe this situation, it is entirely intolerable in the 21st
century. Americans should all agree that it is also totally inconsistent with
American values. This is not some far-off scenario. We are indeed on the
precipice of a moment where, as the two-state solution collapses, Palestinians
in the West Bank will need to be extended citizenship and the right to vote in
Israel—complete with automatic registration, the day off, and inter-city
transportation! And as Americans, who have learned to live together in an albeit
imperfect melting point, who are we to object? As longtime peacemaker Dennis
Ross just wrote, ultimately Americans won’t object.
There are still a few
brief moments to prevent what increasingly seems like an inevitable outcome.
And that’s where America has a role to play. If we had the vision and the
courage, we could today boldly declare: a commitment to two states based on the
1967 lines with lands of equal size swapped; that Jerusalem will be a shared
city; that Israeli settlements in the West Bank can no longer be expanded; and
that Israeli settlers on the Palestinian side of the barrier will soon need to
be evacuated to make room for the Palestinian state.
But of course President
Trump won’t do that—indeed; he’s already said that the Israeli election results
mean a “better chance
for peace.” He’s moving in the opposite direction. He has recognized
the Israeli attachment to Jerusalem without also recognizing the Palestinian
attachment. He has closed the Palestinian office in Washington and the U.S.
consulate in Jerusalem that once engaged them. And he has recognized the
Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, sending the signal—to Israelis
and Palestinians—that the United States could very well recognize Israeli
annexation of parts or even all of the West Bank.
That’s where we come back
not only to the Israeli elections but elections in America as well. If
Netanyahu forms a government and annexes even parts of the West Bank, the only thing that will be able to bring two-state
solution back from the dead is the election of a new American president in
2020. This president would need to firmly state and prioritize
the swift implementation of a two-state solution, where the state of Israel and
a newly created state of Palestine live side-by-side in peace and security,
prosperity and dignity. But even if all or part of the West Bank is not
imminently annexed, time is not the friend of those who dream of a two-state
solution. Instead, time is the enemy, an enemy that can only be countered by a
bold new approach that tenaciously and tangibly works for the on-the-ground and
swift implementation of two states. Some Democrats—candidates
for the presidency and not—seem to have at least in part gotten the message. Let’s
just hope that the 2020 U.S. elections are not too late to bring the two-state
solution back to life.
Saudi
Money to Abbas: : May.,2, 2019 : Saudi Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman offered Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas
$10bn to accept a controversial US-backed peace plan, Lebanese newspaper
Al-Akhbar has reported. Abbas rejected the offer, saying supporting US
President Donald Trump's "deal of the century" would be "the end
of his political life", the paper reported on Tuesday, citing leaked
diplomatic reports based on conversations between the two leaders. One of the
Saudi offers, according to the Jordanian's report, was to exchange Palestinian
recognition of Trump's deal for $10bn to assist West Bank authorities and
refugee resettlement, along with “unlimited financial and political support”. "One
billion US dollars," Abbas replied, to which MBS was said to have
responded:“
I will give you $10bn over ten years if you accept the deal.” The crown prince reportedly added that
Saudi Arabia, along with other Arab countries, had been asked by the Americans
to provide the Palestinians with financial support to launch projects in the
West Bank that would lead to economic prosperity. The projects would also, he
said, see the expansion of the West Bank's Area B, where the PA and Israel hold
administrative and military control, and Area C, which constitutes 60 percent
of the territory, and is exclusively under Israeli military authority. “Saudi
Arabia will support the PA with more than four billion in principle,” the envoy
wrote, citing conversations between Abbas and MBS. Shawabkeh mentioned in his
report that Abbas told Bin Salman that he could not accept any concessions with
regards to settlements, the two-state solution and Jerusalem. Abbas, however,
believed that the Americans would not provide any written proposals, but would
adopt a “Balfour-style tactic”. According to the Jordanian envoy, Abbas said
that the PA would dismantle itself if it became subject to any pressure from
any side, and would “hold Israel responsible for managing the affairs of
occupied territories Palestinian leaders
have vehemently denounced key points of the plan that have been leaked. They include
recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, offering the East Jerusalem
suburb of Abu Dis as the capital of a future Palestinian state, taking refugees'
right of return off the table, and drastically cutting the number of registered
refugees. Saeb Erekat, the veteran Palestinian negotiator, told MEE in
June that the deal of the century was not a deal and was already being
implemented on the ground."If there's any plan, this is being implemented
on the ground: with moving the US embassy to occupied Jerusalem, withdrawing
support for the two-state solution, cutting funds to UNRWA and, eventually,
trying to normalize the Israeli apartheid in Palestine," Erekat said.
Control over Jerusalem: May, 12, 2019:
Recent foreign policy decisions by the United States
have opened yet another chapter in the long history of the competition for the
guardianship over Islam's
holiest places. After the US recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital
and moved its embassy there, the question of who gets to control the holy sites
in the city (the third holiest in Islam after Mecca and Medina) has come to the
fore.
Currently, King Abdullah II of Jordan
is the custodian of the Muslim and Christian holy sites in occupied Jerusalem,
but there are growing speculations that the "deal of the century",
which the Trump administration has promised would offer a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict, might usher in the transfer of guardianship to the House
of Saud. In March, King Abdullah hinted at the ongoing tensions between Amman
and Riyadh over the issue by saying that he had been put under pressure to
change his position on occupied Jerusalem. Then in April, King Mohammed VI of Morocco
also stepped into the fray by announcing a grant of an undisclosed amount to be
made available for the restoration of Al-Aqsa
Mosque and its compound - a first of its kind for the past many
years. Turkey
is also seemingly vying for influence in Jerusalem. All four have historical
claims to leadership in the Muslim world and all four seem intent on playing a
major role in the future of the holy city.
It is not the first time that the House
of Saud and the House of Hashim have clashed over Islam's holy sites. King
Abdullah's ancestors, the Hashemites, who are considered to be descendants of
the Prophet Muhammad, ruled Mecca for centuries before they were deposed by the
Saudis. In the 1920s, Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, the father of Saudi King Salman,
challenged the rule of Sharif Hussein bin Ali, the great-great-grandfather of
King Abdullah in Mecca and the whole of the Hijaz region (the westernmost part of
modern Saudi Arabia), eventually defeating his forces and expelling the
Hashemites from the holy city.
Two of Sharif Hussein's sons
established monarchies in Iraq
and Transjordan with the help of Britain, but only the latter has survived to
this day. The Jordanian monarchy acquired the custodianship over Christian and
Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem in 1924 after the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire, which had ruled over Palestine
for centuries.
Both the Hashemites and the Saudis also
share historical animosity against the Ottomans. In 1517, the Ottoman Sultan
Selim I took control of Mecca and Medina and solidified the Ottoman claim to
the caliphate; the Hashemites were forced to pay him allegiance. Four centuries
later, Sharif Hussein of Mecca led the Arab rebellion against the Ottomans,
aided by the British Empire. The Saudis, too, clashed with Ottoman forces
throughout the 19th century and early 20th century, as they tried to expand
territories under their control. Although the caliphate was dissolved and the
Ottoman Empire transformed into a secular republic in 1924, in recent years the
Turkish government has sought to regain a leadership position within the Muslim
world.
Despite the fact that the Moroccan
Alaouite dynasty was a distant observer to this struggle between the Ottomans,
the Saudis and the Hashemites over Islam's holiest sites, it, nevertheless,
managed to develop and maintain a special relationship with Jerusalem, as well.
The ancestors of King Mohammed VI who, like the Hashemites, traced their
lineage to the Prophet Muhammad, supported the holy sites in the city and its
inhabitants for centuries.
Eventually, a Moroccan Quarter emerged
in Jerusalem which hosted many Muslims from the Maghreb. When the Israeli
government destroyed it after the 1967 war, many of its inhabitants were
re-settled by King Hassan II (King Mohammed's grandfather) in Morocco. The historic
role Rabat has played in supporting the holy city was recognised in 1975, when
a summit of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) chose the Moroccan
king to head the newly established Jerusalem Committee, which was tasked with
addressing various challenges the city faced under Israeli occupation.
Today, some of these old rivalries and
claims to historical legitimacy have resurfaced, although the geopolitical
situation has changed significantly since the early 20th century. Thanks to its
massive oil revenue, Saudi Arabia has emerged as one of the most powerful
countries in the Arab world.
In the late 1960s, Riyadh intensified
its "chequebook diplomacy", supporting financially former foes like Egypt
and Jordan to help them recover from the defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
In recent years, Saudi funds have helped both Cairo and Amman stabilise their
struggling economies amid political upheaval. While Jordan has been
hard-pressed to accept the financial assistance, it has watched with
ever-increasing anxiety Saudi efforts to gain more influence in Jerusalem over
the past few years.
In December 2017, less than two weeks
after the US officially recognised
Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the House of Saud made clear its intention to
challenge Hashemite custodianship during a meeting of the Arab
Inter-Parliamentary Union, a body bringing together members of parliament from
Arab countries. At the event, the Saudi delegation snubbed their Jordanian
counterparts by objecting to the mention of Jordan's historical role vis-a-vis
the holy city in draft documents.
A few months later, Saudi Arabia
announced a grant of $150m to support the administration of Jerusalem's Islamic
properties. Meanwhile, the Saudi crown prince has sought to intensify
Saudi-Israeli rapprochement and has seemingly supported the US "deal of
the century".
Jordan now fears that the Trump
administration, with Israel's
approval and Saudi Arabia's encouragement, may propose to establish an
administration under Saudi supervision over Jerusalem's Islamic holy places,
which would not only diminish the Palestinian Authority is playing in
Jerusalemite affairs, but also effectively cancel Jordanian custodianship.
In response, Jordan has sprung into
action, getting more involved in Jerusalem issues and seeking regional support.
In February, it announced a new Islamic Endowment Council made up of important
Palestinian figures (including some who participated in the mass protests
against the metal detectors Israel installed at Al-Aqsa Mosque in 2017) and
tasked with tackling some of the most pressing issues occupied Jerusalem is
facing.
In March, King Abdullah travelled to
Morocco and met King Mohammed VI, seeking his political backing. The Moroccan
king obliged and affirmed officially that defending Jerusalem was a "top
priority" for his country. A month later, he made the announcement about
the special grant to help with restoration work on Al-Aqsa Mosque.
On the Jerusalem issue, Jordan has also
sought support from another important regional player: Turkey. In February,
King Abdullah visited the country to discuss the Palestinian issue, among other
issues. Previously, the Jordanian king attended both meetings of the OIC
Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan called in order to discuss the status of Jerusalem and
worrying developments in Palestine, despite reportedly being pressured by Saudi
Arabia not to do so.
Turkey itself has been vying for a
leadership position within the Islamic world for years now and Palestine has
been a special focal point of these efforts. Turkish charities have become
increasingly active in Gaza and the West Bank, as have various Islamic
organisations with sizeable budgets. Ankara has encouraged religious tourism
to Jerusalem and has funded various humanitarian initiatives, including the
construction of a dormitory for Al-Quds University students, the provision of
meals for Ramadan,
the renovation of historical sites and houses, etc. It also gave Palestinians
access to Ottoman archives which documented land ownership, which could help in
the struggle against Israeli land expropriation.
All these efforts and Turkey's rising
popularity in Palestine are worrying Saudi Arabia, especially because the two
countries are now part of two opposing axes in the Middle East.
This rift was solidified further in 2017 when Saudi Arabia, the UAE,
Bahrain and Egypt imposed a blockade
on Qatar.
Ultimately, what happens next in the
scramble for Jerusalem will be very much determined by the provisions of the
"deal of the century", expected to be revealed next month. Whatever
the US proposals are for the administration of the holy sites of Jerusalem, it
would certainly fuel further the growing divisions between Arab countries,
which just a decade ago were in full agreement on the status of Jerusalem and
the prerequisites for peace with Israel.
US Palestine Solution: May, 15, 2019:
The
United States would announce new proposals or a blueprint next month for
resolving the long-standing dispute over Palestinian statehood. In part the
move is designed to build up support for President Trump as a leader who can
take difficult decisions and ones which reflect the aspirations of the
predominant white majority of the population. The stage is set for the new
Palestine initiative. In 2017, Mr Trump announced the US government’s approval
for recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel. Last year, that is, in 2018
the US embassy was relocated to Jerusalem.
Following
up on this unprecedented decision that sparked widespread protests in the Arab
Middle East, the President went on to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the
Golan Heights. Obviously the president was acting in the belief that a
war-shattered Syrian regime is in no position to galvanise support of the Arab
nations against the US move, reeling from the destructive consequences of war
that has disfigured the region. The move to accept Israel’s sovereignty over
the Golan heights was also meant to help Netanyahu win another term as the
Zionist state’s undisputed ruler.
Netanyahu
had promised during his election campaign that he would annex the Jewish
settlements in the West Bank if he wins. If that happens the chances of any
peace would further recede. Not only that, the noose is being tightened around
the Palestinian Authority (PA). The US has cut delivery of financial aid to the
Palestinian Authority since last year. The move is calculated to bring pressure
to bear upon the PA to begin to show flexibility and abandon its stance of
defiance on the yet to be announced US proposals.
The
pressure on the Palestinian Authority is not coming only from the US. Israel
has also started squeezing the Palestinian government by withholding tax
revenues. Under an agreed formula, Israel collects taxes on goods imported for
the West Bank and Gaza strip. Such collections are then released to the PA for
running its lopsided administration.
Israel
has now decided to deduct five per cent from the tax revenues that it would
release to the Palestinian Authority claiming that this sum is being dished out
by the Palestinian government to the families of those who were in Israeli
jails and have committed crimes against Israel and its citizens. Mahmud Abbas
has refused to accept the partial tax remittances from Israel. Abbas claims the
PA is entitled to all the money under interim peace deals.
The
PA is in dire straits .The World Bank estimates the Palestinian financing gap
could exceed one billion dollars in 2019. That would further strain an economy
that has registered 52 per cent unemployment. The Palestinian Authority’s main
source of legitimacy is its capacity to provide employment to a large number of
desperate and impoverished citizens. But if the PA is weakened as planned, the
security situation would considerably worsen in the West Bank and Gaza strip.
Israel
knows but does not acknowledge that peace in Palestine has been achieved
largely because of the cooperation that Israeli security forces have received
from their Palestinian counterparts. For the last many years there has been no
significant act of terrorism within Israel because of the cooperation that has
existed between the two security forces. If this were to change, the awful
consequences of an escalating cycle of violence could well be imagined.
President
Trump believes economic sanctions which affect lives would force the Palestinians
to seek a compromise on terms the Israelis would offer. That is not likely to
happen. To add to the woes of Palestinians, Trump’s adviser and son in law
Jared Kushner, who has close family ties with Benjamin Netanyahu, is in charge
of the new Palestine policy. President Mahmud Abbas has refused to deal at a
political level with the US administration since the US president recognised
Jerusalem as Israeli capital in 2017.
The
‘two-state solution’ that has been touted as the best insurance for durable peace,
does not seem to have been included in the proposals that Jared Kushner and his
team are going to present to the world in just a few weeks from now. In an
interview recently he confessed there would be no mention of ‘two states’ in
the new framework he is going to unfold. It is surprising how a US government
can repudiate with impunity all that the previous administrations had adopted
as the red lines that are not to be crossed.
For
all their support to Israel, no previous administration had either dared to
recognise Jerusalem as Israeli capital, or accepted Tel Aviv’s occupation of
Golan Heights or acquiesced in Israel’s expansionist policy to go on creating
more settlements in order to bury deep the concept of a Palestinian state.
Ongoing hostilities: May,
18, 2019: Ever since the unilateral disengagement from Gaza in the
summer of 2005, Israel has engaged in “bargaining by the threat of violence”
with Hamas. Within that framework, the IDF has conducted three large-scale
operations in Gaza in addition to smaller rounds of hostilities. With no
possibility in the offing of either serious political negotiations or a
decisive war, the only alternative is to continue the “diplomacy of violence.”.
Israel along with US actions (shifting of embassy, acceptance of Golan Heights annexation
by Israel, cutting off funds for Palestine) are all designed to soften the Palestinians
to accept the forthcoming US Palestine solution. The Arab monarchies have mostly
already approved the plan that has been prepared by Trump and his team. Apart from
Turkey there seems to be few who still support the hapless Palestinians .
US Palestine solution: May.20, 2019: The US will co-host an economic "workshop"
with Bahrain to encourage investment in the occupied Palestinian territories
"that could be made possible by a peace agreement", the White House
said on Sunday. "Peace to Prosperity will facilitate discussions on an
ambitious, achievable vision and framework for a prosperous future for the
Palestinian people and the region," said the
statement.
The June 25-26
conference in Manama is expected to bring together government, business and
civil leaders to gather support for potential economic investments and
initiatives that could be possible with a peace agreement, the statement said
Trump's Middle East team, led by his son-in-law
Jared Kushner and regional envoy Jason Greenblatt, appear to initially focus on the potential economic
benefits of the plan, despite deep scepticism among experts that they can
succeed where decades of US-backed efforts have failed. Kushner has
declined to say whether the plan will include a two-state solution, a key goal
of other peace efforts.
"Economic
progress can only be achieved with a solid economic vision and if the core
political issues are resolved," said Kushner in a statement on Sunday.
"We look forward to presenting our vision on ways to bridge the core
political issues very soon." He added: "The Palestinian people, along
with all people in the Middle East, deserve a future with dignity and the
opportunity to better their lives."
She said that Kuchner
is expected to invite treasury secretaries and finance ministers from all over
the world to the June event. "They say they want to focus on four areas,
one is infrastructure, other industry, empowering and investing in people and
reforming the government for the Palestinian people “This is an administration that has taken hundreds of
millions of dollars away from the Palestinians in the form of aid to the
Palestinians and to the United Nations. So their request that other countries
replace that money, well it remains to be seen how well that's going to be
received."
US officials had said earlier the peace plan
would be rolled out after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends in
early June. However, the announcement of the investors workshop appears
to set the stage for a sequenced release of the plan, starting with the
economic plan in late June, and later, at some time not yet clear, the
political proposals.
This begs a question, if the economics of
Palestine in now a concern, why did the US freeze aid to PA , secondly why has Israel
been allowed to deduct and decrease Palestinian money which Israel received . This seems to
be a rue, to soften the blow which will come later. The announcement did not
mention a tow State Solution at all.
US Palestine Investment Conference: May, 21, 2019:
The Palestinian
leadership has not been consulted about a US-led conference in Bahrain next month in support of Washington's
Middle East peace plan, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said. White
House said the gathering in Bahrain's capital, Manama, will give government,
civil and business leaders a chance to rally support for economic initiatives
that could be possible with a peace agreement. But Palestinian officials said
the June 25-26 meeting would not address the core political issues of the
conflict: final borders, the status of Jerusalem, or the fate of Palestinian refugees.
Social Development Minister Ahmed
Majdalani, meanwhile, said Palestinian officials would not attend the June
meeting.
The
Palestinians, who severed ties with the United States more than a year ago, have
repeatedly expressed fears that the White House would try to buy them off with
large sums of investment in exchange for freezing their demands for an
independent state. They have also expressed concerns that Washington is trying
to rally support from other Arab countries to pressure them into accepting a
plan they see as unacceptable.
The
eventual peace plan is expected to feature proposals for regional economic
development that would include Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Amid the controversy,
Shtayyeh reiterated Palestinians' core demands for a two-state peace deal with
Israel, which include gaining full control of the occupied West Bank and
Hamas-ruled Gaza, as well as occupied East Jerusalem - territories captured by
Israel in the 1967 war.
Israel claims Jerusalem as its indivisible
capital and has said it might declare sovereignty in its West Bank settlements,
which are illegal under international law. The Trump administration has said
its still-secret peace plan would require compromise by both sides. Since Trump
came to office, the US has cut back on providing aid for the Palestinians,
contributing to economic hardship in the West Bank and Gaza. "The
financial crisis the Palestinian Authority is living through today is a result
of the financial war that is being launched against us in order to win
political concessions," Shtayyeh said on Monday.
"The
fact that there are no discussions of Palestinian sovereignty, land claim,
borders are making many people say 'what's the point'?," Halkett said. Hanan
Ashrawi, a longtime aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, slammed the planned Bahrain
meeting, saying it was not "a peace plan". "This is just an
economic workshop ... [and] another way of rewarding Israel again and
maintaining Israel's control of our land and resources," Ashrawi told Al
Jazeera.
"The
plan for this kind of gathering in the Trumpian world is for the US to dictate
what it feels is in the interest of the US and the Netanyahu wing of the
Israeli government," Khouri told Al Jazeera, citing Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu."It's really important to see the
reaction of other major countries … the US probably can count on some of the
Arab Gulf countries because they are so dependent on it for security, arms and
money, but we need to look at the Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese and
others who may be invited to this [conference]," he added. "The
reaction of the world is going to be really critical now."
Jordan being pressurized: May, 23, 2019: In March of this year, King
Abdullah of Jordan
met the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington. King Abdullah is said to have expressed his
deep frustration about being kept almost completely in the dark
about the "ultimate deal" that is supposed to secure peace between Israel
and the Palestinians.
Jared Kushner has emphasized
the economic benefits of the proposed deal and praised it as a "very good business
plan". He has also sought not to address the question of Palestinian
statehood since "[it] means one thing to Israelis, [and another] thing to
the Palestinians, so we said, let's just not say it".
King Abdullah, whose
country is home to nearly two million Palestinian refugees, has, it seems, been
given no opportunity to contribute to or influence the Kushner deal. As a
Jordanian official told the Axios news website: during the meeting, "His Majesty was
asked about the plan and said he has not yet seen it and therefore cannot
comment. He also believes that an economic plan without a political one is not
sufficient." Jordan is being pushed towards accepting a disastrous deal
that will give the Israelis virtually everything they want in exchange for a
chunk of the economic aid that Saudi Arabia
and other Gulf countries are supposed to provide. The Palestinians and their
regional supporters will be bought off with the promise of a bright economic
future and, in the process; the issue of Palestinian statehood will be buried. Like
the Palestinians - who will be presented with an ultimatum of take it or the bad gets
worse for you - King Abdullah is being left with very little wriggle
room.
The
Jordanian economy is close to a breaking point. The public debt stands at 28.3 billion dinars
($39.9bn), nearly equal to the country's economic output, while unemployment is
running at close to 20 percent. Last summer, as a series of protests roiled
Jordan over plans to increase income tax, the Saudis led a bailout effort worth $2.5bn. With their backing, King Abdullah
was able to reverse the planned increase and stabilize the situation
temporarily. Of course, it is very much in the Saudis' interest not to see
Jordan destabilized by protesters taking to the streets. The last thing they
want to see is a hereditary monarch deposed. But the message is not lost on
King Abdullah that Saudi Arabia has the whip hand.
Saudi
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is
very close to Kushner, has already demonstrated that he can turn the aid tap
off as quickly as he turned it on. In 2017, the Saudis, annoyed
with King Abdullah's continued support for a Palestinian homeland and his
failure to ban the Muslim Brotherhood and sever diplomatic ties with Qatar,
abruptly decided not to renew a Gulf aid package. It was only when Abdullah
went cap in hand to Riyadh last year that the tap was turned back on again. Another
pressure point is Jordan's acute water
crisis - one of the worst in the world. Ten of the country's 12
aquifers are massively depleted and the Jordan River and the Dead Sea are
drying up.
The
refugee influx from Syria
has increased consumption and exacerbated the situation. Most of the one
million Syrian refugees have been settled in camps and in poor rural areas in
the north of the country where water scarcity is the severest. In the desperate
search for potable water, deep illegal wells are being drilled which further depletes the aquifers. With global warming and the continuous
rise in temperatures, water shortages are expected to get that much worse.
One solution – the Red Sea to
Dead Sea project - envisions seawater from the Red Sea desalinated
at the Jordanian port of Aqaba to create fresh water with the brine being
pumped into the Dead Sea to slow its shrinkage. But the project comes with a
hefty price tag of $1bn. The Israelis have offered to pay for it. Like the
Saudis, they see the benefit of a stable Jordan. The offer, though, can always
be withdrawn and although Kushner is being coy about details of his plan, it is
hard not to see the desalination project as part of the economic package
offered to Jordan.
The
US president's son-in-law must believe he has caught King Abdullah in an
economic pincer with the Israelis on one side and the Saudis on the other. He
knows he needs to gain the king's backing and he seems to reckon that with that
sort of pressure he will have it.
However, even those
experts and diplomats who favor the Israeli side argue that the plan is bound to fail
and could well lead to a huge uptick in violence. For King Abdullah, this is an
impossible choice. The Palestinians in Jordan, both refugees and those who have
citizenship, will expect and demand he take a robust stand against the deal.
But denouncing it cuts him off from the financial lifeline the Saudis and the
Israelis are offering to help manage the severe economic crisis.
At the same time, the
king is facing pressure to surrender the
custodianship of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest site, to
Saudi Arabia. Such a move would destroy the remaining legitimacy that King
Abdullah and the Hashemite dynasty he represents still have.
Jordan: May ,30, 2019: Jordan's King Abdullah II has told US
President Donald Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner that a lasting Middle
East peace can only come with the creation of a Palestinian state on land
captured by Israel in a 1967 war. "His
Majesty stressed the need for a comprehensive and lasting peace based on a
two-state solution, leading to an independent Palestinian state on 4 June 1967 lines with
East Jerusalem as its capital," the palace statement said.
Jordan is worried the plan could jettison the
two-state solution - the long-standing US and international formula that
envisages an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank,
East Jerusalem and Gaza
Palestinians see this as offering financial
rewards for accepting ongoing Israeli occupation and already declared that they
would not attend the event."Attempts at promoting an economic
normalisation of the Israeli occupation of Palestine will be rejected,"
said Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Meanwhile,
Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard said on Wednesday that Washington's peace
plan was doomed to fail and that the Palestinian resistance movement would
respond firmly to those who proposed such deal. The Revolutionary Guard said in
a statement carried by Tasnim news agency that the only solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict was "withdrawal of Zionists from the occupied
lands, and return of Palestinian refugees to hold free elections".
US backtracks: June, 4,2019: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is voicing skepticism about
the prospects for the Trump administration's long-delayed Israeli-Palestinian
peace plan even before it is disclosed. He said that “one might argue” that the
plan, called the "deal of the century" by the administration of
President Donald Trump, is “unexecutable” and might not “gain traction.” The U.S. is planning to unveil an economic
investment proposal for the Israeli-controlled Palestinian territories later
this month at a conference in the Bahraini capital, Manama. But it does not
plan to simultaneously offer a plan to resolve the more difficult political and
territorial issues in the region. Palestinian leaders have rejected attending
the Bahrain meeting and often derided the U.S., long an Israeli ally, as an
honest peace broker in the region.
US Ambassador: June, 10, 2019: In
an interview published by the New York Times on Saturday, Friedman said some
degree of annexation of the West Bank would be legitimate."Under certain
circumstances, I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all,
of the West Bank," he said. Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said
any such policy would be tantamount to "US complicity with Israeli
colonial plans".The public comments made by administration officials so
far suggest the plan will lean heavily on substantial financial support for the
Palestinian economy, much of it funded by Gulf Arab states, in return for
concessions on territory and statehood."The absolute last thing the world
needs is a failed Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan," Friedman
said in the NYT interview. "Maybe they won't take it, maybe it doesn't
meet their minimums During campaigning for the first general election in April,
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu pledged to annex illegal Jewish settlements in the
occupied West Bank, a move long supported by nearly all legislators in his
alliance of right-wing and religious parties. In February this year, Netanyahu
told legislators he had been discussing with Washington a plan that would
effectively annex illegal settlements. In a rare public show of disunity
between the close allies, the White House then flatly denied any such
discussion. Following persistent expansion of the settlements by successive
Netanyahu governments, more than 600,000 Jewish settlers now live in the West
Bank, including annexed East
Jerusalem, among some three million Palestinians. The international
community regards the settlements as illegal and the biggest obstacle to peace.
Need for Palestinian Actions: June, 15,2019: the "deal of the century" is the most
lethal of these attempts to deprive Palestinians of their basic rights to date.
Drawn up over the past two years by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, Jason
Greenblatt, his adviser, and David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, it
heavily favors Israeli interests. All three men are fervent Zionists, lack
experience in Middle East
peacemaking, and know little about Palestinian history or culture. It is hard
to envisage three more unsuitable people for such a task. a
stream of unauthenticated leaks in the Israeli press provide a rough idea of
what might be some of its provisions. Briefly, the deal proposes the creation
of a Palestinian semi-autonomous mini-state called "New Palestine",
comprised of Areas A and B of the occupied West Bank,
its capital to be somewhere within the expanded boundaries of municipal Jerusalem.
It would be demilitarised, its borders under Israeli control, and linked to Gaza by a corridor. Israel
would retain most of Area C and the whole Jordan Valley. Gaza would be expanded
into northern Sinai on land leased from Egypt. Hamas
would surrender its arms and come under Palestinian Authority control. The deal
would be sweetened by an aid package of $30-40 billion over five years, the
bulk to be provided by the Gulf States, with smaller contributions from the United States,
the EU and others The Palestinian right of return would be cancelled.
Palestinian refugees would receive compensation and be allowed more rights in
the Arab states where they reside.
Preserving Israel as a Jewish state has been a
Western imperative since 1948, and pressuring Israel into complying with
anything it does not want to do has been a complete taboo. Today, this stance
is stronger than ever, as the West moves to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism,
silencing all criticism of Israel.
Mounting popular support for the
Palestine cause, like the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
movement, is encouraging, but will take too long to become effective.
Meanwhile, Israel's drive to annex most of the West Bank and build more
settlements, and its campaign of slow Palestinian ethnic cleansing
in Jerusalem and the other occupied territories will continue apace.
To counter this, what Palestinians need
is a strategy that keeps them on their land, stops their cause from being
further eroded by "peace" concessions, and can pave potentially the
way for the return of the refugees. The only strategy that could conceivably
achieve this is a campaign for Palestinian equal civil and political rights in
the entirety of Israel-Palestine.
There is nothing unreasonable in this
demand. Israel-Palestine is currently one state under Israeli rule. The
population is divided into 6.6 million Israeli Jews with citizenship and
rights, 1.8 Palestinians with citizenship and restricted rights and 4.7 million
Palestinians without citizenship or rights. Demanding equality of rights in
this unequal situation is natural and inevitable. Had the Palestinian Authority
not existed to provide an illusion of independent rule, equal rights would have
been demanded long ago.
The advantages of an equal rights
system are many: equal legal status, equal government representation - with
which refugee repatriation could become policy - equal access to education,
employment and social services, and the myriad benefits that come with a normal
civic life. As Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has pointed out, only a system of equal rights for everyone
can qualify Israel to be a true democracy, with a Palestinian president and a
Jewish prime minister or vice versa.
Attaining equal rights in
Israel-Palestine should be an unexceptionable aim. Zionists and all those still
wedded to the idea of two states would inevitably reject it. However, the
biggest problem would be its implementation.
So, how can such a concept be accepted
by Jewish Israelis, reared on a diet of supremacy and entitlement and
conditioned to hate and fear Arabs? Or by Palestinians with lives blighted by
Israeli occupation and oppression, convinced they need to separate off into
their own state? And what of their understandable fear of becoming second-class
citizens in a state that turns out to be equal in theory but not in practice?
It would not be easy, and can only be
done in stages. The Palestinian Authority must first be persuaded to convert
itself from a pseudo-government of a non-existent state with unrealistic aims
into a campaigning body that leads the equal rights project.
A wide-ranging campaign of civic
education must be instituted and coordinated with a public-relations drive
towards the outside, and especially Western, world. A legal case for equal
rights should be made at the international court. A network of connection with
like-minded individuals, groups, and organisations, including sympathetic
governments - South Africa, for example - should be established.
This action list is not exhaustive, but
serves to show what can be done. Creating a system of equal rights in a state
like Israel, long based on discrimination in favour of one group over others,
is a noble ambition. If it were to happen, it would create a more just society
and a way of rectifying the terrible wrong done to Palestinians and also to
Jews. Perhaps then the peace that has eluded all who tried to solve this
conflict will come about at last.
Plan rejected: June,
27, 2019: The US-led economic
workshop in Bahrain closed amid derision and rejection from
Palestinian officials on Wednesday, who said its framework for a trade and
investment boost ignored their political aspirations for statehood. The two-day
workshop, led by White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner, began on Tuesday in
the capital, Manama, and showcased the economic part of the Trump
administration's long-awaited Middle East peace plan.Kushner, who is also
President Donald Trump's
son-in-law, urged Palestinian leaders boycotting the event to think outside the
"traditional
box" and consider the $50bn plan to boost the Palestinian and
neighbouring economies, which the United States is
hoping the wealthy Gulf states will bankroll. But the workshop was criticised
by Palestinians and others for not addressing the political core of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict."The elephant in the room in Manama is
obviously the [Israeli] occupation itself," senior Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) official Hanan Ashrawi told reporters in the occupied West Bank city
of Ramallah, adding that the workshop is "totally divorced from
reality".
The
Peace to Prosperity workshop set an ambitious goal of creating one million new
Palestinian jobs through $50bn of investment in infrastructure, tourism and
education in the territories and Arab neighbours. It also proposes a $5bn
transport corridor to connect the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and
Gaza Strip together
UAE, Israel normalise
ties: All the latest updates
Israel and the United Arab Emirates agree to normalise relations
in a deal brokered by US President Donald Trump.
·
- Israel
and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have reached a historic deal that will
lead to a full normalisation of diplomatic relations between the two
Middle Eastern nations.
- The
deal came after a phone call between United States President Donald Trump,
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al
Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi.
- The
White House says the agreement will see Israel suspend its plans to annex
Palestinian areas of the occupied West Bank.
Here are the latest updates:
Friday, August 14
20:15 GMT - US officials tried to appeal to
'numerous' countries to make similar agreements
Senior White House officials sought to use the momentum from the
deal between Israel and the UAE to appeal to more Arab and Muslim countries to
set aside long-standing tensions and make similar agreements.
A senior White House official told Reuters that President Donald
Trump's senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and Middle East envoy, Avi Berkowitz,
had been in touch with "numerous" countries in the region, trying to
see if more agreements would materialise. The official declined to name the
countries.
15:48 GMT - Israel-UAE agreement has
'far-reaching implications': Pakistan FM
Following the UAE-Israel normalisation agreement, Pakistan's
foreign ministry noted that such a development is "with far-reaching
implications".
"Pakistan has an abiding commitment to the full realization
of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to
self-determination. Peace and stability in the Middle East region is also
Pakistan’s key priority," read a statement released by the ministry.
"Pakistan's approach will be guided by our evaluation of how Palestinians'
rights and aspirations are upheld and how regional peace, security and
stability are preserved."
14:53 GMT - EU welcomes normalisation and
'hopes' for new negotiations
The European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and
Security Policy, Josep Borrell, welcomed the UAE-Israel agreement, adding that
Israel's annexation plans should "now be abandoned altogether".
"I welcome Israel-UAE normalisation; benefits both & is
important for regional stability," Borrell said on Twitter.
"Suspending annexation is positive step, plans should now be
abandoned altogether. EU hopes for resumed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on
2-state solution based on intl' agreed parameters," he said.
14:30 GMT - How did Israel and the UAE get to
normalising relations?
Back in October 2018, Israeli Minister of Culture and Sports Miri
Regev became the first Israeli to visit Abu Dhabi in an unprecedented official
state visit. Her visit to the UAE was a clear sign of the Gulf country working
to push its covert relations with Israel out in the open.
Following Regev's visit, Israeli Communications Minister
Ayoub Kara and Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz also travelled to Abu Dhabi and
Dubai.
From official meetings to clandestine relations - including
intelligence sharing and direct and indirect flights - relations between Israel
and the UAE have been going on for decades.
14:22 GMT - Palestinians take to the streets
to protest
Palestinians in Gaza and East Jerusalem held demonstrations in
protest at the planned establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and
the United Arab Emirates.
Demonstrators in Gaza waved Palestinian flags and held placards
reading: "Palestine is not for sale" and "Normalisation is
treason".
Leaders from various Palestinian groups participated in the rally,
which was organised by Islamic Jihad.
In East Jerusalem, protesters burned posters with photos of the
UAE's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and laid them on the floor for
people to trample on.
14:12 GMT - Netanyahu thanks Egypt, Oman,
Bahrain for their 'support'
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the leaders of
Egypt, Oman and Bahrain for their "support" of the agreement to
normalise ties with the UAE.
"I thank Egyptian President al-Sisi, and the governments of
Oman and Bahrain, for their support of the historic peace treaty between Israel
and the United Arab Emirates, which is expanding the circle of peace and will
be good for the entire region," Netanyahu said on Twitter.
14:01 GMT - Oman backs UAE-Israel agreement
Oman has become the second Gulf country after Bahrain to declare
its support for a UAE-Israeli agreement to normalise ties.
"A spokesman for the Omani Foreign Ministry has expressed the
sultanate's backing of the UAE decision on relations with Israel as part of the
joint historic declaration between it [UAE], the United States and
Israel," Oman's state news agency reported.
The official hoped the agreement will lead to "comprehensive,
fair, and lasting peace in the Middle East", according to the agency.
13:43 GMT - Palestinians unanimously reject
UAE-Israel deal
Palestinians reacted with shock and dismay after United States
President Donald Trump unveiled an agreement between the United Arab Emirates
and Israel to normalise ties.
"The late Sheikh Zayed was a dear brother to me, I knew how
much he was proud of his support for Palestine… I never imagined that in my
lifetime I would see the day in which the UAE would simply sell the Palestinians
out for the sake of normalisation," said former Palestinian Authority
minister Munib al-Masri.
"It's very shameful. I can't believe it until now," he
said.
Read Walid Mahmoud and Muhammad Shehada's full story on how
Palestinian leadership and public reacted to the deal here.
10:20 GMT - Israelis and Palestinians react to
UAE deal
|
"We reject this conspiracy completely," Palestinians
criticise, while Israelis offer mixed reactions to the deal that will lead to
a full normalisation of diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE.
|
06:54 GMT - Turkey slams UAE's 'hypocritical
behaviour'
Turkey condemned the UAE for normalising ties with Israel as a
"hypocritical" betrayal of the Palestinian cause.
"While betraying the Palestinian cause to serve its narrow
interests, the UAE is trying to present this as a kind of act of self-sacrifice
for Palestine. History and the conscience of the people living in the region
will not forget and never forgive this hypocritical behaviour," the
Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.
05:21 GMT - Iran says UAE-Israel deal is
'dangerous'
Iran's foreign ministry condemned the deal normalising ties
between Israel and the UAE, calling it a dangerous and "strategic act of
idiocy" that will further "invigorate the axis of resistance in the
region", according to the official IRNA news agency.
"The shameful measure of Abu Dhabi to reach an agreement with
the fake Zionist regime [Israel] is a dangerous move and the UAE and other
states that backed it will be responsible for its consequences," the
statement said, according to IRNA.
"This is stabbing the Palestinians in the back and will
strengthen the regional unity against the Zionist regime," the foreign
ministry said.
03:40 GMT - 'He deceived us': Israeli settler
leaders slam Netanyahu
David Elhayani, head of Israel's Yesha Council of settlers,
lambasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for suspending plans to
annex large parts of the occupied West Bank as part of the agreement
normalising ties with the UAE.
"Netanyahu has repeatedly promised the application of Israeli
sovereignty in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley. We had face-to-face
meetings. He assured us that he was working on it, that this is the main
political issue on which he was running in the election," Elhayani said in
a statement.
"He deceived us. He has deceived half a million residents of
the area and hundreds of thousands of voters," he added.
Shai Alon, mayor of the Beit El, a settlement near the Palestinian
city of Ramallah that is considered illegal by most of the international
community, accused Netanyahu of selling out his supporters.
"They pulled a fast one on the settlers," Alon was
quoted as saying by The Times of Israel newspaper.
|
Hamas:
Israel-UAE deal a 'stab in back of Palestinians' (13:19)
|
03:01 GMT - Palestine recalls its ambassador
to UAE
The Palestinian foreign ministry recalled its ambassador to UAE on
the orders of President Mahmoud Abbas.
In a statement, the official Wafa news agency said the move came
"in the aftermath of the tripartite US-brokered Israel-UAE deal on full
normalisation of the relations between the two countries".
01:23 GMT - Trump to host Israel, UAE leaders
at White House
United States President Donald Trump said he plans to host Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al
Nahyan at the White House in the next three weeks.
"I look forward to hosting them at the White House very soon
to formally sign the agreement," he said.
"We'll probably be doing it over the next, I would say, three
weeks."
Trump hinted that the UAE may not be the last country to strike a
deal with Israel, which so far has only had formal diplomatic relations with
two other Arab nations, Egypt and Jordan.
"That was a tremendous thing that happened. We have a lot of
other interesting things going on with other nations also having to do with
peace agreements and a lot of big news is coming over the next few weeks,"
he said.
"I am sure you will be very impressed and more importantly
it's great for our country, a great thing for the world."
Thursday, August 13
20:20 GMT - Jordan says Israel-UAE deal should
prod Israel to accept Palestinian state
Jordan has said that the Israel-UAE deal could push forward
stalled peace negotiations if it succeeds in prodding Israel to accept a
Palestinian state on land that Israel had occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli
War.
"If Israel dealt with it as an incentive to end occupation
... it will move the region towards a just peace," Jordanian Foreign
Minister Ayman Safadi said in a statement on state media.
20:02 GMT - Mahmoud Abbas 'rejects and
denounces' UAE-Israel deal
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced Israel's accord with
the United Arab Emirates in a statement issued by his spokesman.
"The Palestinian leadership rejects and denounces the UAE,
Israeli and US trilateral, surprising announcement," said Nabil Abu
Rudeineh, a senior adviser to Abbas.
Abu Rudeineh, reading from a statement outside Abbas's
headquarters in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said the deal was a
"betrayal of Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa and the Palestinian cause."
The statement urged the Arab League and the Organisation of
Islamic Cooperation to assemble to "reject" the deal, adding
"neither the UAE nor any other party has the right to speak in the name of
the Palestinian people."
19:30 GMT - Israel-UAE deal 'will not stop
Netanyahu's annexation plans'
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary general and co-founder of the
Ramallah-based Palestinian National Initiative, said the deal between Israel
and the UAE will not stop Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
annexation plans.
"The Israelis and Emirates had relations already, there was
never a struggle between them so I don't know why they need to call it a peace
agreement," Barghouti told Al Jazeera.
"The reality is that the problem is with the Palestinian
people, with the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian land; the problem is
with the Israeli plan of annexation of Palestinian land which Netanyahu has
confirmed one more time today that he is proceeding with."
18:05 GMT - Joe Biden
says Israel-UAE deal 'brave and badly needed'
United States Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden hailed
the Israel-UAE deal as an historic step toward a more stable Middle East, warning
he would not support Israel's annexation of Jewish settlements if he wins the
White House in November.
"The UAE's offer to publicly recognize the State of Israel is
a welcome, brave, and badly-needed act of statesmanship," the former Vice
President said in a statement. "Annexation would be a body blow to the
cause of peace, which is why I oppose it now and would oppose it as
president."
Israel hailed a United States-brokered peace deal with the United
Arab Emirates as a "great day for peace" and Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu was due to hold a news conference at 16:00 GMT to comment further.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/uae-israel-normalise-ties-latest-updates-200813154215455.html
Without Palestine, There is No
Arab Unity: Why Normalization with Israel Will Fail
By Dr Ramzy Baroud
11/08/2022 ;
It seemed all but a
done deal: Israel is finally managing to bend the Arabs to its will, and
Palestine is becoming a marginal issue that no longer defines Israel’s
relations with Arab countries. Indeed, normalization with Israel is afoot, and
the Arabs, so it seems, have been finally tamed.
Not so fast. Many
events continue to demonstrate the opposite. Take, for example, the Arab League
two-day meeting in Cairo on July 31 – August 1. The meeting was
largely dominated by discussions on Palestine and concluded with statements
that called on Arab countries to reactivate the Arab boycott of Israel, until
the latter abides by international law.
The strongest language
came from the League’s Assistant Secretary-General who called for solidarity
with the Palestinian people by boycotting companies that support the Israeli occupation.
The two-day Conference
of the Liaison Officers of the Arab Regional Offices on the Boycott of Israel
praised the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which has been
under intense western pressures for its unrelenting advocacy of international
action against Israel.
One of the
recommendations by Arab officials was to support Arab boycott initiatives in
accordance with the Tunis Arab Summit in March 2019, which resolved
that “boycott of the Israeli occupation and its colonial regime is one of the
effective and legitimate means to resist.”
Though one may rightly
cast doubts on the significance of such statements in terms of dissuading Israel
from its ongoing colonization schemes in Palestine, at least, it demonstrates
that in terms of political discourse, the collective Arab position remains
unchanged. This was also expressed clearly to US President Joe Biden during his
latest visit to the Middle East. Biden may have expected to leave
the region with major Arab concession to Israel – which would be considered a
significant political victory for the pro-Israel members of his Democratic
Party prior to the defining November midterm elections – but he received none.
What American
officials do not understand is that Palestine is a deeply rooted emotional,
cultural and spiritual issue for Arabs – and Muslims. Neither Biden, nor Donald
Trump and Jared Kushner before him, could easily – or possibly – alter that.
Indeed, anyone who is
familiar with the history of the centrality of Palestine in the Arab discourse
understands that Palestine is not a mere political question that is governed by
opportunism, and immediate political or geopolitical interests. Modern Arab
history is a testament to the fact that no matter how great US-Western-Israeli
pressures and however weak or divided the Arabs are, Palestine will continue to
reign supreme as the cause of all Arabs. Political platitudes aside, the
Palestinian struggle for freedom remains a recurring theme in Arab poetry, art,
sports, religion, and culture in all its manifestations.
This is not an
opinion, but a demonstrable fact.
The latest Arab Center
Washington DC (ACW) public opinion poll examined the views of
28,288 Arabs in 13 different countries. Majority of the 350 million Arabs
continue to hold the same view as previous generations of Arabs did: Palestine
is an Arab cause and Israel is the main threat.
The Arab Opinion Index
(AOI) of late 2020 is not the first of its kind. In fact, it is
the seventh such study to be conducted since 2011. The trend remains stable.
All the US-Israeli plots – and bribes – to sideline Palestine and the
Palestinians have failed and, despite purported diplomatic ‘successes’, they
will continue to fail.
According to the poll:
Vast majority of Arabs – 81 percent – oppose US policy towards Palestine; 89
percent and 81 percent believe that Israel and the US respectively are “the
largest threat” to their individual countries’ national security. Particularly
important, majority of Arab respondents insist that the “Palestinian cause
concerns all Arabs and not simply the Palestinians.” This includes 89 percent
of Saudis and 88 percent of Qataris.
Arabs may disagree on
many issues, and they do. They might stand at opposite sides of regional and
international conflicts, and they do. They might even go to war against one
another and, sadly, they often do. But Palestine remains the exception.
Historically, it has been the Arabs’ most compelling case for unity. When
governments forget that, and they often do, the Arab streets constantly remind
them of why Palestine is not for sale and is not a subject for self-serving
compromises.
For Arabs, Palestine
is also a personal and intimate subject. Numerous Arab households have framed
photos of Arab martyrs who were killed by Israel during previous wars or were
killed fighting for Palestine. This means that no amount of normalization or
even outright recognition of Israel by an Arab country can wash away Israel’s
sordid past or menacing image in the eyes of ordinary Arabs.
A most telling example
of this is how Egyptians and Jordanians answered the AOI question “Would you
support or oppose diplomatic recognition of Israel by your country?” The interesting
thing about this question is that both Cairo and Amman
already recognized Israel and have diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv since 1979 and
1994, respectively. Still, to this day, 93 percent of Jordanians and 85 percent
of Egyptians still oppose that recognition as if it never took place.
The argument that Arab
public opinion carries no weight in non-democratic societies neglects the fact
that every form of government is predicated on some form of legitimacy, if not
through a direct vote, it is through other means. Considering the degree of
involvement the cause of Palestine carries in every aspect of Arab societies –
on the street, in the mosque and church, in universities, sports, civil society
organizations and much more – disowning Palestine would be a major
delegitimizing factor and a risky political move.
American politicians,
who are constantly angling for quick political victories on behalf of Israel in
the Middle East do not understand, or simply do not care that marginalizing
Palestine and incorporating Israel into the Arab body politic is not simply
unethical, but also a major destabilizing factor in an already unstable region.
Historically, such attempts
have failed, and often miserably so, as apartheid Israel remains as hated by
those who normalized as much as it is hated by those who have not. Nothing will
ever change that, as long as Palestine remains an occupied country
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/israel-netanyahu-meets-sultan-qaboos-surprise-trip-oman-181026144447963.html?fbclid=IwAR0nV3mu5sGVTnRm_L8hgbhzR35yM1_eg0pkInrD2uN1-34opXlCOGTFyWM
ReplyDeletehttps://badaldal.com/11044?fbclid=IwAR3qs21DJUKm7I8KVywti2nEw9IkMHv2LC3x-LdXWdjf-1tmUHnIxWtblvc Unconfirmed reports that the Israeli PM visited Islamabad on way back from Oman
ReplyDeleteSince refuted by PTI spokesman
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