President Donald Trump has clearly seized on good relations with Riyadh, Cairo and Abu Dhabi as a lever for pushing Israel and the Palestinians into peace talks.
US President Donald Trump’s goal of generating a rapid improvement of Israel’s ties with the Arab world, including the Palestinians in 2018, is not just up to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, but depends largely on how the Trump administration handles the continuing conflict between Qatar and its powerful Arab opponents, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Up until the end of this week, Trump had turned down the efforts of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis to resolve the Gulf conflict by diplomacy.
Instead of heeding them, the president took the advice of the Saudi defense minister, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir, who visited Washington this week. Tillerson and Mattis tried to arrange a conference between Saudi Arabia and Qatar so as to gradually ease the tensions, but Trump torpedoed the initiative by adopting Riyadh’s tough line.
A complex situation has arisen in the last few days regarding the US diplomacy for bringing Israel and the Palestinians aboard a peace process. The signs of movement on this score fluctuate between crises and some progress:
1. The Gaza electricity row falls under the first heading. Some circles contend that the crisis is artificial, since the Palestinian enclave is receiving as much power now as before. What is different is the new, intensified pressure by Egypt on the one hand and the Palestinian Authority on the other in the hope of toppling Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip or squeezing its leaders into toeing their lines. Neither Egyptian President Abel Fatteh El-Sisi nor the Palestinian Authority chairman has made headway. Hamas stubbornly refuses Cairo’s demand to sever ties with Qatar, while launching a counteroffensive to draw Israel into the dispute by making an empty threat of an “explosion.”
Israel responded with a counter-threat on Thursday, June 15: a proposal to transfer one hour’s worth of power from West Bank Palestinian towns to boost the supply to Gaza.
This maneuver kept the entire electricity issue in the court from it was tossed, Ramallah.
2. A shower of Israeli concessions is landing on the Palestinians judging by almost daily reports. Some are true and others false. But in sum, they are designed to impress President Trump with the Netanyahu government’s good will towards his peace initiative and readiness to take steps in its support. In fact, the prime minister is preparing the ground for the forthcoming arrival of Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s envoy on the Israel-Palestinian issue.
3. US Secretary of State Tillerson this week informed the Senate that the Palestinian Authority had agreed to halt its payments to the families of Palestinian terrorists who were killed while carrying out attacks against Israelis. Palestinian officials no doubt let this be understood to demonstrate their willingness to go along with Trump’s peace initiative, without, however, have any real intention of following through.
4. Media reports and the findings of Arab research institutes add up to the following predictions on the fate of the negotiations generated by the Trump administration between Israel and the Arab world:
A. Some time during 2018, a showcase summit will be staged for Trump, Netanyahu and leading Arab rulers like Saudi King Salman, Egyptian President El-Sisi and the UAE’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
They will publish a joint declaration signaling the phased normalization of relations with Israel by such preliminary steps as the exchange of economic and business delegations, the opening of trade offices and of Arab skies to Israeli commercial flights. None of these researchers is clear about the Palestinian role in this event.
B. Meanwhile, Israel will make concessions towards improving the lives of ordinary Palestinians, such as removing checkpoints, issuing building permits for Palestinian towns and more jobs in Israel.
C. Israel and the Palestinian Authority will expand their security cooperation. The Palestinians will be persuaded to cease their incitement against the Jewish State and stop payouts to the families of convicted Palestinian terrorists and other security offenders.
D. Direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations will ensue, without preconditions on either side, and expand. with Arab governments sitting in.
E. At the end of a period of some years, this process will mature into a discussion of the core issues of the dispute, Palestinian statehood, future borders, settlements, Jerusalem and refugees.
In other words, the year 2018 will see the building of normal relations between Israel and Arab countries to be followed at a later date by the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. President Trump has clearly seized on relations with Riyadh, Cairo and Abu Dhabi as a lever for pushing Israel and the Palestinians into peace talks.
The idea is simple. Israel’s improved ties with the Arab world will resonate positively on Israeli-Palestinian relations. That appears to be Trump’s formula for peace. But there is a catch. It depends heavily on the US President maintaining good relations with the Arab world in the long term.
Showcase is right, talk is cheap Israel has already once again allowed itself to be bullied into making substantive irreversible concessions. Name one concrete concession Abbas has been pressured into making? Why can’t our leaders, including Trump, get into their thick skulls that they aren’t being stubborn children. Their program is one of gradual victory through salami tactics. It’s been working beautifully. Why should they abandon it?
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Hi, Sebastien. I’m testing my new login info.
I have been following the Qatar situation. There is a MASSIVE effort by the Qatari government, it seems, to distort and disinform — especially via Al Jazeera. You need to make sure your info isn’t coming from there, or from sister sources. Qatar is the richest country in the world; and those who control this stuff are the richest of the rich; so we always need to confirm with non-Qatari, non-Turkish and non-Iranian sources.
I get the daily White House email briefs from President Trump, and none of it is about Qatar. Ditto with his Twitter page. He is a busy man; and this Persian Gulf stuff is not the most important news of the day. It certainly doesn’t pose any clear and present danger to the US.
Al Arabiya and the Saudi sources, of course, are also biased. Most of the confusing reporting is coming from Qatar, Turkey, Iran, Saudi and the eternally confused MSM. My guess is that since the last word from Trump to Qatar was to tell them to cut off their terrorist links, that is what the current policy is.
This “crisis” has provided me an opportunity to list countries according to who is for us and who is against us (“Us” being the US, Saudi and Israel); but other than that, it is not of urgent importance. Turkey’s Erdogan is all bluster, plus bluster, with some bluster thrown in; and he already has some troops in Qatar — officered by a small remnant of the officer corps that hasn’t already been imprisoned for plotting imaginary coups. Stacked up against the 8000 or so well-disciplined US troops already in Qatar, the Turks stand zero chance of causing trouble there.
The “Palestinian” situation is another matter, one of lies about lies about lies. I don’t even try to keep up with it.
When was this written? Trump backed off on Quatar — I think you said that in your interview, Ted — and the PA refuted Tillerson’s claim that they would stop paying terrorists and their families. Israel’s ties with the Arab world have been improving independent of Trump or concessions to the Palestinian Arabs or anything else except mutual military expediency against their common foe, Iran.