By Caroline Glick JNS.org
Three diplomatic events transpired last week. Together they describe the crossroads at which Israel now stands following the U.S. presidential elections.First, on Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority announced it is renewing its security coordination with the Israel Defense Forces after suspending it six months ago. The P.A. also expressed willingness to accept tax revenues that Israel collects on its behalf. The P.A. has refused to accept the tax revenues since June because, in accordance with Israeli law, the government announced that it would deduct from them the sums the P.A. pays monthly to terrorists.
The P.A.’s sudden willingness to renew security coordination and accept money from Israel is clearly intended as a gesture of goodwill towards presumptive President-elect Joe Biden and his team. Over the past two weeks, the members of Biden’s team have made it clear in open and closed forums that they intend to reinstate the Obama administration’s Palestinian-centric Middle East policies immediately after taking office.
Speaking of the Biden team’s messaging, a Palestinian official explained earlier in the week, “We have received many positive messages from the Biden team in the past few days. We are looking forward to opening a new page with the Biden administration after the damage caused by the Trump administration.”
According to Israeli political sources, Biden’s team intends to reinstate negotiations between Israel and the PLO on the basis of the long-mordant Oslo accords. The sources claim Biden is even taking Oslo mediator Dennis Ross out of cold storage for that purpose. Ross’s longtime deputy Aaron David Miller penned an op-ed in Canada’s National Post this week where he argued that President Trump has been bad for Israel and good for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Biden, Miller insisted, would be good for Israel (and by extension, bad for the democratically elected prime minister). Miller argued that Israel is better off when the United States places the Palestinians center stage and joins the Europeans in genuflecting before Iran and its nuclear weapons program under the guise of nuclear diplomacy.
In 2013-14, Martin Indyk served as the head of then-Secretary of State John Kerry’s negotiations team. Indyk pulled out all the stops to coerce Israel into transferring the vast majority of Judea and Samaria to PLO control and to partitioning Jerusalem. He bitterly blamed Israel when his aggressive efforts came to naught.
Now back in business, Indyk published an article last week on NBC‘s website setting out how Biden should go about reinstating Obama’s Middle East policies.
Indyk argued that to advance the cause of peace, Biden should pick on Israel. Biden, Indyk advised, needs to force Israel to accept the Kerry (Indyk) plan as a basis for negotiations, ban all Israeli Jewish construction in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and force Israel to give land in Judea and Samaria to the PLO. Indyk called on the Arab states that have peaceful relations with Israel to reinstate the Palestinian veto — conditioning ties with them on Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.
Indyk’s advice is noteworthy in the context of the two other events that happened last week. First, Wednesday saw Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayani arrive in Israel for a first official visit by a Bahraini leader. During his meetings in Jerusalem, al-Zayani formally requested to open a Bahraini embassy in Israel and committed to further strengthening bilateral ties between Manama and Jerusalem.
Along the same lines, the week before, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed accepted President Reuven Rivlin’s invitation to pay an official visit to Israel. Al-Zayani’s visit, like bin Zayed’s announcement, indicates that Israel’s partners in the Abraham Accords have no intention of following Indyk’s advice and subordinating their national interests to the whims of the PLO’s decrepit leadership.
Indeed, they have positively had it with the Palestinians and their grievance-mongering. Last month, a UAE official referred to the P.A. and Hamas as “corrupt murderers,” and Saudi writer Osama Yamani published an article earlier this month in the regime-backed Ukaz newspaper rejecting the Palestinians’ Islamic significance.
Titled “Where is Al-Aqsa Mosque?,” Yamani’s article insists that the Palestinian and Muslim Brotherhood claims regarding al-Aqsa, the place Islam’s Prophet Muhammed alighted to in his nighttime flight to heaven, are false. The Palestinians and the Muslim Brotherhood say that al-Aqsa is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. But in keeping with Saudi Wahabi belief, Yamani insisted that al-Aqsa is in Jarana, a village located 30 kilometers (18 miles) northeast of Mecca.
Needless to say, if the Sunni Arab world outside the Brotherhood’s orbit embraces the Wahabist view, Arab support for the Palestinian war against Israel will dry up regardless of who sits in the White House.
The third diplomatic event of the week was U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s historic visit to a winery in Samaria. Psagot Winery’s award-winning wines have made it a top target for the anti-Semitic boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns against Israel. Ahead of Pompeo’s visit, the first by a U.S. secretary of state to an Israeli community in Judea and Samaria, Pompeo met with Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Referring to BDS as a “cancer,” Pompeo announced, “We will recognize the global BDS campaign as anti-Semitic.”
Pompeo visited Psagot because a year ago, its owner created a new blend called “Pompeo” in honor of the secretary of state following Pompeo’s landmark decision to renounce the State Department’s longstanding position that Israeli communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines are inherently illegal. The Pompeo Doctrine determined that there is nothing inherently illegal about Israel’s communities in the areas.
Pompeo’s visit wasn’t merely a public relations victory for Israel and its long fight against those who reject its very right to exist, and al-Zayani’s visit was no mere formality. Both visits, like bin Zayed’s decision to come to Jerusalem and Yamani’s article, are invitations for the Netanyahu government to make the best use possible of Trump’s remaining time in office.
While fighting his legal battles against what appear to be gross acts of election fraud which may even have tipped the elections in Biden’s favor, President Trump is also working to anchor and solidify his achievements.
@ Wooly Mammoth:
You are quite right about her capabilities. Yes, I know all about her. But she’s spent most of her life in Israel. So she’s not like the American Jewish women you mention; they are mostly RINOS. On all else , including Rabin and Peres, I agree with you .
Caroline’s solution for the so called “disputed territories” was never practical. It’s conclusions as to what would happen the day after was not based on reality. Too many loose ends that could have been exploited by a population adept at capitalizing on any error, no matter how slight.
I do not fault her for trying and admire her courage to support Israel in so many practical ways, when, quite honestly, most American born Jewish women of her generation appeared indifferent at best and active Jewish Voice for Peace or J Street adherents. Glick can be a brilliant lecturer, when she wants.
Caroline, as I am certain you are aware, worked as staff under Rabin and was involved in planning the Oslo Accords. She recognized it for what it was and shifted her position radically, which took tremendous guts and I think she suffered terribly from the fallout of what Peres And Rabin engineered with Arafat.
Begin and Shamir would have never stooped so low as to accept Arafat as a partner for Peace. Rabin was a drunk and Peres could not best Rabin in the election, but could psychologically manipulate Rabin such that Rabin flip flopped. I remember the election very well. The Israeli public chose Rabin, specifically because they objected to Peres’ plans to give away the store in return for terrorism. The only thing that got the terrorism under control was the security barrier, which J Street bemoans as evidence of apartheid.
Glick had the guts to make a 360 degree turn and owned up to regrets.
I can not help but feel sympathetic to her personally and yes, she writes well, very well. Also her columns are well conceived to the point of being elegant and poignant. She makes me proud to be a Jewish American. I made Aliyah, but she did it much better than I could ever have done it.
@ Wooly Mammoth:
He’s always like that, enthusiastic and jolly,, like playing at it and enjoying every
minute. Especially when he’s trying to sell his useless oddities, and trying to get listeners to press the “bell” which I assume is an application for paid membership in his esoteric personally run organisation. It offers nebulous benefits, none of which cost him anything.
@ Wooly Mammoth:
I didn’t mean this as a criticism of your mentioning Turley, and I hope you didn’t think so..
As for Caroline, I think she’s wrong, wrong, wrong, just as she is/was when advocating taking over YESHA and giving all the infiltrator Arabs citizenship. I thought she was crazy, and still do.. At least about this. She wrote several articles over the years, advocating it. It’s just that she’s actually a good writer, puts her phrases and sentences in very readable, good English. But I often disagree with her. As now about Trump. He is well on his way, not only to winning the election, which is still very alive, but also in laying bare the massive plan to destroy America as it used to be, and which he’s trying to restore.
Who could believe that a cunning, senile old goat like the undistinguished Biden, could make almost no campaign appearances, never get more than a dozen or two to his meetings, could lose all of the 19 bell-weather counties but one, and still win the election. breaking the bell-weather record of over100 years being always on the winner’s side. Trump won the 18 by an average of 16 points, Biden won his single one by 3 points.-likely by fraud.
And in a larger total of 58 bell-weather counties Trump won 51 of them, all in a landslide. Biden never got more than 30%, and the seven he won, are suspected to have been largely by fraud. In Pennsylvania they sent out 1.8 mill mail-in ballots, and 1.4 mill were returned. But they accumulated somehow to over 2.5 mill…. over 80% for Biden. I think that trump now has him by the “short hairs”…
No President has ever done what Trump has done, both in public popularity and policy achievements. When has ANYONE in Nobel history ever been nominated for 3 different Nobel Peace Prizes…..?? ( and he did it without being a Jew… my little joke)
I’m enthusiastic, of course, so I’m being a little hyperbolic.
I just recalled something. The very first appearance of Biden and Harris together at a campaign meeting, was attended by NOBODY at all. Their huge placarded bus was there, the cameramen were there, security etc, but not ONE spectator. The only ones I saw were 2-3 in the background on a main street, cycling past, paying no attention at all.
@ Wooly Mammoth:
[continued]
What I meant was Turley was featured in the McCullough vote post not Glick’s post.
Caroline’s columns, at least before Trump, made me uneasy, the problem is, she is usually correct. I do not believe Caroline has much faith in Trump prevailing in this election. Am I wrong.
Israel has 53 days, to finish The Job.
@ Edgar G.:
Well….Turley is the source of the information contained in this posting.
I just assumed Turley is a legitimate source of information in these matters, is he not?
He seemed in quite the celebratory mood as if the fat lady had sung or at least in the midst of her final aria.
@ WoolyMammoth:
Who relies on Turley.. ???
@ greenrobot:
I already said that in another post, although I meant the Dome. It would be comparatively easy, as it would be in sections, whereas the Aksa would have to be rock, or brick by brick .The mosque is on the very southern edge of the platform and hundreds of feet away from the Dome, which is the centre-piece of the Mount. But it’s somewhere around the Dome area where the Temple had been built, so if I had to chose I’d rather that they took the Dome. If they wanted to take Aksa as well, I’d be delighted. But there are also several other smaller Muslim religious buildings on the Mount, it’s very large, over 26 acres.
Maybe the Saudis will move the mosque to Mecca and free the Temple Mount.
One can hope.
@ WoolyMammoth:
Turley a mainly a religious Christian speaker, who has put on this show because the election sparks so much interest that we forget what he really is. I think his “doctorate” is a religious one, maybe bought from one of those bucket-shop “universities”… And he shills for a variety of “30% off get it TODAY before they’re sold out”.. garbage. Likely made in China. These sites have sprung up lately like dandelions.
Otherwise he’s O.K., but he never tells us anything that we don’t already know from youtube.
@ stevenl:
Around the corner…if you have faith in Turley, or perhaps…over the mountain….with due respect to the sober more reliable Glick.
2nd Trump term is around the corner!