By Alan M. Dershowitz, GATESTONE INSTITUTE • October 28, 2020
Now that the Sudan has joined the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in normalizing relations with Israel, the future seems bright for even more Arab countries to make peace with their former enemy. Pictured: An Etihad Airways flight carrying a delegation from the United Arab Emirates on a first official visit, lands at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport on October 20, 2020. (Photo by Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)
- Israel is a stabilizing influence in an unstable region of the world. It is a democracy, a military and technological innovator, an economically advanced country. It can assist its new allies in each of these areas, as it has already begun to do even in the short time since normalization began.
- This may be their last opportunity to achieve a reasonable two state solution. Israel’s Arab neighbors have demonstrated that the Palestinian cause is not as high on their agenda as it appeared to be in the past. These nations understand that the situation the Palestinians now find themselves in have been the result of self-inflicted wounds — most importantly an unwillingness to take yes for an answer when the Israelis have offered them statehood.
- Even now, the Palestinian leadership refuses to sit down and negotiate with Israel. They must understand that they will not get a state as the result of the boycott movement, protests on university campuses or meaningless resolutions of the United Nations. Recent developments make it clear that statehood for the Palestinians will come only through negotiations with Israel.
Now that the Sudan has joined the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in normalizing relations with Israel, the future seems bright for even more Arab countries to make peace with their former enemy. The big prize, of course, would be Saudi Arabia, and already we are hearing rumors from its leaders pointing in that direction. Even Lebanon, which currently houses Hezbollah, has dropped hints about possible peace overtures.
The possibility does exist that before long, most of the Sunni Arab states will recognize that their interests lie in a peace process with Israel. They will see the economic, technological, diplomatic and military advantages in having Israel as an ally instead of an enemy.
@ Frank Adam:
“The second point that the Arab states are now fed up with the PA and have other fish to fry is worth expanding.”
Yes, it is worth noting. During the Cold War, the only powers that really mattered in the Middle East were The US, the USSR, the UK, France and Italy. Greece, Turkey, Iran and other regional players have since become significant players; and the Arab world itself, centered on the Gulf states and Egypt, has increasingly become free of the former and threatened by the latter. The “Palestinians” have all along been a pawn of the world powers to influence the Arabs and a pawn of the Arabs to manipulate the world powers. Nowadays, they no longer perform these functions, and have instead become a bothersome pest.
The second point that the Arab states are now fed up with the PA and have other fish to fry is worth expanding. The PLO/PA are in their persons the last dinosaurs of 1948 – 73 which closed when Sadat’s Egypt made peace for Sinai. It was also an age when guerilla wars of decolonisation were overblown and the Cold War – besides oil – gave a lot of leverage to “Palestine” in great power point scoring.
All that is over and the new generation which was not even born in 1973 never mind 1948 is faced with finding something besides oil to trade for US grain and to find drinking water. Further Iran and Turkey have raised their imperialist ambitions, again.
Most important Oslo installing the PA in Palestine meant no other Arab state could publicly aspire to slices of Palestine as in 1947 – 67. That faded their interest whether direct or in keeping in with those aspiring to such slices.