T. Belman. The reason the US keeps repeating her invitation to the PA to join the peace process is because they are positioning for the full rejection of the PA. They will shortly embrace Jordan as Palestine. That’s why Jordan cancelled the citizenship of the four top leaders of the PA. This was initiated by the US rather than the King. I expect the King to be gone by the end of the month.
When the US say they are open to a two -state solution if both parties agree, what they have in mind is Israel and Jordan, led by Mudar Zahran, being the two parties. And they are sure to agree on the Jordan River as the border.
After 100 years of clashes, 70 years of conflict and a quarter-century since the Oslo Accords, which were supposed to have given the Palestinians peace and land of their own, it looks like they are losing the little they have managed to obtain.
The number of Gaza residents willing to participate in the riots along the border fence is dropping, as could be seen in last Friday’s protest. Hamas is no longer hiding the fact that the demonstrations are not intended to be quiet marches, but violent attempts to carry out attacks on Israeli forces and civilians, as well as damage the fence and military equipment, and burn fields and forests.
We can assume that leading up to May 15, on which the Palestinians mark the Nakba (or “Catastrophe”) of their displacement during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, the border will heat up again. Hamas will spur on Gazans to head out for the “marches of return,” reminding Israel and the world that the Palestinians are still committed to the dream of return, which in essence means the destruction of the State of Israel.
As Hamas prepares for more rounds of violence—since it has nothing to offer the residents of Gaza other than that—the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has been keeping mum. This is due in part to internecine Palestinian power struggles—primarily, the fight over who will succeed P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas—but also because Abbas and his friends do not want and actually cannot escape the trap they closed on themselves when they turned up their noses at the American administration’s attempts to kick-start the peace process.
The Palestinian nationalist movement is at one of the lowest points in its history. Some, even among the Palestinians, argue that it has come to the end of the road. Its goals—even the smallest ones—are slipping out of its reach. No matter what happens, their fate is once again out of their hands and out of the hands of their leadership, whether that happens to be the P.A., which is pinning its hopes on the international community, or Hamas, which is now making its way back to the welcoming embrace of Iran.
The celebration of Israel’s achievements over the 70 years of its existence is an excellent opportunity for the Palestinians to spend some time thinking about where they went wrong and what could extract them from the dead end they have found themselves in.
After 100 years of clashes (dating from the Balfour Declaration), 70 years of conflict (starting with the 1948 War of Independence) and a quarter-century since the Oslo Accords, which were supposed to have given the Palestinians both peace and land of their own, it looks like they are losing the little they have managed to obtain.
The Palestinian nationalist movement was always a mirror image of Zionism; in other words, it was born out of and in response to the advent of Zionism. This means that the battle against the Zionist idea and the desire to serve as an antithesis to everything that Israel symbolizes were and are simply a common denominator, rather than a defining element of the Palestinian identity. This is not enough to sustain a victorious national movement and lead it to success.
It would appear that the sources of the Palestinian weakness have never changed: the lack of a national identity that supercedes the tribe, the clan or the village, and is nothing more than a rejection of the other (Zionism); the lack of any legitimate, effective leadership that lays out a path and convinces the public to take it; a weak economy; religious radicalization; and, above all, depending on others to rescue the Palestinians from their distress.
From 1948 to 1967, the Palestinians hung their hopes on Arab nations. For the P.A., it’s now the international community—that same vague and amorphous entity whose efficacy we have seen in Syria, and for Hamas, in Iran and Turkey.
Incidentally, this is a challenging reality for Israel because it means that the hope that one day Israel would find a Palestinian partner for either a peace deal or in the case of Gaza, a truce, is a false one.
It’s hard to think that the Palestinians in their current situation are capable of compromising, much less making a compromise acceptable to Israel, which is the stronger side. It also means that in the future, the ball is in Israel’s court when it comes to its approach towards the Palestinians, and it’s doubtful whether the Palestinians wish to or can take part in the game.
Eyal Zisser is a lecturer in the Middle East History Department at Tel Aviv University.
@ Edgar G.:
Trump ran on no regime changes, American First, and only goes after people that attack him or the USA. I see no overt signs that the USA is going after the King. Ted, has implied that things are happening behind the scenes. He has said they will happen by June of this year.
We will see. Who in the USA government is pushing this? Has Mudar been making secret trips to the White House?
Even though I was born in the Caribbean in this case I am from Missouri, “The Show me State”.
@ Bear Klein:
The US is not just considering itself here. They have the millions of so-called refugees like an open sore and a toxic bed of incipient terrorism. It won’t change whilst the King is there. And the people don’t want him. And I’m sure that Trump is fully aware that the Hejaz interlopers are very corrupt and that Abdullah is causing a lot a bad vibes with Israel at every opportunity. If Zahran comes in, then co-operation at the fullest would be available.
@ Edgar G.:
Why would they want regime change in Jordan from a USA / Trump Administration perspective? Has the King publicly bad mouthed the USA? Just the opposite.
@ Bear Klein:
I wonder if he was offering the King a one-way trip, all expenses paid, to a mansion on Rhode Island….?
@ Abdul Ameer: Yes, as long as long as Iran is a growing threat to the Sunni Arab states they will seek support from the US and Israel. As soon as Iran and Hamas are no longer a threat they will resume their Holy War against Israel whilst the Islamists in Europe continue to weaken their new home countries. This not just about the failures of. The PA, PLO and Hamas although these failures are becoming more evident as circumstances change.
This article by Eyak Zisser is all too typical of commentators on the conflict over Israel. The writer is operating on a fundamentally flawed model of the conflict, namely “The Palestinian nationalist movement”. This model presents the conflict as a conflict of two nationalilsms, but that is false. That conceptual model cannot explain why Israel’s deadliest enemy is The Islamic Republic of Iran, whereby the Iranians are not Arabs, let alone Palestinians. They don’t even like Arabs. The model cannot explain why the entire Moslem world rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
The only conceptual model of the conflict over Israel which explains the facts is that the conflict is an Islamic holy war against the Jews — just like the Hamas Charter says it is. Even the PLO/Fatah’s cradle-to-grave incitement to hate and murder Jews, his pay-to-slay martyrdom program — are all based on ISLAMIC sacred doctrines from the Koran and Muhammad which command Moslems to make war on the Jews. Any Moslem, including the PLO/Fatah folks, who agrees to make peace with the Jews (Israelis) would have to flagrantly violate the sacred commands of his god and his prophet.
This is not a territorial conflict which can be resolved by drawing new lines on old maps. It is an Islamic holy war against the Jews, and it cannot be resolved. It can only be managed.
Pompeo visited with the King just now. He did not visit with the PA or Abbas. I certainly have no trouble seeing that PA will disolve shortly as they have no backers except the EU who are not influencial anymore.
I believe Israel will possibly get a green light from Trump for more building freedom and application of Israeli Civil Law to the Jewish Towns in Area C in J/S or all of Area C.
For what is going to happen in Jordan that does seem opaque to me.