Collapse of the Palestinian Movement

 

The Collapse of Palestinian Grand Strategy - Dr. Eran Lerman

The Palestinian quest to isolate Israel and boycott it in the international community, and thus force it into surrender, has failed. Foundational aspects of the regional order have changed, with a breakthrough towards peace and normalization with Arab countries. Moreover, the Arab League (under Egypt's guidance) refused to consider the Palestinian complaint against "normalizers."
    

The Palestinians hope that a Biden administration will usher in an era where they can pursue again a strategy of isolating Israel. Latching on to such hopes is an indication of the Palestinians' lack of realism. American political dynamics do not sustain such Palestinian expectations. While pressures from academia and the progressive left are matters of some concern, the firm foundations of support for Israel are still strong on both sides of the aisle. It is also still possible to rely on the deeply ingrained support for Israel among at least 2/3 of all Americans.

The writer, vice president of JISS, held senior posts in IDF Military Intelligence for over 20 years. 

(Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security)

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VideoBites: Musical Celebration of Abraham Accords

 

The news report about the song celebrating The Abraham Accords

The song!

Chanukah Miracle: Morocco & Israel Make Peace

 

Morocco, Israel normalize ties 

Israel and Morocco have agreed to establish diplomatic relations, US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday.

Morocco became the fourth Arab country to normalize ties with Israel in four months, following the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.

Israel and Morocco plan to reopen economic liaison offices, which were closed in 2002, and work quickly to exchange ambassadors and begin direct flights, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner said normalization “comes on the heels of four years of very, very hard work and very intense diplomacy.”

"The team, led by Jared Kushner, has worked on this deal for over a year," Avi Berkowitz, Special Representative for International Negotiations, who took part in negotiating the normalization agreement, told The Jerusalem Post. He added that he hopes that the deal will lead to a warm peace between the two countries.

The move is the culmination of a successful year of upgrading Israel’s relations with Arab and Muslim countries, beginning with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting Chad and meeting Sudan’s leader in Uganda, the Abraham Accords, as well as the warming relations and cooperation with Saudi Arabia, in addition to a number of other Arab states.

Long before that, Morocco had a relationship with Israeli intelligence agencies. Moroccan King Hassan II gave Israel recordings of an Arab League meeting that helped Israel prepare for the Six Day War in 1967, according to former IDF intelligence chief Shlomo Gazit and the former intelligence officer and cabinet minister Rafi Eitan. That same year, the Mossad helped Morocco abduct a dissident from France.

[Jerusalem Post] 

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UPDATES: 

Moroccan Israelis Welcome Normalization Agreement

Israelis of Moroccan descent celebrated Thursday's decision by Morocco to normalize relations with Israel. "We who were born in Morocco, we and the people of Morocco all over the world, have been waiting so long for this day," said Moroccan-born Aryeh Deri, Israel's interior minister.
    

Transportation Minister Miri Regev said: "Generations of Moroccan Jews have dreamed of peace with the country where they were born and where our culture is so deeply rooted. May the blessing of Allah come upon us and upon them."  

(Times of Israel)

Israel-Morocco Deal Follows History of Cooperation - Ronen Bergman

Behind the announcement Thursday that Israel and Morocco will establish formal diplomatic ties lies almost six decades of close, secret cooperation on intelligence and military matters. Israel has helped Morocco obtain weapons and intelligence-gathering gear and learn how to use them. One million Israelis are from Morocco or descended from those who were.
    

In 1965, when Arab leaders and military commanders met in Casablanca, Morocco allowed Israel's Mossad to bug their meeting rooms and private suites. The eavesdropping gave Israel unprecedented insight into Arab thinking, capabilities and plans, which was vital to Israel in preparing for the 1967 war. A decade later, Morocco became the site of secret meetings between Israel and Egypt ahead of the 1978 Camp David accords. 

(New York Times)

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Peace Breaks Out: Peaceniks Fail to Notice

 

Abdalla Hamdok, Sudan's Prime Minister [L]

The Arab-Israeli Peace Cascade - Editorial

Alumni of the previous U.S. administration were certain that a pro-Israel foreign policy would inflame the Arab world, and that Mideast progress depended on accommodating the regime in Iran. In fact, Israel is the region's chief source of stability and Iran its main source of terror and mayhem. The agreement by Sudan, a country of more than 40 million, to normalize Israel ties shows that the peace cascade goes beyond the Persian Gulf and could extend across the Arab world.

(Wall Street Journal)

Sudan and Israel Agree to Normalize Ties - Anne Gearan

Sudan and Israel have agreed to begin normalizing relations, President Trump and leaders of both nations said Friday, marking the third such accord brokered by the White House since August. The deal does not immediately entail full diplomatic relations, but it is an agreement to start discussions over normalization with an initial focus on economic matters. Trump said "at least five" more countries are in line to normalize relations with Israel under U.S. auspices. 

(Washington Post)

Israel-Sudan Treaty Deals Blow to Iran, Terrorism - Yoav Limor

Unlike the peace deals with the UAE and Bahrain, the treaty with Sudan has little to offer from an economic standpoint. Sudan has nothing to export to Israel, and given the state of Khartoum's coffers, it is doubtful whether it can import much from Israel. Some business deals are on the horizon, mostly involving Israeli technologies in water, agriculture and food, to help bring Sudan into the 21st century.
    

The peace deal with Sudan goes beyond having declarative importance. Diplomatically, one less country will vote against Israel in international organizations and forums, and will no longer join efforts impose boycotts or sanctions on the Jewish state.
    

From an Arab-Muslim standpoint, the accord means another dent in the wall of opposition Israel faces in the Arab world. Sudan has now become the fifth Arab nation to recognize Israel.
    

Behind the scenes, a diplomatic battle is now being waged for Qatar's allegiances: The U.S. and Israel are trying to mediate rapprochement between Qatar and Saudi Arabia in an effort to pull Doha away from the radical Islamist axis, headed by Turkey. 

(Israel Hayom)

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UPDATE: 

Israel's Arabs Demand Their Own "Normalization" Deal - Haviv Rettig Gur 

• While Israel seeks "normalization" with the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan, all of which are 1,000 miles from Israel, a "normalization" process is already well underway closer to home.
• MK Mansour Abbas of the Ra'am faction of the Arab Joint List party wrote Saturday on Facebook that Israel's Arabs were ill-served by the belief that their political role was limited to being the "reserve force" propping up the Israeli left. "I'm not afraid to say I'm introducing a pragmatic new political style." The post received over 4,300 "likes" and 700 comments, nearly all positive.
• Ra'am, founded in 1996, emerged as the political home of the conservative Muslim impulse within Israel's Arab population. It is the political vehicle for the southern branch of the Islamic movement.
• Islamism in Israel is divided into two branches: the anti-Israel northern branch headquartered in the Galilee town of Umm al-Fahm, and the pro-integration southern branch which draws much of its support from the Bedouin of the Negev. Both branches support Palestinian independence, but only the northern branch, declared illegal in 2015, openly supported violence and extolled terrorism.
• Sheikh Abdullah Nimr Darwish, who led the southern branch for three decades until his death in 2017, urged Israel's Arab community to reject terrorism and integrate into Israeli society. Mansour Abbas, a student of Darwish, is deputy chairman of the southern branch.
• As the Palestinian cause fades throughout the Arab world, it fades among Israeli Arabs as well. And the demand to integrate, to gain acceptance, to have a say in the affairs of a country they have come to accept as their own, has overwhelmed the old ideologies.

(Times of Israel)

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Why Arabs Abandoned The Palestinian Cause

 

Arabs abandon the Palestinian cause

Why Other Arabs Resent Palestinians - Dr. Mordechai Kedar

While many Arabs and Muslims hate Israel, a good many hate the Palestinians just as much. Many of the Palestinian Arabs are not originally Palestinians at all. They are immigrants who came to the Land of Israel from all over the Arab world during the British Mandate in order to find employment in the cities and on the farms the Jews had built. Why, ask the other Arabs, should they get preferential treatment over those who remained in their original countries?
    

At the end of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, the politics in the Arab world began to center on Israel and the "Palestinian problem," the solution to which was to be achieved by eliminating Israel. In order to succeed in that mission, the Arab "refugees" were kept in camps and not absorbed into other Arab countries. They were provided with food, education, and medical care without charge, even as other Arabs had to work to provide food, education, and medical care for their own families. "Refugees" would often sell some of their free foodstuffs to their non-refugee neighbors and make a tidy profit.
    

Over the years, the Palestinian Arabs were given many billions of dollars by the nations of the world, so that the yearly per capita income in the PA is several times greater than that of the Arabs in Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen.
    

Much of the Arab and Muslim world is convinced that the Palestinians do not in fact want a state of their own. After all, if that state were established, the world would cease its steady donations and Palestinian Arabs would have to work just like everyone else.
The writer, a senior research associate at the BESA Center, served for 25 years in IDF military intelligence. 

(BESA Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University)

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Peace Has Come: The Abraham Accords

President Donald Trump, United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed, Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The signing seals it!

Trump: Nations "Breaking Free from the Failed Approaches of the Past"

At the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said the accords "open the door for Muslims around the world to visit the historic sites in Israel and to peacefully pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem....For generations, the people of the Middle East have been held back by old conflicts, hostilities...lies that the Jews and Arabs were enemies and that Al-Aqsa Mosque was under attack. Constantly, they would say it was under attack....These agreements prove that the nations of the region are breaking free from the failed approaches of the past."  

(White House)

Israeli Arabs See Opportunity in Accords - Shakib Ali 

    

Since the agreement with the UAE was announced, Israeli Arabs mostly talked about the possible economic, academic and tourism benefits it might bring.

    

Thanks to their language, education and religion, Israeli Arabs stand to be the main beneficiaries of the agreements. They can not only do business in the Gulf, but also travel and study there.

(Ynet News)

Netanyahu: Thank You for Bringing Hope to All the Children of Abraham

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the White House: "For thousands of years, the Jewish people have prayed for peace. For decades, the Jewish state has prayed for peace. And this is why today we're filled with such profound gratitude."
    

"I am grateful to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates and to you, Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed. I thank you both for your wise leadership and for working with the United States and Israel to expand the circle of peace. I am grateful to King Hamad of Bahrain and to you, Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani, for joining us in bringing hope to all the children of Abraham....This is not only a peace between leaders, it's a peace between peoples - Israelis, Emiratis and Bahrainis are already embracing one another."  

(Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Palestinians Fire Rockets at Israel during White House Ceremony

Palestinians in Gaza fired 13 rockets at Israel beginning during the White House ceremony where Israel, the UAE and Bahrain signed agreements to establish diplomatic relations. As the rocket fire continued on Wednesday, 8 of the rockets were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system. In response, the IDF launched 10 air strikes on military targets in Gaza.

(Ynet News)

Peace. Shalom. Salaam - Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan

"Peace. Shalom. Salaam" was written in 2-foot-high letters in three languages on the side of the El Al aircraft that landed in Abu Dhabi two weeks ago. This message elevates opportunity and optimism over conflict and defeatism.
    

Non-Arab countries and a mob of non-state actors exist in a warped axis of perpetual resistance. They advocate one brand or another of extremism. They are nostalgic over lost empires or obsess over a new caliphate. The signing of the peace accord this week is a reminder that all the people of the Middle East are tired of conflict. The priority now is to continue to modernize our societies and to stabilize the broader region.
    

In the Emirates, we are committed to the true tenets of Islam - moderation, inclusion and peace. The Palestinian leadership should use this moment to reorganize its approach and prepare to re-engage in productive discussions. 

The writer is the United Arab Emirates minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation. 

(Wall Street Journal)

Israel Is Too Valuable to Be Treated as a Pariah - Walter Russell Mead

A tipping point seems to have been reached in the Middle East. Resentment of Zionism and sympathy for the Palestinians will no longer be allowed to interfere with what embattled Arab rulers see as a vital relationship. Geopolitically, conservative Arab states have long understood that their interests and Israel's are connected.
    

The more the U.S. withdraws from the region, the greater the value of Israel to the Sunni Arab world. Growing numbers of Arab leaders believe that Israel is the only country with both the will and the means to help the Arab world defend itself from regional threats. Beyond that, Israel is by any measure the most successful state in the Middle East with the most technologically advanced economy in the region.
    

The Arab rapprochement with Israel reflects a sober and serious response to realities that no Arab state can ignore. As a military and intelligence partner, as a diplomatic force multiplier, as a trading partner, as a source of investment and of development expertise, Israel is too valuable to the Arab world to be relegated to the status of a regional pariah. It has earned its place in the Middle East. 

The writer is professor of foreign affairs and the humanities at Bard College. 

(Wall Street Journal)

A Rare Middle East Triumph - Bret Stephens

As consequential as the peace deals between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain is the Arab League's refusal to condemn them. This is bad news for those Palestinian leaders and activists who think that they can somehow restore the status quo ante 1948, when Israel didn't exist.
    

Peace between Israelis and Arabs will not come from the inside out - from a deal between Jerusalem and Ramallah that wins over the rest of the Arab world. Decades of diplomatic failure should put an end to that fantasy. Peace might come from the outside in: from an Arab world that encircles Israel with recognition and partnership rather than enmity, and which thereby shores up Israel's security while moderating Palestinian behavior. 

(New York Times)

The Consequences of the Israel-UAE Peace - Shlomo Ben-Ami

The Middle East is changing, and the Arabs are accepting that Israel is a legitimate strategic player. The Palestinians, the supposed epicenter of the region's worries, have become a disposable cause. The Palestinians must recognize that they have brought this situation on themselves by their serial rejection of peace offers in the past. How could they assume that the Arab states would forever mortgage their national interests to fulfill the Palestinians' implausible expectations? 

The writer, a former Israeli foreign minister, is vice president of the Toledo International Center for Peace. 

(Project Syndicate )

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And this blast from the past:
2016, John Kerry, Obama's Secretary of State

John Kerry 2016

Time for Palestinians to Wave the White Flag

 

The Conflict Is Over - Daniel Pipes, PhD 

In the wake of the exhilarating joint UAE-Israel statement, that old sourpuss, Hanan Ashrawi, emerged from her hole to pronounce that "There is an erroneous assumption that the Palestinians are defeated, and they have to accept the fact of their defeat." No, she insisted, "The Palestinians are willing, generation after generation, to continue their struggle."

Now, some may wonder: Didn't Yasir Arafat long ago accept Israel, was that not the gist of the 1993 Oslo accords, when he recognized "the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security"? No, he only pretended to accept Israel.

The realistic view – now dominant in Israel – holds that Palestinians never reconciled themselves to Israel's existence. To be sure, Palestinians acknowledged their weakness in 1993 by making empty promises. But, as Mrs. Ashrawi reiterates, they never abandoned the goal of eliminating Israel.

Rather, they bided their time, probing for signs of weakness. They seemed to find these in the Oslo accords, Israel's 2000 retreat from Lebanon and 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. Exhilarated, Palestinians ramped up the violence, believing they had a fatigued Israel on the run, that pure revolutionary fervor made up for economic and military weakness, that Muslims would annihilate Jews.

With time, Israelis – and youths far more so than their elders – realized that the hopeful discarding of deterrence in favor of appeasement and then unilateral withdrawal inspired not Palestinian goodwill but dreams of conquest. Israelis finally understood they had failed to perceive the continued Palestinian determination to eliminate the Jewish state; that they had ignored the persistent Palestinian drive for victory.

This hard-earned insight now needs to be translated into a new strategy. But which? Not "price tag" attacks on West Bank Palestinians, foul provocations that discredit Zionism. Not annexing parts of the West Bank, which undermines the integrity of Israel and spurs widespread opposition.

Rather, it is achieved by crushing the Palestinians' persistent anti-Zionist dream, by an Israel victory based on an indominable Israeli will. Palestinian insistence on victory, in other words, compels a parallel Israeli retort. Fortunately for Israel, the Palestinians lack muscle but rely on fumes: religious doctrine, international support, and Israeli timidity.

While naïfs seek yet more useless agreements premised on counterproductive Israeli concessions, we realists scoff and call for Israel to win. We understand that only defeat will convince Palestinians like Mrs. Ashrawi, and through them Iranian, Turkish, Islamist, leftist, fascist, and other anti-Zionists, that the century-plus conflict is over, that Israel has prevailed, and that the time has come to give up on futile, painful, and genocidal ambitions.
[Washington Times]
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Peace is Possible

 

Israel, UAE Agree to Full Normalization of Relations

President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the United Arab Emirates, spoke Thursday and agreed to the full normalization of relations between Israel and the UAE. Delegations will meet in the coming weeks to sign bilateral agreements regarding investment, tourism, direct flights, security, telecommunications, technology, energy, healthcare, culture, the environment, and the establishment of reciprocal embassies.
    

As a result of this diplomatic breakthrough and at the request of President Trump, Israel will suspend declaring sovereignty over areas outlined in the President's Vision for Peace and focus its efforts now on expanding ties with other countries in the Arab and Muslim world. 

(White House)
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Shifting Dynamics of the Mideast Pushed Israel and UAE Together - David M. Halbfinger and Ronen Bergman

At least since 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been insisting, against conventional wisdom, that Israel could build full diplomatic and trade relationships with Arab countries in the Middle East without settling the Palestinian conflict first. When he sealed a deal to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates this week, what had changed was the dynamics of the region.  

(New York Times)
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Notion of Middle East Peace Has Shifted - Anne Gearan and Souad Mekhennet

The surprise U.S.-brokered agreement last week to establish normal ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates was a powerful example of how the very notion of Middle East peace has shifted. Arab states are increasingly willing to leave aside the Palestinian question to seek a variety of relationships with Israel, the region's dominant military force and economic powerhouse.

(Washington Post)

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Some Arab Leaders Don't Want to Be Held Back by Palestinian Rejectionism - Robin Wright

After decades of dominating and defining tensions across the Middle East, the Palestinians are no longer a pressing priority; they also seem increasingly irrelevant to the region's trendlines. Their brethren are abandoning them. "The conflict is decidedly less important to leaders in the region," Natan Sachs, the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, told me.

(New Yorker)

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UAE Deal Gives Israel Long Overdue Legitimacy - Dave Sharma

The announcement that the United Arab Emirates and Israel will establish diplomatic ties and normalize relations is hugely significant for the Middle East. Though it has taken decades longer than it should have, Israel is finally becoming accepted as a legitimate stakeholder in the Middle East and part of the regional furniture.
    

Building ties between the two most economically dynamic parts of the Middle East will provide big commercial and trade opportunities. Direct flights and access between Israel and the UAE will link Israel's technological prowess with the financial, logistics and investment hub of the region. 

The writer, a former ambassador to Israel, is a member of the Australian Parliament. 

(Sydney Morning Herald-Australia)

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Israel-UAE Deal Is Win-Win-Win, Palestinians Included - Ghaith Al-Omari 

Israel and the UAE should be commended for this courageous act. The international community needs to capitalize on its momentum, and Arab and international friends of the Palestinians need to urge them to use this opening to explore ways of resuming Palestinian-Israeli talks within a wider regional context.

The writer, a senior fellow in The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, was an advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team in 1999-2006.

(NBC News)

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The New Woke Religion & Israel

Israel Was Ground Zero for the New Woke Religion

• Upon gaining admission to the tribe of Western journalists in Jerusalem in 2006, I found that it wasn't enough - or necessary - to be knowledgeable about the region or to speak its languages. 
• The important thing was adopting a creed, one that is widely familiar now. This outlook included a dim view of America; a healthy respect for fervent Islam; the belief that while groups like Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood might sometimes go too far, they do have a point; and the idea that the world would probably be improved if Jewish sovereignty could somehow be reduced to 0% from the current high of 0.01%.
• The news narrative in Israel was constructed with tricks of storytelling and framing: pretending the Palestinian national movement merely wants a state beside Israel; dismissing Israeli attempts to solve the conflict on reasonable terms; erasing the actions of Israel's opponents so Israel's own actions and fears seem irrational or duplicitous; and suggesting the Jewish instinct for self-preservation in the Middle East is "right wing" while the Islamist war against Jews or the Iranian drive for regional hegemony are somehow about "human rights."
• In many ways Israel was patient zero of the "cancel culture." Israel was transformed from a real country into something so dangerous and disruptive to the desired order that it had to be canceled - an aspiration that is now aired in the press as if it were completely rational.

The writer is a former journalist for AP in Jerusalem

(Tablet) 

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"Mysterious" Iran Hits

i24's analysis of recent Iran hits 

IDF Quandary: Generals Have Become Police Chiefs

Dr. Daniel Pipes has pressed for policy that moves Israel to victory.

Explaining Israel's Timid Security Establishment - Dr. Daniel Pipes 

We who argue for Israel Victory watched with dismay as Qatar's government threatens Israel with ending its financial donations to Gaza, insinuating that Hamas will resume its incendiary balloon attacks. Where, we wonder, are those extraordinary armed forces that defeated three states in six days, pulled off the Entebbe raid, and heisted Iran's nuclear archive?

Israel's security establishment, it turns out, has a Doppelgänger [a double], an uncelebrated, defensive, reticent counterpart that emerged after the 1993 Oslo accords to deal with West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, the one that needed 50 days to end a minor military operation in 2014 and cannot stop burning balloons coming out of Gaza. The classic IDF seeks to win but the Palestinian one just wants calm.

What accounts for its timidity? 

Einat Wilf explains, the IDF encourages Qatari funds going to Gaza because it thinks that this buys it calm: "It will do anything possible to ensure that the funds keep flowing, even if that means that the calm is purchased at the cost of a war that will go on for decades."

Just as police see criminals as incorrigible troublemakers, so wizened Israeli security chiefs view Palestinians as irredeemable adversaries and reject the idea that these adversaries can learn a lesson; can lions reform hyenas? Security types oppose a tough approach because they want to avoid troubles. This outlook may make them sound like leftists, but they are not; long and bitter experience, not misty idealism, explains their reticence.

Israeli security services do not want again to rule directly over the West Bank or Gaza; fearing a collapse of the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Hamas, they treat these deferentially. They see the PA under Mahmoud Abbas, for all its deficiencies, as a useful security partner. True, it incites murder domestically and delegitimizes the State of Israel internationally, but better to endure these aggressions than to punish Abbas, induce his downfall, and re-live the nightmare of walking the streets of Nablus. So, he gets away with literal murder.

A combination of Palestinian military weakness and intense international scrutiny has caused Israel's security establishment to see Palestinians more like criminals than soldiers; dealing with them has morphed the IDF into a police force, with a defensive mentality viewing stability as a goal in itself. Generals do not enter battle with the goal of saving the lives of their soldiers; but police chiefs want the struggle with criminals to break no laws and leave no one harmed. Generals seek victory, police chiefs seek quiet.

Resolution of the Palestinian problem requires an end to the split in Israel's defense establishment and the return to a unitary force dedicated to winning, to convincing the Palestinians that the conflict is over, they lost, and they should abandon their war goals.

[Israel Hayom]

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Understanding Jordan

Jordan's king and [Palestinian] queen

Jordan Fears the Palestinians - Dr. Dan Schueftan

The Palestinian national movement is the most dangerous enemy of the Hashemite regime in Jordan. 

The Palestinians are eyeing not only Jaffa and Haifa, but also Amman [the capital of Jordan]. If an independent Palestinian state is founded in the West Bank, it will first channel its subversion efforts towards Jordan, a majority of whose residents are Palestinian. If and when it succeeds in overthrowing the Hashemite regime and linking up to radical Arab and Iranian elements in the region, it will be easier for the Palestinians to fight Israel more effectively.
    
Whoever thinks that Palestinians will suffice with a small and backward state between Jenin and Jericho is pathologically addicted to self-deception. They are ignorant of one hundred years of Palestinian political culture.
    
The current situation is the most comfortable for Jordan. Israeli control prevents Hamas from taking over the West Bank, and the Israeli buffer in the Jordan Valley prevents uncontrolled contact between the Palestinians and Jordan. The Jordanians have an interest in lasting Israeli control in the Jordan Valley, with or without sovereignty. 
The writer is head of the International Graduate Program in National Security Studies at the University of Haifa. 
(Israel Hayom)
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Nine Decades of Arab Rejectionism

Jewish Agency poster 1930's

Israel Is Not the Obstacle to the Two-State Solution - Melanie Phillips

It is the Palestinians who have destroyed the possibility of a Palestinian state. Offered it repeatedly from the 1930s onwards, they have refused it every time. Nine decades of the Palestinians rejecting the two-state solution might possibly mean that the Jews aren't the obstacle.

The claim that the restoration of Jewish sovereignty over parts of the West Bank would destroy the possibility of a Palestinian state is untrue. Every serious Middle East peace plan has accepted the eventual incorporation into Israel of the major settlement blocs to safeguard its security.

Opposition to the "annexation" is driven by the belief that Israel illegally occupies these territories. But this is untrue. As several legal experts have pointed out over the years, the Jews are the only people to have a legal and moral right to this land. In 1922, the international community gave them the never-abrogated right to settle what is now Israel and the disputed territories. Restoring Israeli sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria will therefore actually correct a historic act of illegality. And it will help protect Israel against its existential enemies. 
The writer is a columnist for The Times of London. 
(JNS-Israel Hayom)
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"The Old Arab Order is Gone!"

Where Is the Arab Bloc that Championed the Palestinian Cause?
- Jonathan Spyer

The U.S. peace plan won't bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but it may expose deeper processes of change underway in the Middle East. Both the Palestinian cause and the broader Arab political bloc that long championed it are in disarray, while the Palestinians are divided geographically.
    
Viewing the power edifice that stood behind the Palestinian cause, Saddam Hussein's Iraq is a distant memory. Bashar Assad presides over rubble in Syria. Moammar Gadhafi's Libya is broken up. Egypt is Israel's strategic partner, enforcing its own partial blockade of Gaza.
    
It has fallen to Iran and Turkey to continue the Palestinian fight. 

That non-Arab states must take up the Arab world's traditional banner of the Palestinian cause confirms that the old Arab order is gone. 
The writer is director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis. 
(Wall Street Journal)
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How Can You "Occupy" Your Own Land?

The UN Should Be Ashamed of Itself - Stephen Daisley 

• Jerusalem is Israel's capital; before that it was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Judah. However hard the UN strives to erase the Jewish character of the city, its historical record isn't going anywhere. When Israel captured Judea and Samaria in 1967, they did so not from any state called Palestine (no such state has ever existed), but from Jordan, whose annexation was almost universally unrecognized - it was an illegal occupation - and prior to this these lands had been part of Mandatory Palestine.
• Mandatory Palestine was created by the League of Nations to "secure the establishment of the Jewish national home." The Israelis have many innovations to their name, but perhaps their greatest feat is being the first nation-state in history to "illegally occupy" their own territory.
• The people the UN harms when it works to isolate and delegitimize Israel are the Palestinians. It tells them that their long, painful campaign of national self-harm is just and holds out false hope that it will one day triumph. It won't.
• The priority of anyone who professes to be pro-Palestinian should be convincing the Palestinians to recognize that Israel is here to stay and, on that basis, finally accept offers of peace and statehood.

(Spectator-UK)
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