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Peace between Israel and the UAE Shows That Time Is Not on the Palestinians’ Side

Aug. 14 2020

Since gaining independence in 1971, the United Arab Emirates, like other Arab nations, has not had formal relations with Israel. Yesterday, President Trump announced that Israel and this small, wealthy country will establish complete diplomatic ties, including bilateral economic treaties, tourism, and direct flights. In exchange, Jerusalem has dropped its plans to extend its sovereignty to parts of the West Bank. Shmuel Rosner comments:

Israel gained good relations with an Arab country. And by gaining it, it sends a message that cannot be lost on other countries: normalization is here, and those refusing to join in will be left behind. More specifically Israel, proves the point that time is on its side. It proves the point, made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu many years ago, that resolving the Palestinian issue is not the key to Middle East peace, or to normalizing relations with the Arab world.

Strategically speaking, it is a crucial message. Especially for those still stuck on the notion that the road to Baghdad goes through Ramallah, or some other version of this old, outdated notion. Netanyahu proved his critics wrong. He does not move forward with resolving the Palestinian conflict and yet, he advances Israel’s relations with the Arab world.

[But] the real addressees of this message are not Israelis. They’re the Palestinians. The message to them is: compromise or lose. It is a message to Arab states: what are you waiting for? It is a message to Iran: the coalition against your ambitions is being shaped. It is a message to the world: “If you want peace, here is one way to get it. It’s not the way you envisioned it and failed to implement it. It’s a way that may actually work.”

Read more at Jewish Journal

More about: Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Israel diplomacy, Israel-Arab relations, United Arab Emirates

The Summary: 10/7/20

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.

Read more at Mosaic