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Make the Palestinian Issue Central Again?

According to a November 12, 2020 OpEd by Nabil Amr, a confidant of Mahmoud Abbas, published by the leading Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat : “Ballots with Biden’s name would have filled the boxes if placed in Ramallah…. [The Palestinian Authority] bets are that Biden’s victory [will] resume ties with the US Administration, pumping money into the Palestinian Authority’s virtually empty coffers, reopening the PLO’s Washington Office and the US Consulate in Jerusalem, tasked with dealing with Palestinian affairs…. The new Administration will also go back to talking about the two-state solution and repudiate unilateral actions like annexation…. Trump’s Administration took a totally different path….”

However, the “Palestine Firsters” among the future policy makers in Washington, DC, are infatuated with the Palestinian cause, assuming that the Palestinian issue is central to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the overall Arab agenda.  They have ignored the fact that Arabs viewed Palestinians as the role model for intra-Arab terrorism, subversion and ingratitude, a low level (and negative) priority on their agenda.

The “Palestine Firsters” should study the two hour October 5, 2020 TV interview by Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a senior member of the Saudi royal family and a former head of the Saudi intelligence services and national security council:

“It is not surprising to see how quick are Palestinian leaders [criticizing the Israel-UAE peace accord] to use terms like ‘treason,’ betrayal’ and ‘backstabbing.’  These are their ways in dealing with each other…. They always bet on the losing side.  In the 1930s, [the top Palestinian leader] Amin al-Husseini was betting on the Nazis in Germany…. [Following WW2, the Palestinians embraced the USSR]…. [In 1970], Arafat’s headquarters were in Jordan, and he decided that it was time to liberate not Palestine, but Jordan [through a bloody civil war]…. They had only been in Lebanon a few years when they began to behave as they did in Jordan, and Lebanon became the new target.  It led to a [1975-1982] civil war…. No one can forget the image of Arafat as he visited Saddam Hussein in 1990, after the occupation of Kuwait [which was the most generous Arab host of the Palestinians]…. We saw Arafat in Baghdad, embracing Saddam, and laughing and joking with him…. We saw [Palestinian] youth in Nablus dancing joyfully in celebration of [Saddam’s] missile attack on Riyadh, holding pictures of Saddam…. We are at a stage in which rather than…serve the Palestinian cause, we have to pay attention to our national security and interests…. We are surrounded by a stormy sea [Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and Turkey’s Erdogan]…. We do not allow [Palestinian] liars and those who are disloyal to impose their tradition on us…. The Palestinian leaders have come to regard Tehran and Ankara higher than they regard Riyadh, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain, Oman and Egypt….”

Contrary to the “Palestine Firsters'” state of mind, Saudi cooperation with Israel – commercially, militarily and diplomatically – has expanded unprecedentedly, notwithstanding Palestinian condemnations, pressure and threats.  Moreover, Saudi Arabia has been a chief engine behind the UAE’s, Bahrain’s and Sudan’s peace accords with Israel, which have bypassed the Palestinian issue, focusing on “what’s in it for the Arabs” in their cooperation with Israel.

The “Palestine Firsters'” litany of peace initiatives were crashed against the rocks of Middle East reality, due to their erroneous assumptions that the Palestinian issue was a core cause of Middle East turbulence, the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and that the Arabs favored the establishment of a Palestinian state.

They sacrificed Middle East reality on the altar of a supposed Palestinian centrality. On the other hand, overcoming the temptation of such an overly simplistic assessment of the Palestinian issue yielded the successful conclusion of Israel’s peace treaties with Arab countries (Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan).

Thus, the farther are peace initiatives from the trap (veto) of the Palestinian issue, the closer they are to expanding the number of Israel-Arab peace treaties.

Moreover, the more relevant is the peace initiative to the particular Arab interest – where the threats of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and Turkey, and the need to diversify the oil-based economy, dwarf the Palestinian issue – the stronger the incentive for the Arabs to conclude peace treaties with Israel.

The Palestinian track record has led all pro-US, moderate Arab regimes to conclude that the proposed Palestinian state would add fuel to the Middle East fire, while Israel’s track record has played a key role in minimizing Middle East turbulence.

On October 2, 2020, Ambassador Dennis Ross – a veteran “Palestine Firster” – was asked by an i24News interviewer: “For years you were working on the assumption that peace between Israel and the Palestinians was the key, the only key, to peace between Israel and Arab countries.  A few weeks ago, this assumption was shattered by the signing of peace treaties between Israel and the UAE and Israeli and Bahrain.  Have you been wrong all these years?!”

Most “Palestine Firsters” would agree that Israel’s posture of deterrence is a bulwark against Iran’s Ayatollahs and Sunni Islamic terrorism, bolstering the stability of the highly vulnerable and relatively-moderate pro-Western Arab regimes, and therefore, incentivizing Arabs to conclude peace treaties with Israel.

However, such an assessment, on the one hand, and the urging of Israel to retreat to a 9-15-mile waistline between the Mediterranean and the over-powering mountains of Judea and Samaria – which would obliterate Israel’s posture of deterrence – on the other hand, constitutes a classic oxymoron.

Donation Appreciated

 




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US-sponsored anti-Israel UN Security Council statement – acumen

*The US’ co-sponsorship of an anti-Israel UN Security Council Statement reflects the return of the State Department’s worldview to the center stage of US foreign policy-making. This was the first time, in six years, that the US enabled the UN Security Council to act against Israel.

*This is not merely a worldview, which is highly critical of Israel, as has been the case since 1948, when Foggy Bottom led the charge against the re-establishment of the Jewish State.

This worldview has systematically undermined US interests, by subordinating the unilateral, independent US national security policy (on Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian issue, etc.) to a multilateral common denominator with the anti-US and anti-Israel UN and international organizations, as well as the vacillating and terrorists-appeasing Europe.

*It has sacrificed Middle East reality on the altar of wishful-thinking, assuming that the establishment of a Palestinian state would fulfill Palestinian aspirations, advance the cause of peace, reduce terrorism and regional instability; thus, enhancing US interests.

*However, the reality of the Middle East and Jordan and the rogue Palestinian track record lend credence to the assumption that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, yielding traumatic ripple effects, regionally and globally:

^Replace the relatively-moderate Hashemite regime with either a rogue Palestinian regime, a Muslim Brotherhood regime, or other rogue regimes;
^Transform Jordan into a chaotic state, similar to Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, which would be leveraged by Iran’s Ayatollahs to intensify their encirclement of the pro-US Saudi regime;
^Convert Jordan into a major arena of regional and global Islamic terrorism;
^Trigger a domino scenario into the Arabian Peninsula, which could topple all pro-US, oil-producing Arab regimes;
^Imperil the supply of Persian Gulf oil, which would be held hostage by anti-US entities, catapulting the price at the pump;
^Jeopardize major naval routes of global trade between Asia and Europe through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal;
^Intensify epicenters of regional and global terrorism and drug trafficking;
^Generate a robust tailwind to US’ adversaries (Russia and China) and enemies (Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS) and a powerful headwind to US economic and national security interests.

*The State Department assumes that Palestinian terrorism – just like Islamic terrorism – is driven by despair, ignoring the fact that Palestinian terrorism has been driven (for the last 100 years) by the vision to erase the “infidel” Jewish entity from “the abode of Islam,” as stated by the charters of Fatah (1959) and the PLO (1964), 8 and 3 years before the Jewish State reunited Jerusalem and reasserted itself in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).

*Aspiring for a Palestinian state, and viewing Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria as an obstacle to peace, ignores the Arab view of the Palestinians as a role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism, corruption and treachery. Moreover, the State Department has held the view that the Palestinian issue is the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a central to Arab interests, which has been refuted by the Abraham Accords. The latter ignored the State Department, sidestepped the Palestinian issue and therefore came to fruition.

*The State Department overlooks the centrality of the Palestinian Authority’s hate education, which has become the most effective production-line of terrorists, and the most authentic reflection of the Palestinian Authority’s worldview and vision.

*The State Department has also taken lightly the Palestinian Authority’s mosque incitement, public glorification of terrorists and monthly allowances to families of terrorists, which have documented its rogue and terroristic nature (walk), notwithstanding its peaceful diplomatic rhetoric (talk).

*The State Department’s eagerness to welcome the Palestinian issue in a “red carpet” manner – contrary to the “shabby doormat” extended to Palestinians by Arabs – and its determination to promote the establishment of a Palestinian state, along with its embrace of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood, have been interpreted by rogue regimes and organizations as weakness.

Experience suggests that weakness invites the wolves, including wolves which aim to bring “The Great Satan” to submission throughout the world as well as the US mainland.

Support Appreciated

 




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Exposing the myth of the Arab demographic time bomb