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Huffington post.....
CAIRO — Lebanon’s recently elected president Michel Aoun on Sunday blamed Israel for the need to support the Iranian-backed Shiite terror group Hezbollah in “a complementary role to the Lebanese army.”
“As long as the Lebanese army is not strong enough to battle Israel … we feel the need for its existence,” Aoun told the Egyptian TV network CBC.
Hezbollah’s militia is a force that rivals Lebanon’s army and police. Aoun, whose Christian party is allied with Hezbollah, said earlier that Iran’s support for the group “could continue indefinitely.”
The United Nations on Monday responded to Aoun’s remarks by warning that Resolution 1701, reached as part of a ceasefire deal after the 2006 war between Israel and the terror group, prohibits the country from being allowed to field its own militia.
“UN resolution 1701 is vital for Lebanon’s stability and security,” UN Coordinator Sigird Kaag said in a tweet.”The resolution calls for disarmament of all armed groups. No arms outside control of state.”
On Sunday, The Times of Israel reported that Israeli officials believe Hezbollah and Lebanese troops are cooperating near the border with Israel, in contravention of UNSCR 1701.
Aoun, who was elected president in October after a 29-month political stalemate, arrived in Egypt on Monday for the first time in 55 years.
After talks with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, also a former career military officer, he called upon Egypt to lead an “Arab salvation plan” to combat terrorism in the region.
Aoun also invited Sissi to visit Lebanon and said that Egypt has offered to support the Lebanese army and the country’s security forces, without elaborating further.
Lebanon’s political factions are deeply divided with some, like Aoun’s party and Hezbollah, aligning with Iran, while their opponents side with Saudi Arabia.
Aoun’s remarks about Hezbollah could spark tension with Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival. The two countries have been engaged in proxy wars across the region for years.
Supporters of Lebanon’s Free Patriotic Movement celebrate the election of their leader Michel Aoun in the town of Jdeideh, north of Beirut, on October 31, 2016.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are at odds over conflicting agendas, including Syria and Yemen. In October, the Saudis halted oil shipments to Cairo, at a time when Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation, is in deep economic crisis.
The Saudi move appears to have been in response to Egypt’s support of a UN Security Council resolution on Syria that was fiercely opposed by Riyadh. Saudi Arabia backs Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad. Egypt, fearing the rise of Islamic militants, has pushed for a political solution that might keep Assad in power.
Aoun visited Saudi Arabia last month in an attempt to restore relations, which deteriorated after Riyadh accused Beirut of failing to condemn the 2016 attacks on Saudi missions in Iran after the kingdom’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.
Iranians hold portraits of Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei (L), Bahraini Shiite cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim (C) and the founder of the Islamic republic Ayatollah Khomeini (R) during an anti-Saudi demonstration in Tehran on September 9, 2016.
In retaliation, Saudi Arabia halted a $3 billion arms deal and banned Saudis and other Gulf nationals from traveling to Lebanon.
After Aoun’s visit, the ban on travelers was lifted but the arms deal remains on pause. A senior Lebanese official told The Associated Press at the time that the Saudis have conditions to unblock the military aid to Lebanon, suggesting that the arms must not end up in the hands of Hezbollah, which the Saudis view as a terrorist organization.
Israel will never relinquish security control of the entirety of the West Bank, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on Sunday.
Netanyahu was answering Bishop, who had asked him what he meant when he spoke of supporting a “Palestinian state,” according to a report by Israel Radio about the meeting between the two.
According to a source close to the prime minister, Netanyahu told Bishop that Israel’s insistence on security control stemmed from the failures of international forces to protect the country from past acts of aggression by its neighbors.
The source spoke during a briefing Sunday for Israeli reporters accompanying Netanyahu on a state visit to Australia, the first for a serving Israeli prime minister.
The visit was “wonderful,” Netanyahu said Sunday just before he boarded the plane for the long flight back to Israel.
During the five-day trip that ended Sunday, Netanyahu met with multiple national leaders, including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and opposition leader Bill Shorten.
Besides agreements on business and travel links between the two countries, the conflict with the Palestinians arose in each meeting, and Netanyahu’s travels in Sydney were greeted on occasion by pro-Palestinian protesters.
On Friday, after meeting Netanyahu, Shorten said he raised his Labor Party’s concerns about Israel’s settlements with the prime minister.
The pair talked for almost an hour in Sydney, after which Shorten and three Labor colleagues reiterated the center-left party’s support for a two-state solution.
“We want to see Israel safe and secure of its borders; we support the rights of the Palestinian people to have their own state,” Shorten told reporters after the meeting.
“We expressed the view very clearly and unambiguously that where settlements and their expansion are a road block to peace, that’s damaging to the peace process,” he said.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office said the two “discussed diplomatic and regional issues such as Iran, Syria and the Palestinians,” without elaborating. It said the prime minister “stressed the problematic nature of the nuclear agreement with Iran, Iran’s regional aggression and its expansionist aspirations.”
“MP Shorten emphasized the bipartisan nature of admiration for Israel in Australia and reiterated his support for Israel,” it added.
Labor elders frustrated by the lack of progress in finding a two-party solution have called on the party to adopt a policy of recognizing the state of Palestine.
Former Labor prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Bob Hawke, as well as former foreign ministers Gareth Evans and Bob Carr, want Australia to join 137 countries in giving diplomatic recognition to an independent Palestine.
On his first day in Australia on Wednesday, Netanyahu challenged Rudd and Hawke to explain whether they would support a Palestinian state that did not recognize Israel’s right to exist.
“I ask both former prime ministers to ask a simple question: What kind of state will it be that they are advocating? A state that calls for Israel’s destruction? A state whose territory will be used immediately for radical Islam?” Netanyahu said.
Rudd, who was prime minister until a conservative coalition was elected in 2013, replied that the boundaries, internal security, external security, public finance and governance of a Palestinian state have been elaborated in detail in multiple negotiations with US administrations.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also supports a two-state solution, but said the Palestinians must also be prepared to come to the negotiating table.
Netanyahu omitted a reference to the two-state solution in a joint declaration Thursday with his Australian counterpart.
About 1,000 pro-Palestinian protesters gathered at Sydney’s Town Hall on Thursday night and complained that Netanyahu was being treated like a celebrity in Australia when he should be tried for war crimes.
Netanyahu met political, business and Jewish community leaders during his stay. He was accompanied by a large security contingent as he traveled around Sydney.
Netanyahu has been to Australia twice before but never as prime minister.
JERUSALEM — Political leaders are often selective with the information they choose to share with the public. For Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that means choosing to conceal what he knows about the true position of the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, on Israel as a “Jewish state.”
As he stood next to President Trump at a news conference in Washington on Feb. 15, Mr. Netanyahu cited two prerequisites for achieving peace with the Palestinians: Under any deal, Israel must maintain full security control west of the Jordan River; and Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state. But Mr. Abbas already made this recognition of Israel’s Jewish character — more than two decades ago.
In an interview with the London-based daily newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat in 1994, Mr. Abbas argued that the Jewish presence in Palestine was fundamentally different from any other Western colonization. Contradicting the Arab view of Jews as purely a religious group rather than also a national one, Mr. Abbas acknowledged that what motivated Jews to immigrate to Israel was a mixture of religious and national aspirations.
“Due to various causes, they have managed to establish a Jewish state in Palestine,” he said. “Most of its inhabitants were born in the state. This is a painful truth that many refuse to understand.”
Mr. Abbas’s loaded language of “national struggle” masks a surprising truth: He is the only Arab leader to publicly acknowledge Israel’s Jewish character and tacitly validate its claim to nationhood in a hostile political climate that generally likens Israeli Jews to Crusader invaders.
Mr. Abbas today faces grave political challenges. A recent poll found that nearly two-thirds of respondents wanted him to resign from office, up from 61 percent three months earlier. His Arab critics assail him as a traitor on an almost daily basis. Despite this, that landmark interview was printed in Ramallah as a booklet in 2011 and uploaded to the presidential website; he has never disavowed it.
Some might say that Mr. Abbas accepts Israel’s Jewishness only as a fait accompli, not as a matter of historic right. But for the purposes of a peace deal, what difference does that make?
Fears on the Israeli right that Palestinians would use a nonrecognition of the Jewish state to swamp Israel with Palestinian immigrants and change the demographic balance are unfounded. Not only is Israeli security built on maintaining control of its borders, but Mr. Abbas has explicitly ruled out such a strategy. In a 2012 Israeli TV interview, Mr. Abbas renounced the unlimited return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, himself included, to Israel proper.
“It’s my right to see it, but not to live there,” he said of his native city of Safed, which he left as a 13-year-old child during the war of 1948. Asked whether he considered Safed part of Palestine, Mr. Abbas replied that for him Palestine means the territory beyond the 1967 lines, including East Jerusalem, “now and forever.”
Since all this is so, why does Mr. Abbas now decline to restate his recognition of Israel as a Jewish state?
First, neither Egypt nor Jordan, the only two Arab states to have signed peace deals with Israel, were ever asked to do so. Demanding this of Mr. Abbas, now one of the weakest and least popular leaders in the region, is unfair and unjustified. Israel’s national character is its own business; it doesn’t require Palestinian validation.
There is a darker reason Mr. Abbas often cites. In Israel’s current political climate, recognizing Israel’s Jewishness could compromise the civil standing of Israel’s Arab citizens, who largely view their national identity as Palestinian. In July, Israel’s Parliament passed legislation enabling a majority of lawmakers to remove a fellow member for inciting violence or terrorism. The Association for Civil Rights has warned that this law could be used to silence and exclude Arab deputies.
In the 2015 election campaign, the defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, proposed redrawing Israel’s borders to exclude Israeli Arab towns, pushing for their incorporation into a future Palestinian state. He has continued to press this theme.
“I want to disengage from all the Palestinians living here, within the 1967 lines,” he told Israel’s “Meet the Press” recently.
“If you’re Palestinians, go to Abu Mazen and become citizens of the Palestinian Authority,” he went on, using Mr. Abbas’s Arabic nickname. “Let him pay your unemployment, health benefits and maternity leave.”
In this hostile atmosphere, concerns about the future of Arab Israelis who choose not to relocate to “Palestine” are legitimate.
By contrast, it should be noted that President Abbas does not support a Palestinian state where no Jews can live — contrary to claims made by Mr. Netanyahu. In a 1995 peace proposal devised with the Israeli politician Yossi Beilin (published days before the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and therefore never developed), Mr. Abbas outlined proposals for Jewish citizens in a Palestinian state: Jews would be allowed to remain in communities open to Palestinians, unlike current settlements, as Palestinian citizens; or, if they so chose, they could remain as resident aliens who maintained Israeli citizenship.
Again, embracing Jews as citizens is not new for Mr. Abbas. Back in 1977, he blasted the Arab world for turning against its Jewish citizens following the creation of Israel in 1948, forcing them to migrate to Israel. “The Arab regimes’ treatment of Jewish citizens is as regrettable as it is painful. It cannot be described as anything but an embarrassment and a travesty,” Mr. Abbas wrote in his book “Zionism: Beginning and End.”
Mr. Netanyahu can continue to use “Jewish state” recognition as a way to derail talks, enabling him to attack a straw man of Palestinian intransigence. Or he can highlight Mr. Abbas’s stated positions, restore good faith on both sides and empower the international community to improve peace efforts. That is the political choice for Israel’s prime minister to make.
Two very different dialogue proposals are on the table for the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, one from a historic enemy, Israel, proposed in conjunction with a crucial partner, the United States. The other is from a historic rival, Iran, which shares the same neighborhood and faith.
The choice the Arab countries ultimately make could determine the future peace and prosperity of the region.
On February 15, President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House and during a press conference, both leaders hinted at an approaching Arab-Israeli cooperation.
A few days later, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reiterated Iran’s previously proposed regional platform for dialogue between the Islamic Republic and its Persian Gulf neighbors during a speech at the Munich Security Conference.
The U.S.-Israel proposal encompasses almost all Arab States, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as Egypt, Jordan and possibly Lebanon and Tunisia.
This proposal’s principal objective is a wider Arab-Israeli peace agreement and an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, the key selling point behind this initiative is mutual concerns regarding Iran, and the proposal has a goal to present a unified front against the Islamic Republic.
Netanyahu stated during the press conference that “for the first time in my lifetime, and for the first time in the life of my country, Arab countries in the region do not see Israel as an enemy, but, increasingly, as an ally.” He further stated that “the great opportunity for peace comes from a regional approach involving our newfound Arab partners in the pursuit of a broader peace with the Palestinians.”
While there has been no official confirmation of backchannel talks between Israel and the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, Trump and Netanyahu’s statements indicate that previous reports alleging secret direct interactions between high-level Israeli and GCC officials have indeed taken place in the past six yearsif not longer.
The perception left by the Barack Obama administration, that the United States is leaving the region and that an increasingly emboldened Iran is exerting power across the Middle East after the implementation of the 2015 nuclear agreement, has revived longstanding hostilities between Arabs and Persians, and presented an opening to realize mutual interests and foster cooperation between Arabs and Israelis.
Israel has long seen Iran as its major adversary because of Iran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah as well as Iran’s ballistic missile program and nuclear advances.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia along with its GCC partners were alarmed when Iran took advantage of the US invasion of Iraq to become influential in Baghdad. The GCC states also grew intolerant of Iran’s perceived links to the uprisings in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province as well as Iran’s support for the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and for the Houthis in Yemen.
At the Munich conference, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman quoted without naming him an old remark by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis that “in the Middle East we are facing three challenges: Iran, Iran and Iran...and I can only repeat and confirm this approach.” Lieberman reiterated that Israel would continue efforts to hinder the Islamic Republic’s reintegration into the international community in the aftermath of the nuclear agreement.
Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir also reaffirmed his country’s objections to Iranian actions across the region. “The Iranians do not believe in the principle of good neighborliness or non-interference in the affairs of others,” Jubeir told the Munich conference. “This is manifested in their interference in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan.”
While the prospect for Iran-Saudi détente looks dim at present, it is crucial to remember that the future of Palestine is an issue that not only unites Iran and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, but all people in the Muslim world. The outlook for the US-Israeli proposal to solve the Palestinian issue is unclear and most likely not possible to be implemented.
If the United States goes forward with plans to move the US Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, or gives a carte blanche for further Israeli settlements in the West Bank, while abandoning the goal of a two-state solution, there will be no domestic support for Arab rapprochement with Israel.
Countering the US-Israeli proposal, Zarif reiterated the Islamic Republic’s proposition for creation of a regional platform for dialogue between Iran and its Persian Gulf neighbors, or as he called them “brothers.”
“Countries in the Persian Gulf region need to surmount the current state of division and tension and instead move in the direction erecting realistic regional arrangements,” Zarif told the Munich conference. To implement this proposal, he said it must start with a regional dialogue forum that encompasses the littoral neighbors of the Persian Gulf, and under the framework of shared principles and objectives.
The primary goal of Iran’s proposal is to decrease tensions and increase cooperation between neighbors.
“The forum can promote understanding under a broad spectrum of issues, including confidence and security building measures, and combating terrorism, extremism, and sectarianism,” Zarif said. “It could also encourage practical cooperation in areas ranging from the protection of the environment to join investments and tourism. Such a forum could eventually develop into a more formal non-aggression and security cooperation arrangements.”
This proposal is not new. Zarif put it forward shortly after finalizing the nuclear deal in an article on Al-Monitor titled “Choose your neighbors before your house,” and traveled to Qatar and Kuwait shortly afterward.
More recently, on January 24, the foreign minister of Kuwait met with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani to deliver a letter on behalf of the GCC. While the details of the letter have not been made public, Rouhani followed with state visits to Oman and Kuwait on February 15, coincidentally the same day Trump and Netanyahu held talks.
Oman and Kuwait, which historically have had less troubled relations with Iran than other GCC members, have indicated a desire to take part in the dialogue forum with Iran, and have repeatedly attempted to mediate tensions between the Islamic Republic and Saudi Arabia.
The disagreements between rival powers should not preclude comprehensive and inclusive arrangements that address mutual concerns, and that benefit all participating countries. The Iranian proposal will ensure a sustainable relationship between neighboring states based on mutual respect, and eventually, the cooperation could facilitate an end to the civil wars in Yemen and Syria.
The Israeli proposal might lead to a wider peace agreement between Arab states and Israel. However, it will most definitely exacerbate tensions with Iran and increase the chances of a wider military conflict.
There has been no substantial conflict between the Arab States of the Persian Gulf and Israel in the past decade or more, and while a wider Arab-Israeli peace would undoubtedly have a positive impact in the region, it is contingent on a Palestinian-Israeli agreement.
Meanwhile, the rise in contention between some GCC states and Iran in the past decade has arguably had more dire consequences for the region than the absence of Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Agreeing to sit at the same table with Iran for dialogue based on a mutually acceptable and beneficial outlook will lead to greater peace in the region and beyond. It is crucial for the Arab states of the Persian Gulf to weigh the rewards and consequences of each proposal before going forward with either approach.
Interesting article, thanks for sharing. I also read the article that's linked by the Iranian official that proposed the forum for cooperation. The guy is basically making a regional pan-Islamist proposal for cooperation. Its almost crazy enough to work!Arab Nations Face Stark Choice: Israel or Iran
By Mehran Haghirian
3/3/17
Deputy Crown Prince, Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Muhammad bin Salman Al Saud of Saudi arrive at the Hangzhou Exhibition Center to participate in the G20 Summit on September 4, 2016, in Hangzhou, China. Mehran Haghirian writes that if the United States goes forward with plans to move the U.S. Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, or gives a carte blanche for further Israeli settlements in the West Bank, while abandoning the goal of a two-state solution, there will be no domestic support for Arab rapprochement with Israel.
Two very different dialogue proposals are on the table for the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, one from a historic enemy, Israel, proposed in conjunction with a crucial partner, the United States. The other is from a historic rival, Iran, which shares the same neighborhood and faith.
I also wonder if the highlighted bit is a passive aggressive dig at the West. If so I say good if the Iranians want to solve these issues within the region. Let's start with the refugee crisis and the civil wars in Yemen and Syria and see if they can move from there.In conclusion, we, the countries of the region and the Middle East, have many common denominators in terms of religion, culture, politics and geography. We have what it takes to build constructive and useful cooperation for our people and the people of the world. We face several challenges and our path is fraught with dangers; therefore, we should not let ourselves get carried away with sectarian and personal disputes. Instead, we ought to be courageous and patient and be insightful to achieve such a vital cooperation and collaboration so as to root out crises in our region. We should not bank on those who created the crises in the first place to solve them.
It is our only chance to deal with what is ahead of us. We owe it to our people not to waste this opportunity. “And say, 'Do [as you will], for Allah will see your deeds, and [so will] His Messenger and the believers'” (Al-Tawabah, Verse 105).
For some reason this made me lol. Its like they're playing a game of hide and seek!Nasrallah warns Israel against waging war on Lebanon
Feb 21, 2017
“Israel must ‘count to one million’ before waging any war on Lebanon and we’re prepared for any threat,” the reports quoted Nasrallah as telling Iran’s state television.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah
Israel is seeking normalization with the Arab states without an end to its occupation of Palestine.
Once more, the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 is taking center stage. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas insisted during his speech before the recently-concluded Arab League Summit in Jordan, that the Initiative is the only solution on the table; asserting that it will not be changed or even tweaked.
But why is this Initiative, which was put forward by Saudi Arabia 15 years ago, now infused back into the already congested Middle East’s political discourse, despite the fact that Israel has rejected it repeatedly, and the US has shown little interest in enforcing it?
In March 2002, the Initiative, made of a few sentences, was proclaimed in an Arab League Summit in Beirut.
Less than half of Arab leaders participated in that conference. Head of the PA and Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the late Yasser Arafat, was not allowed to attend. Israeli Prime Minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, had Arafat placed under house arrest in Ramallah. He told Arafat that, if Israel was to allow him to leave, he would not be allowed back. Arafat died two years later, amid allegations that he had been poisoned.
The Arab proposal was largely a reiteration of United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338. It promised complete normalization between Arab States and Israel should Israel withdraw from Palestinian and Arab land it occupied in 1967.
The Initiative seemed to adopt a lackluster attitude towards the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees, as it promised a just solution based on UN resolution 194, without insisting on its full and complete implementation.
It was cautiously welcomed, then quickly overlooked by Washington at the time, since Sharon had dismissed it off-handedly as a ‘non-starter’.
Israel was hardly interested in seemingly bold initiatives to resolve the conflict, either by the Arabs, the Americans or any other. However, Israeli leaders still felt that the Initiative was significant, at least if placed within historical context.
When the Arab Initiative was re-endorsed, this time by the majority of Arab leaders in the Arab League Summit in Saudi Arabia in 2007, the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, had a most expressive response.
On the one hand, he hailed the Initiative as a ‘revolutionary change’ but, on the other, he stripped its content from any practical value.
The return of Palestinian refugees is “out of the question”, he told the Israeli ‘Jerusalem Post’ at the time. “I’ll never accept a solution that is based on their return to Israel, any number,” he said.
However, what Olmert—as with current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu,—was keenly interested in is the idea of unconditional normalization.
He told the daily Hebrew newspaper ‘Yediot Ahronot’ that he sees “a real chance that, within five years, Israel will be able to reach an inclusive peace deal with its enemies.”
Circumventing the Palestinians and signing peace deals with Arab countries to break Israel’s regional isolation is paramount in Israeli foreign policy since its very inception in 1948.
Since then, it has signed a peace deal with Egypt and Jordan and has informal contacts and ties with various other governments.
This partly explains Abbas’—as well as his Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki’s—insistence on referencing the Arab Peace Initiative, above, instead of, for example, the defunct Oslo Accord or any specific UN resolution.
It is his way of saying that any normalization between the Arabs and Israel should take place through the Palestinian channel, and particularity though his leadership in Ramallah.
Of course, Israel does not mind the renewed interest in the Initiative, simply because it could galvanize efforts, led by the Americans, to achieve normalization with the Arabs without peace with the Palestinians first.
The Initiative is ‘revolutionary’ from the Israeli viewpoint because of such reference. This becomes more evident when one recalls the Arab Summit in Khartoum in September 1967, following the Arab defeat by Israel, which victory was achieved and bankrolled by the United States.
Although the summit then had abandoned or diluted much of its pre-war language—insisting on the geographical unity of historic Palestine, demanding without reservation the Right of Return—it proclaimed its famous ‘Three Nos’: no to diplomatic recognition of Israel; no to a peace deal and no to negotiations without complete, full and unconditional Israeli withdrawal of land occupied by force.
Although historians often attempt to paint the Arab position there as radical, that was hardly the case if analyzed within its historical context. Their position was consistent with international law and UN Resolution 242, in particular. Moreover, they—the Arabs—tried to send a message to Israel and the US, who tried to use the astounding defeat to exact concessions and impose humiliating conditions on the Arabs as a result of the war. They also feared protracted, futile negotiations while Israel was enriching its occupation of Palestinian, Arab land.
The Arab Peace Initiative appeared to Israel as a complete departure from that position, especially as it was made when the Second Palestinian Intifada (uprising) was at its bloodiest stages. Just days after the Initiative was made, Israel besieged the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, attacking it with unprecedented ferocity. The death toll of the two-week battle (known as the Jenin Massacre) exceeded 60, with nearly 300 wounded, hundreds more arrested, most of the camp bulldozed and its residents expelled.
What Israel had then gleaned from the Initiative is that, while Arabs are proposing generous peace, Israel was free to conduct its military occupation as it saw fit.
Since the Initiative was made in 2002, much more blood has been shed, the settlements have grown to constitute an irreversible reality, Occupied East Jerusalem has been completely cut off, a so-called Separation Wall (known to Palestinians as the ‘Apartheid Wall’) further seized massive swathes of Palestinian land, Gaza fell under a perpetual siege and the ‘peace process’ became a thing of the past.
Worse still, since Donald Trump was elected to the White House, he has further contributed to the demise of any prospect of a just solution to the crisis, and has pushed America’s support of Israel to new levels.
Trump also assigned his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, an Orthodox Jew and a strong supporter of Israel’s rightwing, to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
In fact, only days ago, Trump’s pick for US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, was approved by the US Senate.
Friedman is controversial, even in the eyes of some Israelis, due to his close association with extremist Jewish parties that labor to seize Palestinian Muslim and Christian properties in Occupied East Jerusalem.
Under the guise of peacemaking, Kushner and Friedman are likely to focus on advancing Israel’s position and standing in the region. For them, the issue of normalization is at the helm of their prospective policies.
This explains the Palestinian insistence on the Arab Peace Initiative. It is not because the Initiative carries a magical formula towards peace.
The anxiety lies in Palestinian fear that Trump’s Middle East policy will focus on trying to break down whatever little consensus Arab countries still have on Palestine.
Abbas, who is heading to Washington in April, knows only too well that his position is terribly weak and, without Arab backing, however symbolic, he will find himself cornered by a belligerent Trump regime.
While the US administration may rebrand its approach to the conflict, what truly interests Israel and its Americans backers is breaking Israel’s isolation through regional ‘peace’ pacts and separate deals—in other words, normalization under Occupation.