Showing posts with label Daled Amos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Daled Amos. Show all posts

Thursday, January 14, 2021

In 2010, Jackson Diehl -- the deputy editorial page editor for The Washington Post -- suggested 
How Obama sabotaged Middle East peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The conventional wisdom at the time was that Netanyahu was responsible for the impasse.

Diehl disagreed:
For 15 years and more, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas conducted peace talks with Israel in the absence of a freeze on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Now, it appears as likely as not that his newborn negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu -- and their goal of agreement on a Palestinian state within a year -- will die because of Abbas's refusal to continue without such a freeze.

...So why does Abbas stubbornly persist in his self-defeating position? In an interview with Israeli television Sunday night, he offered a remarkably candid explanation: "When Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped," he said. "If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?"

The statement confirmed something that many Mideast watchers have suspected for a long time: that the settlement impasse originated not with Netanyahu or Abbas, but with Obama -- who by insisting on an Israeli freeze has created a near-insuperable obstacle to the peace process he is trying to promote. [emphasis added]
Whether Obama deliberately pressed for the freezing of settlements in the hope of pressuring Israel into a concession or blundered into creating a deadlock -- either way, Obama's interference changed the Palestinian story, turning a freeze of settlements into a new demand.

Now we see something similar happening with the coronavirus.

One of those leading the way, on January 3rd, in accusing Israel of deliberately withholding the vaccine from the Palestinian Arabs was The Guardian:



This was followed by the usual gang, such as Haaretz on January 10th


And Al Jazeera on January 13th:


Among many other media outlets.

But that was not what the Palestinians themselves were saying.

Nov. 21, 2020:‎
PA meets with WHO, UNICEF, UNRWA “to ensure that Palestine is provided ‎with adequate Coronavirus vaccines” (Israel not invited)‎

Dec. 12, 2020:‎
PA orders “four million doses of the Russian vaccine… expected in Palestine by ‎the end of this year” (Israel's help not requested)‎

Jan. 9, 2021:‎
PA announces: “Four vaccine producer companies [will deliver for] 70% of the ‎Palestinian people… the WHO will provide for 20%” (Israel's help not needed)‎

Jan. 9, 2021:
PA announces: “Two million doses were ordered [from AstraZeneca]… we ‎received an official response from the company… [Also] the Russian company ‎Sputnik, and a vaccine was ordered… We are not just waiting… we are ‎working…” (Israel's help not needed)‎
But with the media helpfully getting the story wrong and ganging up on Israel, the PA just couldn't resist:
Jan. 10, 2021:‎
PA Foreign Ministry demands that Israel “supply the Palestinian people with ‎Coronavirus vaccines… [Israel is] racially discriminating against the ‎Palestinian people, and negating its right to health [services]… an apartheid ‎against the Palestinian people in the field of health”
You can almost hear Abbas now, "If American media says it and European media says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?"

Going a step further, the vaccine accusation is beginning to get traction in Congress too:


According to the article, the new Congresswoman, a member of the "progressive" wing of the Democrats 'shared' her copy of the Guardian article.

And now with this story still making the rounds, the "human rights" organization B'Tselem has come out with their report accusing Israel of apartheid.



B'tselem and their friends are posting and reposting this all over the internet to get maximum exposure, tossing around the claim that Israel is guilty of "Jewish supremacy."




Of course, the Palestinian Authority is already accusing Israel of apartheid, so this report won't have any effect on Palestinian propaganda.

Instead, the timing of the report and the massive distribution over social media may indicate a campaign to influence more than a Congressperson or two.

This could be one component of an orchestrated campaign to influence the incoming Biden administration. The lingering accusation of Israel withholding the vaccine could be part of this too.

If so, it is going to be a long 4 years.




 

Tuesday, January 05, 2021

Before the Trump administration changed the rules for what peace in the Middle East could look like, Obama also tried his hand at opening ties with problematic countries based on the invitation he made in his 2009 inaugural address that "we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” This led to improving relations with Myanmar in 2012 and Cuba in 2014. 
 
Unlike the Abraham Accord, there was not a lot of excitement and fanfare, and not much in the way of a ripple effect. But Obama did consider something more substantial in the Middle East during his last year in office.
 
In April 2016, he tried to play broker, but not between Israel and the Arab world. Instead, Obama tried to negotiate peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran:
The White House is pinning its hopes for a more stable Middle East in years to come on the uncertain prospect that it can encourage a working relationship—what Mr. Obama has called a “cold peace”—between Saudi Arabia and Iran

...“You need a different kind of relationship between the Gulf countries and Iran—one that’s less prone to proxy conflicts—and that’s something that would be good for the region as a whole,” the official said. “Promoting that kind of dialogue is something the president will want to speak to the leaders about.”

...But the strategy requires at least some buy-in from highly skeptical Saudi leaders and other Persian Gulf states
All you need do is substitute Israel for Iran and you have the basic outline for the Abraham Accords, based on the goal of a "warm peace" between Israel and those same Gulf states -- and other Arab states as well. But by focusing on Iran instead, not even a cold peace was achieved.
 
Obama's failure to bring Iran and the Saudi's is not surprising.
After all:
The Saudis are Sunni, Iran is Shia.
The Saudis are Arabs, Iran is Persian.
(The fact that Iran is a global sponsor of terrorism and working on making a nuclear bomb didn't help.)
 
Don't underestimate the rift between Sunnis and Shiites.
 
In his book, The Closed Circle, David Pryce-Jones writes about the turmoil following the death of Mohammad, whose only family heir was his daughter, Fatima. There was no agreement on how Mohammad's successor was to be chosen:
Leadership of the community might pass through her and her descent, or through the Prophet's companions who were best qualified. A majority, known as Sunni, preferred election. A minority, known as Shia, preferred the principle of heredity, devolving through Ali, the cousin and husband of the Prophet's daughter, and those descendants of his specifically designated for the succession by their own immediate predecessor. Disputed authority made for the fragmentation of Islam. Three of Muhammad's four immediate successors [including Mohammad's son-in-law, Ali], known as caliphs, were murdered. Turning upon legitimacy, the quarrel between Sunni and Shia became irreconcilable. [emphasis added; p. 28]
This fighting among Muslims has never stopped. The situation in Syria is just one example of many of how divided the Arab/Muslim world is against itself.
 
But in addition to the Sunni-Shiite rift, how does the Arab-Persian rift play out?
 
Back in June 2019, Mordechai Kedar -- who served for 25 years in IDF military intelligence -- gave a talk to
EMET, the Endowment for Middle East Truth on the Middle East
.
 

 
One of the topics Kedar touched upon was the roots behind the hatred between the Saudis and the Iranians (starts at 36:05).

He traces this tension back to the 7th century, when the Arabs were spreading Islam from the area that is today Saudi Arabia -- starting with Syria, Lebanon and what is today Israel, spreading out to the east (to Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan) and to the West (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria Morocco and Northern  Africa) and then up north (Spain).

In the year 636CE, the Arabs defeated the Persia army, despite the larger Persian army. Their forces were worn down both by wars with Byzantine as well as by moral and political corruption within.
 
But the differences between the two armies was more than a matter of size. Kedar points out the erudition of the Persians, many of whom were adept at mathematics, chemistry, physics and astronomy, having made great contributions in these areas -- but because of their corruption, they ended up being defeated by the Arabs, who in those days were illiterate.

Following their defeat, many of the Persians were sold into slavery, a degrading and humiliating procedure --
all the more so for academics being sold into slavery.
 
The Persian slaves freely converted to Islam, knowing this would get them out of slavery -- only to find that the Arabs put taxes on them, taxes they could not pay so that they were forced instead to work for the Arabs.
 
And so they were cheated a second time.
 
As Kedar puts it:
Till this very day, the Persians have not forgotten and did not forgive what the Arabs did to them. And this underlies the enmity between the Persians and the Saudis.
The Saudis are the descendants of those who did this to the Persians.
 
Mordechai Kedar also spoke about this in Hebrew at BESA in March of that same year, starting at about 15:45 (video will automatically start there.)



Jews are not the only ones with long memories.
 
Considering the nature of such enmity, it is no wonder that Obama's attempt to bring the Iranians and the Saudis together failed.
 
But by the same token, this hatred casts doubt on the wisdom of Obama's Iran Deal as a whole, on the direction it was taking prior to Trump taking office and on Biden's declared intention to resurrect the deal.
 
If anything, this background verifies the need for a Middle East coalition against Iran.

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

By Daled Amos

Over the past few months, we have watched as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have made peace with Israel. With the Biden administration ready to take over in a matter of weeks, we have come to the end of this historic chapter in Middle East peace.

 
But while for now, the momentum for peace has taken us as far as it can between the Arab states and Israel, there may still be a potential for the Arabs living within Israel itself.

Prof. Daniel Pipes writes that Arabs and Muslims increasingly accept Israel even as the global Left rejects it. He notes that till now, when Arab Israelis have voted in the Israeli elections, they have voted for the radical, anti-Zionist Arab parties that reject the idea of Israel as a Jewish state.

But Pipes believes that may be about to change.
Enter Mansour Abbas, 46, the head of an Islamist party, the United Arab List (also known as Ra’am), which holds four of the Knesset’s 120 seats. He hails from the Galilee town of Maghar and has a dentistry degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem; currently, he is studying for a Ph.D. in politics at Haifa University. Married with three children, he practices dentistry in Maghar.
 
Mr. Abbas (not to be confused with Mahmoud Abbas, 85, head of the Palestinian Authority) has recently emerged as a deal-making politician ready to act pragmatically on behalf of Israel’s Arabs. At a time of electoral turbulence, with new elections scheduled for March 2021, he has become an instant powerbroker due to his readiness to cooperate with Benjamin Netanyahu and perhaps even to save Mr. Netanyahu’s prime ministry. [emphasis added]
photo
Mansour Abbas. Youtube screencap

 
By 'pragmatic', Pipes is referring to Abbas's willingness to cooperate with Netanyahu based on what the Israeli government can do for the Arab community. Abbas wants Netanyahu to ease legal restrictions on construction in Arab towns and to approve the necessary funds to address the problem of crime in Arab communities. Getting Netanyahu to make the necessary resources available would enable Abbas to win more seats in the next election.
 
This idea of an Arab MK working together with Netanyahu and the right-wing Likud is novel, unprecedented -- and seems to have won the approval of Arab Israelis. Pipes quotes Yousef Makladeh of the consulting company StatNet who reports that "over 60 percent of the [Israeli] Arab population supports MK Mansour Abbas’ approach, that they can work with the [Jewish] right.” 
 
If, in fact, a majority of Arab Israelis are willing to support working with the right-wing in general and with Likud and Netanyahu in particular, this obviously has implications not only for Israel, but also for Netanyahu's chances in the March election.
 
This is the same kind of pragmatism that lies behind Makladeh's finding that “a majority of the Arab public favors the peace agreements with the Gulf States."
 
“The public wants peace, it does not matter with whom, because it will bring them economic advantages,” he said. More trade with the UAE, more UAE investors coming to Israel, and Israeli companies going to the UAE, will mean more opportunities for Arab-Israelis, who will be seen as the logical middlemen. [emphasis added]
Makladeh's findings are being taken seriously because he successfully predicted both the Arab turnout and the votes for the Arab Joint List in the last election. 
 
Abbas and his party, United Arab List, are part of the Joint List, which has been opposing both the Abraham Accords--despite the fact that its own constituency approves of it--and opposing the idea of working together with Netanyahu and Likud, another idea that a majority of Arab Israelis appear to accept.
 
In addition to appearing to be on the wrong side of the Abraham Accords and working with Likud, the Joint List also focuses on the Palestinian issue in their opposition to the Abraham Accords. 
 
According to Makladeh's research, Arab Israelis are not as invested in the Palestinian issue as they once were:
“It is not that they don’t love and support them – a big part define themselves as Palestinian – but they say: ‘This is too big for us. We can’t deal with the Palestinian issue. That should be for the US, Russia and France to work out. It can’t all be on our back.’”

As a matter of fact, Abbas actually joined the Joint List in voting against the Abraham Accords with the UAE and Bahrain -- yet he explains that vote in such a way that he does not alienate Arab supporters of working with Israel:

We only voted against the deals to protest that there is no peace deal with the Palestinians. If there will be a real agreement with the Palestinians, there will be real agreements with 55 Muslim countries. But what truly matters is that we are Israelis, and our actions are not supposed to be influenced by whether there is peace with Bahrain. We are a part of Israeli society, and we want to be partners. [emphasis added]
Just try and find another member of the Joint List who talks like that.
 
It is no surprise that there is growing tension between Mansour Abbas and the other members of the Joint List, both because he is taking positions diametrically opposed to theirs and because Abbas is making a name for himself, in part at their expense. 
 
Mansour Abbas is becoming identified with the perceived potential change in the relations between Israel and the Arabs inside the Jewish state.
 
As Haviv Rettig Gur of Times of Israel puts it, "a tectonic shift, a “normalization” process more visceral and vital to Israel’s future, is already well underway closer to home."
 
I'm not afraid to say that I'm introducing a pragmatic new political style, balancing constancy and the ability to influence! I truly believe that if we are to bring real, concrete change to our society, we have to be influential in decision making--which does not mean we need to give up our fortitude, whether patriotic or religious; we just have to find a point where balance is right, to know properly our relationship with the Knesset and how we operate, and that our participation in it is not just to record positions.
Gur noted at the time that the post had over 4,300 likes and that most of the over 700 comments were positive.
 
Abbas took a further step in a TV interview with Arab Israeli journalist Lucy Aharish on the online television channel DemocratTV:
Aharish: “Let’s be specific. [Would you say:] ‘If we get a good enough offer, to be heads of committees, cabinet posts, if Netanyahu turns to us, we are capable of sitting in a government with Netanyahu.’”

Abbas: If I was a regular Arab MK who’s used to a certain discourse, I’d tell you, ‘There’s no such thing. We’d never agree to sit in Netanyahu’s government.’ But I say different. Instead of giving that answer, and then the other side can say, ‘Look, the Arabs don’t want to integrate, don’t want to participate, don’t want to have a say,’ I say, ‘Sure.’ If the prime minister or the head of another party who’s a candidate for prime minister has this attitude [i.e., is willing to have Arab parties as coalition partners], let’s have them say they’re interested in the Joint List, that they want [us] in the circle of decision-makers, and then I’ll have the opportunity to say yes or no.

Why say no before we get an offer? Why? Anyone who has the right to form a government, let him turn to us, we’ll sit, we’ll discuss, and then we’ll decide.
Gur notes, "That Mansour Abbas took great care not to rule out a coalition role for his party is as clear a signal as one could issue that he is asking to be invited in. And the possibility that it may be Netanyahu doing the inviting doesn’t faze him one bit."

His analysis of Abbas and of Arab Israelis is cautiously optimistic, based on developments both around the Middle East and in Israel as well:
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 be heard in the media and in politics, to have a say in the affairs of a country they have come to accept as their own — even if they feel it has yet to accept them as its own — has overwhelmed the old ideologies.

...If Mansour Abbas’s new pragmatism is any indication, it could signal that Israel’s Arabs are increasingly thinking of themselves not in a narrowly Arab context but in a broader Israeli one, as one community among many vying for resources and attention in the broader political landscape.

Leaders sometimes strike out boldly in a new direction, hoping their flock will follow. Mansour Abbas doesn’t seem to believe that’s what’s happening. He seems to think — and despite the vituperation of some this week, he seems to be right — that the Arab Israeli community is already there, already eager for integration and influence. It’s time, he is arguing, for Israel’s Arab leaders to follow.
How this will all work out in the next election is anybody's guess, but there is an additional wrinkle that Gil Hoffman points out that there is a rule in Abbas's United Arab List that will prevent him from running for re-election:
The rule is that MKs can serve no more than three terms, and it does not matter whether that term is four years or four months. Abbas is in his third term, even though he was first elected only 19 months ago.
Come March, Abbas may very well have a new party, one that will openly oppose some of the positions of the Joint List -- which according to polls is already down from 15 to 11 seats.
 
If there really is the potential for normalization within Israel, we are likely to find out in March.

Thursday, December 24, 2020

 

Seth Frantzman presents an interesting thesis in his op-ed in Newsweek this week. He argues that Israel's Peace Deals Show How Abnormal Israel's Treatment Has Been, based on his recent visit to Dubai -- along with 50,000 other Israelis since November 26.

 
Noting how normal his experience there felt, and how normal in fact it should feel, Frantzman writes that Israel's isolation within the Arab world is an artificial situation:
However, a concerted campaign over the decades attempted to make it seem acceptable that not only would Israel lack relations with dozens of mostly Muslim countries, but Jewish religious displays themselves would be considered taboo or "controversial" in those places. 
 
...Acceptance of the isolation of Israel and erasure of Jewish history in the Middle East has been an open wound afflicting the whole region. It should never have happened. Israel and some Arab countries fought a war in 1948, and there are legitimate reasons that Palestinians and their supporters opposed Israel's policies. But similar terrible wars, such as that between India and Pakistan in 1948, didn't result in dozens of countries not recognizing India or pretending that Hindus don't exist. Normalization and the presence of diplomatic relations are the most basic geopolitical norms throughout the world. Yet so many politicians, like former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who pushed for engagement with Iran, blindly accepted the fact that so many countries did not normalize ties with Israel. [emphasis added]
Frantzman sees the "anti-Israel crusade" of the past 70 years as the result of antisemitism.
 
The comparison of Israel with India is an interesting one.
 
On the one hand, one can argue that unlike India, Israel -- as a Jewish state -- provokes the long-standing animus in the Arab/Muslim world against Jews that is practically hard-wired into Islam. That tension has been evident throughout the Arab world since its beginnings.
 
Normalization is a Western concept and the goal towards which states work when they resolve conflicts with each other. It is not necessarily an Arab approach -- where hudnah, or truce, is used: a temporary solution, awaiting an auspicious change in the status quo with the enemy.
 
That is what makes the Abraham Accords so striking -- that it is not the way things are normally done in the Middle East, as opposed to the peace treaties Israel has with Egypt and Jordan, where there is a 'cold' peace and anti-Israel rhetoric there is common. In the Abraham Accords, there are Arab countries that have turned the corner and do not see Israel as the enemy; Egypt and Jordan have not yet been able to do this.
 
The similarity between India and Israel is in their active pursuit of improving ties, both globally and with the Muslim world in particular.
 
The Wikipedia article on Foreign relations of India has a list of the countries with which India has forged ties. In the section describing India's ties with the Palestinian Arabs, it says
In the light of a religious partition between India and Pakistan, the impetus to boost ties with Muslim states around the world was a further tie to India's support for the Palestinian cause. [emphasis added]
This claim that India's conflict with Pakistan is a motivator for better relations with Muslim countries is echoed in the descriptions of India's ties with some Muslim countries: 
Afghanistan: "The new democratically elected Afghan government strengthened its ties with India in wake of persisting tensions and problems with Pakistan, which is continuing to shelter and support the Taliban"

Bangladesh: "At the outset India's relations with Bangladesh could not have been stronger because of India's unalloyed support for independence and opposition against Pakistan in 1971."

Iran: "After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Iran withdrew from CENTO and dissociated itself from US-friendly countries, including Pakistan, which automatically meant improved relationship with the Republic of India."

Tajikistan: "India's role in fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and its strategic rivalry with both China and Pakistan have made its ties with Tajikistan important to its strategic and security policies"
And on the flip side:
Saudi Arabia: "India's strategic relations with Saudi Arabia have been affected by the latter's close ties with Pakistan. Saudi Arabia supported Pakistan's stance on the Kashmir conflict and during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 at the expense of its relations with India."

Turkey: "Due to controversial issues such as Turkey's close relationship with Pakistan, relations between the two countries have often been blistered at certain times, but better at others."
In other words, Pakistan has served as an impetus for certain Muslim countries to improve their ties with India, similar to the way Iran has motivated certain Muslim countries to improve their relations with Israel.
 
While one might argue with Frantzman's contention about how artificial the enmity towards Israel is in the Arab world, it is clear that prior to Trump, US administrations "blindly accepted the fact that so many countries did not normalize ties with Israel." The Trump administration didn't, and orchestrated not just the end of hostilities, but normalized relations between Israel and 4 Muslim states.
 
In a recent article, Jonathan Tobin describes How Trump Transformed ‘Quid Pro Quo’ From Democratic Slur to Diplomatic Triumph. He notes the opposition, including among Republicans:
That Latin phrase has become a term of abuse among Democrats, ever since it became the totemic phrase used to justify their failed Trump impeachment attempt. But the string of normalization deals showcases a triumphant side of the quid pro quo approach.

Far from indicating a shallow, cynical attitude to governance, these deals show quid pro quo is a swifter, smarter, saner strategy than the very different ideas and tactics pursued by previous administrations.
Tobin describes this quid pro quo approach as transactional diplomacy -- but good luck defining how it is any different from normal diplomacy.
 
Wikipedia traces transactional diplomacy back to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who focused specifically on regional solutions and working with countries to build up their infrastructure and reducing their reliance on the US. The Christian Science Monitor sees transactional diplomacy as values free and compares it with the US agreeing to reduce its relations with Taiwan in order to improve relations with China or Obama trading sanctions relief in exchange for Iran's agreeing to a nuclear deal.
 
Tobin's view of transactional diplomacy is pragmatic and is about tossing ideas that don't work:
The point about Trump’s transactional strategy is that it worked. Instead of focusing on maintaining policies that could never achieve any results — such as the unrealistic hope the Palestinians would ever seriously negotiate, and the equally hopeless stalemate in the Western Sahara — Trump seized opportunities to make deals that did advance U.S. interests, rather than allowing himself to be bogged down by diplomatic traditions.
Maybe the Trump administration really is onto something here. No act of diplomacy could have created the kind of warmth and friendship we are seeing between Israel and the UAE. 
 
Maybe that quid pro quo did not so much create peace as remove the roadblocks to it.
 
And that brings us back to Frantzman's claim that normal relations for Israel, even within the Arab world, may not be such a strange or abnormal idea after all.

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

By Daled Amos

The announcement earlier this month that Israel and Morocco have agreed to establish full diplomatic relations and normalize ties was not a complete surprise. After all, it is no secret that the two countries have had friendly relations with each other for decades.

 
If anything, the question is what took so long.
 
But it is not just that Israel and Morocco have been friendly for so long. More than that, the ingredients that made normalization possible under the Abraham Accords were there 25 years ago too, if not longer.
 
The circumstances that made the Abraham Accords possible now and enabled Trump to do something that previous administrations could not do, and in fact claimed was just not possible -- those circumstances are not really new.
 
In 1996, historian Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, Senior Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, wrote a paper for The Maghreb Review entitled Israel and Morocco: A Special Relationship. In it, he not only gives the background that led to the establishment of low-level liaison offices in Rabat and Tel Aviv. He also underscores elements that years later would make normalization possible in 2020.
 
For example, today a major impetus for the Arab normalization of ties with Israel is the threat of Iran, both because of its status as a state sponsor of terrorism and its efforts towards nuclear weapons.
 
But back in 1996, Iran was not the threat it is today. So what common interests drew Israel and Morocco together?
 
Maddy-Weitzman writes:
From the outset of Moroccan independence in 1956 and through subsequent decades, Israel and Morocco identified a number of vital interests common to both sides: their perception of a common threat posed by radical pan-Arabism, epitomized by Gamal 'Abd al-Nasir [Nasser] in Egypt, the Ba'th in Syria and Iraq, and the FLN in Algeria. (p. 36-7)
These radical elements were a threat to the stability of Morocco's monarchy and were antagonistic towards Israel as well.
 
From Morocco's perspective, it made sense to turn to the West for the economic and military help it needed in order to deal with the challenges to its stability, both in the region and at home. It was in Morocco's interest to turn to the US  and "like so many other countries, Morocco concluded that one important road to Washington passed via Jerusalem."

And of course back then too it was in Morocco's interest to get US support on the issue of the Western Sahara.

The goal was more than the cold peace we associate with Egypt and Jordan. According to Weitzman, Morocco's King Hassan II had "a particular vision of renewed Semitic brotherhood, based on an idyllic Jewish-Arab past in Morocco and Muslim Spain, which could contribute to an economic and human renaissance in the contemporary Middle East."
 
And on the less idyllic and more practical side, then -- like now -- there was the financial boon that could potentially accrue to Morocco as a result of a peace agreement:
The Israeli Export Institute estimated in October 1994 that Israel's export potential to Morocco during the coming three years amounted to $220 million dollars annually, in areas such as agricultural products, irrigation equipment, the building trades, hi-tech electronics, processed foods, and professional services for infrastructure development. In addition, the potential for Morocco serving as a centre for the re-export of Israeli goods to other North African countries was estimated in the tens of millions of dollars. Estimates of the value of Israeli goods reaching to Morocco via third parties and subsidiary companies ranged from $30-100 million annually. (p.45)
Not bad.
 
Also, in another foreshadowing of what UAE has to gain from a peace agreement, Yedi'ot Aharonot quoted US sources in 1996 that Morocco was looking into Israeli help in upgrading 20 of its F-5 combat jets.
 
Before Israel signed peace treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), Morocco made clear what kind of relations it wanted with Israel. Weitzman lists the kinds of statements made by Morocco during the years 1976 to 1977:
a. the historical affinity between Arabs and Jews as 'sons of Abraham' and 'grandsons of Ishmael and Isaac,' an affinity which could form the basis for the tapping of both sides' capabilities in order to modernize and develop the Middle East;

b. Israel's capabiility for contributing to the modernization and development of the Arab world;

c. the dangers to the Arab world inherent in prolonged conflict;

d. the need for coexistence and integration, which required Israel's withdrawal to the June 1967 boundaries, creation of a Palestinian state, and full peace, recognition and integration between Israel and the Arab states; and

e. the need for dialogue to solve all problems, including dialogue between the PLO and Israel. (p. 41)
One could easily imagine the UAE making these statements -- including its continued commitment to the Palestinian Arabs, but these statements about peace that seem novel even now were being made over 40 years ago.

But no groundbreaking peace treaty between Morocco and Israel happened.
Official trade between the 2 countries amounted to just $2 million.

Why?
 
One reason might be that Nasser and the other potential threats to Morocco's stability posed a different kind of danger than what Iran does today. Iran is a Muslim state, but not an Arab one. Its brand of Islam fanaticism is very different from the pan-Arabism Nasser advocated as the leader of Egypt. And Iran takes the spread of its influence very seriously.
 
But more than that, King Hassan II of Morocco saw himself as a facilitator, hosting summits, conferences and Israeli prime ministers -- while at the same time maintaining his image as a leading Arab statesman. In 1967, Morocco sent armed forces to Egypt, although they only got as far as Libya. In 1973, Moroccan forces in Syria participated in the Yom Kippur War. The following year, he hosted the conference that conferred recognition of the PLO.
 
photo
King Hassan II in 1983. Public domain

 
He was in no hurry to sign a peace treaty with Israel, preferring a gradual approach.
His son, King Muhammad VI, may be a different story.

The question now is no longer when peace will start, but rather how far will it go.

Wednesday, December 09, 2020

By Daled Amos


Typical of the Palestinian Arab claim to the land is the statement Abbas made in front of the UN Security Council in 2018:
We are the descendants of the Canaanites who lived in the land of Palestine 5,000 years ago, and continuously remained there to this day. Our great people remains rooted in its land. The Palestinian people built their own cities and homeland, and made contributions to humanity and civilization. [emphasis added]
Two years earlier, in 2016, Abbas expanded on this. On official PA TV Abbas said
They [the Jews] are thieves who stole the land, and who want to steal the history, but history cannot change and cannot be falsified. The facts bear witness to it. We have been here for the last 5,000 years, and have not left this land. We have not left this land. Our forefathers are the monotheist Canaanites and Jebusites. They are the ones who built Jerusalem, before Abraham was even here. [emphasis added]
What drives the Palestinian Arabs in general -- and Abbas in particular -- to such obvious fabrications?

On the one hand, there is the Palestinian Arab goal to usurp the strong indigenous Jewish connection to Israel.

But there is another element.
There is the attempt to establish a basis for Palestinian nationalism.

In his book The Seed of Abraham, Rafael Patai discusses the development of Arab nationalism in general --and why Palestinian nationalism by definition pales in comparison.

Many of the Arab countries in the Middle East are newly created as a result of British, French and Italian machinations. The straight borders of many of those Arab countries testify to the arbitrariness of both the borders and the states themselves.

Writing in 1986, Patai notes
It is remarkable how rapidly the population of each of the newly created Arab states developed a national consciousness and patriotic feelings of its own. This process was facilitated in the major Arab states by historical memories that the leadership soon learned how to utilize. Sentiments in French mandatory, and later independent, Syria were thus related back to the great days when Syria, with Damascus as its splendid capital, was the center of the great Umayyad caliphate, while the newly reestablished Iraq saw herself as heir to the Abbasid empire whose center was the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. However, no other Arab country had as solid a basis for priding itself of its glorious past as Egypt, which, although its greatest age lay far back in the millennia of the jahiliyya [Arabia before the advent of Islam], nevertheless came to view that early Pharaonic period as part of its national history.
Some Arab countries could create a national consciousness based on their place in Arab history. Other Arab countries, lacking that tie, could instead boast of their ancient history -- even if that history belonged to a land they had conquered and was not actually their own.

Where did that leave the Palestinian Arabs? 
Up the creek.
In Palestine, such attempts at establishing a great Arab national past ran into a vexing problem. Since Palestine had never been an independent Arab country, its period of pride had to be sought in the biblical Israelite age. As we have seen in an earlier chapter, the Arabs considered themselves heirs of Abraham the hanif [maintained pure monotheism], and claimed that Abraham, with his son Ishmael, was the founder of the sanctuary at Mecca. One writer even claimed that Abraham himself was an “Arabian.” Thus the more general claim could be made, even though it retained tenuous at best, that Palestine was the scene of part of Arab prehistory. [emphasis added]
That is where Jewish history got in the way.
The difficulty arose in connection with the long period between Abraham (whose Arab progeny settled in Arabia) and the end of the Hebrew monarchy, during which there was no Arab presence in Palestine, while the Banu Isra’il (“Children of Israel”) were undeniably masters of the land. Hence, in contrast to Egypt, the Arabs could not claim that they had also in Palestine a national history going back to the long millennia of the jahiliyya. (p.309; emphasis added)
But according to Patai, a sense of Palestinian nationalism did develop, and Patai describes it as a slow process that started with Arab differences with the Jews of the Second Aliyah who -- unlike the First Aliyah -- insisted that only Jews be employed as workers to work the land. 

That nationalism continued after the reforms of the Young Turks led to the modernization of the Ottoman Empire and Arab representation in the new Turkish Parliament.

And this reaction against the Ottoman Empire led to the possibility of an unlikely (from today’s vantage point) alliance:
At the same time Arab nationalist leaders recognized that their cause could benefit from Jewish help. In June 1913 was held in Paris the first conference of Arab nationalists which was an overt anti-Turkish demonstration, and in preparation for which Arab approaches were made to the Jews with a view to setting up an Arab-Jewish alliance. In the course of these contacts it appeared that most Arab leaders in Cairo and Beirut took a positive view of Zionism were basically in favor of Jewish immigration to Syria and Palestine, and expressed their understanding of “the valuable assistance that the capital, the diligence, and the intelligence of the Jews can provide to the accelerated development of the [Arab] areas of Turkey.” (p.312; emphasis added)
Patai quotes Ahmad Mukhtar Bayham, an Arab leader from Beirut at that conference who declared, “The entry of Jews--yes! But the entry of Turks--no!”

The president at that conference, Abd al-Hamid Zahrawi made a statement:
Because they [the Jews] are our brothers in race, and we regard them as Syrians who were forced to leave the country at one time but whose hearts always beat together with ours, we are certain that our Jewish brothers the world over will know how to help us so that our common interest may succeed and our common country will develop both materially and morally (p. 313)
It sounded promising, but in the end, no agreement was reached on Zionist issues such as Jewish immigration and land purchases.

But it is in this context of the potential alliance between Arabs and Jews that we can appreciate how it is that Chaim Weizmann and Emir Faisal were able to come to an agreement that recognized Zionist goals in then-Palestine.



Today, the Abraham Accords are not necessarily a bolt out of the blue. Perhaps the potential for Jewish-Arab cooperation existed all along.

At one time, they faced a common enemy: the Ottoman Empire.
Today, that common enemy is Iran.



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Thursday, December 03, 2020


Two men are offered $100,000.00 -- All they have to do to earn it is to come to an agreement on how they will split the money among themselves.

No problem.

Except that one of the men refuses to split the money evenly. Instead, he demands 90% of the cash or he will leave and neither of them will get anything -- and he insists on receiving that 90% regardless of the other man's arguments. Sure enough, realizing that the 'blackmailer' is not going to budge, the other man realizes he has no choices other than to agree to accept 10% of the money, or leave empty-handed.

So he takes the $10,000.
And the blackmailer pockets the other $90,000.

Welcome to the pre-Trump Middle East.

Nobel Prize winner Robert Aumann described this in 2010 as "The Blackmailer's Paradox," and explains how Israel's desire for peace with the Arabs suffers from the same problems.

Namely:
1. There is an underlying assumption that agreements must be reached with the Arabs at any price -- and the failure to reach an agreement is unacceptable.

2. Just like the man who accepts the $10,000 -- who sees the situation as a one-time game -- Israel focuses on the short, immediate term instead of seeing the immediate situation as part of the long term, and as an opportunity to establish precedents and initiatives for another, different opportunity at some point down the road. In the paradox above, instead of accepting the $10,000 -- the man could have stood his ground and refused to give in, thereby setting the groundwork for a potential opportunity that might come up later.

Lee Smith fleshes out this point in an interview with Aumann:
Aumann believes that the problem isn’t that the Israelis and Arabs don’t want peace, but rather that the Israelis and their U.S. patron believe they are playing a one-time game whereas the Arabs see themselves as playing a repeated game. Jerusalem and Washington are in a hurry to conclude negotiations immediately, whereas the Arabs are willing to wait it out and keep playing the same game. The result is that Israel’s concessions, or the desire to have peace now, have brought no peace.

...“For repetition to engender co-operation, the players must not be too eager for immediate results,” Aumann said in his lecture. “The present, the now, must not be important. If you want peace now, you may well never get peace. But if you have time—if you can wait—that changes the whole picture; then you may get peace now.”
3. Like the blackmailer, the Arabs have complete and total faith in their position, which empowers them to demand preconditions and even concessions up front. This confidence also convinces the other side, and the West in general, of the rightness of the Arab cause.
In his blog First One Through, Paul Gherkin has a post,  Nikki Haley Channels Robert Aumann at the UN Security Council, where he runs down how Israel failed on all 3 of the above points during the Obama administration:
Meanwhile, Israel collapsed under Obama on all three points. It was compelled to publicly state its support for a two state solution which may-or-may-not be the best outcome for an enduring peace. It was repeatedly pushed for “good will gestures” that showed that Israel would take immediate action and would not walk away from the table. And far-left wing organizations such as J Street and the New Israel Fund actively undermined the faith and conviction that Jews have a basic human right to live in homes that they legally purchase. [emphasis added]

The peace process was left in shambles.
And what would the alternative look like?

Jonathan Mark, the associate editor of The New York Jewish Week, describes the alternative to the "good will gesture" approach, à la Aumann's approach, this way:
The idea isn’t convincing the other guys to like you, or to even be civil to you. The idea is to convince them that you’re prepared to walk; that you’re thinking long-term, not just Obama’s term; that you convince yourself that you’re playing for keeps, that you have the winning hand, that you’re the meanest dog in the junk yard — showing your teeth, even as you smile — and in the process you convince your opponent, too.
And that is what the Trump administration did, by taking the step which the Obama administration never contemplated: recognizing and supporting some of Israel's claims, while at the same time holding back on support of the Palestinian Arabs.

In response, the Arabs did what they consistently do. They played the long game as opposed to the one-time game -- and waited out the Trump administration.

What Trump did was change the way the game was played.

Kind of like the Kobayashi Maru.

In the second Star Trek movie, the Kobayashi Maru is a training exercise designed to test the character of Starfleet cadets in a no-win scenario. The cadet is assigned in a simulation to rescue the disabled civilian vessel Kobayashi Maru, located in the Klingon Neutral Zone, knowing that any Starfleet ship entering the zone will cause an interstellar border incident. The cadet crew must choose whether to attempt a rescue of the Kobayashi Maru crew – endangering their own ship and lives – or abandon the Kobayashi Maru to certain destruction. If the cadet chooses to attempt a rescue, the simulation is deliberately designed to guarantee that the cadet's ship is destroyed with the loss of all crew members.

In the movie, Captain Kirk is the only one to ever successfully complete the mission, rescue the Kobayashi Maru, and escape the Klingons unscathed.

How?

Kirk secretly reprogrammed the computer to allow for the possibility of rescue -- because he does not believe in "no-win" scenarios.

In going contrary to accepted wisdom, both in pursuing Middle East peace with other Arab countries while bypassing the Palestinian Arabs and in applying pressure on the Palestinian Arabs instead of on Israel, Trump rewrote the accepted, calcified way of pursuing peace -- Trump basically pursued a strategy worthy of Captain Kirk.

photo
Source: YouTube screencap


Well, maybe not exactly.

But the degree to which Trump exploded the accepted myths by reprogramming how Middle East peace can be accomplished can be seen in the reactions that followed.

According to Wikipedia, while the movie itself does not discuss the consequences of rejecting the rescue mission, it is discussed in Star Trek novels and video games that followed -- with consequences that include the mutiny of the crew.

So while Trump has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize (similar to Kirk receiving a commendation for "original thinking"), there has also been a backlash.

Øyvind Tønnesson, a former adviser and editor for the Nobel Institute's Peace Prize section, told Newsweek:
In principle, then, I would not rule out either Netanyahu nor Trump as theoretically possible NPP [Nobel Peace Prize] candidates. My personal opinion, however, is that their policies and personal records stand, for the most part, in stark contrast to the main trajectories in international peace politics that the NPP has followed since 1901.
To which Aumann offered the counterargument:
The Peace Prize is for peace, not for being a nice guy. It's true that it was given to Mother Teresa and later to Obama, but neither one brought peace. Netanyahu brought peace, and is bringing more of the same.
And it is interesting to imagine if Trump might have brought more of the same as well.


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Friday, November 27, 2020

By Daled Amos

Dov Lipman, who served as a member of Israel's 19th Knesset, writes about Obama’s revisionist ‘Promised Land’ -- a scathing review of the errors and outright misleading claims in Obama's new book.

After recounting -- and debunking -- numerous falsehoods, Lipman concludes:
I have no problem with criticism of Israel. We can debate the issues in intellectually honest discussions, and in the end, we may have to agree to disagree about Israel’s policies. But no one should accept a book that is filled with historical inaccuracies that invariably lead innocent and unknowing readers to reach false conclusions. Such a devastating book has real-life ramifications and consequences.

It is terribly disappointing. I surely would have expected truth, accuracy and fairness from Barack Obama, America’s 44th president. But the falsehoods and inaccuracies in this memoir only feed the theory that Obama was, in fact, anti-Israel. Now, through A Promised Land, he seeks to convince others to join him. [emphasis added]
Rather than review the list of falsehoods and inaccuracies, I just want to note why we should not be surprised by Obama's attack on Israel in his book.

On the one hand, we should recall Obama's attempt to recast the narrative of Israel's history as just a response to the Holocaust. 

In May 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama told The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg how the Holocaust is the justification for the Jewish State of Israel:
I know that that there are those who would argue that in some ways America has become a safe refuge for the Jewish people, but if you’ve gone through the Holocaust, then that does not offer the same sense of confidence and security as the idea that the Jewish people can take care of themselves no matter what happens. That makes it a fundamentally just idea.
Never mind the 3,000-year-old Jewish ties to the land.

America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied. [emphasis added]
Sure, the Holocaust cannot be denied (if only!), but the Jewish historical, cultural and indigenous ties -- well, that is another matter.

This pales in comparison to Obama' rewriting of Israel's history in his new book.

But I want to concentrate on something else -- on why we should have known about Obama's disregard for Israel before he became president.

In June 2008, while at a Florida synagogue to reassure Jewish voters of his commitment to Israel, Obama was asked about his association with Rashid Khalidi.

Obama responded:
You mentioned Rashid Khalidi, who is a professor at Columbia. I do know him because he talked at the University of Chicago and he is Palestinian, and I do know him and I have had conversations with him.

He is not one of my advisers, he is not one of my foreign policy people, his kids went to the lab school where my kids go as well.

He is a respected scholar although he vehemently disagrees a lot of Israel policy."

Obama, with his wife and Khalidi
Obama, with his wife and Khalidi



Two evasions are worth noting.

First of all, Obama claims he knows Khalidi from the University of Chicago and through the school where their children go.

The truth, however, is that Obama and Khalidi were very good friends -- not casual acquaintances.

An article in The LA Times, 2 months before Obama's appearance at that synagogue, reports about a party Obama attended in honor of Rashid Khalidi upon his moving to New York to teach at Columbia University:
A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.

His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."

...And yet the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.

Their belief is not drawn from Obama's speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed. [emphasis added]
Obama could have answered honestly that Khalidi was a friend with whom he had little contact after his move to New York and that Khalidi was an Arab friend just as he had Jewish friends.

Instead, Obama was dishonest and misleading.

This article by Mona Charen which appeared in The National Review in June 2008 might explain why:
For a true friend, Obama also chose peculiar associates. He was quite friendly with Rashid Khalidi, a former director of the official press agency for the Palestine Liberation Organization (and now a professor at Columbia). Khalidi, who has called Israel an "apartheid" state and who defends the right of Palestinians to use violence against Israel, founded a group called the Arab American Action Network. When Obama served as a director of the Woods Fund in 2001 and 2002, the foundation donated $75,000 to the AAAN, for projects like an "oral history" project on the "Nakbah," which translates as "catastrophe," and is the name Palestinians use for the birth of Israel. Khalidi held a fundraiser for Obama when the latter ran for Congress in 2000 [emphasis added]
We should note in passing who else Obama worked with at the Woods Fund. Aaron Klein wrote in February 2008: Obama Worked With Terrorist
Obama served on the Wood's Fund board alongside William C. Ayers, a member of the Weathermen terrorist group which sought to overthrow of [sic] the U.S. government and took responsibility for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1971.

Ayers, who still serves on the Woods Fund board, contributed $200 to Obama's senatorial campaign fund and has served on panels with Obama at numerous public speaking engagements. Ayers admitted to involvement in the bombings of U.S. governmental buildings in the 1970s. He is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. [emphasis added]
Speaking of associating with terrorists, note that Mona Charen refers to Khalidi as "a former director of the official press agency for the Palestine Liberation Organization."

Khalidi has denied this.


“If the Israelis had any brains they could neutralize Palestinian irredentism just by giving back the West Bank,” asserted Rashid Khalidy, an American-educated Palestinian who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut and also works for the P.L.O. “It would split us.”
There is proof of Khalidi working for the PLO in The Washington Post too. Here is a letter by Thomas W. Lippman -- a former diplomatic, national security, and Middle East correspondent for the Washington Post
The Post's defense of Rashid Khalidi ["An 'Idiot Wind,' " editorial, Oct. 31] was generally commendable, but in fairness to Sen. John McCain, it should be noted that Mr. Khalidi was indeed "a PLO spokesman."

In the early years of the Lebanese civil war, Mr. Khalidi was the Beirut-based spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, and his office was a stop on the daily rounds of journalists covering that conflict. As we used to say in the pre-electronic newspaper business: Check the clips.

THOMAS W. LIPPMAN

The Middle East Institute

Washington

All of this was ignored back then.

The LA Times, which had video of what was actually said at that party for Khalidi, never released the tape. They claimed it would reveal the identity of the person who gave them the tape.
But neither would they release a transcript.

Did Khalidi really provide Obama "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases," as he claimed -- or merely reinforce them?

Even in his book, Obama still glosses over Khalidi's past and his connection with him, according to this quote from the book by Middle East Eye:
"They [Jewish supporters] attributed these whisper campaigns not to any particular position I’d taken (my backing of a two-state solution and opposition to Israeli settlements were identical to the positions of the other candidates) but rather to my expressions of concern for ordinary Palestinians; my friendships with certain critics of Israeli policy, including an activist and Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi; and the fact that, as Ben [Rhodes] bluntly put it, 'You’re a Black man with a Muslim name who lived in the same neighborhood as Louis Farrakhan and went to Jeremiah Wright's church.'”
With the publication of this book, we see that Obama's anti-Israel work did not end with pushing for UN Resolution 2334.
Now, Obama will spread his hate and ignorance directly to his readers.



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Thursday, November 26, 2020

By Daled Amos

Following the news of Israel's peace agreement with the UAE and Bahrain, we had a laugh at John Kerry's expense when we watched the 2016 video of Kerry assuring his audience that peace between Israel and the Arab world without first resolving the Palestinian question just wasn't possible.

And Kerry knew this because he had, even a week earlier, spoken to "leaders of the Arab community."




It would be interesting to know just what Kerry said to those Arab leaders -- and what exactly they said to him in response.

Did he misinterpret what they said to him?
Did those leaders intentionally mislead Kerry?

It certainly wouldn't be the first incident of an apparent 'miscommunication" between Arab leaders and a member of the US government.

In a recent post, Judean Rose asks: Joe Biden’s First Meeting with Golda Meir: Did it Lead to the Yom Kippur War? The basis for the question is a Twitter thread by Nadav Eyal, Chief International Correspondent for Reshet News.


Once again, Arab officials apparently misled a US politician as to what they were thinking about Israel.

image
Joe Biden (YouTube screencap)



But apparently, this is not limited to US politicians.
As a matter of fact, Arab leaders have been known to mislead other Arab leaders as well.

In his book The Arab Mind, Raphael Patai tells a story from the eve of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence:
Musa Alami, the well-known Palestinian Arab leader, made a tour of the Arab capitals to sound out the leaders with whom he was well acquainted. In Damascus, the President of Syria told him:
I am happy to tell you that our Army and its equipment are of the highest order and well able to deal with a few Jews; and I can tell you in confidence that we even have an atomic bomb...Yes, it was made locally; we fortunately found a very clever fellow, a tinsmith...(p. 53-54) [emphasis added]
Patai gives another example, this one from the Six Day War, when on the first day (June 5, 1967) the commander of the Egyptian forces in Cairo sent a message to the Jordanian front:
that the Israeli air offensive was continuing. But at the same time, he insisted that the Egyptians had put 75 per cent of the Israeli air force out of action. The same message said that U.A.R. bombers had destroyed the Israeli bases in a counter-attack, and that the ground forces of the Egyptian army had penetrated into Israel by way of the Negev! (p. 109)
If Egypt had been honest with Jordan from day 1, Hussein might not have entered the war, and Jordan would have retained control of Judea and Samaria -- and the Kotel.

But behind these examples of miscommunication, there are issues of Arab culture. 

For example, the story about the tinsmith is pure exaggeration, what Patai refers to as the "spell of (Arabic) language," namely the "prediliction for exaggeration and overemphasis  [which] is anchored in the Arabic language itself" (p. 55)

As for Egypt's deception of Jordan, Patai describes it as wajh, or an attempt to avoid loss of face. In fact, Patai blames King Hussein's years in England for his failure to see this for what it was:
Had Hussein not lost, during his formative years spent in England, the ear for catching the meaning behind the words which is an indispensable prerequisite of true communication among Arabs, he would have understood that a real victory over Israel would have been announced by Amer and Nasser in a long tirade of repetitious and emphatic assertions, and that the brief and for Arabs, totally unusual factual form of the statement betrayed it for what it actually was: a face-saving device, a reference not to a real, but to an entirely imaginary victory. [emphasis in original] (p. 112-3)
But what about Biden and Kerry?

Again, without knowing what each side actually said, it is impossible to know what went on.
But their misunderstanding of their Arab hosts might be due to the Arab concept of shame.

Patai distinguishes between shame, which is "a matter between a person and his society," and guilt which is "a matter between a person and his conscience" -- or as he puts it: "A hermit in a desert can feel guilt; he cannot feel shame."
One of the important differences between the Arab and the Western personality is that in the Arab culture, shame is more pronounced than guilt...What pressures the Arab to behave in an honorable manner is not guilt but shame, or, more precisely, the psychological drive to escape or prevent negative judgement by others. [p. 113]
We tend to associate the Arab concept of shame/honor with of 'honor killings,' but there are implications on a national level too.

In his preface to the 1976 edition of his book, Patai writes that although Egypt lost the Yom Kippur War, the fact that they caught Israel by surprise and were able to initially gain the upper hand, allowed the Egyptians to perceive the war as a victory, and cleared the way for peace negotiations:
A manifestation of this new Arab self-confidence is the willingness to enter into disengagement agreements with Israel. It is, in this connection, characteristic that it is precisely Egypt, the country that won what it considers a victory over Israel, which has embarked on the road of negotiation with her....It is quite clear that the feeling of having demonstrated strengh is for an Arab state a psychological prerequisite of discussing adjustments and reaching understanding with an enemy. [emphasis added] (xxiii - xxv)
How would shame/honor manifest itself in discussions between Arabs and Westerners?

In his 1989 book, The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs, David Pryce-Jones writes about
Kenneth Pendar, an American intelligence officer whose task it was to persuade Moroccans to side with the Allies during the last war, expressed the difficulties of conducting a negotiation in which he expected a yes or a no from people unable to commit themselves to either, because they could not tell who would win the war and acquire honor or who would lose and be shamed. [emphasis added] (p. 45)

 Pryce-Jones goes on to quote Henry Kissinger, who complained of the difficulty of negotiating with the Saudis because of their style that was "at once oblique and persistent, reticent and assertive" based on the allocation of honor or shame.

Based on this, one can imagine that Kerry and Biden could each have easily misinterpreted what they heard in accordance with what they wanted to pass on to their respective audiences.

Interestingly, when Patai writes about the confidence the Yom Kippur Was instilled into the Arab world in 1973, he contrasts Egypt -- which considers the Yom Kippur War a victory -- with other Arab countries that either cannot make such a claim or have never fought Israel, and are therefore opposed to negotiation.

That would seem to rule out Jordan and Sudan, on the one hand, and the UAE and Bahrain on the other.

But King Hussein making peace with Israel is not surprising, considering his tenuous control over his country, the majority of whom are Palestinian Arabs. There was leverage the US could apply, even if the peace treaty itself could cause trouble for Hussein at home.

Considering the leverage that the US applied to Sudan, that country also had a lot to gain. But both Egypt and Jordan have a cold peace with Israel and the Arabs in both countries have expressed their hatred of Jews and Israel. It's not clear that the situation in Sudan is any better.

What about UAE and Bahrain?

Some have belittled the Abraham Accords because those 2 countries have never actually been involved in a war with Israel.

But maybe that is the point.

Egypt and Jordan fought against Israel, and whatever the considerations on the government level -- on a national level, Israel remains an enemy in the eyes of the Egyptian and Jordanian people, regardless of the benefits Israel has to offer and are nowhere near normalizing relations. There is an absence of a state of war, but the mood of belligerence persists.

Not so with UAE and Bahrain, which has never fought Israel. 

The intent of the Abraham Accords is not to bring peace in order to end a state of war -- instead the point is to normalize relations, a goal that is conceivable for UAE and Bahrain, but not for Egypt and Jordan, which still cannot go beyond a 'cold peace,' let alone a full, real peace.

In November 2017, Mordechai Kedar wrote The Ten Commandments for Israeli negotiations with Saudi Arabia, which he described as "immutable principles" for negotiating with Saudi Arabia "and any other Arab nations who wish to live in peace with the Jewish State."

One of those principles is the need for normalizing relations as opposed to just making peace:
10. Peace with the Saudis must entail more than just a ceasefire with an attached document ("Salaam" in Arabic) . Israel agreed to that in the case of Egypt and Jordan as a result of the ignorance of those running the negotiations on Israel's side.

Israel must insist on complete normalization ("sulh" in Arabic), which includes cultural, tourist, business, industrial, art, aeronautical, scientific, technological, athletic and academic ties and exchanges, etc. If Israel participates in international events taking place in Saudi Arabia, the Israeli flag will wave along with those of other countries, and if Israel is the victor in any sports competition in Saudi Arabia, the Hatikva anthem will be played, as it is when other countries win medals. Israeli books will be shown at book fairs, and Israeli products officially displayed at international exhibitions taking place in Saudi Arabia.

An economic document, whose details I am not in a position to elaborate, but which must be an addendum to the agreement, is to be based on mutual investments and acquisitions as well as a commitment to non- participation in boycotts. [emphasis added]
This is what we are seeing now.

A foreshadowing for what is possible is in another comment by Patai, where he addresses the "Arab street" that today we are told is supposedly ready at any moment to rise up in protest, yet whose anger Trump has somehow been able to avoid these past 4 years:
The volatility of Arab reaction to the October War was paralleled four years later by the rapid evaporation of Arab wrath over President Satat's initiative in establishing direct contact with Israel. This was observed by Fuad Moughrabi, professor of political science and co-editor of the Arab Studies Quarterly, in 1980:
The Arab world reacted strongly and passionately to Sadat's visit to Jerusalem. But contrary to what many had expected, the intensity of the reaction was not followed by any concrete, effective steps to neutralize the conseqauences of the visit. Sadat did the unthinkable and got away with it. (p. 339)
Moughrabi wrote this in 1980.
Sadat was assassinated in 1981 -- by the extremist Muslim Brotherhood.

Back then, Arab opposition to Sadat was not directed against the idea of peace, but against the Camp David Accords themselves, which removed Egypt as a participant in the war against Israel -- a war which was supposed to benefit the cause of the Palestinian Arabs.

Today, with the Arab support for the Palestinian Arab cause at its lowest ebb, there are genuine prospects for continuing what the Trump administration started.

That is, assuming that this time around Biden actually listens to what the Arab leaders are saying.


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Tuesday, November 17, 2020




What is the hardest part of brokering a peace agreement?

-- Sometimes, it's just getting the two sides to sit down in the same room.
-- Other times, the problem is getting the two sides just to talk.
-- Even then, there is the problem of getting them to negotiate and be willing to make concessions.

And then there is the problem when you just run out of time.

Following the Yom Kippur War, in which Egypt and Syria were nearly victorious, a unique possibility for peace between Israel and Egypt presented itself. Nixon's airlift of crucial arms during the war was critical to Israel's victory -- and created an opportunity.

Richard Nixon. Public domain



Seeking to take advantage of this opportunity, in June 1974, Nixon became the first US president to visit Israel while in office.

As Rabin explained in a press conference after Nixon returned to the US:
"Ever since the airlift of the Yom Kippur War, the Arabs have come to understand that America will not allow Israel to be weakened. A defeat of Israel is a victory for the USSR. Paradoxically, this is what has raised America's prestige in the Arab world, and has given Washington leverage. Today in the Middle East, Moscow is a synonym for instability and war, Washington for stability and negotiation." (Yehuda Avner, The Prime Ministers, p. 270)

Yitzhak Rabin. Public domain



This leverage as an honest broker would make it possible for the US to go beyond being a supporter of Israel's interests, and show that it was a strong and reliable ally to address the interests of the Arab world as well.

Meanwhile, Nixon began discussing with Egypt's Sadat the possibility of a final settlement, going step-by-step. On June 25, Nixon wrote to Sadat:
Mr. President, I am convinced that we have witnessed in recent months a turning point in the history of the Middle East -- a turning toward an honorable, just, and endurinable peace -- and have ushered in a new era in U.S.-Arab relations. A direction has been set, and it is my firm intention to stay on the course we have chartered. (p. 271)
Two months later, Nixon resigned.

The following month, Rabin was meeting with President Ford -- and Kissinger -- to continue what Nixon had started. The following year, in March, Kissinger came to the Middle East to conduct his "shuttle diplomacy," bouncing back and forth between Israel and Egypt. Kissinger pressured Rabin on a withdrawal from the Sinai, especially from the Mitla and Gidi passes, while Rabin wanted Sadat to commit himself to a "termination of the state of belligerency" with Israel.

Kissinger's efforts failed -- and he blamed Israel.

In the end, however, another attempt was made, culminating in an interim agreement known as Sinai II.

Just to get an idea of what Rabin was up against, here is an excerpt from the notes of a conversation between Sadat and Foreign Minister Fahmi with Ford and Kissinger. The context is the early warning stations in the Sinai that Rabin wanted to retain -- and Sadat's idea of a compromise, where they would be manned by US troops. Note the highlighted portions.





The term "honest broker" is overrated.

In any event, Rabin too ended up resigning because of the 'scandal' surrounding his wife, who had retained a bank account from the years when Rabin was Israel's ambassador to the US from 1968 to 1973. After that, the Israeli law forbidding citizens from holding bank accounts abroad came into play. However, another law prevented Rabin from resigning outright once the date for the next elections has been set. Instead, Rabin withdrew from the race as leader of the Labor Party, to be replaced from Shimon Peres to face Menachem Begin.

Begin became prime minister -- and it was during his term that a peace treaty with Egypt was signed. 

Rabin felt his role in making that peace treaty possible was never acknowledged, but at the same time he understood that was the way of things.

In his memoirs, Rabin wrote:
When President Sadat made his historic visit to Jerusalem on 19 November 1977 I was no longer prime minister. Yet that visit -- and the subsequent moves toward achieving a peace treaty -- could never have come about were it not for the course my government adopted in signing the 1975 interim agreement. That our policy provoked the anger of Likud has not prevented Mr. Begin's government from reaping the fruits of our labors. Of course, that is how things should be, since the quest for peace is not a contest between political parties...The 1975 agreement with Egypt was never meant to be an end in itself. As its title implies, it was designed to advance the momentum toward peace, and in that sense it achieved its purpose. [emphasis added] (quoted in The Prime Ministers, p.302)
Begin benefited from the foundation set by Nixon and the groundwork laid by Rabin, both of whom left their work unfinished. 

But that was not the last we heard from Rabin.

After serving as prime minister from 1974 to 1977, Rabin became prime minister again in 1992.
And he was still focused on peace. In 1994, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his part in the Oslo Accords, along with Shimon Peres and Arafat. Rabin also signed a peace treaty with Jordan that same year.

In late 1995, Rabin described to Yehuda Avner his view of the Middle East, a description that 25 years later sounds familiar:
Number one: Israel is surrounded by two concentric circles. The inner circle is comprised of our immediate neighbors—Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, and, by extension, Saudi Arabia. The outer circle comprises their neighbors—Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Yemen and Libya. Virtually all of them are rogue states, and some are going nuclear.

Number two, Iranian-inspired Islamic fundamentalism constitutes a threat to the inner circle no less than it does to Israel. Islamic fundamentalism is striving to destabilize the Gulf Emirates, has already created havoc in Syria, leaving twenty thousand dead, in Algeria, leaving one hundred thousand dead, in Egypt, leaving twenty-two thousand dead, in Jordan, leaving eight thousand dead, in the Horn of Africa—the Sudan and Somalia—leaving fourteen thousand dead, and in Yemen, leaving twelve thousand dead. And now it is gaining influence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Iran is the banker, pouring millions into the West Bank and Gaza in the form of social welfare and health and education programs, so that it can win the hearts of the population and feed religious fanaticism.

Thus, a confluence of interest has arisen between Israel and the inner circle, whose long-term strategic interest is the same as ours: to lessen the destabilizing consequences from the outer circle. At the end of the day, the inner circle recognizes they have less to fear from Israel than from their Muslim neighbors, not least from radicalized Islamic powers going nuclear.

Number three: the Arab-Israeli conflict was always considered to be a political one: a conflict between Arabs and Israelis. The fundamentalists are doing their level best to turn it into a religious conflict—Muslim against Jew, Islam against Judaism. And while a political conflict is possible to solve through negotiation and compromise, there are no solutions to a theological conflict. Then it is jihad—religious war: their God against our God. Were they to win, our conflict would go from war to war, and from stalemate to stalemate. [emphasis added] (p. 707)
The context for this description of the Middle East is Rabin's response to Avner's question as to why he shook Arafat's hand at the signing of the Oslo Accords:
He and his PLO represent the last vestige of secular Palestinian nationalism. We have nobody else to deal with. It is either the PLO or nothing. It is a long shot for a possible settlement, or the certainty of no settlement at all at a time when the radicals are going nuclear.
With the growing threat of Islamic fundamentalism, negotiating with secular Palestinian Arabs made sense to Rabin.

Neither he -- nor then-President Clinton -- saw the potential in negotiating and working with other Arab states within those concentric circles. There's no reason they would, when all the contemporary thinking was focused on the Palestinian Arabs as a key to peace, a cold peace in line with the peace treaties signed with Egypt and Jordan with no thought of normalization. According to that thinking, it is either the Palestinian Arabs or nothing.

The Middle East achievements of the Trump administration this year took Rabin's outline and acted on it.

What Rabin might have further accomplished, we will never know.
He was stopped again, this time by a bullet, from pursuing peace.

But like Nixon and Rabin, Trump too will not be pursuing his vision for peace to its full extent.


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