Thursday, November 01, 2018
Elder of ZiyonThis week the Palestinian Central Council (PCC) appealed to Arab states to suspend further normalisation with Israel pending the establishment of a Palestinian state.What a change from a few years ago when every Palestinian demand at every Arab conference would be highlighted and accepted without question.
“We are asking Arab states to send a message of resolve and tell Israeli officials that they cannot expect to make any more political and economic gains with Arab states when they are making the lives of Palestinians in the occupied territories a nightmare. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees our request will be considered,” said a Palestinian source who spoke on the phone from Ramallah on Monday.
The Palestinian fear that the Gulf doesn't really care about them is well-founded. I've documented for years that the rich Arab Gulf states would pay lip service to the Palestinian cause but not live up to their promises of monetary or other support.
Now, they are more explicit about it:
On the same day a Cairo-based Arab diplomat confirmed to Al-Ahram Weekly that the PCC’s request was unlikely to be given a serious hearing.An article that has been published in many Arab newspapers today bemoans the fact that Israelis are attending an economic conference in Qatar this week, an event that that has apparently been unreported in English-language media so far. Representatives of the Peres Center, Ben Gurion University, Tel Aviv University, The Israel Project and even a former Foreign Ministry official are in attendance.
“When the [PCC] requests the suspension of further normalisation with Israel it is basically talking about Gulf countries, not about Egypt or Jordan which have peace treaties with Israel. But the Gulf countries take the position that if the Palestinian Authority continues to refuse US proposals for a possible deal that could eventually resolve the Palestinian problem, then the Palestinian leadership is in no position to ask Gulf states to refrain from any steps that might be in their political or economic interests,” said the source.
Far more likely, he added, is that the “next few weeks and months” will see a much greater public acknowledgment of Israeli relations with Arab Gulf countries “and Arab countries in general” and that “Israeli officials are likely to visit Manama soon”.
Speaking during a press briefing on Saturday on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogues, Bahrani Foreign Minister Khaled bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa suggested that normalisation with Israel is progressing in parallel with diplomacy to resolve the Palestinian problem.
Meanwhile, Cairo-based regional diplomats say that they would not be surprised if Bahrain proves to be the next stop. In the words of one, “Israel and Bahrain have much in common when it comes to Iran.”
Notice that people who claim to be "pro-peace" are not celebrating these now almost daily examples of Israel making diplomatic, economic and cultural inroads into former bitter enemies.
Because the Israeli and US governments support actual, on the ground peace between Israel and her neighbors, then the "pro-peace" crowd who hate Trump and Netanyahu above all must be against it.
