Dennis Ross and David Makovsky: Sunni Arab Leaders Are No Longer Willing to Wait for the Palestinians
In speaking to Arab leaders of nine states in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, President Biden said that "we will operate in the context of the Middle East as it is today: a region more united than it has been in years....Increasingly, the world is seeing the Mideast through the lens of opening and opportunity."Israel working on 5-way summit with Abraham Accords' leaders
As he told an Israeli television interviewer, "the more Israel is integrated into the region as an equal and is accepted, the more likely there is going to be a means by which they can eventually come to accommodation with the Palestinians down the road." Biden is saying that ties with the Arabs give Israel a gateway to an Israeli-Palestinian deal.
For Sunni Arab leaders, what began as under-the-radar cooperation against terror and traditional security threats is now expanding to include domestic economic needs. With Israeli business people now doing business in Saudi Arabia, albeit on second passports, the phenomena is clearly not limited to the countries that have made formal peace with Israel.
What the Palestinian leadership has failed to realize is that the needs of Arab states now mean they are no longer willing to wait for the Palestinians, particularly because they doubt the Palestinian leadership is capable of doing anything to help resolve the conflict. The continuing Palestinian public incitement against Israel, which necessarily legitimizes violence, gives the Israeli public little reason to think that the Palestinians will ever make real peace.
Some two years after the signing of the Abraham Accords that saw Israel and four Arab states announce the normalization of relations, a summit of all signatories is in the works, Israel Hayom has exclusively learned.MEMRI: Senior Bahraini Journalist: The American-Israeli-Arab Negev Forum Promotes The Best Solutions For The Palestinian Issue; I Hope More Countries Will Join It
According to the plan that Israel is currently drafting, the heads of state of each country would participate in the high-profile gathering that would take place in one of the five countries. Several months ago Israel hosted the inaugural meeting of the Negev Forum, which saw the foreign ministers meet in Israel's southern desert. But the new summit, if it takes place, will be a-political as much as possible.
Although Israel has yet to receive a confirmation on the participation from any of the other signatories, officials in Jerusalem are proactively trying to secure a final date for the summit before the Knesset election on Nov. 1.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who has visited three of the four Arab countries as foreign minister in recent months, hopes to hold an official visit in Rabat in the coming weeks or months.
On June 27, 2022, the steering committee of the Negev Forum, comprising senior diplomats from the U.S., Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Egypt, held its first meeting in Bahrain's capital Manama. This forum was established at the Negev Summit, which was held in southern Israel in March 2022, with the participation of the foreign ministers of Israel, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, the UAE and the U.S.David Singer: UN will rue burying debate on Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine
The meeting's closing statement notes the member states agreed to increase the cooperation between them, to hold annual meetings at the level of foreign ministers, and to form working groups in the spheres of clean energy, education and coexistence, food and water security, health, regional security and tourism. The participants stressed their commitment to a negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "as part of efforts to achieve a just, lasting and comprehensive peace." They also noted that the working committees were meant to promote the wellbeing of the peoples of the region, including through initiatives to strengthen the Palestinian economy and improve the Palestinians' quality of life.[1]
At a press conference following the steering committee's meeting, 'Abdallah bin Ahmad Aal Khalifa, an undersecretary at Bahrain's ministry of foreign affairs, said that the goal of the Negev Forum is to build a regional framework for expanding the cooperation and coordination among the member states.[2] Adding that the forum is open to the participation of additional regional countries, he stressed that it is not a military forum but is intended to promote cooperation between Bahrain, Israel, Morocco, the UAE and the U.S. in order to develop the region. "The six [member] states are jointly committed to taking advantage of the numerous opportunities for cooperation between Israel and its neighbors," he said, "so as to actualize common interests and promote a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will [enable] attaining a comprehensive peace" and enhancing the quality of life and the wellbeing of the Palestinians.[3]
Against the backdrop of the steering committee's meeting, Bahraini media figure 'Ahdia Ahmed Al-Sayed, formerly the chair of the Bahraini Journalists Association, wrote an article in the Emirati daily Al-Ittihad in which she welcomed the holding of the steering committee's meeting in Bahrain. Al-Sayed, known for supporting peace with Israel, stated that, unlike those who exploit the Palestinian issue, the Negev Forum establishes ties between the Arab countries, Israel and the U.S., aspires to improve the life of the Palestinians and promotes peace between the Palestinians and Israel. Al-Sayed called on more countries to join the forum, so it can constitute the kernel of a strong regional alliance on all levels.
The United Nations Security Council has lost any authority to broker an end to the Jewish-Arab conflict - after its 26th July Quarterly Open Debate: “The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question” proceeded for 5 hours without any speaker making reference to a new solution emanating from Saudi Arabia to resolve the 100 years-old conflict.
That Saudi solution – the merger of Jordan, Gaza and part of the 'West Bank' into one separate territorial entity to be called “The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine”- had been published on 8 June in Al Arabiya News.
The article was written by Ali Shihabi – a confidante of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman – Saudi Arabia’s next King and driving force behind NEOM – a $500 billion megacity of the future to be erected in Saudi Arabia on an expanse of land the size of Israel.
The Security Council’s silence in commenting on this Saudi solution ever since its publication has been arrogant and breathtaking. This solution offers an alternative to the solution unsuccessfully pressed by the UN for the last 29 years: The creation of a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan.
The Security Council had an obligation to notify UN member States of the emergence of this new solution since its last Quarterly Debate and encourage the members to consider its pros and cons as a replacement for the UN plan that was clearly dead in the water.
The Security Council and its vast bureaucracy could certainly not claim ignorance of this Saudi proposal.