Michael Doran: The Realignment
It is impossible to exaggerate the value to the United States of a full-blown Saudi-Israeli peace agreement or even of significant steps in that direction. The 9/11 attacks announced that a doctrine of radical intolerance had taken deeper root inside the Muslim world than we had realized—a doctrine that seeks to wall off Muslim societies from non-Muslim influences. The Emiratis, the lead players in the Abraham Accords, see peace with Israel as part of a multipronged effort to refute this intolerant view of Islam and Muslim history. Saudi Arabia is the most powerful Arab country and, thanks to its guardianship of Mecca and Medina, one of the most influential countries in the entire Muslim world. It has also long been the fortress of conservative Islamic jurisprudence and Quranic literalism. If the country toward which all Muslims pray five times a day, and to which some 2 million make annual pilgrimages, develops openly friendly relations with the Jewish state, the implications for relations between Muslims and non-Muslims everywhere would be profound.Caroline Glick: Washington's agenda is completely wrong – and incendiary
Yet the Biden administration has forbidden its officials from even using the term “Abraham Accords,” which, under the influence of the Realignment, it abhors. Because the accords are politically popular, even in Democratic circles, the administration will refrain from expressing its abhorrence frankly, and will look for every opportunity to claim that it looks favorably on the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
In reality, however, the Biden team has no intention to expand the Abraham Accords, whose very existence is a blot on the Democrats’ record. It refutes the dogma preached by the Obama administration that peace between Israel and the Arab world must begin with a Palestinian-Israeli agreement.
More importantly, the accords are also a threat to the Realignment itself. The Saudi-Israeli thaw resulted in part from the sense of threat they share about the rise of Iran, and the increasing unreliability of the American security guarantee. A strong partnership between Riyadh and Jerusalem would inevitably become the primary node of opposition to the Realignment from within the American alliance system. A desire to end any unsupervised discussion of expanding the Abraham Accords is probably an additional reason why the Biden administration devoted its first days in office to publicly disparaging Mohammed bin Salman and privately pressing him to kowtow to Tehran. “Do not dare assist Israel” was another implicit command that the Khashoggi values barrage delivered to Riyadh.
When Biden took office, he faced a fork in the road. On one path stood a multilateral alliance designed to contain Iran. It had a proven track record of success and plans of even better things to come, as the recent act of sabotage at Natanz demonstrated. The alliance’s leading members were beckoning Biden to work against a common foe, but also to promote greater cooperation and possibly even an official peace agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. On the other path stood the Islamic Republic, hated by its own people and, indeed, by most people in the Middle East. It offered nothing but the same vile message it had always espoused. Standing with it were all of the most malignant forces in the Middle East, who either look directly to Tehran for leadership or thrive on the chaos it sows.
Biden chose Iran, fracturing the U.S. alliance system and setting back the cause of peace. His choice also delivered a victory to China and Russia, who are working with Iran, each in its own way, toward America’s undoing. In a perverse effort to liberate itself from its allies, the United States is soiling its own nest.
As Israel Hayom's Ariel Kahana reported, Ben-Shabbat didn't take Sullivan's hostile dressing down in silence. He responded appropriately, "As the sovereign, Israel is handing the events responsibly and in a measured way despite the provocations."Emily Schrader: How Palestinians lost Jerusalem to Israel - opinion
Ben-Shabbat added, "International intervention serves as a prize to the rioters and their dispatchers that had hoped that international pressure would be exerted against Israel."
Less than 24 hours after their phone call, Hamas proved Ben-Shabbat was right. With a tailwind from the White House, Hamas gave Israel an ultimatum: Remove your security forces from the Temple Mount and Sheikh Jarrah by 6 p.m. or you'll live to regret it. In other words: Give up your sovereignty over Jerusalem by six or else.
Lo and behold, shortly after 6 p.m., the air raid sirens sounded throughout Jerusalem and its environs as Hamas attacked the capital with rockets from Gaza. As the evening progressed Arab Israelis in Ramle and Lod and other mixed cities carried out what can only be called a pogrom against their Jewish neighbors. They burned yeshivot, schools and apartment buildings and beat and tried to lynch Jews that fell in their paths. After they were done, they went to the local hospital emergency room, threw rocks at the medical staff and patients and tried to kill the Arab Israeli doctors and nurses on the scene for "collaboration" with the Jews.
The medical staff had to evacuate with the patients to protected areas while the police dispersed the attackers with stun grenades – in the ER.
The official readout of Biden's national security adviser concluded by mentioning that Sullivan, "expressed the Administration's commitment to Israel's security."
A bit more "commitment" like this and Israel will find itself in short order fighting a regional war.
Since Israel’s establishment, Palestinian leaders have missed countless opportunities to make peace and secure a state because of their rejectionist attitude. From a purely political standpoint, their adamant refusal to accept Israel costs them more in negotiating power every year. For example, the negotiating standpoint after the UN’s Partition Plan would have been far more advantageous for the Palestinians than where it stands today – and in almost every single subsequent peace offer, the Palestinians chose to sabotage their own future in terms of land, self-determination, cooperation with Israel and, yes, Jerusalem.
While the Palestinians never had Jerusalem – even east Jerusalem, which was under occupation by Jordan – their actions today demonstrate why they never will. For that, they have only themselves to blame.
The recent uptick in violence began at the start of Ramadan with a disturbing TikTok trend of Arabs assaulting Jews and filming it. The response was an equally disturbing pushback of far-right Israeli Jews who rioted in Jerusalem, even chanting “death to Arabs.” But neither of these activities came from nowhere. The Kahanist Right in Israel has been emboldened by vile racist leaders like Itamar Ben-Gvir, who maneuvered their way into the Knesset to the great shame of our entire nation.
Yet on the other side, we have entire generations raised on glorifying violence against Jews. Most recently, we see Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority all ramping up their incitement to violence, with the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism, Iran, dousing the entire situation with kerosene and lighting the match.
Iran-allied Palestinians even recently put up billboards with Iran’s slogan for Jerusalem Day at the entrance to Kalandiya in the West Bank. This is far from the first time Palestinians have promoted Iranian propaganda, but it is a clear and continued indicator of where Palestinian alliances lie – and they aren’t with their fellow Arab states.