The Palestinians continue to display an unreal sense of their own importance. Now they have taken on the Arab League and “threaten” – as if anyone would much care – to sever their own ties to the League. That story is here.
The Palestinian Authority on Monday called on its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to “reconsider” Ramallah’s ties with Arab League in the wake of what it called the pan-Arab forum’s “impotence” vis-à-vis the growing momentum for regional peace independent of the Palestinian cause.
The Palestinian factions have criticized the Persian Gulf states of Bahrain and United Arab Emirates for seeking rapprochement with Israel before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved, decrying the two nations’ recognition of Israel as a “stab in the back.”
The Arab League has remained mum over the peace deals, sparking both fury and concern among the Palestinian leadership, which fears the winds of change blowing through the region will marginalize the Palestinian issue.
The Palestinian issue has long been “marginalized.” Confronted with three civil wars, in Yemen, Libya, and Syria, with the continuing aggression of Iran which seeks to create a “Shi’a crescent from the Gulf to the Mediterranean,” with Muslim Brotherhood challenges to Egypt and the Gulf monarchies, with forces of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State having regrouped, with the steep decline in oil demand and oil prices, with the coronavirus pandemic, the Arabs have never had so much to deal with, and of course they have put the “Palestinian issue” far down their list of concerns.
“The Arab League has become a symbol of Arab weakness,” PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh stated on Monday.
Ramallah has already recalled its envoys in Abu Dhabi and Manama in protest over the peace deals with the Jewish state.
Yes, that’s showing them. But will the UAE and Bahrain really suffer from no longer having Palestinian envoys whining, and demanding financial aid and diplomatic support, and throwing tantrums, in the spirit of the PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, when that aid and that support are not forthcoming? Or will the UAE and Bahrain, as is more likely, breathe a sigh of relief, and think to themselves “good riddance” as they show those envoys the door?
A potential exit from the Arab League could undermine the Palestinian Authority in more ways than one. It will further distance them from the 20 nations comprising the powerful forum, and may also backfire—driving more Arab states to normalize relations with Israel.
That is absolutely correct. The Palestinians are becoming ever more irrelevant. They have made mistake after mistake. They support the Muslim Brotherhood – Hamas is the local MB branch in Gaza – which is a threat to both Egypt and the Gulf monarchies. Even more intolerable for the other Arabs is that the Palestinians have grown close to, and accepted military aid from, the mortal enemy of the Gulf Sunnis – Iran.
Now the Palestinians threaten to quit the Arab League. What Arab states would give a damn? It’s no skin off their teeth. Go ahead, Mahmoud Abbas, and don’t forget to close the door behind you. Take your spittle-flecked fury and your tantrums off to your only remaining friends in the region, Iran and Turkey. Perhaps they can console you. We in the Arab League have had quite enough of your ingratitude and your endless demands that we Arabs ignore our own national interests and do as you demand. See what Ankara, see what Tehran, both in the midst of economic free falls, can do for you instead.
“These peace deals will kill the Arab peace initiative,” Shtayyeh said, referring to the 2002 Saudi outline for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The signing of these agreements is a dark day in the history of the Arab nations and it is a defeat for the Arab League.”
Shtayyeh has it partly right. These “peace deals” — “normalization” deals — will confirm the death of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, but that Initiative, that required Israel to withdraw behind the 1949 armistice lines, which Abba Eban rightly described as “the lines of Auschwitz,” was already dead on arrival. There was never a chance in hell that Israel would agree to its maximalist conditions, leaving Israel with a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea.
Shtayyeh is wrong, however, in describing the signing as a “dark day” in the “history of the Arab nations.” It was rather, a bright sign that some Arab states had come to their senses, and from now on will make their policies on the basis of their perceived national interests. And when those national interests in security and economic matters are promoted by “normalization ” of relations with Israel, they will refuse to be held back by curses and threats from the Palestinians.
Is the signing of these agreements between Israel and the UAE, Israel and Bahrain, a defeat for the “Arab League”? Why? How has the Arab League suffered? The League has simply refused to follow the demand of the Palestinians to consign the UAE, at its latest meeting, to the outer darkness. The Palestinians, having lost control of the League proceedings, and in a rage, want us to believe it was not they, but the Arab League, that has been deeply discredited. No one else seems to agree.
According to the Palestinian prime minister, “We have managed to foil much of [US President Donald Trump’s] ‘deal of the century’ only to find ourselves struggling with the UAE and Bahrain.”
How did the Palestinian Arabs foil “much of the ‘deal of the century’”? They refused to attend the meeting in Manama to discuss the $50 billion aid package – the largest such package for a single state in history — that the Palestinians would receive as part of the Deal of the Century. They refused to consider a deal that would for the first time give them an independent state, with 70% of Judea and Samaria, all of Gaza, and two large enclaves in Israel’s Negev to compensate for the 30% of Judea and Samaria that Israel would retain, and in addition provide them with that colossal sum of $50 billion, as a victory. They long ago lost all moral sense. Now they have lost all common sense. And contrary to their claim that they have “foiled” much of the deal of the century, that deal’s offer is still intact and on the table. Mahmoud Abbas, who is 85, may be replaced by someone more pragmatic and realistic, such as Mohammad Dahlan (who has the backing of the UAE), willing to negotiate on the basis of the “Deal of the Century.” There are fifty billion reasons for the impoverished Palestinians to want him to do so.
Peter Buckley says
“Times change, everything has changed, except for the Palestinian mood that rejects anything and everything.” — Saudi writer Amal Abdel Aziz al-Hazany, Asharq al-Awsat, September 15, 2020.
“Palestinian leaders are the main cause for the suffering of their people. They have achieved nothing for the Palestinians. They only care about power and achieving personal and partisan gains at the expense of the Palestinian issue.” — Emirati political analyst Issa bin Arabi Albuflasah, Al Bayan, September 12, 2020.
“We were told that Israel’s slogan was [to expand] ‘From the Euphrates to the Nile.’ Iran, however, does not hide its expansionist ideological trend, which it is already practicing through its militias in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. Turkey, on the other hand, is seeking to seize new sources of energy in Libya and has sights on Africa along the Red Sea. These developments prompted the moderate Arabs to start reconsidering previous their political positions.” — Saudi writer Fahd al Degaither, Okaz, September 14, 2020.
“The Palestinian issue concerns the Arab peoples who want a solution, but the leaders benefit from the status quo. These leaders benefit from the problems and suffering of their people. There is no solution under corrupt leaderships.” — Saudi writer Osama Yamani, Okaz, September 11, 2020.
Al-Shkiran also advised the Palestinians to hold their leaders accountable on two levels: “The first is political accountability: The reasons and causes of the continued rejection of all realistic deals that were offered to them since the beginning of the problem until today. Second: Opening the files of corruption. The Palestinian has the right to ask about the billions of dollars paid by the Gulf states for the Palestinian cause. All that money has disappeared.” — Saudi writer and researcher Fahd al-Shkiran, Asharq Al-Awsat, September 16, 2020.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16518/arabs-israel-enemy
Religious fantasy being replaced by life’s reality.
The words “chicken”, “home” and “roost” come to mind, for some reason…..
Keys says
The Palestinian leaders are similar to the US “race baiters”. Their industry would die without the turmoil they create.
People like Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jessie Jackson and Louis Farrakhan get rich by having inventing an unjust enemy, just as the Palestinian leaders do.
Emilie Green says
“to display an unreal sense of their own importance”
Arrogance has never been in short supply. The story is reputed to have been made up, but it makes a point and gives a laugh. London Times headline from the first half of the 19th Century, “Fog in Channel; Continent Cut Off”
A further and more important point: The world would be better off without the Palis. Even other Muslims are coming to realize that.
Emilie Green says
Er, “20th Century”
Well, at least I’m not on 7th Century time.
Transmaster says
The Palestinian have become the “trailer trash” of the Middle East. Their institutional intransigence has gone on too long. The PA want something that never was and never will be. In the meantime the The Gulf States have a bigger fish to fry, Iran. Trump coming in from a businessman’s angle of economics, and you need to defend yourself. Obama has had one good effect on the Middle East the Sunni’s realized they are one President away from being screwed if they don’t take matters into their own hands. What I really like about this is the losers are going to be the Chinese, Russia, and Turkey. Iran will face a United Arabic front with Israel a part of it.
RichardL says
at the end, things happen very quickly. The whole power structure will break down because the top dogs will go and spend their millions in some real country and those below will see that they won’t be extracting all that money any more and will jump ship. The Incredible Hulk of international relations, The Donald, has done it again!
Maemae77 says
Pray for that day with all my heart and soul.
gravenimage says
Palestinian Prime Minister Calls for ‘Reconsidering’ Palestinian Authority’s Ties to the Arab League
……………….
More sour grapes…
vcragain says
And with great joy I just read that a poll has found that only about 40% of Iranians consider themselves Muslim, 33% say they are non-believers ! Iran has a big problem by forcing it’s women into the Sharia lifestyle….only a matter of time before the rumblings become louder & louder ! The Iranian people enjoyed a very free lifestyle in earlier years…now the Palestinian screamers are discovering they are pretty irrelevant, so there is light at the end of the tunnel….maybe the world can start to breathe – it’s always the religious that want to FORCE their system on everybody else, religion in the US being exactly the same cause of the frozen brains that yearn to control us all ! So now we are all going to be threatened by a Supreme Court of RW nut jobs inspecting every woman’s uterus status – yet they scream about ‘those Libs’ trying to control everybody ……..UGH humans !!!!
David Clarke says
Muslims are on a crusade (excuse the expression) to convert the World to Islam. Christians on the whole are not trying to convert the World to Christianity. Good news about Iran! Look at pre-1979 photos of Iran. It was Westernised, thanks to the Shah. Yes he had enemies: Muslims, who seized power, and forced Sharia on the population.
Mae says
That’s right. That’s the second Islamization of Iran. The reason why people were free back then was because of the crusades.
David says
The ‘palestinians’: ” It is not us who are mad! It is the rest of the World!”
Maemae77 says
Those supremacist bigots are p*ssed off and we’re quoting verses of the Qur’an that forbid peace with Israel.
Screw those pieces of scum. They still salute Hitler.