The Abraham Accord

 Benjamin Netanyahu, Jerusalem, August 13, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

"That's what peace for peace looks like."           "It will be a warm peace because it will be based on co-operation in the realm of economics with an entrepreneurial economy like ours with vast economic capabilities, with big money looking for investment channels."  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

"Peace is not an empty word used to normalize crimes and oppression. Peace is the outcome of justice."                                                                                     "Peace is not made by denying Palestine's right to exist and imposing an apartheid regime. Apartheid is what Netanyahu means by 'peace for peace'."               Palestinian politician Saeb Erekat

Erekat made those bitter accusations with a straight face. Mostly because he believes what he's said. That Israel, a Jewish state founded on historical heritage geography for a global ingathering to ensure that Jews will never again be subjected to pogroms or genocidal horror without defences, is an Apartheid state. A Jewish state within which citizenry has been extended to 20% of the population who are not Jewish; Arabs, Druze, Kurds, Bha'i, Christians and others who make Israel their home.

The Palestinian Territories, on the other hand, are Judenrein. Should Jews wander erroneously into Palestinian territory their lives would be forfeit. That's terrorism, that's racism, that's Apartheid. Israel's sequential governments over the past 70 years have never denied statehood to the Palestinians. Over the years one effort after another to bring Palestinian authorities to the bargaining table, making painful concessions to satisfy their demands, have failed.

For the quite simple reality that the Palestinian negotiators on behalf of their vision of 'Palestine from the river to the sea' envision Israel gone; their agenda is the denial of Israel's right to exist, the polar opposite of Erekat's mendaciously fallacious claim. Those viperous accusations resonate, however, in a Palestinian population that has been inundated and steeped in such reversals of truth from childhood to adulthood.

Israel previously signed two other peace agreements; one with Egypt the other with Jordan. Peace, in the absence of war when the two Arab nations understood they will never extirpate Jews from their very own heritage geography and in a sense of practicality accepted Israel's enduring presence. Friendly relations? Never; cold, distant and combative. Egypt's President al-Sisi a notable exception in his realization that Egypt has much to gain, along with his belief that Islamic scholars should be more responsible in their edicts.

Israeli, U.S., Emirati flags, Abu Dhabi International Airport REUTERS

The United Arab Emirates' willingness to sign a peace agreement with Israel ventures into different society-to-society territory, extending warmth, helpfulness and a wish to explore deeply useful relations between the two nations. An attitude reciprocated by Israel in enthusiasm and exuberance to be finally accepted, with the hope that more Sunni Arab nations will follow the UAE's lead. Israel possibly retains a modicum of uncertainty while the UAE appears to have none in their surrender to the inevitable whereas Israel has been the subject for all of its modern-day existence of neighbourly hostility and violence.

The Palestinian Authority reaction to the words of friendship passing between the UAE and Israel, sincere, authentic and of great relief to both great nations, is 'disappointment' leading to the usual Palestinian malice against those it believes have abandoned its 'cause' of avoidance of 'normalization' with Israel, since normalization is code for acceptance and there is no acceptance by the PA rulers of Israel as a Jewish state established in perpetuity. And in their 'disappointment' Palestinians violently reject what they cannot change, cast insults and vicious recriminations.

US Presidential Adviser Jared Kushner (left) and US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien () disembark from the El Al’s airliner, which is carrying a US-Israeli delegation to the UAE following a normalization accord, upon landing on the tarmac on August 31, 2020, in the first-ever commercial flight from Israel to the UAE at the Abu Dhabi airport. Behind them is Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat. (Karim SAHIB / AFP)

Israel and the UAE are on track henceforth to discuss matters such as economic, scientific trade and cultural cooperation; openly heartfelt with a view of enriching each culturally and socially, and expanding trade to advance their future prospects for prosperity together, banishing forever fears of negative hostility. The Palestinians seek to build upon the framework of hostile relations with Israel and to extend that hostility to all those abroad who sympathize with the deliberate rancid, racist charges against Israel's intentions.

As for Hamas, the usual rote rejection of all things Israeli from a terrorist group whose mandate is to achieve the destruction of the Jewish state in emphasizing that the ground-breaking flight from Israel to the UAE, the El Al plane flying through Saudi airspace with permission, a catastrophe for Palestinians, that the flight represents a "stab in the back of the Palestinian people, a prolonging of the occupation and a betrayal of the resistance of the (Palestinian) people", declared Hamas.

US President's senior adviser Jared Kushner, US National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat disembark a plane upon landing at Abu Dhabi International Airport Image Credit: REUTERS

Lifting the 'occupation' would be simple enough. The need for Israeli military personnel to be forever on alert would be nullified by the simple act of renouncing the intention to destroy Israel. By surrendering to the reality of a nation that will not be dislodged from its historical roots. By laying down the arms that Hamas has assembled in a vast cache against the final assault on Israel to destroy it as intended. Without the need to constantly be on guard in the defence of its citizens and its territory, the IDF would withdraw its presence, and the 'occupation' ceases.

Without the will and determination to bargain for peace the Palestinians are once again and forever declaring their intention to destroy Israel, not live alongside it peacefully and with prospects for a prosperous future for both peoples. Meanwhile the UAE must cope with its own trials brought on by its decision to befriend Israel. Two people were killed in Abu Dhabi when a KFC and Hardee's restaurants were blown up; the symbolism clear enough; U.S. franchises in UAE territory; targets for vengeance by those dissatisfied with the current trend toward peace.

The US-Israel delegation is received. Image Credit: WAM