The Middle East Chess Game

"[The meeting with Netanyahu] aimed to highlight that MbS [Mohammed bin Salmon] is more willing than his father to take steps toward normalization without first reaching a two-state solution."

Neil Quilliam, Associate Fellow, Chatham House think tank

"We have supported normalization with Israel for a long time, because we are the authors of the 2002 Arab Peace initiative, which envisioned complete normalization with Israel."

"But there is one very important thing that has to happen first, which is a permanent and full peace deal between the Palestinians and Israelis that delivers a Palestinian state with dignity within the 1967 borders to the Palestinians."

Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud 

"[Iran has exploited a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers] to intensify its expansionist activities, create its terrorist networks, and use terrorism. [This had produced nothing but[ chaos, extremism, and sectarianism."

"A comprehensive solution and a firm international position are required. Our experience with the Iranian regime has taught us that partial solutions and appeasement did not stop its threats to international peace and security."

"We support the efforts of the current US administration to achieve peace in the Middle East by bringing the Palestinians and the Israelis to the negotiation table to reach a fair and comprehensive agreement."

"This terrorist organization must be disarmed."

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz

King Salman reiterated the need for a Palestinian state [File: Waleed Ali/AP]

"[There have been reports about differences within the royal family, particularly between King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on whether Saudi Arabia will follow others in the region and normalize ties with Israel.] So this was an opportunity to publicly before the world reiterate Saudi Arabia’s long-standing position … that there needs to be two states – an independent state of Palestine with its capital East Jerusalem."

"That’s a clear re-affirmation of Saudi Arabia’s stand and a real rejection of the current efforts to push Arab states to normalize with Israel. That was critically important."

Hillary Mann Leverett, former US official, CEO, political risk consultancy STRATEGA

The meeting between Israel's prime minister and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia messages both allies and enemies of the deep commitment the two countries have forged for the mutual concerns of containing the Islamic Republic of Iran's ambitions. The covert meeting that took place last Sunday in the Saudi city of Neom, publicly denied by Riyadh perhaps for several reasons, one being that King Salman had no prior notice of the impending meeting, conveyed a message to incoming President-elect Joe Biden. Allies of the U.S. are closing ranks, and they're focusing on future U.S. relations with Iran. 

No other Israeli leader has ever been in the position that Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself within, given current events in the region with softening attitudes evinced by Arab Muslim countries toward their Jewish neighbour whose support they all seek in their commonly-shared caution about the intentions of their Persian neighbour exploiting sectarian divisions, supporting and financing terrorist groups, fomenting regional problems, aspiring toward attaining nuclear weapons.

The covert visit had the effect of emphasizing the depth of concern shared by both Israel and Saudi Arabia about Iran, demonstrating just how serious opposition to Tehran is responsible for arranging a strategic realignment of countries in the Middle East in support of their common interests. "It's very important to create the axis which isolates Iran", explained Israeli cabinet minister Tzachi Hanegbi, commenting on the meeting.

The fear all now share with the clear understanding that the Trump administration is preparing to vacate the White House and President-elect Joe Biden is that is prepared to adopt Iran policies reflecting those practised during the U.S. presidency of Barack Obama which had the effect of straining Washington's connections with its traditional regional allies. Mr. Biden has made clear that he intends to rejoin the international nuclear pact with Iran that the U.S. under President Trump left in 2018.

Mr. Biden visualizes working with allies in strengthening the terms of the agreement should Tehran resume strict compliance. Which is expecting a lot, since it became clear soon after the 2015 agreement was signed by all concerned parties that strict compliance to the terms was never on Tehran's real-time agenda. Iran's network of armed Shi'ite militias across the Arab world, from Iraq to Syria and Lebanon and into the Gulf and Yemen, is alarming to its Sunni Muslim neighbours.

Saudi Arabia is particularly concerned with the Houthi rebels from Yemen, backed by Tehran attacking Saudi oil installations. On Israel's part, a silent war against Iranian forces through air raids in Syria on Lebanese Shi'ite paramilitary Hezbollah, on Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the focus on disrupting supplies of weapons shipped across the country, is ongoing. At the meeting on Sunday U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was present, along with the chief of Israel's Mossad.

Mr. Pompeo's active prompting of Gulf  relations with Israel, helped in formalizing Israel's already warm relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and eventually Sudan in normalizing relations with Israel. He has continued his efforts to persuade other Arab nations that it is in their best interests for a variety of reasons to join suit, with the expectation that more will follow. Saudi Arabia's position on normalization hinges on King Salman, adamant that a peace treaty with the Palestinians take place.

"Normalization ... is a carrot to get [Biden's] focus away from other issues, especially [Saudi] human rights", suggested a foreign diplomat in Riyadh. The death on Friday of Iran's chief nuclear scientist may have been planned to put a spanner in the works of Mr. Biden's plans to resume the nuclear deal with Iran, and if so, it will have been worth the condemnation on the part of other nations looking in from the outside, none of whom have to overly concern themselves about the malign, disruptive and violent plans of a near neighbour.

The New Day Dawning of Arab/Israeli Rapprochement

"I do not know nor do I ask about the nationality of everyone I take a photo with."

"Anyone can take a photo with me so long as they are human."

"I never ask about his color, religion, or nationality. All of us are human.":

Egyptian actor and rapper Mohamed Ramadan

The picture in question of Omer Adam and Mohamed Ramadan. Photo: Twitter.

"[Pakistan] categorically rejects baseless speculation regarding [the] possibility of recognition of the State of Israel by Pakistan."

"The prime minister [Imran Khan] has made it clear that unless a just settlement of the Palestine issue, satisfactory to the Palestinian people, is found, Pakistan cannot recognize Israel."

"For just and lasting peace, it is imperative to have a two-state solution in accordance with the relevant United Nations and Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) resolutions, with the pre-1967 borders, and Al-Quds Al-Sharif [Jerusalem] as the capital of a viable, independent and contiguous Palestinian State."

Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri

Where Arab leaders of Muslim-majority countries might wish to finally lay aside their belligerent malice at the presence of a Jewish state returning to its Biblical-era heritage from the diaspora to which it had been exiled only to discover that no place on Earth guaranteed Jews equality, freedom of religion, the right to practise their distinct culture without eventually disowning and turning on them, with blood slanders, expulsion, pogroms, disentitlements, ghettoization, and finally genocide, the opinion 'on the street' will always reflect the campaigns embarked upon to delegitimize the presence of Jews on territory Islam claims for itself.

Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East utterly rejected the United Nations plan for official Partition, apportioning territory to each; Israel and Arab Palestine. Israel accepted the 1948 'permission to proceed' by the world body, while the Palestinians obdurately refused it and the surrounding Middle East states came to their side, swiftly assembling a joint-Arab military invasion to oust the Jews from their fledgling state. And failed. But the sting of failure and the insult to Islam mandated further military assaults, all of them failing. 

Eventually the sting of failure faded at the executive government level for Egypt and Jordan, but the propaganda lessons of Israel=enemy never did. So while both Egypt and Jordan have long since signed peace treaties with the 'enemy' whose presence they could never defeat, all quietened on that front, even as hostility from their populations remained. Turkey, the sole Islamic nation that supported the existence of Israel, did a turnabout with the introduction of an Islamist government.

Gulf nations that never aspired to military victory over Israel, and who unlike Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt did not expel their Jewish populations Arabized over the millennia of living side-by-side with Arabs in near-fraternal order came to the final realization that the failure of the Palestinian cause to found a nation of their own rested with the Palestinian leadership that adamantly refused all offers at the bargaining table with Israel that met Palestinian demands with the exception of two; the 'right of return' and Jerusalem as a Palestinian state capital.

Before the advent of Islam in the 7th Century, the Arabian Peninsula and particularly areas around the now-sacred city of Medina, was the home of Jewish tribes. Tribes that Mohammad battled against for refusing his offer to leave Judaism and accept Islam; exiling those he failed to kill in combat, and restricted residence in what became Saudi Arabia to only Muslims. In the modern era, the House of Saud contested control of Arabia with another powerful tribe, the Hashemites; with British mediation, the Hashemite Kingdom was given TransJordan to rule, and the Sauds took Arabia.

 

Now, the United Arab Emirates, a cosmopolitan, open society of moderate Muslim rule, and Bahrain with similar cultural values have chosen to normalize relations with Israel, once considered a sacrilege. Sudan followed suit. And more Arab states are expected to follow, under the aegis of U.S. diplomacy. Those Islamic states which have over the past decades turned increasingly Islamist like Turkey will continue their distance from Israel, spurning diplomatic overtures. Sadly, there is no depth of 'normalization' between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

 

The Egyptian actor/singer who embraced Israeli entertainers at a casual entertainment event is being sanctioned by his own Egyptian entertainment union, and lawsuits are being brought against  him for his friendly actions toward fellow entertainers in a comradely environment of relaxation and personal relations. His behaviour, the charges go, insult and degrade Egyptian values. He has apologized and will perform the necessary public penance required to redeem himself in public opinion. Nor do Jordanian citizens bear a warmer relationship to their Israeli counterparts. 

The normalization agreement and the process taking place now between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain are of a different quality altogether. There is a warm reception on either end, mutually respectful and generously appreciative of the qualities each brings to a burgeoning new relationship. And the most difficult of the Arab states of all to pacify in their traditional distance with Israel, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may now be warming to the concept of 'normalization' with the Jewish State, as  the Saudis turn toward moderation of their stern practice of Islam.

 

  Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed sign agreements as they participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords at the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, September 15, 2020. © Tom Brenner, REUTERS

These events are taking place under the imprimatur and guidance and diplomacy of the departing U.S. Trump White House administration, a goal and an achievement that no other American administration has ever succeeded with. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to Saudi Arabia to meet its crown prince to discuss between them an issue of great importance both to Israel and to the Gulf Sunni states; the aggressively hostile ascendance of the Islamic Republic of Iran, threatening stability and the status quo in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia is officially denying that any such meeting between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmon, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu took place. But undoubtedly, it did. A meeting that the Saudis would like to keep under wraps, at least for the present, but which the other two, Messrs. Pompeo and Netanyahu, would prefer to have out in the open as a symptom and symbol that peace is achievable and good relations between neighbours opens the way to peace.

National flags of Bahrain, UAE, Israel and the US are projected on the walls of Jerusalem's Old City [File: L Ronen Zvulun/Reuters]

 

The Abraham Accords

"I was born and raised in Pakistan, a Muslim country that has stamped on its passport, "valid for every country in the world except Israel'. It was something that bothered me because I couldn't quite fathom what the fuss was about, and I had read in the Qur'an that Jews were considered 'People of the book' and therefore our cousins in the Abrahamic tradition. There wasn't much information or chatter about Israel. However, I had a curiosity about the people after reading The Diary of Anne Frank and Exodus from our local library."

"We later lived for eight years in Dubai [United Arab Emirates], where there was absolutely no mention of Israel, good or bad. We had a chance to travel to many countries in the Middle East including Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain."

Raheel Raza, Pakistani-Canadian journalist and president of the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow

 

"Israel is a reality and the sooner everyone accepts that, the easier it would be to resolve the unnecessary conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine."

"The leaders of the UAE have shown courage. Let us hope other Muslim countries follow suit."

Husain Haqqani, former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., scholar, Hudson Institute

 

"Israel has been the perennial 'what about' excuse used by Arab despots seeking to silence their domestic opponents as 'Zionist collaborators'."

"A universal peace between Israel and these Arab regimes would finally do away with this. A critical mass of Arabs, Muslims and leftists still struggle with Israel’s historic legitimacy, leading us all to constantly overplay our hand in peace negotiations."'

"The Saudis desperately need regional allies against their main foe Iran.They need economic trade and diversification  and they need military alliances to contain Iran.  Israel’s economic and military assets and interests meet these needs perfectly."

"In return, Israel gains legal regional recognition from the custodians of the Prophet’s mosque, and a Sunni Arab consensus over the protection of its West Bank border, policed perhaps by Arab League, Egyptian, Jordanian or UN forces."

Maajid Nawaz, founding chairman Quilliam, counter-extremism think-tank, U.K.

Left to Right: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump, Bahrain Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayani, and UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan wave from the Truman Balcony at the White House in Washington, DC, after the signing of the Abraham Accords, on September 15, 2020. Photo: AFP

Finally, a glimmer of hope has matured into a celebration of peacemaking in the Middle East. By no means the entire Middle East, where war still rips countries apart in tribal, sectarian animosities and where in many quarters the word 'Israel' remains a violent epithet. Last week, years of warming relations between two Gulf states that had never gone to war with Israel, that had maintained the citizenship of their Jewish residents, signed peace agreements with the Jewish state, brokered by U.S.President Donald Trump, working to bring the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain peace with Israel.

 

The situation which gained approval leavened in many quarters by surprise at an event predicted never to happen until 'Palestinians had their state', was placed in sobering perspective, however, by Gilead Sher who had served as chief peace negotiator for Israel in the Camp David Accords, along with the Oslo Accords of the 1990s. Big deal? Yes. "But there was never a real conflict here. There were no combat zones, no territorial disputes, no violence. This isn't a historic breakthrough after a long, drawn-out negotiation, but merely a normalization of relations already over 25 years old."

 

Having said which, apart from the peace agreement with Egypt and then with Jordan, there has been no forward movement of other Arab Muslim countries in the Middle East or North Africa, to formally recognize -- or even wish to -- the presence of the Jewish state in their midst. Its presence seen to be an affront to Islam in the sense that land once consecrated to Islam, must never revert to or in any sense host the presence of  another religion, other than in a position subservient to Islam. This is the 21st Century. It is long past time for Arab regimes to face the reality of the present.

 

That an ancient people once vanquished for the second time and banished from their heritage geography had re-established itself as a Judean presence reflecting its origins. That it did so after a diaspora of millennia had flagellated Jews wherever they settled as migrants and citizens with vicious discrimination as lesser-entitled beings where pogroms and humiliations marked their passage from the past to the present, culminating in a wholly effective horrific genocide. If that experience couldn't persuade any group that it was past time for a defensive homeland to preserve what was left of world Jewry, nothing would. 

In most of the world community's efforts to reconcile the Arab-Muslim world with the final collective presence of Jews returning en masse to the Biblical geography of their heritage foundation, it has been the United States and its various presidents that have concentrated thought and effort to varying degrees of near-success. On each such occasion, the Palestinians, viewing themselves as displaced victims of Jewish return to a homeland Arab Palestinians claimed for themselves, refused to accommodate the equal presence of Jews and Arabs each in their own parcel of land diminished in size from the mid-20h Century British 'partition' plan, handing much of it to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The Arab League nations, simply put, which had initially supported the 'Palestinian cause' -- and even actually, initiated it in defiance of the prospect of a Jewish state in perpetuity -- has become wearied of the Palestinian cause, and for which its leaders consistently and with pre-determination, turn away the prospect of peace between its two major Palestinian terrorist groups, Fatah and Hamas, and the State of Israel. Finding it in their own best interests to take the opportunity to benefit from a neighbour's military and technical superiority when the Sunni-dominated region itself feels under siege by the Aryan Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran.

 

Not for ever could the situation carry on, where one nation among 22 others would be ostracized and continually threatened, its borders violated its people under constant duress. Not for ever should one country among 22 others be forced to build its military for defence while the others did so for offensive purposes. It is quite simply logical and makes sound political and diplomatic and trade sense for nations that have much in common to favour sound relations between themselves. Particularly in the face of ongoing destabilization and threats by a regional terror state.

 

And so, the Treaty of Peace, Diplomatic Relations and Full Normalization, otherwise known as the Abraham Accords made history. More history in the making is in the wings of this theatrical stage the world knows as corroborative neighbourliness. 

 

"Israeli officials intimately involved in the UAE deal privately say that the Emiratis were emphatic about focusing on interfaith understanding and religious tolerance. As the treaty itself notes, 'The Parties undertake to foster mutual understanding, respect, co-existence, and a culture of peace between their societies in the spirit of their common ancestor, Abraham, and the new era of peace and friendly relations ushered in by this Treaty, including by cultivating people-to-people programs, interfaith dialogue, and cultural, academic, youth, scientific, and other exchanges between their peoples'. Indeed, the agreement holds substantial promise precisely because both parties recognize the need to reach out on a societal level, not just a governmental level."

David Makovsky, The Washington Institute

A Changing Middle East

"I think perhaps there is the beginning of a reduction in the dependency on the U.S., and a shift over to Israel now."

"It's so much more accessible, to turn to an ally, a regional partner, if there are any concerns -- whether it's from a military point of view of an economic point of view."

"And I think you're now going to see that shift."

Marc Schneier, special adviser king of Bahrain

Leaders of Bahrain and UAE  (Photo: AP)

Expectations have been whetted by declarations of mutual satisfaction and pleasure that formal peace agreements have been signed between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, leading to a potential domino effect of other Arab nations finally making the decision to set aside long-standing attitudes of animosity at the reality of a Jewish state in their midst in the Middle East. These are nations that had never gone to war against Israel, nations that never expelled their Jewish populations, nor withdrew citizenship from them.

They are also nations with a longstanding distanced, but practical relationship with the Jewish State that evolved over concerns that grew into alarm at the unambiguous aspirations of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the only other non-Arab, Aryan Persian Muslim state in the Middle East, to reinstate itself with its historical role as the most influential, leading Muslim nation in the region; a Shiite Muslim country among a majority Sunni Muslim Middle East.

Saudi Arabia has been the voice of authority in the Muslim Middle East, the protector and steward of the two most holy places in Islam, Mecca and Medina. The House of Saud found itself and its role of protector of the faith responsible for these sacred-to-Islam sanctuaries threatened by the aspirations of Iran, anxious to unseat it from its position of power and authority. It is the threat of violence on the part of Revolutionary Iran that unnerves its Sunni Arab neighbours.

 

Mike Pompeo meets with Sudan's Abdel Fattah al-Burhan   (Photo: AFP)

 

A country that quietly went about establishing itself as an aspirational nuclear state, not, as it was wont to declare, for energy purposes, but for nuclear heads to fit neatly on its developing, sophisticated short-and medium-range missile delivery systems. Iran's open threats -- expressed unambiguously by its former President Ahmadinejad in an address at the United Nations -- to expunge the state of Israel from the geography of the Middle East, might not have alarmed its Muslim neighbours, but the knowledge that it could also turn its expanding cache of weapons on them as well to force compliance with its plans, did.

 

Israel's reputation as a powerful technological giant, with a military whose prowess was proven time and time again when it defended itself from combined attacks from Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq impressed its neighbours in the belief that it was the only country in the region capable of withstanding and defending against the imputed threats to the entire area, mounted by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. That belief in Israel's near invincibility in the theatre of war, impressed its neighbours to the extent that it began to view the Jewish state as a potential ally against the threat of Iran.

 

The bonus is trade ties and a diminution of tension. The decision to formally accept Israel's presence as a Jewish state and to forge deeper ties was negotiated in large part by the Trump administration in Washington, using its considerable influence to help bring all the parties together in amity and self-interest for their shared futures. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows informed reporters on Ar Force One that five other countries were on the cusp of following the UAE and Bahrainian initiatives.

 

Oman also welcomed neighbour UAE's deal with Israel but said it stayed committed to "the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people who aspire to an independent state" with east Jerusalem as its capital.

New Sultan of Oman  (Photo: AFP, HO, Oman TV)

Saudi Arabia, the most influential of the Arab countries declared itself not quite ready to take that step. But Oman and Sudan are considered as the possible next assenters, as are Morocco and possibly Kuwait. The warming relations in the Middle East fail to sit well with Turkey which warned "history and the people of the region will never forget and will never forgive the hypocritical behaviour of the United Arab Emirates". Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to cast off diplomatic ties with the UAE.

 

This, from a country that continues to berate and accuse Israel of human rights abuses against the Palestinians, when Fatah and Hamas conspire constantly to murder Israeli Jews, spurning any suggestions at 'normalization' with Israel, with the intention of ultimately destroying it. Refusing all offers of peace in rational negotiations. And while Erdogan foams with rage over Israel, he leads his country in a brisk trade union with Israel and is happy to have thousands of Israeli Jews travel to Turkey as tourists.

Building on a New Momentum : Achieving Peace in the Middle East

"To all of Israel's friends in the Middle East – those who are with us today and those who will join us tomorrow – I say, salaam aleichem, peace unto thee, shalom."

"[This day] brings hope to all of the children of Abraham."

"The blessings of peace that we make today will be enormous,” he continued, “first because this peace will eventually expand to include other Arab states, and ultimately, it can end the Arab-Israel conflict once and for all."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 15 September 2020

 

L to R: Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords. September 15, 2020   (photo credit: REUTERS/TOM BRENNER)

"[The accord will] change the course of history, [it marks] the dawn of a new Middle East."

"Together these agreements will serve as the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region, something which nobody thought was possible, certainly not in this day and age."

"These agreements prove that the nations of the region are breaking free from failed approaches of the past. Today's signing sets history on a new course and there will be other countries very very soon that will follow these great leaders."

U.S. President Donald Trump

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were never at war with Israel. Their military arms never formed a coalition with Middle East Arab nations like Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan to march on Israel with the intention of destroying it. And while most Arab countries expelled their Jewish citizens and confiscated their properties when Israel we re-formed as a nation in 1948, neither of the Gulf countries removed citizenship from their Jewish populations. Bahrain had a Jewish parliamentarian, Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo.

 

As a Bahrainian parliamentarian she was appointed Ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2013, by decree of Foreign Affairs Minister Khaled Ben Ahmad Al=Khalifa. Civil relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain through behind-the-scene arrangement has been ongoing for years. What their successive and simultaneous peace accords with Israel succeeded in doing was formalizing a warming relationship into a universally recognized position of neighbourly acceptance.

 

The accord, named the Abraham Accord, takes its name from the historical Biblical recognition that Arabs and Jews emerged from the same source in the Middle East. The Old Testament patriarch Abraham and his wife Sarah in their old age finally bearing a son, Isaac, and an already-existing son of Abraham and a handmaiden of Sarah's, Ishmael, becoming the forbears of Jews and Arabs respectively. And that out of monotheistic Judaism came Christianity with the birth of the Jewish sage Jesus, and then the latecomer religion Islam. All three make up the Abrahamic trio.

 

Equally behind-the-scenes interventions and guidance by the Trump administration working to develop further a formal acknowledgement of acceptance of Israel  and peace between neighbours has resulted in the two Gulf nations agreeing to sign a formal concordance of peace, partially symbolic, and wholly reflective of the fact that the region needed to move away from its tradition of hostility to the presence of the historical-to-the-present position of the State of Israel. The Trump administration succeeded where previous administrations all failed to achieve that goal.

 

A group of paratroopers surrounds then-IDF chief rabbi
Shlomo Goren at the Western Wall on June 7, 1967.

 

And they did so by abandoning the expectation that no Arab country would take measures to normalize their relations with Israel until the issue of Palestinian statehood alongside Israel materialized, other than the peace agreements signed between Israel and Egypt on Israel's return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, captured in the 1967 war when Egypt marched with Jordan and Syria against Israel as part of a combined Arab army. Jordan followed years later. Israel retains the Golan Heights from which Syrian forces had continually attacked Israel from above.

 

 

The only non-Arab Muslim country in the Middle East, Shiite Iran, whose brand of Islam seeks ascendancy over the majority Sunni Muslim Arab nations, has become a threat to the balance of power and the security and stabilization of the Middle East. The Islamic Republic of Iran's interference in Arab nations, from Lebanon where it established Shia Hezbollah, to Syria where it supports the Alawite Shia minority regime against the Sunni majority, and Yemen where Houthi Shia rebels have torn the country apart, and its dedication to achieving nuclear supremacy concerns their Arab Sunni and Jewish Israel neighbours mightily.

Concerns that have brought Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Oman a little closer to Israel, viewed as a strong opponent of Persian Iran's agenda. The Palestinian agenda has gradually receded into the background in the face of the perceived threat from Iran and the need to present a united opposition to its plans, opposing Saudi Arabian stewardship of Mecca and Medina for one thing. For another, the failure, one after another, of the Palestinian Authority and its predecessor Yasser Arafat, to make good on their professed wish to achieve nationhood -- by accepting their Jewish neighbour unconditionally.

All of which conspired over time to reduce the fixation of the Arab League in its violent hostility to Israel's presence, in ostensible support of the Palestinian 'cause'. A cause which has proven time and time again that it is not peace with Israel that consumes its attention to the future, but the destruction of Israel to enable the Palestinian leadership to claim the heritage geography on which Israel sits as 'Palestinian', including the ancient Judean city of Jerusalem.

President Trump's negotiations with other Arab nations appears to be bearing fruit, with rumours of other Arab states like Morocco in North Africa reaching the decision-point of agreeing it to be past time to part with the antipathies of the past and welcome a future of shared geography, trade opportunities, sharing of future technologies to benefit and enrich the experience of all nations in the region. While the Palestinian Authority and Hamas fume and threaten both Israel and those whom they claim have betrayed them, they betray their own existential interests.

 

 

An Arab Prince Denounces Islamism

by Daniel Pipes
The Washington Times
December 10, 2014

http://www.meforum.org/4930/an-arab-prince-denounces-islamism

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In a remarkable but thus-far unnoticed address on Dec. 5, Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, the crown prince of Bahrain (an island kingdom in the Persian Gulf and home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet), candidly analyzed the Islamist enemy and suggested important ways to fight it.

Bahrain Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa

He has much to teach Westerners (starting with his hapless UK counterpart, Crown Prince Charles), if only we would listen. Yes, some Western leaders speak about confronting the Islamist ideology, but the majority avoids this issue by resorting to euphemism, obfuscation, and cowardice. Most frustrating are those leaders (like Tony Blair) who deliver powerful speeches without follow-through.
Prince Salman, 45 and widely acknowledged to be the Bahraini royal family's principal reformer, opens his remarks by addressing the inaccuracy of the phrase, "War on Terror." The time has come, he says "for us to get rid of" a term that dates back to 9/11. "It is a bit misleading, it is not the entirety and the totality of our conflict" but merely a "tool" and a tactic.

He goes on in flawless English to place the current conflict in historical context: "If I think back in the last century, we faced a very different foe. We faced communism and we faced it together. But when we faced communism we understood it as an ideology. Terrorism is not an ideology."

He notes that "we are not only fighting terrorists, we are fighting theocrats." As Salman uses this term, theocrats are men "placed at the top of a religious ideology who [have] the power by religious edict to strip someone … of their hereafter – and use [religious power] for political gains." They are also tyrants, isolationists, and misogynists who will need to be fought "for a very long time." He scorns them for being "very much like the seventeenth century" and having "no place in our modern twenty-first" century.

Salman avoids the bitter reality that the "twisted" and "barbaric" ideology he describes is specifically Islamic and the theocrats are all Muslim.

He urges us "to discard the term 'War on Terror' and focus instead on the real threat, which is the rise of these evil theocracies"; to this end, he proposes to replace "War on Terror" with his formulation: a "War on Theocrats." This concept, he hopes, will make it possible to "start to put together the military, social, and political – and maybe even economic – policies in a holistic manner to counter this, as we did with communism." In perhaps the outstanding line of the speech, he states that "it is the ideology itself that must be combatted. It must be named, it must be shamed, it must be contained, and eventually it must be defeated."

So far, perfect. But Salman avoids the bitter reality that the "twisted" and "barbaric" ideology he describes is specifically Islamic and the theocrats are all Muslim: "this war that we are engaged in cannot be against Islam, … Christianity, … Judaism, … Buddhism." So, when naming this ideology, Salman dithers and generalizes. He proffers an inept neologism ("theo-crism"), then harkens back to World War II for "fascist theocracy." He implicitly rejects "Islamism," saying he does not want a "debate about certain political parties, whether they're Islamist or not."

Salman's remarks fit into a growing trend among Muslim politicians directly to confront the Islamist danger.

I submit that Islamism is precisely the term he seeks for the enemy ideology; and we are engaged in a "War on Islamism." Salman understands the problem well –the transformation of Islam into a totalitarian ideology. But he seeks refuge in the pretense that Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism all share this affliction. Better that he – and other forthright Muslims – accept the ineluctable reality that Islam alone contains a totalitarian temptation.

On the positive side, Salman's remarks fit into a growing trend among Muslim politicians directly to confront the Islamist danger. Two recent examples:

• In an important conceptual breakthrough, the nearby United Arab Emirates government has placed the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and many other non-violent groups on its terrorism list on the grounds that they engage in incitement, funding, and the other precursors of terrorism.
• The government of Egypt issued an INTERPOL arrest bulletin for Yusuf al-Qaradawi, 88, the hugely influential spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, for "incitement and assistance to commit intentional murder, helping … prisoners to escape, arson, vandalism and theft."

This new tendency has great importance. As I often say, radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam is the solution. Now, we may add another influential leader, indeed a crown prince, to the ranks of those Muslims who wish to find a solution.

Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum.