In Tried-and-True Humanitarianism: Israel/UAE/Afghanistan Mission

The group of 41 Afghan women, including some members of the country's women's cycling team, and robotics team, and their families, on arrival in the United Arab Emirates Sept. 6, 2021. (Photo: UAE News agency WAM/Amjad Saleh)

"The issue was they had to collect them [Afghan evacuees] from hiding [from Taliban]."

"They [rescuers] had to do rounds around the city in alleys to pick up these people and try not to create any suspicious movement."

"The stressful part really was around the border. There were a lot of Taliban in the area, they were not allowed to leave the shelter and we were very stressed that someone might find them."

Yotam Polizer, chief executive, IsraAid

"Working alongside international partners to ensure that those in need may reach safety, the UAE has welcomed 41 Afghan evacuees, including vulnerable members from the Afghan girls' cycling and robotic teams, as well as at-risk human rights activists and their family members."

Afra al-Hamell, deputy director of strategic communications, UAE

Afghan evacuees arrive in the United Arab Emirates. Photo: Afra Al Hameli / Twitter screenshot

With the collaboration between Israeli aid workers and the United Arab Emirates, scores of Afghans have been given a new lease on life. These are people who are vengeance targets of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the new rulers of the country, the Taliban, whose previous rule was brutal and deadly, inspiring many Afghan civilians to flee their native country in fear of the Islamist terrorist regime, living as refugees in Pakistan (ironically the neighbour whose Interagency Intelligence service is largely responsible for the power now held by the Taliban), finding their way elsewhere around the world in a migration forced by terror.

Now that the Taliban have returned through a brief, violent upheaval that uprooted the democratically elected government of Afghanistan and its military, leaving the terrorists to inherit infrastructure and weaponry left by its fleeing military in the wake of the U.S. desertion of its ally, the hunt is on for former government elite, for civil servants, for those who served in branches of the military and the national police, for women who aspired to excel in music and the arts, sports and medical training, for a new-old world of male domination and female subjugation has found its comfortable niche once again.

The newly-revealed rescue mission launched by the two partners of the Abraham Accords, Israel and the UAE was launched to spirit sportswomen, female rights activists, an entertainer and their families, at high risk of imprisonment or sudden death at the hands of the Taliban avenging the incursion of Western influence in Afghanistan. It succeeded in rescuing a total of 41 people under difficult conditions requiring the utmost secrecy and exceptional skills of evasion.

As the first joint humanitarian project between two Middle Eastern countries this is hugely symbolic of the great opportunities that can be seized to help make the world a better place for those inhabiting countries known for their discriminatory and violent values led by unscrupulous and barbaric leaders. The team that formed the backbone of the evacuation exercised their scheme with cautious optimism that working in tandem with all concerned contributing to the success of the venture, would guide its outcome.

There were 19 cycling team members, three robotics team members, a prominent Afghan singer, a number of human rights activists and their vulnerable family members who constituted the rescued Afghans with reason to fear for their lives. The search missions exercised by the Taliban, going house to house to unearth 'collaborators' of the West, adoptees of Western cultural values, men and women who betrayed the Taliban version of sharia law would eventually reveal the presence of those fearing for their lives. These are 41 fewer souls living in the shadow of death.

The rescuers drove across the country's north after collecting those meant to be rescued, clearing checkpoints to arrive at a temporary destination at the border with Tajikistan, a safe house, for several days' stay while awaiting permission to cross into the country. That permission was eventually secured by the rescue team when the president of Tajikistan gave his permission for the border crossing, enabling the rescuers to ferry their charges to the capital of Dushanbe.

From there they were escorted to a chartered jet, courtesy of Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams, arriving in the UAE in the early hours of September 6. The jet was financed by Montreal-born Adams who himself is a sport enthusiast, a bicyclist who represented Israel, where he moved five years ago, at the Tour de France with his Israel Start-Up Nation cycle team. Mr. Adams was also involved in lobbying the government of Tajikistan to support the rescue mission.

Israeli-Canadian billionaire cyclist and businessman Sylvan Adams rides a bike with members of his team Start-Up Nation at his velodrome in Tel Aviv on June 5, 2020. (Emmanuel DUNAND/AFP)

The Taliban of course would be apoplectic with rage that despised Israelis, Jews, had infiltrated their emirate under their noses, to plot and carry out a rescue of Afghans whose deserved destiny in their view, would be death. To describe the situation as 'politically sensitive' is to understate the reality. The Taliban went out of their way to state unequivocally their preparedness to foster good relations with any nation on earth -- with the exception of Israel.

Women activists had reached out to the Israeli aid group to assist in rescuing people they had selected ti be evacuated to safety. A mission partly financed by an anonymous family foundation. Nine other members of the Afghanistan's robotics team which had been awarded a U.S. robotics recognition in 2017 were evacuated to Doha with assistance from Qatari officials, making this the second such mission.

The future for girls and women in Afghanistan can be seen from the past, when from 1996 to 2001 when the Taliban were last in power, girls were prohibited from attending school and women banned from work and could only emerge from their homes accompanied by male family escorts with the women fully garbed in black head-to-toe burqas. The women’s ministry in Kabul has been converted to house the “Ministries of Prayer and Guidance and the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,” which had in the ruling Taliban's original iteration operated a feared police force implementing sharia.

 

Yotam Polizer, CEO of IsraAid, right, embraces the Afghan evacuees as they arrive in the United Arab Emirates Credit: IsraAid/IsraAid

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.