sign in sign up
<<
Home , Gila Gamliel, Ron Dermer, Yossi Shain

Poll: 65 percent dissatisfied with Netanyahu's COVID response, Bennett nips at 's heels | Oct. 6, 2020 |

Sixty-five percent of think Prime Minister is responding poorly to the coronavirus crisis, a Channel 12 News poll released on Tuesday shows. Thirty-one percent of respondents say they support Netanyahu's response so far. The poll also asked Israelis how they would vote if elections were held now. Netanyahu's Likud party, the survey says, would get 26 out of 120 seats, down three from Channel 12's previous poll two weeks ago and 10 from Likud's current Knesset representation of 36 seats. The next largest party would be the alliance of far-right parties with 23 seats; the previous poll gave 21. Yamina only has five seats in the current Knesset, in which they sit in the opposition. Netanyahu's party took to Twitter to respond, claiming "the left-wing media inflates [Yamina's Naftali] Bennett to take down Prime Minister Netanyahu and Likud." Alongside a screenshot of a 2014 election poll giving Habayit Hayehudi – headed by Bennett at the time – one seat less than Likud, the tweet said: "It won't work this time either." The slate’s showing would give the right wing-ultra-Orthodox bloc 65 seats – a clear majority. The center-left bloc is only projected to win 55 seats, and that is only if it were it to join with ’s , which has refused to join either bloc in the past year’s elections. Kahol Lavan, currently the second-largest party, would garner just seven seats, and , which split from Kahol Lavan following the latter’s decision to join a Netanyahu government, would win 16. Left-wing party would win four seats. The poll asked about the possibility of Mayor Ron Huldai forming a new political party with him at the helm, and the poll showed that if he did so, it would win six Knesset seats. When asked whether the government should dissolve itself and go for a fourth round of elections, 49 percent of respondents said that they support early elections. Thirty percent said that the current Knesset should continue to govern, and 21 percent said that they didn’t know.

The Israeli Autumn By – October 6, 2020

Political science students who learn about “democracies in distress” discuss protests, change of government, regime collapse and revolutions. These are the processes of change that are often accompanied with fervor and danger, at the end of which there can be both good and bad outcomes. The reasons for protest have to do with the sense of frustration, with government failings, governmental corruption and failed performance. Sometimes anti-democratic forces bring about change, including extreme nationalist, Marxist or religious forces that bring about democracy’s destruction. For example, the rise of fascism in Europe about 100 years ago. If the protests deteriorate into street battles and civil war, this is liable to strike a mortal blow to democracy and to the rise of dictatorial regimes. Sometimes, a civil war can also lead to renewal, but at a high price. In contrast, “good” protests form the foundation that safeguards democracy and its balances. They are not violent, and they are meant to bring about reform and openness without cracking the governmental structure and its spirit— rather only to uproot its ills and to strengthen its institutions and liberty. Regimes usually do not fully understand the depth of the protest, its character and its dimensions. Often corrupt democracies will try to uproot the protests and to paint them as illegitimate, as dangerous anarchism or as revolutions, while trying to enlist the masses against it. Governments, in many cases, also have difficulty anticipating the continuity and spread of the protest because the character and boundaries of the protest can change at any minute. Governments also have difficulty calculating the proper balance between suppression and tolerance—sometimes the price of tolerance is high and suppressing a protest is impossible, and sometimes suppression brings about even greater ruin. A wise democratic leadership must contain the protest and respond with the right dosage of suppression and tolerance—and if the protest is not violent, as the protest in today is not violent, it must not, under any circumstances let the police use violence to suppress it, since such violence will ignite a fire.

1 In parliamentary systems, protests can bring about rapid changes in the ruling party. This is how Margaret Thatcher was replaced by John Major in the UK in the early 1990s. In Israel too, the goal of the current protest is to bring about the resignation of the prime minister and the establishment of an alternative government, one that is not dependent on the Haredim, who are fundamentally anti-democratic. A failed leadership, lacking authority, suspected of dishonesty and even of criminal actions, ultimately loses its legitimacy—which is liable to bring about the democracy’s collapse if the leader assumes dictatorial emergency powers. In contrast, a wise leadership—even if it has become corrupt or suspected of corruption—will lower its head, take a timeout and bring about a quiet and orderly governmental change. The popular Tony Blair, who became entangled in Iraq and became hated, vacated his position for Gordon Brown. The same thing happened in the protest after the Yom Kippur War, when Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan stepped down and the system was again balanced, which led to the upheaval of 1977. Israel is in the throes of a protest whose evolution is hard to project—but it is generating deep change in society. Public order has been maintained in the protest—a testimony to the democratic maturity of the protestors. But when faced with the huge failure of the government and the person who leads it in everything to do with their performance and morality, the current protest wave will intensify, despite the tight lockdown. The attempt to choke the large protests on Balfour Street on the grounds that they constitute a health risk is not only based on a lie but is also leading to hundreds of “small” protests. A thousand small protests will change the Israeli equation.

Israeli, Emirati diplomats meet in Germany Al-Monitor Staff Oct 6, 2020

Diplomats from Israel and the United Arab Emirates met in Germany today for their first meeting since normalizing ties last month. Germany’s top diplomat said the historic agreement between the two countries has the potential to advance stalled peace efforts. “The courageous peace agreement is an opportunity for movement in dialogue between Israelis and ,” Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a tweet. Maas hosted UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi in Berlin. Nahyan and Ashkenazi referred to each other as “friend” in a news conference following a closed meeting, The Associated Press reported. They also visited a Holocaust memorial in Berlin, according to the AP. Nahyan wrote “Never again” in the visitor book at the memorial, Reuters reported. The UAE and Israel agreed to establish full diplomatic and economic relations in August and officially signed the agreement in September during a White House ceremony. Following the UAE’s lead, Bahrain also agreed to normalize ties with the Jewish state and likewise signed a deal in Washington. Following the accord, businesses in the UAE and Israel have signed a series of agreements pledging to further economic ties.

Israel - UAE, Bahrain agreements are a revolution Danny Zaken – Globes. October 4

The UAE and Bahrain have been met with cynicism and condemnation over their normalization agreements with Israel and called business collaborators and weapons dealers. But those who follow closely what is happening in the Arab world following the peace deals see that nothing short of a revolution is taking place. In recent years more and more citizens of the Gulf states as well as Arabs in North Africa, Iraq and even Syria have been posting positive remarks about Israel on social media and contrasting the Israeli regime with the repressive regimes in many Arab countries. One graph, which went viral, compared the number of Arabs killed by Israel with the numbers being killed by other Arabs with the focus on Syria and its civil war.

2 The media in Gulf countries has also changed direction in recent years and Netanyahu's visit to Oman two years ago was covered very positively throughout the Gulf including in Saudi Arabia. The feeling was that an agreement with Israel would be happening in the coming few years. Even so the recent agreements between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain took many people by surprise. Timetables and the Palestinians The timing of the agreement is of course tied to next month's US presidential elections. Trump has been able to present an important international diplomatic achievement that includes good news for the US defense industries. For the UAE and Saudi Arabia the timing is important because of the concern that Joe Biden will win the election and change diplomatic course on . The unfolding of events has been conducted behind the scenes by Saudi Arabia's Crown Price Mohammed ibn Salman. The agreements between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain could not have happened without his consent and support. The UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed is his partner in striving for reform and innovation. The Arab boycott has finally been broken, psychologically and economically and the ramifications are huge. The opening of markets in Arab countries to Israeli goods is only one of them. The UAE and Bahrain are a bridge or pipeline and the demand will only grow. Vast capital sits in the Gulf and judging by the enthusiasm with which the agreements have been received by the managers of this capital, some of it will flow into Israel. There have been research initiatives regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and in areas like water, agritech, solar energy and fintech, there will be substantial cooperation and not just financial investments. The Palestinians can yet benefit from this. In the private sector some business initiatives exist, a few of them in cooperation with Israeli organizations. The government would be wise to nurture entrepreneurship to help promote the Palestinian economy. This is a clear Israeli security interest and could perhaps bear diplomatic fruit. "The sky is the limit," UAE Minister of Economy Abdulla bin Touq al Marri told me in a recent interview. There will be teething problems and less successful business deals but the expectation is that all the countries involved will reap huge economic benefits from the agreements.

Chevron Completes to Operate Israel's Natural Gas Reserves I24 news Energy giant Chevron has completed the acquisition of Noble Energy, the company which holds most of the natural gas reserves off Israel’s coastline, Israel Hayom reported. in addition to involvement in the natural gas industry, Chevron would also take part in Israel’s high-tech industry in topics such as cyber-gas, energy efficiency, power storage and more, Israel Hayom reported. In July, Chevron -- the second largest energy company in the world -- announced its intention to acquire Noble Energy, and three weeks ago the Oil Council in the Ministry of Energy recommended to approve the merger of Noble Energy into a subsidiary of Chevron. According to a NASDAQ report, the deal is worth around $13 billion. In compliance with the deal, state revenues are expected to reach hundreds of billions of shekels.

If Biden wins, Adelson and evangelicals are out, AIPAC’s back and J Street’s in with a bang Chemi Shalev | Oct. 6, 2020 | Haaretz

AIPAC activists, even those who believe that Donald Trump is a godsend for Israel and Joe Biden spells trouble, should be praying for a decisive Democratic win on November 3. A Trump triumph probably means that the “pro-Israel” lobby will continue to be sidelined over the next four years, if it survives at all. In the lobbying business, protracted redundancy is usually fatal. A Biden victory would get AIPAC back in the game, albeit with a daunting twist. On the one hand, the lobby is more than likely to quickly regain exclusive rights to represent its fickle, long-lost client, the government of Israel, especially if Benjamin Netanyahu is still around. The prime minister will need all the help he can get to shed the toxic legacy of his mutual admiration society with Trump, which is a red flag for many Democrats – doubly so if victory makes them bullish.

3 On the other hand, in a Democratic administration, especially one in which the party controls both houses of Congress, AIPAC would have to contend with an old nuisance turned potential nemesis, J Street. The self- styled “political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans” is no longer the impudent and upstart new kid on the block that it was during the eight years of the Obama administration, when AIPAC still reigned supreme. Far from it. If Biden wins, and all the more so if Democrats assert control over both houses of Congress, J Street will be a formidable, if not equal, competitor for the hearts and minds of the ruling establishment. If Israel sticks with its short-sighted antipathy to J Street, and AIPAC lets Jerusalem call the tune, the pro-Israel lobby’s energies will ultimately be consumed by internal conflict instead of regaining and fortifying its foothold in the corridors of power. In days of yore, presidents went and presidents came, but AIPAC stood eternal, solid as a rock. The lobby was a durable switch hitter: Its top echelons and mass membership leaned Democratic, but its sentiments and preferences, as far as Israel goes, were increasingly aligned with Republicans. Trump’s election upended the equation: For the first time in its 40-year existence, AIPAC was pushed off center stage. Worse, its one and only client left home and had brazenly and openly retained the services of others. The America-Israel Public Affairs Committee, once ranked just behind the then all-powerful National Rifle Association in terms of Washington clout, fell prey to the binary with-us-or-against-us polarization in U.S. politics. Just as Trump’s divisiveness and the extreme emotions he elicits on both drove a wedge between pro- Trump and anti-Trump Jews, it split the pro-Israel community in two and initiated an unprecedented rightward shift in pro-Israeli power, influence and, most crucially, access. Adelson and the evangelicals took over and AIPAC was shunted aside. AIPAC’s predicament was compounded by the fact that Trump’s unabashedly pro-Israel policies and decisions were making its own long-held dreams come true. AIPAC had long lobbied for U.S. recognition of Israeli Jerusalem and Golan Heights, for U.S.-brokered regional “peace” that sidelined the Palestinians and against the Iran nuclear deal. When crunch time came and history was in the air, AIPAC found itself in the bleachers, a kibitzer cheering the glory of others. The uncanny meeting of minds between Trump and Netanyahu made AIPAC redundant, almost by definition. The two leaders, however, not only didn’t need AIPAC’s help, but didn’t want it, either. Netanyahu’s generous right-wing benefactor before their falling out, Sheldon Adelson, became the GOP’s and Trump’s biggest donor. Much as the tough-talking wannabe billionaire in the White House may have resented the far tougher, true-blue tycoon in Las Vegas, he could hardly afford to ignore him. Adelson, never a big fan of AIPAC, expanded his influence in Washington with a coterie of Jewish Republicans who either share his views or benefit from his fortunes – or both. Trump, needless to say, is unlikely to be very aware of or concerned with what AIPAC is or does, anyway. But then came the far more controversial one-two punch when, to the chagrin of most of the Jewish community, the largely Jewish lobby that insists on being dubbed “pro-Israel” was supplanted by, of all people, messianic Christian evangelicals. Long cultivated by Netanyahu and the Israeli right as a bulwark against naïve U.S. peace-seekers, the 50- million strong evangelical community emerged as Trump’s indispensable base and most fervent crusader. Their wishes, including those that originated with Netanyahu or his emissary, Ron Dermer, became the president’s command. With a president hailed by Israel as a lion of Judah, Republican lawmakers who follow him in lockstep and a Democratic Party disinclined to challenge the administration’s pro-Israel policies – with the notable and crucial exception of the Iran nuclear deal – AIPAC was deprived of its traditional role of recruiting Congress to curb Middle East policies deemed harmful to Israel. The lobby had not only lost its client; it didn’t have many objects at which to direct its persuading efforts, either. A Biden victory would instantly remove Adelson and the evangelicals from their current positions of supreme influence and give AIPAC a shot at landing the leading role on center stage. It is far from clear, however, that it is the top candidate for the role: Not only has J Street cornered the market of Israel-supporting Democratic moderates who detest Netanyahu and his policies, but AIPAC will also have to work hard to regain the trust and favor of more mainstream centrist Democrats, as well as top foreign policy officials in a future Biden administration. They still show the scars from the bitter 2015 battle over the Iran nuclear deal and still bear its grudges.

4 The pro-Israel lobby cautioned Netanyahu against a costly head-on confrontation with , but joined him in battle nonetheless, winding up with the worst of both worlds. Netanyahu blamed what he viewed as AIPAC’s half-hearted efforts for his failure to convince enough Democrats to block the deal, strengthening his resolve, once Trump was elected, to rely on evangelicals instead. At the same time, Democrats have neither forgiven nor forgotten AIPAC’s apocalyptic depictions of the Iran as an existential threat to Israel and their sometimes implied, often explicit, inference that a vote for the deal was a vote for Israel’s destruction. The same dynamic, albeit with less anger and resentment, is also at play on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. AIPAC may have courageously stuck to its guns by continuing to support a two-state solution of one sort or another despite pressures to the contrary, but J Street’s unequivocal endorsement of genuine Palestinian independence and clear-cut territorial division is far more acceptable in the eyes of most Democrats today. Many of the new Democratic lawmakers that came to Congress in 2018, and those that might join them in 2020, don’t know and probably couldn’t care less that AIPAC was the only game in town way before J Street was born in 2007. AIPAC is still the bigger, wealthier and more experienced of the two groups, but J Street has diligently cultivated a growing legion of up-and-coming Democrats who are more connected to the current zeitgeist of the party, if not a Biden White House. The purely Israeli interest is for J Street to collaborate with AIPAC, because the alternative is for it to find common cause with the radical anti-Israel contingent of the Democratic Party. The recent parting of ways between J Street and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez over her withdrawal from participating in a memorial for highlighted the gaps, but these are far from unbridgeable. It will be hard enough for AIPAC to recalibrate its hitherto condescending hostility towards J Street, but Netanyahu will ultimately drive them apart. AIPAC would probably prefer to deal with a different Israeli leader, but in their situation, beggars can’t be choosers and they’ll take what they can get. J Street, on the other hand, shares much of the Israeli center-left’s deep-seated antipathy towards Netanyahu, which is getting worse by the day. With most Israelis feeling that their country is split down the middle and falling apart, it’s only fitting that the lobbies purporting to represent them follow in their footsteps.

There's a war outside, and Netanyahu has gone missing Aluf Benn | Oct. 7, 2020 | HAARETZ

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likes to compare the coronavirus pandemic to a war, and has promised Israelis a victory. But to turn his own comparison against him, Netanyahu is managing the campaign from inside a bunker – or in the 21st century version of it: his plasma screen. A history lover like him certainly knows all the stories about great military leaders who rode to the front and inspired their soldiers with the spirit of battle. He certainly remembers the photograph of the bandage on ’s wounded head, which became the symbol of the Israeli crossing of the Suez Canal in the Yom Kippur War. Netanyahu will never be remembered on this list. The list of his trips and visits outside of his office and the prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem since the outbreak of the pandemic and the imposition of the first lockdown in March is very sparse. Three times, within a week and a half, he visited hospitals – Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva on July 28, Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer on August 2 and Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem on August 6. Since then he has not been seen in any medical facility. He visited the Home Front Command once and schools twice. His last tour was in Beit Shemesh on September 8, and since then he has not been seen on the outside. Even the police officers who are enforcing his policies, using fines, beatings and water cannons, have not been honored with a single visit. As a replacement for personal contact with the fighters, men and women, at the front – in the coronavirus wards, police stables, epidemiological investigation centers, labs and welfare offices – Netanyahu sends out informational video clips every day from the Prime Minister’s Office or his residence, in which he plays the figure of Bibi the teacher. In a blazer and without a tie, armed with a whiteboard, papers and markers, he tries

5 to educate the public to wear masks, keep social distancing rules and in general accept the lockdown as a good time. All of it in an easy and pleasant way – he asks everyone nicely to respect the rules, from the falafel seller to the government minister. This was his lame and pitiful response to the breaking of the rules by Environmental Protection Minister , who lied to the Health Ministry investigators. It seems Netanyahu is afraid of being infected with COVID-19, and is no less afraid of showing leadership, which would cost him by assuming responsibility for the failed management of the crisis. It is obvious that if Netanyahu were to tour around Israel, the virus would not be frightened of him and the outbreak would not stop. But Netanyahu is very well aware of the importance of showing concern and involvement in inspiring his subordinates. A decade ago, when he wanted to advance and speed up the construction of the border fence in the Negev, he visited the work sites time after time until the project was successfully completed. When he ran in the elections, he crisscrossed the entire country. And now, during the most severe national crisis ever, Netanyahu is not leaving his home and is making do with remote preaching. Instead of providing encouragement and support to the public servants who are dealing with the outbreak and the lockdown, Netanyahu is devoting his time to his war against the attorney general and the cancellation, or evaporation, of his trial. He is devoting hours to mudslinging against Avichai Mendelblit. The public is unaware of what is happening behind the walls on Balfour Street or in Caesarea, and does not know the details of the prime minister’s schedule. But when the supreme military commander in chief disappears from the front, people sense he is missing. They comprehend that Netanyahu is not sending them a message of hope and security, but one of despair and fear, and are turning to follow , who claims he knows how to defeat the pandemic and pulls out plans filled with details. Bennett is in the opposition, free from responsibility, and he can say whatever he wants. He doesn’t have the magic medicine for the virus either, but he is endlessly touring all over the country and is at least giving the public something to hold on to, like the commanders during the Yom Kippur War, who called on the troops over the radio to “hold on for another five minutes."

No Wonder We've Lost Confidence By Sima Kadmon Yedioth Ahronoth – October 6, 2020

If we were living in a normal country, Gila Gamliel would have left the cabinet in the blink of an eye. Every thinking person understands that someone who is part of the echelon that decides on the severe lockdown policies cannot be the one who violates them. It’s so obvious that anything else is unacceptable. Gamliel shouldn’t wait to be fired. She should have resigned on her own initiative immediately after she got caught having spent Yom Kippur far from her home in Tel Aviv. She should have immediately admitted that she went to synagogue for services—which is also against the directives and against the prime minister’s personal request—and not have added insult to injury by misleading the professionals, who even had trouble finding her for the purposes of conducting an epidemiological investigation. Her excuse that she gave as part of her apology—namely, that she is the mother of two girls and therefore had to get help from her husband’s parents who live in Tiberias—was nothing less than disgraceful. A mother of two girls? What will all the hundreds of thousands of mothers who have been trying to juggle work and kids for months say? They can’t get help from grandma and grandpa because of the directives either. And I wonder why this excuse never came up when it concerned the minister’s frequent overseas travel, as has been reported repeatedly. This story is infuriating in every possible aspect, and in a normal country this just wouldn’t be tolerated. Neither the action, and definitely not what was and wasn’t done afterwards. What we won’t accept from a private citizen is definitely unacceptable from a cabinet member. But we don’t live in a normal country, and Gamliel doesn’t think that she should be punished for things that others did and got away with before her, from the president to the prime minister and to cabinet ministers and Members of Knesset. They violated the lockdown too, and they didn’t follow the directives that the entire public is required to follow either. Every citizen [who violates the directives] is required to pay a fine, and it’s unlikely that any of them bothered to. It was there, on the eve of the Passover Seder, that the seeds of calamity were sown. That’s where the cracks in [the public’s] confidence began to form. And that’s also the reason why the prime minister was in no hurry to punish Gamliel, or even to reprimand her. What would he say, that he was punishing her for what he himself did? Would he 6 give her a reprimand when just two weeks ago his two close advisors violated quarantine? The prime minister is in no position to do anything. Why should he get entangled with Gamliel, who would no doubt open her mouth and just made the situation worse? Better for him to let party members like Keti Shitrit do the work of defending the indefensible. After all, Gamliel is merely another link in a long chain of lockdown violators, the same senior officials who pay no heed to us and permit themselves to do what we, the private citizens, are prohibited from doing. MK (Yesh Atid), who also turns out to have violated the lockdown and didn’t exactly tell the whole truth, joined them yesterday. Only in his case, Lapid rushed to do what was necessary and dismissed him from the Coronavirus Committee. That’s all that Lapid was missing, for a member of his party who was also a member of the Coronavirus Committee to violate the directives. So it’s no wonder that we’ve lost confidence. All of us. An entire public, Haredim and secular, right- and left- wingers, Arabs and Jews, who feel abandoned and deceived and are looking for any way to circumvent the directives that even the leadership hasn’t upheld. No wonder that there’s no way to convince us that these directives are warranted and that they haven’t been imposed on us to fulfill various needs that are immaterial. And no wonder that as the coronavirus cabinet keeps debating restrictions—the demonstrations have continued, mass funerals have been held, and there is no leadership or source of authority to rely on and listen to.

To the Palestinians and my fellow Arabs: Your hatred for Israel achieves nothing Khalaf Al Habtoor | Oct. 6, 2020 | HAARETZ

"If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner." This is one of South African President Nelson Mandela’s many pearls of wisdom. Following 18 years of incarceration on Robben Island, Mandela finally understood that violence against a militarily superior foe would not end apartheid. So he skillfully employed dialogue, forgiveness and reconciliation to achieve his aim of coexistence between his people and the regime that oppressed them. Unfortunately, his strategy, which resulted in the cessation of hostilities between black and white South Africans, escapes the reasoning of some of my fellow Arabs who have no solution how to better the lives of Palestinians, preferring to hang on to the same old rhetoric and unrealistic scenarios that belong to the mid- 20th century. I have been a supporter of the Palestinians all my life, both morally and materially, but over the decades, circumstances have changed. I’m a realist. I cannot remain stuck in some fantasy land, and neither do I wait indefinitely for miracles. Like it or not, Israel exists as an economic powerhouse under the unwavering protective umbrella of the . To imagine that boycotting Israeli goods will force the collapse of the Jewish state is infantile and hypocritical. Many of the components in your computers are Israeli-made and Israeli microchips can be found in over 100 million devices worldwide. To isolate Israel within the region only convinces Israeli governments to buy more weapons and construct more walls, both literally and figuratively. I would say to those critics of the historic Abraham Accords, who say it means a loss of Palestinian leverage, an erosion of negotiating chips, for many years neither the Palestinians nor their Arab backers have had any leverage over Israeli decision-makers. The Taba talks that were so close to fruition came to a grinding halt when the hard-line warhorse Ariel Sharon succeeded Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and U.S. President George W. Bush took the White House. President Bush held his nose to pay lip service to the so-called Road Map because he was eager to lure Arab states on board the invasion of Iraq. President Barack Obama talked a good talk, but his administration opposed UN Security Council pro- Palestinian Resolutions, and as for President Donald Trump, he has behaved like Santa Claus showering his friend Benjamin Netanyahu with gifts. There is a valid argument that says the Israelis have been intransigent. But the same can also be said for the Palestinians who still insist on the right of return for refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere. Never going to happen, and they know that full well.

7 They would be better off asking the host nations to tear down the camps and allow the refugees the right to work and own their own home. Refugees pass on false hopes to their children along with the keys to the former homes of their fathers or grandfathers and keep a visceral hatred for Israelis alive down the generations. I believe this is unfair for both generations. There are two million Palestinians, the descendants of Palestinians who stayed in 1948, who have Israeli nationality. Most take pride in their Arab heritage whether Muslims or Christians, yet are content to call themselves Arab Israelis. It is beyond time for the Palestinians to quit blaming everyone else for their situation today. Instead of condemning long-standing Arab allies, who have stood by them to the tune of billions of dollars, and in the case of Egypt and Syria, waged war with Israel on their behalf, they should first quit feuding with each other. Hamas and other militant groups must turn their backs on violence that rebounds onto the poor residents of Gaza and is the main reason for the crippling blockade. Arabs should not support a Hamas that is 100 percent Palestinian yet cozies up to Iran. The beauty of the Abraham Accords is that it greatly benefits all signatories in terms of trade, commerce, tourism, technology and security. Moreover, it cements a united front against Iran, a common enemy working towards manufacturing nuclear weapons with which to hold its neighbors hostage. Provided this new détente is successful, Israel will want to preserve the agreement, and thus we will gain the ability to push for Palestinian rights from a position of strength. This is basic common sense. Compromise only occurs when both sides have something important to lose. The more Arab states that join Egypt, Jordan, the UAE and Bahrain that have peace treaties with Israel, the more influential our bloc will become within the U.S. and on the world’s stage. Lebanon is undergoing arguably the most challenging periods in living memory. Peace with Israel would be a major game changer, and I suspect that the Lebanese people would approve if it were not for the obstacles strewing the path. The Lebanese need the courage to express what is in their hearts and decide to live in peace. Lebanon and the Lebanese people should want to remove all the obstacles/issues holding this back. Once those issues are overcome, then a peace agreement becomes evident, and the people of Lebanon can prosper. The Lebanese have to be brave enough to decide to live in peace. On this front, there is a glimmer of hope. In recent days, Lebanon and Israel, which consider themselves in a state of war, have agreed to hold U.S.-mediated talks on their respective maritime limits in light of new oil and gas finds throughout the eastern Mediterranean. This could evidently pave the way for further negotiations to demarcate their land borders, leading to a long-awaited peace between the warring sides. Hezbollah’s domination of Lebanon is reaching its end. Hassan Nasrallah and his slavish following are becoming so despised that they are attempting to disappear into the mists. And, to remain within the political arena, his allies are bound to distance themselves. To ensure Hezbollah never again rears its ugly head, the people should demand that its leadership and terror commanders should be tried for instigating criminal wars as well as its stranglehold over Lebanon that has delivered nothing but ruin, misery and unprecedented poverty. There is no doubt that the Abraham Accords are history-making in that they are a departure from the previous Israeli-Arab peace agreements that were signed grudgingly; in the case of Egypt, the purpose was to gain the return of lands captured by Israel during 1967, while U.S. President Bill Clinton heaped pressure on Jordan to sign-up in return for debt cancellations. Until today there has been no genuine normalization of relations except on paper: a cold peace still reigns. The Abraham Accords significantly differ because all sides are enthusiastically intent on creating a strong alliance to bolster a peaceful and prosperous future for the region. Economic interests dictate global policies these days, and it is the business communities that will provide the glue to make the three-way accords a great and lasting success. Israel will soon discover that our nations could not be better allies. My homeland, the UAE, has a progressive, tolerant culture, and my compatriots have embraced multiculturalism, offering friendship and respect to people of different races and religions. We are a people who settle our differences calmly and politely without argument or violence. We do not have time for squabbles; we are too busy working hard and making the most of our leisure time. 8 I urge all Arab leaderships to bury old hatreds that have consumed their foreign policies for 72 years without bearing fruit. Join us in forging a peaceful Middle East with new exciting opportunities for all. This is the finest legacy we can leave to our children and generations to come.

Khalaf Al Habtoor is the chairman of the Al Habtoor Group, an international business conglomerate with interests in real estate, hotels, the automotive industry, education and publishing, based in the United Arab Emirates. Twitter: @khalafalhabtoor

9