A Geopolitical Earthquake Just Hit the Mideast the Israel-United Arab
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Selected articles concerning Israel, published weekly by Suburban Orthodox Toras Chaim’s (Baltimore) Israel Action Committee Edited by Jerry Appelbaum ( [email protected] ) | Founding editor: Sheldon J. Berman Z”L Issue 8 5 5 Volume 20 , Number 3 4 Parshias Ki Savo September 5 , 20 20 A Geopolitical Earthquake Just Hit the Mideast By Thomas L. Friedman nytimes.com August 13, 2020 The Israel - United Arab Emirates deal will be felt Trump to block Bibi’s cherry - picking of the plan by taking throughout the region. annexation now. For once, I am going to agree with President Trump in This was causing Netanyahu to lose support from the his use of his favorite adjective: “huge.” settlers — and, at a time when he is on trial on corruption The agreement brokered by the Trump administration charges and facing daily protests outside his home over his for the United Arab Emirates to establish full poor performance in leading Israel out of the coronavirus normalization of re lations with Israel, in return for the epidemic, left him sinking in the p olls. Jewish state forgoing, for now, any annexation of the West So what Trump, Kushner, Prince Mohammed bin Bank, was exactly what Trump said it was in his tweet: a Zayed, the de facto leader of the Emirates, and Netanyahu “HUGE breakthrough.” did was turn lemons into lemonade, explained Itamar It is not Anwar el - Sadat going to Jerusalem — nothing Rabinovich, one of Israel’s leading Middle East historians could match that first big opening between Arabs and and a former ambassador to Washington . Israelis. It is not Yasir Arafat shaking Yitzhak Rabin’s hand “Instead of Israeli annexation for a Palestinian state, on the White House lawn — nothing could match that they made it Israeli non - annexation in return for peace first moment of public reconciliation between Israelis and with the U.A.E.,” said Rabinovich in an interview. Palestinians. Kushner, he added, “basically generated an asset out of But it is close. Just go down the scorecard , and you see nothing, which Israel could then tr ade for peace with the how this deal affects every major party in the region — U.A.E. It was peace for peace, not land for peace.” with those in the pro - American, pro - moderate Islam, pro - This process apparently started after the U.A.E.’s ending - the - conflict - with - Israel - once - and - for - all camp ambassador to Washington, Yousef al - Otaiba, published a benefiting the most and those in the radical pro - Iran, anti - letter in Hebrew in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot American, pro - Is lamist permanent - struggle - with - Israel in June directly warning that Israeli annexation of the West camp all becoming more isolated and left behind. Bank would undermine the quiet progress Israel had made It’s a geopolitical earthquake. with the gulf Arabs. To fully appreciate why, you need to start with the The U.A.E. had been mulling going for more open internal dynamics of the deal. It was Trump’s peace plan diplomatic ties with Israel for a while, but it was the drawn up by Jared Kushner, a nd their willingness to stick discussions over how to stop an nexation that created a with it, that actually created the raw material for this framework where the U.A.E. could be seen as getting breakthrough. Here is how. something for the Palestinians in return for its The Kushner plan basically called for Israel and the normalization with Israel. Palestinians to make peace, with Israel being able to annex The Netanyahu dynamics here are fascinating, or as some 30 percent of the West B ank, where most of its Israeli writer Ari Shavit remarked to me: “Netanyahu is settlers were, and the Palestinians getting to establish a trying to get out of his own personal Watergate by going to demilitarized, patchwork state on the other 70 percent, China. He’s like Nixon in reverse.” along with some land swaps from Israel. What he meant was that Netanyahu had been doing The Palestinians rejected the deal outright as everything he could to appease the right - wing forces in unbalanced and unjust. But Isra eli Prime Minister Israel — with shiny objects like annexation — so they Benjamin Netanyahu, who basically helped to write the would side with him in his corruption trial against Israel’s very pro - Israel plan, said he intended to proceed with the court system and attorney general. annexation part of the plan by July 1 — without agreeing By taking this deal, Netanyahu, as Nixon did with to the part that his political base of Jewish settlers rejected: China, abandoned his natural ideological allies — the Pa lestinians later getting a state on the other 70 percent. (I settlers who supported him because they thought he woul d wonder if Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, deliver annexation — “and this will force Netanyahu to a pro - settler extremist himself, encouraged Bibi to think he become more dependent on the center and center - right in could get away with this.) Israel going forward,” said Shavit. “This deal may help It didn’t work, because Kushner, who was hearing save Israeli democracy by now depriving Bibi” of the full re gularly from Egypt, Jordan and the gulf Arabs that such army of right - wing forces “he needed to destroy the Israeli a unilateral Israeli annexation would be a total deal - breaker Supreme Court.” for them, told Bibi, “Not so fast.” Kushner persuaded The Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, was also stripped of something by this deal, which may Focus o n Israel Sept ember 5, 2020 Page 2 force him to the negotiating table. It stripped him of his us.” The vast damage Israel inflicted on Iran through biggest ace in the hole — the idea that the gu lf Arabs apparent cyberwarfare in recent months may have even would normalize with Israel only after the Israelis satisfied given the U.A.E. more breathing room to do t his deal. the demands of the Palestinian Authority with a state to its But there is another message, deeper, more liking. psychological. This was the U.A.E. telling the Iranians and (Free advice for Abbas: Come back to the table now all their proxies: There are really two coalitions in the and say you view the Trump plan as a “floor,” not a region today — those who want to let the future bury the “ceiling” for Palestinian aspirations. You will find a lot of past and those who want to l et the past keep burying the support from Trump, the Europeans and the Arabs for future. The U.A.E. is taking the helm of the first, and it is that position. You still have leverage. Israel still has to deal leaving Iran to be the leader of the second. with you, because your people in the West Bank are not When the Trump administration assassinated Qassim going to just disappear, no matter what happens with the Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, the foreign - U.A.E. and Israel.) operations branc h of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards This deal will certainly encourage the other gulf Corps in January, I wrote a column saying that America sheikhdoms — Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi had just killed “the dumbest man in Iran.” Arabia — all of which have had covert and overt business Why? Because what was Suleimani’s business model, and intelligence dealings with Israel, to follow the which became Shiite Iran’s business model? It was to hire Em irates’ lead. They will not want to let the U.A.E. have a Arab and oth er Shiites to fight Arab Sunnis in Iraq, leg up in being able to marry its financial capital with Lebanon, Yemen and Syria — to project Iran’s power. Israel’s cybertechnology, agriculture technology and health And what was the result of all this? Iran has helped to turn care technology, with the potential to make both countries all four into failed states. Iran’s clerical leadership has stronger and more pros perous. become the largest facilitator of state fa ilure in the Middle Three other big winners here are: 1) King Abdullah of East — including its own — which is why so many Jordan. He feared that Israeli annexation would energize Lebanese blame it and Hezbollah for their country’s efforts to turn Jordan into the Palestinian state. That threat mismanagement that led to the devastating explosion last is for the moment defused. 2) The American Jewish week in Beirut’s port. community. If Israel had annexed part of the West Bank, it I have followed the Middle East for too long to ever would have divided every synagogue and Jewish wri te the sentence “the region will never be the same community in America, between hard - line annexationists again.” The forces of sectarianism, tribalism, corruption and liberal anti - annexationists. This was a looming disaster. and anti - pluralism run deep there. But there are other Gone for now. And 3) Joe Biden. Biden, if he succeeds currents — young men and women who are just so tired Trum p, will not have to worry about the thorny issue of of the old game, the old fights, the ol d wounds being annexation, and he should have a much stronger pro - stoked over and over again. You could see them American alliance in the region to work with. demonstrating all over the streets of Beirut last week The big geopolitical losers are Iran and all of its demanding good governance and a chance to realize their proxies: Hezbollah, the Iraqi militias, Syrian Presiden t full potential.