The Israel-UAE deal shouldn't take the Palestinian Authority by surprise

Israel and the Emirates have never been engaged in hostilities or belligerent armed conflict, so why should it surprise that an agreement normalizing diplomatic ties could be drawn up between them?

By BASSEM EID
PA PRESIDENT Mahmoud Abbas holds a document while speaking during a Security Council meeting at the United Nations in New York, on Tuesday. (photo credit: SHANNON STAPLETON / REUTERS)
PA PRESIDENT Mahmoud Abbas holds a document while speaking during a Security Council meeting at the United Nations in New York, on Tuesday.
(photo credit: SHANNON STAPLETON / REUTERS)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wants the wheel of life to stop turning until the Palestinian issue with Israel is resolved. If this issue is not resolved, then people must die and perish. It is nonsensical and absurd, because the world today is no longer preoccupied or concerned with the Palestinian cause or with the Palestinians themselves.
The Israeli-Emirati agreement is an internal matter that concerns those states and their people, and there is no need for the PA to intervene. Every state has the right to do what it desires and wants: a peace agreement between two states may not harm any other country, but the opposite may be true. Peace will always extend security and stability among peoples.
Israel and the Emirates have never been engaged in hostilities or belligerent armed conflict, so why should it surprise that an agreement normalizing diplomatic ties could be drawn up between them?
Today, the PA is meting out the most severe types of incitement against the government of the Emirates, and especially against Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, accusing the crown prince of being a traitor both to al-Quds (Jerusalem), and to al-Aqsa Mosque. Moreover, the PA is calling on both the international and the Arab community to boycott the Emirates, and even to take revenge on the Gulf state.
The PA today has situated itself in alliance with some of the most malevolent and dictatorial regimes in the region. Among them, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that it is possible to withdraw the Turkish ambassador from the UAE, meanwhile forgetting the placement of his ambassador to Israel, who resides at HaYarkon St. 202 in Tel Aviv.
Or, take for example, the relations between Israel and Qatar, the latter which has close ties with Turkey, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel overlooks reacting on the basis of those ties when its statecraft necessitates that it defer to its national interests and place those interests above and beyond its understandable attitude and feelings toward its implacable foes. Thus, Israel is the country that transfers Qatar’s money to Hamas in Gaza, and that Hamas that receives money via Israel is the same Hamas that attacks Israel almost on a daily basis. National interests, correctly discerned, tend to trump most other considerations almost all of the time.
There is an Arab proverb that says, “If the cow falls, the knifings will increase.” Unfortunately for the UAE, once the cow that was the expectation of perpetual anti-normalization, boycott and enmity toward the State of Israel fell with the signing of the accord, knives have become unsheathed.
In the meantime, one hopes that more Arab countries will follow the UAE’s example. For the more that Arab states and Israel establish closer relations, the greater the opportunity for a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Abbas and his apparatchiks aren’t at all interested in seeing Israel develop closer and normalized relations with Arab states because they have based their rule on the continuation of conflict with Israel. However, if over the next 25 years, Palestinians came to see an Arab world prospering from trade and normalized relations with Israel, and were able to oust the current rejectionist regime and establish a democratic state – in which citizens are equal, a state in which Palestinians could exercise their rights to life, freedom of expression and worship and a transparent and accountable state that provides equal opportunities for each and every Palestinian – the greater the opportunity for a final negotiated end to the conflict.
Sadly though, in this bitter milieu of the so-called “Palestinian internationalism,” we find little reason for a glimmer of hope. The state from the river to the sea that Abbas and his minions are talking about will only be a microcosm replica of the dictatorships of the third world and the Arab world in particular.

Stay updated with the latest news!

Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter

Subscribe Now
Therefore, we must start from scratch, as Plato did, by building a solid educational base that builds a generation that breathes from the culture of democracy and the civilization of moderation. A generation that believes in human unity and self-sacrifice for the sake of the group, eliminates corruption, reforms the nation's condition, and extends its hand to others with peace, love and giving. Finally, let us develop a society in which religion is worship, faith, practice, guiding, and unifying, and not fanaticism, hypocrisy and discrimination.
The writer is a human rights expert, political analyst and commentator


Related Tags
israel palestinian negotiations
Arab Israeli conflict