When 74-year-old President Donald Trump’s 39-year-old son-in-law White House senior adviser Jarod Kushner announced “normalization” of relations Aug. 13, with the United Arab Emirates, Palestinians called it a “stab in the back.” Palestinians think all Arabs must follow Palestinians lead when it comes to norrmalizing relations with Israel. No one knows better the Arab Gulf States about the costs of maintaining Palestinians society, especially in the utterly mismanaged Gaza Strip led by the militant group Hamas. Iran uses Hamas, and to a lesser extent Hezbollah in Lebanon, to maintain its ongoing proxy wars in the Middle East, currently supplying arms-and-cash to Yemen’s Houthi rebels to perpetuate proxy war with Saudi Arabia. Gulf State Arabis, led by U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, have had enough of perpetual warfare, something Palestinians think other Gulf State Arabs should do unless they make peace with Israel.
Kushner said Palestinian credibility in the Middle East is at an “all time low” and that the U.S. would not “chase” Palestinians for a peace deal as long a they reject out -of-hand U.S. peace overtures. Kushner had his Mideast peace plan rejected Feb. 11 by Ramallah-based 84-year-old Palestine Authority [PA] or Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] leader Mahmoud Abbas, saying the plan would turn a Palestinian state into “Swiss Cheese,” allowing Israel to annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Palestinians want Jewish settlements out of the West Bank for any negotiation for a future two-state solution with Israel. But Abbas does not speak for half the Palestinian population living under Hamas rule in Gaza. Gaza’s Hamas rulers led by 58-year-old Ismail Haniyeh are officially at war with Israel, telling Gaza residents daily it will eventually conquer Israel.
Gaza has become the poorest, most poverty-stricken region controlled by the militant group Hamas, periodically running out of cash, then looking to the Gulf State to bail them out. Hamas has established a pattern of running Gaza into the ground then firing rockets into Israel, prompting Israel to retaliate, decimating even more of Gaza’s dilapidated infrastructure, creating more rioting on the Israeli border. When Gaza runs out of cash, they beg the oil-rich Gulf States to make them whole again. UAE’s 71-year-old ruler Emir Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan decided to follow his counterpart in Saudi Arabia 34-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman engaging Israel quietly in trade, technology and security. Sheikh Khalifa took it to a new level formally “normalizing” relations with Israel. Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979, now followed 40-years later by Arab Gulf States.
Gulf States have grown weary of backing Palestinians’ battles, fighting with Israel at the expense of maintaining economic solvency, then expecting the Gulf States. “We’re not going to chase the Palestinian leadership,” Kushner said “Their credibility is just really falling to an all time low and even people who can’t to help the Palestinians, those people are just saying that you can’t help people who don’t help themselves,” giving an accurate picture of today’s picture. Abbas lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007, not longer able to make a peace deal without Hamas consent. United Nations and European Union officials haven’t pivoted from the days when PLO founder Yasser Arafat ruled all Palestinians, whether in the West Bank or Gaza. Arafat died Nov. 11, 2004 without realizing his dream of Palestinian state. He was offered may chances but militants, largely from Hamas, prevented him from many peace deals brokered over 40-year period.
When you consider that Palestinians held not one inch of sovereign territory before the 1967 Six Day War, you’d think they’d seek a peace deal because the West Bank and East Jerusalem were Jordan’s territory before 1967. While it’s true that Arabs, now called Palestinians, lived in Israel, Jordan and Syria before Israeli’s May 14, 1948 declaration of statehood, it’s also true that it was never sovereign territory. Jews and Arabs lived under Ottoman Turkish rule for 500 years, before the Ottoman Empire was broken up after WW I. When Great Britain took over sovereignty to the Holy Land in 1920, they held the territory until 1948. When six Arab States went to war against Israel in 1967, Israel seized Jordan’s West Bank and East Jerusalem, Egypt’s Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights. Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in 1979 and Gaza in 2005. Arafat created the PLO in 1964, calling Arabs once living in the British Mandate of Palestine, West Bank, Gaza and Jordan Palestinians.
Palestinians are stuck on the idea of forcing Israel to return to the pre-1967 borders, giving back all of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compromised in “normalizing” relations with the UAE, agreeing to suspend plans indefinitely to annex Jewish settlements occupying 17% of the West Bank. Netanyahu’s agreement bodes well for Palestinians, if they can unify under one leadership, to negotiate for a two-state solution. Palestinians have no right to dictate Israel’s return of the Golan Heights. PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh said Palestinians were ready to negotiate a two-state solution with borders returned to pre-1967. Rdeneh won’t admit that he speaks only for the PA, only half the Palestinian population. As long as Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, it’s unlikely that Abbas can do anything on a two-state solution until Hamas joins the PA and stops its ongoing war with Israel.
