Ever since Bahrain followed the United Arab Emirates’ lead by agreeing to normalize relations with Israel, media organizations have peddled the narrative that the developments are tantamount to a brutal blow to the hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people.
But this misses perhaps the most crucial point in the changing regional dynamic: namely, that all Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas needs to do to boost his chances at achieving statehood is drop his maximalist positions and rejectionism and return to the negotiating table with Israel.
Yet the media’s reporting tends to ignore this demonstrable fact.
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Media’s Take: Normalization Prevents Palestinian Statehood
In a September 13 interview on CNN, Ian Bremmer, President of Eurasia Group, said: “If you don’t get peace with Israel-Palestine, you [Arab countries in the Middle East] can’t move on geopolitics.” The underlying assumption is that the PA retains veto power on any rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world.
Bremmer continued: “Yes, you had the effort [of the Trump Administration] to talk about peace between Israel and Palestine, but the Palestinians weren’t even engaged.”
In Bremmer’s alternative universe, Palestinian leaders are chomping at the bit to sit down across the table from their Israeli counterparts in order to hash out a peace accord. But there is no mention of the fact that it was the PA that decided to impose a boycott on the US administration after President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Moreover, Ramallah rejected out-of-hand the White House’s peace proposal before its details were even released. Israel, on the other hand, accepted it.
One might argue that the American proposal was less generous to the PA than those offered in the past. However, top-ranking US officials have repeatedly stated that the terms of the “Vision for Peace” are not etched in stone and have even encouraged the Palestinians to submit a counter-offer.
They have not.
Related Reading – Before the ‘Deal of the Century’: How Previous Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plans Failed
Now consider a quote from a September 11 article published by Vox:
“The question…is if more countries — like Oman and Sudan — will follow suit. If so, it may prove the Trump Administration’s Middle East strategy has had some success, and prove dire for Palestinian hopes of having any real power in future negotiations with Jerusalem.”
But the fact of the matter is that the Palestinian leadership’s reaction to the peace push is beyond mere intransigence, with many high-ranking Palestinian officials having publicly incited violence against Israel.
This do-nothingness is especially curious in light of recent events, considering that Arab nations with formal ties to Jerusalem could well be even more inclined to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolved because it would allow them even greater flexibility to take advantage of potential bilateral opportunities in the fields of defense, technology, energy, medicine, agriculture, etc.
Relatedly, Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Sunni Muslim world, has made clear that it continues to support the Palestinians’ aspiration for statehood.
Stabbed in the Back
Instead, Abbas has described the normalization deals as a “stab in the back.” In this respect, it is worth noting that the Palestinian leader made his comments at a press conference in Ramallah that was attended by members of the Gaza-based Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups.
Contrast this with statements by Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid, who said this during a conference last summer in his country where the economic components of President Trump’s Middle East peace plan were unveiled: “Israel is part of the heritage of this whole region, historically.”
He added: “The Jewish people have a place among us.”
Related Reading – Scarred by the Second Intifada, Peace is Hard for Israelis to Believe in
Third Intifada?
As mentioned, the Palestinian leadership has in recent months attempted to incite another round of violence against Israelis. Initially, this was prompted by the Israeli government’s plan — which has since been shelved — to apply sovereignty to parts of the West Bank in accordance with the US peace proposal. In July, when the annexation issue was still on the table an adviser to Abbas warned of a Third Intifada, a violent Palestinian uprising.
Currently, the calls to violence are over the agreements with the UAE and Bahrain.
Furthermore, Israeli media reported that the PA had ordered the concealment of sensitive intelligence documents in anticipation of a possible low-intensity conflict. Notably, the Palestinian leadership reportedly did the same thing in advance of the Second Intifada that was defined by suicide bombings in Israeli public spaces such as malls, restaurants and buses.
Not to mention the PA is still refusing to ditch its “pay-for-slay” program that entails the distribution of monthly stipends — totaling hundreds of millions of dollars annually — to terrorists and their families.
Despite this clear, documented pattern of Palestinian rejectionism, the media continues to use headlines such as:
Now that Bahrain has joined the UAE in recognising Israel, Saudi Arabia cannot be far behind. A sea-change in the geopolitics of the Middle East is underway, leaving the Palestinian leadership isolated.
— Andrew Neil (@afneil) September 13, 2020
The Primary Obstacle to Negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian Peace
This quote from a September 13 piece in the Los Angeles Times sums up the journalistic malpractice:
“For almost two decades, Arab states pinned the prospects for normalized relations with Israel on a Saudi-led plan that conditioned rapprochement on a deal giving the Palestinians their own state.”
The word “give” entails that the Palestinians are deserving of a state even without having to negotiate with Israel. The media consistently glosses over this sense of entitlement even though many people — as well as much of the Middle East — are increasingly concluding that the Palestinians are victims of their own obstinacy and not Israeli policies.
If only the media would acknowledge what is becoming more apparent with each passing day.
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Feature image: Israeli and Palestinian flags painted on fists via Shutterstock and Pixabay.
