Today the White House along with Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced a historic deal, the UAE will normalize relations with Israel; and annexation is off the table– for now. From the announcement:
Israel will suspend declaring sovereignty over areas outlined in the President’s Vision for Peace and focus its efforts now on expanding ties with other countries in the Arab and Muslim World.
The deal for a “Strategic Agenda for the Middle East” is a coup for Jared Kushner, who has been pushing for political wins for his father-in-law, and open economic relations between the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia and Israel– and thereby to shove the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into the margins.
Benjamin Netanyahu held a press conference today and said, “I will not remove sovereignty [over the West Bank” from the table. There is no change in our plan to extend sovereignty to Judea and Samaria… It is not off the table as far as I am concerned.”
He said that he was just waiting for American approval of such annexation, because doing so without the U.S. would “damage” Israel.
Haaretz reports that annexation is not off the table permanently, just for now.
“A senior political source told Haaretz that annexation is still on the agenda, and that Israel is committed to it. “The Trump administration asked that we temporarily postpone declaring [sovereignty over parts of the West Bank] in order to achieve the beginning of this historic peace agreement with the Emirates.””
Hanan Ashrawi of the PLO says that Israeli expansion will merely continue, with a fig leaf:
Israel got rewarded for not declaring openly what it’s been doing to Palestine illegally & persistently since the beginning of the occupation. The UAE has come out in the open on its secret dealings/normalization with Israel. Please don’t do us a favor. We are nobody’s fig leaf!
Rep. Rashida Tlaib rejects the deal as an effort to rationalize apartheid.
We won’t be fooled by another Trump/Netanyahu deal. We won’t celebrate Netanyahu for not stealing land he already controls in exchange for a sweetheart business deal. The heart of the issue has never been planned, formal annexation, but ongoing, devastating apartheid.
The focus needs to be on promoting solidarity between Palestinians & Israelis who are joining together in struggle to end an apartheid system. We must stand with the people. This Trump/Netanyahu deal will not alleviate Palestinian suffering—it will further normalize it.
Yousef Munayyer focused on how the deal will put further pressure on Palestinians:
the plan now is to use Arab normalization to squeeze the Palestinians into accepting an Apartheid agreement and when they don’t, then annexation.
Palestinians are being “neglected” and “marginalized,” by this deal, proclaims Uzi Rabi of Tel Aviv University on i24 News.
That network is reporting Palestinian outrage. “Palestinians see it as a way to perpetuate the occupation.” And the United Arab Emirates has been spinning the deal as in the Palestinian interest, because it aims at fostering negotiations between Israel and Palestine.
No, Palestinians simply don’t count in this calculus. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink:
Trump’s press conference on “historic deal” between Israel and UAE has NO PALESTINIAN VOICE (and a room full of ALL MEN) and is all about increasing the pressure on Iran. This is peace?
The Republican Jewish Coalition is exultant, describing the announcement as a political coup. Matt Brooks writes, “For all the naysayers, critics and mockers who ridiculed [Trump] for his strategy to bring peace to the Middle East – I will be serving heaping portions of Crow throughout the week.”
Michael Koplow of Israel Policy Forum says the deal affirms the Israeli status quo and will infuriate the annexationists.
Will make most Israelis very happy, will infuriate the Israeli right, and enrage the Palestinians. It is ultimately a great example of threatening to do something over the top and then benefitting by keeping things exactly as they are.
Ariel Gold at Code Pink cites the Yemeni war crime angle.
As though it wasn’t bad enough that Palestinians live under daily annexation, now the repressive Yemeni murdering UAE is aligning with Netanyahu and Trump to throw them under the bus
Some history via the AP:
“… The UAE is a U.S.-allied federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula. Formed in 1971, the country like other Arab nations at the time did not recognize Israel over its occupation of land home to the Palestinians.
“Arab oil is not dearer than Arab blood,” the UAE’s founding ruler, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, once pronounced when agreeing to an oil boycott over U.S. military support to Israel in the 1973 Mideast war.
The UAE relied on white-collar Palestinians in creating its nation. Over time, it maintained its stance that Israel allow the creation of a Palestinian state on land it seized in the 1967 war.
But in recent years, ties between Gulf Arab nations and Israel have quietly grown, in part over their shared enmity of Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Prince Mohammed also shares Israel’s distrust of Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.
The UAE’s state-run WAM news agency framed the deal as not just a move that helps the UAE and Israel, but one that also benefits the Palestinians. Top Emirati official Anwar Gargash said the move dealt a “death blow” to moves by Israel to annex Palestinian lands.
It remains unclear what prompted Israel and the UAE to make the announcement now. In June, the UAE ambassador to the U.S. warned in an Israeli newspaper op-ed that Israel’s planned annexation of the Jordan Valley and other parts of the occupied West Bank would “upend” Israel’s efforts to improve ties with Arab nations. …”
https://apnews.com/abcb0ed9a84e2d3da7d87c28641ccc21
This is an opportunity to examine an issue that keeps rearing its strange head: below is the full text of a joint statement released by Israel and the UAE and apparently the UAE does not recognize Israel as a “Jewish state” or “the homeland of the Jews”. That’s because those phrases are meaningless in the language of modern diplomacy. So if the UAE recognizes Israel but not its “Jewish character”, it should be clear that if there is ever an agreement between the Palestinians and Israel, it doesn’t need to include the idea that Israel is the “ancestral homeland of the Jews”:
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1718951/middle-east
https://www.thenational.ae/world/gcc/full-text-joint-statement-of-us-israel-and-uae-1.1063399
MSNBC Ayman Moyheldin (all enthusiastic). Chuck Todd etc all presenting this story in an upbeat way. Had me even feeling hopeful for a few seconds. Came over here and pow a reality punch. Sounds like more smoke and mirrors the old perception is reality card.
Chuck in his second comment of the day on this issue added “some” annexation off the table. Then Robin Wright went into this is all about uniting against Iran.
“The UAE has come out in the open on its secret dealings/normalization with Israel.” Bingo.
This is simply a charade. This is Kushner’s feeble effort to help his corrupt father in law win re-election, and Netanyahu returning the favor that Kushner and Trump did for him before HIS election, by moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem (to impress Bibi’s voters) and signing off the Golan Heights. Crooks scratching each other’s behinds. This is no big deal as Hanan Ashrawi said beautifully, the UAE together with Saudi Arabia been conspiring with Israel against Iran for years. This is simply a statement of “coming out’. What is disappointing is that yet another Arab nation is throwing their own under the bus, to make nice with their brutal occupier, signaling their compliance for the land theft, and the killing of unarmed Palestinians by snipers and precision bombs.
If Trump is looking to impress American voters he is wasting his time – Americans don’t care either way.
1 of 2:
Just received from a Canadian friend:
CJPME [Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East]: Israel-UAE Agreement Does Not End Threat of Israeli Annexation
For Immediate Release
Montreal, August 13, 2020 — “In light of today’s normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) warns that the threat of Israeli annexation remains as urgent as ever. A widely reported statement published today by the United States claims that Israel ‘will suspend’ its annexation plans in exchange for normalization with the UAE. However, an Israeli official told the Times of Israel that Israel remains committed to annexation, and that ‘The Trump administration asked to temporarily suspend the announcement [of annexation] in order to first implement the historic peace agreement with the UAE.’
“’Israel has not abandoned its plans to annex the West Bank, but has only agreed to a temporary pause,’ said Michael Bueckert, Vice President of CJPME. ‘Canada must continue to raise its voice against Israeli annexation plans, which threaten to formalize Israel’s permanent control over Palestinian territory.’
“CJPME notes that as the world waits for an official announcement on annexation, Israeli occupation and creeping annexation continue to confine Palestinians to an unacceptable apartheid reality. ‘Without any concessions from Israel regarding its control over Palestinian territory, UAE’s agreement with Israel does nothing to advance peace in the Middle East, but only rewards Israel for its ongoing crimes of occupation,’ said Bueckert. (cont’d)