{"id":81698,"date":"2020-10-29T17:05:23","date_gmt":"2020-10-29T15:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=81698"},"modified":"2020-10-21T14:59:44","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T12:59:44","slug":"29-05-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=81698","title":{"rendered":"Arab-Israeli Politicians Against Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Arab-Israeli Politicians Against Peace<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Ruthie Blum<\/strong> \/ JNS.org<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Khalida Jarrar (left), who was arrested by Israel\u2019s Shin Bet security service for her ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian (PFLP) terror group, is pictured with Israeli-Arab Knesset member Ayman Odeh, who heads the Joint Arab List. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u00a0<\/em>An overwhelming majority of Israeli parliamentarians, including those in the opposition,\u00a0voted<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday to ratify the US-brokered Abraham Accords. With 80 members of 120-seat Knesset in favor of the treaty with the United Arab Emirates and 27 in absentia, the remaining 13 lawmakers were unable to block the historic peace agreement that was approved\u00a0unanimously<\/a>\u00a0by the Israeli Cabinet on October 12.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though the quantity of MKs nixing the deal was negligible, their identity is not. All of the more than dozen legislators who reject Israel\u2019s peacemaking \u2014 not only with the UAE, but with Bahrain as well \u2014 are Arab citizens of the Jewish state, belonging to the Joint List party.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Joint List is a bloc of disparate communist, socialist, Islamist, and Arab-nationalist parties Balad, Hadash, Ta\u2019al, and the United Arab List, supported by an increasing number of radical Jews disillusioned with the Zionist left.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is headed by MK Ayman Odeh, who said last week that Israel\u2019s normalization with the Gulf states is based on \u201ctwisted logic\u201d that [the Joint List] cannot accept \u2026 either morally or nationally.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He was referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s long-standing view that a lack of peace with the Palestinians is not at the root \u2014 or even a blip on the radar screen \u2014 of Middle East strife in general or of traditional regional hostility to Israel in particular. It is this position that the Israeli left, obsessed with the failed \u201cland for peace\u201d paradigm, cannot tolerate.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Palestinian Authority (PA) and its apologists have had an interest in keeping this false idea alive. The notion has been the basis for inverting culprit and victim where Palestinian intransigence is concerned. It also has served as the perfect fund-raising pitch for Ramallah and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip from deep-pocketed benefactors in Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

The administration of former President George W. Bush made a feeble attempt at placing the onus on the Palestinian Authority to undergo internal reform and reach an agreement with Israel. But it wasn\u2019t until Donald Trump entered the White House that concrete demands to shape up or lose out on a great opportunity for the Palestinian people were made clear to PA chief Mahmoud Abbas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Abbas realized that Washington meant business. His response was to snub its envoys. For the first time in his career, his behavior was met with an apathetic shrug, rather than another wave of appeasement.<\/span><\/p>\n

As if that weren\u2019t sufficient cause for almost 85-year-old to feel frustrated, the mild reaction on the part of the \u201cPalestinian street\u201d and neighboring Arab leaders to America\u2019s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital \u2014 and the move of the US embassy there from Tel Aviv \u2014 was too much for him to bear. That this was followed by a host of additional moves aimed at holding the Palestinians accountable for terrorist activities, while furthering other Israeli interests, only made matters worse for the aging despot.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was slightly encouraged by the Arab League\u2019s\u00a0declaration<\/a>\u00a0on February 1 that Trump\u2019s \u201cPeace to Prosperity\u201d plan, unveiled at the White House on January 28, \u201cdoes not meet the minimum rights and aspirations of Palestinian people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

During the emergency meeting of the League, convened at Abbas\u2019 behest, members vowed not to cooperate with the US. Ironically, the UAE and Bahrain were among the countries making this promise, despite having sent representatives to Trump\u2019s joint press conference with Netanyahu three days earlier to reveal the plan.<\/span><\/p>\n

To explain this seeming contradiction, an anonymous Arab diplomat told the left-wing Israeli daily\u00a0Haaretz<\/em>\u00a0that the Gulf states had been misled by Washington with a document stating that Trump\u2019s plan included the establishment of a Palestinian state \u2014 with Jerusalem as its capital \u2014 as the basis for peace negotiations.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was nonsense, of course. The only bone thrown to the UAE and Bahrain on behalf of the Palestinians was Washington\u2019s request that Netanyahu agree to put on hold his government\u2019s plan to extend Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley, and Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Palestinians weren\u2019t interested, however. Nor did their temporary sense that the Arab League still had their back last for long. Months later, in August, when the UAE and Bahrain announced that they would be normalizing ties with Israel, Ramallah\u2019s attempt to dissuade them from doing so \u2014 and to persuade the rest of the Arab League to condemn them \u2014 was unsuccessful.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a typical huff, the Palestinians quit its slated six-month chairmanship of the Arab League council of foreign ministers. Lo and behold, nobody cared. The Arab League, like Netanyahu, has been focused on the threat from Tehran and on entering a coalition of nations that share a fear of a nuclear Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

This brings us to the Knesset representatives of Israel\u2019s Arabs. Odeh not only voted against the Abraham Accords, but told the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese TV station\u00a0al-Mayadeen<\/em>\u00a0that they are based on a \u201cflawed assumption\u201d about Iran being the \u201cfundamental issue.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Pooh-poohing the Iranian threat \u2014 to a network whose sponsors are Iranian proxies \u2014 he said, \u201cThe Israeli occupation is the fundamental problem.\u201d\u00a0Al-Mayadeen<\/em>\u00a0is used to and regularly promotes Israel-bashing. Having help from an Arab Knesset member who isn\u2019t even as radical as some of the others on his list must have been especially welcome.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of which, Joint List MK Abbas Mansour, chairman of the United Arab List Party, explained to Israel\u2019s\u00a0Kan Radio<\/em>\u00a0on Monday why he couldn\u2019t unequivocally condemn the\u00a0beheading<\/a>\u00a0of a history teacher by a Chechen Islamist in a suburb of Paris on Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mansour said that the teacher should not have shown his students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, even in the context of a lesson on freedom of expression, since such depictions are offensive to Muslims. Try as they might, the interviewers did not manage to get him to concede that in this case, the cartoons were part of an educational exercise or that democracy involves\u00a0free speech<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, he ranted about the pluralism of Islam and its respect for all people and religions to prove his point that causing offense to Muslims goes against such values. In his eyes, apparently,\u00a0decapitation<\/a>\u00a0does not.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the Palestinian honchos\u2019 unwillingness to coexist with Israelis at the expense of their own people\u2019s well-being, it is logical for the likes of Odeh and Mansour to be on their side against the Abraham Accords. What makes no sense at all, however, is that the Joint List \u2014 the third-largest faction in the Knesset \u2014 is more hostile to Zionists than the sheikhs of Abu Dhabi and Manama.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ruthie Blum<\/strong> is an Israel-based journalist and author of\u00a0<\/em>To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the \u2018Arab Spring\u2019.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Arab-Israeli Politicians Against Peace Ruthie Blum \/ JNS.org Khalida Jarrar (left), who was arrested by Israel\u2019s Shin Bet security service for her ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian (PFLP) terror group, is pictured with Israeli-Arab Knesset member Ayman Odeh, who heads the Joint Arab List. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. \u2013\u00a0An overwhelming majority […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81698"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81698"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81714,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81698\/revisions\/81714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}