Politicking with Palestinian cause (II)

(Link on Daily Trust site)

With the latest normalization of relations between the Kingdom of Bahrain and Israel following that of the UAE and Israel a few weeks earlier both of which were ratified in Washington a couple of days ago, it seems more Arab governments may soon follow suit. 

By the way, though Israel owes its creation and continued existence to the conspiracy of the global military powers to keep it perpetually superior militarily and technologically in the Middle East, it has always pursued normalization of relations with governments in the region to achieve, at least, diplomatic recognition. In this regard, it has always relied on, particularly, the United States, which has always deployed all persuasive tactics and blackmailing tools at its disposal to push for the normalization of relations with Israel in the region.  

Recent developments, therefore, couldn’t have come at a better time for both the US President Donald Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both are facing politically existential threats in their respective countries, hence are exploiting the developments in their efforts to cling to power. 

Struggling for reelection in less than two months, President Trump of the US is already bragging about it in his campaign to further impress the super influential Jewish lobby groups in Washington, evangelicals, and his broader conservative and largely pro-Israel voter base. 

Likewise, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel who has been desperately struggling to cling to power to avoid serious corruption charges that are most likely to land him in jail once out of power is already manipulating the developments politically to mobilize enough support in hopes of achieving a comfortable win in the next parliamentary election that would enable him to form a government without having to go into a coalition, or, at worst, that would enable him to form a government in a coalition with friendlier partners. 

Meanwhile, given the particular religious significance of Palestine where Al Quds, the third of the three holy cities in Islam is located in addition to its original Arabic identity, the struggle against its occupation by the Zionists has always attracted both real activists and self-serving opportunists from among the Palestinians, rest of the Arabs, and other countries in the region and beyond. 

With the self-serving opportunists dominating the scene, all that a typical charlatan seeking cheap political popularity among Arabs and Muslims has to do in order to achieve his agenda is to feign and maintain an uncompromising stance against the Zionists and their occupation of Palestine. For a typical Palestinian political opportunist, and depending on his rhetorical skills, hypocritical moves and connections, he may be able to manoeuvre himself into the limelight and become part of the Palestinian elite many, if not most, of whom only exploit the Palestinian cause in pursuit of their respective selfish interests.   

Equally, some Arab and even non-Arab regimes have exploited the Palestinian cause in pursuit of their geopolitical agendas at the expense of the cause. 

Iran is particularly notorious in this regard. Driven by its Shiism-coated neo-Persian geopolitical expansionist agenda in the Middle East, it has, since 1979, ridden the wave of the deep-rooted anti-Zionist feelings among Arabs to promote its false anti-Zionist rhetoric laden with the empty threat of eliminating Israel. 

Of course, the rhetoric has resonated with the unsuspecting across the region, which enabled Iran to infiltrate many countries where it created armed militias loyal it through which it seeks to dominate the countries; it has already succeeded in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria through such militias, which have grown stronger than the constituted security establishments including the military. It has also infiltrated the Palestinians where it manipulates some supposed resistance groups e.g Hamas militia in pursuit of its agenda.  

Now, I have to skip the issue of Iran-Israel mutually beneficial “enmity”, which, I am supposed to address today as promised last week; this is due to space constraint and the fact that it may entail digressing too far from the main topic. So, I will, God willing, address it in a separate piece in due course.

Meanwhile, seeing Iran’s hugely successful exploitation of the Palestinian cause in the promotion of its geopolitical agenda, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan conceived his own version of the neo-Ottoman geopolitical ambition riding the wave of the Muslim Brotherhood group to achieve it. This is, though, unlike Iranians, his strategy doesn’t involve changing people’s religious beliefs. 

However, his inconsistency with regard to the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation is particularly interesting; because while he passionately criticizes Israel over its acts of brutality or policies against the Palestinians, he remains officially the closest Israeli ally among Muslim leaders anyway. Figures of trade volume and value between the two countries, the extent of diplomatic relations, military cooperation, tourism, air travel, etc., say it all in this regard. 

Now, pragmatically speaking, whether normalization of relations between an Arab or Muslim country and Israel is justified or not, it depends on what each country gets in return, and, of course, the implications of the normalization on the efforts to end the Zionist occupation of the Palestinian land.  

Accordingly, while Egypt, which retrieved its Sinai peninsula under its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Jordan, which equally retrieved its territories and water resources under its 1994 peace treaty with Israel, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which became a quasi-autonomous Palestinian authority in West Bank and Gaza following the Israeli withdraw under the Oslo Accords (I&II) in 1993/95, while they can be vindicated, the UAE, Bahrain and any other Arab country that may follow suit without appropriate value in return cannot. 

The worth or otherwise of these recent treaties and their respective implications on the Palestinian cause can only be assessed when the exact terms of the treaties are released; and even then, their merits can only be assessed based on what Israel actually implements on the ground accordingly.

Politicking with Palestinian cause (l)

 (Link on Daily Trust site)

Since the announcement of the normalization of relations between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel, a few weeks ago, I have received requests from some media outlets and individuals to comment on the development and its implications on the Palestinian cause. 

Interestingly, the average observer who follows Middle East politics on only or largely the various international media that allot limited periods for Hausa news programs misses too much information, which explains his simplistic understanding of the underlying dynamics of the region's geopolitics. 

Anyway, though the protracted Arab-Jews struggle predates 1948 when global powers conspired to create the Zionist State of Israel on Palestinian territories, the 1979 controversial Egypt-Israeli Peace Treaty introduced a whole new dimension to the politics of the struggle.   

After four of the five major wars between Arabs and Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973, Egypt, the most populous and arguably strongest Arab country, began to come to terms with the fact that a war with Israel was/is effectively a war with the global military powers combined, given the Euro-American countries' resolve to keep Israel militarily and technologically superior to the entire Arab countries.  

So, in 1979 and following years of pressure and blackmail in the name of US-brokered Egypt-Israel negotiations, Egypt recognized the State of Israel and normalized relations with it, while it, in return, retrieved its Sinai Peninsula from the Israeli occupation.  

Though Egypt’s decision provoked its fellow Arab countries, which consequently expelled it from their Arab League organization, it (i.e Egypt's decision) prompted individual countries in the region to begin looking at the struggle from, primarily, the perspectives of their respective national interests.  

In less than a decade afterwards, Arab countries restored diplomatic relations with Egypt while its membership in the Arab League was formally restored in 1989.  

And by the mid-90s, the Palestinians themselves had recognized the State of Israel under the Oslo Accords l&ll based on the United Nation's two-state solution to the conflict. Consequently, a quasi-autonomous Palestinian “state” in West Bank and Gaza Strip was created as a step supposedly designed to culminate in the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state.  

Soon afterwards, Palestinian political elites including those of the supposed armed resistance groups e.g. Hamas began struggling for the leadership of their quasi-autonomous Palestinian “state” based on either formal recognition of the State of Israel, as in the case of, say, Fatah, or tacit recognition, as in the case of, say, Hamas, as provided under the Oslo Accords that established the whole political process. And since then those of them in "power" have always enjoyed power-associated privileges including diplomatic treatment around the world, while their political opponents are always determined to take over their positions as in any typical democratic state.  

In fact, since 2007, the two major components of the quasi-autonomous Palestinian “state”, West Bank and Gaza, have been politically separate following a desperate power struggle between Fatah and Hamas that led to the violent overthrow of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in Gaza by the Hamas fighters; and since then the city has been under Hamas control. 

Meanwhile, while Fatah openly interacts with Israel based on formal recognition, Hamas, which "insists" on not recognizing Israel, does the same albeit largely through Qatar and Turkey. 

On the social level also, when Israel was created in 1948 many Palestinians opted for recognizing it by willingly taking its citizenship; they now constitute more than 20% of the Israeli population. 

Besides, on a daily basis, thousands of Palestinian labourers cross into Israel through its border crossings to work, which equally suggests their, at least, tacit recognition of the State of Israel; and given the chance, they wouldn’t hesitate to take Israeli citizenship. Interesting, many of them work on construction sites including the settlements that successive Israeli governments have been building on the very territories of the proposed State of Palestine in blatant defiance of the relevant UN resolutions.   

Anyway, in 1994, Jordan also signed a US-brokered peace treaty recognizing the State of Israel and normalizing relations with it. And in 1996, a year following the overthrow of the then Emir of Qatar by his son, the former Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani who is the father of the current Emir, Shiekh Tamim, Qatar and Oman openly established relations with Israel when they respectively invited the then Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres to Doha and Muscat where agreements were signed between the two countries respectively and Israel.  

Also, whether it was a mere coincidence or not, the same year witnessed the establishment of the Doha-based Aljazeera satellite Channel, which was the first Arabian television channel to host Zionist leaders, politicians, and even military spokesmen who promote propaganda that undermines the established narrative of the root cause of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which was the illegal occupation of the former's land by the latter. And since then the sight of Zionist officials on Arab TV channels has become normal. 

Now, Mauritania equally recognized Israel in 1999 and established diplomatic ties with it. And though the UAE is the latest Arab country to follow suit, it's an open secret that there have always been secretive direct or indirect contacts between Israel and literally all Middle Eastern countries. 

Meanwhile, Turkey, which, along with Iran and Israel are the only non-Arab countries in the region, and which recognized Israel since 1949, a year after its (Israeli) creation that made it the first Muslim country to do so, has maintained diplomatic, economic, military, and other strategic ties with Israel. 

Whereas, since 1979 following the Khomeini revolution in Iran, Israeli and Iran have manipulated their mutually beneficial "enmity" at the expense of the Palestinian cause and indeed the entire Arab countries in the region. 

In the conclusion this Friday, I will, God willing, highlight how Iran and Israel exploit the Palestinian cause in their mutually beneficial “enmity” to achieve their respective goals without actually undermining each another; and, of course, look at the underlying interests and dynamics behind the tendency of normalizing relations with Israel among Arab countries.