http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/the-road-to-statehood-is-blocked-in-all-directions

The quest for Palestinian independence appears to be simultaneously at death’s doorstep and stronger than ever. At the granular level of on-the-ground realities and national policies, the very existence of the Palestinian national cause as a coherent and even extant political programme appears increasingly tenuous. Yet at the same time, the emerging state of Palestine is becoming increasingly recognised, and almost universally accepted, as a part of the international community, a participant in major multilateral organisations and an integrated fixture in the global diplomatic environment.

Israel’s government has dropped all pretences. The appointment of right-wing extremist Danny Danon to be Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations confirms that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement during the last Israeli election categorically opposing the creation of a Palestinian state was an accurate representation of policy. Mr Danon is a strident opponent of peace who instead advocates the annexation of as much territory in the West Bank as possible with “the minimum number of Palestinians”.

Mr Netanyahu and his colleagues know exactly the message – so blatant that it is actually crude – that they are communicating by sending Mr Danon to represent Israel in the UN. To engage with the centre of international support for, and expectation of, peace based on two states, Israel is dispatching one of its most strident annexationists.

It is no longer possible to argue honestly that Israel’s government is open to, let alone supportive of, peace with the Palestinians. And there is no basis for hoping that this is a temporary aberration that will be corrected in future elections. Supporters of the status quo such as Mr Netanyahu are fighting off those, like Mr Danon, who want to annexe Palestinian land.

A majority of Jewish Israelis might still favour peace. But various shades of extremism have captured the policymaking process, and only a dramatic set of developments could significantly alter that.

As Israelis are turning away from any notion of accommodating the Palestinian national movement, Palestinian leaders themselves appear to be further burying, rather than rescuing, their own cause.

President Mahmoud Abbas has recently sprung into uncharacteristically vigorous action. But his energies have been focused inward, on consolidating his own authority and attempting to purge both real and perceived rivals. He is increasingly acting like the autocratic mayor of Ramallah rather than the responsible national leader of Palestine.

Appearances notwithstanding, Mr Abbas’s recent resignation from the Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee, along with nine other members, is almost certainly a ploy to purge his critics and strengthen his control of the PLO. Worse, Mr Abbas has escalated his long-standing feud with former Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan into a vendetta against two of the most responsible and respectable Palestinians political figures.

Long-serving PLO secretary-general Yasser Abed Rabbo has been summarily dismissed from that post. His NGO, the Palestinian Peace Coalition, was raided and closed, drawing angry rebukes from its European funders. Former prime minister Salam Fayyad has also been a target, with repeated efforts to seize funds belonging to his organisation, Future for Palestine.

With Hamas lurching from crisis to crisis, and offering no plausible alternative to the Palestinian people whatsoever, Mr Abbas has squandered numerous opportunities to reintroduce the Palestinian Authority into Gaza in a number of realistic capacities.

But all of these subtle and complex opportunities would have required adroit and delicate diplomatic handling and involved considerable political risk. Sadly, Mr Abbas has preferred to chase shadows in Ramallah and issue empty threats about the International Criminal Court.

Palestine is increasingly accepted as a diplomatic reality at the highest theoretical levels. The chair is fluffed and the nameplate polished and waiting for the representatives of Palestine in countless multilateral forums the world over.

But the painful process of actually creating a Palestinian state – which perforce involves getting Israel, through a complex and difficult process, to reverse itself and accept and facilitate this outcome – has strikingly receded from the international, and even the Arab, agenda. This dire Palestinian national crisis requires a response from a strong and assertive national leadership.

However, Mr Abbas hasn’t been behaving like a national leader. And Hamas, which is infinitely worse in every respect, is currently making itself available to the highest regional bidder – although whether they prefer to be paid in cash or guns depends on which faction is bargaining.

Israel has dismissed Palestinian statehood, although without proposing an alternative. It’s possible that a sustained period of Israeli opposition to a two-state solution might even induce the United States itself to de-prioritise its own commitment to that outcome, rather than Washington pressuring Israel to accept the need for peace – especially since the Palestinians themselves lack a national leadership that is pursuing their own cause with any degree of seriousness.

The world clearly expects the creation of a Palestinian state. That expectation is meaningful and has significant long-term implications.

However, events on the ground, and the attitudes and conduct of both the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships, point to a very different and extremely dangerous future. Viewed from that perspective, the cause of Palestine appears to be a rapidly vanishing aspiration.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/the-gulfs-backing-of-the-iran-deal-is-smart-politics#full

The Gulf Cooperation Council’s public endorsement of the nuclear agreement with Iran is a smart move, but it’s neither a blank cheque for Washington nor the last word from the Gulf states on the international community’s relationship with Tehran. Indeed, behind the commitment of the Gulf states to give the agreement a chance lies an equally, if not more, evident determination to try to strengthen control over their own security arrangements.

The irony is that as the Gulf states’ position on the nuclear agreement moves closer to Washington’s, the experience has underscored their need to move beyond an excessive reliance on the United States.

Since the signing of the nuclear agreement, the Gulf states have all issued their own individual reactions. As one would expect from such a diverse group, their responses covered a wide spectrum. Oman unreservedly welcomed the accord, while Saudi Arabia emphasised the need for Iran to amend its aggressive and destabilising regional policies. Others sought to emphasise the potential benefits, while reminding Iran that it cannot continue to meddle as it has in the past.

US secretary of state John Kerry joined a meeting of GCC foreign ministers in Doha on August 3. The joint statement issued after the meeting finally brings the GCC position together, unanimously, in support of the nuclear agreement. It states “the Ministers agreed that, once fully implemented, the deal contributes to the region’s long-term security, including by preventing Iran from developing or acquiring a military nuclear capability”.

Whatever doubts some, or even all, of the GCC countries might have about the effectiveness of the agreement and its likely positive effect on regional security, issuing such a statement was a wise decision.

The GCC states had already secured some significant reassurances and commitments from the United States at Camp David, and presumably received more since then. Even if this well has run dry, and the United States has provided all the inducements it is willing and able to give to the Gulf states in connection with the Iran agreement, securing what has been achieved through such an endorsement is the correct policy.

The August 3 joint statement contains strong and important language committing the United States to work with the Gulf countries to ensure their security from external threats and to combat “Iran’s support for terrorism and its destabilising activities in the region…particularly attempts to undermine the security of and interfere in the domestic affairs of GCC member states, most recently in Bahrain”.

The Gulf states must, and apparently do, understand that the agreement is for all intents and purposes a fait accompli. It’s true that Barack Obama and his administration are facing a much tougher battle in Congress than was initially anticipated. Most notably, the third highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Charles Schumer of New York, has announced his opposition to the agreement.

But he may well have done so after calculating that, because Congress will eventually not kill the deal, his party will forgive him for opposing the president in this case.

Mr Obama’s recent approach to the debate has not strengthened his hand. He has an impressive case to make, but his repeated suggestions, most recently at an address last week at American University, that opposition is simply opportunistically partisan, disingenuous, irrational or, ultimately, inexplicable greatly undermine his arguments.

It’s possible that Mr Obama sincerely cannot understand how or why anyone would disagree with his judgment regarding this agreement, which he compared to finding a cure for cancer. But when he strays from the zealous and powerful advocacy of his position into the territory of contemptuous dismissal of any serious disagreement, he begins to sound not so much arrogant as insecure and overly defensive.

Nonetheless, as both Mr Obama and Mr Schumer, and the leaderships of the GCC countries, understand, in the end it is virtually unthinkable that Congress will overrule the president on an issue of this magnitude. Few Democrats will want to emulate Mr Schumer, and the argument about the damage to American international credibility if Congress scuppers this agreement before it has really been born will eventually win the day.

So the Gulf countries were well advised to come together in support of an agreement that is going to be implemented no matter what they say.

Saudi Arabia, which is most sceptical of the agreement, had the choice of joining Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who is, at least in part, driven by domestic political calculations – as the only major international player to openly and vociferously oppose the accord. It’s an understatement to suggest that such an identification is not in Riyadh’s interests.

There is nothing to be gained for the Gulf states at this point by opposing the agreement, and a real value in striking this unified position that consolidates the partnership with the United States. Nothing else makes sense.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/israel-must-figure-out-the-true-cost-of-occupation#full

As expected, the Iran nuclear deal is reshaping the strategic landscape of the Middle East. Some of these new developments – such as Saudi Arabia’s reported outreach to Hamas and other Muslim Brotherhood organisations – are innovative but hardly unthinkable. But when it comes to Israel’s relationship with Gulf Arab states, shared concerns can only go so far.

Last week, Dore Gold, the director general of Israel’s foreign ministry, raised eyebrows across the political world when he remarked of Iran: “What we have is a regime on a roll that is trying to conquer the Middle East, and it’s not Israel talking, that is our Sunni Arab neighbours – and you know what? I’ll use another expression – that is our Sunni Arab allies talking.”

Mr Gold is hardly the exemplar of Israeli enthusiasm for the Arab world. Indeed, the author of the 2003 book Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism would have to be listed among those Israeli right-wing hardliners whose rhetoric can border on Islamophobic.

Mr Gold is not alone in thinking along these lines. Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Arab states against “talking with Israel and even negotiating with it”. This may have “disastrous results”, he blustered.

Some might note that Mr Nasrallah – whose militia is squandering the better part of its manpower, treasury and Lebanese political capital in an all-out intervention designed to shore up the brutal regime of Bashar Al Assad in Syria – is in no position to lecture anyone about disastrous results or dire consequences. Or that his reckless adventure serves the interests of Iran, not Lebanon or any other part of the Arab world. But Mr Nasrallah’s outburst demonstrates how concerned Iran and its proxies have become about the potential for Israel and the Arab states to unite to thwart the rise of an Iranian-led axis.

They needn’t fret so much. Mr Gold’s comments may be based on a shared opinion about the rise of Iran between Israel and some Arab states. But, in fact, this is an instance of wishful thinking.

Israel is misreading the Arab world in several unfortunate respects. It does not recognise the diversity of strategic thinking and policies among the Gulf states, and treats them as if they had a single, homogeneous perspective and set of interests. And, even more importantly, it does not seem to understand that its conduct in the occupied Palestinian territories remains an insurmountable obstacle to close or open cooperation, even though that might otherwise make some strategic sense.

Since the overthrow of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Israelis have been deluding themselves that, because Arab societies face a series of profound immediate challenges, somehow the issue of Palestine has been forgotten or permanently relegated to the back burner. But the occupation remains absolutely unacceptable to the Arab world, and, while the Arab Peace Initiative commits the entire Arab League to a two-state solution involving the recognition and normalisation of relations with Israel, this depends on ending the occupation and allowing the creation of a state of Palestine.

Mr Gold’s comments amply illustrate the extraordinary opportunity Israel has for creating a completely new relationship with much of the Arab world based on shared interests. Unfortunately, it is precisely the occupation and settlement policies that Mr Gold and his allies strongly support that will preclude Israel from taking advantage of this unprecedented strategic opening.

Israel cannot have diplomatic progress, let alone anything approaching an alliance, with the Arab world as long as millions of Palestinians remain non-citizens in their own land, with no realistic prospect for freedom. In particular, Israel cannot successfully engage with the Arab states while it is conducting an aggressive settlement project, gobbling up Palestinian land in violation of black-letter international law.

Jordan and Egypt made peace with Israel in their own interests, and those agreements are rock-solid. But Arab states in the Gulf region don’t share the same imperatives. Limited progress might be possible in specific areas. Israel might be able to cooperate with Qatar on reconstruction in Gaza, or with Saudi Arabia on Palestinian national reconciliation and relations between Hamas and Fatah. But despite the diversity in their policies none of the Gulf states will be prepared to enter into anything remotely resembling an alliance with Israel, despite the threat of Iranian hegemony, as long as the occupation continues with no end in sight.

Israelis often debate the cost of the occupation. The fact that it precludes them from building strong working relationships with Arab states with whom they share powerful strategic concerns needs to be factored in as a very high cost indeed.

Imagine a reality in which Mr Gold was completely accurate in referring to Israel’s “Sunni Arab allies”, and what that would mean for Israel’s regional interests and long-term security. And now return to today’s diplomatic reality, in which no matter how much Israel and many of the Arab states agree on the threat posed by Iran’s and the urgent need to counter it, there is a strict limit to how far they can coordinate, largely because of Israel’s own indefensible policies towards the Palestinians. The cost is clear, and prohibitive.