How to Make Peace Part 5: The Arab Nations

I’m sooo excited about the Abraham accords, I feel it is the best progress we have had in the middle east this century. This is not just progress for Israel or the Arabs, where we can finally start working as allies, but it is also a huge step forward in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

In reality, it is the Arab nation as a whole, not just the ones living in mandate Palestine that were opposed to giving any land they considered part of the original Muslim caliphate. and it was not just about Jews. The Kurds, an Indigenous people 40 million strong living in a region that was supposed to be called Kurdistan, are situated between the borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. They also tried to create a country in the early 20th century, but now leave under horrible conditions in all those four countries and hoping that one day they can still get a small region to call their own within the borders of Iraq. It was the leader of many Arab countries that opposed the 1947 UN resolution with a declaration that any attempt in creating a  Jewish state anywhere in the middle east will be responded to with Heavy violence. To be fair, in 1919, Chaim Weitzmann, who later became the first president of Israel, and Emir Faisal, who was of King of Syria and Iraq, drafted together an agreement to declare Arab national identity in Arabian countries and a Jewish state in mandate Palestine. So there was a time when Arabs and Jews were on the same wavelength. Unfortunately, with enough betrayal and manipulation that the brits were so famous for, that collaboration no longer existed in the 40s, and the Arabs declared war on Israel. Yet, for some miracle, they lost, and instead of licking their wounds and moving on, they made sure to keep on an open sore. They ensured that the Arab refugees from that war could not be absorbed in the neighboring Arab countries. Most Palestinians were being treated like second-class citizens, where they often could not have gotten citizenship. This was all with the idea that the Palestinians will never get relief until they could get back Palestine within the full borders of Israel. The Arab nations had several other wars with Israel unsuccessfully, but somewhere in the 60s, when there was a realization that Israel could no longer be defeated physically. So they turned their strategy into marketing. Unfortunately, the marketing was Palestinian suffering. The language they used was keeping Palestinian refugees until the evil Jews stop colonizing and stop the occupation. What does colonizing and occupation mean? They kept that very vague.

The good news is that with time some Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan, have recognized Israel and somewhat achieved a half-ass peace. Yet it has survived quite a few long decades, so we can call it a success.

The real miracle came in the past year when Arab countries like the United Emirates started making peace with Israel and this peace is transforming into a real friendship. This includes golf countries such as Bahrain, Sudan, and North Africa’s Morocco. We are hoping that this is just the beginning because even Egypt is starting to feel the pressure to not just continue with the peace but become real friends.

I feel that most people do not appreciate how big of a deal this is. I hear many commentaries saying, what does a random rich Golf country have anything to do with Israel’s peace with Palestine? Well, Just like we learned that both the Palestinians and its leaderships are stuck in a catch 22; Where from a young age, they learn to hate Jews and Israel, and when there is opposing ideas, they often get oppressed, and they simply just ramping each other to continuing the hate. And after that, if a leader tries to take on a more moderate role, they still need to deal with the population that pumps each other to hate. That is not just a Palestinian issue, it happens in most Arab and Muslim countries regarding Jews and Isreal. Then all these leaders go to the Arab summit or the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and Pump each other even with more hate. Keep in mind that many of these countries were the funders of the Palestinian for a long time. When a courageous leader like the president of the United emirates Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed decided to break that cycle, not only he put a stop to accepting Anti Semitism and Anti Israel sentiments in his country, but he gave permission to other countries to stop this vicious hate cycle and move forward. The next generation in many Arab countries will not automatically be ingrained with Anti Semitism and show other Arabs nations that Jews and Arab can work together. The most important aspect is that in the next Arab summit, there will no longer be an automatic scapegoating of Israel. Their will finally be nations that can argue how great it is to make peace with Israel and put pressure on the Palestinian leadership to make peace which is our goal.

The most important benefit we hope to get out of this is trying to get the 2 Key Arab players on the side of peace. Saudi Arabia is the first. It is the richest, most producing Arab country, the religious center of Islam, and the historical origin of the Arabs. Saudi Arabia is truly the Giant in the room. While Saudi Arabia is not ready to normalize relations with Israel yet, the common knowledge is that the Gulf countries would not have proceeded with their own peace plan without the king’s permission. It was also rumored that the Saudi king offered a huge sum of money to abbas to make peace with Israel, but I guess Abbas was rich enough to refuse. We already see the effect on the people. The imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, which is pretty much the main relgious dude, called for Normalization with Israel. The crazy thing is that 10 years ago, Saudi Arabia was the main supporter of Hamas, and now they are trying to move forward to a more peaceful option. Qatar, on the other hand, will be a bigger challenge. Considering that they are Hamas’ biggest funder and political promoter where they also house safely all Hamas leaders like a bunch of Gangsters in their vacation home. Qatar, the richest Arab country per Capita,  does not yet seem to be on the path to Normalization. And there are quite a few other concerns with that country. Qatar runs the only Arab-based international Media company called Al Jazeera. While they often like to pretend that they are legit Mainstream Media, they are government-funded or should I say, Dictatorship funded News Network which is often used as propaganda tool for the ruling government. Unfortunately, in this case also a great propaganda tool for Hamas.  It was also recently found that Qatar has funneled about 5 billion dollars into US universities in order to push Anti Israel Narrative. Qatar is toughy, but like with the other gulf countries, Qatar is also interested to modernize and move forward. In 2022 they will host the Fifa world cup. They are not immune to the pressure from other countries that more and more are criticizing Qatar for supporting extreme terrorist

With the Abrham accords, we hope to eventually to include  Saudi Arabia and Qatar on the list, but we must put pressure on the government to move in that direction. If we can win these 2, there will barely be anything preventing Palestinians from coming to the negotiation table. But there is one more pink Elephant in the room which we will not be able to deter peacefully, and that’s for the next Article.