16 November 2017
A New Peace Initiative For Palestine And Israel
Surprisingly viable, surprisingly ominous.
By Neil Tidmarsh
So the White House is preparing a plan for peace between Israel and Palestine. That’s a good thing, isn’t it, whatever we might think about the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC? But it’s bound to fail, isn’t it, like all those other Israel/Palestine peace plans?
The answer to both questions is a surprising “Not necessarily…”
To take the second question first. Two recent developments in the Middle East suggest that this may well be a propitious time for such a plan. In Palestinian politics, the moderate and secular Fatah appears to be eclipsing the more extreme Hamas. And the Arab Quartet states – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – presently share a number of pressing concerns with Israel, enough perhaps for them to make common cause with their traditional enemy, accept its right to exist, and use their influence to encourage Palestine to come to an agreement with it.
Ten years ago, the militant Islamist movement Hamas (dedicated to the fight against Israel) seized control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah, its rival Palestinian faction. Fatah continued to govern the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, but Palestinian leadership was fractured, making any kind of diplomatic initiative impossible. Last month, however, talks hosted by Egypt resulted in the two factions signing a reconciliation deal; Hamas now agrees to share power in Gaza with Fatah, with elections for a united Palestinian government next year. In reality this is a defeat for Hamas, a recognition that they have failed in Gaza and that Fatah now has the upper hand. Hamas exists to fight Israel; but a united Palestinian government led by the moderate and secular Fatah would be willing and able to engage in peace negotiations and might even be capable of making a weakened Hamas put down its weapons. The fact that Israel co-operated with Fatah to force Hamas into those talks in Egypt (by reducing water and energy supplies to Gaza) is an encouraging sign.
Israel faces two enemies, both avowedly dedicated to its destruction. The first is a general one – militant Islamist jihad. The second is a specific one – the state of Iran, and its sponsorship of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah. But both of these are threats to the Arab Quartet states as well. The authorities in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates are just as concerned as Israel about the threat which militant Islamist jihad poses to their established order. And, being Sunni states, they are also threatened by the Shia state of Iran and the Shia terror militants of Hezbollah; they are deeply concerned about the expansion of Iranian influence across the region following the defeat of Isis in Iraq and Syria and the success of Assad’s Iranian-backed forces against Syrian rebels. Saudi Arabia and Iran are emerging as hostile, competing super-states in the region; they are already engaged against each other via proxies in the civil wars in Yemen and Syria.
So it would suit the Arab Quartet and Israel to make common cause with each other against militant Islamists and against Iran. But one thing stands in their way: the festering Palestinian/Israeli conflict. The Arab states can’t be seen to be abandoning the Palestinian cause for the sake of a realpolitic alliance with Israel. Saudi Arabia, however, is already making efforts to sweep that obstacle aside. Last week, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was summoned to Riyadh and, according to Israeli reports, was given an ultimatum by the Crown Prince: accept the proposals for the Israeli-Palestinian peace deal which is forthcoming from Washington, or resign.
Riyadh’s apparent hope that an Israeli/Palestinian peace deal will clear the way for co-operation between the Arab states and Israel against Iran appears to be a tactic in Saudi Arabia’s strategy to overcome its rival Iran by building a grand alliance against it. The strategy involves other tactics; Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies sent Qatar to Coventry earlier this year for its alleged pro-Iran tendencies, and now it seems that they are trying to do the same to Lebanon; this week the Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation, saying that the pro-Iran Hezbollah (the Tehran-sponsored Shia militia and terror group with which his own pro-Saudi faction shares power) is trying to take over the country. Mr Hariri made his announcement in Saudi Arabia and has not yet returned to the Lebanon, fuelling suspicions that his hand was forced by Riyadh and that he is being held there against his will.
And this brings us back to that first question – “an Israel/Palestine peace plan is a good thing, isn’t it?” and its surprising answer – “Not necessarily…”
Peace is always a good strategy. But as a mere tactic in an aggressive strategy designed to give you the upper hand in another, greater conflict, peace is a rather more questionable entity altogether. A just deal which brought peace and satisfaction to the long-suffering Palestinians and to the embattled state of Israel would be wonderful; if it also helped to contain Iranian aggression in the region and reduce Hezbollah terror, then so much the better; but if it emboldened and empowered Iran’s enemies so that they felt capable of taking on the Shia state in a final confrontation for supremacy in the region… The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, though long-running and tragic enough in itself, would seem like a mere side-show if the apocalyptic nightmare of a war between a Saudi/Israeli alliance and Iran ever became a reality.
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