In the midst of the impeachment farce, something significant happened in Washington, D. C. The Trump administration unveiled a new peace plan for the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Its Middle East policy is moving that region in the right direction. The effort to side directly with Israel against the Palestinians and to realign policy toward the Sunni Arab world, and away from Iran… is working.
One understands that the Obama administration sided with Iran against the Sunni Arab world and Israel, so naturally Democrats are seriously unhappy about the new policy.
To recall, once upon a time, I mused that the war between Israel and the Palestinians was over, and that the Palestinians had lost. Now, as President Trump presented a new peace plan, standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and in the company of the foreign ministers of Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, we can see that Trump’s diplomacy is moving forward.
The Daily Wire reports that nearly all other Arab states greeted the plan with encouraging signs:
Perhaps the sole silver lining of the otherwise-harrowing capitulation to fundamentalist jihadist evil that was President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal was the fact that the leading Sunni Arab states — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt chief among them — began to warm up to the Jewish state of Israel. The enemy of my enemy, as the venerable maxim goes, is indeed my friend. And these Sunni stalwarts have found common cause with Israel in opposing the Islamic Republic of Iran’s decades-long hegemonic ambitions, which were only augmented by the capitulatory cash influxes provided by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
The presence of Sunni Arab foreign ministers suggested that they recognize Israel’s right to exist. They were making public back channel and secret negotiations that have been ongoing for several years now.
It is unprecedented to have such leading representatives from Sunni Arab governments effectively recognizing Israel’s right, under U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, “to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” It is even more unprecedented for such Arab governments to effectively recognize this international law right in the context of what is quite clearly, on the underlying merits, the most pro-Israel peace plan ever offered by an American president — and one that is offered by a historically pro-Israel American president and a conservative Likud party Israeli prime minister, no less.
If I were to speculate, I believe that Trump’s decision to remove Qassem Soleinani from the equation was received by these states as a constructive gesture.
The Guardian explains that these Arab nations have no real interest is seeing the reputation of Islam being dragged through the mud for the sake of a lost cause. (via Maggie’s Farm)
The Palestinians had become a burden, financially and politically, and were no longer worth the investment, the Saudi heir to the throne had concluded. There were bigger fish to fry in Iran, after all, and Israel could help them do that.
Improved relations with Israel over the past three years have aimed to condition the kingdom to the change in approach – and foe. Over the weekend, Israel allowed its citizens to travel to Saudi Arabia for religious or trade purposes. Gulf states, too, are relaxing travel bans on a country that was long seen as the obstacle to regional peace, but is increasingly being viewed as a partner.
As might have been expected, Democratic presidential candidates, incapable of renouncing the foreign policy of the Obama administration and of previous administrations, have denounced the new peace proposal.
The Times of Israel reports:
US Democratic presidential candidates on Tuesday condemned the Trump administration’s plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after its unveiling at the White House.
Former vice president Joe Biden called the outline counterproductive and warned against settlement annexations.
“A peace plan requires two sides to come together. This is a political stunt that could spark unilateral moves to annex territory and set back peace even more. I’ve spent a lifetime working to advance the security & survival of a Jewish and democratic Israel. This is not the way,” Biden said.
Other candidates have stood up to defend the Palestinian cause:
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said any agreement “must end the Israeli occupation and enable Palestinian self-determination in an independent state of their own alongside a secure Israel. Trump’s so-called ‘peace deal’ doesn’t come close, and will only perpetuate the conflict. It is unacceptable.”
“The United States can bring unequaled leadership to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but we must use that leadership to promote a just and durable agreement. Any acceptable peace deal must be consistent with international law and multiple UN resolutions,” Sanders said.
What does this all mean? For one, it means that the Trump administration’s strategy of excluding Palestinians from the negotiations that produced the deal was brilliant. The Palestinian cause is terrorism. It seeks only to destroy the state of Israel. It has compromised whatever legitimacy it might have had by its own behavior. Pretending the the Palestinians are an equal partner for peace is the fraud that has continued to sustain their terrorist practices.
This means that the new peace plan has proposed the terms of surrender, nothing more or less. If it were not for their cheerleaders in the Democratic Party and in leftist Europe, the Palestinian authorities might be making plans to join the negotiation now.
As for the larger issue, the question overhanging these negotiations is the future of Islam. Will the Muslim religion undergo its own reformation, and modernize? Will it enter into the modern world economically and politically? Or will it follow the lead of Iran and the Palestinian cause... working to undermine the successes of others in order to hide its own failings.
The new Trump peace plan points toward reform. The Democratic Party and the mullahs in Iran point backwards.
Now that the Iranian regime has less flexibility, and even European bureaucrats have lost that magic feeling, the Palestinians may well choose to change the ruling regime(s), and mitigate progress of their status quo. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteExpert on Islam: “What Muslim Leaders Say in English Means Absolutely Nothing
ReplyDeleteProfessor Moshe Sharon explains what Trump needs to say to Abbas during their upcoming meeting; why a nuclear Iran is so dangerous; and why the West has trouble understanding the Muslim world
https://en.mida.org.il/2017/05/02/expert-islam-muslim-leaders-say-english-means-absolutely-nothing/
Muslim Peace with Israel? Nope!
ReplyDeleteThe veteran expert on Islam says that Western officials fail to grasp that the Arab and Islamic world truly see Israel’s establishment as a “reversal of history” and are therefore unable to ever accept peaceful relations with it. From Moslems’ perspective, “Islamic territory was taken away from Islam by Jews. You know by now that this can never be accepted, not even one meter. So everyone who thinks Tel Aviv is safe is making a grave mistake. Territory which at one time was dominated by Islamic rule, now has become non-Muslim. Non-Muslims are independent of Islamic rule and Jews have created their own independent state. It is anathema. Worse, Israel, a non-Muslim state, is ruling over Muslims. It is unthinkable that non-Muslims should rule over Muslims.”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/112066
Won't everyone get along and worship together in Jerusalem? I wonder what does Polly think..
ReplyDeleteLike a lot of us, I started studying all I could find about islam after 9-11. Just don't see how there could ever be a reformation. Once you get rid of the supremacy with all others as second-class, slaves, or dead....the women as property...Mo as the perfect man...beheadings, pedophila, lying to infidels, the totalitarian political sharia, the encroachment and "bloody borders"....what of islam is left?
ReplyDeleteMo as a prophet? with his history,no way. The koran and other literature? Ditto. Worshipping a God that tells them to kill? The whole thing would have to be rewritten--Mo's bio, the "holy" scriptures, the tossing out of the law system -- all the things that make up the ideology would have to go. Even things like giving to "charity" really means supporting jihad. Can't figure out what the good part is, that would be saved by a reformation.
Seems to be akin to communism, a totalitarian political ideology (where the leaders don't follow the rules of everyone else) -- and how does anyone reform a globalist system like that?