Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) ignited competition among radical groups as to which faction could incite the most violence. Left: official PA media incite Palestinians, from a young age, to murder Jews.
HOWARD EPSTEIN – THE PALESTINIANS SAY ALL OR NOTHING – AGAIN!
Monday the 29th November, a portentous date for Jews and more especially for Israelis. On that date in 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted by 33 to 13 (with 10 abstentions) to pass Resolution 181. Lengthy and complicated, it included these vital words: “Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem …. shall come into existence in Palestine.”
The Palestinian Arabs, always wanting – as we know – all or nothing, chose nothing, whilst the Palestinian Jews elected to form a state. The road ahead was destined to be difficult, and in some ways it still is but, as Chairman Mao said ‘the longest march begins with a single step’.
With due deference to the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, one might say ‘one small step for a Zionist; one giant leap for mankind’. Pretentious? Ani? Anachnu? Such luminaries as Winston Churchill and T E Lawrence (of Arabia) observed that the Arabs needed a Jewish state in Palestine to drag them into the 20th century.
In any event, the Jews took a giant stride. As Chaim Weizmann told President Truman in March 1948, without an independent Jewish state, the remnant of the Shoa, languishing in the DP camps of Europe and Cyprus, where the British had sent those who tried to enter Israel via sea and beach (remind you of anything?) would have had no hope and no future; and the Jews of Palestine would have languished until something else had come along, perhaps generations later.
Well, we are now at that point ourselves – around three generations later – and we can look around us to see where that first giant stride led.
So small the Chinese and the Indians refuse to believe you when you describe it to them (so awesome do they find Israeli hi-tech achievements), and so small in numbers it is a miracle it got through the first 40 years before the Russians started to arrive, Israel is now so influential it can no longer be ignored.
A headline in the Jerusalem Post last weekend blared, “Abraham Accords Are Helping Israel Transform The Middle East”. Savour those last four words: “transform the Middle East” and note that the Abraham Accords are merely “helping”.
How many people inhabit the Middle East? From Morocco to Iraq, easily 500 million souls. The population of Israel has not yet reached 10 million (ie 2%) but its influence is all pervading.
Last week, Israel pushed the envelope of the Abraham Accords west to Morocco, with the visit of defence minister, Benny Gantz, and the signature of a mutual defence pact – not merely a contract for the supply of arms, but a significant diplomatic and military accommodation. It speaks volumes for the perception of Israel as a major player.
The significance is multifaceted, for there had been diplomatic relations between the two countries in the 1990s, but Morocco severed them in 2000 out of sympathy for the Palestinians and their Second Intifada. Clearly now, concern for the Palestinian cause is of diminished importance to Morocco.
Israelis returning from the UAE, with whom Israel has already conducted over £500 billion of trade – and a free trade agreement is being discussed – have only good things to say about their hosts. Would you expect anything else between two nations in a mutually beneficial relationship? Well, yes, again where Palestinians are involved, for Israel and Jordan have just concluded, under the auspices of the UAE, a massive water-for-energy deal.
As you know, Israel is the doyen in the conversion of seawater to sweet water. Jordan has massive deserts doing nothing for anyone. How about, some bright spark suggested, we Israelis, who know a thing or two about solar energy (given our experience of building solar farms in California), doing the same in the Jordanian desert. You export the electricity to us and we’ll send you even more water than we have been so far? Now, who would cavil at that?
When some say that Jordan should be taken to be the greatly-desired Palestinian state, it is not entirely fanciful. No less than 80% of the population of Jordan is Palestinian, and you can be sure that 80% of any community can make a lot of noise. Indeed, thousands of people have protested in Amman and other Jordanian cities against the agreement, denouncing it as “treason”.
Seventy-five Jordanian members of parliament signed a memorandum calling for an urgent review of the Jordanian-Israeli solar power/water deal. Khalil Atiya, the MP who sponsored the memorandum, told Arabi 21, “Parliament will resort to a no-confidence vote in the government if it doesn’t answer MP’s demands for a cancellation of the Declaration of Principles.”
So what might happen? Israel will find space in the Aravah for another solar plant, and the Jordanians will go without abundant water. All or nothing. The Palestinians are nothing if not consistent.
© December 2021 – Howard Epstein
