In a column for The New York Times, Diana Buttu claims that the United Arab Emirates betrayed the Palestinians. She has it backwards.
Arab nations refused to recognize Israel for decades until its conflict with the Palestinians was resolved, and Israel offered the Palestinians an opportunity to do just that. The United Arab Emirates and other Arab countries have waited two decades since Israel proposed a plan for an independent Palestinian state. The late Yasser Arafat, then president of the Palestinian Authority, rejected the deal and ever since Palestinian leaders have yet to return to negotiations.
Just about 20 years after Arafat walked out on negotiations at Camp David, the U.A.E. agreed on Aug. 13 to normalize relations with Israel, making the Emirates the third Arab nation to recognize Israel. Israel achieved normalization in exchange for suspending plans to annex West Bank territory.
Come Wednesday morning, Buttu rapped the U.A.E. leadership in an op-ed column published by The New York Times under the headline: “A Slap in The Face of Palestinians.”
“In signing on to the deal,” Buttu writes, “the United Arab Emirates shattered a decades-long Arab League policy by normalizing relations with Israel without Israel ending its military rule over Palestinians and without a permanent regional peace treaty.”
Let’s get this straight: Arab states agree there will be no recognition of Israel without a peace treaty. Israel proposes a pact that will give the Palestinians all they need, if not all they want. The Palestinians turn it down and decline to reconsider it for the last 20 years. The result is still no permanent peace treaty, so the U.A.E. cannot recognize Israel. Makes all the sense in the world…in their world, not in anyone else’s world.
It was the Palestinians who “shattered” the Arab League policy, not the U.A.E. The goal of the policy was to provide the Palestinians with a treaty in the form of an independent state. During the summer of 2000, President Clinton invited Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to Camp David to negotiate, culminating with Barak’s offer of the independent state. It would encompass Gaza, East Jerusalem and 93 percent of the West Bank.
Possibly the Palestinians wanted a right of return allowing all refugees to move back to Israel, which would overwhelm the demographic balance.
A treaty was offered, and the Palestinians would not even give it serious consideration. If the Palestinians would not cooperate, what is Israel supposed to do? Why should the U.A.E. go on waiting?
The Canadian-born Buttu, a former advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organization, also laments that Israel is making no sacrifice. She writes, “Unlike the agreements Israel signed with Egypt and Jordan – to return land to those countries -the U.A.E. deal comes at no cost to Israel, which left many baffled as to why the U.A.E. would make such a move.”
Why should Israel pay a cost? Why should the U.A.E. take her seriously?
Buttu and I do agree on this when she states: “It is past time initiate meaningful reform to the P.L.O….Young Palestinians have yet to have a say in what the future will look like.”
The next step? “Rather than continuing to press for a two-state solution,” she writes, “The P.L.O. should instead press for equal rights…Palestinian leaders should aim to provide a workable strategy for achieving our rights – rather than working to appease Israel and the international donor community – by adopting an anti-apartheid strategy.”
Anti-apartheid? “Equal rights” in a single state governing all Jews and Palestinians will likely mean Palestinian control of Israel because Palestinians might ultimately outnumber the Jews. While there are other ways of looking at a resolution, a two-state solution is the most realistic outcome to allow Israel to remain both a democracy and a Jewish-dominated state.
Buttu and I also concur when she writes: “Most Palestinians fare far worse than when negotiations began in the early 1990s.”
Could that be because negotiations ended in 2000?
Her most optimistic note: “If (President) Trump and (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu are to have their way, other Arab countries may soon follow the U.A.E.”
Let’s hope so.
Republished from San Diego Jewish World