Traditionally, Israel’s Arab political parties have refused to join governing coalitions, while tying themselves ideologically to Palestinian nationalism and anti-Zionism. But recently Mansour Abbas, the leader of one such party, made a splash by siding with the Likud over a procedural dispute, after which he began appearing in Hebrew and Arabic media calling for a more pragmatic, collaborative approach. Daniel Gordis explains what this development portends for the Palestinians:
In the late 1970s, when the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat negotiated with Menachem Begin over the Sinai, he insisted that Israel grant the Palestinians some form of autonomy. Begin refused, and Sadat backed down; he signed the first Arab peace treaty with Israel having gained nothing for the Palestinians. Fifteen years later, when Jordan’s King Hussein made peace with Israel, he, too, demanded nothing substantive for the Palestinians.
Ever since, the Palestinians have banked on the U.S. assumption that, as for Secretary of State John Kerry famously put it, “there will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world” without the Palestinian question being settled.
But now Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have joined Egypt and Jordan, and other Arab states may follow. Gordis continues:
[Thus] it seems sensible for Israeli Arabs, too, to seek a different kind of peace with Israel’s ruling party. It is for now a tentative step, but Mansour Abbas specifically declined to rule out being part of an Israeli coalition. That means that he wants in, and the time will likely come, sooner or later.
The greatest hope for the Palestinian people lies not in the U.S. giving a lifeline to their longstanding but failed strategy, but in the Palestinians’ finally recognizing the inevitability of the Israel state and negotiating with it for the betterment of their own future—precisely as it seems Israel’s Arabs are now beginning to do.
Read more on Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-12-02/a-new-strategy-for-israel-s-arabs-aiding-netanyahu