Last week, the U.S. secretary of state visited Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority in quick succession. Secretary Antony Blinken’s agenda, Yoram Ettinger argues, highlighted his misplaced priorities in the region. Above all, writes Ettinger, Blinken has ignored the fact that Washington must choose between “pro-U.S. human rights-violating Arab regimes [and] anti-U.S. human rights-violating Arab regimes.” Moreover:
Blinken rejects the Israeli suggestion (shared by all pro-U.S. Arab regimes) that a credible threat to resort to regime change and military action is the only way to abort the regional and global threats posed by the Islamic Republic. He still assumes that the apocalyptic ayatollahs can be enticed—via a generous financial and diplomatic package—into good-faith negotiation, peaceful coexistence, and abandoning their fanatical 1,400-year-old religious vision.
Blinken’s policy toward Iran’s ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood—which pose a lethal threat to all Sunni Arab regimes—has eroded U.S. strategic credibility in pro-U.S. Arab capitals, and has pushed Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain—reluctantly—closer to China and Russia, militarily and commercially.
He continues to attempt to convince Israel that the establishment of a Palestinian state is a prerequisite for bolstering Middle East stability and concluding an Israel-Saudi Arabia peace treaty. However, such a proposal should be assessed against the backdrop of the systematic failure of all [previous] State Department proposals to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. . . . In fact, Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan were successfully concluded by bypassing the Palestinian issue, and focusing on Arab—not Palestinian—interests, which are increasingly served by enhanced defense and commercial cooperation with Israel. Arabs do not cut off their noses to spite their faces.
Read more on JNS: https://www.jns.org/opinion/blinken-continues-to-misread-the-middle-east/