When Benjamin Netanyahu told the UN that he believes in “two states for two peoples based on mutual recognition,” his real intended audience was the Arab states, argues Haviv Rettig Gur. And for good reason. While the Palestinian leadership remains wedded to the two equally failed strategies of terrorism (Hamas) and international isolation of Israel (Mahmoud Abbas), Arab rulers are turning elsewhere. Although still paying lip service to the longstanding mantra that peace with Israel has to wait upon Palestinian statehood, they are also showing readiness to ignore it. As Gur amplifies:
The emir of Qatar, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who was Hamas’s key funder and patron in last summer’s conflict, told CNN last week that his country was open to reviving relations with Israel (a low-level diplomatic office was shut in 2009 during that year’s Gaza conflict)—“as long as they are serious in making peace and providing and protecting the Palestinian people.”
Indeed, the strongest rejection of the idea came from those who are already largely committed to it. “Chances for such alliance [with Israel] are nearly nonexistent,” said Sameh Seif al-Yazal, a former Egyptian intelligence official who is close to President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi—strong words for a country that has a formal peace treaty with Israel, intimate security cooperation, and eagerly aids Israel in the blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza. And the United States, too, may be shifting in light of the new reality.
Read more on Times of Israel: http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-abbas-era/