On April 29, 2024, Secretary of State, Blinken, expressed his hopeful vision: “We continue to work… on a plan to build a just and lasting peace, a pathway to a state of the Palestinians with guarantees for Israel’s security as part of a more integrated and a more secure region… greater stability in this region and to prevent conflict from spreading….”
*However, policy-making should not be based on hope, but on reality. It should be a derivative of Middle East reality, where Iranian, Hezbollah and Palestinian (PLO and Hamas) terrorists are driven by fanatic visions and by an unwavering commitment to bring their enemies to submission. They are not driven by despair, neither by peaceful coexistence with their enemies, nor by life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the Middle East, deeply-rooted zealot ideologies transcend “money talks.”
*Moreover, reality has documented that terrorists bite the hands that feed them, as demonstrated by Iran’s Ayatollahs (whose rise to power was critically assisted by the US), Afghanistan’s Mujahideen (whose victory over the USSR was enabled by the US), Libya’s Islamic terrorists (who gained power due to a US-led NATO military offensive against Qadhafi), the Palestinian Authority (which was imported by Israel into Judea and Samaria), Hamas (which owes much of its terrorist maneuverability to Israel’s disengagement from Gaza), etc.
*Hence, the failure of all State Department’s Israel-Arab peace proposals, which centered on Palestinian interests, contrary to the successful conclusion of six Israel-Arab peace accords, which centered on Arab national interests, denying Palestinians a veto power over the peace process.
*Secretary Blinken’s hope-based vision of a Palestinian state, which would peacefully-coexist with Israel and Jordan and contribute to regional stability, is detached from the 70-year-old Palestinian intra-Arab track record, the 85-year-old interaction with enemies and rivals of the US (Nazi Germany, the Soviet Bloc, Ayatollah Khomeini, Latin American and global terrorism, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, China, the Moslem Brotherhood, etc.), and the 100-year-old anti-Jewish Palestinian terrorism.
*Contrary to Secretary Blinken, who is preoccupied with positive, convenient and speculative future scenarios and with Palestinian talk (with Western movers and shakers), all pro-US Arab leaders are preoccupied with the well-documented Palestinian intra-Arab rogue track record, which has transformed Palestinians into the role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism, ingratitude and treachery.
*Arab leaders are aware that the Palestinian track record means that the proposed Palestinian state would add fuel – not water – to the Middle East fire. In fact, Egypt does not welcome Palestinian migration from Gaza to Sinai, due to many years of Palestinian collaboration with Islamic and global terrorism, as well as the precedent of the 1950s, when Egypt-hosted-Palestinians collaborated with the Muslim Brotherhood, terrorizing their host government.
*Arab leaders are aware that the combination of the Palestinian track record, Jordan’s domestic predicament, and the intensifying Iranian subversion in Jordan, would transform a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River into the terminator of the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River. This would mutate Jordan into a major platform of anti-US Islamic terrorism, yielding ripple effects into the Arabian Peninsula and the Sinai Desert, threatening the survival of every pro-US Arab oil-producing regime, as well as Egypt. This would yield a strategic bonanza to Iran’s Ayatollahs, Moslem Brotherhood terrorists, Russia and China while causing a critical setback to all pro-US Arab regimes, and the US’ economy, national, and homeland security.
*Contrary to Secretary Blinken, Arab policy-makers are driven by Palestinian walk, not talk. They know that, in the Middle East, on words one does not pay custom. Furthermore, Arab policy toward the proposed Palestinian state is not reflected by the Arab talk – which has warmly embraced the Palestinians since 1948 – but by the Arab walk, which has refrained – since 1948 – from any tangible initiative to advance the cause of a Palestinian state. For example, all six Israel-Arab peace accords (Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and South Sudan), and Israel’s ground-breaking cooperation with Saudi Arabia, were not preconditioned upon the establishment of a Palestinian state. In addition, the November 2024 joint summit of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation rejected a proposed resolution – by Iran, Algeria and the Palestinian Authority – to suspend all diplomatic, economic, touristic and defense cooperation with Israel. Arabs do not subordinate their own national interests to the Palestinian altar.
*US national and homeland security require a US policy in the Middle East, which is a derivative of the frustrating, violent, intolerant, and unpredictable Middle East reality, not a convenient, optimistic alternate reality; a policy which seeks long-term security, not short term convenience; avoiding and not repeating past critical mistakes.
