Is the Israel Victory Project Still Necessary?

{Reposted from the MEF website}

Where does Israel Victory stand in this era of Arab-Israeli peacemaking? Slightly diminished, but not by much. To understand why requires starting with a step back in time.

The 1993 Oslo Accords sidelined the Arab states and focused on Palestinian-Israeli relations, expecting that this exclusivity would ease a compromise to bring each side what it most sought: security for Israelis and political fulfilment ("Palestine") for Palestinians.

Unfortunately, the Palestinian leadership turned this hopeful "peace process" into a "war process," exploiting the opportunities it provided to attack the Jewish state in new ways, thereby undermining diplomacy and fostering greater violence.

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Then, starting in 2017, the Trump administration expressed impatience with the peace process farce and brought the Sunni Arab states back into the diplomacy. This "outside-in" approach has the states take friendly steps toward Israel, then Israel reciprocate with friendly steps toward the Palestinians. It worked: the United Arab Emirates established warm relations with Israel in return for the latter's de facto repudiation of plans to annex parts of the West Bank. Bahrain tagged along and other Arab states are hoped to follow.

Abdul-Rahman Al-Sudais, the imam of Mecca's Great Mosque, speaking positively about Jews.

Does this mean Israel Victory has been superseded? No: Sunni Arab states unfortunately make up only a portion of the Palestinians' vast and multifaceted support system. Exceptional public relations prowess combined with antisemitism transmogrified the tiny, weak, and relatively prosperous Palestinian population into the world's most prominent human rights issue, one which benefits from immeasurably more solicitude than the far more wretched Syrians or Yemenis.

That support system starts with Iran and Turkey, the only countries (in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's description) to have "vehemently denounced" the recent agreements. Indeed, those two regimes have largely replaced the Arab states (whose last major war with Israel was in 1973) as the Palestinians' regional stalwarts.

Second, because the foreign policies of Russia and China globally oppose the United States, Jerusalem's tight alliance with Washington makes them both significant Palestinian supporters.

Third, Israel's Left despises Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pooh-poohs the recent accords, and touchingly believes that Palestinians will be content with a Palestine adjoining Israel.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, the global Left – most professors, journalists, and bureaucrats, the Durban Conference, Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders – has taken up the Palestinians as a central cause, so that support for Israel now tarnishes one's progressive credentials. This anti-Zionism, it bears noting, focuses almost exclusively on the supposed suffering of the 3.2 million inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza, hardly caring about such issues as Israel's income inequality, its tensions with Iran and Turkey, or its nuclear weapons.

Thus does Israel Victory remain nearly as important as ever.