Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas may have been misinformed about the UAE’s announced plans to establish relations with Israel. If not, he would not be quick to say that “neither the UAE nor any other country has the right to speak on behalf of the Palestinians. ” That is perfectly true, but here’s the rub—you were lied to when you were told that the UAE is speaking for the Palestinians; the Palestinians have many of those.
Everyone knows that on the Palestinian stage, there is a plethora of spokespeople for the Palestinian people, from President Abbas himself to a long list of small-time leaders of factions, movements, organizations and militias, not to mention hundreds of personalities, chief negotiators and representatives.
As well, the UAE has not used the Palestinian question as a pretext for establishing bilateral relations with Israel. No need for that. You and your authority have official relations with Israel. Moreover, there are Arab political precedents, as well as strategic interests and facts, which mean that putting the principle that “peace is an Arab strategic choice” into practice is no matter of controversy.
Abbas and his companions know that the Arabs have been boycotting Israel since the 1948 catastrophe. This boycott has not changed much in the Palestinian situation. They also know very well that the UAE’s decision to open relations with Israel is a matter of Emirati sovereignty with nothing to do with Palestinian rights.
We do not see how the decision is “an assault on Al-Quds and its holy places” and an influence on the Palestinian national decision-making as one Palestinian official put it. The UAE has never said that Abu Dhabi was the right place to negotiate the Palestinian issue. What it did insist on was that peace hinged on direct negotiations and conditions set by the Palestinian and Israeli sides.
There are comments and statements by Palestinian officials that allude to absurdity. “Enough of using Palestine,” one of them said. “Palestine needs those of use to it, not those who repeatedly use it. Enough is enough.” I say to him that you are right, but you must address the Palestinian comrades in struggle, as well as those who claim defending the cause in Iran, South Lebanon, Doha and Ankara. The UAE has not and will not use Palestine for political ends.
The Joint Statement of the US, the State of Israel, and the UAE noted that UAE diplomacy gets credit for halting annexation, albeit temporarily. No UAE representative said that the Israeli decision had been rolled out, for example.
“As a result of this diplomatic breakthrough and at the request of President Trump with the support of the UAE, Israel will suspend declaring sovereignty over areas outlined in the President’s Vision for Peace and focus its efforts now on expanding ties with other countries in the Arab and Muslim world[,]” the statement reads.
It is no secret that the Palestinian leadership has been the most detrimental party to the cause. Those who today accuse the UAE of a so-called rush to normalization have forgotten the terms of the 1993 Oslo Accords and the many years of failed negotiations under President Abbas, himself one of the main architects of that deal, which stipulated Israel’s right to live in security and peace.
These are the same people who once accused the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat of treason, of failing the Palestinians and the Palestinian cause when he signed the peace treaty with Israel in the 1970s and then the Oslo Accords.
One other thing: what’s become of that cause and the planned Palestinian State after those leaders were unable to bring Palestinians together for many years? They got themselves bogged down in conflicts, wars of words and self-interest, vying for empty leadership positions and throwing the cause and the people to an unknown fate.
And what did the army of Palestinian negotiators and their chief do? For years, they have been waffling and failing to think of realistic alternatives. Meanwhile, Israel was moving forward to putting the kibosh on the cause when it announced plans to annex East Jerusalem and end the work of the UNRWA while the Palestinian leadership was unable to unite the ranks and bridge the chasm between Gaza and Ramallah.
Finally, I am positive that the Palestinian leadership has finally found in the recent UAE-Israel peace agreement something to shift blame on. It is trying to dump all its failures on the UAE and other Arab countries that want to find a new regional geostrategic reality as the new regional hegemonic regimes in Iran and Turkey go about their expansionist plans.
But history will record the Palestinian leadership’s foot-dragging and evasiveness. History will not forget that they made a big splash over a sincere UAE effort to find a glimmer of hope at the end of a dark tunnel where the helpless Palestinian people sit.
