a425couple
2020-09-16 20:42:06 UTC
from
https://www.registerguard.com/story/opinion/columns/2020/09/16/stephens-rare-middle-east-triumph/5806520002/
Stephens: A rare Middle East triumph
Bret Stephens The New York Times
For years, the Trump administration’s peacemaking efforts in the Middle
East have been the object of relentless derision in elite foreign-policy
circles, some of it justified. Yet with Friday’s announcement that
Bahrain would join the United Arab Emirates as the second Arab state in
30 days to normalize ties with Israel, the administration has done more
for regional peace than most of its predecessors, including an Obama
administration that tried hard and failed badly.
There are lessons in this, at least for anyone prepared to consider just
how wrong a half-century’s worth of conventional wisdom has been.
At the heart of that conventional wisdom is the view, succinctly put by
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres in February, that “resolving the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains key to sustainable peace in the
Middle East.” Untie that Gordian knot, so the thinking goes, and the
region’s many problems become easier to solve, whether it’s other
regional conflicts or the anti-Americanism that feeds international
terrorism.
That thinking was always dubious — what, for instance, did the Iran-Iraq
War, in which a million people or more died, have to do with Israelis
and Palestinians? — though it had the convenience of giving Arab regimes
a good way of deflecting blame for their own bad governance. But since
the (misnamed) Arab Spring began nearly a decade ago, the view has
become absurd.
The rise and fall of ISIS, civil war in Syria and anarchy in Libya,
Turkey’s aggression against Kurds, proxy battles and hunger in Yemen,
political turmoil and repression in Egypt and Iran, the bankruptcy of
the Lebanese state, the plight of Middle Eastern refugees — if any of
these catastrophes have something in common, it’s that they have next to
nothing to do with the Jewish state or its policies. One may still hope
for a Palestinian state, but it won’t save the region from itself.
What would? The best option is an alliance of moderates and modernizers
— anyone in power (or seeking power) who wants to move his country in
the direction of greater religious and social tolerance, broader (that
is, beyond energy) economic development, less preoccupation with ancient
disputes, more interest in future opportunities. Such an alliance is the
only hope for a region being sucked into the maw of religious
fanaticism, economic stagnation, environmental degradation and perpetual
misrule.
Now this alliance may finally be coming into being. Unlike Israel’s
peace with Egypt and Jordan — both based on strategic necessity and
geographic proximity — the peace with the Emirates and Bahrain has no
obvious rationale, even if a shared fear of Iran played a role.
The larger factor is shared aspiration. Israel is the most advanced
country in the region because for seven decades it invested in human,
not mineral, potential, and because it didn’t let its wounds (whether
with respect to Germany in the 1950s or Egypt in the 1970s) get the
better of its judgment.
The choice for the Arab world is stark. It can follow a similar path as
Israel; be swallowed by Iran, China, Russia, Turkey or some other
outsider; or otherwise continue as before until, Libya-like, it implodes.
As consequential as the peace deals themselves is the Arab League’s
refusal to condemn them, eliciting a furious Palestinian reaction.
That’s not surprising: It means the Palestinian grip over the league’s
diplomatic agenda may finally be loosening.
Perhaps it also means that the grievance-driven politics that have
dominated the Palestinian issue for decades are finally over, too. If
so, it’s bad news for those Palestinian leaders and activists who think
that, with unflagging obstinacy, they can somehow restore the status quo
ante 1948, when Israel didn’t exist.
What’s bad news for some Palestinian leaders may be good news for
ordinary Palestinians. Peace between Israelis and Arabs will not come
from the inside out — that is, from a deal between Jerusalem and
Ramallah that wins over the rest of the Arab world. Decades of
diplomatic failure, culminating in John Kerry’s failed mediation efforts
in 2014, should put an end to that fantasy.
Yet it isn’t crazy to think that peace might come from the outside in:
from an Arab world that encircles Israel with recognition and
partnership rather than enmity, and which thereby shores up Israel’s
security while moderating Palestinian behavior. If that’s right — and if
states like Oman, Morocco, Kuwait, Sudan and especially Saudi Arabia
follow suit — then this summer’s peace deals might finally create the
conditions of viable Palestinian statehood.
A final point about these deals: This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not
under the leadership of Israel’s supposedly bellicose Benjamin
Netanyahu; certainly not through the diplomatic offices of the usually
crazy/amateurish/perverse Trump administration. Luck and timing played a
part, as they always do.
But it behooves those of us who are so frequently hostile to Netanyahu
and President Donald Trump to maintain the capacity to be pleasantly
surprised — that is, to be honest. What’s happened between Israel and
two former enemies is an honest triumph in a region, and a year, that’s
known precious few.
Bret Stephens writes for The New York Times.
https://www.registerguard.com/story/opinion/columns/2020/09/16/stephens-rare-middle-east-triumph/5806520002/
Stephens: A rare Middle East triumph
Bret Stephens The New York Times
For years, the Trump administration’s peacemaking efforts in the Middle
East have been the object of relentless derision in elite foreign-policy
circles, some of it justified. Yet with Friday’s announcement that
Bahrain would join the United Arab Emirates as the second Arab state in
30 days to normalize ties with Israel, the administration has done more
for regional peace than most of its predecessors, including an Obama
administration that tried hard and failed badly.
There are lessons in this, at least for anyone prepared to consider just
how wrong a half-century’s worth of conventional wisdom has been.
At the heart of that conventional wisdom is the view, succinctly put by
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres in February, that “resolving the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains key to sustainable peace in the
Middle East.” Untie that Gordian knot, so the thinking goes, and the
region’s many problems become easier to solve, whether it’s other
regional conflicts or the anti-Americanism that feeds international
terrorism.
That thinking was always dubious — what, for instance, did the Iran-Iraq
War, in which a million people or more died, have to do with Israelis
and Palestinians? — though it had the convenience of giving Arab regimes
a good way of deflecting blame for their own bad governance. But since
the (misnamed) Arab Spring began nearly a decade ago, the view has
become absurd.
The rise and fall of ISIS, civil war in Syria and anarchy in Libya,
Turkey’s aggression against Kurds, proxy battles and hunger in Yemen,
political turmoil and repression in Egypt and Iran, the bankruptcy of
the Lebanese state, the plight of Middle Eastern refugees — if any of
these catastrophes have something in common, it’s that they have next to
nothing to do with the Jewish state or its policies. One may still hope
for a Palestinian state, but it won’t save the region from itself.
What would? The best option is an alliance of moderates and modernizers
— anyone in power (or seeking power) who wants to move his country in
the direction of greater religious and social tolerance, broader (that
is, beyond energy) economic development, less preoccupation with ancient
disputes, more interest in future opportunities. Such an alliance is the
only hope for a region being sucked into the maw of religious
fanaticism, economic stagnation, environmental degradation and perpetual
misrule.
Now this alliance may finally be coming into being. Unlike Israel’s
peace with Egypt and Jordan — both based on strategic necessity and
geographic proximity — the peace with the Emirates and Bahrain has no
obvious rationale, even if a shared fear of Iran played a role.
The larger factor is shared aspiration. Israel is the most advanced
country in the region because for seven decades it invested in human,
not mineral, potential, and because it didn’t let its wounds (whether
with respect to Germany in the 1950s or Egypt in the 1970s) get the
better of its judgment.
The choice for the Arab world is stark. It can follow a similar path as
Israel; be swallowed by Iran, China, Russia, Turkey or some other
outsider; or otherwise continue as before until, Libya-like, it implodes.
As consequential as the peace deals themselves is the Arab League’s
refusal to condemn them, eliciting a furious Palestinian reaction.
That’s not surprising: It means the Palestinian grip over the league’s
diplomatic agenda may finally be loosening.
Perhaps it also means that the grievance-driven politics that have
dominated the Palestinian issue for decades are finally over, too. If
so, it’s bad news for those Palestinian leaders and activists who think
that, with unflagging obstinacy, they can somehow restore the status quo
ante 1948, when Israel didn’t exist.
What’s bad news for some Palestinian leaders may be good news for
ordinary Palestinians. Peace between Israelis and Arabs will not come
from the inside out — that is, from a deal between Jerusalem and
Ramallah that wins over the rest of the Arab world. Decades of
diplomatic failure, culminating in John Kerry’s failed mediation efforts
in 2014, should put an end to that fantasy.
Yet it isn’t crazy to think that peace might come from the outside in:
from an Arab world that encircles Israel with recognition and
partnership rather than enmity, and which thereby shores up Israel’s
security while moderating Palestinian behavior. If that’s right — and if
states like Oman, Morocco, Kuwait, Sudan and especially Saudi Arabia
follow suit — then this summer’s peace deals might finally create the
conditions of viable Palestinian statehood.
A final point about these deals: This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not
under the leadership of Israel’s supposedly bellicose Benjamin
Netanyahu; certainly not through the diplomatic offices of the usually
crazy/amateurish/perverse Trump administration. Luck and timing played a
part, as they always do.
But it behooves those of us who are so frequently hostile to Netanyahu
and President Donald Trump to maintain the capacity to be pleasantly
surprised — that is, to be honest. What’s happened between Israel and
two former enemies is an honest triumph in a region, and a year, that’s
known precious few.
Bret Stephens writes for The New York Times.