THE PALESTINIANS’ GREATEST NIGHTMARE IS THAT ARAB STATES MIGHT ABANDON THEM.

personal backing from the White House. And Kushner and Trump have delivered exactly that. Witness their Oval Office meeting Tuesday.

Meanwhile, in return, Kushner expects MBS to play ball on an Israel-Palestine deal. So far, that’s exactly what crown prince is doing. He’s also made sure Egypt is on board, not to mention the Gulf principalities over which Saudi Arabia wields such influence.

The evidence for MBS’s co-operationhassofarcome primarily from Palestinian reports that President Mahmoud Abbas was told in no uncertain terms by Saudi Arabia that the time had cometotakeadeal.

The Gaza aid conference was a substantially more

From this perspective, the conference is a fairly big deal, at least as a signal of how alliances are shaking out and how friendless the Palestinians really are at the moment.

A deal, however, isn’t imminent, or even on the horizon. In the end, the Arab states can’t actually sign a peace agreement without a Palestinian state signing it, too. They would lose too much legitimacy at home, thus losing ground to Iran, whichistheveryenemythey are seeking to marginalize by allying with Israel in the first place.

Abbas knows this, which is why he is taking the risky tack of just saying no to the Saudi crown prince and the whole idea of a Trump peace