Politicking with Palestinian cause (lI)

With the latest normalization of relations between the Kingdom of Bahrain and Israel following that of the UAE and Israel a few weeks earlier, both of which were ratified in Washington a couple of days ago, it seems more Arab governments may soon follow suit.

By the way, though Israel owes its creation and continued existence to the conspiracy of the global military powers to keep it perpetually superior militarily and technologically in the Middle East, it has always pursued normalisation of relations with governments in the region to achieve, at least, diplomatic recognition. In this regard, it has always relied on, particularly, the United States, which has always deployed all persuasive tactics and blackmailing tools at its disposal to push for the normalisation of relations with Israel in the region.

Recent developments, therefore, couldn’t have come at a better time for both the US President Donald Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both are facing politically existential threats in their respective countries, hence are exploiting the developments in their efforts to cling to power.

Struggling for reelection in less than two months, President Trump of the US is already bragging about it in his campaign to further impress the super influential Jewish lobby groups in Washington, evangelicals, and his broader conservative and largely pro-Israel voter base.

Likewise, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel who has been desperately struggling to cling to power to avoid serious corruption charges that are most likely to land him in jail once out of power, is already manipulating the developments politically to mobilise enough support in hope of achieving a comfortable win in the next parliamentary election that would enable him to form a government without having to go into a coalition or, at worst, that would enable him to form a government in a coalition with friendlier partners.

Meanwhile, given the particular religious significance of Palestine where Al Quds, the third of the three holy cities in Islam is located in addition to its original Arabic identity, the struggle against its occupation by the Zionists has always attracted both real activists and selfserving opportunists from among the Palestinians, the rest of the Arabs, and other countries in the region and beyond.

With the self-serving opportunists dominating the scene, all that a typical charlatan seeking cheap political popularity among Arabs and Muslims has to do in order to achieve his agenda is to feign and maintain an uncompromising stance against the Zionists and their occupation of Palestine. For a typical Palestinian political opportunist, and depending on his rhetorical skills, hypocritical moves and connections, he may be able to manoeuvre himself into the limelight and become part of the Palestinian elite, many, if not most of whom only exploit the Palestinian cause in pursuit of their respective selfish interests.

Equally, some Arab and even non-Arab regimes have exploited the Palestinian cause in pursuit of their geopolitical agendas at the expense of the cause.

Iran is particularly notorious in this regard. Driven by its Shiism-coated neo-Persian geopolitical expansionist agenda in the Middle East, it has, since 1979, ridden the wave of the deep-rooted antiZionist feelings among Arabs to promote its false anti-Zionist rhetoric laden with the empty threat of eliminating Israel.

Of course, the rhetoric has resonated with the unsuspecting across the region, which enabled Iran to infiltrate many countries where it created armed militias loyal it through which it seeks to dominate the countries; it has already succeeded in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria through such militias, which have grown stronger than the constituted security establishments including the military. It has also infiltrated the Palestinians where it manipulates some supposed resistance groups e.g Hamas militia in pursuit of its agenda.

Now, I have to skip the issue of Iran-Israel mutually beneficial “enmity”, which, I am supposed to address today as promised last week; this is due to space constraint and the fact that it may entail digressing too far from the main topic. So, I will, God willing, address it in a separate piece in due course.

Meanwhile,

Iran’s hugely

seeing successful exploitation of the Palestinian cause in the promotion of its geopolitical agenda, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan conceived his own version of the neo-Ottoman geopolitical ambition riding the wave of the Muslim Brotherhood group to achieve it. This is, though, unlike the Iranians; his strategy doesn’t involve changing people’s religious beliefs.

However, his inconsistency with regard to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation is particularly interesting; because while he passionately criticizes Israel over its acts of brutality or policies against the Palestinians, he remains officially the closest Israeli ally among Muslim leaders anyway. Figures of trade volume and value between the two countries, the extent of diplomatic relations, military cooperation, tourism, air travel, etc., say it all in this regard.

Now, pragmatically speaking, whether normalisation of relations between an Arab or Muslim country and Israel is justified or not, it depends on what each country gets in return, and, of course, the implications of the normalisation on the efforts to end the Zionist occupation of the Palestinian land.

Accordingly, while Egypt, which retrieved its Sinai peninsula under its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Jordan, which equally retrieved its territories and water resources under its 1994 peace treaty with Israel, and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), which became a quasiautonomous Palestinian authority in West Bank and Gaza following the Israeli withdraw under the Oslo Accords (I&II) in 1993/95, while they can be vindicated, the UAE, Bahrain and any other Arab country that may follow suit without appropriate value in return cannot.

The worth or otherwise of these recent treaties and their respective implications on the Palestinian cause can only be assessed when the exact terms of the treaties are released; and even then, their merits can only be assessed based on what Israel actually implements on the ground accordingly.