Thomas Friedman: A plan to end the occupation and save Jewish democracy with the help of Saudi Arabia and the Arabs in Israel

Written by: Ibrahim Darwish

London - The New York Times published an opinion article by commentator Thomas Friedman , in which he presented his vision of peace possibilities in the Middle East, in light of President Joe Biden's tour to Israel, Palestine and Saudi Arabia.

He believes that peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia may save Israel from its dilemma as a Jewish and democratic state. Being an occupied country in the West Bank, it will not get this status. Friedman presented his idea, saying that the antidote to Israel lies in the role of the Arabs inside Israel and peace with Saudi Arabia, which he says will not accept it without a price.

Friedman said: “It is a great thing for President Biden to visit the Middle East, as America played a vital role in advancing the peace process there. And as someone who has been following the region for decades, I tell you that I see something new. There is something paradoxical, just as surprising: Only Saudi Arabia and the Arabs in Israel can save Israel as a democracy - not America. This is because the Arab voters inside Israel, and Saudi Arabia, are able to force Israel to choose. Israel could have a democratic state in Israel and the West Bank, but with the passage of time, and with the high birth rate among Arabs, it may not be Jewish. They can have a Jewish state, not a democracy, but it cannot continue to occupy the West Bank forever.

Friedman comments: “These are existential questions that have confronted Israel since 1967, when it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But Israel has increasingly refused to choose, to the extent that political parties from right to left have chosen in the last four elections to ignore "the Palestinian question, and this is a matter of concern." It must not be the same when, on November 1, Israelis go to elections for the fifth time in less than four years. And at a time when the United States is tired of trying to convince the Palestinians and the Israelis of a two-state solution, Friedman believes that the Arabs inside Israel, along with Saudi Arabia, can play an important role in a Jewish and democratic state.

Where is the logic in this talk? The answer is plain to see, he says. Israel will not become a viable democracy as long as it occupies forever the 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank. Occupation means applying Israeli laws to Jews living in the West Bank and treating Palestinians based on other military laws, with fewer rights or opportunities to own land, build homes, trade, communicate, travel or organize politically. The occupation may not be comparable to the apartheid regime in South Africa, but it is an ugly relative, and it is eroding Israel's morality, as well as Jewish democracy. The occupation has become alienating, especially among liberal Jews in America, and if the situation continued in this way, Joe Biden might have been the last pro-Israel Democratic president.

The writer excuses Israel that it is not the only one responsible for this, but also the progressives and what he called the Palestinian propagandists who promote this on university campuses, and accuses them of lack of honesty. He says that the second Palestinian intifada destroyed the peace camp, which erupted after Yasser Arafat “rejected” an offer from Ehud Barak of a demilitarized Palestinian state in most of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Hamas’s rockets and suicide operations increased Israel’s sense of insecurity. He added that many supporters of Israel in the United States kept silent during the 12 years of rule of Benjamin Netanyahu, who did everything to discredit the Palestinian Authority as a partner for peace. And without crediting her for her efforts to reduce Palestinian violence. And he worked to make the two-state solution impossible, by building settlements deep in the West Bank, beyond the Israeli separation wall, and in the areas on which the future Palestinian state will be established. He says that the Palestinians shot themselves in the feet through their division between the West Bank and Gaza, and their elimination of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, whom he says is “the loyal, effective and reliable prime minister” who worked between 2007-2013. This is why the recent Israeli elections ignored the existential threat to the Jewish state by continuing to occupy the West Bank, and the reason is that the occupation was out of sight and thought. This is why the United States withdrew from active participation, until Donald Trump came along and gave his son-in-law Jared Kushner the free hand to advance his plan. It is a long story, he says. In short, the Palestinians and Netanyahu rejected the Trump plan.

Hence the role of the Emiratis and their leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, and the ambassador to Washington, Youssef Al-Otaiba. Instead of allowing the process to collapse, they proposed a comprehensive peace, trade and tourism with Israel if the latter agreed not to take a unilateral decision to annex areas in the West Bank that the Trump plan granted it. Hence the Abraham Accords of 2020 were born. Friedman comments that the UAE played an important role in stimulating the deal, as the more the Middle East becomes like the European Union, and the less similar it is to the civil war in Syria, the better. However, the UAE and the countries that signed the normalization agreements, Sudan, Morocco and Bahrain, hesitated to participate in the Palestinian cause, as they have a bad idea of the Palestinian leadership, and do not want to delve into the chaos of the issue. All they want is to trade with Israeli tech companies and empower themselves. Which leads the writer to talk about the Saudi role in this context, as peace with Saudi Arabia is a great prize, and it will open the door to peace with the entire Islamic world, and an outlet for a huge amount of investments. And “but prominent Saudi officials told me that their support will not come for free.” King Salman is emotionally linked to the Palestinian cause, and his son, Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince, knows that if Saudi Arabia makes a cheap deal with Israel, it will open the way for its enemy Iran to launch a media war against Saudi Arabia. in the Islamic world. It will be an ugly war."

Despite these concerns, Israel and Saudi Arabia privately discussed the conditions for normalizing relations. The writer believes that the Saudis, he believes, want the process to come in two stages. He quotes here the former US envoy to the Middle East, Dennis Ross, as saying that the Saudis may have offered, as a start, to open a commercial office in Tel Aviv that would deal with Saudi economic interests, and “a great psychological move towards Israel.” In exchange for this, Saudi Arabia may demand something greater: that Israel must stop all settlement construction east of the Israeli security barrier in the West Bank. And approval of the Saudi-Arab initiative, which stipulates negotiations based on the two-state solution. Ross says that Israel's commitment to the settlements means that the Israelis will stop building on 92% of the West Bank, noting that 80% of the settlers live west of the wall.

The second phase comes with the end of the Israeli occupation and a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Perhaps the Saudis promised to open an embassy in Tel Aviv and another in Ramallah or in West Jerusalem, depending on Israel's choice, but there must be embassies on both sides, and Israel promises to preserve the status quo in Al-Aqsa. To help Biden, who arrives in Saudi Arabia on Friday, and to return with something in his hand, the Saudis announced the opening of their airspace to all flights, including Israeli flights. The writer does not expect Israel to jump on these proposals, but if the Saudis adopted these ideas and made them a policy, they would play a role in the November elections and contribute to sparking a discussion about the nature of democracy in Israel.

Here comes the role of the Arabs in Israel, as a push from Saudi Arabia may release them to participate in the elections. Here is a simple calculation. Neither the center-left in Israel is able to achieve a majority, nor is the extreme right, which is why the electoral rounds continue. And the Arabs in Israel represent 21% of the population, and they usually get 12 seats, and they replaced the religious Jewish parties as a weighted bloc. Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister, was unable to form a government coalition without inviting the Ra'im Arab party. The Arab party announced its participation in a Jewish government, on condition of resuming negotiations with the Palestinians based on the Arab initiative. This is why Friedman argues that Saudi Arabia and the Arabs in Israel have the potential to salvage Jewish democracy. About "Al-Quds Al-Arabi"