 [PJ] "The Palestinian leadership rejects and denounces the UAE, Israeli and US trilateral, surprising, announcement," said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a senior adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. That was just one indication of how welcome, how much of a breath of fresh air, the agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel really is. The Palestinian leadership has encouraged the murder of Israeli civilians and boasted of the ultimate destruction of Israel and the genocide of the Jews. If Abbas and company are unhappy, the free world should be happy.
Israel currently has peace agreements with only two Muslim Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, and those are cold friendships indeed, marred by a steady flow of hateful anti-Israel rhetoric in both Arab countries, and worse: Ahlam Tamimi, who aided the 2001 jihad massacre at a Sbarro’s pizza parlor in Jerusalem in which 15 people were murdered and 130 wounded, lives in Jordan, where she is a national hero and a popular television host. The United States has filed charges against her, as Americans were killed in the attack, but Jordan refuses to extradite her.
Words are cheap, but the UAE-Israel rapprochement doesn’t seem, at least at this point, to be a grudging, reluctant, cold peace at all. The official statement announces that "delegations from Israel and the UAE will meet in the coming weeks to sign bilateral agreements regarding investment, tourism, direct flights, security, telecommunications, technology, energy, healthcare, culture, the environment, the establishment of reciprocal embassies, and other areas of mutual benefit. Opening direct ties between two of the Middle East’s most dynamic societies and advanced economies will transform the region by spurring economic growth, enhancing technological innovation, and forging closer people-to-people relations."
To be sure, the agreement is based on a quid pro quo that takes the wind out the sails of Palestinian outrage: "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 US, Israel and the UAE are confident that additional diplomatic breakthroughs with other nations are possible, and will work together to achieve this goal."
Now if only the Qatari clan leadership gave up supporting terrorism... 
|
