Take yes for an answer in a new Middle East

The Trump team came up with new idea that works. Let Joe Biden take yes for an answer.

East to West to South to Southeast.

Old ideas to new ideas.

As if more evidence were needed, President Donald Trump’s foreign policy in the Middle East is succeeding in a way unforeseen in past administrations. Last September, it was East. Bahrain and United Arab Emirates, to the east of Israel, made peace — a full peace, a normal peace — with Israel.

Last October, it was South, as Sudan, another Arab nation, made peace with Israel.

In December it is Morocco, to the west of Israel. It too promises peace with Israel.

And now, again in December, it is Buhtan, to the southeast of Israel. This small Asian national bordering China promises peace with Israel — and potential Israeli technological independence from China. (The US did not broker this deal. Peacemaking with Israel is contagious.)

The old ideas about the Middle East were most sharply articulated and passionately believed in by former Secretary of State John Kerry, though he was far from the only believer.

“There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world,” Kerry said on Dec. 4, 2016. “I want to make that clear to all of you.”

He went on to say that the only path to peace in the Middle East was for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians.

Note the date: December, 2016 — after Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election and John Kerry was on the way out. This was his valedictory. This was his summation of all that he had striven for in the Middle East, all that he believed in.

There is a reason he failed to advance peace in the Middle East: His idea was wrong. There is a reason that Trump and his team tried a new idea.

We bring this up not to rehash the past but to urge the incoming Biden administration to embrace the new idea, which may be summarized simply: Nothing succeeds like success. US ambassador to Israel David Friedman put the basis of the new idea very well: “The UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and other Arab nations . . . can’t be expected to care more about the Palestinian people than the Palestinian leadership itself.”

The old idea was to equate the interests of the Palestinian people with the Palestinian leadership, and the interests of Arab nations with the Palestinian leadership. There are two flaws here, one regarding the long history and one regarding the short history, specifically regarding the cessation of Israeli settlement-building in the West Bank.

I.

The long history:

Precisely 100 years ago, in 1920, the first organized outbreak of Palestinian violence against Jews occurred. It was spurred by the Palestinian leadership of the day. The interests of the Palestinian leadership then and ever since have been to extirpate any Jewish corporate presence in the Middle East, be it a “community,” a “homeland” or a “state,” rather than to reach an accommodation with Jews in the holy land. Note: we say “Jews in the holy land.” There was no State of Israel in 1920. There was not even a majority of Jews in the land in 1920.

This drive of the Palestinian leadership to expel the Jews has meant that the most precious and extensive resources available to the Palestinians were expended not for the Palestinians themselves, but for wars and terrorist attacks against the Jews in the land, both before Israel was created and afterward; both when the Jews were a small minority and an overwhelming majority.

The new idea was this: Do not equate the Palestinian leadership or their interests with the Middle East. Again, Ambassador Friedman: “We saw the Gulf having national interests that were largely in line with those of Israel . . . I think he [Kerry] took the conventional wisdom that the Palestinians could hold the entire region hostage. We knew that they couldn’t.”

And indeed they haven’t, not in 2020, anyway. Friedman spoke even before the new agreement between Israel and Morocco was reached. He knew whereof he spoke when he included the phrase, “and other Arab nations.”

Among the national interests of many Arab nations that are shared with Israel are the fear of, and the cooperative effort to counter, the nuclear-aspiring Iran.

It looks like Saudi Arabia will not be one of those other Arab nations just now, but as the benefits of peace — personal and economic — continue to intensify in the nations making peace, and continue to widen to other Arab nations, Saudi Arabia may be hard pressed to resist, especially since its long-term economic viability is under strain in a world economy less and less interested in oil.

II.

Now for the short-term history:

John Kerry pressed Israel again and again to stop settlement building on the West Bank of the Jordan River, which Israel captured in the defensive Six Day War of 1967. Israel did not comply. Trump and his team tried a new idea: Motivate Israel to stop settlement building. Kerry’s pressure failed, except for one year, and Kerry’s pressure created bitter tensions between Israel and the US. Trump’s request was accepted by Israel, and not for a one-year cessation of settlement building but for a four-year cessation. What is the difference between the failed, old idea of Kerry and the successful, new idea of Trump?

The old idea said: Israel should stop settlement building and get nothing in return. Israel should give, but not receive. The new idea said: Israel should stop settlement building and get the right to annex its settlements already in place. No realistic diplomatic proposal by the Palestinian leadership or any interlocutor will persuade Israel to dismantle a settlement after its disastrous experience of doing so unilaterally in Gaza in 2005. So the new idea simply said: Recognize the reality rather than enforce the old idea’s threat of dismantlement and radical social disruption.

On this basis, Israel accepted a four-year settlement freeze in order to give the Palestinians the chance to work out the details of their own state. The new, Trump idea put both a stick and a carrot before Israel. It took the stick — the settlement freeze — because it got the carrot — the existing settlements.

The Palestinian leadership also got a stick — the reality of current Israeli settlements — and a carrot — an independent state, and a four-year settlement freeze to work it out.

Israel accepted its stick and carrot. The Palestinian leadership rejected its stick and carrot. Nothing new here. As Abba Eban said, “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

With the Palestinian rejection, Israel looked elsewhere and found willing partners in Arab nations. These relationships had been nurtured for years, but they came to fruition when it became clear that when the Palestinians were offered what they have said they wanted for decades — an end to Israeli settlement building — they still said no.

The bottom line message for the incoming Biden administration comes down to this: Take yes for an answer.

Embrace the new idea that works.

Value peace.

Recognize the new reality: Arab nations want peace. Israel wants peace. Palestinian truculence should not be credited, no longer allowed to be the obstacle to peace in the wider Middle East.

Note: the Palestinian leadership is currently outraged at the Arab nations who have made peace with Israel.

That says it all.