Can Trump’s Gaza Peace Deal Last?

By Jonathan Sacerdoti   https://jonsac.substack.com/p/can-trumps-gaza-peace-deal-last?triedRedirect=true

Together, Trump and Netanyahu have achieved what few thought possible: an agreement for the release of all hostages held in Gaza and a broad cessation of hostilities, at least for now. The is a big moment, but also an unclear and perilously risky one.

The deal, announced publicly but still potentially in flux, contains both substance and shadow. According to Israeli sources, 20 live hostages are to be released in the initial phase, with expectations that this will occur by Sunday night. Hamas, for its part, has confirmed a framework involving the end of fighting, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza (possibly 70 per cent of the strip), the entry of humanitarian aid, and a prisoner exchange. The guarantor states – Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, and the United States – have reportedly secured assurances against the resumption of war so long as both parties honour the terms.

Yet many details remain ambiguous, and deliberately so. Maps of Israeli withdrawal have been amended, and five crossings are set to open for aid. It’s reported that for every living hostage, as many as 100 convicted terrorists will be freed, among them senior figures sentenced to life for murder. This is a brutal price for Israel. But for many families awaiting a son, a daughter, a child, it is one they have long been willing to pay.

President Isaac Herzog said what millions feel: ‘All the people of Israel stand with the hostages. All the people of Israel stand with the families.’

But not all images comfort. From Gaza, videos immediately emerged of men who appear well-fed and strong, celebrating in the streets. Terror-affiliated media chant genocidal slogans – ‘Khaybar, Khaybar ya Yahud’ – whose message is one of eternal battle and endless death of Jews. Senior Hamas operatives, including Zaher Jabarin, photographed smiling in the Sharm El-Sheikh negotiation rooms, do not smile for peace. Their smile indicates that for them at least survival, and perhaps advantage, has been secured.

This agreement will bring a kind of calm. But calm is not peace. It is not justice. It is not safety. Even yesterday, Hamas-aligned media were promoting videos of their military wing training to abduct IDF soldiers, declaring such operations ‘inevitable.’ Meanwhile, those in Gaza who worked with Israel to protect non-Hamas aligned Gaza residents, such as Yasser Abu Shabab, have become targets of death threats and face possible annihilation in the vacuum of Israeli withdrawal. And what of the ‘innocent civilians’? If Hamas clings on to power it will reinforce it brutally and ruthlessly as it always does. If not, it can be easily replaced by other equally brutal Islamic terrorist factions keen to fill its place.

The Palestinian movement has not earned peace. It must show that it wants more than survival, more than revenge, more than martyrdom. That it wants a future. Until then, no agreement, no photo-op, no negotiated phrase can promise stability, even if the hostages come home for now.

In the days ahead, we will see weeping and celebration, heartbreak and healing. The hostages will come home, and with them, untold stories of horror and survival. We will also see funerals. Some will return dead. Some, not at all, for the Palestinian terrorists are likely to stall and lie at every possible opportunity and ensure the pain is dragged out. It is unlikely they will truly give up every last hostage.

No single agreement can reverse decades of indoctrination and incitement. No single gesture can dismantle the machinery of hatred that has ruled Palestinian political life and ideology for generations. In the days ahead, Israel will witness scenes that test the limits of the human heart. There will be reunions so overwhelming they will shake the nation to its core, and losses so final that no agreement on earth can soften them.

But even as we embrace the living, we must not ignore what else this deal unleashes. Celebrations erupt in Gaza not just for the return of prisoners, but for the return of convicted murderers, some of them architects of massacres, now welcomed home as heroes. It is a decision made under unbearable moral pressure, and one that may come to stain the future with fresh blood.

When will the Palestinian Man wake up?!

Video Of The Week – Israeli Models In Dabai - https://tinyurl.com/y6yka24t

 From Saudi Gazette by Hani Al-Dahiri - https://tinyurl.com/yxr9tkjw

 It is regrettable to see the plight of Palestinian brothers whose politicians have traded their cause for more than 60 years. These politicians saw to that the issue remained alive and did not reach any settlement. They sabotaged negotiations and rejected all peace initiatives, whether those presented by the Israeli side or those by other international parties.

 The Palestinian politicians did this at the expense of their cause and their people so as to gain from the situation, which has remained as is till date. The intransigent attitude that they pursued for decades was the only guarantee for their survival with donations pouring in and aid funds boosting their treasuries and accounts in the European banks from all sides, especially from the countries of the Arab and Islamic worlds.

 Today, things have changed, and the peoples who used to sympathize with the Palestinian cause are fully aware of this game by people with vested interests. The Palestinian issue means the death of the issue in the minds of millions of people, because it is the inevitable result of six decades of lying, trickery and collection of money in the name of a crisis whose owners do not want it to be resolved.

 A few days ago, the courageous Emirati step to normalize relations with Israel came and that delivered an explicit message to the Palestinian political leaders: “The time has come to confront between yourselves and those who are deceived by you... the time for playing and jumping the ropes as well as trafficking with the concerns of the Palestinian people is over.”

 As for serving the interest of the Arab people in Gaza and the West Bank, it requires the intervention of rational Arabs to negotiate with the Israeli side and work to establish comprehensive peace in the region away from gangs who eye only political gain.

 It is evident that it has become certain that other Arab countries will catch up with the United Arab Emirates, and this means that the last berry leaves will fall from the private parts of the thieves of the cause who have gone beyond history, and the curses of the Palestinians, who have traded in their pain since 1948, will follow them forever.

 There is an eternal saying attributed to the 16th US President Abraham Lincoln, and I find it completely applicable to most of the Palestinian leaders who manipulated their people and their cause. Lincoln said: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

 The truth is that there is nothing in the entire Palestinian issue that enables it to continue and remain dependent on the current situation, because it is an issue that has reached old age and after old age the only thing remaining is death. And hence, either it is to be resolved today or it would die as the Andalusian issue died as wise men realize that there is no difference between the two issues at all.

 As a human being, as a Muslim and as an Arab, I am saddened by the situation of the Palestinian man who was traded in by his political leaders. I wish him well, and hope that he would wake up from his coma and adopt what is good that serves his interest and his future.

 However, his case in the property dispute with his opponents is not sacred to me, especially since the normalization of relations of some Arab countries with Israel will allow me and other Muslims to visit Al-Aqsa Mosque and pray therein, which is the only thing that concerns us in this case.

 As for other matters, the people of Palestine are more deserving of it, because in terms of logic, it is a first-degree “real estate dispute” and no one should be ashamed of acknowledging this fact.

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The Israel-UAE Deal: What’s Next?

Video Of The Week - Israel-UAE Peace Deal https://tinyurl.com/y29zubzo

For other correspondents reactions go to: BESA  -  https://tinyurl.com/yx9dnljr

Respondents: Lahav Harkov, Hillel Frisch, Asaf Romirowsky, Edy Cohen, Alex Joffe, Spyridon Plakoudas, James Dorsey

  Q:  On August 13, 2020, in what President Donald Trump called a “truly historic moment,” Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) agreed to a peace agreement called the Abraham Accord. The UAE is thus the third Arab country, after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994, to formally normalize relations with Israel. Security cooperation, business relations, tourism, direct flights, scientific collaboration, and many other things are expected to flourish under the deal—but the implications for the wider region are open questions.

Lahav Harkov, Diplomatic Correspondent, The Jerusalem Post

Two days after the big announcement of the peace deal, the UAE lifted its ban on phone calls from Israel, with Israeli FM Gabi Ashkenazi and his Emirati counterpart Abdullah bin Zayed inaugurating the newly opened line of communication. And that is not the only case of an immediate application of the terms of the deal. A team from the Israeli foreign ministry is now in Abu Dhabi looking for a site for the future Israeli embassy; there is a new flow of Emirati investment in Israeli companies working on innovative ways to treat and test for the coronavirus; business deals are being drawn up between Israeli start-ups and companies in the UAE; and Israir is working on setting up direct flights from Tel Aviv to Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

There is also the possibility that this deal will have a domino effect and inspire other states in the region to bring their behind-the-scenes ties with Israel out into the open. Bahrain is widely considered most likely to be the next Gulf State to make this move. Oman’s FM Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah spoke with Ashkenazi soon after the UAE deal was signed. Earlier this year, PM Benjamin Netanyahu met with Sudanese leader Abdel Fattah Burhan, which could signal a coming breakthrough on that front as well. Though Khartoum did fire a Sudanese FM spokesman for speaking on the subject—he expressed hope that peace could be achieved based on comments made by Israeli intelligence minister Eli Cohen—it has not denied that the two governments are in contact.

There is a lot of talk about the UAE trying to buy F-35s from the US. This makes Israel uncomfortable, as Netanyahu has told Washington on multiple occasions that he opposes such deals as they would compromise Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME). While this story did rain on the Israeli peace parade somewhat, it is unlikely to threaten peace or normalization with the UAE. An arms deal of that magnitude would take years to be completed, and in the meantime, open ties between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi will have time to flourish. Plus, there are many steps along the way, in the White House and at Congress, at which such a sale could be abandoned. It remains to be seen how the F-35 story will end, and Israel is right to be wary of any threats to its QME. But that should not put a damper on the historic magnitude of this occasion

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