TOI Blog..
16 July '19..
“History,” Mark Twain reportedly said, “doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.” And recent attempts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement prove it.
On June 25, 2019, Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, presented part of the administration’s plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace. The economic portion of the proposal, entitled “From Peace to Prosperity,” was formally unveiled at a conference in Bahrain, with representatives from several Arab nations in attendance.
The Palestinian Authority, however, refused to participate. Indeed, the PA announced its opposition more than a year ago—long before the terms of the proposal were announced. The PA not only boycotted the proceedings, it threatened retaliation against any Palestinians who would participate.
In an interview on i24News English, a former PA minister, Ashraf Al-Ajrami called the several Palestinian businessmen attending “collaborators” who will be “seriously punished.” On Twitter, Jason Greenblatt, the U.S. envoy in charge of negotiations, noted that Palestinians were “threatened” or “forbidden” from attending. The Jerusalem Post reported that the PA even raided the homes of several Palestinian businessmen who participated, arresting at least one of the participants, Saleh Abu Mayaleh, who was only released after pressure from American officials.
Some commentators, in The Washington Post and elsewhere, asserted that the U.S. is to blame for the PA’s behavior. However, Palestinian leaders’ choosing to reject both negotiations and normalization predates the Trump administration. In fact, Palestinian leadership have rejected any type of compromise and threatened those Arabs who contemplate normalization—and they’ve consistently done so for nearly 100 years.
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The writer is a Senior Research Analyst for the Washington D.C. office of CAMERA, the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
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