By Ruthie Blum, JPost—
An overwhelming majority of Israeli parliamentarians, including those in the opposition, voted on Thursday to ratify the US-brokered Abraham Accords. With 80 members of 120-seat Knesset in favor of the treaty with the United Arab Emirates and 27 in absentia, the remaining 13 lawmakers were unable to block the historic peace agreement that was approved unanimously by the Israeli Cabinet on Oct. 12.
Though the quantity of MKs nixing the deal was negligible, their identity is not. All of the more than dozen legislators who reject Israel’s peace-making – not only with the UAE, but with Bahrain as well – are Arab citizens of the Jewish state, belonging to the Joint Arab List.
The Joint List is a bloc of disparate communist, socialist, Islamist and Arab-nationalist parties Balad, Hadash, Ta’al and the United Arab List, supported by an increasing number of radical Jews disillusioned with the Zionist left.
It is headed by MK Ayman Odeh, who said last week that Israel’s normalization with the Gulf states is based on “twisted logic that cannot accept … either morally or nationally.”
He was referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s long-standing view that a lack of peace with the Palestinians is not at the root – or even a blip on the radar screen – of Middle East strife in general or of traditionally regional hostility to Israel in particular. It is this position that the Israeli left, obsessed with the failed “land for peace” paradigm, cannot tolerate.
The Palestinian Authority and its apologists have had an interest in keeping this false idea alive. The notion has been the basis for inverting culprit and victim where Palestinian intransigence is concerned. It also has served as the perfect fund-raising pitch for Ramallah and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip from deep-pocketed benefactors in Europe.
The administration of former US President George W. Bush made a feeble attempt at placing the onus on the PA to undergo internal reform and reach an agreement with Israel. But it wasn’t until Donald Trump entered the White House that concrete demands to shape up or lose out on a great opportunity for the Palestinian people were made clear to PA chief Mahmoud Abbas. Continue Reading….
