Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki.   (photo credit: REUTERS/MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY)

The Palestinian Authority leadership on Friday strongly condemned and rejected Bahrain’s decision to establish relations with Israel, calling it a “betrayal of Jerusalem, al-Aqsa Mosque and the Palestinian issue.”

The PA Foreign Ministry announced it has decided to immediately recall its ambassador to Bahrain for consultations in protest of the normalization agreement.

Last month, the Palestinian leadership issued a similar response to the normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It also decided to recall its ambassador to Abu Dhabi.

The PA leadership said the Bahraini decision would “support the legalization of the cruel crimes of the Israeli occupation against our Palestinian people at a time when the occupation [sic] state is continuing to control the Palestinian lands and annex them by military force; is working toward Judaizing Jerusalem and controlling the Islamic and Christian holy sites; and is committing crimes against the Palestinian people.”

The Palestinian leadership said in a statement that it views the Bahraini decision “with utmost seriousness because it destroys the Arab Peace Initiative, resolutions of Arab and Islamic summits and international legitimacy.”

It said the Palestinians reject the decision and call on Bahrain to immediately retract it because it causes huge damage to the national rights of the Palestinian people and to joint Arab action.

“The Palestinian leadership reaffirms its call for the Arab countries to adhere to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative and urges the international community to adhere to international law and the resolutions of international legitimacy,” the statement read.

“The Palestinian leadership reaffirms that it has not and will not authorize anyone to speak on its behalf. It also affirms that peace and stability in the region won’t be achieved unless the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is ended and Palestinians achieve an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital – and that the issue of the refugees is solved on the basis of United Nations Resolution 194. Those who believe that concessions that come at the expense of the rights of the Palestinian people will serve peace, security and stability in the region are deluding themselves.”

Several Palestinian officials expressed outrage over the “disgraceful and treacherous” Israel-Bahrain agreement and accused Bahrain of betraying the Palestinian people.

PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat accused the UAE and Bahrain of “contributing to [US President Donald] Trump’s presidential campaign at the expense of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.”

Ahmed Majdalani, member of the PLO Executive Committee, denounced the Israel-Bahrain agreement as a “stab to the national rights of the Palestinian people and their national cause. He said that the US administration’s “delusion that it can make peace between the occupying state and the Arab countries without the Palestinians and without an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories is political stupidity.”

Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other extremist groups also condemned the Israel-Bahrain accord and said it was “the fruit of the failure of the Arab League.”

Last week, Arab League foreign ministers refused to endorse a Palestinian draft resolution that condemned the UAE for its agreement to establish relations with Israel.

“What the Kingdom of Bahrain did is disgraceful and constitutes a political setback and a major downfall for the rulers of Bahrain,” Hamas said in a statement. “This series of steps, initiated by the Emiratis, and then the rulers of Bahrain, constitutes political crimes, contributes to the implementation of the Deal of the Century and undermines the foundations of Arab solidarity. Hamas rejects this announcement and considers it a stab in the back of the Palestinian people, a betrayal of Palestine and Jerusalem and a step against the interests of the Arabs and Muslims.”

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/palestinians-strongly-condemn-israel-bahrain-deal-withdraw-ambassador-641976

The post Palestinians strongly condemn Israel-Bahrain deal, withdraw ambassador first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is right: Iran is the greatest threat to Israel. Today this threat seems distant, but it would only take a few errant Israeli bombs hitting an Iranian target in Syria, or a massive terror attack by Hezbollah, to undermine the calm and create a dynamic that could lead to war. And that war, with the main task reserved for Hezbollah’s missile arsenal, would differ from all past wars. Less than two years ago, Military Intelligence chief Herzl Halevi warned in an interview of “hundreds of tons of explosives reaching the center of the country.”

Try to imagine central Tel Aviv, for example the Yoo Towers, hit by dozens of tons of explosives. Or several dozen precise missiles carrying half-ton warheads hitting the Hadera power station, putting it out of commission and denying Israel a significant percentage of its electricity production.

And these are only a few examples. Even if the military landed a harsh blow on Hezbollah in a spectacular ground maneuver, the home front, which the military is supposed to protect, would pay a high price. Israel would be very different after such a war.

And the fact that the prime minister correctly diagnoses the threat doesn’t necessarily mean he’s addressing it optimally. At this point, he and the defense establishment deserve credit for the cautious effort that has been made to reduce the Hezbollah threat without breaking all the rules of the game. The investment in missile defense systems will prove itself if a war breaks out.

But the MI chief is well aware of all these things, and still he speaks of hundreds of tons of explosives that would hit the home front, so we have to ask whether we should also be investing more in reducing the chances of war. In other words, is it possible to talk to Iran, and on what basis?

On the face of it, the answer is no. For almost 40 years, Iran has been our greatest enemy, one that considers Israel the Little Satan (the Great Satan is the United States). We’re used to threats of extermination by Iran’s leaders, just as until 1967 we were used to threats by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to destroy Israel. The arming and training of Hezbollah, terror attacks against Israeli targets abroad, Iran’s belligerent policy and its nuclear potential are different expressions of the fact that these aren’t empty threats. And still, Iranian hostility toward Israel isn’t absolute, and here may lie the key to change and hope.

Since the Arab Peace Initiative (which began as the Saudi Peace Initiative) was proposed in 2002, Iran hasn’t expressed opposition to it. Moreover, the initiative was adopted by the foreign ministers at a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in 2003, in Tehran of all places.

At the heart of the initiative, we should recall, is recognition of Israel by all the Arab and Muslim countries, a normalization of relations in exchange for establishing a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, and an agreed-on solution (including by Israel) of the refugee problem. In 2008, the Iranian approach was confirmed by then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said he would honor whatever was acceptable to the Palestinian people.

To this day, the Arab Peace Initiative hasn’t received the public discussion it deserves. This is the most important development in the conflict since the Six-Day War, which gave Israel the territories whose return today would enable an end to the conflict. Most of Israel’s former defense chiefs, who are members of Commanders for Israel’s Security and the Council for Peace and Security, consider it a suitable basis for starting negotiations, and many politicians, including former right-wingers, believe we should respond to the proposal.

Thus far the emphasis has been that responding to the initiative would move Israel’s relations with the Sunni countries in a positive direction and reduce the chances of a new conflict with the Palestinians. But just when Iran’s power is rising, we should also consider a response to the initiative an effective way to deal with the threat from Iran and its creation, Hezbollah.

That doesn’t mean doing so would make the regime in Tehran pro-Zionist, but it would to a great extent take the wind out of Iran’s ideological sails regarding its all-out war against Israel. It would lower the hostility between the two countries and reduce the chances of war, with all its risks. Such a response could also create a basis for talks between the two countries, first in secret channels and then perhaps overtly. And if Iran opposed the peace initiative, its isolation in the Arab and Muslim world would grow.

If Netanyahu wants to be remembered as Mr. Security, he should also invest in reducing the chances of war, not just lowering the price. Otherwise he might be remembered in an entirely different way.

Uri Bar-Joseph is a professor at the School of Political Science at the University of Haifa’s Division of International Relations.

Source: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.816411

The post Opinion The Iranian Threat and the Arab Peace Initiative first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.