{Reposted from the JNS website}
Israel’s normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates is a significant strategic achievement. It strengthens and solidifies Israel’s regional alliance with Sunni Arab countries against Iran, creates a precedent that appears likely to lead to normalization with other Arab states and destroys the conception that a deal with the Palestinian peace rejectionists is the only path to normalization in the Middle East.
If the left had delivered such an agreement, there would have been a week-long peace party in the streets. The news studios would be broadcasting around the clock; there’d be songs of peace expressing a collective sense of euphoria. But lo and behold: We have peace, a new Middle East taking shape before our very eyes, and not only are the studios unenthusiastic, but the atmosphere during their broadcasts is reminiscent of a mourner’s tent.
“There’s no deal and no war has ended,” journalist Raviv Drucker wrote this week, while former Meretz leader Zahava Gal-On suggested we all remember that “our conflict is with the Palestinian people and was never with the UAE, with which we don’t have a shared border or quarrel.” B’Tselem chairman Hagai Elad encapsulated the left’s bitterness by stating: “The UAE [treaty] doesn’t give hope to the Palestinians.”
In short, the view on the left is that a peace deal isn’t worth a hill of beans and there’s no reason to rejoice if it doesn’t include withdrawal to the 1967 borders and uproot Jews from their homes. All the more so when the conception that normalization with Arab countries is impossible without first resolving the Palestinian problem just received a knockout punch. The past week exposed what many on the right have long suspected: The peace camp couldn’t care less about peace.
The past week has illustrated the “three nos” of the Israeli left: No to peace, no to equality and no to fighting corruption. The masquerade ball is over. It appears there are no higher values behind the left’s pathos of sanctimonious outrage—just propaganda hatchets to be wielded when it suits. The left’s goal was and remains power—the power to safeguard and ensure the rights of the traditional Israeli elites.
