Who is the rejectionist now?
“The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” said Abba Eban in the 1970s, describing the refusal of the Arab world to compromise with Israel even though it was palpably in their interest to do so. However, over the past few decades, it has been the Israeli governments that have built walls of political stubbornness, a trend that has intensified during the successive Netanyahu administrations.
The recent decision to prevent Arab foreign ministers from meeting Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah is another gallon of incendiary fuel on the fire of Israeli refusal, which has now reached the dimensions of historical missed opportunities for the entire region.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry claimed it was “provocative” for the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, and Jordan to visit Ramallah, and the sole reason it gave was that the ministers intended to discuss the feasibility of establishing a Palestinian state. The idea behind this move was to create an unprecedented regional alliance against jihadists of all kinds, which will integrate a Palestinian state. It would be in Israel’s interest as it is battling Hamas!
Historically, the missed opportunities were arguably on the Arab side. In 1937, Arab states rejected the conclusions of the Peel Commission to transfer all of Transjordan to the Arabs, along with 85% of the territory between the Jordan River and the sea. The UN Partition Plan of 1947 was also rejected by the Arab world. The Palestinian Covenant of 1964 did not recognize the existence of Israel, and in 1967, the Arab League established the “Three Nos Policy” in Khartoum: no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel, and no peace with Israel.
Following the Yom Kippur War, this reality began to change. The peace agreements with Egypt were initiated by Egyptian President Sadat, followed by the peace with Jordan, which was made possible by the Palestinian recognition of the State of Israel. In 1988, during a meeting in Algiers, the PLO institutions decided to accept UN resolutions 242 and 338, which refer to the pre-1967 borders; subsequently, in the Oslo Accords of 1993, the PLO formally recognized the State of Israel.
In 2002, the Arab League announced the Arab Peace Initiative, ratifying it annually. The initiative commits all Arab League countries to accept Israel if it agrees to the resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians in a manner that aligns with its interests, including a veto right on any solution regarding refugees. The Arab Peace Initiative represented a strategic shift in the Arab world and a tremendous opportunity for Israel, but it was entirely ignored by successive Israeli governments, which seemed far more interested in aligning themselves with the growing settlement movement.
Under the current far-right government, Israel is becoming more and more akin to the Arabs of that pre-Initiative era. A major claim against the Palestinians was that their charter did not recognize Israel’s existence. But when the Palestinians changed their charter, Israel only dug deeper into denying Palestinian identity. What began as a gradual erasure of the Green Line from state maps has now turned into an increasingly de facto annexation policy. Responsibility for civilian administration of the West Bank has been given to Bezalel Smotrich, who uses his position to promote policies of land theft, settlement growth, and the creation of facts on the ground. The aim is to thwart any chance of compromise and to promote future annexation.
Israeli blindness stems from the same arrogance that characterized Arab states in the past. The intoxication of power has simply switched sides, and now it blinds the eyes of the Israeli leadership and a large part of the public. Just as in 1937, when the Arabs refused to concede even as little as 15% of the Land of Israel, today the Israeli leadership, blinded by its ability to wield military power, is working to perpetuate its rule over the entire territory and to stifle any discourse on future Palestinian independence. It is steering the entire region towards a desolate and perilous path that will ultimately lead to a stalemate.
Moreover, the current government refuses to exploit the strategic regional changes in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Israel should have undertaken a proactive diplomatic initiative to exploit the weakening of Iranian influence in its two northern neighbors. But while the new Syrian leader, al-Shara, speaks of his desire for regional peace and the possibility of joining the Abraham Accords, Israeli Foreign Minister Saar insists on calling him a jihadist time and time again. Defense Minister Katz and Prime Minister Netanyahu prefer taking selfies on the Syrian Hermon to garner favor among their Likud Party base rather than enhancing the country’s strategic interests. And in Lebanon, while the Lebanese army is working to dismantle Hezbollah’s weapons under a ceasefire that was negotiated with the help of the US and France, the Netanyahu government continues to treat the Land of Cedars as a military target.
The Netanyahu government is against any diplomatic agreement between the US and Iran, even though it is the only way to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear military capabilities, as was proven when Netanyahu convinced Trump to withdraw from the JCPOA.
Not least counterproductive, Netanyahu is squandering the opportunity to move toward normalizing relationships with Saudi Arabia, which would pave the way for normalization with the entire Sunni world, in favor of his relations with Ben Gvir and Smotrich.
Led by those two extremists, the government has become intensely focused on West Bank land grabs and enabling extremist settlers while it pursues a seemingly never-ending war in Gaza. Today, the ongoing war seems more like an act of revenge than a genuine desire to free the hostages or achieve military and diplomatic gains. Again and again, personal political interests take precedence over Israel’s interests.
As a result, the whole world is starting to close in on Israel, and even its most loyal friends are becoming totally fed up with the government’s conduct. Both official and, more especially, unofficial sanctions are being adopted, and the world is increasingly distancing itself from the small country that has turned into a source of global instability and unrest.
The more this process intensifies, the more the State of Israel will become weaker and more vulnerable. The massacre of October 7 plunged the State of Israel into a crisis, and yet the arrogant mindset adopted by the Netanyahu government has only exacerbated and worsened it. No fortress lasts forever. Were the Israeli government to continue glorifying military power while refusing to pursue a peace agreement, the wheel of history may well soon turn back and demand from it yet again to pay a hefty price for its arrogance, obstinacy, and lust for conquest.
Israel is rapidly transforming from a country that genuinely pursued peace with its neighbors—and indeed enshrined it in its Declaration of Independence—into a country where the mere mention of the word peace or a future Palestinian state is considered by the government to be a provocation. The country’s leadership increasingly views peace advocates and even hostage families as enemies and behaves with incompetence, diplomatic ineptitude, and outright rudeness to sabotage any chance for an optimistic future of security for the state and the entire region.
The opportunity to change course has by no means passed. Together with those of our neighbors who share the desire for peace and stability, we can permanently isolate Hamas and Hizballah and disempower the forces of terror. We must not squander this opportunity.
