By BRET STEPHENS
THE NEW YORK TIMES
For years, the Trump
administration’s peacemaking efforts in the Middle East have been the object of
relentless derision in elite foreign-policy circles, some of it justified. Yet
with Friday’s announcement that Bahrain would join the United Arab Emirates as
the second Arab state in 30 days to normalize ties with Israel, the
administration has done more for regional peace than most of its predecessors,
including an Obama administration that tried hard and failed badly.
There are lessons in
this, at least for anyone prepared to consider just how wrong a half-century’s
worth of conventional wisdom has been.
At the heart of that
conventional wisdom is the view, succinctly put by U.N. Secretary General
António Guterres in February, that “resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
remains key to sustainable peace in the Middle East.” Untie that Gordian knot,
so the thinking goes, and the region’s many problems become easier to solve,
whether it’s other regional conflicts or the anti-Americanism that feeds
international terrorism.
That thinking was
always dubious — what, for instance, did the Iran-Iraq War, in which a million
people or more died, have to do with Israelis and Palestinians? — though it had
the convenience of giving Arab regimes a good way of deflecting blame for their
own bad governance. But since the (misnamed) Arab Spring began nearly a decade
ago, the view has become absurd.
The rise and fall of
ISIS, civil war in Syria and anarchy in Libya, Turkey’s aggression against
Kurds, proxy battles and hunger in Yemen, political turmoil and repression in
Egypt and Iran, the bankruptcy of the Lebanese state, the plight of Middle
Eastern refugees — if any of these catastrophes have something in common, it’s
that they have next to nothing to do with the Jewish state or its policies. One
may still hope for a Palestinian state, but it won’t save the region from
itself.
What would? The best
option is an alliance of moderates and modernizers — anyone in power (or
seeking power) who wants to move his country in the direction of greater
religious and social tolerance, broader (that is, beyond energy) economic
development, less preoccupation with ancient disputes, more interest in future
opportunities. Such an alliance is the only hope for a region being sucked into
the maw of religious fanaticism, economic stagnation, environmental degradation
and perpetual misrule.
Now this alliance may
finally be coming into being. Unlike Israel’s peace with Egypt and Jordan —
both based on strategic necessity and geographic proximity — the peace with the
Emirates and Bahrain has no obvious rationale, even if a shared fear of Iran
played a role.
The larger factor is
shared aspiration. Israel is the most advanced country in the region because
for seven decades it invested in human, not mineral, potential, and because it
didn’t let its wounds (whether with respect to Germany in the 1950s or Egypt in
the 1970s) get the better of its judgment.
The choice for the
Arab world is stark. It can follow a similar path as Israel; be swallowed by
Iran, China, Russia, Turkey or some other outsider; or otherwise continue as
before until, Libya-like, it implodes.
As consequential as
the peace deals themselves is the Arab League’s refusal to condemn them,
eliciting a furious Palestinian reaction. That’s not surprising: It means the
Palestinian grip over the league’s diplomatic agenda may finally be loosening.
Perhaps it also means
that the grievance-driven politics that have dominated the Palestinian issue
for decades are finally over, too. If so, it’s bad news for those Palestinian
leaders and activists who think that, with unflagging obstinacy, they can
somehow restore the status quo ante 1948, when Israel didn’t exist.
What’s bad news for
some Palestinian leaders may be good news for ordinary Palestinians. Peace
between Israelis and Arabs will not come from the inside out — that is, from a
deal between Jerusalem and Ramallah that wins over the rest of the Arab world.
Decades of diplomatic failure, culminating in John Kerry’s failed mediation
efforts in 2014, should put an end to that fantasy.
Yet it isn’t crazy to
think that peace might come from the outside in: from an Arab world that
encircles Israel with recognition and partnership rather than enmity, and which
thereby shores up Israel’s security while moderating Palestinian behavior. If
that’s right — and if states like Oman, Morocco, Kuwait, Sudan and especially
Saudi Arabia follow suit — then this summer’s peace deals might finally create
the conditions of viable Palestinian statehood.
A final point about
these deals: This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not under the leadership of
Israel’s supposedly bellicose Benjamin Netanyahu; certainly not through the
diplomatic offices of the usually crazy/amateurish/perverse Trump
administration. Luck and timing played a part, as they always do.
But it behooves those
of us who are so frequently hostile to Netanyahu and President Donald Trump to
maintain the capacity to be pleasantly surprised — that is, to be honest.
What’s happened between Israel and two former enemies is an honest triumph in a
region, and a year, that’s known precious few.
