There will be no Palestinian State because no one cares about the Palestinians, at least no one who matters.
The truth is that no entity, no government, ever cared about the Palestinians: not the Arab countries and not the Israelis. The Palestinian leadership under Arafat’s PLO was bolstered by Arab nations to say “no.” The Palestinians built an insufficient governmental infrastructure to govern effectively, and now under Abbas, a sick old man, there is not even a succession plan.
But now, with Iran an existential threat to Saudi Arabia and Egypt in particular, with the Israelis combating ISIS on the Sinai alongside Egypt, with Saudi Arabia building economic ties to Israel as rapidly and cautiously as possible, the surrounding nations have abandoned the Palestinian cause that they used as a cudgel to beat Israel.
This is the reason that there are no protests in Arab capitals about the American embassy in Jerusalem, no mass demonstrations sponsored by Arab governments and styled “the street speaking.” NO ONE CARES. Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are fighting a common enemy. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The Palestinians no longer serve a useful purpose, and their cause is being abandoned.
Netanyahu has triumphed, and Trump has seized the day. I predicted these alliances in an article in The Chronicle in December 2015. And here we have the fruition. Trump can move our American embassy without significant political consequences.
The truth is except for the common Palestinians — the people in the street who have been taken advantage of for decades — this new development will likely lead to better relations in the Middle East. The Palestinian leadership, unwilling to admit to the weakness of their position and relying upon that weakness to triumph with the backing of the governmental powers surrounding Israel, has been abandoned and has no internal power to fall back on. Hence the tragic demonstrations in Gaza. There is no rioting in Arab capitals, no support for the cause, no protests that will unite the Arab world.
Netanyahu has taken advantage of the weakness of the Palestinian position, and now he will attempt to consolidate his power at their expense by further making them second class citizens in their own country, so that their demographic power will be undercut by new laws, like the: “Basic Law proposal: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People is an Israeli bill which seeks to determine the nature of the State of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.” (Wikipedia)
If this passes it will make Israel officially a Jewish State by law as a part of what passes for an Israeli constitution, its basic laws, and will be used to pass laws that will further degrade the position of Palestinians, and very possibly other non-Jews.
These events exist in a much broader context that reflect the changing power structure in the Middle East. That is giving Netanyahu a free hand to make bias against Palestinians officially the law of the land and declare as enemies of the State anyone who disagrees and claims that these changes are making Israel not only into less of a democracy, but moving the State toward fascism.
The Israel we love is moving away from the democratic values of her declaration of independence, and we are entering a very scary time in which the Jewish state is rapidly embodying values that will make us choose between democracy and love of the Jewish people.
(Rabbi Mark H. Levin is founding rabbi of Congregation Beth Torah.)
