Articles - Others - Date: 2025-06-02

By: Oraib Al Rantawi

The Netanyahu government's decision to refuse an Arab/Muslim ministerial delegation entry to Ramallah was marked by extreme arrogance and condescension and laden with a profound sense of contempt and disrespect toward the Arab order. Tel Aviv did not view the ministerial delegation's visit as a 'halfway' step towards normalization, as some Arab and Palestinian opponents of the visit described it, but rather viewed it as a blatant challenge and 'provocation' to the neofascist government and its agenda and priorities, which are no secret to anyone.

But the aborted visit, in the context of preparing for the New York conference scheduled for June 17, and given the strategic Israeli expansionist and settlement decisions preceding it, turned the spotlight back on the current situation in the West Bank, and highlighted the strategic direction of Israeli policy, both in terms of the future of the occupied Palestinian territories and regarding the subject of Arab/international diplomatic activity, namely the two-state solution and the recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

In this sense, Netanyahu's government viewed the Arab/Muslim delegation's visit as a step entirely at odds with its strategic priorities regarding the Palestinian cause, land, people, rights, and holy sites, showing no regard for the fact that it was the first visit by a high-ranking Saudi official since the West Bank was first occupied, and in fact since the late King Faisal's visit to Jerusalem in 1966. Nor did it care that Saudi Arabia is, by all measures, the 'crown jewel' of the Abraham Accords track, and the grand consolation prize that Israel expects to receive should it halt the war on Gaza and accept, even as a matter of lip service, a vague demand concerning the two-state solution.

Israel was indifferent to the fact that the visiting delegation included key Arab countries (and Turkey), all of which, to various degrees, maintain peace and engage in bilateral normalization tracks with it, which have neither faltered nor been shaken even after 20 months of the campaign of isolation, ethnic cleansing, starvation, and genocide in the Gaza Strip... Nor did Tel Aviv give any weight to the Trump administration's zeal, and that of the Biden administration before it, for expanding the Abraham Accords track to more Arab and Muslim countries, always in the context of building a new Middle East that is submissive and subservient to U.S./Israeli hegemony.

It is not that Israel is apathetic about normalization, or that it does not want this new Middle East to emerge, but rather that it does not want to pay a price of any kind or any magnitude for it. Tel Aviv has a hierarchy of priorities, topped by the genocide, ethnic cleansing, annexation, and displacement projects. Only after those are furthered can it consider establishing relations with Arab and Muslim capitals...

Normalization is no longer a decisive and determining priority in Israeli political calculations; there are more important priorities. The decision to block the delegation's visit demonstrated the declining weight of Arab and Muslim countries in Israeli political considerations. The official Arab order continues to rely on clawless diplomacy, content with condemnation, denunciation, and appeals to the international community to take actions that its own states have no desire or political will to take.

In addition to the aforementioned consultation and coordination ahead of the Paris and New York conferences, the Arab ministers had three declared and undeclared objectives for their aborted visit to Ramallah:

First, bolstering the PA's eroding status and rescuing it from potential collapse.

Second, urging Western nations and others to recognize a Palestinian state, even if only on paper, as Israel Katz put it.

Third, rallying international support for the two-state solution, which, despite its difficulties, remains the most realistic and practical solution to this protracted conflict.

These direct and indirect objectives clash with the agenda of the fascist right-wing government in Tel Aviv, which lets no opportunity pass to undermine the PA's position. Neither the PA's 'sacred' security coordination with the occupation nor its stances opposed to the resistance in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and elsewhere have helped preserve it. The ruling coalition, backed by a majority of Israelis, has resolved to dismantle the idea of a Palestinian state, once and for all.

What Israel is doing in the West Bank, especially in Jerusalem, is no secret to anyone. The Palestinian and Arab citizen does not need analysts or experts to explain the aims and goals of Israeli policy. Israelis state what they intend to do openly, with a boldness surpassing brazenness, and they follow up their words with actions, while we remain arrested in a state of denial, seeing the wolf before our eyes yet straining to find the trackers to locate its lair. Meanwhile, Israel proceeds relentlessly to demolish the idea of a Palestinian state, with its three pillars: The land, people, and political system.

Swallowing the land, terrorizing the people, and undermining the system are the three axes around which Israel's daily, systematic, organized actions revolve. Prior to the Arab delegation's visit, Israel took an unprecedented decision since the 1967 occupation to establish and recognize 22 new settlements and outposts stretching from the North to the South of the West Bank, spanning Jerusalem, the central area, and the Jordan Valley. Before that, Netanyahu's government made one of its most dangerous decisions, when it assigned responsibility for land and property registration in Area C to Smotrich, as a second minister in the Ministry of Defense tasked with the civil administration of the West Bank. Israel is now in the process of eliminating main roads in the West Bank and opening 'tunnels' for Palestinian movement to circumvent the fragmentation of Palestinian land which, in the presence of 800,000 settlers, has been transformed into isolated cantons.

Since October 7, the campaign to terrorize the people has become a nightmare haunting the Palestinians, leaving nearly 1,000 killed, many times that number wounded, over 15,000 citizens arrested, and more than 2,000 displaced from Bedouin towns in Southern Hebron and the Jordan Valley in Area C to Areas A and B. Over 40,000 people were also displaced from the Jenin and Tulkarm camps and their surroundings, as part of an open plan to erase the camps, go after UNRWA (and the right of return), and establish nearly 1,000 military checkpoints, many of which have become crossings resembling international borders, in an effort to fragment the Palestinian people and land and confine them to concentration camps, in a re-creation of the Jewish experience under German Nazi rule.

The effort to undermine the Palestinian political system is embodied in the policy of drying up the PA's resources, confiscating tax revenues, and dismantling any 'sovereign' role it might have, however symbolic, in its 'temporary capital'. This is on top of deliberate acts of humiliation that spare neither the president nor the PA, as when he was blocked from leaving Ramallah to visit Damascus, and when the Arab ministerial delegation was prevented from reaching the Muqata'a headquarters. These practices affect nearly everyone, including the security, police, and judicial services, as well as NGOs, financial establishments, and economic institutions.

Israel does not want the PA to endure, not because it poses any security threat to its occupation (God forbid), but because of the possibility that it may evolve into a state... Israel refuses to empower the PA in the West Bank, cuts off its legs and arms in Jerusalem, and prevents its reach to the Gaza Strip, even on the 'day after' or the one after that. Israel is proceeding with its 'village leagues' agenda, and the most it may allow is a form of 'non-united Palestinian emirates.'

In Jerusalem, Judaization, Israelization, and intimidation schemes are intensifying. Netanyahu's government held its meeting in a settlement outpost in the Silwan neighborhood. Road signs now point to the site of the 'Temple' rather than the Holy Sanctuary, and the desecration of al-Aqsa is no longer an individual act, but a systematic, organized, and government-funded and -sponsored policy. Knesset members boast of storming the mosque in the thousands, performing Torah prayers, and practicing Talmudic rituals, while no one lifts a finger to stop it. They see what they are doing today in the al-Aqsa sanctuary and courtyards as a rehearsal for the removal of this purely Muslim site, without any fear of the sky falling, as some of us warn will happen, driven by hope, desperation, or perhaps wishful thinking.

Israel is proceeding steadily in translating its strategy toward the West Bank into reality, and it does not want anyone to disturb it, not with an unwanted visit by an Arab ministerial delegation, nor as a result of international efforts aimed at garnering international recognition of the Palestinian state and opening an 'irreversible pathway' toward the two-state solution. Unless the Arabs arm their diplomacy with some claws and fangs, this movement is not expected to change the realities on the ground. This is what Katz meant when he said, 'They are recognizing a Palestinian state on paper, while we are building a Jewish state on the ground.'

This does not mean – and should not be understood as – downplaying the importance of Arab and international diplomatic movement. Any effort that contributes to isolating Israel and stripping the legitimacy from its long, bitter occupation is a step in the right direction and, in the long run, benefits the Palestinians. But it is crucial to warn against the dangers of exaggerating the value and impact of such efforts, especially since there are certain parties leading this movement. France wants Western recognition of the Palestinian state (on paper) to be part of a package that includes Arab and Muslim recognition of, and possibly free normalization with, a Jewish Israeli state on the ground. Thus, the 'bargain' becomes unjust, rescuing Tel Aviv from the threat of isolation and ostracism.