ISRAEL has made nonsense of the normalisation of ties with Gulf nations by going ahead with its plan of building illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
On Friday, foreign ministers of five European nations — Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Spain — issued a joint statement condemning Israel's latest move, saying it is against international law and long-term peace (NST, Oct 16).
They are right to condemn Israel. But they should not stop there. They should compel Israel to withdraw from all the occupied land and work towards a two state solution.
Israel and the Gulf states must be told that without a Palestinian state for the Palestinians, there will never be peace in the Middle East.
This noise of words from Europe will not stop the recalcitrant Zionist regime from stealing Palestinian land. If all Europe could do is issue one lame statement after another against illegal Israeli settlements, the world will one day wake up to see the whole of Palestine turned into one big apartheid Zionist state.
The Europe of 1948 watched in silence, nay, it even encouraged, South Africa to go apartheid white. Europe, especially Britain, had a role in the forceful eviction of Palestinians from their homeland to create Israel.
Is Europe on a public relations campaign, condemning the Zionist regime in words, but quietly urging on the right-wing Israelis?
We have known such Western sham before, but what is shocking is the abandonment of an old Arab understanding by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain: normalisation of relations only after surrender of occupied land.
Little wonder the Palestinians are calling the Emirati and Bahraini move a betrayal of the Palestinian cause.
To be exact, a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people, as Al Jazeera put it.
Israeli Huzam Zomlot's op-ed in Haaretz, an Israeli English daily, says it all: the UAE and Bahrain have rewarded Israel for nothing.
Two is not enough for United States President Donald Trump and his Zionist-leaning evangelist sponsors. They want more Arab states to reward Israel for nothing. They are bent on enticing Saudi Arabia next.
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made this enticement public as he met Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, who, Al Jazeera says, was in Washington "for a US Saudi strategic dialogue at the State Department... that included discussions about relations with Israel, the US' 'maximum pressure' campaign against Iran and the war in Yemen".
Interestingly, all this hoodwinking is happening as the Zionist regime builds more illegal settlements with the nod of the Trump regime.
Palestinians may be happy, at least for the moment. Media reports coming out of Washington point to Saudi Arabia being not ready to normalise relations with Israel.
We hope this is true for the sake of the Palestinians. The Arabs mustn't buckle under pressure. They must stand by their "land for peace" accord, come what may.
No doubt, the Zionist regime and the Trump administration are hard at work undermining the "land for peace" principle.
American propaganda is thick with reports of this and that Arab country being ready to sign a "peace for peace" agreement with Israel.
Notice the Trump trickery: "land for peace" has become "peace for peace".
The "land" is now all Israel's. It is May 14, 1948, all over again. Only now it is, Eretz Yisrael. The world is being prepared for another genocide of the Palestinians.