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Netanyahu's Vision for the Middle East Has Come True
(Ha'aretz) Anshel Pfeffer and Davide Lerner - Representatives of Arab League member states at the MED 2018 conference in Rome last Thursday either ignored or downplayed the Palestinian issue. Instead, on the stage and behind the scenes, there seemed much more appetite for normalization with Israel. Oman's Foreign Minister said it quite clearly when he called on the Arab world to "come to terms with the reality that Israel is a fact of life in the region," and therefore should have its share of "rights as well as obligations." Even Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, seemed to realize that this wasn't a venue for Israel-bashing and refrained from mentioning Israel in his talk. One senior Middle Eastern diplomat commented that "the basic fact is that, for better or worse, the world isn't bothering Israel anymore about the Palestinians. It's a total change of paradigm." One leading European expert on the Middle East echoed the widespread feeling. "It's hard for me now to convince editors and think-tank directors of the need to write papers on Israel and Palestine. No one can see any point, and quite frankly, I'm not sure I can either."