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Jerusalem Move Could Provide a Pathway to Peace

(National Interest) Ahmed Charai - President Trump's choice to recognize the Israeli capital in Jerusalem exposed a political dynamic in the region that holds new possibilities for an eventual settlement. Arab countries, historically a guarantor of strategic depth for Palestinian rejectionist forces, are increasingly a bastion of support for compromise. Moreover, talk of the demise of the U.S. as mediator in Israeli-Arab negotiations is unfounded. Arab leaderships have always perceived Washington as an essentially pro-Israel power. It earned its chair at the negotiating table not by projecting neutrality but by extending military and economic leverage toward Israelis, Palestinians and the broader region. It can only lose its role as a regional broker by losing its status as a global power. The true political departure lay within the Arab region, in the relatively modest and short-lived protests from Sunni-majority Arab countries. This weak showing matters greatly to prospects for peace. Now Arab societies have given their leaders and the world a preview of how minimally the region would convulse in the event of a future renunciation of Palestinian maximalist demands. Arab supporters of a regional peace, myself included, will continue to act on the belief that Arab conciliation begets Israeli conciliation. With this principle in mind, we see the outcome of the Jerusalem controversy as a sign that more is possible. The writer, a Moroccan publisher, is on the board of directors of the Atlantic Council and an international counselor of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
2018-01-04 00:00:00
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