Analyst: West Bank unravelling
In a recent AIJAC webinar, Dr Shany Mor, former director for Foreign Policy on Israel's National Security Council explained that the situation has become unstable due to economic pressures from the COVID pandemic, disagreements with the PA and tensions over PA President Mahmoud Abbas' succession.
The status quo that has held between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank since 2007 is unravelling, according to Dr Shany Mor, former director for Foreign Policy on Israel’s National Security Council, who recently spoke at a webinar hosted by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).
Mor pointed to the West Bank town of Jenin as an example which was once relatively quiet in regards to terrorism, but this year has become a hotbed of jihadism.
He noted this led Israel to arrest a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader in Jenin, which in turn led to PIJ threatening to attack Israel from Gaza, and then to the recent Gaza conflict. Mor argued that the situation has become unstable due to economic pressures from the COVID pandemic, disagreements with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and tensions over PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ succession.
In order to address these issues, Mor argued that Israel’s best strategy would be to work on “four planes” – bilaterally with the Palestinians, regionally with the Arab states, globally and unilaterally – picking the most advantageous avenue on each.
A bilateral negotiation with the Palestinians to end the conflict is currently a “fantasy”, he said, but there are ways to reach a better status quo through negotiations which would make a final status agreement more likely in the future.
He suggested that in the absence of a peace agreement, Israel should take unilateral steps, coordinated with the US or PA, to evacuate nine or 10 settlements out of the 125, which would make the conflict more manageable.
“The regional aspect is important”, he said, because while the Palestinians viewed the Abraham Accords as a “betrayal” by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, who now have diplomatic relations with Israel, it is actually the “best thing that could happen to them,” because previously Arab states had prevented the Palestinians from compromising, but now many will help them to do so.
Mor said the “worst thing that happened to the Palestinians was that their struggle was subsumed by the cosmic Arab struggle” against Israel, and this left no room for compromise.
He said the Abraham Accords are good for Israel, the region and the Palestinians and that the “world should be encouraging more normalisation agreements between Israel and the Arab states.”
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