1) At the JCPA Pinhas Inbari documents developments in ‘The Long-Simmering Feud between “Inside” Palestinians and the Outsiders from Tunis’.
“Tensions between Mohammad Dahlan supporters and Mahmoud Abbas loyalists have escalated in the West Bank. In Ramallah, Palestinian Authority security forces entered the al-Am’ari refugee camp, close to the city center, to arrest Dahlan supporters and quash the potential for an armed takeover of Ramallah. In the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, one of Dahlan’s senior commanders was killed on October 31, 2020.
The tensions came to an explosive head because of the peace agreements between Israel and the Gulf States and reports that Dahlan is affiliated with the Emirates.”
2) Eran Lerman explains how ‘Egypt’s Support of Normalization is part of the Mediterranean Alignment’ at the JISS.
“The Government of Egypt has warmly welcomed the normalization agreements between Israel and three Arab countries (including Sudan, with which Egypt has a deep and influential relationship). This is a sharp departure from Egyptian practices of the past and constitutes one of the rewards of Israel’s commitment to a new Mediterranean alignment of forces.
Regarding the question of EEZ delineation (and the related struggle for the future of Libya), Israel has lent open support for the Greek and Egyptian position, in the face of Turkish provocations and in rejection of the Turkish-Libyan claims. This is an important aspect of strategic commonality between Israel and the positions of Egypt, the UAE and France. In parallel with the recent Greek-Cypriot-Egyptian summit, Israel’s Minister for Regional Cooperation visited Greece to sign a cooperation plan which brings together Israel, Greece, Cyprus, the UAE and Bahrain. This was followed by Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi’s trilateral talks, also in Athens, with his Greek and Cypriot colleagues.”
3) Einat Wilf clarifies why ‘Rabin wouldn’t have brought peace’ at the Forward.
“…the reason to be suspicious of the myth of the Rabin assassination killing peace is not just because of how neatly it fits into the wishful thinking of Western storytelling. The myth has persisted for another reason, too: because it rests on the belief that we cannot know what would have happened had he lived.
But we actually do: When he died, Rabin was already on his way to being trounced in direct elections by the up and coming Benjamin Netanyahu. Rabin was going to lose because there was a cavernous gulf between the handshakes on manicured lawns following elevated speeches about peace on the one hand, and the bloody massacres carried out by Palestinian suicide bombers against Israeli civilians on the other. And this gulf did not endear Israelis to the cause of peace. In the highly unlikely case that Rabin would have won the elections, the Israeli public would have pressured him to put the breaks on the so-called peace process, and there is evidence that he was already planning to do so.”
4) At the Fathom Journal Alan Johnson discusses the tradition of Left-wing antisemitism.
“The Equalities and Human Rights Commission investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party has found the party responsible for unlawful acts of discrimination and harassment and three breaches of the 2010 Equality Act. And as Caroline Waters, Interim Chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, has said the problem was the party leadership’s ‘lack of willingness’ to tackle antisemitism.
But what explains that ‘lack of willingness’? How did a party dedicated to anti-racism end up with what Shadow Minister Jonathan Ashworth has described as the most shameful moment in its history?
The answer is: because of a smelly old left-wing idea about Jews that has been embellished by a smelly new left-wing idea about ‘Zionists’ and Israel. Left-wing antisemitism did not begin in 2015.”
