Israel-UAE-Bahrain agreements show Arab nations won’t let Palestinians block regional peace

And yet, four peace treaties reveal quite a different pattern. President Trump understand this, which is why he pursued peace between Arab nations and Israel rather than giving Palestinians a permanent veto of all efforts to end 72 years of Arab hostility toward the Jewish state.

Importantly, a major driver of the decision by the UAE, Bahrain and hopefully more Arab nations to normalize relations with Israel is the threat the Arab World sees from Iran, which is hostile not just to Israel and the U.S. but to Sunni Muslim Arab states. It makes sense for the Arab nations to join with Israel and the U.S. as allies against the Iranian menace.

To his great credit, President Trump reinvigorated American pressure on Iran by withdrawing from the deeply flawed nuclear deal signed by the Obama administration. As a result, confidence grew again among allies that the United States appreciated the indispensability of its power. But it was inescapable to other nations that the United States was entering a period of internal upheaval, turning inward.

The proclivity since World War II of Washington elites had been to demand that our allies yield to restraint and subordinate their bilateral relations to American intermediation and submit to the lead of our diplomats.  In return for this, America would carry the burden of defending our allies.

The Trump administration upended the arrangement. We now ask our allies to carry their fair share of defending themselves so we can do less. At the same time, the Trump administration has untethered allies to purse their interests with less deference to demands for restraint by the U.S., but in coordination with each other.

The result was dramatized by the agreements signed Tuesday between the UAE, Bahrain and Israel: More and more Arab nations realize they have to reach out to Israel and band together to pursue their interests, even survival. They understand they can no longer afford the luxury of being held hostage to Palestinian vagaries.

Once again, Palestinian aspirations were acknowledged in the agreements signed Tuesday, including a halt at least temporarily to Israeli plans to annex portions of the West Bank that the Palestinians want for their own state. But peace and strategic cooperation transcended the Palestinian decades-old veto.

The agreements signed Tuesday should be a wake-up call to Palestinian leaders: they can no longer dictate to the entire Arab World to block peace and normal relations with Israel. Arab nations will rightly pursue their own self-interest — and that means cooperation with Israel must inevitably replace confrontation.

Indeed, it is likely that the Palestinian people themselves — not leaders, but those who live in daily contact with Israel — are arriving at this same conclusion. At some point, even Palestinian leaders will have to conclude that endless hostility to Israel is not in their own self-interest.