The Donald has been a busy boy. The latest "squirrel" his administration has concocted to distract the press and the public from the shitstorm that is America today, is the big announcement of diplomatic normalization between Israel, the United Arab Emirate, and Bahrain. Bibi Netanyahu, and the representatives of the UAE and Bahrain met in the White House for a photo opportunity. A feather in the cap of Trump and his little elfin son-in-law. Jared. Not hardly.
The three countries have simply formalized what had been normally occurring for years. But both Trump and Bibi need this pomp and glitz to help them in their respective countries. The Donald is pushing for a Nobel Peace Prize. He has been nominated for, not one but two, Nobel Awards by a Scandinavian right-wing group. Good luck with that. All that it took to get these two Arab countries to sit still for for the signing was the promise to keep selling them sophisticated weapons and fighter jets. That and their mutual hatred and distrust of Iran.
Before you get too excited over peace in the middle-east, lets have a closer look at what exactly this agreement insures. The concessions from Israel? None. Netanyahu declared even before the inking of the agreement that "annexation is still on the table". He believes that because the UAE offered this olive branch for naught, just proves that Israel does not have to give up land for peace. The Arab and Muslim countries have had a long standing agreement since the "Arab Peace Initiative" was passed unanimously in 2002, which offered diplomatic normalizations with Israel in exchange for Israel's withdrawal from the area seized in the 1967 war. In doing so, Israel would have to abide by international law. All the more of a stab in the back to the Palestinians by the UAE and Bahrain, and making it even more difficult to establish a two-state solution. The US has lost all credibility in those negotiations.
The Arab Peace Initiative would have given Israel veto power over future Palestinian rights. Israel not only rejected the proposal it has continued to bulldoze Palestinian homes to make room for more settlements. The right-wing government of Bibi Netanyahu has continued to support the outright annexation of even more territory. So, what does the signing of today's agreement mean? Not much. With a population of 1.4 million people for the UAE and 1.6 million for Bahrain, the break-away by these two countries is hardly a consensus of the middle-east countries whose aggregate population is 423 million Arabs and 1.8 billion Muslims.
Needless to say, both Trump and Netanyahu are over the top delighted to have coerced these two Arab countries to the table, without any concessions by Israel. But as the old saying goes; "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". And now all three will have substantially greater fire-power to deter any advances by Iran. And Trump he gets bragging rights, and the little elf, he gets a pat on the head from his wife the Trumpette. But in fact, Trump getting these three together is like putting the Trump name on a hotel that is already built.
And the distraction, well the great peace initiative has driven the pandemic, the wild fires and even the hurricane off the news for a while. But they are still there, and Trump cannot hide for very long. Americans are still dying at a rate of 1000 per day; forest fires are still raging in federal preserves that have been stripped of their funding under the Trump administration; and hurricane Sally is dallying just outside on the coast of Louisiana threatening to dump 3 feet of rain on already water-logged ground. And Trump has 'borrowed' the FEMA funds to give a pittance to those unemployed by the pandemic, for only six weeks before the money runs out.
Things just keep getting worse, Perhaps he can try his hand at getting Serbia and Kosovo to sign a peace agreement. They were getting close until the ham-handed Trump administration stepped in and unraveled the negotiations by insisting that both countries move their embassies to Jerusalem. That must be the work of the little elf. Maybe his real estate holding company has some cheap property in the Yemin Moshe neighborhood that they are trying to unload.
I'm just sayin'
