Israel, UAE & Bahrain - 15 September 2020

Today’s peace ceremony at the White House showed as much about the greatness of Donald Trump as it did the moral bankruptcy of the media that censored it from their newsfeeds.

Watching Netanyahu at the subsequent press conference brought to mind this 2009 picture:

Obama’s face of seething enmity that never had a chance of achieving a fraction of the progress that has been demonstrated today in a region and struggle that has defied virtually every world leader to grapple with for over seven decades.

Imagine what Netanyahu must have felt after that meeting 11 years ago? Having to endure 4 years under a newly elected US president who made his first priority a visit to Cairo to apologise for America and to make sure that the Muslim Brotherhood was allowed to attend his speech, and helped it overthrow Mubarak in Egypt.

Netanyahu critics on the Left will for once unite with critics on the Right in debunking the notion that this was the first non-land for peace deal. They will say that Netanyahu gave away sovereignty.

The truth is that our people always had sovereignty and always will over the land of Israel, by our divine title deed and by our strength as the most powerful force in the region. The moment the Jordan Valley ever becomes an active front line, our forces shall have it – within the space of a day, or more likely an hour or two.

What’s more important is the trust and prosperity that can be built on this historic day, to end the gulf states’ enrichment of corrupt leaders like Abbas and Haniyeh and allow the Palestinian street to rise up, overthrow them and usher in a better future for their children and ours.

Covid and the Courts

As Israel faces a second lockdown amid spiking Covid infections, it is utterly disgraceful that the packed protests are allowed to continue nightly outside Netanyahu's office and home in Jerusalem.

Anyone who knows Bibi will tell you that even if the mob were three or four times the size, it would not intimidate him into leaving office. He knows who is funding and fuelling this campaign and will never cave in to it.

But what's more important is the flagrant abuse of Covid rules. Thousands of people packed into a tight area, mostly unmasked and literally spitting the most hysterical abuse is a clear public health violation.

And yet left-wing judges continue to ignore the pleas of local residents to order a stop and allow them to get their children to sleep at night. The right to demonstrate and freedom of speech are deemed more important than the health and wellbeing of law abiding citizens who believe in the democratic process.

Compare this to the right wing Jewish protests against the Oslo Accords nearly 30 years ago. Judges of the same stripe were quick to clamp down, ruling that the right to demonstrate was "not absolute" and needed to be balanced with the right to privacy of the prime minister, his family and neighbors.

One rule for Rabin and another for Netanyahu.