It's incredible to watch how the majority of the Israeli press is covering the rapid implementation of the "Abraham Accords" between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Everything from the ratification of the treaty by the Knesset and government in Abu Dhabi, the Israeli delegation's normalization visit to Bahrain, and the launch of direct commercial flights between the UAE and Israel have simply been marginalized and downplayed.
As if these developments are nothing but annoying background noise, distracting attention from the "main" story: the protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and in retrospect, against the successful diplomatic approach that has all but buried the Oslo Accords and the nuclear deal with Iran, and threatens to nullify the "country of all its citizens" vision peddled by the Israeli left.
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What has transpired in the Middle East in the two months since the Abraham Accords were dramatically announced is more than an earthquake. It is an actual tectonic shift, which is reshaping the face of the Middle East after 72 years of unnecessary Arab-Israeli conflict. Anyone seeking proof of this is invited to watch the Kohelet Policy Forum, Shiloh Forum and Israel Hayom symposium titled "The Abraham Accords: Towards a New Middle East?" on the Israel Hayom website.
The depth of the change in the approach to Israel by many across the Middle East is astonishing, almost incomprehensible. And I say this as someone who intimately experienced the peace euphoria of the early 1990s – at the Madrid Conference, the peace talks in Washington, and the Oslo process. What we are now witnessing is fundamentally different: This isn't just peace between leaders, nor is it accompanied by lip-service or efforts to sabotage progress and violate agreements. It is a deep-rooted paradigm shift, championed by a younger generation that is sick and tired of paying the heavy price of a foreign conflict forced upon it by previous generations.
This is the younger generation of Emiratis, Saudis, Bahrainis, Kuwaitis, Egyptians and Jordanians – mostly with academic degrees generally acquired in the United States and Europe, where they were exposed for the first time to relationships with Jews and Israelis who changed their worldview about the "enemy." They experienced the hopes, disappointments and fallout from the Arab Spring. And they realized that if they want to see a better future in their lifetime – Israel is not the problem, rather part of the solution. Not just because of the need to recognize the right of the "other" to exist in the Middle East, but because of the need to recognize that the problems and calamities the nations of the region have experienced were brought upon themselves by their own hands.
The Palestinian insistence on eternalizing the conflict with Israel, at any cost, is viewed by the younger generation of Arabs as a symbol of the chains of the past that need to be broken to move forward. They are no longer willing to let the Palestinians hold them hostage to their whims. In the new Middle East, which is taking shape before our very eyes, Israel is a source of inspiration and the Palestinians are a source of disgust.
Instead of turning inwards, Israelis now need to open their eyes to what is happening around them, listen to the clear voices from all directions, and open themselves up to this great change. For decades, we dreamed, hoped and fought to become part of our region. Now, when it's finally happening, it would be unforgivable to ignore it just because a group of bored opportunists wants to destroy "the country that was stolen from them."
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