Arab world insists on support of West for Palestinian statehood

An Egyptian Foreign Ministry source told Al-Monitor about Cairo’s disappointment over the United States' rejection on Dec. 31 of the Jordanian proposal on Palestinian statehood at the UN Security Council. "The United States probably does not understand how important the progress on the Palestinian track is to our continued participation at the anti-Islamic State [IS] coalition," the source said. "Our ability to participate stems also from the mood in the street — which the US has probably never fully understood. Egyptians, mainly the youth, follow on a daily basis the state of their Palestinian brethren under Israeli occupation."

Indeed, Egyptian officials also contributed to the Jordanian effort to reach an accepted compromise formula with the French on the UN Security Council bid. According to the Cairo official, his government was dismayed by the fact that the United States did not issue a declaration in favor of the proposed timeline for negotiations and of the 1967 lines: “We, as well as our Jordanian counterparts, feel that the US administration is dancing to the tune of [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his anti-peace policies.”

The official told Al-Monitor that recent consultations between Egyptian and Arab League officials included a thorough analysis of the predicament brought up by the pragmatic Arab countries. On the one hand, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries take part in the Western camp's fight against fundamentalism, Iran’s nuclear ambitions and IS and al-Qaeda terror. On the other hand, this stance is not an easy sell to their respective constituencies, especially in Jordan and Egypt; the Islamist religious groups still have an impact on public opinion. The West, and especially the United States, are often branded and abhorred as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim. The more the Americans and Europeans are perceived as advancing the emotionally-loaded Palestinian statehood issue, the easier it will be for the pragmatic Arab states to cooperate on other strategic issues. This is true especially concerning a potential Iranian deal and the struggle against IS. The Egyptian official also said that the issue in question is actually the Western coalition, more than support for the Palestinians.

Consultations between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and their representatives have intensified lately. Cairo has offered to dispatch Egyptian military forces to the future Palestinian state as part of the eventual security arrangements. Possibly most important was the latest diplomatic joint effort by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to curb Qatar’s support for Hamas terror. Cairo will continue to fight Hamas terrorism and at the same time may attempt to bring the political Hamas leadership closer to Cairo. The official summarized by saying that, come spring of this year, the Arab pragmatic axis will have to decide on its future strategies, especially given the nature of the next Israeli government and the post-election US policy on the Palestinian statehood issue.