editorials
Progress Blooms in the Desert
T he visuals from last week’s Negev
Summit were impressive. They
were also historic. Leaders from Israel,
Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, the United
Arab Emirates and the United States
met at Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev
desert, where Israel’s founding prime
minister, David Ben-Gurion, lived
and is buried. Such a meeting would
have been inconceivable two short
years ago.

And yet, following entry into the
Abraham Accords and the rap-
id-paced progress toward normaliza-
tion of relationships between Israel
and her treaty partners, such steps
in continued cooperative activities
between Accords partners have
begun to seem natural — maybe
even routine.

But the Negev Summit was much
more than a cooperative photo
opportunity or symbolic meeting.

For Israel, in particular, the sum-
mit had two key objectives. One
was the meeting between Foreign
Minister Yair Lapid and Secretary of
State Antony Blinken that focused
on the Iran nuclear talks. Reports
indicate that the meeting involved
We applaud the Negev Summit.

It was refreshing to see Israel and
Arab countries addressing issues
other than security.

some interesting exchanges, includ-
ing a request from Blinken that Prime
Minister Naftali Bennett explain the
details of his alternative approach.

The other was the foreign minis-
ters meeting of Lapid, Blinken, the
UAE’s Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed
al-Nahyan, Bahrain’s Abdullatif bin
Rashid al-Zayani, Morocco’s Nasser
Bourita and Egypt’s Sameh Shoukry,
in which discussions included the
threat from Iran, the COVID-19 pan-
demic and the impact of the war in
Ukraine on the oil and food supply
chains, among other issues.

In the words of Bennett, the Negev
Summit moved the Abraham Accords
from “ceremony to substance.” And
progress was made. Among other
things, participants established six
working groups designed to deal
with issues of security and counter-
terrorism, food and water, health,
energy, education and tourism.

Summit participants also agreed
to make the gathering a recurring
event. Over the past two years, we have
seen impressive steps toward the
normalization of security and polit-
ical relations between Israel and
Abraham Accords partners and the
establishment of a number of very
promising economic and technologi-
cal engagements. The Negev Summit
sought to expand those efforts by
fostering cooperation on a number
of issues that go beyond Iran and
trade. That further engagement by
the regional partners is another pos-
itive sign for the stability of Accords
relationships going forward.

The fate of the Palestinians was
only barely addressed during the
summit. Although several speakers
made statements about the Israeli-
Palestinian peace process and
Palestinian statehood, very little of
substance was addressed, and the
spoken words appeared to be noth-
ing more than lip service. Perhaps
new opportunities to address the
issue will come up in the context of
other cooperative consultations.

Nonetheless, we applaud the
Negev Summit. It was refreshing
to see Israel and Arab countries
addressing issues other than secu-
rity, and we are optimistic about
the multi-tiered possibilities for the
planned regional efforts and partner-
ships. Finally, we hope that the suc-
cess of the summit will help attract
others to join in the growth oppor-
tunities offered by the Abraham
Accords. JE
The Extremes Against the Center
I n last week’s heart-wrenching
reminder of Middle East volatility,
11 people were killed in Israel in three
separate terror attacks. As a frightened
civilian population grieves for the
senseless loss of life, they worry about
personal safety.

At the same time, politicians and
security personnel grapple with the
proper response to the orchestrated
bursts of violence that appear to be
motivated by movements of concil-
iation between Israel and its Arab
neighbors. The issue is made even more com-
plicated by the fact that the Muslim
month of Ramadan began over the
weekend, and Easter and Passover
are approaching. Israel’s government
knows that in this month of symbol-
ism it needs to maintain order both to
present a stable face to the world in a
16 APRIL 7, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
time of global volatility and in order to
maintain sufficient public support to
stay in power. All the while, the oppo-
sition led by former Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud
party is watching closely, as they use
last week’s killings to support the
narrative that Israel’s terror concern
is uniquely an Arab threat and one
which can only be controlled by more
security-minded leadership.

Israel’s delicately balanced coa-
lition government led by Prime
Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign
Minister Yair Lapid — which includes
the Ra’am Islamist party — has man-
aged to survive by cooperating
where possible, and avoiding con-
troversial decisions. An example of
the cooperation came in response
to last week’s killings. Ra’am’s leader
Mansour Abbas forcefully con-
demned the attacks, calling them “a
heinous and indecent terrorist crime
… against innocent civilians,” and
pledged that ”we all stand together
in the face of a murderous wave of
terror, all of us with no differences.”
In return, the government changed
the phrase “wave of murderous Arab
terror” to “wave of terror,” as part of
an effort to stop pointing an accu-
satory terror finger at every Arab in
Israel and the territories.

Nonetheless, safety and security
remain top concerns for Israeli vot-
ers. And if the attacks continue, a
rattled public could embrace what
is touted as Netanyahu and Likud’s
more security-conscious approach
— which would also bring greater
intolerance, and a more accepting
attitude toward the aggression of the
settler population’s militant side.

It is for this reason, among oth-
ers, that the Bennett government’s
decisions and actions in response to
the terror attacks are so important.

Under the current coalition regime,
the cooperative and collaborative
efforts between Jews and Arabs in
Israel are perceived as a threat to
those Arabs and Israelis for whom
ideological purity is more important
than amity. And terror feeds that
narrative. There is speculation that the
recent violence was orchestrated in
response to last week’s appearance
of the foreign ministers of Egypt,
UAE, Bahrain and Morocco at an
Abraham Accords summit in Israel.

Fortunately, the violence didn’t stop
the summit. We hope it will not be
allowed to jeopardize other coopera-
tive progress that has been made. JE