Jerusalem May Appear As the Epi-Center for the Peace with the Gulf

I met yesterday in a place near Jericho a senior in the PA and we discussed the peace between Israel and the Gulf, and I found out that not much changed in the Palestinian mid-set that the Palestinian problem is the core of everything in the ME. The senior told me that the “peoples” in the ME will not let the Emirates to go on with the peace with Israel, and they themselves will not dare to take concrete action to materialize the agreements.

I asked him about the fact that the Palestinians in the WB did not mobilize in the “rage day” and he told me that what matters is the pressures in the Arab world on the Gulf, and not the demos in the PA. I disagreed with him, but this is what they think in Ramallah.

I asked some young Palestinians about the Israeli-Gulf peace and I found out that they were offended by the fact that their brothers in the Gulf didn’t care about them and they are left alone.  

An interesting part of our talk was about Jerusalem. The senior said that there is no way that Jordan and the Palestinians will accept any change in the current joint partnership with al-Aqsa and they will not accept any Saudi or Gulf involvement in the Aqsa, and they are not alone.

According to what he explained, Saudi involvement in al-Aqsa would not be accepted by Egypt either because there is a long competition between Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the leadership of the Arab world and a Saudi involvement in the Aqsa administration will give them an edge over  Egypt.

Also, Morocco a kingdom of Sherifi origin, that’s to say descendants of the prophet Muhammad, will not let the Saudi involvement in Aqsa. So, Jordan and the PA will not stand alone in this front.

This is what they think in the Muqata’a. I think that they are wrong. In reality, the Palestinians are alone, and king Abdallah already understood that sharing Fatah in the Waqf Council did not help much and according to my Jordanian sources if Jordan will be offered economic aid, they will accept the joining in other Arab and Muslim powers on condition that Jordan will stay as the leader of the new guardianship.