Whatever disadvantages may accompany the imminent agreement between the six powers and Iran on its nuclear ambitions, the deal represents a great diplomatic achievement, writes Abdelbari Atwan.
In addition, the tension the deal has generated between the US and Israel is an advantage for the Palestinians at a time when our fellow Arabs seem to have completely forgotten about the Israel occupation of our lands with some nations even agreeing to “normalize” relations with the Zionist state.
For us, returning to our lands remains a sacred duty at the top of our list of priorities.
Media reports from Tel Aviv suggest that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s arrogant peacock, is incensed by the possibility that the economic embargo of Iran might be lifted in exchange for Tehran agreeing to freeze uranium enrichment operations with at an upper limit of 20 percent.
Netanyahu is devastated that the possibility for a US-led military strike on Iran is now relegated to a dim, almost forgotten, possibility. This is why Netanyahu refused to shake hands with John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, during a tense meeting between them at the airport before the latter flew to Geneva amid mounting hopes that an interim agreement with Iran would be signed.
What Netanyahu and many Israelis fail to understand is that the rudeness and contempt he displays when a US official fails to do his bidding is no longer acceptable in the world’s eyes.
Changing balance of power
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The changing balance of power and the emergence of new global powers has broken the monopoly of the American-led military and economic dominance in the region. The US is forced to adapt to these changes, Israel has yet to understand what is happening.
When American hegemony dominated the Middle East, the weaker western and regional powers allowed themselves to be ruled by Washington’s Zionist lobby.
As a result nobody shrank from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, more recently, the military intervention in Libya, instigated and championed by Bernard-Henri Lévy (known as BHL), the French thinker who wielded an unreasonable amount of power and influence over then President Sarkozy. BHL had the interests of Israel at heart and was seeking to weaken strong, militarized Arab nations in order to lessen the threat to the Zionist state’s security.
Israel’s security has become a burden on its allies in the West; in addition, it is becoming a moral embarrassment with its daily humiliations of, and injustice towards, the Palestinians. Satellite television and social media has freed information from the control of corporations too often dominated by Zionists and every citizen of any country can find out the historical and contemporary truth about the plight of the Palestinians if they so wish.
Governments – especially those operating some form of democracy – have had to adapt to these seismic changes.
Western mistakes
When the six powers go to Geneva and negotiate with Iran, then, it is on the basis of their own self-interest, not the interests of Israel. They now recognize the massive mistakes made in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan and see quite clearly that the results of their military adventures and occupations are failed states, torn apart by sectarian and ethnic conflict; anarchic states which have become a breeding ground and haven for the jihadi groups which represent a threat not only to Israel but to their own homeland security.
It is a strange new phenomenon that Arab states who formerly stood in the trenches with the Palestinians first began to acquiesce to American dictates and now seem to want to jump directly into the Israeli camp! The reason is a shared fear of Iranian regional dominance.
America is afraid of hitting Iran because the cost could be very high; reaching an agreement with Tehran and forming a new regional alliance is a wiser move.
Barack Obama did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize to start new wars but to extinguish existing ones.
Although he continues the obnoxious and morally indefensible campaign of murderous drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Obama’s focus is clearly moving away from the Middle East as he seeks new alliances, new markets and new economic possibilities.
Without the threat of superpower violence to back up its bullying, its arrogance and its wars, the influence of Israel will wane and its historical and emotional blackmail will no longer suffice to justify its crimes.
