For Palestine’s negotiations strategy to work, Gulf must be united
Reports about an end of the nearly four-year Gulf crisis pitting a Saudi-led bloc of nations against Qatar is a good omen for the Palestinians, who are seeking to restart the stalled Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process.
Regardless of whether the Donald Trump administration is credited with the Saudi-Qatari rapprochement, peace in the Gulf is a net gain for Palestine.
Hussein al-Sheikh, the powerful member of the Fatah Central Committee and minister of civil affairs in the Palestinian government, tweeted Dec. 3 about the support of the Palestinian leadership. “The #Palestinian leadership welcomes any Arab-Arab rapprochement and the rejection of differences, because we believe that the #Arab position’s unity will serve the Palestinian cause and the causes of our Arab nation.”
Sheikh — who has accompanied, along with Majid Faraj, the head of the Palestinian intelligence, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in meetings with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi — has been taking the lead in reflecting Palestinian positions. Ever since the Palestinian leadership decided on Nov. 17 to retract its boycott of the Israelis, Hussein has been the main spokesman of issues related to Israel and negotiations.
But the support for Gulf reconciliation has many other advantages not directly connected with Arab-Israeli talks. A large number of Palestinians work in all Gulf countries, especially in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Both Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been major donors of Palestine, and when the conflict between the two countries became public in 2017, pressure was exerted on the Palestinian leadership to take sides. It didn’t, but this decision was costly because it came in parallel to the economic pressures that were being brought on the Palestinian leadership by both the Trump administration and Israel.
