Thread by @marcowenjones

My article today in @haaretzcom about the so-called "Peace Deal" - Opinion | The real peacemaker this week was Qatar, not UAE. Here's why haaretz.com/middle-east-ne…

"There is perhaps no better metaphor for the so-called Israel-UAE "peace" deal than the first El Al flight, LY971, that flew from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi yesterday. Emblazoned above the cockpit windows was the word the UAE and Israeli governments wanted to the world to see..."

"Yet ironically, barely a meter below, but still visible, was the plane’s name: Kiryat Gat, an Israeli town formerly known as Al Faluja. As Benny Morris pointed out, in 1949 the local Arab population was beaten, harassed and robbed by Israeli soldiers until they left. "

"This reminder of historic violence, juxtaposed with a disingenuous assertion of peace, is not a paradox those supportive of the deal want you to see. But it is an inevitable outcome of a poorly scripted media stunt, one that is actually about propping up embattled leaders as..."

"peacemakers, while masking the complex reality of an occupation that shows no signs of ending. Indeed, the nauseating media coverage of the Israeli plane landing is akin to what the historian Daniel Boorstin called a pseudo-event."

"A pseudo-event is something staged for the purpose of positive publicity, but one that holds little real value in and of itself.... pseudo-events can increasingly be staged to detract from some form of political failure, or at least a failure to meet political expectation"

"...the purpose was to provide the illusion that Kushner’s Mideast "deal of the century" had somehow already materialized, lending political capital to an increasingly unpopular Donald Trump ahead of the U.S. election, while also shoring up Netanyahu’s political fortunes"

"Those suggesting the "peace trio" (Trump, Netanyahu, MBZ) be awarded the Nobel Prize have been fooled. But just as George Bush stood in 2003 in front of a banner emblazoned with the premature message, "Mission Accomplished," peace was not accomplished in Abu Dhabi this week"

"Not least because this is not a peace deal between two sides in conflict with each other, and because while Israel and UAE officials were exchanging pleasantries, Israeli warplanes and Hamas were exchanging bombs over the border."

This climate of fear, abetted by the UAE’s very real treatment of its political dissidents (fittingly with the assistance of Israeli spyware), was underpinned when Hasan Sajwani, an Emirate Twitter user and notably prolificpro-Israel troll, who boasts 78,000 followers and ...

...a verified account, instructed his fans to report to the Attorney-General all those who "disrespected" the decisions of the UAE’s leadership

"Perhaps paradoxically, all the fanfare of a pseudo-peace between UAE and Israel has distracted from the real-world peacemaking in which the UAE’s regional rival Qatar, was simultaneously engaged, seeking to dampen an escalating situation in Gaza...."

"...Qatari financial aid has been a key component of a functioning truce between Hamas & Israel since 2018. Yet for its talk of peace, the UAE is widely considered the architect of the strategy to isolate Qatar – precisely for its role facilitating truces between Hamas & Israel"

"The UAE-Israel "peace deal" whitewashes the grievances of millions of Palestinians, who have been usurped by the UAE as legitimate interlocutors in their own future by the creation of a faux ‘peace’ between two countries that were never even at war. "

"By reporting it as a historic peace deal, the media are simplifying and marginalizing ongoing real and rhetorical violence against Palestinians, and indulging the personal ambitions of men who have long sought to aggravate, rather than minimize, conflict in the region"