The Trump administration has brokered a deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates that normalized ties between the countries. Israel agreed to suspend the plan to annex the West Bank.
Perhaps the most important part of this (from my not very well informed perspective) is that the Palestinians no longer hold a veto over these decisions.
Haven’t listened to it all the way. Just the first 15-20 seconds, and in some ways you can see how biased it is. For example, “Decades after Israel’s independence….” I wouldn’t call it that. “Independence” in an American context implies something noble and righteous. I’d probably say “decades after Israel stole the land from the indigenous Palestinians…”
Fair enough. A basically pro-Israel perspective is pretty much baked into the cake with most American news.
And if you go public with a pro-Palestinian view, you will be tarred and feathered as an anti-Semite so fast it’ll make your head swim.
It’s true that I don’t think I’ve had many conversations over the years about Israel with anti-Israeli types where I haven’t suspected that anti-Semitism is among their motives. (I used to know a guy on a forum who would find a way to work Israel into every thread, like you’d say “The Leafs had another postseason failure” and he’d say “if only Israel weren’t so oppressive!” or something and presumably nod in satisfaction to himself. Not sure if it was intentional or if it was a tic he didn’t even recognize.)
Or maybe influences is a better word than motives, it’s sometimes hard to figure out what’s going on. For example, there’s a bizarre stream of Holocaust denial running through certain branches of American libertarian movements, and the more anti-fascist and anti-empire they are, the more they seem inclined to fall into it. I have no theory that makes sense, except maybe that the more you disagree with the majority view and find yourself unfairly attacked, the more you’ll feel connected to other out-of-favour groups and their gnostic promise of knowing the secret truth other people don’t dare to say?
In the real world, since Israel isn’t going anywhere, gradual steps on the part of the Arab sphere (Arab, not Muslim, since Turkey seems to have taken a step back) towards normalization seem modest but helpful.