Every time the United States (and Israel) wants concessions from the Arabs, it resorts to activating negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. And every time the Arabs, or some of them, offer concessions, Washington and Tel Aviv escalate, with the latter tightening its control over additional Palestinian territories and creating new facts on the ground to obstruct any progress in negotiations or in reaching a settlement. After the major concession offered by Egypt under Sadat and the ratification of the Camp David Accords, Israel took advantage of the fact that Cairo had left the conflict to invade Lebanon and occupy an Arab capital for the first time, and to annex the Golan. After the Palestinians conceded in Oslo, it took the opportunity to build more settlements and close in on Jerusalem. When the Arabs put forward their Peace Initiative at the Beirut Summit in 2002, it stopped all negotiations, invaded the West Bank, besieged historical Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and then poisoned him. Also, when the Sirte Summit (in 2010) reached the decision to resume negotiations with Israel within four months, it added the Cave of the Patriarchs (Sanctuary of Abraham) and Rachel's Tomb (Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque) to its national list of Jewish heritage sites. Today the United States returns in an attempt to activate the peace process, and its Secretary of State, John Kerry, is making use of his many friends in the region to return the Palestinians to the negotiations table. Indeed, he finds in Syria being busy with its domestic situation, in the Hamas movement having distanced itself from Damascus and Tehran, and in the Muslim Brotherhood's Egypt declaring that it would not abandon or reconsider the accords, in addition to sealing the tunnels to Gaza, a valuable opportunity to convince the Arabs that the time is right to put forward the Arab Peace Initiative once again and to reformulate it in a manner that would be more pleasing to Israel. And if it is too early to judge Kerry's diplomacy when it comes to the Palestinian issue, some of the stances that have been issued on his part and on that of President Barack Obama are indicative of the nature of the move made by Washington at this stage. After Obama mediated between Israel and Turkey, and after Netanyahu apologized by telephone to Erdogan for killing Turkish nationals in the known attack on the Mavi Marmara, and the latter accepted his apology, Kerry visited Istanbul and urged the government of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to restore diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv (military and trade relations were never interrupted). He said in a joint press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that “Turkey can be a key, an important contribution to the process of peace in so many ways" and that “a country as vibrant and energized as Turkey can have a profound impact on the peace process". The truth of the matter is that reconciliation between Netanyahu and Erdogan through American mediation aims beyond restoring relations between Washington's two main allies in the Middle East. Indeed, the United States, after having become reassured to the fact that enmity between the Arabs and Iran had reached the point of no return, is now trying to form a new alliance, with Turkey and Israel as its main pillars, to confront the repercussions of the wars taking place in Syria, after they stop or move to neighboring countries. Such an alliance would form a supporting pillar for the ongoing confrontation with Tehran, after taking away from the latter the Palestinian issue as an asset – one which had brought it in the first place to the shores of the Mediterranean through Syria. In preparation for activating the old yet new alliance between Turkey and Israel, Washington has sought, and continues to seek, through Ankara and its mediation, to convince Hamas (as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood) to recognize Israel's right to exist and join the march to peace led by Abu Mazen, with Egypt's blessing, in view of the ideological connection between Cairo's Brotherhood and the leaders of the movement in Gaza. Such an alliance would play an active role in obstructing any role Iran might play in the Palestinian issue, in addition to obstructing its role in Syria and Iraq. Signs of such a direction being taken have begun to appear in the historical reconciliation between Turkey and its Kurdish population, in the strengthening of relations with the Kurdistan Province, and in the pressure exerted on Baghdad, which is still unable to confront such an alliance, especially as it includes the Islamic majority in the face of its Iranian ally. Making such an alliance public may take some time, but it has become a reality, and it will begin to take action by working to return the Palestinians and the Israelis to the negotiations table. Once again, the United States and Israel are taking advantage of the Palestinian issue to deepen the rift among Arabs and to obtain further concessions.
