Time for honesty about dialogue with Israel... There’s a healthy alternative to the hypocrisy of engaging Israel privately while condemning "normalization” publicly

Hussein Ibish is a Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP). He is a regular contributor to many American and Middle Eastern publications.

"Arabs and Israelis need to deal with each other, and all serious people in both societies know it."

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/523688-time-for-honesty-about-dialogue-with-israel

A November 19 Thomas Friedman column that mentioned that Israeli President Shimon Peres had addressed a Gulf security conference in Abu Dhabi via satellite, and that in the audience were numerous Arab and Muslim foreign ministers, at first went relatively unnoticed.

Several days later, Middle Eastern media bubbled with conspiratorial and shocking reports of a "secret speech" given by Peres to leading Arab and Muslim diplomats.

As everyone who doesn't live inside a warm cocoon of willful ignorance knows, the Arabs and Israel are in constant contact. They talk about everything from security to trade, intelligence to diplomacy.

Even its supposedly most implacable foes, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Syrian regime and, yes, Iran, are always in touch – somehow or another – with Israel.

One can have sympathy for Arab officials who may wish to keep these contacts discreet and even secret. They are understandably concerned about public opinion that is primed to misinterpret these contacts as untoward "normalization" rather than the normative reality in the Middle East....READ MORE