Fatah

Some sort of shared goal which is focused on peace, coexistence, tolerance and that same acceptance that we were talking about before.

And that fifth element is equally crucial because if there are those in the Arab and Muslim world and their leadership from Turkey and Qatar through, of course, Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah and the Islamic State and Fatah, the heads of the Palestinian Authority and others, who see as their purpose the destruction of the State of Israel, and the more radical among them in the Islamist and jihadist ideology, the killing of Jews, Muslims and anybody they describe as infidels, if that's their goal, If that gives them a sense of purpose, then we obviously not only have nothing to talk about, but we certainly have no real possibility for peace in our region.

But if we share the goal of real peace, of coexistence, of living together in neighborly beneficial relations, then that issue of the fifth element, the sense of purpose becomes central to our ability to look forward and to build that kind of peace between us.

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And that's something that's a little bit harder to answer your question for people to hear or understand because There's too much ignorance about what now is being presented to Muslim and Arab societies as what is Islam, what is Arab tradition, and not enough understanding of the true moderate nature of normative traditional Islam in Arab society.

so to wrap up our discussion for today mr arya if you could sit down with one leader israeli palestinian or a global and they generally had to listen what would you tell them i

would tell them very simply do not be under the illusion that a signed agreement with a fanatic Islamist jihadist terrorist ideological regime or leadership whether that might be Iran or Hamas or Hezbollah today or the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas who may not be religiously Islamist but are certainly as ideologically committed to Israel's destruction and against any legitimacy that Israel is offered or receives.

And it includes the Qatar and the Turkey and the other regimes who are very, very hostile, not just to Israel, but to the West and to the free world, not to suffer any illusion that a signed agreement will have any lasting impact and rather to do what Andriy Sakharov and Natan Sharansky and the leaders of the human rights movement in the Soviet Union advocated in the 1970s, which was actually implemented in the 1980s, late 70s early 80s where they said the only way to enable the people of under a dictatorial regime to rise up against their dictatorial leaders is to show them that they have support from the rest of the world to throw off the yoke of the tyranny back then of the soviet union or today of the iranians and one of the main ways to do that is to leverage whatever leverage we have back then it was wheat sales it was most favored nation status that was offered by the united states to uh to the soviet union it was an insistence by the united states that the soviet union open up their society with opposition newspapers being allowed to publish for instance and open up their societies to more freedom of movement and freedom of uh of uh organization and um and people coming together in small groups, freedom of assembly, these ideas have to be promoted by Western powers.

The background to this is that the Israelis and Hamas were engaged in, you know, back channel kind of indirect negotiations over the potentially lifting the Gaza blockade.

Those negotiations had stalled, and Yahya Sinwar, who was the leader of Hamas at the time, passed messages to an unnamed official in the Fatah party of the Palestinian Authority, asking him to convey a warning to the Israeli government that if things didn't start moving soon, he was gonna move ahead with a plan for a significant attack.

That official did warn people in the Israeli government, also passed a message on to another sort of Fatah affiliated or orbiting figure, who is an advisor to MBZ in Abu Dhabi, who then passed it on to MBZ, who called Netanyahu to try and reinforce the seriousness of the threat.

The Haaretz piece contends that Netanyahu basically blew him off.

He said, yes, we're aware that Hamas is planning an attack in the West Bank area, but were ready for that.

The background to this is that the Israelis and Hamas were engaged in, you know, back-channel kind of indirect negotiations over potentially lifting the Gaza blockade.

Those negotiations had stalled, and Yahya Sinwar, who was the leader of Hamas at the time, passed messages to an unnamed official in the Fatah party of the Palestinian Authority saying, asking him to convey a warning to the Israeli government that if things didn't start moving soon, he was gonna move ahead with a plan for a significant attack.

That official did warn people in the Israeli government, also passed a message on to another sort of Fatah affiliated or orbiting figure, who is an advisor to MBZ in Abu Dhabi, who then passed it on to MBZ, who called Netanyahu to try and reinforce the seriousness of the threat.

The Haaretz piece contends that Netanyahu basically blew him off.

He said, yes, we're aware that Hamas is planning an attack in the West Bank, but were ready for that.

I'm just gonna keep this to myself." And, uh, so reportedly where MBZ got this from was- I guess Sinwar, so, uh, Sinwar is the, the Gaza chief, had some sort of prisoner exchange deal with Netanyahu that Netanyahu said he would go through with, but then just kept delaying and delaying and delaying, and Sinwar just got really frustrated, uh, called up a go-between.

Um, it's a Fatah go-between.

Is, uh, Fatah is a, um, is like another political organization, sort of this third party that neither one, neither par- neither one of them, not Sinwar, not Netanyahu would really trust, but isn't beholden to anybody.

But anyway, told, Sinwar told this, this Fatah go-between that he was preparing a big attack, a- attack.

He, he actually called it an earthquake.

They'll feel an earthquake.

Mohamed Dahlan, the Gaza strongman, if you like, is the label usually given to him, a protege of the Emirates these days.

and representatives of Marwan Barghouti in jail, of course, but who still is playing a role from behind his cell bars in Palestinian politics, plus others who are dissidents from Fatah.

Now, they're maneuvering, they're organizing, they're preparing.

And what I'm hearing is there is a possibility that these elections will once again be cancelled by Mahmoud Abbas, creating a great deal of cynicism, quite frankly, among the Palestinian public, but perhaps mixed feelings among other countries about whether it's a good thing or not to go ahead.

Uh, so just to, just to re-- I'll just re-read from this.

So in September 2023, just before the die was cast, Yahya Sinwar arranged a private meeting, uh, with Fatah official Cole Eyes.

So Cole Eyes is sort of like a deep throat name that they're giving to a, a source of theirs.

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