At this point nearly everyone with the exception of the White House is convinced that the “two-state solution”, Israel and an independent Palestinian state existing side by side in peace, is unworkable and becoming more so. Neither the Israeli version of the “one-state solution” in which Israel absorbs both the West Bank and Gaza or the Hamas version in which the West Bank and Gaza claim the entirety of Israel as well (presumably after killing the Israelis) is acceptable and the Hamas version does not appear to be achievable by Hamas.
If none of those three alternative, what? One rather obvious alternative would be for Jordan to annex the West Bank and Egypt to annex Gaza. That alternative only has a few problems: Jordan doesn’t want the West Bank and Egypt doesn’t want Gaza.
All of which leads us to Lina Khatib’s article at Foreign Affairs. Here’s her prescription:
The ongoing war is an opportunity for Arab countries to go beyond pragmatic de-escalation with Iran and to push for the United States to develop a strategy that addresses Iran’s destabilization of the Middle East. Such a strategy would require more than the imposition of sanctions and targeted retaliatory attacks on Iranian assets in places such as Iraq and Syria. Instead, Arab countries would need to take part in setting the agenda for a long-term plan that would undermine Iran’s political and military influence. If the Big Five could see where their interests intersect, they could amplify the diplomatic gains for their individual countries while seizing a chance to stabilize the region
which in turn reminds me of a purported Bedouin saying:
I am against my brother, my brother and I are against my cousin, my cousin and I are against the stranger.
Pan-Arabism, the unity of the Arab nation, or the unity of the ‘Ummah all have asterisks alongside them. There is not a single Arab democracy, the closest being Tunisia and democracy is receding into the mists of the distant past increasingly with every passing day in Tunisia. All Arab countries are autocracies of one form or another. The idea of the “Big Five” (Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE) agreeing on anything or, at least, agreeing on anything for very long is hard to believe.
I see little hope.