In an essay published in Newsweek on Monday, Dr. Ali al Nuaimi, chairman of the Defense Affairs, Interior and Foreign Relations Committee of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Federal National Council, called to “free the Palestinians from Hamas and Iran” claiming they’ve been “hijacked” by the Palestinian leadership to “sell their political and terrorist agendas” and “serve an Iranian agenda.”
Al Nuaimi, an architect of the Abraham Accords who serves in an advisory role to the Emirates’ leadership, began by speaking of the “new era” of greater coexistence in the Middle East since the signing of the accords between the UAE and Israel.
I helped broker the Abraham Accords. It's time to free the Palestinians from Hamas—and Iran | Opinion https://t.co/IKLZa2Xn0x
— Newsweek Opinion (@NewsweekOpinion) June 7, 2021
“Last August, we entered a new era: A 70-year stalemate was exchanged for an era of greater coexistence,” he wrote.
“The signing of the Abraham Accords between the United Arab Emirates and Israel that I helped broker was a bold, courageous move which promised to finally make progress where everything else had failed,” he added.
The Abraham Accords, former President Donald Trump’s breakthrough in finding a path to peace in the historically troubled region, normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations last year.
Noting that after the recent conflict between the Hamas terror group and Israel, many believed the Abraham Accords were “dead,” Al Nuaimi disagreed.
“To these skeptics, I would say, look at the bigger picture. The Abraham Accords are not about an Emirati and Israeli future but the whole region’s future,” he wrote.
He then singled out Iran as the main culprit behind the Middle East conflict.
“The truth is, the Middle East conflict isn’t between the Israelis and Palestinians but between Israel and Iran,” he wrote. “Ask yourself who benefits from this conflict? The Palestinian people’s rights and hopes have been hijacked by Hamas to serve an Iranian agenda.”
“And it is against Iran’s extremism that we must continue to fight,” he maintained.
Noting the “strategic vision,” which motivated the signing of the Abraham Accords, al Nuaimi described the agreement as permanent and beneficial for the entire region.
“When the UAE leadership decided to move forward with the Abraham Accords, it was done with a strategic vision not only for the UAE but for the whole region,” he wrote.
“Skeptics thought the agreement was tied to the Trump administration, as if it might just fade away with the new administration,” he added. “But there is no going back. We move forward with full speed and have already seen the added value of having such initiatives, not only for the UAE and Israel but for the whole region.”
After writing how the UAE readied its people for peace by building “bridges of trust and respect” and having already changed the education system and narrative of religious figures, al Nuaimi explained how such change is desired by many in the region.
“[I]t’s not just about us,” he wrote. “The people of the region are craving change, not least among them the Palestinian people, who are desperate for fresh leaders, leaders who can move beyond a rigid regime with an agenda that abuses the very people it rules.”
He then indicated that in order to achieve such change, the truth of Hamas’s role in the suffering of the Palestinians needs to be heard.
“For this to happen, we also have to fight the war of propaganda—one that the Israelis lost in this last round of fighting between Israel and Hamas,” he wrote. “I saw narratives coming from not only the Middle East but the West too, which represented a shift.”
In stark contrast to what is so often portrayed in the media and among many on the left, al Nuaimi described the true occupiers of Gaza as Hamas — not Israel.
“One of the biggest errors in this narrative, which I saw repeated over and over in the media, was the way they speak about Gaza as if it’s occupied by the Israelis. It’s not: It’s occupied by Hamas. And the Palestinian people in Gaza are suffering because of Hamas, not the Israelis,” he wrote.
He also lamented the widespread reach and acceptance of terrorist propaganda.
“Unfortunately, though the propaganda of Hamas and Iran is not true, to the world, it is now dominant,” he wrote.
Speaking of a reason for hope, he explained how things have vastly changed over the years.
“Twenty years ago, the Palestinian cause was priority number one in the region,” he wrote. “Now, people in the Gulf see things differently. We still care. We still support the Palestinians. We believe in the two-state solution. But people in the Gulf no longer believe that this should come at the expense of our national interest.”
“Many activists responded to Hamas- and Jihad- influenced media and social media posts to say, we do care about the Palestinians—but we don’t care about these terrorist organizations,” he added.
Al Nuaimi also accused the Islamic regime of Iran of bearing the responsibility for much of the false narratives being portrayed in the media.
“What the public doesn’t understand is who is behind so much of the media they read—who is funding this misguided narrative, which only serves to protect Hamas, and ultimately, Iran,” he wrote.
Despite his hopes that all would learn “the language of peace,” al Nuaimi asserted that, “Now is the time to not just talk the talk, but for us all to walk the walk,” before accusing Hamas and the Palestinian leadership of having hijacked the Palestinian people and cause.
“Hamas and the Palestinian leadership have hijacked the minds of 2 million Palestinians to sell their political and terrorist agendas,” he wrote, adding that a joint effort was required to “create a better future for a new generation.”
In recent weeks, antisemites have leapt into action following nonstop blood libels hurled at Israel for the simple act of defending itself against Hamas terrorist rockets.
Hamas talking points, promoting the terror group’s false narratives about the causes of the conflict and Israeli self-defense actions, also began to be echoed in the news media, entertainment industry, and diplomatic channels.
The same anti-Israel propaganda was parroted on the streets of cities around the world, excoriating the Jewish state for simply trying to ensure its own survival, as Breitbart News reported.
Last month, American-Israeli columnist Caroline Glick blasted congressional leftists and the left-inclined media for a recent wave of violent attacks against Jews, accusing the left wing and its lawmakers of hating the Jewish state and having “the blood of Jews” on their hands, while blaming the media for “transforming America into an antisemitic state.”
“It’s pretty amazing that Hamas, a terrorist organization, attacked Israel with over 4,300 rockets and missiles and mortars in the space of 11 days,” she said, adding that “Israel did not provoke Hamas at all.”
Also last month, former Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer described Hamas as a “genocidal organization,” more so than just a terrorist organization.
“Islamic jihad is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said. “Hamas is backed by Iran, but beyond that … Hamas is not just a terrorist organization — they are a genocidal organization. They call for the murder of Jews worldwide. That is in their charter. It is shameful for any self-respecting government in the world — certainly any democratic government in the world — to draw any moral equivalence between the state of Israel and Hamas.”
As Gaza continues to rebuild after the conflict, a senior State Department official acknowledged last month that the Biden administration could not guarantee that humanitarian aid intended to support Gaza’s Palestinian refugees would not be used to restock Hamas’s military supplies.
On Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken further acknowledged that it is “impossible to invest in Gaza without helping Hamas.”
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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