ToI Community update — Editor’s note: An Arab state happy to be seen with Israel * Behind the Headlines TODAY with Etgar Keret * Podcast: Alice Shalvi on Jewish feminism

[The Times of Israel]( Dear ToI Community members and Daily Edition readers, (We’re sending this week’s Community Update to all Daily Edition readers as well. If you’re not yet a Community member,[join up here](.) What is striking about the fast-moving pace of Israel’s normalization process with the United Arab Emirates is the public enthusiasm with which the UAE is going about it. UAE delegates wave to the departing El Al plane at the end of the Israel-UAE normalization talks in Abu Dhabi, September 1, 2020 (El Al spokesperson’s office) Israel’s ongoing relations with its two adjacent partners, Egypt and Jordan, are conducted behind closed doors. Security, intelligence, technical and commercial interaction is deep, ongoing and vital — but is conducted out of the public eye. Our ambassadors work in the most constrained environments. Leaders and officials have limited open contact. Local media is full of hostility. Our new, third regional partner, with whom we have no blighted history of bloodshed, by contrast is embracing Israel. There’s realpolitik in that embrace, of course — notably including shared concerns about Iran, and the UAE interest in F-35s and other US military hardware that a non peace partner could not hope to obtain. But our diplomatic correspondent Raphael Ahren, who flew home yesterday from the Israeli and US delegations’ unprecedented normalization trip in Abu Dhabi, [found]( a host nation thoroughly confident in its strategy at the start of its new relationship with Israel and determined to show that this will be a warm peace. In stark contrast to what have sadly become our shadowy, almost furtive dealings with Cairo and Amman, Abu Dhabi is showing itself happy to be publicly seen in our company. For the first time, an Arab state — and a thriving, influential Arab state at that — is telling its people, ours, and the world that it is not merely resigned to our existence, or prepared to tolerate us, but inclined to actually like us. What is also striking about this fast-moving process is the staggering dysfunctionality of the Palestinian Authority’s [response](. Last time I checked, Israel had not delivered a blanket agreement to every aspect of the Trump Administration’s “Peace to Prosperity” proposal, but had accepted it, including its conditional provisions for a Palestinian state, as a basis for negotiation. President Mahmoud Abbas’s PA rejected the plan before it had even been presented — even though the Authority was and is invited to submit the amendments and reservations it considers crucial to its interests. This preemptive stance echoes its behavior in 2017, when the PA rejected President Donald Trump’s recognition of unspecified borders of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and broke off all ties with the administration, rather than negotiate for its demands in the holy city. Fulminating against the despicable UAE and its heinous act of “betrayal” — even though the normalization agreement delivered the indefinite suspension of unilateral Israeli annexation of some 30 percent of the West Bank — Ramallah reached out to the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation for anticipated backing. And, as of this writing, got nowhere. Jared Kushner is publicly hoping that all 22 Arab states will ultimately make peace with Israel, [stating]( on Tuesday, “it is logical for them to do it.” And the Abbas-misled Palestinians — themselves one of those 22 Arab League states — are instead allying themselves with Iran, Turkey, Kuwait and, dismally, the Hamas Islamist terrorist organization, on the extremist axis. US Presidential Adviser Jared Kushner (L), US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien (2nd-L) and Head of Israel’s National Security Council Meir Ben-Shabbat pose with the flight crew ahead of boarding El Al’s flight LY971, which carried an Israeli-American delegation from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi, at Ben Gurion Airport on August 31, 2020. (Nir Elias / Pool / AFP) Interviewed in the UAE media during the trip to Abu Dhabi, Kushner [said]( he hoped it would be mere “months” before the next Arab state follows Abu Dhabi’s lead. That timing is crucial: A tentatively planned Israel-UAE signing ceremony at the White House next month would make for a nice electoral boost for Trump. A stream of Arab states moving to normalize with Israel would vindicate Kushner’s [declaration]( here on Sunday that his father-in-law has been “writing a script for a new Middle East” since setting out on his first foreign trip as president in May 2017 to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Vatican. As of this week, the Saudis are [holding back]( — restating their commitment to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative they formulated — while offering support for the UAE, including by allowing El Al LY971 to overfly their airspace with Kushner and the US delegation on board, and permitting LY972 to return by the same route — even without the Americans. (As I write these lines, it has [said]( its airspace will also be open to all subsequent UAE-Israel flights.) Riyadh, too, is doubtless making its US presidential election calculations, perhaps wary of alienating a President Joe Biden, but wary, too, of an Obama-style conciliatory approach to Iran. Trump’s first overseas trip, it is often forgotten, didn’t only take him to Riyadh, Jerusalem, and Rome. He visited the Palestinian territories too, meeting with Abbas in Bethlehem on May 23, 2017, and insistently [telling]( the Israeli audience, Netanyahu included, at his final event here hours later that Abbas and the Palestinians “are ready to reach for peace… I know you’ve heard it before. I am telling you. That’s what I do. They are ready to reach for peace.” US President Donald Trump walks alongside Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a welcome ceremony in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on May 23, 2017. (Thomas Coex / AFP) On August 13, hours after he announced the Israel-UAE diplomatic bombshell, Trump [said]( much the same thing: “I think the Palestinians … very much want to be a part of what we’re doing… I see peace between Israel and the Palestinians. I see that happening. I think as these very big, powerful, wealthy countries come in, I think the Palestinians will follow, quite naturally.” For now, the Palestinians are showing every sign of resisting such ostensible logic. Urged by the UAE to seize the moment, with annexation off the table, and re-engage, they are instead branding the Emiratees as a new enemy. Assured by the US that the Trump plan is not set in stone, they insist on treating it as though it is all a fait accompli. It is wonderful that, a quarter of a century since our last accord, with Jordan in 1994, a thriving Arab nation has become our third peace partner, and that others may follow suit. But the UAE is a three-hour flight away, even over Saudi airspace. The Palestinians, who are calling the peacemakers traitors and lining up with the region’s rejectionists, are next door. The full “script for a new Middle East” cannot be completed without them. 🤝 NOW MORE THAN EVER: Join the ToI Community We are hugely appreciative that so many of you have been joining the Community, and thus helping finance the work of our reporters and editors. If you haven’t yet joined the ToI Community, [please do so now!]( All Times of Israel content remains open to all readers. But if that content matters to you, do please support us — for as little as $6 a month. 🖥 Did you miss a Community update, webinar, podcast or benefit? It’s all right on [the ToI Community page]( (accessible only to logged-in Community members). 🖥 TODAY: Behind the Headlines with Etgar Keret Please join us today, Wednesday, September 2 at 1 pm EDT/ 8 pm Israel for the latest in our [Behind the Headlines video series,]( premiered exclusively for the ToI Community. This week, writer Etgar Keret – a leading voice in Israeli literature and cinema – joins us to explore the role of writing and art during COVID-19. Keret will discuss his latest work, a short film based on his recent short story “Outside,” published in The New York Times Magazine. Etgar Keret (Photo: Maciej Landsberg) Keret’s work has been translated into more than 40 languages, and his writing appears regularly in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Paris Review and other leading publications. The discussion will be held between Keret and The Times of Israel’s Culture editor Jessica Steinberg. Ahead of the session, we encourage you to read [Keret’s COVID-based short story “Outside”]( and to watch the 7-minute video interpretation: [“Outside: A COVID-19 Fairytale”]( — both of which will be discussed. The discussion will be aired on YouTube on Wednesday, September 2 at 8pm Israel, 1pm EDT. A recording will be available after this time at the same link. To join the discussion at this time, click on the image above or use this link: [** JOIN ON YOUTUBE **]( In our Behind the Headlines series, ToI reporters and editors video interview influential individuals from a wide range of fields. All sessions are aired exclusively to The Times of Israel Community before being shared with our broader readership. 📼 In case you missed it: Watch recent Behind the Headlines with [Neshama Carlebach](, with [MK Merav Michaeli](, with [NY Times’ Bret Stephens](, with[archaeologist Joe Uziel](, and with [economist Nadine Baudot-Trajtenberg](. 🎧 ToI Podcast: Feminism and finding home with Israel Prize-winning educator Prof. Alice Shalvi This week, to mark the start of the school year here in Israel, we’re revisiting a live Times of Israel/Beit Avi Chai event with one of Israel’s greatest educators, Prof. Alice Shalvi. Back in January 2019, Shalvi spoke with ToI’s Amanda Borschel-Dan onstage at Beit Avi Chai in Jerusalem in honor of the publication of her memoir “Never A Native.” The memoir has since been awarded the National Jewish Book Award for Women’s Studies. Shalvi will soon celebrate 94. Among her many achievements, she is an Israel Prize Laureate, and as one of the country’s pioneering religious feminists, she is a founder of the Israel Women’s Network. In addition to years spent teaching at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Shalvi established the Pelech High School for Girls, a school that still continues her tradition of strong learning — and strong women. Listen to [this episode here](— and be sure to subscribe to The Times of Israel Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen. 🙋 Have something to say? We’d love to hear it! Join the discussion on the [ToI Community Facebook group](. Keep tabs on new content and events on our [Community Page](. And don’t hesitate to [write to us](mailto: community@timesofisrael.com) with any suggestions, issues or questions. Be well, David Horovitz Founding Editor, The Times of Israel You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to The Times of Israel's Daily Edition and/or you are a member of [The Times of Israel Community](. If you would like to stop receiving these emails, please click below to unsubscribe. [Unsubscribe]( Email not displaying correctly? [View it in your browser](