Moderate Arab states are coordinating their responses to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s upcoming sovereignty plan with Israel, according to a report by Israel Hayom.
Senior Arab diplomats from several US-aligned Sunni states, along with security and intelligence officials from Egypt and Jordan, said that their respective governments have been in contact with Israel in recent weeks to work out their responses to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plan to apply Israeli sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria.
Publicly, America’s Arab allies have urged Israel not to carry out the sovereignty plan, warning it could have serious repercussions for the region.
Privately, however, officials from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states say their respective governments tacitly accept Israel’s sovereignty plan.
Reports to this effect have fueled concerns in the Palestinian Authority that moderate Arab states who previously championed the Palestinian cause are now unwilling to intervene on the PA’s behalf to try to block the sovereignty plan.
Palestinian Authority foreign affairs chief Riyad al-Maliki lamented that Arab leaders had refused to deny the reports.
“We reached out through official and unofficial channels to get responses and clarifications in this matter, yet till now we haven’t gotten any response or unequivocal denial to these reports,” said al-Maliki in an interview with Voice of Palestine.
According to the Israel Hayom report, a senior Egyptian official said al-Maliki’s fears are justified, claiming that Egypt will do nothing more than issue a symbolic condemnation of the sovereignty plan, adding that Jordan will likely do the same.
The Egyptian official also said that Egypt has succeeding in convincing senior Jordanian security officials to recommend to King Abdullah II that he take no measures in response to the sovereignty plan, limiting his response to a symbolic condemnation.