Changes

Fifty years later much has changed in the region. The greatest patron of Palestinian terror is no Arab state, but Iran (both Erdoğan's Turkey and Qatar playing supporting roles as well). The violence is less in foreign countries and diplomatic missions and closer to home. Last year was the bloodiest year on the West Bank since the second Palestinian Intifada and 2023 does not look much better. Thirty Israelis and 167 Palestinians were killed in 2022 with anger running high on both sides.

Fifty years later much has changed in the region. The greatest patron of Palestinian terror is no Arab state, but Iran (both Erdoğan's Turkey and Qatar playing supporting roles as well). The violence is less in foreign countries and diplomatic missions and closer to home. Last year was the bloodiest year on the West Bank since the second Palestinian Intifada and 2023 does not look much better. Thirty Israelis and 167 Palestinians were killed in 2022 with anger running high on both sides.

There is both the very real homegrown tension, violence, and struggle of the longstanding Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and simultaneously, the orchestrated machinations of outside parties wanting to set the region on fire. There is an "asymmetric shadow war" between Iran and Israel and the Palestinian Territories are one of several battlefields. The ruling Palestinian authority, essentially the heir of Arafat's Fateh, is corrupt and incompetent, hard-pressed to compete with its Iranian-backed Palestinian rivals. And the question is whether the competition is to stop those rivals or to emulate them. Arab states, Jordan and Egypt especially, but also the Gulf states, are still invested in the Palestinian file although nothing like they were 50 years before. An urgent meeting held in Aqaba on February 26 with Israeli and Palestinian security officials sought to de-escalate the tension ahead of the typically volatile month of Ramadan in late March.

There is both the very real homegrown tension, violence, and struggle of the longstanding Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and simultaneously, the orchestrated machinations of outside parties wanting to set the region on fire. There is an "asymmetric shadow war" between Iran and Israel and the Palestinian Territories are one of several battlefields. The ruling Palestinian authority, essentially the heir of Arafat's Fateh, is corrupt and incompetent, hard-pressed to compete with its Iranian-backed Palestinian rivals. And the question is whether the competition is to stop those rivals or to emulate them. Arab states, Jordan and Egypt especially, but also the Gulf states, are still invested in the Palestinian file although nothing like they were 50 years before. An urgent meeting held in Aqaba on February 26 with Israeli and Palestinian security officials sought to de-[[escalate]] the tension ahead of the typically volatile month of Ramadan in late March.

The Black September attack in Sudan was, in retrospect, one of the last "successful" operations carried out by the group (1972 was the most incident-filled and intensive year of Black September's existence). An organization founded to rekindle Palestinian "revolutionary violence" and to carry out dirty work for Fateh while it pretended to have nothing to do with it had served its purpose. That the deaths of these three Western diplomats advanced the Palestinian cause in any way seems extremely doubtful. But a few years later in Lebanon, the CIA would forge a close relationship with Black September's Ali Hassan Salameh supposedly in order to protect American diplomats in Lebanon.</small></blockquote></ref> The next day, two Americans, including United States ambassador to Sudan Cleo Noel, and a Belgian were shot and killed. James J. Welsh, an analyst for the National Security Agency from 1969 through 1974, charged Arafat with direct complicity in these murders.

The Black September attack in Sudan was, in retrospect, one of the last "successful" operations carried out by the group (1972 was the most incident-filled and intensive year of Black September's existence). An organization founded to rekindle Palestinian "revolutionary violence" and to carry out dirty work for Fateh while it pretended to have nothing to do with it had served its purpose. That the deaths of these three Western diplomats advanced the Palestinian cause in any way seems extremely doubtful. But a few years later in Lebanon, the CIA would forge a close relationship with Black September's Ali Hassan Salameh supposedly in order to protect American diplomats in Lebanon.</small></blockquote></ref> The next day, two Americans, including United States ambassador to Sudan Cleo Noel, and a Belgian were shot and killed. James J. Welsh, an analyst for the National Security Agency from 1969 through 1974, charged Arafat with direct complicity in these murders.