Yardena Schwartz
Times of Israel, July 9, 2025
“Both the IDF and the Shin Bet reportedly oppose this initiative, favoring continued coordination with the Palestinian Authority, whose security forces have long helped thwart terror attacks and arrest terror operatives.”
Ever since October 7, 2023, the idea of peace between Israelis and Palestinians has felt like a fantasy. Which is why even the faintest sign of progress can seem like a lifeline. So when news broke this weekend of a potentially groundbreaking peace initiative from Hebron, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank, it was hard not to hope.
But this plan is not what it seems.
In a letter first reported by The Wall Street Journal as “A New Palestinian Offer for Peace With Israel,” five sheikhs claiming to represent Hebron pledged support for peace and recognized Israel as a Jewish state. They proposed breaking away from the Palestinian Authority and joining the Abraham Accords as an independent entity called the “Emirate of Hebron.”
Yet there is no Emirate of Hebron. And the men behind this proposal are not recognized leaders of the city, one of the most volatile flashpoints in this conflict. While clan loyalties are strong in Hebron’s highly traditional society, the sheikhs who signed the letter are largely unknown among residents. Sheikh Wadee’ al-Jaabari, the public face of the initiative, claims to represent Hebron’s largest and most powerful clan, the Jabaris. Yet family leaders quickly disavowed him, saying he is neither their leader nor a resident of Hebron. In my years of reporting in Hebron for my book, Ghosts of a Holy War, I never heard of any of these sheikhs.
Their letter, addressed to Israel’s Economic Minister Nir Barkat, appears to be a project of Minister Barkat, who has reportedly been advancing this concept, the brainchild of Israeli scholar Mordechai Kedar, for years. It fits into a long-standing strategy by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fragment the Palestinian national movement—empowering Hamas in Gaza while weakening the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. We have all seen the catastrophic consequences of that strategy, whose goal is to prevent Palestinian unity from achieving statehood. ….SOURCE