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A New Palestinian Offer for Peace With Israel
Hebron’s sheikhs propose to leave the Palestinian Authority and join the
Abraham Accords.
By Elliot Kaufman
July 5, 2025 10:26 pm ET

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Journal Editorial Report: Trump's not done making big calls.
The idea of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians has
never seemed more futile than in the months since Oct. 7, 2023. But
maybe that opens the door to a new way of achieving peace.
“We want cooperation with Israel,” says Sheikh Wadee’ al-Jaabari, also
known as Abu Sanad, from his ceremonial tent in Hebron, the West Bank’s
largest city located south of Jerusalem. “We want coexistence.” The
leader of Hebron’s most influential clan has said such things before, as
did his father. But this time is different. Sheikh Jaabari and four
other leading Hebron sheikhs have signed a letter pledging peace and
full recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Their plan is for Hebron
to break out of the Palestinian Authority, establish an emirate of its
own, and join the Abraham Accords.
The letter is addressed to Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat, a former
mayor of Jerusalem, who has brought Mr. Jaabari and other sheikhs to his
home and met with them more than a dozen times since February. They ask
him to present it to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and await his reply.
“The Emirate of Hebron shall recognize the State of Israel as the nation
state of the Jewish people,” the sheikhs write, “and the State of Israel
shall recognize the Emirate of Hebron as the Representative of the Arab
residents in the Hebron District.” Accepting Israel as a Jewish state
goes further than the Palestinian Authority ever has, and sweeps aside
decades of rejectionism.
The letter seeks a timetable for negotiations to join the Abraham
Accords and “a fair and decent arrangement that would replace the Oslo
Accords, which only brought damage, death, economic disaster and
destruction.” The Oslo Accords, agreed to by Israel and the Palestine
Liberation Organization in the 1990s, “have brought upon us the corrupt
Palestinian Authority, instead of recognizing the traditional, authentic
local leadership.” That would be the clans, the great families that
still shape Palestinian society.
The sheikhs propose that Israel would admit 1,000 workers from Hebron
for a trial period, then 5,000 more. Sheikh Jaabari and another major
sheikh say Mr. Barkat has told them this number will grow to 50,000
workers or more from Hebron. Work in Israel is a valuable source of
income for Palestinian communities, which have had little development of
their own under Palestinian Authority rule, but most permits were
suspended after Oct. 7. The sheikhs’ letter pledges “zero tolerance” for
terrorism by workers, “in contrast to the current situation in which the
Palestinian Authority pays tributes to the terrorists.”
Mr. Barkat says the old peace process failed, so “new thinking is
needed.” He has been working with the knowledge of his Israeli
government to explore possibilities with the sheikhs. A senior Israeli
source says Mr. Netanyahu has been supportive but cautious, waiting to
see how the initiative develops. The timing may be out of his hands now
that Sheikh Jaabari is extending the olive branch in public.
With their bold move, the sheikhs expect to swing Israeli public opinion
to their side. “Nobody in Israel believes in the PA, and you won’t find
many Palestinians who do either,” Mr. Barkat says. “Sheikh Jaabari wants
peace with Israel and to join the Abraham Accords, with the support of
his fellow sheikhs. Who in Israel is going to say no?”
The 48-year-old Sheikh Jaabari often cites his illustrious ancestors,
but his actions are guided as much by his view of the future. “There
will be no Palestinian state—not even in 1,000 years,” he says. “After
Oct. 7, Israel will not give it.” A second major Hebron sheikh, who
signed and declares his loyalty to Sheikh Jaabari, agrees: “To think
only about making a Palestinian state will bring us all to disaster.”
(The other sheikhs spoke anonymously for their safety.)
I watched videos of Sheikh Jaabari and another sheikh signing the letter
and reviewed documents elaborating on the plan made with Mr. Barkat,
which includes the creation of a joint economic zone on more than 1,000
acres near the security fence between Hebron and Israel. The sheikhs
expect it to employ tens of thousands.
A document in Hebrew lists the Hebron-area sheikhs who have joined the
emirate initiative. The first circle has eight major sheikhs, who
together are believed to lead 204,000 local residents. The second circle
lists 13 more sheikhs, who lead another 350,000. That makes a majority
of the more than 700,000 people in the area. Both circles have sworn
allegiance to Sheikh Jaabari in this matter, an Israeli associate of the
sheikh witnessed. Those clan members also include many of the
Palestinian Authority’s local foot soldiers. The sheikhs expect them to
side with family.

Former Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, now Israel’s economy minister, Oct.
6, 2021. PHOTO: NIR ELIAS/REUTERS
“I plan to cut off the PA,” Sheikh Jaabari says. “It doesn’t represent
the Palestinians.” The clans governed their own localities for hundreds
of years, he says. Then “the Israeli state decided for us. It brought
the PLO and told the Palestinians: Take this.” Yasser Arafat’s PLO had
been exiled to Tunisia, after being chased out of Jordan and Lebanon,
when the first Oslo Accord in 1993 installed it in the West Bank. This
was called the peace process, but the sheikh says he never saw any peace
from it.
“There is an Arab proverb,” Sheikh Jaabari says: “Only the village’s
calves plow its land. This means that a person who lives for decades
outside—what does he know about where the springs of water in Hebron are
located? The only thing you”—the PLO—“know about Hebron is collecting
taxes.”
Four other Hebron sheikhs, whom I interview separately over Zoom, are
even more strident. “The PLO called itself a liberation movement. But
once they got control, they act only to steal the money of the people,”
one major sheikh says. “They don’t have the right to represent us—not
them and not Hamas, only we ourselves.”
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“We want the world to hear our pain,” another sheikh chimes in. “The PA
steals everything. They even steal our water. We don’t have water to
drink.” They make do, they say, only because Mr. Barkat got the mayor of
the Israeli settlement Kiryat Arba to build a water pipe connecting to
central Hebron. The sheikhs say they mostly get along with the settlers
and that many Palestinians used to earn good money in the settlements.
The settlers will find much to like in the plan, which breaks from the
Oslo Accords’ scheme to divide the land. While the Hebron sheikhs would
gain territory, so would the settlers, from the open land in what’s
known as Area C. But how much, and where? Could it turn into a land grab?
These are key details that the letter merely says must be negotiated.
They contain the potential for explosive disagreement. Then again, the
sheikhs’ letter mentions conversations with Yossi Dagan, the settler
leader for Samaria. He says he supports and has worked on the plan, and
that issues of land can be worked out between people of faith who want
peace. Mr. Dagan says he first met Sheikh Jaabari 13 years ago: “His
father was a courageous leader who put his people first, and the son is
the same.” The sheikhs also met Israel Ganz, who leads the settlement
council, and with whom Mr. Barkat has worked on potential maps.
Mr. Barkat says people around the world ask Israel, “You’re against the
two-state solution, and you’re against the one-state solution, so what
the hell are you for?” The answer he found, about five years ago, was
the emirates solution. It’s the brainchild of Mordechai Kedar, a scholar
of Arab culture at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. Mr. Kedar brought
Sheikh Jaabari to Mr. Barkat and watched the partnership bloom.
“You’ve seen the letter?” Mr. Kedar exclaims. That means it’s really
happening. For 20 years, he’s been trying to sell the idea of
Palestinian emirates, with the West Bank’s seven culturally distinctive
cities run individually by their leading clans. He first met Sheikh
Jaabari’s father, Sheikh Abu Khader, 11 years ago. “To gain and earn
trust, you have to sit with a man,” Mr. Kedar says. “That means to speak
with him in his own mamaloshen”—the Yiddish term for mother tongue—“in
Arabic.”
He says failing states in the Arab world—Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Sudan,
Yemen, Libya—are conglomerates of ethnic, religious and sectarian
groups, with modern states imposed flimsily on top. Successes—Kuwait,
Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the seven emirates of the U.A.E.—are each
controlled by one family. “Al-Sabah owns Kuwait. Al-Thani owns Qatar.
Al-Saud owns Saudi Arabia,” he says. “Dubai has very little oil, but
it’s run by one family, al-Maktoum,” so it can thrive.
The idea of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority was to supplant
traditional clan and religious loyalties with a national Palestinian
identity. “It failed,” Mr. Kedar says, “and the proof is Hamas,” which
puts radical Islam first. Underneath it all, the clan system survived:
“Somebody from Hebron—not only will he not move to another West Bank
town because he will be viewed as a foreigner, but even in Hebron he
will not move to another neighborhood that belongs to another clan.”
Hebron’s clans are particularly strong. “Hebron is much more
traditional, much more conservative, especially compared to Ramallah,”
Mr. Kedar says. “Hebron will be the test case for this idea of the
emirates.” He, Mr. Barkat and the sheikhs all expect Hebron to lay the
groundwork for change in other West Bank cities, perhaps next in
Bethlehem, refashioning Israel-Palestinian relations.
“Organizations like the PLO and Hamas try to construct their legitimacy
on Jew-hatred and hatred of Israel. But the clans are legitimate by
definition,” Mr. Kedar says. “They don’t need an external enemy to
frighten everybody to come under the aegis of an illegitimate ruler.”
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority “can’t protect us, it can’t
even protect itself,” Sheikh Jaabari says. His fellow sheikhs warn that
the PA could allow an Oct. 7-style terrorist attack on Israel, after
which they expect the West Bank to look like Gaza, their great fear. But
a prominent Hebron sheikh says: “If we will get the blessing of
honorable President Trump and the United States for this project, Hebron
could be like the Gulf, like Dubai.”
That’s more or less how Mr. Trump laid out the options for the Middle
East in his May 13 speech in Saudi Arabia. Do you want to be like Iran
or like the Gulf? The sheikhs have made their decision.
But will their plan get off the ground? The first five sheikhs were
ready to move at the end of Ramadan, after signing the letter on March
24, Mr. Barkat says. They complain that he asked them to wait for months
because Israel was busy, first in Gaza, then in Iran. Mr. Barkat reminds
Israeli officials that the sheikhs have put their lives in peril and
operate on a timeline of their own. Now, he says, Israel must protect
them: “The PA is the problem, and they are the solution.”
Many more sheikhs have joined the initiative since March, and the
leaders are confident they have the Palestinian Authority outmanned and
outgunned. “The people are with us,” one sheikh says. “Nobody respects
the PA, nobody wants them.” The only reason to wait for Israel “is
because it protects the PA.”
That’s the problem. If the sheikhs’ illegally armed men take to the
street, will the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security agency
stand against them? If so, it would be the triumph of habit over reason,
Mr. Barkat says. “Since Oslo, 30 years ago, the Israeli security
services have been instructed to work with the PA. It’s all they know.”
The Shin Bet declined to comment. Political and security sources,
however, say that the agency views the authority as critical in the
fight against West Bank terrorism, and has opposed the sheikhs’ plan
internally. Worries abound of potential violence or anarchy in other
West Bank cities, where sheikhs aren’t prepared. The IDF also has raised
concerns.
Many in Israel’s security establishment believe West Bank clans are too
fragmented to govern or to fight terrorism. “How do you deal with dozens
of different families, each of them armed, each under its own control?”
asks retired Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni, who led IDF Central Command from
2007-09. “The IDF would be caught in the crossfire—it would be a mess, a
disaster.” Mr. Shamni rejects the idea that “the national aspirations of
Palestinians will disappear and you can deal with each tribe
separately.” In his view, “there is no way to control the West Bank and
manage life there without the central authority.”
Retired Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, founder of the Israel Defense and
Security Forum, disagrees. He says the Palestinian Authority is the
central incubator of terrorism, via school indoctrination and
pay-to-slay salaries to terrorists. He also suggests the Shin Bet may
change its mind when David Zini, the right-wing general nominated by Mr.
Netanyahu, soon takes over the agency.
Mr. Avivi has met Sheikh Jaabari several times and judges him serious,
especially after rallying so many other sheikhs to his side. He adds,
“If Israel’s position is that the PA can’t be allowed to rule in Gaza
because they’re terrorists and they’re corrupt, why are they OK to rule
in the West Bank?”
The sheikhs say they can remove the PA from Hebron in a week, or a day,
depending on how aggressively they move. “Just don’t get involved,” a
leading Hebron sheikh advises Israel. “Be out of the picture.” They
believe Mr. Trump’s support can clinch it with Mr. Netanyahu.
They also say they’re capable and motivated to fight terrorism. “We know
who makes problems and who doesn’t,” one says, “because we live in our
land.” Ideology and extremism are threats to the tribal loyalty and
economic pragmatism on which the sheikhs’ power depends.
A cynic could say the sheikhs disdain the Palestinian Authority for
extracting rents that they would prefer for themselves. But consider the
competition. An Israeli associate of the sheikhs shows me a video of the
Palestinian Authority governor of Hebron, Khaled Doudin, complaining in
a Jan. 4 speech that the sheikhs’ men fire at them but not at Israel.
Palestinian Authority security forces are already unwelcome in the
sheikhs’ neighborhoods and would risk their lives if they appeared there
without prior Israeli coordination. In 2007, Palestinian police shot and
killed a teenage member of the Jaabari clan. The sheikh’s father asked
for the shooter to be turned over. When the Palestinian Authority
refused, the sheikh’s men took over its police station, burned 14 jeeps
and held 34 officers hostage, according to an article in Israel’s
Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. The clash ended only when President Mahmoud
Abbas backed down, declaring the boy a martyr and paying his family
lifetime compensation. Ever since, the PA has held less sway in the area.
Asked if he is worried his vision of coexistence with Israel will be
called a betrayal of the Palestinian people and their cause, Sheikh
Jaabari scoffs. “The betrayal was done in Oslo. You forgot, but I
remember—33 years of it,” of false promises, violence, theft and
poverty, even as billions of aid dollars poured in from the West. “I
believe in my path,” the sheikh says. “There will be obstacles, but if
we confront a rock, we will have iron to break it.”
Mr. Kaufman is a Journal editorial-board member. Yonah Jeremy Bob
contributed reporting from Hebron.

Sheikh Wadee’ al-Jaabari in Jerusalem, July 3. PHOTO: COURTESY OF WADEE'
AL-JAABARI
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the July 7, 2025, print edition as 'A New Palestinian Offer
for Peace With Israel'.

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