On 13th August 2020, the UAE and the state of Israel accepted a US-brokered peace agreement, the first Arab-Israeli peace deal in 26 years. The agreement is officially referred to as “Abraham Accord”, implying that the three parties: the Jewish state of Israel, the Muslim country of UAE, and the Christian United States of America represent the three Abrahamian religions.
According to the deal, UAE will formally recognize the state of Israel, while the latter would halt its plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank of Palestine.
The agreement focuses on normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, establishing cooperation and ties in a range of sectors including tourism, direct flights, health care and business.
The UAE became only the third Arab country to formally normalize relations with Israel, after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. On August 16, 2020, the UAE, for the first time, established telephone links to Israel by unblocking direct dialing to Israel's +972 country code. On August 31, 2020, the first direct commercial flight took off from Israel to the UAE.[1]
Soon after, the Kingdom of Bahrain joined the UAE’s agreement to normalize relations with Israel, confirming their acceptance on September 11th. The treaty was officially signed by the UAE and Bahrain together along with Israel and the USA on September 15, 2020.
Why Now?
What prompted the UAE and Bahrain to normalize ties with Israel? And why now?
In reality, the UAE and Bahrain, along with other Arab countries, have already been strengthening their contacts with Israel in recent years despite Israel’s deepening occupation of Palestine and the absence of any peace talks.
Although the agreement dictates the suspension of Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank of Palestine, there is no declaration from the Trump administration detailing the duration for which Israel will suspend the annexation or under what circumstances the US would support Netanyahu reverting to his annexation plans.[2]
One of the major factors that brought Israel and its traditional rivals in the Gulf closer is their shared animosity towards Iran. The need for greater security cooperation against regional threats like Iran may have factored in UAE’s decision to formally normalize ties with Israel at the expense of condemnation from other Arab countries.
The timing of the agreement can also be attributed to US President Donald Trump speeding up the process to spur his re-election campaign for the November US Presidential Election.
Benefactors
The agreement came at a crucial moment for Israeli prime minister Netanyahu- with his government under the microscope in the public eye for its poor handling of the coronavirus crisis, and being indicted with charges of bribery and fraud- with citizens demanding his resignation. Procuring formal recognition from two Arab states without making concessions to the Palestinians represents a significant political win for an embattled Netanyahu. [3]
President Trump also stands as a key benefactor of the Accord, it gives him a major diplomatic victory immediately before the November elections. Further, a widely expected outcome of the Abraham Accord is that other moderate Arab countries will soon follow suit. In the event that more Arab countries open ties with Israel in the coming months, Trump could claim a major diplomatic breakthrough in the Arab-Israel relations, which has seen at least four major wars in the past.[4]
Palestinians
Israeli relations with the Gulf were not new, but those relationships were largely under-the-table in the past. The Arab states didn’t publicize their dealings with Israel because of the Arab Peace Initiative, drawn up by the Saudis in 2002, where Arab nations endorsed the idea of normalizing ties with Israel if the Israelis ended their occupation and gave the Palestinians a state of their own.[5]
Hence the normalization of ties with Israel is seen as a violation of Arab consensus and as an acceptance of Israel’s behavior. The agreement was termed treason and greeted with outrage by the people of Palestine. The normalization of relations was one of the few remaining bargaining chips the Arabs had. “They just squandered it for literally nothing in return”, said El Kurd of the Palestinian policy network Al-Shabaka.
It was also pointed out that in the case of the previous Arab peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt, the land seized by Israel was returned[5], no such restitution has been made in this scenario.
Instead, the Prime Minister of Israel has stated there is no shift in his plans for annexation, that the peace deal is merely a temporary halt, and he is still fully committed to moving ahead with the takeover.[6]
Palestine’s hope lies in the success of these countries’ attempts to prevent Israel from annexing the Palestinian lands in the West Bank, as such a move would make impossible the mutually agreed two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As argued in the Washington Post “History and common sense both show that Arab states that maintain diplomatic relations with Israel play a more active role in supporting Palestinian aspirations than those who do not.”
Conclusion
The Abraham Accord, although an establishment towards peace and cooperation in the Middle East, marks better as a step towards expansion of economic and diplomatic avenues.
While it certainly improves relations for Israel, its importance shouldn’t be overstated in terms of regional peace. The UAE and Bahrain do not have any territorial dispute with Israel, nor have they ever been at war with it, and hence the reconciliation stands different from the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan over 26 years ago.
There remains significant opposition to Israel in the Gulf countries to counter Trump’s hail of this deal as “a historic breakthrough”.
Article by -
Vedica Rao,
Co Editor,
For the Record,
PES MUN Society
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