President Donald Trump’s efforts to cement his legacy in the Middle East were well underway even before he took back the White House.
Jason Greenblatt, President Trump’s former special envoy for the Middle East, told thousands of international delegates at the Doha Forum in Qatar in December that “there is no way President Trump would not be interested in expanding the Abraham Accords.” . The Abraham Accords, a series of normalization agreements signed by Israel, Bahrain, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates in 2020, remain the signature foreign policy accomplishment of Trump’s first term, and his allies and most He has been praised by both his staunch political opponents. Former President Joe Biden.
Indeed, Biden not only wholeheartedly supported the Abraham Accords, but sought to build on them by securing a landmark agreement with Saudi Arabia, the most powerful and influential Arab nation. Mr. Biden’s proposal was for Saudi Arabia to significantly improve its strategic partnership with the United States, on par with its NATO allies, in exchange for the normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Israeli-Saudi agreement marks the biggest advance in Arab-Israeli diplomacy since Egypt severed ties with the Arab world in 1979 and became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, making it an important step forward for other Arab and Muslim countries. It will pave the way for. to follow.
If the promise of the Abraham Accords was peace and stability, the reality of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s so-called New Middle East is endless bloodshed and instability.
However, this approach to Arab-Israeli peacemaking is contingent on avoiding the Palestinian issue. Until 2020, the consensus among Arab countries was that normalization of relations with Israel could only occur after the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The class division decisions by Bahrain, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates thus effectively deprived the Palestinians of an important source of influence over Israel. Since then, Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel in 2023 and Israel’s devastating war on Gaza have effectively derailed Israel and Saudi Arabia, forcing them to ignore the Palestinian issue and normalize Arab-Israeli diplomatic relations. It was a clear reminder that one cannot be subordinated to others.
Despite these obstacles, President Trump returned to the original vision of the Abraham Accords, which included upgrading Israel and Saudi Arabia, and continued the work he began during his first term by concluding a mega-U.S.-Israel-Saudi deal. Eager to get the deal done, Biden brought it forward. It demeans the Palestinians. All signs point to President Trump continuing to believe that Israeli integration in the region is more important to Arab leaders than the cause of Palestinian freedom. According to Greenblatt, it is difficult to think that “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the biggest and final one, and that once everything is resolved between the Israelis and the Palestinians, everything will be fine in the Middle East.” It is said to be a mistake.
But critics of the Abraham Accords never claim that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will end all other conflicts in the region. Rather, they claim the opposite: peace and security in the region is impossible without a solution to the Palestinian issue. Indeed, the central premise of the Abraham Accords, that peace and stability in the region can be achieved while sidelining the Palestinians, has been completely upended by Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 and everything that has happened since. The ceasefire agreement that took effect this week underscores the centrality of the Palestinians to regional security and stability, but also potentially creates diplomatic space for renewed Israeli and Saudi engagement under President Trump’s leadership. be. The Abraham Accords mark a clear point of continuity between Trump and Biden. Although their reasons and tactics may differ, both presidents are promoting the dangerous illusion that peace, stability, and prosperity in the broader Middle East can coexist with war, chaos, and disenfranchisement in the occupied Palestinian territories. It’s here.
peace on paper
Although the Abraham Accords were hailed as a diplomatic victory, they were premised on a number of false premises. Indeed, much of the excitement surrounding the 2020 normalization deal was less about the deal’s intrinsic value and more about what was clearly in Israel’s interests, especially in Washington and other Western capitals, regardless of Israel’s interests. It had to do with an almost reflexive need to rally around. Practical alignment with U.S. policy objectives, such as the two-state solution and regional stability. This tendency to confuse “what’s good for Israel” with “what’s good for peace” is, in fact, a standard feature of the US-led diplomatic process and a major reason for the failure of diplomatic processes over the past few decades. .
Many people tried to fit the square peg of normalization into the round hole of the two-state solution, but the Abraham Accords originally avoided the Palestinian issue, and the Palestinians expected the Palestinian government to intervene and set up the Palestinian Authority institutions. The fact remains that it was conceived as a method of oppression. We have no choice but to accept whatever long-term agreement is imposed by the United States, Israel, and the region. Indeed, the Abraham Accords themselves are one of many trends opposing the two-state solution, as some Arab states move forward and no longer intend to subordinate their bilateral or geopolitical interests to Israel. It shows that. The unicorn of an independent Palestinian state.
The absence of constraints on Israel leaves Palestinians even more vulnerable.
In addition, the Abraham Accords increased pressure from one of the few sources of influence the Palestinians had in their already highly asymmetrical conflict with Israel: their Arab neighbors whose populations remain overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. was removed. In doing so, it also eliminated some of the last remaining incentives for Israel to stop occupying Palestinian territory or otherwise recognize Palestinian rights. The lack of constraints on Israel has left Palestinians more vulnerable than ever to the whims of an increasingly violent and extremist Israeli occupation, leading to unprecedented settlement expansion, settler violence, and Jordan. It saw Israeli military crackdowns on Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as in East Jerusalem. In 2021 and 2022, there will be more daily wars in Gaza. These problems are only going to get worse under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his return in late 2022 signals their arrival. The most far-right government in Israeli history.
Meanwhile, claims that Arab states can leverage their new relationships with Israel to advance the Palestinian cause or the cause of a two-state solution have never materialized. Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates are all working to stop the demolitions and evictions of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, or to address record settlement expansion and settler violence across the West Bank. We are not trying to intervene in Israel to do so. They have not used their influence to intervene regarding Israel’s attack on Gaza, which has already killed more than 46,000 Palestinians and destroyed most of the civilian infrastructure. Meanwhile, Emirati officials have shown little reluctance to do business with Israeli settlers or invest in occupation infrastructure such as Israeli checkpoints. Mr. Biden and Congressional Democrats are trying hard to erase these contradictions, but Mr. Trump and most of his fellow Republicans have already given up even the pretense of supporting a two-state solution, and they cannot ignore them completely. Can be done.
unfinished business
But even if a ceasefire offers a slim chance, bringing Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords will still be an uphill battle for the Trump administration. If the prospect of an Israeli-Saudi deal had seemed remote before October 7, today’s environment would have been considerably more challenging. The horrific scenes of death, destruction and starvation that have emerged from Gaza over the past 15 months have stirred public opinion across the Arab and Muslim world and shredded the credibility of Israel and the United States across the Global South. (Some traditional Western allies in the global north, such as Ireland, Norway, and Spain, have also begun to distance themselves from Israel.) Even the United Arab Emirates, once the poster child for Arab-Israeli normalization, , are forced to disrespect the country. Relations with Israel: Emirati companies no longer boast of ties to Israel, and the once-warm relationship between UAE leaders and Prime Minister Netanyahu has cooled. In other words, the Gaza war may not have abolished the Abraham Accords, but it effectively put them on ice.
For Saudi Arabia, the cost of normalizing relations with Israel has increased significantly since October 7 and the subsequent attack on Gaza. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader, had previously sought only rhetorical commitments from Israel to a Palestinian state, but Riyadh is now seeking concrete steps toward statehood. I’m looking for. Desperate for US mediation, Saudi Arabia, in cooperation with France, launched a new effort aimed at salvaging whatever was left of the two-state solution. In any case, for the crown prince, who is not known for his sentimentality towards Palestine, normalizing relations with a state that he and his government have accused of committing “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” would be difficult. The International Criminal Court’s indictment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Job Galant on war crimes and crimes against humanity poses a new hurdle for Riyadh. Saudi Arabia’s current position is perhaps best reflected in the communiqué adopted at the Arab-Islamic Summit in Riyadh last month, which not only reiterated its sins of genocide but also They are calling for the expulsion of the United Nations from the United Nations, which is the exact opposite of the normalization of diplomatic relations.
Normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia will continue to be an uphill battle for the Trump administration.
Moreover, as the costs of regional engagement with Israel rise, the expected returns will only decline. Stability is paramount for the leaders of Saudi Arabia and other (Persian) Gulf states. However, the last 15 months have seen Israel’s annihilation of Gaza, a major war and occupation with Lebanon, retaliatory attacks with Iran, and widespread invasion and occupation of Syrian territory after the fall of Bashar al-Bashar al-Israel. -Assad’s regime is far from stable. If the promise of the Abraham Accords was peace and stability, the reality of Netanyahu’s so-called New Middle East is one of endless bloodshed and instability. What is being proposed today is not a vision that involves Israel’s peaceful integration in the region, but a vision that is based on Israel’s violent domination of the region.
Not only did the Abraham Accords not bring peace and security to the Middle East, it actually produced the opposite result by emboldening Israeli triumphalism, entrenching Israeli extremism, and securing Israeli immunity. It’s been useful. As recent events have clearly shown, the idea that Arab-Israeli normalization can proceed beyond the wishes of, or at the expense of, the Palestinians is, at best, It was misguided and, at worst, dangerous. It took nearly three years and the worst violence in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the Biden administration to finally accept this reality. The Trump administration should learn the same lesson.
Khaled Elgindi is a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and author of Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, From Balfour to Trump.
(Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs)