More than a year has passed since four Arab countries,
the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, joined the Abraham Accords, paving the way
for normalizing relations between them and Israel.
اضافة اعلان
These agreements, grandiosely labeled as “The
Abrahamic Accords”, were touted as historic steps toward advancing the peace
process and ending the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Ironically, the Abrahamic Accords statement does not mention the
Palestinian issue, and the word Palestine or any derivative therefrom is
nowhere to be found in the whole text of the declaration.
Since then, two major developments took place that
might enable a more objective evaluation of these agreements persistently
hailed by its architects as catalysts for regional peace. The first is the coming in of the Biden
administration, with a professedly higher degree of respect for multilateralism
and international law, and a totally different set of priorities regarding the
Middle East, in general, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, in particular.
The second is the major flare up between Israel and
the Palestinians in May 2021, in Jerusalem, Gaza and inside Israel itself, with
the Arab signatories to these agreements playing no role in affecting, not to
say ending, the hostilities.
A year later, the question of whether these agreements
facilitate or hamper the cause of peace is not only legitimate, but of vital
importance if achieving peace in the Middle East is still a priority for the
international community.
For the four Arab countries, the normalization
agreements largely appeared to be tools to appease the Trump administration so
that it would acquiesce to issues that had nothing to do with peacemaking.
As a result of these agreements, these four countries
received concessions from the US they would not have otherwise obtained. Morocco secured recognition of its claim over
the Western Sahara. Sudan was suddenly
removed from the US terrorism list in December 2021. The UAE, until recently,
has been in negotiations over an arms deal that includes F-35 planes with the
US, and Bahrain hopes to deter Iranian regional threats and please the US. With such an agreement, perhaps also wanting
the US to turn a blind eye on its human rights record.
Israel did not appear to prioritize peace in any way
when it signed these agreements. It is becoming increasingly clear, even to most
optimists, that it has no intention to withdraw from the occupied territories and
no intention to allow the emergence of any credible and sustainable Palestinian
state. All it is doing is to ensure that the political status quo continues
indefinitely, while making sure that the
on-the-ground situation keeps changing to achieve a de facto annexation of the
occupied territories, as a prelude to a de jure annexation.
By signing such agreements, Israel hopes to convince
its people as well as the international community that regional peace is
possible without the Palestinians. In other words, no need for withdrawal, no
need for a two-state solution, no need for “concessions”.
All four Arab countries have argued that the normalization
agreements with Israel serve as levers of influence with the Israeli government
to entice it to reach a solution with the Palestinians. They also point out
that the agreements show the Israeli public the virtue of being more flexible when
it comes to withdrawing from occupied territories and establishing a
Palestinian state. But the record suggests otherwise.
Egypt, the largest Arab country, signed a peace treaty
with Israel in 1979 and Jordan, the country with the largest number of
Palestinian refugees, signed a similar agreement in 1994. Despite the heavy
references in both documents to the principle of land for peace and the need
for Israel to withdraw from occupied territory, that never materialized.
Moreover, in the last four decades, the attitude of successive Israeli
governments and of the Israeli public toward peace with the Palestinians has
hardened. The peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan had little effect in
making Israel more flexible when it comes to peace with the Palestinians. On
the contrary, Israel has adopted positions that are more intransigent than
those it held before it signed peace agreements with the two Arab countries.
It is unclear, therefore, why or how the more recent
normalization agreements with the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco can advance
the cause of peace.
When the clashes between Palestinians and Israel
erupted in May 2021, including the Israeli war on Gaza that left more than 260
Palestinians, including 66 children, dead, not one of these Arab countries came
out with any public statements criticizing Israel or offered to use its new
diplomatic relations with Israel to try to mediate the conflict.
The agreements also had a devastating effect on the
Arab Peace Initiative. If Israel was not interested in that offer in 2002, it
has even less of an incentive to show interest today.
The agreements violated the spirit and letter of the
Arab Peace Initiative in two main ways. First, the Arab consensus, a key
incentive of the initiative, was fractured. Second, the four states effectively
abandoned the principle of land for peace, rendering a two-state solution
nearly impossible.
By applauding the agreements as a breakthrough toward
peace, the international community has fed the delusion that one can achieve
peace when no peace exists between the occupier and the occupied.
The normalization of relationships between some Arab
states and Israel cannot obfuscate the fact that it is the Palestinians, not any
other Arabs, who live under occupation and with whom Israel has to come to
terms. In other words, even if all Arab countries sign normalization deals with
Israel but leave the Palestinians out, peace will not be achieved in the
region.
The normalization agreements with Israel were
undoubtedly meant to address the insecurities of the four countries that signed
them. These Arab states in no way sought the reinforcement of an apartheid
system. But the agreements, coupled with the death of the two-state solution,
became a prime example of the law of unintended consequences.
Regional cooperation between Israel and the Arab
world, if it does not include a viable solution to the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict, can have disastrous consequences.
The writer is vice president for studies, Middle East
Program Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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