[ad_1]
Trump was eager to host a major ceremony in Washington, during which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would formally establish diplomatic relations between the Hebrew state and the two Arab countries, in the first such event since the peace treaties with Egypt. and Jordan in 1979 and 1994.
A senior American official did not rule out a historic handshake between the Israeli prime minister and Arab representatives, emphasizing that all participants would undergo a new Corona virus test beforehand.
The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain share Israel’s hostility towards Iran, which is also Washington’s archenemy in the region.
“It is an achievement of the first order,” says David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, emphasizing that it “does not involve” risks “for Israelis to the same degree” that Menachem Begin faced “when he handed over the Sinai” to Egypt. or Yitzhak Rabin when he agreed to negotiate. With Yasser Arafat.
The “vision of peace” presented by Donald Trump earlier this year, with the aim of permanently ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, is still far from successful, as it has been rejected by the Palestinian Authority, which does not he wants the president of the United States to not even play a mediating role since he made a series of pro-Israel decisions. .
“black day”
Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh claimed that today will be a “black day” in the history of the Arab world, criticizing the “divisions” in it.
The Palestinians, who saw the agreement as a “stab in the back” by the two states accused of concluding an agreement with Israel without waiting for the birth of a Palestinian state, called demonstrations today.
But the Trump administration has always shown its determination to bring about a radical change in the region by provoking a rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world against Iran. The two agreements reflect the signs of this change and return the Palestinian issue to a lower level, which is what the White House expected.
In the same context, tension increased dramatically between Iran and the United States this week after the release of information that the US intelligence services believed that Tehran intended to assassinate a US diplomat in retaliation for the assassination of Iranian General Qassem. Soleimani in a US raid in Baghdad in January. Trump warned that the US response to any Iranian aggression would be “a thousand times stronger.” In turn, the Islamic Republic, which denied this information, warned Washington not to make any “strategic mistakes.”
David Makovsky said: “The Middle East is no longer what it was in my father’s era, but a new region” in which the Arab League, in an exceptional event, refused to condemn the decisions of the two Gulf states. The former US diplomat said: “The Palestinians will wait to see what will happen in the US elections, but when things calm down, they will have to rethink their position.”
The two agreements represent a victory for Benjamin Netanyahu and bring Israel closer to its goal of being acceptable in the region.
Joining is only “urgent”
Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term and has yet to make significant diplomatic progress for voters, sees this as a success that even his Democratic opponents would acknowledge.
Since the announcement of the Israeli-Emirati agreement on August 13, and after last week the agreement with Bahrain, the billionaire Republican camp has been praising his work, which, in their opinion, deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, disagreements emerged over the terms related to the UAE deal. In the eyes of the Gulf states, Israel agreed to “end the continued annexation of Palestinian land.” However, the Israeli prime minister stated that he “did not give up” on the annexation of large areas of the occupied West Bank, but the matter is only “postponed”.
On the other hand, Netanyahu said that he opposes the sale of the UAE F-35 fighter jets that Abu Dhabi wants to buy, to preserve Israeli military superiority in the region. Except that Trump said in an interview with “Fox News” that he had no problem selling the fighter to the United Arab Emirates.
In a related context, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said today that his country’s decision to normalize relations with Israel has broken the psychological barrier and is the way forward for the region to move forward.
He added that the agreement will help the United Arab Emirates and the region and increase their influence. He also stressed that suspending Israel’s plans to annex Palestinian lands would end undermining the two-state solution. He went on to say that a strategic breakthrough was needed, but that it would not happen overnight. And Gargash considered that “the policy of empty chairs has led to disastrous events for the Palestinian cause.”
He also stressed that “there will be a large Jewish community in the Emirates of Israel and others.”
Gargash indicated that the presence of the United States as a mediator in the agreement to normalize relations between the UAE and Israel ensures that the suspension of the annexation of Palestinian lands will endure.
He said that this is not the time to review the Arab peace initiative and that it remains the cornerstone of the UAE’s commitment to the Palestinian cause.
