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It was on Monday that El Al’s plane with Kushner and the main Israeli representatives flew directly from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It was the first direct commercial flight between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
The goal of the visit by Kushner, who is the White House Middle East fixer and Trump’s son-in-law, was to complete the deal to establish diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Kushner called it “a gigantic step forward.”
The Palestinians have protested the agreement, which they see as a betrayal of their quest to establish their own independent state alongside Israel. They see it as a break from the line established in the Arab world, that the question of Palestine must be resolved before normalization with Israel can be questioned.
Normalization is an indirect endorsement of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, they believe.
On Tuesday, Kushner called on Palestinian leaders not to “get caught up in the past.”
“They have to come to the table, they have to figure out how we can do something that benefits everyone and allows everyone to move forward,” Kushner said.
– An opportunity for peace will be ready as soon as you are ready to embrace it.
But trust the will of the United States and Israel negotiate a peace that satisfies a minimum of the Palestinian dream of having its own country at the center. In practice, the United States has abandoned the two-state solution and declared Jerusalem the “undivided” capital of Israel. For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is targeting an Israeli annexation of much of the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh condemned the Israeli flight and normalization as “very painful” and as a “clear and open violation of the Arab attitude towards the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
“We were hoping to see an Emirati plane land in liberated Jerusalem, but we are living through a difficult time for the Arab world,” he said.
What opportunities are there then for the United States? and Israel to get more Arab countries from the Middle East and the Persian Gulf to jump on the normalization train?
Not so good at the moment. Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to several countries in the Middle East to try to get them to follow the example of the United Arab Emirates and establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
Expectations were inflated, but nothing turned out well. Neither Bahrain, Oman nor Sudan were prepared to get on the standardization train, which so far consists of a single car. The United Arab Emirates is the third Arab country, after Egypt and Jordan, to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel.
The leaders of Bahrain and Sudan have made it clear that they will not follow the UAE for the time being, while Oman did not comment on the issue after Pompeo’s visit. The Sudanese government declared that it had no “mandate” to take such a step, while Bahrain declared that an agreement with Israel could not become a reality without the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Oman wants to appear more neutral and has had a kind of dialogue with Israel, while also expressing its support for the Palestinians.
Neither does the influential Saudi Arabia Who wants to emerge as the leader of the Muslim world, and at the same time is perhaps Trump’s closest Arab ally, has been in recognition of Israel.
Other Arab countries, such as Qatar and Morocco, have various forms of pragmatic relations and economic exchanges with Israel, but it has not been a question of diplomatic recognition until there is a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Professor Gerd Nonneman, from the Georgetown University branch in Qatar, commented on Twitter that the UAE may feel lonely, as no one else followed them:
“When Saudi Arabia, Sudan and now Morocco and Bahrain reject pressure from Pompeo / Kushner to normalize relations with Israel, the MBZ (Emir Mohammed bin Zayed) of the UAE will look quite vulnerable.”
It also remains to be seen what consequences the US-sponsored agreement between Israel and the UAE will have for the US election campaign. Trump’s driving force for a “peace deal” is that he can use it as a foreign policy success, something that has been, to say the least, frugal in realization.
Read more:
Trump’s son-in-law on “historic flight” to the Emirates
“MBZ”: The Media Shadow Emir Leading the New Middle East Superpower
