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Trump peace plan
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US President Donald Trump has hailed the “dawn of a new Middle East” amid Israel’s historic agreements with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain.
Trump spoke as the two Gulf states signed agreements that completely normalized their relations with Israel.
All three countries hailed the deals as historic, as did Trump, whose administration helped negotiate them.
The Gulf states are only the third and fourth Arab countries to recognize Israel since its founding in 1948.
Trump hopes other countries will follow suit, but the Palestinians have urged them not to do so while their conflict remains unresolved.
For decades, most Arab states have boycotted Israel, insisting that they would only establish ties after Israel’s dispute with the Palestinians was resolved.
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Why Israel’s peace accords with the Gulf states are important
- Israel opens a new tentative chapter with the Gulf Arabs
- What does Trump’s plan for the Middle East say on key issues?
“After decades of division and conflict, we mark the beginning of a new Middle East,” Trump told hundreds of people gathered at the White House on Tuesday.
“We are here this afternoon to change the course of history,” he added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the accords, saying: “This day is a pivotal point in history; it heralds a new dawn of peace.”
But Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said that only an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories could bring peace to the Middle East.
“Peace, security and stability will not be achieved in the region until the end of the Israeli occupation,” he said in a statement after the agreements were signed, the AFP news agency reports.
The Israeli army said two rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel while the ceremony was underway.
Why are these agreements considered “historic”?
Before the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the only other Arab countries in the Middle East that officially recognized Israel were Egypt and Jordan, which signed peace treaties in 1978 and 1994 respectively.
Mauritania, a member of the Arab League in northwestern Africa, established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1999, but severed relations in 2010.
image copyrightReutersAll eyes will be on whether other countries do the same, especially Saudi Arabia. So far, the Saudis have signaled that they are unprepared.
The accords are also likely to usher in new security ties in a region where many of the Arab Gulf states share with the Israelis a common adversary in Iran.
Why have the Palestinians condemned the agreements?
The Palestinians have called the deals dangerous betrayals.
They believe that the movements of the Gulf countries fail to fulfill the promise of the Arab states not to embrace ties with Israel until Palestinian statehood is achieved.
The United Arab Emirates has said that progress in creating a Palestinian state is critical and that its deal included a promise by Israel to “suspend” its controversial plan to annex key parts of the occupied West Bank assigned to it by President Trump in the framework of the Middle East peace plan. unveiled in January.
The Palestinians rejected Trump’s proposals as biased towards Israel and warned that annexation would destroy their hopes for a viable future independent state and violate international law, a position supported by much of the international community.
The UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs told the BBC that he had perceived an “opportunity” when Netanyahu signaled that he would go ahead with the annexation earlier this year.
“Everyone was concerned about the annexation of Palestinian land, which was actually a threat to the viability of the two-state solution,” Anwar Gargash said.
“And I think this moved our plans forward and gave us a reason, a clear reason and a clear justification, why a decision that we would have made in 2021 or 2022 should be made now.”
Gargash said he did not believe that Netanyahu or another Israeli leader could breach a promise to suspend the annexation plans.
The UAE has called on Palestinian leaders to seize this moment to reorganize their approach and prepare to re-engage in productive discussions with Israel.
In a statement issued after his attendance at the White House ceremony, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the agreements were “a massive and welcome opportunity to reshape policy in the region.”
He said that he understood the Palestinian objections, but that “in time, the Palestinian people will understand that only through a radical change in strategy can legitimate aspirations for a viable Palestinian state be realized.”
What is the background?
There is an undercurrent of regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran in these diplomatic moves.
The decades-long enmity between them is compounded by religious differences. They each follow one of the two main branches of Islam: Iran is largely Shiite Muslim, while Saudi Arabia sees itself as the main Sunni Muslim power.
The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are Saudi allies.
The response from Saudi Arabia will be closely monitored. There is no indication yet that he is ready to follow Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Last month saw Israel’s first official flight to the United Arab Emirates, which was seen as an important step in normalizing relations.
President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who was on the plane, described the agreement with the United Arab Emirates as “the ability to change the entire course of the Middle East.”
