Gaza conflict: Abraham Accords survive but alternative alliances emerge
Emad Mekay, IBA Middle East Correspondent, CairoWednesday 21 February 2024
A wave of recent normalisation deals between Israel and some Arab governments have so far survived the highly polarising Gaza war, but rival alliances spearheaded by Iran have also emerged.
In 2020, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed the deals, collectively known as the Abraham Accords. The deals were brokered primarily by the former Trump administration and later President Biden said he was working to include Saudi Arabia, a regional economic heavyweight that is widely seen as the trophy of the agreements.
Backers first promoted the deals to skeptical Arab publics by saying they would give rich Arab countries unprecedented financial leverage to hamstring Israel , particularly in the case of the arrival of a hardline government and that they would eventually improve treatment of the Palestinians. But months into a recent massive incursion into the Gaza Strip that has cost thousands of civilian lives, Arab regimes have yet again defied their own public opinion and – for ideological and pragmatic reasons – signaled that benefits from the Abraham Accords override all other considerations.
A survey by the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy found in December that 96 per cent of Saudis say that Arab countries should break all contacts with Israel to protest against Israeli attacks in Gaza. ‘The idea that Israel can make peace with other regional countries and continue to avoid making peace with the Palestinians has proven to be a total failure, and has also led to disastrous outcomes for Israel, the Palestinians, and for the region as a whole,’ says Rasem Kamal, Vice Chair of the Arab Regional Forum of the IBA. ‘Arab countries of the Abraham Accords as well as other Arab – and non-Arab – countries who have relations with Israel should pressure Israel to abide by international humanitarian law as well as international human rights law and, ultimately, should keep pushing towards ending Israeli occupation of the Occupied Territories.’
Arab countries of the Abraham Accords as well as other Arab – and non-Arab – countries who have relations with Israel should pressure Israel to abide by international humanitarian law as well as international human rights law
Rasem Kamal
Vice Chair, IBA Arab Regional Forum
Kamal argues that the protection of life can be an acceptable starting position to stop the war. ‘Human lives should be treated and regarded equally. That applies to the lives of the Israelis held in Gaza as well as the lives of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip,’ Kamal says, referring to dozens of Israelis held in Gaza since the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, launched a surprise attack on Israeli outposts on 7 October. So far 29,092 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and a further 68,552 reported injured. At least 1,200 Israelis have been killed.
‘No human life is more valuable than the other. Hence, the continued captivity of the Israelis held in Gaza is not a legitimate excuse for destroying a whole nation, or for indiscriminately killing Palestinian civilians, destroying their houses and livelihoods, and turning their lives into misery. Not to mention that Israeli army attacks are not only killing Palestinian civilians, but also killing the Israelis held in Gaza,’ says Kamal.
Ideology and pragmatism
Groups like Hamas and Jihad, who are fighting an internecine war with the Israelis in Gaza now, are seen equally as a threat to the stability of ruling elites in most Arab countries. Islamic solidarity promoted by similar groups would eventually aim at dissolving borders and national identities for a larger link between peoples of the Middle East and other Muslim nations based on faith. In effect, that would mean, for example, that the rich Arab Gulf ruling monarchies and sheikhdoms may end up splitting their vast oil wealth with much poorer countries such as Djibouti, Mauritania, Sudan and Yemen simply because they share the same faith.
Another reason why Arab regimes have not utilised the Abraham Accords to pressure Israel is that Gulf countries, particularly the UAE, which is using its cash-laden coffers to cultivate a foreign policy as a regional kingmaker, appear to need Israel more than Israel needs them. For the UAE, Israeli military capabilities would be a much-needed layer of protection against an increasingly assertive Iran, a historic regional rival, and its regional proxies like the Houthis of Yemen who once targeted UAE cities.
In return for economic normalisation and business deals, a major gain for the UAE in particular would be obtaining advanced Israeli military and surveillance technology. The UAE and Saudis have already shown interest in Israeli electronic missile defense systems. Moreover, it is Israeli – rather than Palestinian – tech companies that have been helping Saudi Arabia and the UAE with electronic espionage of political opponents, who are mostly Islamists, ie ideological enemies.
For Bahrain, the UAE and later for Saudi Arabia, the deal with Israel would serve as a conduit towards cementing the US presence in this anti-Iran security alliance.
Since October 7, Saudi Arabia has been using its heavyweight regional media influence to question Hamas’ motives. Riyadh has not yet officially signed a deal with Israel and suspects the October 7 attack was designed not by Hamas, but by Iran with the intention of derailing a Saudi-Israel alliance.
Morocco, another Abraham Accords country, has shied away from supporting the Palestinians. The deal with Israel carried the indispensable price of US recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara, a sparsely populated territory, the status of which remains undecided
Iran, a non-Arab country that mostly follows the minority Shiite interpretation of Islam, stands out in the region as the only military power embracing Palestinian resistance groups who were once backed by their Sunni kin in Arab countries. The Emarati and Saudi bid to undermine Iran through the Abraham Accords may have only pushed Iran to intensify Tehran’s own countercampaign through aligning its interests with those of several non-state actors around the region. Tehran has so far built political and military influence in southern Lebanon through Hezbollah; in Yemen through the Houthis; in Syria through Shiite militias; in Iraq through several post-Saddam paramilitary groups; and finally in Gaza through Hamas and Jihad.
While the Abraham Accords may have stopped Arab countries from pressuring Israel towards a settlement with the Palestinians, by contrast they accelerated Iran’s efforts to exploit grievances around the Middle East and arm a network of groups that were ready to fight.
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