The Abraham Accords: Peacemaking or Enabling Violence?
Eli Lang, Online Branch, Staff Writer
February 2022
Arab League States are selling out their role as advocates for Palestinian rights in exchange for economic benefits, closer relations to American power, and access to cutting edge military hardware. The last year has indicated that this shift in regional relations will only lead to further bloodletting throughout the region, and certainly fail to guarantee interfaith tolerance. The most notable example of this shift in diplomacy was the signing of the 2020 Abraham Accords. The Abraham Accords were presented as a pathway to peace in the Middle East but seem to have accomplished nothing except for the facilitation of greater abuses against the region's most vulnerable populations.
Israel has fought four wars with its Arab neighbours since its declaration of independence in 1948. However, since the 1970s, with the exceptions of Lebanon and Syria, Israel’s relationship with the majority of its Arab adversaries has generally de-escalated from one of open violence to diplomatic exclusion.
Palestinians today are confined to their occupied territories by border walls, harassed at Israeli military checkpoints, and suddenly have had their homes destroyed to make room for Israeli settlements. Israel commonly fails to provide Palestinians with water, electricity, and proper health services. In 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) voted to appoint a commission to investigate potential war crimes committed in Israel and occupied Palestine. However, Israel has refused to cooperate with the UNHRC probe. In 2022, Amnesty International released a comprehensive report deeming the Israeli state guilty of the practice of apartheid as according to international law.
Following the end of direct military conflict with Israel, Arab and Muslim majority states from the Levant to North Africa have stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Many majority Muslim states have refused to acknowledge Israeli statehood, and boycott Israeli trade and diplomacy. These positions allow Arab states to openly voice anger over the subjugation of fellow Muslims and Arabs based on their religion and race. Additionally, these relationships have isolated Israel from regional trade and forced it to rely upon foreign, and particularly American, aid to develop economically, and to dominate Palestinians militarily. These policies have however had financial drawbacks for the boycotters themselves.
The door was nudged open for Israeli-Arab diplomacy decades ago with the signing of the 1978 Camp David Accords. These historic peace treaties with Egypt were Israel’s first diplomatic agreement with one of its Arab neighbours. These accords addressed the issue of Palestinian-Israeli relations and the governments of Jordan and Egypt claimed that they would work with Israel to ensure the security concerns of all parties.
In 2020, Israel saw a massive leap forward in further attempts to normalize Arab State relations with the signing of the Abraham Accords. The Abraham Accords normalized diplomatic ties between Morocco, Bahrain, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel. A declaration of commitment to cooperate towards securing recognition of equality and the pursuit of peace between Abrahamic faiths of the Middle East prefaces each of the agreements. The agreements include articles proposing foundations of embassies, open travel, and commitments to free trade between the Arab countries and Israel. The agreements secured each of the Arab states an attractive commitment from the US. Each accord was brokered and signed by either former US President Donald Trump or adviser Jared Kushner. The Abraham Accords themselves, or closely connected bilateral treaties, provided their Arab signatories with distinct privileges derived from US authority or power. Morocco received US recognition of its sovereignty over the bitterly contested territory of Western Sahara, Sudan was removed from the state sponsored terrorism list, Bahrain received US security guarantees in the face of Iranian hostility and the UAE was granted access to advanced US developed weaponry. The signing of the Accords did not go unnoticed in the region. Even Saudi Arabia, which is the region’s largest economy, and self-proclaimed leader of the Islamic faith has taken note. They have since expressed interest in normalization of ties with Israel. It is worth noting that the accords were presented as paths to interfaith tolerance and cooperation over human rights. However, unlike Egypt’s Camp David Accords, none contained an article specifically mentioning the issue of Palestinian autonomy.
2021 was the year for revealing the true nature of the new Arab-Israeli relationship. The agreements benefited each signatory’s economy. Israel emerged as the main beneficiary, seeing a 2.3% change in GDP. In May of 2021, clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli security forces at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque triggered a short war between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas, the fundamentalist group who controls the blockaded Gaza strip. The conflict took the lives of 12 Israelis and 232 Palestinians, with the majority of casualties being civilians. The clashes at Al-Aqsa were the only events condemned by Morocco, Sudan, and Bahrain. The UAE was the only Arab party of the Abraham Accords to comment on the resulting war, with offers of ceasefire moderation. Israel did not take up the Emirates on their moderation offer, but did accept their invitation to attend an arms fair in Abu Dhabi later in 2021. The Abraham Accords have generated considerable opportunity for the UAE to expand its arsenal, and among the weaponry that they were granted access to by the US in 2020 are advanced F-35 bomber jets. It is entirely possible that these bombers will see action in the Yemeni Civil War in the near future, a conflict which has seen the Emiraties sully their human rights record.
Within a year, it has been made apparent that the 2020 Abraham Accords are failing to fulfill their objective of peace and equality in the Middle East. Rather they have laid the groundwork for legitimizing human rights abuses and facilitating the flow of deadlier weapons to already bloody power struggles. Upon review, the Abraham Accords reveal the overwhelming influence that foreign hegemons like the US can have on regional political dynamics.
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