The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on Tuesday will be the last Arab states to break a long-standing taboo when they signal agreements to normalize relations with Israel as a component of a strategic realignment of Middle Eastern countries opposed to Iran.
US President Donald Trump will hold a rite at the White House at noon local time (16:00 GMT), ending a dramatic month in which the United Arab Emirates and then Bahrain agreed to opposite decades of unsealed w unresolved Israel’s decades-long dispute. with the Palestinians.
At the U. S. -organized event, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will signal agreements with Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani.
These agreements make them the third and fourth Arab state to take steps to normalize since Israel signed the peace treaties with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
UAE Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash said Tuesday that his country’s resolve to normalize relations with Israel had “broken the mental barrier” and “the way forward” for the region.
The back-to-back agreements, which provoked strong condemnation from the Palestinians, mark a diplomatic victory for Trump, who spent his presidency making plans for settlements on disorders as intractable as North Korea’s nuclear program to track for real and elusive achievements.
The combination of Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain would possibly be their unusual fear of Iran’s growing influence in the region and the progression of ballistic missiles. Iran has criticized both agreements. Qatar, a Gulf state, has ruled the normalization of relations with Israel until the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation is resolved.
With Trump’s re-election on November 3, the agreements can help build the pro-Israeli evangelical Christian electorate in the United States, a vital component of its political base.
In statements to Fox News hours before the ceremony, Trump said he expected more Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel and predicted that Palestinians would eventually join them or “leave behind. “
One of the targets of the White House appeals is Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab force in the Gulf. So far, the Saudis, whose king is the custodian of Islam’s holiest sites and leading the world’s largest oil exporter, have pointed out that they are ready.
Another target is Oman, whose leader spoke to Trump last week. Oman must send his ambassador to Tuesday’s ceremony, a senior U. S. official said, but we didn’t know if the Saudis would attend.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Lolwah al-Khater told Bloomberg on Monday that normalization with Israel “cannot be the answer” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Although a diplomatic victory for Netanyahu, the rite comes when he faces a complaint at home over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and a corruption trial on charges of corruption, fraud and non-compliance to accept as true that they have led to common street protests.
Netanyahu denies wrongdoing, describing his trial as a left-wing political witch hunt aimed at ousting a right-wing leader.
A senior Trump management official said Israel would point to separate agreements with each of the Gulf states and then the United States would point out all 3 by pointing to an unusual document known as the Abrahamic Agreements.
The official refused to provide details.
In a nod to the coronavirus that has hit the United States and the world, the White House is encouraging but does not require participants to wear masks. “While the atmosphere of the rite deserves to be warm, it will depend on the leaders if they need to shake hands,” the official told reporters.
Some differences persist despite the warming of ties. Trump said Tuesday that he would have no challenge in promoting complex F-35 stealth fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates, which have long sought them out, but Israel, owner of the F-35, has made it clear that it still opposes such a sale.
Frustrated by the Palestinians’ refusal to participate in Trump’s Middle East peace initiative, the White House sought to elude them in the hope that agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain would be used as incentives, if any, for peace talks.
Driven by the “normalization” of ties between Arab states and Israel, fractured Palestinian political factions are diligently participating in multilateral talks to establish unity and fix the Gaza Strip-West Bank department in more promising negotiations than previous efforts.
Palestinian leaders, who have long accused Trump of pro-Israel bias, have denounced the Arab rapprochement with Israel as a betrayal of his cause, even though Netanyahu agreed, in exchange for normalization with the United Arab Emirates, to suspend a plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinians see the new agreements as a weakening of a long-standing pan-Arab position calling for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and acceptance of the retreating Palestinian state for overall relations with Arab countries.
Although negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians failed for the last time in 2014, some Arab Gulf states and several Arab countries have long maintained quiet and casual contacts with Israel.
Breaking taboo, the UAE and Bahrain signal agreements in the United States with Israel Wire Services/Al Jazeera.