Who could be against an announcement of peace between two nations formally at war? Who could possibly object to Israel calling a halt to a move that would have entrenched yet deeper the loss of territory Palestinians need for a state of their own?
We got the answer on Thursday last week, when US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan — MBZ to his friends — announced what Trump called a “historical peace agreement” between Israel and the Gulf state.
In return for “full normalization” of relations, Israel said it would suspend its planned annexation of large parts of the West Bank.
Illustration: Yusha
Sounds great, right? There was immediate praise from the UN, Britain, France and Egypt, as well as from Trump’s November opponent former US vice president Joe Biden and from veterans of the once-real “peace process.”
The talk is of a signing ceremony at the White House within weeks, with more Gulf states — Bahrain and Oman are the obvious candidates — set to follow the UAE’s lead in the coming days.
There is no denying that we all need a ray of light in this gloomy year, but this one should be approached with caution.
A quick look at the winners and losers might tell you why.
An obvious beneficiary is Trump, who now has a trophy to hold aloft in the run-up to the US presidential elections. To be sure, not many Americans are to switch their vote because of a diplomatic shift in the Middle East, but it allows Trump to claim a foreign policy achievement, albeit one dwarfed by his multiple foreign policy failures, whether getting suckered by North Korea or undermining the Iran nuclear deal.
NOBEL PRIZE-WORTHY?
Trump has always coveted the Nobel Peace Prize that former US president Barack Obama bagged before he had served a full year in office, so naturally Trump sent out US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien to declare that Trump “should be a frontrunner for the Nobel Peace Prize.”
The bigger winner is Netanyahu, who also has an election on his mind. He is thinking of triggering yet another one — it would be Israel’s fourth in just over 18 months — and the UAE’s move gives him a valuable advantage.
On trial for corruption, blamed for botching Israel’s initially effective handling of COVID-19 and for a battered economy, his home besieged by furious protesters, Netanyahu can now divert attention away from all that and focus on the terrain he has made his own: “national security.”
He can pose as the statesman poised to sign the first Israeli accord with an Arab state since the Israel-Jordan peace treaty in 1994, the global player who towers over his domestic rivals.
He was careful to brief that his former opponent Israeli Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz did not even know about the UAE deal until it was on the news.
The gains for Netanyahu are not merely electoral. By agreeing to give up annexation — which plenty of observers reckoned was always an empty threat — he has been generously rewarded, even though the West Bank remains occupied and Palestinians are still denied basic rights.
Netanyahu is the man who picks your pocket and then expects a prize for agreeing not to hit you over the head. The UAE has handed him just such a prize. As one observer joked: “Next time he should threaten to annex Jordan — that way he’ll get a peace treaty with Saudi Arabia.”
Do not joke: The UAE could well be flying a trial balloon for Saudi Arabia, as Riyadh monitors global reaction to this step. For now, the Emiratis are hailing a diplomatic win, hoping to reap the prestige that comes with being “the first mover,” as one UAE official said.
The UAE has also hedged its US bets for November: Either the Emiratis have boosted Trump, and he will owe them, or they have made a play that is likely to win favor with Biden and the peace-process stalwarts who surround him.
“MBZ has just taken out his insurance policy,” one long-time observer said.
For Prince Mohammad, an alliance with Israel makes good sense. There is the obvious strategic logic that has long made Sunni-dominated Gulf states willing to cozy up to Israel: namely, their shared fear and loathing of Shiite Iran.
It is that which has fueled discreet cooperation with Israel, especially in intelligence matters, for the past few years. In the period when Iran was loudly pursuing its nuclear ambitions, the Gulf states grew to see their enemy’s enemy — Israel — as a potential friend.
However, there is a narrower calculation, too. The end of annexation is a relief to authoritarian rulers such as Prince Mohammad: It might have sparked a Palestinian movement for equal rights, one whose message could have spread across the region, perhaps — who knows — even catching fire with Prince Mohammad’s own subjects. Best for him if it is snuffed out.
DENIED AUTONOMY
Which brings us to the people conspicuously missing from that list of winners: the Palestinians. Throughout their history, they have seen their fate determined by others, thanks to decisions taken without their knowledge, let alone consent. Now it has happened again.
For many decades, the Arab world insisted that there could be no normalization — no peace — with Israel without some measure of justice for the Palestinians.
When Egypt and Israel reached an agreement in 1978, not much was promised to the Palestinians, but there was something. The accord with Jordan in 1994 went further, including substantial commitments predicated on Palestinians’ direct involvement.
The UAE has abandoned the Palestinians entirely. With this deal, it has signaled that Israel can remain an occupier, closing off the possibility of Palestinian self-determination, and still win regional acceptance. The result is that the occupation itself has been normalized and given an Arab seal of approval.
Small wonder that veteran Palestinian Legislator Hanan Ashrawi accused Prince Mohammad of “selling out” her people, while Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the agreement with Israel a “betrayal of the Palestinian cause.”
Abbas called for an emergency meeting of Palestinian leaders and withdrew his ambassador from the UAE, but both moves served chiefly to show how little he can do.
I understand why Israelis delight in this opening, with its promise of Israeli embassies in Arab capitals, direct flights between them and all that seems to symbolize: acceptance in the Middle East was a goal of Israel’s founding generation.
However, real acceptance requires more than a signature on a treaty. It means making peace with the peoples of the region rather than with the tyrants who rule them — and making peace with one people in particular, the people fated to share the same land.
That prize is much harder to achieve, but it is the one that matters.
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