When Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel last week, many experts and military strategists pondered over one question: Why did the Palestinian armed group choose to carry out an unprecedented all of a sudden?
Though Hamas carried out a coordinated land and air strike on Saturday killing over 900 Israelis and blowing Israel’s aura of invincibility, it was determined that Israel, with its most advanced weapons and military, would retaliate with all its might.
The prediction of a counter-offensive turned true when Israeli warplanes hammered the Gaza Strip neighbourhood by neighbourhood on Tuesday reducing buildings to rubble and sending people scrambling to find safety and killing over 700.
However, the conflict is likely to delay if not derail the diplomatic push by the United States to improve relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours.
What are the Abraham Accords?
The Abraham Accords include a general declaration of support for peaceful relations in the Middle East among Jews, Muslims and Christians, all followers of religions linked to the patriarch Abraham.
The normalization push, which began under former President Donald Trump, is an ambitious effort to reshape the Middle East and boost Israel’s standing in historic ways.
The Trump administration saw the accords partly as paving a path toward full ties with Israel, including in security and intelligence cooperation to counter common rivals, such as Iran.
It also encompasses opportunities like direct flights, people-to-people exchanges, and a better investment climate between the Middle East nations and Israel, which would lead to investment and growth in the region.
However, according to critics, the accords skip past Palestinian demands for statehood. Hamas top leader Ismail Haniyeh has mocked the treaties by saying, “All the normalisation agreements that you signed with that entity cannot resolve this (Palestinian) conflict.”
Result of Abraham Accords
The Abraham Accords is in continuation with the peace process that has been undertaken over the last several decades in the region. In 1978, the Camp David Accords, a treaty between Egypt and Israel, was signed to normalise ties. In 1994, Jordan signed a peace agreement with Israel.
Under the Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates became the first Arab country, after Egypt and Jordan, in over two decades to establish ties with Israel in 2020.
Under the normalisation talks, Israel has also signed a series of agreements with Morocco, Bahrain, and Sudan between September 2020 and January 2021.
US officials also are working to encourage more business, education and other ties between the four Arab states and Israel. The treaty also resulted in improving ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel lately.
Has Abraham Accords Suffered Setback?
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan recently noted that though there are challenges in the Mideast, but the region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.
However, with the now escalating conflict between Hamas and Israel, that optimism has vanished. The conflict is threatening to delay or derail the progress that the US made in years to improve the relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours.
Just three weeks back, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a meeting with President Joe Biden and on the historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia. However, the attacks have left American, Israeli and Saudis officials in shock, especially at a time when the agreement was starting to come into focus.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Hamas attacks may have been driven in part by a desire to scuttle the United States’ most ambitious part of the initiative: the sealing of diplomatic relations between rivals Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The Middle East’s two greatest powers share a common enemy in Iran, a generous military and financial sponsor of Hamas. Iran has been a vocal critic of the growing bilateral relations between Israel and Arab nations. Recently, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said, “We are against any bilateral relations between our regional countries and the Zionist regime.”
Once the talks would is accomplished, it would create new alliance between the Gulf states and Israel and benefit Tel Aviv’s diplomacy against Iran’s “axis of resistance.” The pact would also have been a legacy-defining achievement for Biden, Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Comments
0 comment