[News] Arab Normalization with Israel is the Start of an Anti-Iran Alliance

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.palestinechronicle.com/arab-normalization-with-israel-is-the-start-of-an-anti-iran-alliance/
Arab
Normalization with Israel is the Start of an Anti-Iran Alliance
September 17, 2020
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Abraham Accord signing ceremony in Washington. (Photo: File)

*By Iqbal Jassat <https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/iqbal-jassat>*

As Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu stepped up to the podium flanked by
the foreign ministers of Bahrain and the UAE to sign what has been hailed
as a “historic peace agreement” between Israel and the two Gulf kingdoms,
many have wondered aloud “where are the Palestinians”?

Indeed the absence of Palestinians has been noted by analysts familiar with
the bloody history of Zionism’s colonial project, as a deliberate objective
by the architects of the deal to fulfill Israel’s vision.

A vision built on the myth of “a land without people for a people without
land”.

The ceremony at the White House presided over by Trump, thus reflected
Netanyahu’s world of fantasy in which Palestinians are treated as
sub-human, irrelevant and a nuisance.

The so-called “peace agreement” between Israel and American client-states
is bizarre for as surrogates in the service of US hegemony, neither Bahrain
nor the UAE have ever been at war against Israel.

And apart from not being enemies, the two Gulf oligarchies have for decades
maintained a clandestine love-affair with Israel, on the assumption that
their security is tied to the security of the settler-colonial regime.

And it’s not confined to Bahrain and the UAE. Most Arab despots view a
secure Israel as their guarantor.

The reality is that Palestinian lives do matter despite the American/Israel
plot to erase them from the equation and have Arab client-regimes as
surrogates willing to be scripted into it.

So what is the “peace deal” and the much-vaunted “dawn of a new Middle
East” about?

Contrary to the illusion created at the White House ceremony in pursuit of
fake “peace”, Pompeo let the cat out of the bag during his foray in the
region a few days before.

It is “normalization” for the purposes of mounting a military alliance
against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Alastair Crooke of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum confirms that Pompeo’s
explanation reveals that the UAE and Israel have agreed to form a security
and military alliance against Iran to protect US interests and the Middle
East.

If the devil is in the detail, the agreement and any that might follow with
more Arab countries as promised by Trump, means that there will be an
Israeli military presence in the Gulf and a joint Israeli-UAE intelligence
base on Socotra Island in the Red Sea basin overlooking the Bab al-Mandab
Strait, according to Crooke’s assessment.

In other words, far from being a “peace deal” to transform the Middle East
into a region of milk and honey with false promises of “prosperity”, the
agreement launches a new era of wars and instability.

Based on Pompeo’s revelations, Crooke’s assessment is that the agreement
will transform the conflict in the Middle East from being Arab-Israeli to
Arab-Iranian and perhaps Arab-Turkish later on.

That Palestinian Rights have been forfeited by the “Abraham Accords” is
confirmed by the fact that the Trump administration in cahoots with Israel
and the Arab regimes has taken Jerusalem “off the table” in the language
used by Pompeo.

In the context of non-existent Palestinian “negotiations”, so too has the
Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley been taken “off the table”.

The harsh reality Crooke warns about is that according to Pompeo’s
formulation of the conflict transformation he has engineered says something
else too: It is that the Palestinian issue is “off the table” as well.

That the term “peace” is an oxymoron in the manner it has been twisted and
maligned by Trump, Netanyahu and the Arab cohorts from US allies Bahrain
and the UAE, is clearly evident in the military pact signed by them.

Not surprising thus to note the observation made by Palestinian MK Ayman
Odeh who tweeted: “The ceremony in Washington is not a historic peace deal,
but a historic arms deal.”

“It’s accepting a reality in which the Palestinians live under occupation
without independence or basic rights.”

For Palestinians and solidarity movements across the world including
countries such as South Africa, know that the occupation will continue the
morning after the signing.

The UAE and Bahrain have signed onto a deal authorizing Israel to continue
imprisoning Palestinians under military rule, allowing settlers to expand
illegal settlements by stealing more and more Palestinian lands and
granting IDF soldiers the mandate to continue to man military checkpoints,
forcefully enter homes, detain, torture and kill.

*– Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the South Africa-based Media
Review Network. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
Visit: **www.mediareviewnet.com* <http://www.mediareviewnet.com/>
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