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<font size="1"><a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/arab-normalization-with-israel-is-the-start-of-an-anti-iran-alliance/">https://www.palestinechronicle.com/arab-normalization-with-israel-is-the-start-of-an-anti-iran-alliance/</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Arab Normalization with Israel is the Start of an Anti-Iran Alliance</h1>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">September 17, 2020<br></div>
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<img src="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Abraham-A-678x455.jpg" alt="" title="Abraham-A" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="452" height="303">
Abraham Accord signing ceremony in Washington. (Photo: File)
<p><strong>By <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/iqbal-jassat" title="Display all articles for Iqbal Jassat">Iqbal Jassat</a></strong></p><p>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”?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>A vision built on the myth of “a land without people for a people without land”.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And it’s not confined to Bahrain and the UAE. Most Arab despots view a secure Israel as their guarantor.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>So what is the “peace deal” and the much-vaunted “dawn of a new Middle East” about?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>It is “normalization” for the purposes of mounting a military alliance against the Islamic Republic of Iran.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>In the context of non-existent Palestinian “negotiations”, so too has
the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley been taken “off the table”.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>“It’s accepting a reality in which the Palestinians live under occupation without independence or basic rights.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><i><span>– Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the South
Africa-based Media Review Network. He contributed this article to The
Palestine Chronicle. Visit: </span></i><a href="http://www.mediareviewnet.com/"><i><span>www.mediareviewnet.com</span></i></a></p>
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