The Abraham Accords are not about Palestinians
Palestinians are welcome to join the Israel-Arab accords but if they’d prefer to keep fighting they’ll be on their own
Many pundits blame the Abraham Accords for throwing Palestinians under the bus, arguing that peace between Arabs and Israel enraged Palestinians and set the stage for Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
But these peace accords – signed four years ago this month between Israel, on the one hand, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Morocco, on the other – have nothing to do with Palestinians.
The Abraham Accords prioritized national interests and ended 60 years of divisive pan-Arab nationalism, which birthed Palestine.
Abraham Accords governments understood that peace with Israel was not incumbent on whatever happens between the Jewish state and Palestinians.
Hence, 11 months after the outbreak of the Gaza War, the Abraham Accords are proving their robustness, even after Abraham Accords governments repeatedly voted against Israel at the UN.
In May, Reuters reported that the Gaza war had cooled “Israel’s once red-hot business ties with UAE.” Quoting “10 Israeli officials, executives and entrepreneurs,” the news agency argued that Israel’s “business ties with the influential Gulf state remain intact but, in a sign of how the conflict has dented enthusiasm, the [two sides] declined to discuss any recent deals.”
Blaming the Abraham Accords for not bringing peace to Palestinians continues. Palestinians and their supporters still expect the 21 member states of the Arab League to withhold peace with Israel until Palestinians get a state.
But if Palestinians expect the Arabs to lend them a hand, Palestinians should also expect the Arabs to have a say on how and when the conflict with Israel should end.
Unconditional Arab support for an open-ended conflict undermines the national interests of the different Arab states. Furthermore, Palestinians demand support but seldom reciprocate. The Abraham Accords upended this unequal relationship: If Palestinians wanted to fight forever, the Arabs had different plans.
When the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco signed the accords, they described their decision as a “sovereign” one, not bound by any Arab League resolutions. By doing so, these Arab countries hammered another nail in the coffin of antiquated pan-Arab nationalism.
Pan-Arabism is the belief that all Arab countries should merge into one. Such ideology prompted the Arabs of Palestine to reject the British creation of Mandate Palestine in 1920 and insist on joining the Arab Kingdom of Damascus instead.
When Jordan and Egypt took the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, respectively, in 1949, Palestinians did not declare Palestine on this territory because such a state would have been the antithesis of their imagined single Arab nation “from the [Atlantic] ocean to the [Persian] Gulf.”
Starting in 1952, “progressive” Egyptian putschist Gamal Abdul-Nasser rose as the awaited-for Arab unifier. In 1958, Syria merged with Egypt to form the United Arab Republic (UAR) but seceded three years later. Nasser went shopping for a replacement, mainly by agitating Arab nations to overthrow their “regressive” governments.
In 1962, Yemen did just that. Nasser deployed his army to support the coup, while the monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Jordan sided with the toppled Yemeni imam. A civil war ensued in which Nasser’s army was badly bruised.
To avenge his defeat, Nasser instigated the Arabs of the West Bank to secede from Jordan and declare their own state of Palestine, which he hoped would make up for Syria’s exit and his failure to annex Yemen. In 1964, in East Jerusalem, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was born.
At the Arab League, Saudi Arabia vetoed the declaration of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza, a state that would have joined Nasser’s UAR. Riyadh countered with a campaign, under Yasser Arafat, for an independent Palestine on all the land. In 1968, Arafat toppled Nasser’s Ahmed Shuqairi and became the PLO’s president.
After Riyadh broke pan-Arabism, it owned Palestine and spent two decades to earn the PLO global recognition as “the sole representative” of Palestinians—a government in exile that would rule a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza and live at peace with Israel.
The Saudi plan – encoded in the final statement of the 1982 Arab League summit – started moving in 1993 when Israel and Arafat agreed to work toward two states. But by then, the PLO had lost its monopoly over representing Palestinians.
With backing from Islamist Iran, Hamas emerged as a Palestinian force determined to undermine the two-state plan and “liberate Palestine from the river to the sea.”
Riyadh did try one last push toward the two states, in 2002, but the Palestinians were as divided and uncommitted as ever. America and Israel tried again in 2008 and 2013, but to no avail.
The two-state solution died and became a talking point for successive American administrations that lacked the imagination for an alternative, save for Donald Trump and his “Deal of the Century”, which the Palestinians refused.
Until the 1990s and the spread of globalization, the economies of most Arab countries were small and undeveloped. But as the world became interdependent and population growth in the Gulf outpaced oil revenue, the continued Arab boycott of Israel became an economic liability.
In 1994, Jordan signed a peace deal with Israel that has helped the country’s economy grow by leaps and bounds. The UAE, Bahrain and Morocco signed theirs in 2020. In 2023, Saudi Arabia was preparing to do the same when Hamas threw a wrench into the normalization process with its October 7 attack on Israel.
Since the concept of Palestine was born in 1964, and since the two-state plan was tried and failed between 1993 and 2013, the world economy and international relations have changed drastically.
A new vision is required for Israel and the Palestinians. Until one is agreed, it would be unfair to ask the rest of the Arabs to wait until the Palestinians figure out what they are willing to live with.
Had other Arab countries – such as Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq – been independent of Islamist Iran and keen on their national interests, they would have raced the UAE and Bahrain to normalize ties with Israel.
After all, the Abraham Accords are not about Palestinians but about letting history be history and looking forward to a better future. Palestinians are most welcome to join the accords. If they don’t, they will be on their own.
Excellent writeup. Thank you Hussain.
Today, the Islamist Regime in Iran is the main issue, the head of the Snake. It does not represent its people, who are amazing. The sooner Western nations deal with this regime to topple it and free the Iranian people, the better!
This is a brilliant breakdown of the situation. Thank you so much.