Palestine, now a footnote
Paper:
Mains: General Studies- II: Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations.
Why in News:
In an agreement brokered by the U.S., Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have agreed to establish full diplomatic relations.
Key Details:
- For a long time, Israel was a state that no country in West Asia was willing to recognise, negotiate with or broker a peace deal with until statehood was granted to the Palestinians.
- However, Israel managed to achieve full diplomatic relations with Egypt in 1979 and then with Jordan in 1994.
- This is the third significant win for Israeli foreign policy where it has managed to keep the precondition of Palestinian statehood off the table and establish full diplomatic ties.
Palestine, a non-issue in the region:
- The substantive political issues of the Palestinian people have withered away. For a long time, the Palestinian issue has become a non-issue in the region.
- The question of Palestine was not a precondition or part of the deal that Egypt signed with Israel in 1979.
- Under Gamal Abdul Nasser’s leadership, Egypt was the leader of the Arab world, but after Nasserism and the wars in 1967 and 1973, it realised that it did not have enough leverage to compel Israel to accept the two-state solution.
- Similar was the case with Jordan when it established full bilateral ties with Israel in 1994 leaving the Palestinian cause in the hands of Yasser Arafat.
- Unlike the past two Arab-Israeli peace agreements, Palestinian concerns are not considered in the current agreement.
- The Palestinian issue has become a non-issue for the Arab rulers because it is not an existential matter.
- The ruling class is not accountable to the public as most of the Arab rulers are not democratically elected and often make decisions depending on the situation in the region.
- That’s how the Iranian factor has moved them closer to Israel.
- Yasser Arafat was right in believing that it is childish for the Palestinians to sit behind the autocratic Arab leaders. The agreement shows that the Palestinian national movement needs to be reawakened, but there is a lack of leadership.
Background:
Conflicts:
- Arab-Israeli ties have historically been conflict-ridden.
- Arab countries, including Egypt, Transjordan, Syria and Iraq, fought their first war with Israel in 1948. The war ended with Israel capturing more territories, including West Jerusalem, than that proposed by the UN Partition Plan.
- Israel and Arab states have also fought three more major wars — the 1956 Suez conflict, the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
- In the 1967 war Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria.
- Arab countries had declared their intentions of having no peace with Israel, no talks with Israel and not granting recognition to Israel.
Attempts at reconciliation:
- The Camp David Accords of 1978was a watermark in setting right Arab-Israel relations. In 1979, Israel and Egypt concluded a peace treaty, as part of which Israel withdrew from Sinai in return for Egyptian recognition.
- In 1994, Jordan became the second Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel.
- Following the Oslo Accords, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) recognised Israel and was allowed to form the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza.
Issue:
- The old enmity between Arab countries and Israel has dissipated. The Sunni Arab kingdoms in the Gulf region such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE had developed backroom contacts with Israel over the past several years.
- One of the major factors that seem to have brought Israel and The UAE closer has been their shared antipathy towards Iran.
- The current U.S. administration seems to have played a role in getting the two sides together.
Significance:
- This development marks a historic breakthrough in Arab-Israel relations.
- The UAE is only the third Arab country and the first in the Gulf region to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
- If more countries in the Gulf follow the UAE’s lead, it would open a new chapter in Arab-Israel ties and bring Peace to the region.
- Israel’s plan to annex the West Bank would have drastically changed the status quo in the Palestine issue and would have completely eliminated the possibility of a two-state solution. The UAE-Israel agreement seems to have averted such a scenario.
Concerns:
- The Saudi bloc, consisting of Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain and others, see their interests being aligned with that of the U.S. and Israel, while Turkey and Iran are emerging as their rival bloc.
- The agreement between The UAE and Israel could further sharpen divisions in the region.
- The tension between the countries could only further deteriorate the peace and security in the region.
- Unlike the past two Arab-Israeli peace agreements, Palestinian concerns are not considered in the current agreement.