"Abraham Agreement": Trump reconciled Israel with the United Arab Emirates without Russia's participation

Against the backdrop of a wave of disasters in 2020, an event took place in the United States that at another time would have been a world-class sensation. The UAE and Bahrain, mediated by the United States and personally by Trump, signed an agreement of recognition and peace with Israel. In parallel, all four countries, in addition to bilateral agreements, signed a mutual pact, which is called the "Agreement of Abraham".

Israeli analyst Valery Rubin reports that the world press, with rare exceptions, called it an event of historic proportions, a peaceful breakthrough, even a major step towards a New Middle East.

But is it really so? - asks Rubin, moving on to the analysis of this event:

“Israel, perhaps with some reservations, will find in them more than it will lose. In the agreement with Abu Dhabi, he will find a solid trade and financial partner, investments, cooperation in the field of high technologies (artificial intelligence, medicine, cyber security). Moreover, there is no need to start from a “blank slate”: secret contacts between officials and specialists continued for more than one year. They will lose (partially) their air superiority to the Air Force, as the US President, he said, has no problem selling several of the latest F-35 stealth aircraft to the UAE. To which Prime Minister Netanyahu resisted as best he could. But Trump has his own considerations on this score: friendship is friendship, and profits of the military-industrial complex and the export of military products are separate.

As for Bahrain, there are no visible advantages for Israel. Is that the opportunity to open a synagogue for fifty local Jews in this wonderful, - in the opinion of the famous businessman, the head of the World Jewish Congress, Ron Lauder - a country that occupies 191st place in the ranking of civil liberties and human rights. The UAE, by the way, is also located nearby — at 183 positions. Bahrain is the fiefdom of Riyadh and the main US ally outside NATO. The island was the main base of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet for operations in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean.

But both the Emirates and Bahrain are, by and large, a small fish, not like Saudi Arabia, a heavyweight in the Arab League. What do they say in Riyadh?

Saudi Arabia reaffirms its support for the Palestinian people and efforts to achieve a just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian question based on the Arab Peace Initiative on the recognition of two states, Arab and Jewish, within the 1967 borders, the government said in a statement in Riyadh.

* The Arab Peace Initiative is an official initiative of the Arab countries, adopted by the League of Arab States (LAS) in Beirut on March 28, 2002, and aimed at achieving a comprehensive peace with Israel and ending the Arab-Israeli conflict, subject to Israel's withdrawal from the territories it occupied in 1967 (including Golan Heights and the Shebaa farm in southern Lebanon) and its recognition of the State of Palestine (in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip) with its capital in East Jerusalem.

Trump nonetheless believes that Saudi Arabia will soon normalize relations with Israel as well. In his opinion, Saudi Arabia will follow Bahrain and the UAE to a complete normalization of relations with Israel. This bluff, fakenews or true, remains to be seen.

Trump told White House reporters that the Kingdom is among several countries on the brink of establishing diplomatic relations with Jerusalem, stressing, however, that after speaking with King Salman, he believes the country will do so "at the right time." The Saudis have their own reason, they can wait for the results of the US presidential elections before saying yes.

“Many other countries will join us soon,” Trump boasted hours after Bahrain and the UAE officially signed documents normalizing relations with Israel. - We will have 7, 8 or 9. Many other countries, including large ones, will join us.

“With the courage of the leaders of these three countries, we are taking a big step towards a future where people of all faiths and all backgrounds live together in peace and prosperity,” Trump said, addressing the hundreds of guests gathered for the signing ceremony on the White House's South Lawn. Bearing in mind the difficult, to put it mildly, relations between the Israelis and the Palestinians (the holy complex for Islam, the Al-Aqsa mosques and the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount are currently under the tutelage of Jordan), predict what will happen if the Temple Mount is opened for all Muslims to visit, does not seem possible. Or did Trump mean generally free access to the Temple Mount?

Returning to the reaction of Saudi Arabia, it should be noted that Riyadh was secretly the political sponsor of these events, which made a splash in the world. However, the authors of the Arab Peace Initiative would not like to lose face and abandon their previous attitudes regarding the prospects and methods of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Saudi Arabia is known to have opened its airspace to Israel-UAE flights after the normalization agreement, thus taking a step towards Israel, but at the same time making it clear that Riyadh will not follow the UAE and Bahrain until the Jewish state signs the recognized UN Security Council peace treaty with Palestine. Alas, there is no clear line of Saudi Arabia's behavior so far.

So, the "Abraham Agreement" signed on Tuesday and two separate documents on the normalization and establishment of full diplomatic relations between Israel, on the one hand, and the UAE and Bahrain, on the other, have become the first, no doubt, significant political acts of this kind in the last 20 years. ... What were the goals of the signatories? Apparently, they are different, based on their national interests. As political observers note, not the least role in creating the prototype of the "Entente with Israel" was played by the common fears of the Gulf countries in connection with the strengthening of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the region and its policy of the "Shiite axis of resistance" to the two devils - the Americans and the Zionists. Washington is shifting part of the hardships of the confrontation with the rebellious Iranians onto its Sunni allies and Israel ... "

But the publicist Anatoly Nesmiyan reacted to this event with much more optimism than his colleague. Along the way, Nesmiyan explained why Russia found itself on the sidelines of this most important event:

“In Russia, this event was not noticed, it is clear why - the Kremlin dropped out of the world agenda as a subject, now mediation in the settlement of conflicts is not its league. Under Putin, Russia has slipped into a courtyard championship of local politics, our level is to gather African dictators and forgive them Soviet debts. Complex problems have long been too tough for masters of multi-pass galactic combinations. So, snatching something quietly, poisoning someone in a petty way is a normal level of a normal punks. Where they crawled out - there we found ourselves.

Meanwhile, the event is very, very significant. If earlier Israel was recognized only by Egypt and Jordan, now the "Abrahamic Accords", as the current treaty is called, allows expanding the list of countries in the region that recognize Israel. True, a significant part of the Arab countries, and without recognition, are already doing business with Israel "in fact", but its legal confirmation is actually quite important.

There are enough disputed territories and unresolved territorial and political problems in the world. They can be settled either in the course of a war, where the victor imposes his will on the defeated one, or by diplomatic and political fixation of the existing status quo, since changing it requires so much resources that the meaning of such a change is lost. For Russia, for example, Crimea is a similar disputed territory. It will remain it for a long time, especially since the stability of the current regime is at an extremely low level, and with the increasing dynamics of destructive processes, which means that after its collapse, the likelihood of revising the Crimean problem significantly increases. And if so, the recognition of Crimea "under Putin," which leads Russia on a direct road to collapse and catastrophe, will not take place under any circumstances.

Israel has taken place, and therefore it is more profitable and more rational to recognize its existence than to continue to pretend that it is not so. Especially in the conditions of a difficult and protracted world crisis, which has added problems.

For Trump, this event is definitely a huge plus in the election campaign. Very on time and on schedule. The Jewish community in the United States will definitely notice this event and will definitely connect it with Trump and his efforts. Therefore, Trump is in the center of the table along with Netanyahu - this is their day.

Iran has spoken sharply and extremely unfriendly about the agreement - but no one will pay attention to it. This is a rogue country, which in many ways has created an appropriate environment around itself. He does not have the tools and resources to embody threats against Bahrain and the UAE, and therefore, in general, he does not give a damn about his dissatisfaction with everyone..."