Palestinians look up to Saudi Arabia as the only remaining ally in their dream of a homeland but the friend seems to be betraying them
The last few months of the outgoing Trump Administration were very hectic, especially seen from the foreign policy perspective. In an otherwise turbulent and highly-fragile four years of the Trump presidency marked by foreign policy disasters, the last six months were landmark vis-Ã -vis Trump’s West Asia policy. In early August, the Trump administration oversaw the signing of the Abraham accords which are a series of peace- cum-normalisation agreements between Israel with three Arab States, namely Bahrain, the UAE and Sudan.
However, one issue that remains unaddressed that can have ubiquitous ramifications for peace and stability in West Asia and the Middle East is the two-State solution. The normalisation agreements have covertly sidelined the issue of the Palestinians.
Transformation of West Asian politics: One thing that is very clear from the normalisation agreements between Israel and the Gulf Arab States is that the politics of West Asia has undergone drastic transformation. It will not be the same any more. Henry Kissinger in his famous book ‘World Order’ wrote that geopolitics and strategic considerations triumph religious issues.
These diplomatic agreements are symptomatic of a Zionist-Sunni alliance against Shia Iran. Iran finding itself isolated is desperately trying to find a way out of this stranglehold because Arab-Zionist bonhomie is clearly in the US’ strategic interest.
To undermine the impact of the agreements, Iran stitched a $400 billion strategic partnership with China in late September. Iran approved China’s access to its defence and financial systems so much so that Iran is now a de jure part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) much to India’s chagrin. The scales appear firmly tilted in Israel’s favour however. With the change of regime in the US, it will be very interesting to see what happens with the new Biden Administration.
Should it choose to follow a more reconciliatory policy towards Iran and think about resurrecting the Iran nuclear accord, it would end up alienating Israel and the Sunni Gulf monarchies. If Biden follows a hard line towards Iran, the outcome will be a recalcitrant Iran pursuing a virile policy using its proxies to destabilise the entire Middle East and West Asia. In such a context the old fissures in West Asia will be aggravated.
No justice for Palestinians: The result of these diplomatic agreements was the Palestinians being left high and dry. For decades they have been fighting for the two-State solution. First, Britain betrayed them through the Balfour Declaration of 1916, then the Sykes-Picot Agreement, followed by the formation of Israel in 1948 with utter disregard for the rights of the Palestinian people. These agreements have not only alienated the Palestinians who are almost facing an existential crisis but also point to a deeper schism within the Muslim world.
The Palestinian cause has been jettisoned by the Gulf monarchies who earlier were the most vocal endorsers of the two-State policy. In fact, the height of irony is the volte-face by the Gulf monarchies vis-Ã -vis the Israeli occupation of West Bank. Israel promised to postpone the building of new settlements as a part of the recognition agreement considerations but never said anything about bringing the construction work to a halt. The international community gave a muted response to all this. However, despite the opprobrium from the UK and Germany, Israel continues to violate Palestinian rights. The United Nations is powerless to act as the West calls the shots at the world body. Perhaps it is pretty clear that Palestinians will face further rights violations in the coming years.
Saudi recognition of Israel a potential death knell?: The recent “esoteric” meeting between Israeli and Saudi officials and the subsequent allowance given to Israeli flights to use Saudi airspace, generated a new churn in West Asian geopolitics. However, when seen from the prism of the Palestinian cause, it potentially signals its death knell. The primary reason for this is the fact that Saudi Arabia is the core State in the Islamic world despite the emergence of fissures in Muslim unity, following the emergence of a parallel grouping led by Malaysia, Turkey and Pakistan.
The hush-hush Saudi recognition of Israel signals a paradigm policy shift, for it could lead to the creation of new history and may signal a dramatic change in the way the Jewish-Muslim relations evolve. What, however, needs to be remembered is that Palestinians look up to Saudi Arabia as the only remaining ally in their dream of a homeland and their ally seems to be slowly betraying them.
As of now, there appears little hope for the Palestinian cause. The only remedy for them is perhaps an urgent course correction by the international community. The new liberal US leadership under Joe Biden must pressurise Israel into halting all settlement building works and ask the Jewish State to respect Palestinian rights. If that fails, the international community should think about imposing sanctions on Israel. One thing is very clear, Palestinians have to dig in and fight for their cause.
(The writer is a columnist)