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On January 3, Israel\u2019s new National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir of the fascist Jewish Power party visited the Haram al-Sharif\/Temple Mount<\/a>, in an attempt to stir controversy. He succeeded. <\/p>\n The United Nations Security Council called an urgent meeting<\/a> on Thursday to discuss this incident, after many countries voiced their outrage. Even the United States had some mild criticism of Israel over this. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States stands firmly for the preservation of the historic status quo with respect to the holy sites in Jerusalem. We oppose any unilateral actions that undercut the historic status quo, they are unacceptable\u2026We took note of the fact that Netanyahu\u2019s governing platform calls for the preservation of the historic status quo with relation to the holy places. We expect him to follow through with that commitment\u2026 in word and in practice, that is what we will be watching for.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n The U.K., France, Turkey, Jordan, Russia and other countries also criticized Israel<\/a> for this provocation. But perhaps most noteworthy was the fact that, joining China, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority in calling for the Security Council meeting was none other than the United Arab Emirates<\/a>, Israel\u2019s new BFF in the Persian Gulf. <\/p>\n Straining the Abraham Accords<\/strong><\/p>\n This shouldn\u2019t have taken anyone by surprise. While the UAE has tried to embrace<\/a> even this radically right wing government, their foreign minister also warned Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> back in September that a government this brazenly devoted to apartheid and overt, violent racism could make it difficult for the Emiratis to maintain their d\u00e9tente with Israel. <\/p>\n The UAE\u2019s statement on Tuesday<\/a> objecting to Ben Gvir\u2019s action was strongly worded, stating that they \u201cstrongly condemned the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard.\u201d it also hinted that the Emiratis were determined to hold on to the Abraham Accords if they could, stating that they \u201cstressed the need to support all regional and international efforts to advance the Middle East Peace Process.\u201d <\/p>\n But this was far from the only stress on the Accords. Oman, which many analysts had thought might be the next Arab state to establish normal relations with Israel, instead passed a new law<\/a> criminalizing all contacts with Israel. This not only dashed hopes in Jerusalem and Washington that Oman would join the Abraham Accords, it signaled a sharp reversal in policy for the Gulf sultanate. <\/p>\n While Oman has never officially established normal relations with Israel, it became the first Gulf country to allow a visit from an Israeli prime minister when Yitzhak Rabin visited in 1994. It later hosted Shimon Peres and Netanyahu, the latter as recently as 2018. While Oman cut off communication with Israel in 2000 due to the second intifada, unofficial contacts continued. <\/p>\n Sometimes referred to as the Switzerland of the Middle East<\/a>, Oman has long played the role of mediator, and, as a result, has worked to maintain lines of communications between adversaries in the Middle East. While it is close to its fellow Arab states in the Gulf, it also shares a crucial, and large, natural gas field with Iran. Last year, Iran and Oman agreed to jointly develop the field and this strengthened Oman\u2019s strong desire to maintain good relations with Iran as well as with adversaries of the Islamic Republic. While that includes Israel, the value of Omani-Israeli relations to the sultanate pales before its relationship with both Iran and the Arab Gulf states. <\/p>\n While the vote in Muscat coincided with Ben Gvir\u2019s appearance at the Temple Mount, it had been in the works for several weeks, prompted by a desire \u201cto distinguish [Oman] from the UAE and Bahrain,\u201d although Oman also recently declared<\/a> its continued support for a two-state solution in Palestine. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, Morocco has been threatening<\/a> to back off of its pledge to open an embassy in Israel if Israel does not recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. The previous Israeli government walked a fine line, hinting at support for Morocco\u2019s illegal occupation of Western Sahara, (which has been under Moroccan occupation since 1975) and maintaining the international consensus on the issue, stating that it supported Morocco\u2019s \u201cautonomy plan,\u201d which has never been accepted by the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara. <\/p>\n The new government seems very likely to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, but the dispute demonstrates the pitfalls of the transactional nature of the Abraham Accords. Arab states must constantly weigh the benefits of normalization with Israel against the costs of betraying the Palestinians and thereby drawing the ire of their own populations and most of the Arab world. <\/p>\n All of this occurs in the wake of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken\u2019s discussion with<\/a> new Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen regarding how the U.S. might help expand the Accords. This seems to be another example of the detachment from reality that has characterized Blinken\u2019s and Joe Biden\u2019s approach to Palestine and Israel from the start of their administration.<\/p>\n The goal for both Israel and the United States<\/a> has been to get Saudi Arabia to join the Accords, but despite grandiose statements<\/a> from Israeli leaders, the Saudis remain aloof<\/a> from American and Israeli efforts to draw them into the Accords. <\/p>\n The political winds are blowing against the idea of expanding the Accords. The ongoing protests in Iran continue to occupy the attention of the Islamic Republic\u2019s leaders, and, contrary to the view of some western analysts<\/a>, Iran does not have a history of trying to solve its domestic problems by launching attacks against other countries. That means that, at least for the moment, Iran is less of a concern for Gulf Arab states. That diminishes the incentive to expand cooperation with Israel. <\/p>\n With Ben Gvir wasting no time in aggravating the one issue \u2014 the Haram al Sharif\/Temple Mount \u2014 that is not only a sore point for the Palestinians but raises personal and direct concerns for people throughout the Middle East, and with it becoming clear that the existence of normalization agreements does not deter the Israeli radicals from taking such actions, there is even less reason for Arab states to cooperate with Washington in normalizing relations with Israel. To the contrary, these increasingly arrogant and provocative actions by Israel don\u2019t merely raise serious concerns for the UAE and other Abraham Accords participants; it also raises worries anew in Egypt and, especially, Jordan. Both countries have maintained long term peace accords with Israel, against the wishes of the vast majority of their citizens.<\/p>\n Biden will still have an opportunity to prevail upon his \u201cgood friend<\/a>,\u201d Netanyahu to rein in Ben Gvir and the other overt Kahanists in the Israeli government. But even if he\u2019s willing to cooperate on that point, that\u2019s not Netanyahu\u2019s priority right now as he seeks to cripple the Israeli judiciary<\/a> that is still trying to convict him for some of his crimes and harden Israel\u2019s iron fist over the Palestinians.<\/p>\n The future of the Accords<\/strong> <\/p>\n In the end, this current crisis is likely to pass. Oman will continue to communicate with Israel clandestinely, and the UAE will try to get back to business as usual. But this new government, filled with characters, even beyond Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who delight in provoking violence and publicly expressing their racism, bigotry, and hate has made it clear it will continue doing what they love so much.<\/p>\n On only the fifth day of 2023, Israel killed its third Palestinian youth<\/a>. In its cabinet meeting yesterday, options were discussed for punishing the Palestinians<\/a> for having pushed the UN to bring their case to International Court of Justice, a resolution which all of their friends<\/a> among the Arab dictators supported. <\/p>\n There will be no shortage of actions which will make it more difficult for the Abraham Accords to survive, let alone for them to expand. This demonstrates that the Accords are not related to peace, to improved relations in the region, or to stability. They can\u2019t possibly have those goals in mind when they depend entirely on the Palestinians doing what they have never done: acquiescing to Israeli domination. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On January 3, Israel\u2019s new National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir of the fascist Jewish Power party visited the Haram al-Sharif\/Temple Mount, in an attempt to stir controversy. He succeeded. The United Nations Security Council called an urgent mee…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24310,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23285,82,54213,273,473,111],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949548"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=949548"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":950217,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949548\/revisions\/950217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}