Summary
The 2020 normalization agreements between the UAE, Bahrain and Israel, later joined by Morocco and Sudan, treated in Chapters 18 and 20 of From the River to the Sea as a further step in US-led regional normalization in which the Palestinians were a disposable afterthought (From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine, lines 1411-1417, 1575-1577).
Details
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Allinson and Englert: the Accords came as the US pursued its “tilt to the pacific” against China and hoped its closest allies could maintain regional control without direct US participation; Saudi normalization negotiations were in substance between the Saudi regime and the US, with Israel as a means (lines 1411-1415).
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After 7 October 2023, Saudi Arabia broke off its normalization negotiations and entered close diplomatic negotiations with Iran, under pressure from reemerging regional mass movements (lines 1419-1421).
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Hanieh’s 2023 postscript: the Accords were the denouement of the longstanding US strategy to knit together its two main pillars of support in the Middle East — Israel and the Gulf states — and Palestinians continued to reject this kind of regional normalization (lines 1575-1577).
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Haim Bresheeth-Žabner’s Chapter 24 of From the River to the Sea treats the Accords as the most recent phenomenon in a long process of Israel using US pressure to force its agenda on the Middle East, removing Arab countries from confrontation by forcing relinquishment of Palestinian rights; the 2023 Netanyahu government, buoyed by the Accords, intensified the disinheritance of Palestinians in the West Bank (From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine, lines 1891-1897).
Related pages
From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine, Normalization, Oslo Accords