Historic day for Israel.
The Hebrew state is due to sign, Tuesday, September 15, at the White House historic agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain which upset the balance in the Middle East, and on which Donald Trump is counting to present himself as a "peacemaker" in seven weeks of the US presidential election.
The President of the United States insisted on holding a ceremony with great fanfare in Washington during which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must formally establish diplomatic relations between his country and these two Arab countries - the first such breakthrough since the treaties peace with Egypt and Jordan, in 1979 and 1994.
>> To read: Israel-Bahrain: from discreet contacts to the normalization of relations, the key stages
A historic handshake between the Israeli leader and Arab representatives is not ruled out, a senior US official said, stressing that all participants will have previously been tested for coronavirus.
The Emirates and Bahrain share with Israel a common animosity towards Iran, which is also Washington's number one enemy in the region.
Many oil-producing Arab states have quietly cultivated ties with Israeli authorities for years, but this normalization offers rich opportunities, especially economic ones, to those countries trying to undo the ravages of the coronavirus crisis.
A "stab in the back"
"It's a first-class achievement," assures David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, stressing that it "does not involve the same risk-taking" for Israelis as accepted by Menahem. Begin, "when he left the Sinai" to Egypt, or Yitzhak Rabin, when he agreed to negotiate with the Palestinian Yasser Arafat.
The "vision for peace" presented earlier this year by Donald Trump, which aimed to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once and for all, is far from successful: the Palestinian Authority rejected it in block and denies the American president the very role of mediator since he chained the decisions favorable to Israel.
>> To read: Normalization of relations with Israel: "Saudi Arabia is in cahoots with Abu Dhabi"
The current Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh also estimated that Tuesday would be a "dark day" in the history of the Arab world, of which he blasted "fractures" and "divisions".
The Palestinians, who denounce a "stab in the back" on behalf of these countries accused of making a pact with the Jewish state without waiting for the birth of a Palestinian state, called for demonstrations on Tuesday.
But the Trump administration has always said it wants to shake the region more deeply by bringing Israel and the Arab world closer together in a kind of sacred union against Iran.
These agreements outline this change of era, and seem to relegate the Palestinian question to the background, as the White House hoped.
Strategic success for Netanyahu and diplomatic success for Trump
According to David Makovsky, "this is no longer daddy's Middle East, it's a new region" where, extraordinary fact, the Arab League refused to condemn the decision of the two Gulf monarchies.
"The Palestinians will wait to see what happens in the American election, but when the dust settles, they will have to rethink their position," said the former American diplomat.
These agreements are a victory for Benjamin Netanyahu and bring Israel closer to its goal of being accepted in the region.
For Donald Trump, who is running for a second term and so far had little diplomatic progress to present to voters, it is a recognized success even among his Democratic opponents.
>> To read: The Israel-Emirates agreement, a sign of a "new state of mind" in the Middle East
Since the announcement on August 13 of the Israeli-Emirati agreement, followed last week by that concerning Bahrain, the camp of the Republican billionaire does not skimp on superlatives to praise his action, worthy of the Nobel Prize winner. the peace.
However, differences have already emerged on the conditions surrounding the agreement with the Emirates.
In the eyes of the Gulf countries, Israel has agreed to "put an end to the continued annexation of the Palestinian territories".
But the Israeli prime minister told him that he had "not given up" on annexing large swathes of the occupied West Bank, only "postponed".
Likewise, Benjamin Netanyahu said he was opposed, to preserve his country's military superiority in the region, to the sale to the Emirates of American F-35 stealth fighter jets that Abu Dhabi wanted to acquire.
With AFP
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