Public fury is growing in theArab world over one of Israel's biggest military operations in the occupied West Bank in years, yet Arab states whichnormalised ties with Israel are unlikely to turn theircondemnation of the Israeli assault into action.
Thousands of people were evacuated from the Jenin refugeecamp as the Israeli operation continued for a second day onTuesday, and Palestinian officials said at least 10 people hadbeen killed. Israel says its army is destroying infrastructureand weapons of Iran-backed militant groups in the camp. The military operation is diplomatically awkward for thefour Arab states that have signed peace pacts - known as theAbraham Accords - with Israel, and it makes the already distantprospect of including Saudi Arabia in the U.S.-backed push fornormalised ties even more remote. But analysts said economic and trade interests were likelyto trump any moral outrage felt in the Abraham Accord states -Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Morocco.
"The UAE and Bahrain see the accords as durable and key totheir broader national interests," said Sanam Vakil, Director ofthe Middle East North Africa Programme at The Royal Institute ofInternational Affairs in London. "But optically, amid the violence, there will be no openembrace of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu andcertainly there will be much diplomatic pressure underway tocease Israeli aggression."
The United States has been working to further expand theAbraham Accords, hoping that they can be leveraged to advanceprogress on the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. The hope is also to transform regional conflict to economicprosperity in one of the world's most volatile regions – andalthough Israeli-Palestinian troubles show no signs of easing,they do not threaten the survival of the Abraham Accords.
"The Israeli incursion of Jenin won't hurt the AbrahamAccords. It will of course place the relationship under strainsomewhat... (But) it will be business as usual," said NeilQuilliam, associate fellow Middle East and North AfricaProgramme Chatham House.
The leaders of Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrainsigned the Abraham Accords at the White House in 2020. Sudan andMorocco followed later.
Israel, largely cut off economically and politically fordecades from its Middle East neighbours, sees them as a way toaccess new commercial opportunities in the Gulf and beyond. For example Israel has begun cooperating with the UAE inthe finance, energy, water, security, technology and othersectors, and in March this year a free trade agreement, Israel'sfirst with an Arab state, came into effect. However, Israel's rapprochement with the Arab states has notbeen a smooth ride - and it has not been made any easier by theadvent of a coalition government under Netanyahu that includeshardcore rightist parties who want to annex Israeli-occupiedWest Bank land where Palestinians have long sought to establishan independent state. Palestinian officials say they feel betrayed by their Arabbrethren for reaching deals with Israel without first demandingprogress toward the creation of a Palestinian state. Previously,only two Arab states - Egypt and Jordan - had forged full tieswith Israel.
The Abraham Accord states still complain about Israelipolicy towards the Palestinians whenever violence spikes, butonly limited action follows. Bahrain on Tuesday condemned the Israeli assault on Jeninand called for a revival of the long-stalled peace process.
The UAE's foreign ministry called for an immediate end towhat it called repeated and escalating campaigns against thePalestinian people.
Morocco said in June it would delay until after the summer asummit of the Abraham Accords nations it is due to host inprotest over Israel's decision to expand settlement building inthe occupied West Bank and after an earlier Israeli raid onJenin in which five people were killed. But it went no further. Israeli hopes of normalising ties with wealthy regionalheavyweight Saudi Arabia had already faded long before thelatest Jenin violence. Riyadh has said normalisation is notpossible until Palestinian statehood goals have been addressed.
U.N. aid agencies have expressed alarm at the scale of thelatest Israeli military operation in Jenin, while theinternationally backed Palestinian Authority said it wassuspending contacts with Israel. However, the PA has lost a lot of support among Palestiniansand international reaction to Israel's incursion has been quitemuted. The United States said it respected Israel's right todefend itself but said it was imperative to avoid civiliancasualties.
Commenting on his country's burgeoning relationship with theUAE, Israel's ambassador to that country, Amir Hayek, toldReuters in an interview last month: "It's not that we don't havedisagreements (with the UAE)." But, he added, it is arelationship that has "passed the point of no return". (Writing by Michael GeorgyEditing by Gareth Jones)
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