Middle East: Escalating violence threatens Israel’s rapprochement with Arab Gulf countries | International

La reacción regional al behavioro de Israel en Jerusalén y Gaza ha puesto en evidencia que el conflicto árabe-israelí sigue siendo clave en Oriente Próximo, antes incluso de la ofensiva a gran escala que Israel ha lanzado contra Hamás a primera hora de la madrugada de este Friday. The governments of Tehran and Riyadh, like the rest of the 50 predominantly Islamic countries, have severely condemned the Israeli crackdown on Palestinian protests and incidents at the Al Aqsa Mosque. Turkey also expressed its outrage. Israeli action jeopardizes recent detente with Gulf Arabs.

Riyadh reaffirmed last Tuesday that it rejects Israel’s rights violations against Palestinians and plans for the forced evacuation of families in East Jerusalem. “The kingdom calls on the international community to hold the Israeli occupier responsible for the escalation and immediately end its actions, which violate all international standards and laws,” the statement issued by its foreign ministry demanded. .

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Saudi Arabia, which has always seen itself as the standard-bearer of the Palestinian cause, welcomed the signing of the so-called Abraham Agreements by which the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan established diplomatic relations with Israel last year. However, although he softened his attitude towards that country, he continued to insist on the Arab Peace Initiative that the kingdom launched in 2002, which offers Israel full relations in return for a Palestinian state in the territories it occupied in 1967.

Although all the petromonarchies have criticized Israel, it is only in Kuwait that a demonstration of support for the Palestinians has been possible. “No to normalization,” chanted the hundreds of sit-in participants in front of Parliament last Tuesday, reflecting a state of affairs that the rest can only be spread on social networks.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are balancing out to speak out against Israeli attacks alongside Hamas, a group that both repels due to its close Muslim Brotherhood ideology and closeness to the Muslim Brotherhood. ‘Iran. “We must put an end to all the attacks and practices that exacerbate tensions and hatred in the holy city [de Jerusalén]»Underlined, Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed, heir of Abu Dhabi and de facto ruler of the Emirates, after meeting with the Bahraini heir.

In Turkey, the entire political spectrum has strongly condemned Israel’s actions. “They attack fundamental rights, human values ​​and international laws agreed upon by common organizations of humanity, [y] they must be stopped immediately. Otherwise, no one on Earth will have confidence in international organizations or standards, ”denounced Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The President had a series of telephone talks with his counterparts from Russia, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Algeria, Pakistan and Malaysia, as well as with the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmud Abbas, to agree on a common position on the attack. Turkish diplomacy is also trying to do the same in regional forums such as the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which brings together Muslim-majority countries, and the Turkish Council, which includes several Central Asian states, the Azerbaijan and Turkey.

According to the official Turkish statement released after the telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin, Erdogan offered to work together on a proposal to the United Nations to “send an international protection force” to the region in order to “protect Palestinian civilians”. The idea, which is not reflected in the Russian declaration, had already been brought up at the OIC summit in Istanbul in 2018, but no progress was ever made in its realization.

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The loudest protest against Israel since Thursday has undoubtedly come from Iran. The Islamic Republic, which has made the Palestinian cause an instrument of its foreign policy, finds in the serious clashes in Jerusalem and Gaza an opportunity to defeat a State it does not recognize and which has become the main obstacle to its nuclear development. . “Israel is not a country, it is a terrorist base against the Palestinians and the rest of the Muslim nations. To fight this despotic regime is to fight against oppression and terrorism ”, declared Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Reinforcing his words, the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army which is the real power in Iran, pledged to provide “more support than ever to the Islamic resistance and the Palestinian uprising.” Although most of Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s arsenal, according to analysts, comes from their local manufacturing capabilities, some of their surface-to-surface and anti-tank missiles are believed to have been brought into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt. The Iranian military has also accused the United States of having “incited certain Arab countries” to normalize their relations with Israel.

The Abrahamic Accords, unlike the Arab consensus to make recognition of Israel conditional on the existence of a Palestinian state, were widely celebrated both by Washington, which sponsored them, and by most Western governments. The argument was that they were helping end decades of Arab-Israeli conflict. What has happened now shows that the occupation is incompatible with peace. And that puts the signatories in a loophole.