Biden administration will reportedly uphold Trump’s Abraham Accords

Axios reports that president-elect Joe Biden will maintain the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that were ushered in by the Trump administration.

According to sources, Biden will push the Trump agreements to curry favor with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Biden could use additional deals to induce Netanyahu to take steps toward preserving the option of a two-state solution — the way Trump got Bibi to kill the annexation of the West Bank in return for his agreement with the UAE,” writes Barak Ravid.

The Trump deals gave Israel relations with two Arab states without requiring them to give up anything to the Palestinians or even freeze settlement expansion. “The Abraham Accords are nothing but a big farce to deflect from their decades-long failure to achieve a just solution for the Palestinian people,” US Campaign for Palestinian Rights Executive Director Ahmad Abuznaid told Mondoweiss.

As Mondoweiss’s Yumna Patel reported in November, the consensus among Palestinians is these normalization deals with Israel work to whitewash the occupation, and are being carried out by autocratic regimes looking to benefit from business and weapons deals with Israel and the United States.

“The governments making normalization deals with Israel are all police states and apartheid regimes,” Mahmoud Nawajaa, the General Coordinator of the Palestinian National BDS Committee, told Mondoweiss. “At the end of the day, these deals are good for business.”

By siding with Israel and selling out the Palestinians, the UAE effectively paved the way for a $23 billion arms deal with the United States, which includes F-35 aircraft, missiles, and Reaper drones. Members of congress are currently trying to stop the sale and a vote on it could happen this week.

Dr Osama Abuirshaid, the Executive Director of American Muslims for Palestine, told Mondoweiss that Biden maintaining the agreements isn’t particularly surprising, as he expects the administration to embrace a more “traditional” pro-Israel policy in contrast to Trump’s blatant style.

“Under the Biden administration, we will likely witness a return to the two-state solution rhetoric and some efforts in this context, without risking a clash with the Zionist lobby in the United States, especially after Obama’s bitter failed attempt,” said Abuirshaid, “Perhaps we have seen an initial overview of that with Biden personally intervening back in August to keep the word ‘occupation; out of the official Democratic platform. That does not mean the end of the fight to secure Palestinian rights; rather this requires more efforts by progressives and the broader Palestine solidarity movement in the U.S.”

Biden’s win might weaken Netanyahu domestically, but the Abraham Accords aren’t the only Israel policies that the new administration is expected to uphold. There’s little hope that he will rescind Trump’s recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory or move the U.S. Embassy back to Tel Aviv.

You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Premium WordPress Themes | Thanks to Themes Gallery, Bromoney and Wordpress Themes