Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has privately supported a U.S. arms deal with the United Arab Emirates, despite publicly denouncing the deal. This is concurrent with the U.A.E. and Israel reaching an agreement through a phone call with the United States on August 13th for normalization of relations between Israel and the U.A.E. Named “the Abraham Accord,” it withholds normalization under the condition that Israel will refrain from annexing occupied West Bank territory. The U.S. arms deal involves F-35 fighter jets and reaper drones, including the EA-18G Growler jet, which uses advanced radar technology. Both American and Israeli lawmakers have expressed alarm at the deal. Trump administration officials are considering overriding the review process if faced with pushback in Congress, so that the deal can go through before the November election.
Netanyahu issued a statement in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot to refute the claim that the arms deal and the normalization agreement were linked. The statement read, “The peace agreement with the U.A.E. does not include any reference to arms sales, and the U.S. has made it clear that it will always take strict care to maintain Israel’s qualitative edge.” President Trump stated, “this deal is a significant step towards building a more peaceful, secure, and prosperous Middle East. Now that the ice has been broken, I expect more Arab and Muslim countries will follow the U.A.E.’s lead.”
Palestinians are dismayed at the U.A.E.’s new ties with Israel. Ahmad Majdalani, member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee said in an interview with the New York Times, “This is a black day in the history of Palestine. This agreement is a total departure from the Arab consensus. The Palestinian people have not authorized anyone to make concessions to Israel in exchange for anything.” According to the Tehran Times, Palestinians call the agreement “a stab in the back,” and believe that normalization with Israel should not occur until there is a shared consensus on the Palestinian question. The Times noted that Sunni Arab countries like the U.A.E. are currently viewing Iran as a larger threat than Israel.
Once again, President Trump has rushed into decisions, which he believes will ultimately have an impact on his campaign. Trump’s support of Israel is an appeal to pro-Israel Christian Evangelicals and further polarizes the American public. The New York Times remarked that if Biden wins the election, he would likely halt the arms deal, which would take about six to eight years to carry through. According to the Israeli news source Haaretz, Trump crossed the careful line previous American presidents toed in their involvement with relations between Israel and Palestine. His pro-Israel moves have been at the expense of Palestinians, as Israel becomes more autocratic under Netanyahu. There is no guarantee that Israel will not eventually go forward with annexation. Fawzi Barhoum, spokesman for Hamas, told the New York Times that the agreement is “dangerous and tantamount to a free reward for the Israeli occupation for its crimes and violations at the expense of the Palestinian people.” Furthermore, the U.A.E. is complicit in deploying jets that caused thousands of civilian casualties in the Yemen War, which an arms deal would further exacerbate. If Trump and Netanyahu prioritized the humanitarian implications of their deal with the U.A.E., we would not be seeing the same situation.
The agreement between Israel and the U.A.E. makes it the third Arab country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. A peace agreement between Egypt and Israel was signed in 1979, and a treaty between Jordan and Israel signed in 1994. After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the U.S. assured Israel it would maintain its military superiority in the region and that weapons sales to Middle Eastern countries would be under Israeli discretion. President Trump undermined this agreement by going ahead with arms sale discussions with the U.A.E., but the agreement also points to why he would eventually involve Israel in such discussions. Netanyahu is currently also dealing with a response to the coronavirus and a corruption trial.
In response to Netanyahu’s denial of supporting the arms deal, the U.A.E. cancelled a meeting with U.S. and Israeli officials at the United Nations on August 21st, before being reassured that the deal would continue. Angry Israeli citizens have also been reassured that their relations with the U.A.E. are part of a bigger plan to unite against Iran. All this “reassuring” is occurring just a few months before the American presidential election. Hence, it seems that the normalization of relations between the U.A.E. and Israel is just part of a bigger plan to boost Trump’s electability, at the expense of its human rights implications.