Have long hailed conflict management techniques in war torn countries satisfied their intended purpose?

The phenomenon of peace agreements has puzzled contemporary international relations for years. The characterization of ‘peace deals’ especially in the 21st century seems to have a very pompous approach as compared to what is achieved at the grassroots level. Instead of judging a peace deal in terms of a cohesive narrative and evaluate it according to its structural and procedural provisions, a general convention followed in the public sphere is to hail it as a historic achievement, only to later find that it has not really changed the status quo. 

Abraham Accords and the Durability of Peace

American analysts were right to welcome the peace treaties between the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Israel. It isn’t each day that we see indications of compromise among Arabs and Israelis — direct trade, non-stop flights between Tel Aviv and Arab capitals, and possibilities of legislative collaboration beginning with Corona virus. These are genuinely necessary changes in an area where articulations of outrageous disdain and avoidance are the pitiful standard. 

Notwithstanding, similar to all uplifting news in the Middle East, these signs are probably going to be brief — and leave us with a severe lingering flavor. Underneath the facade of “harmony,” these arrangements somewhere reinforce four nefarious elements that far exceed the current comforts between Arab governments and Israel. 

To begin with, the “Abraham Accords” don’t end a solitary clash in the Middle East. The UAE and Bahrain didn’t have strategic relations with Israel; nor were they in occupied with strife with it. Indeed, they helped out Israel quietly for quite a long time. The real clashes in the area are occurring in Yemen, Syria, Libya and Lebanon, where the UAE and Saudi Arabia are supporting groups battling those upheld by Qatar, Turkey or Iran.

The “peace” agreements don’t carry us closer to finishing these contentions. All things considered, they are probably going to develop them further as the collusion between Israel, UAE and Saudi Arabia against Iran, so far held under the table, turns out to be more self-assured. As such, these arrangements open the entryway for Israel to turn into a more full accomplice in the Arab Gulf battle against Iran and in some cases Turkey. 

Second, the standardization of relations between UAE, Bahrain and Israel without a nonaggression treaty among Israel and the Palestinian Authority disintegrates further the possibility of a two-state-arrangement. A wide Arab acknowledgment of Israel, and the possibility of collaboration and business associations, was one of only a handful few excess motivations for Israel to make regional concessions to the debilitated Palestinians. This was the thought behind the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, promising Israel full standardization and acknowledgment in the area as a trade-off for a full withdrawal from domains involved in 1967. 

Tragically, Arab Gulf states have kept away from showing their reality about standardization when that might have inclined the equilibrium inside Israel for regional concessions. Presently this window has shut. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies can guarantee, convincingly, that Israel doesn’t have to make regional concessions to win the acknowledgment of Arab states. The undeniable outcome is more Israeli help for (or lenience of) business as usual, which is only a proceeded with slide down the dangerous street of politically-sanctioned racial segregation.

Third, the Palestinians’ profound feeling of betrayal will radicalize them further. The more liberal-minded will progressively supplant the fantasy of statehood with a social liberties development pursuing equivalent rights for each one of those living under Israel’s influence, which is probably going to extend the Israeli-Palestinian clash considerably further. The less liberal-minded among Palestinians will be affirmed in their conviction that “furnished opposition” is the main path forward. Allies of gatherings, for example, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah are as of now bringing up the unmistakable contrast between the situation of the Palestinian Authority today and that of the Taliban, whose “delegate mullah” presented with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to initiate arrangements over the fate of Afghanistan. 

At last, normalizing relations with Israel will broaden the hole further between Arab rulers and their populaces. Arab public opinion has always been hostile to Israel, and Arab regimes have often fed this hostility to distract from their own failures. At the point when these systems later wanted to perceive Israel, they were obliged by the antagonism they had incited among their populaces. A Palestinian underwriting, comprehended to accompany a nonaggression treaty setting up a Palestinian state, would give them the essential fig leaf. Missing that, normalizing relations with Israel is seen as a stripped treachery — of Palestinians, yet in addition to Arab desires and respect. This will add to existing complaints about disparity, defilement, and ethnic and partisan segregation, exasperating the dangers for systems’ dependability. 

Except if the UAE and Bahrain supernaturally transform their normalization with Israel into a more extensive cycle that resuscitates the Arab Peace Initiative and carry Palestinians and Israelis more like a two-state arrangement, these arrangements will wind up subverting the security of the relative multitude of major parts in the Middle East.

Aarushi Prasad -Writer Bharat Bhagya Vidhata